Recommendation 45

HM Government · verbatim extract Acknowledged

The Government recognises the importance of engaging industry as part of the UK-EU negotiations process, and is committed to providing appropriate analysis of any agreement made with the EU, such as the food and drink agreement and the ETS linkage agreement. We are in regular dialogue with stakeholders through both formal TCA fora, like the Domestic Advisory Group and the Civil Society Forum, and departmental-led fora on specific thematic issues. DEFRA has recently published a Call for Information on the food and drink agreement to understand what information industry will need and the impact on their business in terms of benefits and costs associated with dynamic alignment with EU rules. Additionally, Ministers and officials regularly hold meetings with industry representatives to help test and further inform UK negotiating positions. As negotiations progress, the Government will follow normal processes for any necessary legislative changes, and assess impacts accordingly. We will not be able to provide a full assessment of the impacts whilst detailed negotiations are ongoing, but we have already taken steps to assess impacts. Combined, the food and drink and ETS linking measures alone are estimated to add up to £9 billion a year to the UK economy by 2040, in a significant boost for growth. Methodology notes for making this initial assessment have been published here (food and drink) and here (ETS). We are concerned about the evidence we have seen of potential shortcomings in the internal cross-Departmental coordination of the UK negotiating position with the EU, in particular between the Cabinet Office and Departments that hold responsibility for specific policy areas affected by the negotiations.