MPs are asking Liz Truss’ government to confirm its commitment to animal welfare and food safety standards in its international trade deals.

The Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has asked the new government to re-consider a “disappointing” response to its report on the impact of the Australian free trade agreement (FTA) on the UK food and agriculture sector.

The chair of the EFRA Committee, Sir Robert Goodwill MP, said the previous government had not addressed the report’s central recommendation - that the government commit to core standards on issues such as food safety and animal welfare for produce entering the UK.

Australia was the world’s biggest beef exporter in 2019 (by value), exporting around 70 per cent of its beef production. Exports alone generate more than double the total output of the UK’s beef sector (AUD $10.8billion versus £2.75billion).

NFU livestock board chair Richard Findlay is concerned about the standards that result from the huge scale and lower regulation.

He said: “Large-scale feedlots finishing up to 50,000 head on a single site would be unacceptable here, both morally and environmentally. But we know that more than 40 per cent of Australian beef cattle are finished in such systems and would be destined for the UK market.

“There is widespread use of hormone growth promoter, and we welcome commitments from the government that beef from these animals will not enter our market. However, given the lack of lifetime traceability in Australia, we question how robust these guarantees really are.

“All of this, along with the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, feed additives that are banned in the UK and some plant protection products, make it a very unfair playing field and could leave our farmers on a knife-edge.”

READ MORE: Tariff-free Australia deal will lose UK farmers £278million

In a letter to the new Secretaries of State for the Departments for International Trade (DIT), Kemi Badenoch MP, and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Ranil Jayawardena MP, Sir Robert said the previous government response had been to restate that the Australia FTA would not lower the standards that UK producers have to meet.

Boris Johnson’s government’s response, Sir Robert said, did not engage with the central concern of UK farmers and producers about food and drink entering the UK which were made to lower standards and therefore cheaper, thus disadvantaging UK producers.

This was particularly concerning, the EFRA Committee chair said, because a similar approach to future trade agreements with larger food exporting countries – such as Brazil and the USA – could have a much greater impact on the UK than the Australia FTA.

Sir Robert asked the Secretaries of State to review and update the government response to the EFRA Committee report in order to reassure UK farmers and food producers that their concerns are being listened to.

Sir Robert asked the government to commit in the Agriculture, Food and Drink Exports Council trade strategy to increase UK food and drinks exports by at least £278million – the expected loss to the sector from the Australia FTA.

He also asked the government to expand its agri-food Trade Advisory Group to provide it with more expertise on animal welfare, health and the environment and to provide additional resources to the Trade and Agriculture Commission to produce advice on trade agreements.

Finally, the EFRA Chair encouraged the two Secretaries of State to work closely together on future trade deals, with DEFRA alerting DIT at an early stage of differences in regulatory or farming practices that could be harmful to the UK’s competitiveness.