Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered am ar 17 Mai 2024.
Stephen Farry
Alliance, North Down
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU.
Mark Spencer
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is the world’s biggest zero tariff, zero quota trade agreement, and we actively use its mechanisms to continuously secure improvements to the trading relationship. In particular, the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter of the TCA creates a framework to agree to further trade facilitations, including potential reductions in the frequency of import checks, where justified.
The UK proposed an equivalence mechanism for SPS measures during the 2018-20 negotiations for the TCA. The EU did not accept this.
We remain open to discussions with the EU on additional steps to further reduce trade friction, but these cannot be on the basis of future alignment with EU rules. This would compromise UK sovereignty over our own Laws.
Yes5 people think so
No4 people think not
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
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