Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what meetings officials in her Department have held with representatives from the (a) US Administration (b) Australian Government and (c) European Commission on protecting UK standards on (i) animal welfare, (ii) environmental standards and (iii) food safety in relation to future free trade agreements.

Negotiations of future trade agreements with these countries have not yet begun. To date, talks between my officials and their counterparts in these countries have focused on building knowledge of our respective current domestic standards in these areas and understanding how our Partner Countries have treated them in some of their existing trade agreements.

Throughout these exploratory discussions Defra has stressed the importance of maintaining our high standards on welfare, food safety and the environment in future, all of which the Government’s election manifesto committed us to protecting.