Trade and the Environment inquiry launched

The International Trade Committee launches a new inquiry examining how the Government’s approach to trade interacts with its environmental goals.

In a new inquiry on Trade and the Environment, the Committee will examine how the Government can ensure its environmental policies are protected as it negotiates free trade agreements, and how it can encourage trade in green technology and environmentally-friendly goods and services.

MPs will also consider how UK participation in international forums helps shape an environmental trade policy, as well as the extent to which wider climate change objectives are considered in the work of the Department for International Trade and UK Export Finance.

The inquiry follows a recent evidence session on trade and COP26 and correspondence between the Committee and International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan on COP26, UK trade, and climate goals.

The inquiry comes as the Government signals its ambition to bring together trade and environmental policy. Anne-Marie Trevelyan has said that the Government intends to support green trade. In its July report into green trade, the Board of Trade also said that this is a “major opportunity for the UK economy”.

Commenting on the inquiry launch, Angus Brendan MacNeil MP, Chair of the International Trade Committee, said:

“Our new inquiry will examine how the Government is safeguarding its environmental policy goals when negotiating new trading relationships.

“As a Committee, we will explore how far the Government’s net zero ambitions are reflected in its negotiations with other nations, how it is working to decarbonise international supply chains, and how it will support a green trade strategy.

“We’re seeking to establish how the potentially competing demands between trade and environmental policies will be managed, especially as it is not yet clear what bringing these policies together in practice will look like, or what the Government means by the phrase ‘green trade’.”

The new inquiry will sit alongside the Committee’s existing work on topics including UK trade negotiations, the UK-EU trading relationship and trade and foreign policy.