Are you concerned about animal welfare and how the food you eat is produced? Our elected MPs don't appear to be.

British farmers have amongst the highest farm animal welfare standards in the world. That is not to say that they could not be improved, as we should always be striving to raise standards.

Brexit has given us an ideal opportunity to manage not just our animal welfare standards, but ALL our farming practises, strengthening them more and more so that we become, without question, the best in the world.

The National Farmers Union (NFU), headed up by the excellent Minette Batters, has pushed extremely hard for this, saying “British farming can be the envy of the world”.

At the end of January 2020, she wrote a letter to the Prime Minister which included a paragraph as follows:

You have pledged “not to in any way prejudice or jeopardise our standards of animal welfare or food hygiene”, and the Secretary of State for Defra recently promised to “defend our national interests and our values, including our high standards of animal welfare.” Along with your party’s manifesto commitment that, “in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards,” we are increasingly reassured that you are as committed as us to making the UK a world leader in food, farming and environmental standards.

Aberdeen Angus in the UK - a scene just three fields away from my home in Wiltshire.   

So, when the Agriculture Bill - the biggest reform of British farming since 1945 - was put before MPs last Wednesday (13 May), for the final time, as it had reached the Report Stage and Third Reading, we hoped that all would be confirmed as stated.

To absolutely make sure of this, an amendment was tabled by Tiverton and Honiton MP Neil Parish, who is also chairman of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee “to protect farmers from lower-standard food imports”.  

He said “I want to have great trade deals – I am not a Little Englander that will defend our agriculture against all imports – quite the reverse.

However, despite the government's previous commitments to safeguard the industry, the amendment was defeated by 328 votes to 277 and then the whole Agriculture Bill later passed its third and final reading by 360 votes to 211. So, it now goes on to the Lords.

Mr Parish said it was 'disappointing' and that many in the Commons' now have 'grave concerns' over the direction of travel the Bill is going in.

NFU Cymru president John Davies said, "The bill should ensure that agri-food imports are produced to at least equivalent environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards as those required of producers in the UK.

There now could be a 'very real risk' that British farmers are undermined by agri-food products produced to standards which would be illegal in the UK. The UK cannot have a trade policy which requires farmers to compete against food produced to lower standards”.

To me this beggar’s belief.

Are we as a nation saying two things here?

On the one hand we demand that “all UK farmers must treat livestock (and all Agri-food products) to very highest standards, always following best practice and the letter of the law”.

Meanwhile, on the other hand we are also saying to importers “do not worry too much about how food is produced abroad, just bring it on in. We can easily turn a blind eye to the fact that the way it was raised, would be illegal here”.

I will leave you to decide if this is in any way an ethical way to behave.