JAMIE’S WAR ON TOXIC U.S. FOOD
Chef and f itness guru Joe Wicks lead plea to Boris: Don’t trade away children’s health
A POWERFUL alliance of chefs, celebrities and charities today urges Boris Johnson to block sub-standard foods from flooding into the UK under post-Brexit trade deals.
In a heartfelt open letter, stars including Jamie Oliver and fitness guru Joe Wicks call on the Prime Minister not to ‘trade away our children’s futures’ in the negotiations.
The move comes as International Trade Secretary Liz Truss faces growing Parliamentary pressure to bolster protections against poor quality foreign food – and save British farms from being put out of business by cheap imports.
In a crunch Commons debate expected within the next fortnight, MPs will vote on new plans to give watchdogs on the Trade and Agriculture Commission the power to enforce high food standards.
The letter – also backed by BBC Countryfile presenter Anita Rani, chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and charities including the RSPB and RSPCA – demands assurances that ‘lower-standard’ meat, such as US- produced chlorinated chicken or
hormone-fed beef, will not be sold in British stores or served in restaurants and canteens after we exit the EU’s standards regime.
And they say that the Covid-19 pandemic has ‘raised the stakes’ because ‘now, more than ever, we need to make sure everyone has access to affordable, good quality and sustainable food to help people be healthier, happier and more resilient’.
The letter – an edited version of which is reproduced right – warns Mr Johnson: ‘If we don’t get this right, progress made as a result of your Government’s obesity and health strategy could be wiped out.
‘Let’s not enter a race to the bottom and allow low quality products to flood the UK. Chlorinated chicken will be just the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking about meat produced with growth hormones and high amounts of antibiotics, crops grown with illegal pesticides that are harmful to bees, and a flood of sugary and ultra-processed products, promoted with massive marketing spends and without clear labelling to tell us what we’re really eating’. The letter also argues that ‘the British public cares deeply’ about these issues – a point emphasised by a Mail on Sunday poll today which shows an overwhelming majority of voters want our high food standards protected in future trade agreements.
The Deltapoll survey reveals that 68 per cent of people believed the most important priority for Britain was to maintain high standards for food, even if that mean some trade deals were not possible as a result.
Only one in five (21 per cent) thought that compromising on standards was acceptable to get a deal over the line.
This newspaper is today urging readers who back the campaign to send a version of t he l etter to t heir l ocal Tory MP, as Opposition MPs are already expected to support moves to protect standards.
But last night, the Government came out fighting by branding the letter ‘totally misleading’ and insisting: ‘Our manifesto commitment could not be clearer – we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.’
The Government was heavily defeated in the Lords last week on its Agriculture Bill, when peers overwhelmingly backed calls for greater powers to block sub-standard food imports and moves to give Parliament the final say on postBrexit trade deals.
By a majority of 107, peers backed a call from cross-bencher Lord Curry, a retired farmer, for the Trade and Agriculture Commission to be given greater, permanent, powers.
Peers also backed a call by Labour’s Lord Grantchester to keep out foods produced to standards lower than the UK’s. The Government defeats set up the prospect of a fresh Tory rebellion in the Commons next month when MPs debate changes to the Bill.
The issue has also become a flashpoint between Ministers and the National Farmers’ Union.
Last week, NFU president Minette Batters met Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove to urge him to beef up the commission, which is currently scheduled to last just six months and which, critics say, does not include specialists in child health or environmental and animal welfare issues on its panel.
Amid mounting concern over Ms Truss’s ‘toothless’ commission, a Future British Standards Coalition is launched today, including representatives of the Tenant Farmers Association and the RSPCA.
It will be chaired by Kate Dalmeny from food and farming alliance Sustain. She said last night: ‘British people have made it abundantly clear that they expect to keep the high food, environmental and animal welfare standards they currently enjoy.’
So far, more than a million people have signed a petition to save food standards following the launch of The Mail on Sunday’s Save Our Family Farms campaign, with the backing of former Ministers Sir Nicholas Soames and Theresa Villiers.
In an article on the facing page, former Environment Secretary Ms Villiers reminds the Prime Minister that the Tory manifesto for the 2019 Election pledged there would be no compromise on the UK’s world-beating food and animal welfare standards after Brexit.
Even George Eustice, the current Environment Secretary, has described animal welfare laws in the US as ‘woefully deficient’, with up to a million chickens crammed together in vast hanger-like facilities on some farms. Slaughtered chickens are sometimes washed in chlorine due to the number of bugs on American poultry farms, while US cattle farmers use steroid hormones to speed growth – a practice banned by the EU since 1989. One drug routinely used, 17-beta oestradiol, is a known cause of cancer in humans.
Jamie Oliver has previously called on Mr Johnson to be ‘a guardian to t he l and and its prosperity,’ rather than ‘someone who opened Pandora’s box to the quick erosion of the food and farming industries’.
Last night, senior Tory MP Neil Parish, who has already led one Commons Tory rebellion over post
Brexit food standards, urged the Government to compromise.
Mr Parish, chairman of the Commons’ environment, food and rural affairs committee, said: ‘The Lords picked up where we left off in the Commons, raising fundamental concerns about how food standards are going to be protected in the future. The Government still has an opportunity to act proactively on this.’
Ms Truss has repeatedly insisted that the Government will not abandon the UK’s high food standards and that there is no need to increase the power soft he temporary commission.
Last night, a Government spokesperson said: ‘We remain focused on getting trade deals that work in the best interests of our farmers and consumers. British farming sits at the heart of our trade policy, and the Trade and Agriculture Commission will help ensure that the UK’s high- quality agriculture sector remains among the most competitive and innovative at the world.’