Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 6
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 44
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)
We welcome the innovation of including an animal welfare chapter, in the UK- Australia trade deal but we believe that the Government should have pushed further on improving animal welfare standards. This was a missed opportunity for the UK and Australia, together, to show moral leadership in this area. Given that it appears that few meat products from animals reared to standards not acceptable in the UK will enter the UK market in practice, it is disappointing that it was not possible to agree more ambitious language.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 44, 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".