Oral Answers to Questions

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

4. What discussions his Department has had with representatives of the farming sector on the implications for that sector of the UK leaving the EU.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

5. What discussions his Department has had with representatives of the farming sector on the implications for that sector of the UK leaving the EU.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)]

We are listening and speaking to as many farming organisations and institutions as possible as we develop our negotiating position. I have met a range of representatives of the agricultural sector, including all the UK farming unions, and have attended the stakeholder roundtables of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, one of which focused on farming and horticulture.

[Mr Jones]

The British farming industry is noted throughout the world for the quality of its produce. Outside the European Union, we have an unprecedented opportunity to redesign our policies to make them work for us and to ensure that our agriculture industry is competitive, productive and profitable, and also that our environment continues to improve.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Farmers in Eddisbury apply the highest standards of welfare to their livestock and the produce deriving from that livestock. What safeguards will be put in place to ensure that produce that does not meet those high standards does not affect the competitiveness of our farmers?

[Mr Jones]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an important point because animal welfare and traceability are important elements of British agricultural production. We are committed to high animal welfare standards and will continue to push for those standards to be maintained in international trade arrangements.