Environment secretary refuses to rule out chlorinated chicken

The environment secretary has refused to rule out chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef being imported from the US in a post-Brexit trade deal.

George Eustice also defended the government’s new immigration system after businesses raised fears of a shortage of workers.

His predecessor before the recent reshuffle had insisted the controversial products from the States would not be imported amid animal welfare and environmental fears.

But Mr Eustice, while saying there are “no plans” to change the law, did not implicitly rule it out when pressed three times on the subject.

With the government expected to publish its negotiating position for a free trade deal with Washington within two weeks, he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday that the government would not “take risks” on standards of welfare.

And he said “lactic acid washes” are now more commonly used in the US than chlorine.

“What I’m saying is we won’t make any moves on our standards, we’ve got a clear position in this country that it is illegal to sell chlorine-washed chicken, illegal to sell beef treated with hormones, we have no plans to change those things,” he said.

The government’s immigration plans have drawn criticism from businesses for choking off a supply of workers that they need to operate.

Mr Eustice, who used to run a strawberry farm, stressed a seasonal agricultural workers scheme will be an “important part of immigration policy in the future”.

He said there would be a quadrupling of the size of the scheme to 10,000 initially this year, but this still falls short of National Farmers’ Union calls for 70,000.