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Brexit Opportunities Minister calls for farming to be deregulated
News26 Apr 2022Abi KayThe Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has called for the farming industry to be deregulated.
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Abi Kay
Abi took up the post of chief reporter at Farmers Guardian after a stint working for the NFU as part of its government affairs team.
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Brexit Opportunities Minister calls for farming to be deregulated
Speaking to the European Scrutiny Committee last week, Mr Rees-Mogg also suggested it was time to move away from talking about ‘divergence’ from EU rules, claiming he ‘did not care’ how the bloc was regulating now the UK had left.
“We want high standards, we want good food; of course we do,” he said.
“But other countries around the world have very good food and very high standards too, but do not make farmers’ jobs completely impossible by loading them with regulation.
“I think that is an area we need to look at.”
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TFA chief executive George Dunn told Farmers Guardian the Minister was right to say Government needed to move away from the EU playbook, though he noted the Environment Agency had recently taken this approach with the Farming Rules for Water and said the Welsh Government was continuing to do so with its own water pollution regulations.
“We must indeed move quickly to ensure we have the ability to follow a more appropriate regulatory approach,” he said.
“However, equally, where we have decided UK farmers should be following a certain standard or regulatory framework, we should not allow the free trade dogma which engrains Government to cause farmers to be forced to compete unfairly with imported product produced to lower standards.”
Protections
NFU director of trade and business strategy Nick von Westenholz echoed these remarks, saying domestic protections must apply to imported food as well as that produced in the UK.
He added: “The NFU accepts the importance of regulation in underpinning high standards, but it needs to be part of an overall system which includes voluntary approaches where appropriate, and that is designed to strike a balance between necessary protections, for instance of the environment or consumers, and the cost on businesses.”
“There is clearly now an opportunity to look at how the UK’s regulatory environment best achieves this balance.”
Brexit Opportunities Minister calls for farming to be deregulated
The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has called for the farming industry to be deregulated.
www.fginsight.com