Leadsom says Cabinet will deliver for UK agriculture

Andrea Leadsom said food production was a priority for the Prime Minister’s senior team and that progress was being made all the time within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to assess the opportunities and challenges to the agriculture industry posed by Britain’s exit from the European Union.

The former Energy Secretary, who replaced Elizabeth Truss at Defra in July, was giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Select Committee for the first time in the 97 days since she took up post.

Committee members used the hearing to seek assurances that food and farming would thrive in a post-Brexit world under her leadership.

MPs asked Mrs Leadsom how confident she was that the UK would resist a rush of low animal welfare food products being imported into the country.

She said: “We do have a manifesto commitment to ensure that the food that we import as well as the food we export meets certain standards and of course, as we seek to negotiate trade agreements with other countries around the world and as we expand our activity and exports and we start to look at imports it will be absolutely vital that we maintain high standards, not just for the sake of animal welfare but also for the sake of not leaving ourselves uncompetitive on a world stage.

“Within Defra (there is) a significant programme that is assessing the issues that we need to address as we leave the EU and I have a meeting with that team every week on different themes. We have certainly looked in great detail at the issues that the UK has some of the highest food safety and traceability standards in the world. We want to keep these standards, we want to use those as an extra selling point in the rest of the world but equally we are very conscious of the fact that we need to keep that regulatory environment that maintains those standards.

“We are working very closely with the Department for International Trade (DIT) and I can assure the committee that within Cabinet and in our bilateral discusses with DIT and DEEU (Department for Exiting the European Union) that we are constantly raising the issues around agriculture, animal welfare standards, food labelling, food traceability, food safety and the issues for importing and exporting and competitiveness of our own sectors.

“There is a very heightened awareness of the importance of this sector to the UK economy... (but) at this stage it’s too early to provide exact resolutions of how we will address individual issues.”

She said Defra was still working on separate 25-year plans for food and farming, and the environment.

The South Northamptonshire MP insisted that the two plans would be “complementary” and she said she wanted to engage in a “stakeholder consultation” within a short period of time.

MPs also questioned Mrs Leadsom on whether she thought Defra has the resources to handle a success Brexit for British food and farming.

The Environment Secretary said she was confident that Defra did and praised staff, saying: “We have some real expertise in Defra. I have been impressed since joining the department, not just at the level of knowledge but also at the level of commitment.”

Penistone & Stocksbridge MP Angela Smith questioned Defra’s capacity as it has lost 18 per cent of its staff since 2010/11, but Mrs Leadsom said Defra had become a “fitter” and “leaner” unit as a result.