Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 8
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 55
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 approach that the UK Government has taken to protecting the UK’s SPS requirements within negotiations on the UK-Australia FTA. It will be essential that the UK robustly maintains this position in negotiations with future trade partners who may have a greater offensive interest in challenging the UK’s SPS regime. It is also essential that the Government can enforce these rules and that sufficient checks are conducted on imported food products. We call on the Government to publish its plans to resource a verification system as part of its new Target Operating Model to ensure these bans are being enforced and to monitor animal welfare standards.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 55, 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".