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Britain should prioritise economic growth over environmental protections in trade deals, according to a leaked government document obtained by Sky News.
Environmental safeguards should also not be treated as a red line when other countries demand they are broken in trade agreements, according to the paper drawn up by officials in the Department for International Trade (DIT).
The paper, which has not been seen or approved by cabinet, was drawn up for a cross-Whitehall working group and circulated around 120 Whitehall officials in recent days.
The text reflects the approach already adopted in some trade deals, but the timing of this appearing in black and white so close to the COP26 climate change summit is likely to embarrass civil servants.
Boris Johnson has previously boasted about Britain’s higher environmental standards than other countries, but there are fears these may be watered down or “liberalised” as a condition of giving countries like Australia and Brazil access to UK markets to sell their goods.
The leaked document says: “HMG (the government) should not refuse to liberalise on products of environmental concern where there is an economic case for liberalisation, or partner interest is so strong that not doing so would compromise the wider agreement.
“In these cases, we should continue to liberalise and address carbon leakage risk (in general, as well as any marginal additional risk from the FTA) using those FTA levers outlined in this note and non-FTA levers outlined elsewhere.”
Campaigners say this could mean goods entering the UK market could be linked to rainforest deforestation, very high levels of emissions or chemicals that would be banned here but are allowed in other countries such as palm oil from rainforest sanctuaries in Indonesia.
The lead document…
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Source : skynews
