No limit to the amount of goods NZ can export to the UK in deal

Responding to the NZ - UK trade deal agreed on February 28th NFU President Minette Batters said: “As expected, this deal takes the same approach as the UK-Australia deal in eliminating tariffs for agricultural products, meaning that even for sensitive sectors like beef and lamb, dairy and horticulture, in time there will be no limit to the amount of goods New Zealand can export to the UK.

“I have consistently pointed out that the real risk to UK farmers, and longer term for people wanting to buy British food, from the government’s approach to trade deals is not the individual deals themselves but the cumulative impact of each deal when added together. This deal today shows I was right to be concerned.

“Once again, there appears to be extremely little in this New Zealand trade deal to benefit British farmers. UK farm businesses face significantly higher costs of production than farmers in New Zealand, and margins are likely to tighten further in the face of rising input costs, higher energy bills and labour shortages. The government is now asking British farmers to go toe-to-toe with some of the most export-orientated farmers in the world, without the serious, long-term and properly funded investment in UK agriculture that can enable us to do so; the sort of strategic investment in farming and exports that the New Zealand government has made in recent decades.

“There remains an urgent need for government to have a coherent approach across all of its departments to focus on UK farming’s productivity, as well as recognise and remedy the contradictions within current domestic policy, which is still woefully sparse on the detail of how farmers will be supported to become competitive food producers at a time when food security is an increasingly important concern.”

Lack of conditional tariffs misses opportunity to stop future low welfare imports

The RSPCA raised fears that without a built-in conditional tariff system giving preference to imports produced to high welfare standards, a dangerous precedent has been set for future trade agreements.

The charity said that although the agreement with New Zealand is an improvement on the Australian FTA, it is worried that with no ‘conditional liberalisation’ mechanism, it again sends a signal to others that the UK is willing to sign away its higher welfare standards. While New Zealand’s animal welfare standards are equal if not better than those in the UK, that’s not the case in many other countries, so omitting the conditional tariff system from this deal sets a worrying precedent for other trade deals in the future. 

The RSPCA also repeated its call for more transparency during negotiations of international trade deals.

RSPCA Chief Executive Chris Sherwood said: “While the trade deal with New Zealand is an improvement to the one agreed with Australia, we are very concerned to see that the Government has once again failed to build in a mechanism to ensure that any food imports are of an equivalent or higher welfare standard than our own. Failing to draw this line in the sand sends a message to other countries that we are willing to accept cheaper, lower standard imports for the sake of a deal.” 

Conditional liberalisation allows tariff reductions on imports from overseas produced to the UK’s high welfare standards - for example free range eggs - but keeps tariffs high on imports of products with low welfare standards such as battery caged eggs. Including that mechanism in international trade agreements would allow the Government to meet its promises to maintain animal welfare standards and safeguard UK farmers’ livelihoods by preventing them being undercut by cheaper imports.

Chris continued: “We welcome free trade deals but we want to see them as an opportunity to export our high welfare standards around the world, not as a back door route to undermine protections for animals and farmers here in the UK. Promises from the Government are not enough - we need to see this happening in practice.   As the rest of the world waits in the wings to trade with us, we need to send a clear message that we will not sell out our standards or our farmers for a quick deal.

“We are also repeating our call for there to be more transparency around the negotiations of international trade deals.”