NFU 21: Government set up TAC ‘two years too late’, says commission chairman

Tim Smith told the online NFU conference it had occurred to him a ‘couple of times’ during the course of the commission’s work that Ministers would have been better prepared if the recommendations had been made in advance of certain big decisions on trade.

He was responding to a question from NFU Sugar Board member Tom Clarke, who asked whether the UK’s decision to place zero tariffs on a very significant volume of raw sugar cane imports would undermine the domestic, sustainable, sugar beet industry.

Mr Smith said: “We are trying to balance the tensions of liberalising trade with retaining the right standards and at the same time protecting the interests of those people who are growing the crops, feeding the livestock and taking those goods to market.