Post Brexit Trade Deal Detrimental to UK farmers

Trade Minister Ivan McKee and Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon highlighted the “stark contrast” between UK and EU trade deals regarding New Zealand.

They banded together to address the UK administration by form of a letter. This contained information on how the free trade agreement would result in “a lack of a level playing field between Scottish and New Zealand farmers.” Although some elements are the same across both UK and EU, for example equal exporter market access, however there would be “seemingly better safeguards for its domestic producers”.

They explained that the UK’s trade agreement “emphasises the futility and economic self-harm of the UK government leaving the EU, making its own trade agreements, and then ending up with a worse deal than if we had stayed in the EU”. They questioned “what mitigations and compensation” the UK government “will put in place for economic sectors and communities that suffer as a result of the trade deals.”

The UK will permit 12,000 tonnes of New Zealand beef into the Kingdom in the first 12 months of the trade deal, almost four times the quantity allowed in all of the EU.

A decade and a half from now this number will increase by 500% for the UK, before becoming an unrestricted amount. However, the maximum import quota for the EU will be just 10,000 tonnes with a 7.5% import tax applied to it.

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