MPs warn Truss: Give farms panel real teeth
BORIS Johnson has been warned to beef up plans to keep out substandard US food imports – or risk letting down British farmers.
Tory MPs say a proposed independent panel to advise on postBrexit deals must have real teeth and not just be a ‘talking shop’.
In a private meeting, they insisted the new ‘trade and agriculture’ commission – announced last week by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss – must be established on a statutory footing.
It comes after a leading member of Donald Trump’s administration fuelled hopes that if Britain stood up to the US over food imports, it could still negotiate a valuable trade deal. Ben Carson, Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Development, said: ‘I suspect there would be further negotiations and some give and take.’
Mr Johnson has come under mounting pressure to ensure that British farms and their world-class food standards are not undercut by hormone-fed beef, chlorinated chicken or other controversial USfarmed products as the price for securing a post-Brexit trade deal.
The Mail on Sunday, which has launched a Save Our Family Farm campaign to protect British businesses and food standards, revealed last month how the Prime Minister is considering keeping out certain US products by imposing prohibitively high tariffs once we finally leave the EU single market.
Miss Truss’s plan is for an independent commission to advise on policies that ensure UK farmers ‘do not face unfair competition and that their high animal welfare and production standards are not undermined’.
But at a private meeting with the Prime Minister, Tory MPs who took part in a Commons rebellion in May over the danger to British food standards made clear that the plans did not go far enough. One MP said: ‘It can’t just be a panel that issues advice and then gets ignored.’
Tory MP George Freeman, who was not at the meeting but is urging Ministers to ‘stand by our UK food and farming sector’, said it was vital that the panel was not a mere ‘talking shop’.
Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union, has already urged Miss Truss to set out more details to ensure the commission is effective and independent.
And Beccy Speight, chief executive of the conservation charity the RSPB, said it must be ‘genuinely independent’ and be accountable to Parliament, not just Ministers.
Government sources said the commission’s detailed terms of reference had yet to be agreed.
Allies of Miss Truss say she has vowed the Government would never lower its foods standards.