Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, I think that that is very much the case. As I am fond of saying, the F in DEFRA stands for food, not just farming. Food is quite cheap and there are question marks about who is paying the price. We only have to look at the breaches of human rights and the modern slavery that is prevalent in our food chain, as well as the difficulties involved in trying to find people to work here. Despite food being cheap, many people still cannot afford to feed their family in a healthy, nutritious way and are forced either to go to food banks or to buy food that is barely worthy of the name. It might have calories in it, but it has very little nutritional value. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the brilliant work she has done with the Food Foundation and on school food. She has done so much to make the case that food is intrinsically connected with our health. That is such an important thing, and I hope that we can carry on talking about it On trade, I tried to introduce new clause 1 on Report in the previous Parliament, but the Bill mysteriously disappeared as we were gearing up for victory. It is so important to have a black-and-white commitment, because I do not believe that many Back Benchers are prepared to accept the Government’s word. Without such a commitment, we will offshore our nature and climate commitments, exacerbating the crisis we face, we will undercut UK producers, creating a race to the bottom here at home to compete on price, and we will leave consumers unprotected against low-quality imports produced to standards that would be illegal on British soil Whenever we question the Secretary of State, junior Ministers, the International Trade Secretary or even the Prime Minister, we must listen carefully, because they tend to say, "No lowering of UK standards," but that is not good enough. This is about the standard of goods that we allow into this country, so it is completely irrelevant to make promises about UK standards. A leaked DEFRA briefing stated that the Department would come under "significant pressure" from the Department for International Trade to weaken our food and environmental standards to secure trade deals, particularly with the US and Australia. I happened to be in Washington at the same time as the previous International Trade Secretary, who was on television saying that he did not think there was a problem with chlorinated chicken. Now, with the publication of the leaked US-UK trade talk papers, we can see just how determined the US is to weaken our standards. Taken with the evidence American farming lobbyists provided to the US Trade Policy Committee last year, the US wish list now includes: abandoning the precautionary principle for food and farming; accepting hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed chicken and meat raised with high levels of antibiotics, when we know that there is a crisis in the routine use of antibiotics in farming and its impact on human health; lifting the ban on ractopamine in pork and stopping parasitic tests on pigs; allowing genetically modified foods to be sold with minimal regulation; scrapping mandatory labelling on GMOs and for E number additives and food colourings—if anyone is lost, this is what the US has said its priorities are—ditching rules that protect traditional food and regional specialities, such as pork pies and the salt from Anglesey; removing our safety-first approach to chemicals; and legalising hundreds of pesticides currently banned in the UK under EU law. The latter is a particular cause for concern if we are serious about transitioning to a sustainable food and farming system, because the US currently allows around 1,430 pesticides compared with just 486 in the EU That is why those of us who have been engaged in these issues for a while have always been clear that while chlorinated chicken has become totemic, it is just the tip of the iceberg. While the Secretary of State’s commitment on "Countryfile" that we would not import hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken was welcome, it does not cover the million and one other issues that we ought to be equally worried about. There are questions, for example, about how easy it would be to unpick the statutory instruments that underpin that position and, frankly, all SIs that contain transferred EU food safety legislation I look forward to serving on the Agriculture Bill Committee, Whips permitting, to bringing back my new clause 1 on Report if the Government do not make any concessions—and to winning this time.