‘Hormone beef’ and ‘chlorine chicken’ – DUP pledge to go against government on food law

It takes the form of an amendment to the Agriculture Bill, which was tacked onto the bill by the House of Lords.

The government is expected to resist the amendment, arguing that it could hurt trade with developing nations.

Tonight the DUP issued a statement from its Westminster farming spokeswoman Carla Lockhart, saying “my party colleagues and I will be voting in support of the House of Lords amendment aimed at protecting the high food standards we enjoy... we must not let food production, animal welfare and environmental standards that our farmers and agri-food industry adhere to be undermined by imports that do not meet these world-leading standards”.

She added that to do so would “severely disadvantage our farmers who pay a significant price to ensure our food is safe, traceable and the very highest of standards”.

She also said she is suspicious that the government is only concerned with paying “lip service” to maintaining the UK’s food standards post-Brexit, and its opposition to the amendment is evidence of its willingness to allow “cheap, substandard” imports.

For years UK farmers have been hearing speculation about Brexit lowering food standards, with the examples cited often being imports of US chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef.

Labour also looks likely to support the amendment, but Tory trade minister Liz Truss said yesterday that to do so would be “to ban Kenyans from exporting their products to us if they don’t follow exactly the same farm standards... I don’t want to stop developing countries exporting their goods to us”.

The debate is set to take place sometime after 2.30pm on Monday in the Commons.

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