Eustice questions Truss commitment to animal welfare

THE ENVIRONMENT Secretary has said he faced “challenges” in getting Liz Truss to recognise animal welfare in trade deals.

George Eustice, who supports Rishi Sunak’s bid to become the next Prime Minister, made the remarks at an environment-focused Tory leadership hustings hosted by the Conservative Environment Network.

But Lord Goldsmith, Minister for International Environment and also a Truss supporter, described his “incredible anxiety” about the focus a government led by Mr Sunak would put on the environment.

Mr Eustice said: “The reason that I’m supporting Rishi Sunak is I think he’s going to carry on pretty much everything that we’ve started and supported, barring maybe some changes on onshore wind where I think he feels that shouldn’t go ahead.”

Turning his attention to Ms Truss, Mr Eustice said: “There’s a couple of areas where I think (Mr Sunak) has got a position that I am much more comfortable with than what I suspect will be the case with Liz Truss, and that’s really in a context of international trade. He’s made clear during this contest that he thinks we shouldn’t rush agreements, that we should get them right, and that we do need to uphold our food standards and animal welfare standards in those trade agreements.”

He added: “It is fair to say there were some challenges that I had getting Liz Truss to recognise the importance of animal welfare in particular and to make sure that we tried to reflect that in trade agreements.

“It’s not a secret really, but there was often quite a bit of tension between us trying to get animal welfare in particular recognised during those trade agreements.”

Lord Goldsmith told the online hustings: “I think Liz is sound on animal welfare. She’s committed to seeing through the Kept Animals Bill.”

He described how he was a “Liz sceptic” when she became Foreign Secretary, but said she had been an “enthusiastic driver” of the environmental agenda. “I worry about what a Rishi administration would look like. Rishi never once, as far as I’m aware, attended a single climate Cabinet. I attended, I think, all of them. I simply couldn’t even get a quote from him for a dusty old Government press release when the Dasgupta review was launched.”

The Dasgupta review looked at the economics of biodiversity.