We are lucky to have some of the best farms and the most hardworking farmers in our constituency and I know they work especially hard when it comes to setting high food, animal welfare and environmental standards.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been meeting with a number of our farmers and feeding back their comments on the future of agriculture and trade agreements directly to ministers. This month I am hosting a roundtable discussion with the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food and some of our local farmers and the NFU, I will be ensuring their voice continues to be heard in Westminster and their interests are secured.
I am also thrilled that following my discussions with ministers, we have been able to strengthen and secure the future of the UK’s high standards through changes called for by local farmers to both the Agriculture Bill and Trade Bill:
The new Trade and Agriculture Commission will now play an active role in analysing every new free trade deal from 1st January 
The Commission will analyse and write a report on each of these trade deals, focusing on how they relate to animal welfare and agriculture 
We have tabled an amendment to the Agriculture Bill to boost Parliamentary scrutiny of new trade deals
The Government will now have a duty to report to Parliament and demonstrate how each trade deal meets our commitments on standards 
It is so important that agriculture and food standards are at the heart of our future policymaking, so I was pleased to get, yet again, unequivocal commitments to uphold standards across the board. As I have previously clarified, this means things such as chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef will remain illegal and they will not be negotiated as part of any trade agreement.
