Threat still remains to our food standards

Bridgwater and West Somerset Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has decided to keep working remotely for the time being – but he will still be snapping at the Government’s heels, he warns Defra Secretary George Eustice

DEAR George, You may be relieved to learn that you won’t have me bothering you in person for a while because for some fairly obvious reasons I am remaining in the constituency.

The most obvious reason being related to coronavirus because I believe we still need to be ultra-cautious about relaxing any of the controls; in my book anyone claiming to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel must have phenomenally good eyesight because I reckon there are a good number of bends to be negotiated before we reach that point.

Anyway it is utter madness to constantly be driving up and down between London, which remains a high-risk area, and West Somerset, which is relatively low on the scale.

My constituents would hardly thank me for maintaining the usual weekly commute. They are – understandably and rightly – already getting considerably exercised by those who are bending the rules double and sneaking in under the radar for unlawful overnight stays, generally in camper vans, and certainly would not welcome the appearance of an elevated threat in the person of self.

Anyway, I can work just as effectively at home and the removal of travelling time from the agenda allows me more opportunities for sorting out local issues.

You and I found ourselves on opposite sides of the fence in the recent Agriculture Bill debate but I still maintain that we could and should require food imports to comply with our production standards.

I read a lot of flam somewhere about how it would be unreasonable for one country to tell another how to produce its food, but why not? The principle already applies to other things. You cannot, for instance, sell a fridge or a car here unless they comply with our standards and I see no logical reason why that should not be extended to food.

In fact, in the interests of protecting the diets and health of the nation, there is every reason why we should not accept chicken that has been treated against disease post mortem rather than being protected against it, or beef which has been raised on a menu liberally laced with hormones.

I accept as things stand there would be practical difficulties in enforcing such a regime; without the ability to send inspectors over to verify what every supplier was up to, we should have to rely on the word of the American producers. There again a lot of consumers were fooled not that long ago after taking some supermarkets’ word for the fact that their beef burgers did include beef rather than the remains of a faller at Kempton Park (and I see another horse meat scandal is bubbling up on the Continent at the moment).

But we should be making a stand about protecting our people from substandard and potentially injurious food and, more to the point, protecting those dedicated farmers who toil to put it on our plate so that they are not unfairly disadvantaged by cut-price inferior imports, their businesses are not in turn threatened and that all the effort that has been expended striving to get people to eat better and more healthily is not wiped out by a tidal wave of chemical-rich beef or chicken infused with the tantalising aroma of Domestos.

And please don’t luxuriate too fulsomely in the somewhat prolonged absence of ILG from Westminster – normal vigilance of all activities will be energetically maintained.

Yours ever,

Ian

Without the ability to send inspectors over to verify what every food supplier was up to, we should have to rely on the word of the American producers, says Ian