Brussels sprouts: Yorkshire MP hails Brexit as end of the '˜vegetable police'

Rishi Sunak said the British food and drink industry has been “held back” by 50 years of interference by the EU.

He sought to illustrate his case by recounting a letter he received from a farmer who was told he could not grow cabbages because they were too similar to cauliflowers.

Speaking during a debate on the impact of Brexit on the rural economy, he said: “Last year I received a letter from a local farmer.

“He had been informed that he could no longer grow cabbages because they were considered by the EU to be too similar to cauliflowers for compliance with the three crop rule.

“Turnips, he was helpfully advised, would be more acceptable.

“Agriculture and food and drink are great British success stories yet for half a century they have been held back by the ceaseless meddling of Brussels’ self-appointed vegetable police.”

Mr Sunak, the MP for Richmond Yorkshire, said the UK’s divorce from Brussels would allow the Government to implement tailor-made policies to improve the nation’s rural economy.

“Wonderful as Provence is, it is not the Yorkshire Dales,” he said.

“As dramatic as Seville’s orange groves are, they are not Dartmoor and Exmoor.

“Our rural areas are not the same as those of the 27 other European countries.

“Outside of the EU we can design the policies that work specifically for our rural communities and use our new found freedoms to create a rural economy more robust and dynamic than ever before.”