Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 16
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 102
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 Government’s assertion that the UK-Australia FTA does not provide a blueprint for future agreements. Nevertheless, we recognise the food and farming sector’s concerns that other major agricultural exporting nations may seek to use the existence of this deal to gain similar access for their goods, particularly for those markets that are geographically closer to the UK. To address these concerns, we highlight and restate our previous recommendation for the Government to publish core standards—which would reassure the sector that it is committed to protecting standards in future trade deals—and to transform its approach to engaging with the sector and devolved administrations during negotiations so they have meaningful opportunities to influence the outcomes of negotiations before final decision are taken. The Government should also look to learn lessons from the approach to setting quota levels and the timetable for tariff liberalisation in this deal and its implications for the viability of the UK agricultural sector as we negotiate future deals.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 102, 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".