To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs what impact assessments his Department has conducted on the effect that trade deals with Australia and New Zealand will have on our local farmers and economy.

My Department has been working in a number of ways to assess the impact of recently agreed free trade deals. Before the UK had left the EU, my officials working with their counterparts in England, Scotland and Wales commissioned the Agri-Food Biosciences Institute to provide a complex modelling analysis paper on the impact that liberalising tariffs on imports would have on all UK agricultural sectors. The report showed that liberalisation of tariffs has a negative impact on Northern Ireland agricultural producers, particularly for the beef sector. My officials have also studied the impact assessments conducted by the UK Department for International Trade for each new trade deal and have prepared analysis on the share of domestic consumption that could be provided by the tariff rate quotas within each agreement.

In my assessment, the Australia and New Zealand free trade agreements will offer little benefit to Northern Ireland’s agricultural exporters as these countries have a considerable advantage in terms of prices and are world leading exporters in many of the agricultural products that our agri-food industry exports. I am particularly concerned about the size of the tariff rate quotas that have been agreed for beef and sheep products as these quotas are too large to offer protection to domestic producers and after 15 years, there will be no quotas at all. I have similar concerns with dairy where tariff protection will be removed after 5 years.

I have long maintained that tariff and quota protection must be retained for sensitive agricultural products and have emphasised the importance of this to UK Government Ministers. I have written to Defra Secretary of State George Eustice MP to express my strong opposition to the prospect of a zero tariff, zero quota Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the UK and Australia. I have also met with, and subsequently wrote to the Minister of State for Trade Policy, Greg Hands MP to outline my concerns. I also wrote jointly with the Scottish Minister to the then Secretary of State for International Trade, Liz Truss MP and I will continue to pursue these matters with the Government.