Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and David Jones

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Victoria Atkins]

Louth and Horncastle boasts highly productive farms that produce excellent food. Will my right hon. Friend reassure our farmers that encouraging British food production and maintaining high-quality standards will be uppermost in his mind during the exit process?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and David Jones

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I visited the Airbus factory in Bristol just before Christmas and saw the wonderful work that it is doing there. He is right to say that integrated manufacturing across Europe is important and I have no doubt that we will be putting in place arrangements to ensure that it continues.

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

An RAF Typhoon flown from my constituency and HMS St Albans have man-marked a rusting Russian aircraft carrier as it makes its journey of shame through the English channel on its way back from raids on Aleppo. Does that not demonstrate the important role that the United Kingdom must play after our exit in ensuring the defence and security of Europe as a whole?

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. Britain is a leading power in NATO and will continue to be after we leave the European Union.