Peers warn Yorkshire family farms risk going to the wall without strengthened protections on food standards

The House of Lords passed the Agriculture Bill on Thursday, taking a further step towards embedding new arrangements for the sector after Brexit.

But the legislation returns to the Commons with amendments attached after peers heavily defeated the Government in a cross-party move to guarantee high food standards post-Brexit.

The House of Lords backed calls for a strengthened Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC) which would be able to veto trade agreements which would threaten the undercut British farmers by allowing poorer quality, and therefore cheaper, food into the UK market.

Conservative peer Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate said the issue with the TAC currently was it was “time-limited”, and he wanted it to be made permanent, and given powers to scrutinise any future trade deals, as well as Parliament having a role.

He said: “We need to have some vehicle in place that is going to examine all future trade agreements that the Government might come up with post-Brexit, just to make sure to make sure that all those agreements maintain - in terms of any food that might come into the country, or in terms of animal welfare - quality and standards that we've been used to in this country.”

He said: “The commission, we think, should then be in a position on a permanent basis to comment ahead of any trade agreement being finalised, and that is subject to parliamentary approval as well.”

Lord Kirkhope said: “From our farmers point of view, they have invested a lot of money in improving standards because the European Union, under the Common Agricultural Policy, has actually insisted on standards being improved.

“What I think a lot of people are worried about is if there isn't any kind of commission, looking at trade agreements or draft ones, that actually any food that comes into this country isn't the same quality as our own produced, then our farmers and our food producers are going to be disadvantaged enormously.”

Lord Kirkhope said the move was not about limiting consumer choice and restricting access to cheaper food, but instead protecting against poorer quality food, which retailers, he said, would likely sell for the same price.

He said: “It's just that the other partners in the trading agreement, theoretically, would be able to have open access to our markets for their products, which are maybe inferior in quality. And that's what we're trying to stop.”

Former Yorkshire MP and now peer Baroness McIntosh agreed and said a new commission, with a slightly different remit, should be established.

“The Government is absolutely right to maintain our high standards, but the bottom line is that we must ensure that imports of agricultural products meet the same standards. And otherwise, there is no fair competition.

“It is quite possible that particularly some of the smaller farms, some of the uplands and hill farms will go to the wall, will go out of business.”

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering said she knew “for a fact that is possible” because she had seen the results of the UK 1999 sow stall ban, which resulted in farmers being undercut by cheaper EU imports produced using stalls.

“It was a complete own goal and it put 50 per cent of our pig farmers out of production,” she said.

“I want to maintain the level of production we see in the hill and upland areas, particularly less favoured areas, you know, where the battling not just the elements, but the soil and everything as well.

“We have first class pasture, and grazing, it’s unique almost to Britain and especially strong in the north of England, and I want to show that we have a vibrant farming business, in the hills across the north of England, but particularly in North Yorkshire for years to come.

“And I see that there is a direct threat from what the Government is proposing to do while maintaining high standards at home, but allowing foods that are produced to lower standards coming in.”

Lord Kirkhope said that the often used example of chlorinated chicken explained the issue.

He said: “The production of that chlorinated chicken is a much cheaper production method than most of our farmers. So what you get, in fact, is an advantage to a set of farmers in, say, the United States or wherever it may be - and there are worse places than the United States, I must say.

“You're going to get advantages to those farmers, because they can produce those chickens cheaply.”

He added: “But it's also one where the welfare of the animals is something which is safeguarded.

“If you don't have some sort of controlling mechanism here, you get other people making a lot of money out of our market, because they don't have the same production costs, or indeed the standards that we think unnecessary.”

It comes after a campaign by the NFU which gained one million signatures urging the Government to maintain food standards.

The Bill will return to the Commons on October 12, with peers hoping MPs will accept their amendments.

A Department for International Trade spokesman said: “We will never sign a trade deal that undercuts farmers and is bad for consumers.

“The department is working around the clock to secure trade agreements that benefit Britain’s brilliant agriculture industry, uphold its high standards, and open new export opportunities around the world. If a deal isn’t the right one, we will walk away.

“It is already against the law to import chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef into the UK, and any changes would need new legislation to be brought before Parliament. Ultimately if Parliament doesn’t like a deal, it can block it.

“The Trade and Agriculture Commission is all about putting UK farming at the heart of our trade policy. It advises the Government how to secure new opportunities farmers in Yorkshire and across the UK, while ensuring the industry remains competitive and that our world-leading standards are not undermined.”