Ditching high tariffs on agricultural products from countries which meet the same environmental and animal welfare standards as British farmers was one of 22 recommendations made by British Trade Minister Liz Truss’ Trade and Agriculture Commission earlier this month.
Britain’s farmers were fully represented on the commission by the representatives of the English, Welsh and Scottish branches of the UK’s peak farming lobby, the National Farmers Union (NFU), along with several other farmer bodies.
The report’s recommendations were unanimously supported by the commission’s 14 members, which also included British retailer Tesco and veterinary and trade experts.
However, it appears the British government has not yet got the memo if its latest agricultural market access offer in free trade talks with New Zealand is anything to go by.
“It was thrown straight in the rubbish, it’s so bad,” said a source close to the NZ negotiating team.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, both sides following the conclusion of the third round of negotiations in early February agreed to table revised market access offers before the beginning of the fourth round of talks in April.
And while the revised UK offer was not expected till later this week, several trade sources said expectations were not high.
“There is some doubt it is going to be much better than the last one,” one local trade lobbyist said.
One NZ dairy company executive said it would be disappointing if the UK government ignored the findings of its own commission.
“The whole point of the UK getting out of the EU was to get away from this trade policy where you stake out these minimalist, quite frankly pathetic positions like the EU’s agricultural market access offer and actually back yourself to succeed in a globalised food economy,” they said.
However, former NZ Trade Minister Lockwood Smith, who joined the Trade and Agriculture Commission as an international trade expert last July, was more hopeful.
He says he was as alarmed as anybody after hearing of the UK’s initial agricultural market access offer to NZ and had contacted Truss’ office for reassurances.
“The thing that encourages me that [Truss] is wanting to see liberalisation and as far as she is concerned the UK has not even made its goods offer to NZ properly yet,” Smith said.
The Trade and Agriculture Commission’s report was tabled in the British Parliament earlier this month, but she has yet to formally respond to its recommendations.
