Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that fair trade goods continue to have access to UK markets under new trading arrangements.

The UK’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and Generalised Scheme of Preferences support developing countries to export agricultural products and other goods to the UK. We have secured EPAs with 30 African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries, covering £18bn of trade. We plan to deepen our EPA agreements and expand them to new countries in the future.

Independent certification schemes, such as Fairtrade, which set standards on social, economic and environmental issues for companies, continue to operate within the context of UK trading arrangements.