MPs reject Agriculture Bill amendment to protect post-Brexit food standards

MPs have rejected an amendment to the Agriculture Bill for imported food to meet current UK food safety and animal welfare standards from 1 January 2021.

The Agriculture Bill – designed to prepare the UK’s farming industry after the post-Brexit transition period – returned to the House of Commons on Monday (12 October), following amendments by the House of Lords.

However, with a 53 vote majority, MPs rejected the amendment to the Agriculture Bill to force trade deals to meet UK animal welfare and food safety rules.

Campaigners, including the RSPCA, and supporters have warned that a failure to support the amendment would leave the UK facing a flood of imports such as chlorinated chicken, eggs from hens kept in barren battery cages, pork from pigs reared in sow stalls and hormone beef – products made to welfare standards that are illegal in the UK.

The European Union (EU) banned chlorine washing chicken in 1997 over food safety concerns. After slaughter, the chickens are rinsed with an antimicrobial chlorine wash to treat high levels of bacteria, a symptom of low animal welfare conditions.

Outlawed in the UK in 2012 by the European Commission, barren battery cages confine laying hens to small wire cages smaller than an A4 sheet of paper.

Although they are used worldwide, sow stalls have been illegal in the UK since 1999. They are also illegal in Sweden, and a partial ban was enforced in the EU in 2013. Sow stalls, also called gestation crates, keep pregnant sows confined for their entire pregnancy and are so narrow that they cannot turn around.

Permitted in the US, the EU has refused to import hormone-treated beef  since 1989. Hormone-treated beef comes from cows which have been given synthetic hormones to encourage fast weight gain, reducing costs of feeding. The UK currently has a ban on producing and importing hormone-treated meats, due to concerns over public health.

The government says EU rules banning imports of chlorine-washed chicken and other products will be automatically written into UK law once the post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December, claiming the amendment was ‘unnecessary’.

Farming minister Victoria Prentis stated that the government was “absolutely committed to high standards”, which would be protected by existing laws.

She told the chamber: “We will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare or food standards. Our current import standards are enshrined in existing legislation.

“They include a ban on importing beef produced using artificial growth hormones and poultry that has been washed with chlorine. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 carries across those existing standards on environmental protections, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. Any changes to that legislation would need to be brought before Parliament.

“We have high standards in this country, of which we are justly proud, and there is no way the Government will reduce those standards. Our clear policy, in fact, is to increase them, particularly in the area of animal welfare, and I hope to be telling the House a lot more about that next year.

“We are not going to be importing chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef. That is the law of this land. There is no question of ​'Not yet'. This government is not going to change it under any circumstances. We have said very clearly that in all our trade negotiations we will not compromise our high environmental protection, animal welfare or food standards.”

Responding to the Agriculture Bill’s completion, Country Land and Business Association (CLA) President Mark Bridgeman said: “Government ministers have successfully convinced MPs they can be trusted to protect food production standards without the need for legislation.

“Time and again ministers have promised to protect British farmers from a flood of cheap imports produced to animal welfare and environmental standards far below our own. They must now make good on that promise and show that such trust is well placed.

“Farmers across the country will be watching government’s every move very closely from hereon in.  The CLA will do all it can to support government efforts to promote free trade – so long as their guarantee to uphold our standards and values is maintained permanently.”

CLA Director North Dorothy Fairburn said: “The CLA will support any new free trade deals outside the EU which grow and boost UK trade, but it is imperative that equivalent standards are met in order to prevent undercutting of the UK market with products of lower environmental and animal welfare standards.

“Any future food imports should meet the UK’s environmental standards. All farming in the UK is subject to stringent regulation designed to protect both the welfare of animals and the wider environment. Alongside high quality, safe and traceable crops and livestock, UK farmers deliver wildlife habitats and water protection through a broad variety of agri-environment programmes.

“It would only be fair that any future food imports via free trade agreements must also be required to meet the same environmental standards, otherwise we risk undercutting our own farmers’ work in this regard.”

The Bill will now return to the House of Lords for further debate this week.