Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 5
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 34
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Given the Government estimates that the net impact of the deal across all agriculture and food related sectors is a reduction of £278m, we believe the Government should aid the sector to increase the value of UK food and drink export by at least £278m in the trade strategy being developed by the Agriculture, Food and Drink Exports Council. The Government should also produce an analysis showing what increase in trade it reasonably expects its current investment in trade promotion for agri-food role to yield. If this is less than the £278m by 2030 then the Government must commit to making further investment in this area.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 34, 17 June 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 October 2022 (deadline 17 August 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and responds to each recommendation, largely setting out existing measures in the UK-Australia FTA and committing to seek similar environmental provisions in future FTAs.
- On the bilateral safeguard, it says the technical processes are "currently under review by Government" and that it "will continue to keep Parliament updated on the outcome of the review".
- On future FTAs, it says it "will further seek similar commitments and provisions" on the environment, and will seek applicability across all levels of government.
- On impact assessments, it "accepts the recommendations" of the Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and "intends to implement them fully", but expects changes to be "incremental".
- On import controls, it says the new Target Operating Model "will be published in the Autumn" and the new controls regime "will come into force at the end of 2023".