Farmers Weekly reports that farm leaders have expressed disbelief after the chair of the company behind the Red Tractor Assurance scheme voted against measures aimed at protecting British farmers from cheap food imports post Brexit.
Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe was appointed as chair of Assured Food Standards (ASF), the company which owns Red Tractor Assurance, in November 2017.
She joined the House of Lords as a Conservative peer in October 2013.
In the House of Lords on Tuesday (20 October), peers voted on important amendments to insert powers in the Agriculture Bill, which aim to protect British farmers from future trade deals that risk flooding the UK market with cheap food imports.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe voted against the Lord Curry amendment 18B requiring the new Trade and Agriculture Commission to submit reports on international trade agreements and their effect on farming for parliamentary scrutiny.
She also voted against the second amendment by Labor peer Lord Grantchester, which seeks to strengthen food standards for imported food, to ensure they meet relevant UK food standards after the Brexit transition ends.
The government was defeated on both votes, with a number of Conservative peers backing the farming industry. The bill will now return to the House of Commons on 4 November when MPs will be under pressure to accept the amendments.
Further reading
- Cheap food culture creates slavery in supply chains
- Cheap food is no longer a tenable economic model, academic tells Oxford Farming Conference
- England’s National Food Strategy – over to you, Scotland
