After almost 30 hours of committee meetings, today was the last line-by-line scrutiny session of the Agriculture Bill. In that time, I’ve tabled and spoken to a number of amendments that I thought would’ve substantially improved the Bill, from supporting nature and climate-friendly farming to tackling food insecurity and hunger.

Sadly, the Government rejected every amendment that I and the Labour frontbench team put down. That’s the unfortunate reality of the new parliamentary arithmetic. The Bill will now return to the House of Commons chamber for report stage and third reading, where I intend to renew my call for an amendment that would prevent the import of low-quality food such as chlorinated chicken.

You can read my latest thinking about the future of food and farming in my article for the Farmers Guardian linked below.

https://www.fginsight.com/brexit-hub/brexit—politician-analysis/the-house-of-lords-will-test-the-governments-commitment-to-standards-protection-106279?fbclid=IwAR0SbiJOe9GKHWpku7N0hYc6t1vKc5n3ATuyG5lGFRZ8my5Zci3YVwLGtuw