Thank you for contacting me about the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement.
I appreciate your concerns about these agreements, particularly regarding their impact on food standards and on Welsh farmers. However, imports from Australia and New Zealand also happened while the UK was a member of the European Union. Both countries had an agreement that allowed them to export goods, including lamb, to the UK without paying tariffs, up to a certain quota, which was never met.
To support the most sensitive parts of the UK farming community, under the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the Government secures a number of safeguards as part of the deal:
The first measure, known as a Tariff Rate Quota, automatically applies higher tariffs to imports above a certain volume threshold (known as the quota) for the first ten years of the agreement.
The second measure, from year 11 to 15, is known as a product-specific safeguard and applies to beef and sheepmeat. This has a broadly similar effect: it imposes high tariffs of 20 per cent above a volume threshold.
Additionally, on sheepmeat, if volume thresholds under Tariff Rate Quotas (years 1 to 10) or product-specific safeguards (years 11 to 15) for sheepmeat are consistently filled, the UK can periodically reduce the volume thresholds of the quotas by 25 per cent.
Similar protections were secured under the UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. During the first 15 years of the agreement, there will be limits on the amount of certain products which can be imported into the UK from New Zealand tariff-free. This includes beef, which is subject to a quota on duty-free imports for 10 years, followed by a product-specific safeguard for a further 5 years, which imposes tariffs of up to 20 per cent if New Zealand imports exceed a volume threshold in a given year, and sheepmeat, which is subject to a quota on duty-free imports from New Zealand for 15 years.
These protections provide protection to our farmers and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism that will allow the UK to increase tariffs or suspend their liberalisation for up to four years in the unlikely situation that the farming industry faces serious loss from increased agricultural imports.
