Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 13
Eighth Report - Seafood and meat exports to the EU
Published 29 Apr 2021
Paragraph 61
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Seafood and Meat Exports to the EU All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
As this Report highlights, the TCA has introduced considerable trade friction for seafood and meat exporters. We welcome the Government’s willingness to engage with the EU to seek an equivalence mechanism on agri-foods. The Government should engage with the EU and adopt a pragmatic stance in the pursuit of a veterinary partnership agreement that reduces the non-tariff measures adversely affecting British seafood and meat exporters. In the meantime, the Government should take steps to ensure that the UK-EU SPS Specialised Committee can begin meeting as a matter of priority to help resolve the issues currently facing seafood and meat exporters. If ratification of the TCA is further delayed, the Government should urgently explore options to set it up prior to ratification.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Eighth Report - Seafood and meat exports to the EU (HC 1189), paragraph 61, 29 April 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 July 2021 (deadline 29 June 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it is "fully committed to supporting meat and seafood exports", but declines or has "no plans" on several recommendations, including a public certification service and extending the Movement Assistance Scheme to EU exports.
- On the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, it says the SPS chapter puts in place a framework to reduce SPS controls, and that frictionless trade "would require regulatory alignment with the EU", which it says would undermine regulatory autonomy.
- On certification, it says it has "no plans" to change the commercial Official Veterinarian market. Rather than publishing a comparative report, it is engaging with other countries. It has no current plans to ask the RCVS to admit vets to the temporary register for export health certification roles, but will "monitor the situation".
- On support schemes, it does "not consider support schemes for meat exporters are needed" on current market conditions, but says this "will be kept under regular review". It has "no plans to extend the MAS scheme" to exports to the EU or non-EU countries.
- It sets out phased import controls from October 2021, with physical checks at Border Control Posts from January 2022 and further checks from March 2022. Defra "will continue to report to the Committee" on progress.