ENVIRONMENT Secretary Andrea Leadsom has painted an optimistic picture about the future of British farming post-Brexit.
Speaking to a watchdog committee of MPs, including Richmond MP Rishi Sunak, she said work was well underway in the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to ensure the best deal possible for British farmers after the departure from the EU.
She spoke of an industry free to sell Great British produce the world over while also having the best deal possible with Europe.
Mrs Leadsom was speaking to the Efra cross-party select committee of MPs for the first time since being promoted to her new role in the summer.
Mr Sunak sought a series of assurances from Mrs Leadsom about what would happen after the UK left the EU in 2019 and, most importantly, after the Government’s stated commitment to maintain existing levels of farm support payments at least until 2020.
He asked Mrs Leadsom to what extent Defra was seeking to simplify the payment system, revise the regulatory framework and maintain animal welfare standards with a British Agricultural Policy.
Mrs Leadsom explained that the first step was to take into UK, or nationalise, EU agricultural law as part of Great Repeal Bill and once that was accomplished to look at what could be changed.
“This is a enormous opportunity,” she said, “to then rationalise regulations, not necessarily to scrap them but to make them more appropriate for the UK instead of the 28 EU member states where some of the regulation was for their benefit and not for us.
“This is also the chance to make some of the regulations less complicated,” she added. “We have all heard from our farmers how some of the systems have become so complicated under EU regulation.
“There are a lot of opportunities of change regulations, to repeal them, to tighten them, to make them more focussed on the UK and all that work will take place once the Great Repeal Bill has been passed.”
Mr Sunak also asked Mrs Leadsom to be aware of the potential for making farm support payment systems simpler, given the longstanding difficulties the Rural Payments Agency has faced distributing CAP payments.
Mrs Leadsom said she and her senior officials were “absolutely adamant” that they were not going to create a British Agricultural Policy that was difficult to deliver.
“We are very conscious that having the deliverability capability is just as important has having a good policy that works.
“I absolutely understand where you are coming from on this,” she said to Mr Sunak, “and would hope to reassure you that this is very much on our radar.”
The Richmond MP also urged Mrs Leadsom to address animal welfare issues like sow stalls where British pig farmers who led the way on banning them found themselves being undercut by pigmeat imports from other EU members states who had not implemented the EU law banning the intensive and cruel method of production.
Mrs Leadsom promised that creating a level playing field for British farmers would be a priority for Defra as it continued its preparations for a post-Brexit future.
Mr Sunak said he welcomed Mrs Leadsom’s positivity in her comments to the select committee and her overall approach to the Brexit process.