UK accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) joint FSS and FSA Section 42 advice

Summary

As the UK’s food safety authorities with a statutory duty to protect food and feed safety and consumers’ interests in relation to food, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) were asked by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) on 17 July 2023 to provide joint advice on the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to inform the UK Government’s ‘Section 42’ report for this Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Visit our international trade page for further advice on our role in this scrutiny process.

The CPTPP is a trade bloc made up of 11 members. It was founded by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam on 8 March 2018. The UK therefore applied for accession to an existing agreement, as set out by its founding members, with little space to amend the text of the treaty, rather than having negotiated the entirety of the treaty text from its inception like other recent FTAs. 

FSS and the FSA were asked to produce joint advice on whether, or to what extent, the measures in this FTA are consistent with the maintenance of UK levels of statutory protection for human health for the areas within our remits. 

The joint advice can be downloaded via the link below. It is also annexed to the UK Government's Section 42 report.