Farming: Paying for post-Brexit trade deal

Farming organisations have claim the railroaded progress of the UK/Australia trade deal - which has seen it denied the full scrutiny of a Parliamentary debate - confirms their fears that agriculture will be the sacrificial lamb.

The first post Brexit trade deal for the UK this week passed through its scrutiny phase without parliamentarians having a chance to have their say on behalf of constituents – and will now move straight to ratification by ministers in the autumn, despite multiple pledges that there would be a debate first.The National Sheep Association said that it had maintained from day one that it was likely that the primary farming sector would be sacrificed for greater national economic gains elsewhere:

“And this is exactly what is happening with a full Parliamentary process being denied,” said NSA chief executive, Phil Stocker.

He said that the Government’s own departmental advice had concluded the deal would ‘punish Britain’s food and farming sectors’ adding that it was desperately disappointing that Westminster was prepared to risk the farming sector being damaged at a time when the importance of food security was being recognised.

“There are still too many decision makers whose solution to food security is to simply be wealthy enough, and have enough trade agreements, to feed ourselves from around the world.

He said that the conflicting views of different government departments on the subject of farming, food, and trade had still not been resolved - and the decision not to allow proper scrutiny would further undermine the confidence of farmers in the government’s trade policy.