Listen: UK will uphold import standards post-Brexit –Defra

The UK will not import food in post-Brexit trade deals that undermine domestic production standards, a senior government minister has said.

“We will use a combination of ways to ensure that any food coming into this country meets standards which are as good as our own,” Defra secretary Theresa Villiers told attendees at the Oxford Farming Conference on Wednesday.

Listen to "Defra Secretary at Oxford Farming Conference" on Spreaker.

The Tory MP gave examples of imposing tariffs, and using food safety legislation, to stop imports that undermine UK farmers.

Welfare

“There are a range of ways in which we can ensure that we defend our high standards of animal welfare, food safety and the environment,” Villiers maintained.

However, farmers, as well as animal welfare and environmental campaigners who were protesting outside the event, were sceptical of the Defra Secretary’s commitment.

As part of a straw poll at the Oxford conference, no one raised their hand when asked if they thought the government would protect farmers’ interests in future trade negotiations.

The National Farmers’ Union wants a body to be set up to scrutinise future trade negotiations, which can begin once the UK leaves the EU at the end of January.

“I will take your message back to my colleagues in government as we decide whether a trade council needs to be set up,” Villiers said.

The Defra Secretary also used her address to announce that the government’s Agriculture Bill will be brought back to Westminster this month. The Bill was initially introduced in October 2018, but it fell a year later when Boris Johnson suspended parliament.

“We will be getting on with it as quickly as we possibly can and we are very keen to finish by the spring,” Villiers said.

Food security

She maintained that the “fundamentals are very much the same” in the reformed bill, although it contains a new element which will require the government to periodically review food security in the UK.

The bill sets out how direct payments to farmers in England will be gradually phased out over a seven-year period, with the first step taking place in 2021. The government plans to move towards paying English farmers for delivering public goods, which mainly involve environmental measures.

NI policy

However, agricultural policy is a devolved matter in the UK, which means it will be up to a future agriculture minister at Stormont to decide what new schemes are introduced here.

The UK government has recently committed to maintaining the current annual budget to UK farmers until the end of the parliament, which is likely to go up to 2024.

“For the period after that, these are decisions for future spending reviews and future manifestos,” Villiers said in response to a question from the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We fully recognise the importance of providing financial support to our farmers, including in NI, in the long term, as well as the next five years,” she added.

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