Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: International Cooperation
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether any Non-Legally Binding Instruments have been signed by her Department and its Arms Length Bodies since July 2024 other than those subject to sensitive diplomatic, security and defence interest provisions.
Answered by Stephen Morgan
The Department does not hold a single central register of all non-legally binding instruments signed by Defra and its Arm's Length Bodies. Some non-legally binding instruments signed since July 2024 include environmental cooperation memoranda of understanding with China and Indonesia; a fertilisers cooperation memorandum with Brazil; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew memoranda with Chinese scientific and botanical institutions; a Defra-RBG Kew Seeds to Trees memorandum; a UK-China Food Safety, Animal and Plant Quarantine memorandum; and bilateral arrangements reached with Vietnam, Uruguay and Canada under Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in connection with establishing the UK’s independent WTO Goods Schedule.
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