Agricultural Sector: Import Standards

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this vital debate and for his thoughtful speech, and I extend that to other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, too. It is an important opportunity for us to consider an issue that sits at the intersection of the food we eat, trade, animal welfare and the sustainability of our rural economy.

The UK’s post-Brexit free trade agreements have rightly opened up new opportunities for British exporters, but they have also raised concerns about how imports are produced, particularly as we look to increase our welfare ambitions. By cutting tariffs on agricultural products from partner countries, those deals can unintentionally allow products to enter the UK that are produced to far lower animal welfare or environmental standards than those expected of our farmers. These are not minor issues; they go to the heart of how we support our brilliant domestic producers and how we maintain public confidence in the food we eat.

Practices that are banned or tightly regulated in the UK—conventional battery cages for hens, sow stalls, tail docking of pigs, and certain pesticides—remain permitted elsewhere, and those products inevitably end up on our supermarket shelves. Without clear protections, imports produced in that way risk undercutting our farmers, and they undermine the principle that high welfare production should be the norm, not just for British producers.

The Trade and Agriculture Commission, which advises the Government on trade deals, has highlighted those differences and warned that they have both ethical and economic consequences. British farmers investing in high-welfare sustainable production should not be left competing on an uneven playing field against imports produced more cheaply by cutting corners. That applies to raw materials as well as finished products.

On Tuesday, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that I sit on heard from the formidable Baroness Batters about her profitability review. She mentioned a comment made by Sir Liam Fox, who, as Trade Secretary, argued that the UK should shift post Brexit to importing cheaply produced raw materials and then add value to them under the Union flag. I agree with Baroness Batters that we should reject that reductive view of the value of the excellent raw materials that our British farmers produce. We should be proud of and protect them.

Many organisations, including the National Farmers Union and the National Pig Association, have called for core standards for imported agrifood products. These standards would ensure that all food sold in the UK, whether domestic or imported, meets the welfare, environmental and production standards expected by the British public. It is entirely reasonable for consumers to expect that pork, beef, eggs or poultry produced abroad meet very similar, or the same, requirements as those produced here.

Two other realities that we have to confront in this debate and which the all-party parliamentary group on UK food security, which I chair, has discussed at length are the cost of food and keeping our shelves stocked. As someone who represents a constituency with pockets of deep deprivation, including neighbourhoods that are among the 5% most deprived in the country, I am concerned that a rapid move to equalise all import standards could have a knock-on effect on food prices, which, as I am sure hon. Members right across the House will be aware, have been very high, particularly over the last five years. Equally, we do not want to see a repeat of the empty shelves that we all remember from the pandemic, which brought home the fragility of just-in-time food supply chains when unexpected disruption hits. As my hon. Friend said, these issues are interlinked, and the more we undermine our domestic supply, the more prices will go up and the more reliant we will become on overseas imports.

The Government have recognised these varied concerns. In the trade strategy published last June, it was clear that the Government will uphold high animal welfare standards and will not lower food standards to accommodate imports. It explicitly acknowledged practices that are not allowed domestically, such as sow stalls and battery cages, and committed to assessing whether those imports have an unfair advantage. I hope it will find that they do.

Where necessary, powers such as quotas, exclusions and safeguards will be used to protect domestic sectors that are most at risk. That approach is welcome. It strikes a balance between maintaining the benefits of free trade and ensuring that British farmers are not undermined. But as we have seen in previous trade deals, including in discussions with the United States, it is vital that those protections are clear, enforceable and applied consistently. Without them, we risk creating a market where the lowest welfare products set the price and not the highest standards.

Equally important is transparency for consumers. Recent polling by Opinium for Humane World for Animals shows that the British public often misunderstand what products labelled as, for example, “welfare assured” or that carry the Red Tractor logo actually guarantee. For example, 65% of people incorrectly believe that “welfare assured” prohibits keeping pigs and chickens in cages and 67% believe it prohibits the use of CO₂ for slaughter. If consumers discovered that labelling does not match the reality they think it does, nearly half would feel misled, angry or disappointed.

Mandatory labelling is vital. It will protect consumers, support domestic producers and ensure that imported products adhere to the same high standards—or at least that we can see if they do not. Public support for stronger labelling measures is overwhelming, with 77% backing a new animal welfare labelling law and three quarters supporting stricter enforcement by trading standards and the Advertising Standards Authority to prevent misleading claims.

I acknowledge that getting labelling right will require many tricky balances, and that there is only so much space on a packet. I do not downplay those issues, but by combining robust import standards with transparent labelling, the Government could ensure that trade works for farmers, for animals and for consumers alike, reinforcing confidence in the British food system while maintaining fairness and ethical standards.

[Charlie Dewhirst]

The hon. Member highlights an important point about the challenges of potential welfare labelling. If imports are not labelled in the same way, as they probably would not be, British producers could be put at a disadvantage when it comes to what a consumer might think about how something has been produced. We must be conscious of that.

[Josh Newbury]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to be careful how labelling will affect imported goods and therefore what the consumer sees in the supermarket. My take is that, if we educate consumers on the labelling for our standards and, if those labels are absent, what the implications might be for imported products, we can better inform them and protect our domestic producers. That will inevitably have to go along- side any improved labelling for our products.

[Sam Carling]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we can unify our import standards with our domestic standards, that problem disappears in many ways? The standards will be the same and therefore we will not have labelling that might undermine our farmers.

[Josh Newbury]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but I also point out that there will inevitably be some producers who want to produce to higher standards than the minimum, particularly in this country. They should be fairly recognised and rewarded for that, so there will always be the need for a clear and transparent labelling system. Getting that right will be tricky, but it is important that farmers who are producing to higher standards get fair recompense for that.

I hope the Minister can update the House on where work on labelling has got to, so that consumers can make informed choices for themselves and their families. Ultimately, this issue is about more than import and export figures on a screen; it is about fairness for our farmers, transparency for consumers, and the sustainability of our whole food system. As this House debates the impact of import standards, I urge the Government to continue their firm commitment to core standards and to ensure that free trade agreements work for farmers, for consumers and for British values alike.