Agricultural Sector: Import Standards

Charlie Dewhirst Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)]

I will start by setting the scene to explain why we import so much food and why we are not self-sufficient.

We are never going to be self-sufficient in food—certainly not in bananas or avocados, but not in some meat sectors either. Although we produce very large quantities of lamb and beef, we are only 58% self-sufficient in pork; I think the figure is a little higher in poultry. If we were 100% self-sufficient in pork, we would have to export so much more to achieve a carcase balance and achieve value for the farmer from the pig that it would be quite a challenge. As a great nation of bacon butty lovers, we eat a lot of bacon, to the extent that we have to import a certain amount. We are therefore exporting other cuts of a pig, such as belly pork to Europe and fifth quarter to China. That all adds value and achieves a better price for our hard-working farmers.

It is important to point out that the sanitary and phytosanitary agreements that we have been talking about do not cover some of the welfare issues that we have discussed, which are separate. The challenge of those agreements, as our trade negotiators are very aware, is that a country can fall foul of World Trade Organisation rules by telling another country what welfare standards it expects it to employ, so it can find itself in difficulties. In making any trade agreements with other countries, we need to be conscious that we should allow market access only where we are satisfied that welfare standards have been met.

At the moment, when it comes to EU-UK import-export relations and livestock and meat, we are at a relatively similar welfare standard. I mean no criticism of the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling)—it is all quite technical—but sow stalls are not the same as farrowing crates. The sow stall ban in 1999 was a challenge because the EU did not implement it immediately, and that caused us a lot of problems. Farrowing crates are a topic of conversation at the moment. They are part of the animal welfare strategy that the Government have published, and the industry has been working very closely on them for a number of years. About 60,000 traditional farrowing crates are in place in the UK. To convert to a free farrowing system would require planning permission; the crates cannot just be pulled out and replaced. It will be a huge challenge.

I am sure that the Minister is aware that the issue with the sow stall ban in 1999 was that there was not a sufficient transition period. I hesitate to say this, but I think she is experienced enough to have been here at the time. [Interruption.] Yes, she was here at the time. We lost 50% of the British pig industry. That did not mean that we ate 50% less pork; it meant that we imported a load more from abroad.

Whatever happens and whatever measures are taken on pigs, poultry or anything else, it is really important that we do not reduce our domestic food production, lower our food security, reduce British jobs in farming and replace them with jobs abroad and meat produced abroad, often to standards that we would not like. That will be a key issue as the Government take forward their animal welfare strategy. They must ensure that we do not diverge from or move too far ahead of European Union producers, because we are reliant on a huge amount of meat from the European Union. If we put greater production costs on our farmers, we will disadvantage them and naturally they will be displaced. It is a really important issue.

The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire was right to raise the US. The US still has sow stalls, which were banned in this country 27 years ago. The US does not have ambitious targets to reduce antibiotics, as we do. The UK pig industry has reduced antibiotics by 69% since 2015, so we have been making real progress without the intervention of Government, and there is a recognition that we need to use fewer antibiotics. The issue is that it adds costs and lowers production levels because producers are not able to use outdated methods, particularly sow stalls. That puts us at a disadvantage with some trading partners.

In my previous life, before being elected to this place, I was closely involved with the negotiations on the Canada deal. That was a similar challenge: Canada has methods that we would not accept in certain areas. In the Australia deal, pigs were not included at all because we felt that the welfare standards were not sufficiently high enough for us to import them. The Minister is definitely aware of that. It is important that we all work together to ensure that in any moves we make on trade and food imports, we are always mindful of protecting the great British farmer.

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[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this vital debate and for his thoughtful speech, and I extend that to other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, too. It is an important opportunity for us to consider an issue that sits at the intersection of the food we eat, trade, animal welfare and the sustainability of our rural economy.

The UK’s post-Brexit free trade agreements have rightly opened up new opportunities for British exporters, but they have also raised concerns about how imports are produced, particularly as we look to increase our welfare ambitions. By cutting tariffs on agricultural products from partner countries, those deals can unintentionally allow products to enter the UK that are produced to far lower animal welfare or environmental standards than those expected of our farmers. These are not minor issues; they go to the heart of how we support our brilliant domestic producers and how we maintain public confidence in the food we eat.

Practices that are banned or tightly regulated in the UK—conventional battery cages for hens, sow stalls, tail docking of pigs, and certain pesticides—remain permitted elsewhere, and those products inevitably end up on our supermarket shelves. Without clear protections, imports produced in that way risk undercutting our farmers, and they undermine the principle that high welfare production should be the norm, not just for British producers.

The Trade and Agriculture Commission, which advises the Government on trade deals, has highlighted those differences and warned that they have both ethical and economic consequences. British farmers investing in high-welfare sustainable production should not be left competing on an uneven playing field against imports produced more cheaply by cutting corners. That applies to raw materials as well as finished products.

On Tuesday, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that I sit on heard from the formidable Baroness Batters about her profitability review. She mentioned a comment made by Sir Liam Fox, who, as Trade Secretary, argued that the UK should shift post Brexit to importing cheaply produced raw materials and then add value to them under the Union flag. I agree with Baroness Batters that we should reject that reductive view of the value of the excellent raw materials that our British farmers produce. We should be proud of and protect them.

Many organisations, including the National Farmers Union and the National Pig Association, have called for core standards for imported agrifood products. These standards would ensure that all food sold in the UK, whether domestic or imported, meets the welfare, environmental and production standards expected by the British public. It is entirely reasonable for consumers to expect that pork, beef, eggs or poultry produced abroad meet very similar, or the same, requirements as those produced here.

Two other realities that we have to confront in this debate and which the all-party parliamentary group on UK food security, which I chair, has discussed at length are the cost of food and keeping our shelves stocked. As someone who represents a constituency with pockets of deep deprivation, including neighbourhoods that are among the 5% most deprived in the country, I am concerned that a rapid move to equalise all import standards could have a knock-on effect on food prices, which, as I am sure hon. Members right across the House will be aware, have been very high, particularly over the last five years. Equally, we do not want to see a repeat of the empty shelves that we all remember from the pandemic, which brought home the fragility of just-in-time food supply chains when unexpected disruption hits. As my hon. Friend said, these issues are interlinked, and the more we undermine our domestic supply, the more prices will go up and the more reliant we will become on overseas imports.

The Government have recognised these varied concerns. In the trade strategy published last June, it was clear that the Government will uphold high animal welfare standards and will not lower food standards to accommodate imports. It explicitly acknowledged practices that are not allowed domestically, such as sow stalls and battery cages, and committed to assessing whether those imports have an unfair advantage. I hope it will find that they do.

Where necessary, powers such as quotas, exclusions and safeguards will be used to protect domestic sectors that are most at risk. That approach is welcome. It strikes a balance between maintaining the benefits of free trade and ensuring that British farmers are not undermined. But as we have seen in previous trade deals, including in discussions with the United States, it is vital that those protections are clear, enforceable and applied consistently. Without them, we risk creating a market where the lowest welfare products set the price and not the highest standards.

Equally important is transparency for consumers. Recent polling by Opinium for Humane World for Animals shows that the British public often misunderstand what products labelled as, for example, “welfare assured” or that carry the Red Tractor logo actually guarantee. For example, 65% of people incorrectly believe that “welfare assured” prohibits keeping pigs and chickens in cages and 67% believe it prohibits the use of CO₂ for slaughter. If consumers discovered that labelling does not match the reality they think it does, nearly half would feel misled, angry or disappointed.

Mandatory labelling is vital. It will protect consumers, support domestic producers and ensure that imported products adhere to the same high standards—or at least that we can see if they do not. Public support for stronger labelling measures is overwhelming, with 77% backing a new animal welfare labelling law and three quarters supporting stricter enforcement by trading standards and the Advertising Standards Authority to prevent misleading claims.

I acknowledge that getting labelling right will require many tricky balances, and that there is only so much space on a packet. I do not downplay those issues, but by combining robust import standards with transparent labelling, the Government could ensure that trade works for farmers, for animals and for consumers alike, reinforcing confidence in the British food system while maintaining fairness and ethical standards.

[Charlie Dewhirst]

The hon. Member highlights an important point about the challenges of potential welfare labelling. If imports are not labelled in the same way, as they probably would not be, British producers could be put at a disadvantage when it comes to what a consumer might think about how something has been produced. We must be conscious of that.

[Josh Newbury]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to be careful how labelling will affect imported goods and therefore what the consumer sees in the supermarket. My take is that, if we educate consumers on the labelling for our standards and, if those labels are absent, what the implications might be for imported products, we can better inform them and protect our domestic producers. That will inevitably have to go along- side any improved labelling for our products.