Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 11
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 77
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)
It is regrettable that the Government chose to engage in this negotiation without first articulating the core standards that the food imported into the UK must meet. Setting out core standards would have strengthened the hand of British negotiators, reassured the relevant sectors of the Government’s commitment to such standards, and helped raise standards globally. However, we do welcome the fact that this deal does not prevent the Government adopting core standards—or other trade measures such as a carbon adjustment tax—in the future. We reiterate our previous call for the 38 Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture Government to adopt a system of core standards, which we believe would make it easier for UK negotiators to get of other countries agree to meet equivalent standards to those in place in the UK. Core standards should be in place before any further FTAs that cover the food sector are agreed.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 77, 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".