Earlier this month, the UK Government released the reviewed global tariff rates for trading agricultural products between Most Favoured Nations (MFN) which will come into force after the end of the Brexit transition period.
The reviewed global tariff rates for key Welsh agricultural products, such as lamb and beef, are closely aligned with those applied within the European Union but the FUW has warned that these should not be watered down, whatever the outcome of current trade negotiations.
The importance of aligning agricultural tariffs for key agricultural products is something the FUW made clear in a meeting with Minister of State for Trade Policy, Greg Hands, earlier this week.
Since February last year, the union has written repeatedly to the UK Government regarding proposed draft tariff rates which would represent a major threat to UK farmers and consumers, the UK’s food security and would be a massive ‘own goal’ in terms of reducing our negotiating capital in trade talks.
In early March this year, the FUW responded to a consultation by the UK Government’s Department for International Trade, stating that: ‘Tariffs on agricultural produce protect UK farm businesses against unfair competition from products produced in conditions which would be illegal in the UK, including in terms of environmental, health and welfare standards, workers rights and working conditions.
‘This thereby protects the UK's high standards, farm businesses and those businesses which form part of agricultural supply chains, and those workers within those supply chains. This also protects and helps maintain domestic food production with the effect of increasing UK food security.’
The FUW is still considering the full range of tariffs - of which there are almost twelve thousand - and their potential impacts. However, the decision to closely align tariffs for key Welsh agricultural products such as lamb, beef, cheese and butter with those in place in the EU was a welcome step compared with previously published draft rates which were a fraction of those applied by the EU.
Even in the event of a no-deal Brexit, import tariff rates should be aligned with those applied by the EU in the short-term in order to negotiate fair trade deals with countries within the EU and beyond.