Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the White Paper entitled The future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, publish in July 2018, Cm 9593, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect on innovation within UK agriculture of ongoing harmonisation under a common rulebook set out in that white paper.

Our proposal for a common rulebook, as part of a free trade area for goods, would cover only those rules for products that must be checked at the border. It does not cover other rules where we want regulatory flexibility in order to help our sectors to innovate and flourish. In this regard we have already announced that we will be leaving the Common Agricultural Policy and introducing a new agricultural policy that works in the best interests of land managers in England.