Select committee: International Agreements Committee
Recommendation 32
4th Report - Scrutiny of international agreements: UK-Australia free trade agreement
Published 23 Jun 2022
Paragraph 116
International Agreements Committee UK-Australia trade negotiations All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We call on the Government to review the provisions related to environment and climate issues and to monitor their implementation. The change of government in Australia and the engagement of the electorate on environmental issues gives the Government an opportunity to revisit the Environment Chapter of the agreement. We hope that this will be taken up in the Joint Committee and ask the Government to keep us informed of developments.
From: International Agreements Committee, 4th Report - Scrutiny of international agreements: UK-Australia free trade agreement, paragraph 116, 23 June 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 5 September 2022 (deadline 5 September 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 its recommendations in turn, setting out its existing approach and some specific commitments, while declining to pre-empt future negotiations on matters such as ISDS.
- On monitoring, the Department "has committed to publishing a comprehensive ex-post evaluation" of the UK-Australia FTA "within five years of its entry into force", and a biennial monitoring report that will include measuring utilisation.
- On emissions, it says negotiating GHG reductions in trade agreements would be "neither practical nor coherent", as this is handled through UNFCCC and inter-Governmental environment agreements.
- On scrutiny, the Department "will make Ministers and senior officials available to privately discuss prospective negotiations with the Committee, before negotiations are launched", expected during the public consultation period.
- On the devolved administrations, it says its involvement is "already in line with the committee's recommendation", but that "it would not be appropriate for the Government to report directly on their views".