George Eustice MP recent speeches
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We have a manifesto commitment that, in all our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental, animal welfare and food standards. We have retained in law our existing standards of protection. We have laid before the House our negotiating objectives, stating that we will uphold those, and we most recently established the Trade and Agriculture Commission.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: In retained EU law, we have indeed put in place the existing prohibitions on the sale of, for instance, poultry washed with chlorine and beef treated with hormones. We have legal prohibitions and our own legal bans on certain practices. Those remain in place and will not change.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: Tony Abbott is one of a number of people on the Board of Trade. Their role is to champion British exports overseas. They do not decide Government policy or the Government’s negotiating mandate; those negotiations are led by the Secretary of State for International Trade. We have set up a food and agriculture and trade standards commission. That has been done and it is already meeting. It...
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: There are a number of ways in which we secure standards on food imports. One is through the prohibitions on sale, as I have already mentioned, which include things such as poultry washed with chlorine or hormones in beef. There is the sanitary and phytosanitary chapter that exists in every trade deal that sets out our requirements for food safety and food standards of food coming in. Finally,...
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: There will be no need for compensation as this Government will protect and uphold our food standards.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Food Production Standards (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We will not rejoin the EU’s scheme, but the withdrawal agreement makes provision in the area of protected food names and PGI s, and there will be recognition of the existing ones that have been set out. In addition, we will be establishing our own independent PGI and protected food name scheme to take new applications after we leave.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: UK-grown Produce (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: The Government are determined to help our farmers and food producers to increase sales domestically and internationally. We welcome efforts from all parts of the food chain to promote UK produce, including the promotional work done by groups like the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. We have recently co-funded a consumer-facing milk campaign. We continue to work with the AHDB...
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: UK-grown Produce (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: I do agree with my hon. Friend. The use of tariff policy to protect producers and to safeguard against certain types of production is indeed a legitimate use of tariff policy, alongside other measures such as the sanitary and phytosanitary chapter that we are negotiating.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Healthy and Sustainable Food (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We have commissioned the national food strategy independent review. Other Government policies are addressing healthy food provision, including the tackling obesity strategy, healthy start vouchers and free school meals. Sustainable food production is absolutely at the heart of our future agriculture policy.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Healthy and Sustainable Food (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We have put in place a number of interventions to help people struggling with food affordability, particularly in lockdown and its aftermath. We continue to keep all these policies under review. We have the free school meals voucher system that ran, as the hon. Gentleman says, over the summer, and there are other measures that we have been working on with local authorities.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Smaller Farmers: Supermarket Prices (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We want farmers to get a fair price for their produce, and the Government are committed to tackling the contractual unfairness that exists in the agrifood supply chain. Through the Agriculture Bill, we are seeking to strengthen the position of farmers by improving transparency in the supply chain, and there are new powers in the Bill to introduce statutory codes of contractual practice.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Smaller Farmers: Supermarket Prices (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this issue in more detail. We now have in place the groceries code adjudicator, which regulates the types of contracts that supermarkets can put in place and precludes certain practices, but through the Agriculture Bill, we can go further and stipulate further requirements in contracts in future.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: As we approach the end of the transition period, DEFRA’s primary focus will be on putting in place all the necessary legislation for January, working with industry to ensure that we are ready for change, and putting in place the necessary capacity to enable us to deliver a smooth transition to becoming an independent country.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: The Environment Agency has completed capital schemes to reduce flood risk at Shoreham, Littlehampton and Arundel. Three maintenance projects on the Arun are due to be completed before winter, on the River Stor and at Greatham and Hardham.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We are already running our own reviews in those policy areas through the national food strategy, which is run by Henry Dimbleby. Indeed, the powers in the Agriculture Bill give us precisely the ability to support local projects.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: The Government recognise that sugar beet growers face yield losses this year because of the difficulties in controlling aphids. We support the restrictions on neonicotinoids to protect pollinators, but we have always been clear that we remain open to applications for emergency authorisations under the current rules.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We are always open to recommendations, suggestions and proposals from people in all walks of life, whether they are on any type of formal committee or not. The point I was making was that we have our own national food strategy, which is itself running a large engagement process to engage people in many of these ideas. We will of course consider those ideas as we put together future policy.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these issues. But since 2010, the Government have invested £181 million in flood defences in Lancashire to better protect about 37,000 homes, and over the next two years the Government plan to invest a further £21.6 million to support inland fluvial and coastal defence schemes, and better protect nearly 5,000 homes.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: We work closely with FareShare, as we always have. As the hon. Gentleman points out, we did make available some additional funding to help it to support the financially vulnerable during this pandemic. Obviously, as we go into winter we keep all these matters under review.
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Topical Questions (10 Sep 2020)George Eustice: My hon. Friend raises an important point. In our response to the Godfrey review, we set out our approach to dealing with bovine tuberculosis in the next five years. In response to the specific question, we look at epidemiological assessments in individual areas to see where particular strains are present in both badgers and cattle, and that drives the decisions about where culling is necessary.
