Food: Chicken and Beef

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

As has been pointed out many times, we have already legislated by the withdrawal Act against artificial growth hormones and decontaminating poultry carcasses with chlorine. If we were to change that it would require legislation to be brought before Parliament. I have no doubt at all that Parliament would choose not to relax those regulations, and in my view rightly so. The Government have committed, as we did in our manifesto before the election, to ensuring that our high animal welfare and environmental standards are not undermined through the pursuit of free trade agreements.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as the Minister said, antimicrobial resistance is an exceptionally dangerous global risk. Given the size of the US economy compared with ours, and without the power of being an EU member, how does he think we can tackle this global challenge while seeking a trade deal with the United States?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

There is without a doubt growing concern globally about overuse of antibiotics. I believe that more than half of all antibiotics in the United States are used on farms, in many cases to keep animals alive that would otherwise not survive the conditions in which they are reared. The same has been true for many years across the European Union, including in the United Kingdom, where we have also been guilty of massive overuse of antibiotics in agriculture. We have taken great strides, working with the industry, to reduce the amount of antibiotics used in agriculture. The same is true across some countries in the European Union, but not all. Global awareness is growing. I believe that coronavirus has lowered our collective tolerance for risk. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this should be top of the health agenda.