casemx 270
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- East midlands
What's this all about then ?
Peers inflict defeat for post Brexit farming.
- Thread starter casemx 270
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Link?
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You started the thread... you tell us
Veryfruity
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Great thread
casemx 270
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- East midlands
Sorry tried to do a link but can't
This
www.devonlive.com
Government defeated in Lords over post-Brexit food standards
Peers backed a change to the Agriculture Bill aimed at blocking the import of foodstuffs produced abroad to animal welfare and environmental standards lower than those the UK currently adheres to
www.devonlive.com
Worst OP ever.
casemx 270
Member
- Location
- East midlands
ThanksThis
Government defeated in Lords over post-Brexit food standards
Peers backed a change to the Agriculture Bill aimed at blocking the import of foodstuffs produced abroad to animal welfare and environmental standards lower than those the UK currently adheres to
casemx 270
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- Location
- East midlands
What do you mean ?
spin cycle
Member
- Location
- north norfolk
....thats what i thought anyhoo
Cowabunga
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- Ceredigion,Wales
Far from being a defeat for British post brexit agriculture, it is a significant WIN, as long as it is passed by the Commons when it returns there. The Conservatives, or most of them, do not want this passed as Law while professing support for the principle. I wonder why? In fact I know why. It is because they want to ignore their underwhelming support later on and if passed into UK law they would find it difficult to concede on several pertinent issues demanded specifically by the USA in order to make a trade deal. The Tories would throw UK agriculture under a bus in order to continue to sell a few Range Rovers over there. If they could.
This is a significant step forward to protecting UK food production from being [once again] abandoned and left to croak as it did around a century ago. Both times to the advantage of US large scale agriculture.
Good on Lord Grantchester and the House of Lords. Thank you all.
This is a significant step forward to protecting UK food production from being [once again] abandoned and left to croak as it did around a century ago. Both times to the advantage of US large scale agriculture.
Good on Lord Grantchester and the House of Lords. Thank you all.
Tubbylew
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
I googled and came up with this,
www.theneweuropean.co.uk
Peers inflict defeat over government over post-Brexit farming standards
The government has been defeated by peers demanding a ban on the use of pesticides in its flagship Agriculture Bill for farming...
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
The amendments will be overturned when the Bill returns to the Commons. So don't get too worried/your hopes up, depending on which amendment you're considering.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Well Lawson's having none of it. UK farmers scuppering vital trade deals - essetial reading for an understanding of the Tory Party view of UK Agriculture .
DOMINIC LAWSON
Cheap food gives the Lords indigestion
Vital trade deals are being put at risk by peers’ agricultural protectionism
Dominic Lawson
Sunday September 27 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
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The House of Lords, when composed entirely of the hereditary peerage, could be relied upon to defend the landed interest against all threats to the value of their estates: agricultural protectionism was its most obvious manifestation. So it was redolent of the battles over the corn laws in the early 19th century when the hereditary peer Lord Grantchester stood up last week to put an amendment to the agriculture bill: his proposal was designed to prevent any government free-trade agreement — such as the one now being negotiated between London and Washington — from licensing the import of food produced by cheaper methods than our own. The principal target, as became clear during the debate, was American “chlorinated” chicken.
Grantchester, whose family’s fortune is calculated to be £1.2bn by the Sunday Times Rich List, has a farm in Cheshire. He is also Labour’s shadow rural affairs minister in the upper house. Backed by his party’s peers, and those representing the Liberal Democrats, his measure resulted in a defeat for the government. It would be hard to find a better demonstration of the Conservative Party’s claim that it, rather than Labour, now more truly represents the workers’ interests.
Actually, a handful of Conservative peers also supported the Labour billionaire’s amendment. One of them, Lady McIntosh, attempted to rebut the point that if British consumers did not want to buy US chicken in their supermarkets, they would only have to see the label identifying the country of origin and avoid it. She referred to the perplexing fact that many British consumers buy cheaper imported pork “produced to lower standards”: “The consumers went out and voted with their feet. They read the label, but they looked at the price and bought the cheaper imports. I do not want to place our consumers in that difficult position.” No, they must be protected from their unfortunate tendency to want to provide their family nutritious food at the least cost.
Lady McIntosh was also frank in admitting the argument that “chlorinated” chicken was less safe to eat than the British equivalent did not stand up to scrutiny: “We must be clear that if anybody in this country were to eat chlorinated chicken, they would not get food poisoning or anything else that was unsafe.” Her complaint was that slaughtered US battery hens are rinsed with an antibacterial solution (in fact it is rarely chlorine) “because of the intensive levels of production”.
The idea that the UK mass-produced chicken enjoys a happier existence than its American counterpart is simultaneously smug and specious. As I wrote three years ago: “Chicken production in the UK is dominated by a handful of companies, carried out in vast artificially lit warehouses, each packed tight with many thousands of genetically engineered avian freaks.”
On Monday, The Times carried a story based on undercover footage at British farms supplying Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lidl: it showed these chickens struggling to remain upright (they are bred to expand at almost 3½oz a day), with some “covered in faeces and ammonia burns from lying in their own waste”. None of the peers supporting Lord Grantchester’s proposal, ostensibly on grounds of avian welfare, referred to this article — though it was published the day before the debate.
They were more influenced, it seems, by an extraordinary piece that appeared last Saturday in the Daily Mail, by the longstanding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, Sheila Dillon. It portrayed this country as a kind of bucolic paradise, about to be laid waste (if US food were allowed to be imported): “British farmers and producers will find it impossible to compete. From the supermarkets to takeaways, this ugly juggernaut of American food will sweep all before it.”
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The BBC presenter went on: “The so-called cheapness of American food is a delusion. These farming methods carry a heavy price in quality and health. A battery chicken is tasteless compared to an organic one.”
For some reason Dillon didn’t mention that more than 95% of the chickens purchased in UK supermarkets are already from battery farms. Or that more than six million acres of American farmland is designated organic. Or that the world’s biggest organic food specialist, Whole Foods, with sales of almost $20bn (£15bn) a year, is American.
As for the claim that small British farms will be wiped from the face of the earth by vast US agricultural conglomerates, why is it, then, that there are still about two million small family-run farms in America? It is true they produce a marginal proportion of the total, but still, according to the US Department of Agriculture: “Family farms (where the majority of the business is owned by the operator and individuals related to the operator) accounted for nearly 98% of US farms in 2018. Small family farms ... accounted for 90% of all US farms.”
In fact, any commercial threat from the most industrialised US agriculture (were a trade deal to be signed that gave them access to our supermarket shelves) would be to those British producers whose practices and methods were most similar. Those who shop at Waitrose for free-range chicken, and make a beeline for anything with the Prince of Wales’s Duchy logo on it, are not going to switch suddenly, or at all, to MegaFarm Inc’s Pop-in-Microwave Chickenburger. The vote in the House of Lords was, in effect, the Waitrose class telling the Tesco class that if they want cheap US food they should jolly well hop on a plane.
Protectionism is not one-way: America currently bans British lamb on spurious health grounds, connected to the BSE scandal. Yet the US is the world’s second-largest importer of lamb and — if a trade deal were to be signed — a great untapped market for our own producers, especially given the high reputation of British lamb.
As it happens, the Commons will probably overturn the Grantchester amendment when the Agriculture Bill returns to the elected chamber. And, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, it has the right to block any US-UK treaty negotiated by the British and American governments. When we were a member of the EU, however, parliament had no power to veto any European trade deal struck with the US.
The Grantchester amendment, which would require US food exporters to “match or exceed” our own agricultural welfare standards, implies British oversight and control of America’s farmers. This pseudo-colonialism would not go down well. Nor will it if the upper house tries the same when the government opens trade negotiations with developing nations formerly part of the British Empire. Food for thought, your lordships.
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DOMINIC LAWSON
Cheap food gives the Lords indigestion
Vital trade deals are being put at risk by peers’ agricultural protectionism
Dominic Lawson
Sunday September 27 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Share
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/cheap-food-gives-the-lords-indigestion-6zxgf6t6t
https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?te...ap-food-gives-the-lords-indigestion-6zxgf6t6t
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/cheap-food-gives-the-lords-indigestion-6zxgf6t6t
Save
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/cheap-food-gives-the-lords-indigestion-6zxgf6t6t
The House of Lords, when composed entirely of the hereditary peerage, could be relied upon to defend the landed interest against all threats to the value of their estates: agricultural protectionism was its most obvious manifestation. So it was redolent of the battles over the corn laws in the early 19th century when the hereditary peer Lord Grantchester stood up last week to put an amendment to the agriculture bill: his proposal was designed to prevent any government free-trade agreement — such as the one now being negotiated between London and Washington — from licensing the import of food produced by cheaper methods than our own. The principal target, as became clear during the debate, was American “chlorinated” chicken.
Grantchester, whose family’s fortune is calculated to be £1.2bn by the Sunday Times Rich List, has a farm in Cheshire. He is also Labour’s shadow rural affairs minister in the upper house. Backed by his party’s peers, and those representing the Liberal Democrats, his measure resulted in a defeat for the government. It would be hard to find a better demonstration of the Conservative Party’s claim that it, rather than Labour, now more truly represents the workers’ interests.
Actually, a handful of Conservative peers also supported the Labour billionaire’s amendment. One of them, Lady McIntosh, attempted to rebut the point that if British consumers did not want to buy US chicken in their supermarkets, they would only have to see the label identifying the country of origin and avoid it. She referred to the perplexing fact that many British consumers buy cheaper imported pork “produced to lower standards”: “The consumers went out and voted with their feet. They read the label, but they looked at the price and bought the cheaper imports. I do not want to place our consumers in that difficult position.” No, they must be protected from their unfortunate tendency to want to provide their family nutritious food at the least cost.
Lady McIntosh was also frank in admitting the argument that “chlorinated” chicken was less safe to eat than the British equivalent did not stand up to scrutiny: “We must be clear that if anybody in this country were to eat chlorinated chicken, they would not get food poisoning or anything else that was unsafe.” Her complaint was that slaughtered US battery hens are rinsed with an antibacterial solution (in fact it is rarely chlorine) “because of the intensive levels of production”.
The idea that the UK mass-produced chicken enjoys a happier existence than its American counterpart is simultaneously smug and specious. As I wrote three years ago: “Chicken production in the UK is dominated by a handful of companies, carried out in vast artificially lit warehouses, each packed tight with many thousands of genetically engineered avian freaks.”
On Monday, The Times carried a story based on undercover footage at British farms supplying Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lidl: it showed these chickens struggling to remain upright (they are bred to expand at almost 3½oz a day), with some “covered in faeces and ammonia burns from lying in their own waste”. None of the peers supporting Lord Grantchester’s proposal, ostensibly on grounds of avian welfare, referred to this article — though it was published the day before the debate.
They were more influenced, it seems, by an extraordinary piece that appeared last Saturday in the Daily Mail, by the longstanding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, Sheila Dillon. It portrayed this country as a kind of bucolic paradise, about to be laid waste (if US food were allowed to be imported): “British farmers and producers will find it impossible to compete. From the supermarkets to takeaways, this ugly juggernaut of American food will sweep all before it.”
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The BBC presenter went on: “The so-called cheapness of American food is a delusion. These farming methods carry a heavy price in quality and health. A battery chicken is tasteless compared to an organic one.”
For some reason Dillon didn’t mention that more than 95% of the chickens purchased in UK supermarkets are already from battery farms. Or that more than six million acres of American farmland is designated organic. Or that the world’s biggest organic food specialist, Whole Foods, with sales of almost $20bn (£15bn) a year, is American.
As for the claim that small British farms will be wiped from the face of the earth by vast US agricultural conglomerates, why is it, then, that there are still about two million small family-run farms in America? It is true they produce a marginal proportion of the total, but still, according to the US Department of Agriculture: “Family farms (where the majority of the business is owned by the operator and individuals related to the operator) accounted for nearly 98% of US farms in 2018. Small family farms ... accounted for 90% of all US farms.”
In fact, any commercial threat from the most industrialised US agriculture (were a trade deal to be signed that gave them access to our supermarket shelves) would be to those British producers whose practices and methods were most similar. Those who shop at Waitrose for free-range chicken, and make a beeline for anything with the Prince of Wales’s Duchy logo on it, are not going to switch suddenly, or at all, to MegaFarm Inc’s Pop-in-Microwave Chickenburger. The vote in the House of Lords was, in effect, the Waitrose class telling the Tesco class that if they want cheap US food they should jolly well hop on a plane.
Protectionism is not one-way: America currently bans British lamb on spurious health grounds, connected to the BSE scandal. Yet the US is the world’s second-largest importer of lamb and — if a trade deal were to be signed — a great untapped market for our own producers, especially given the high reputation of British lamb.
As it happens, the Commons will probably overturn the Grantchester amendment when the Agriculture Bill returns to the elected chamber. And, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, it has the right to block any US-UK treaty negotiated by the British and American governments. When we were a member of the EU, however, parliament had no power to veto any European trade deal struck with the US.
The Grantchester amendment, which would require US food exporters to “match or exceed” our own agricultural welfare standards, implies British oversight and control of America’s farmers. This pseudo-colonialism would not go down well. Nor will it if the upper house tries the same when the government opens trade negotiations with developing nations formerly part of the British Empire. Food for thought, your lordships.
[email protected]
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Government defeated in Lords over post-Brexit food standards
Peers backed a change to the Agriculture Bill aimed at blocking the import of foodstuffs produced abroad to animal welfare and environmental standards lower than those the UK currently adheres to
It's ambiguous. Who are aiming to block the imports? The peers or the original Bill?
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
It has zero chance of getting through the Commons, it is grandstanding by the peers.
but Hey ho , farmers wanted Brexit so who are we to complain
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
I agree.