Torridge District Council has voted to expresses its anger and disappointment after the Government voted against protecting farmers and food standards in the Agriculture Bill currently making its way through the House of Commons.

The bill is designed to prepare the farming industry for post-Brexit next year when the UK no longer has to follow EU laws and rules.

However peers in the House of Lord are calling for a number of changes to the draft law to make it impossible for the US or other countries to export so-called chlorinated chicken or beef fattened with hormones in the new free trade era.

However, MPs voted by 332 votes to 279 to back Government plans to reject the amendment when it came before Parliament on October 12, among them Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox and Central Devon MP Mel Stride.

At Torridge District Council’s full council meeting last week, Liberal Democract group leader Cllr Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, called on the authority to write to the local MPs to have a change of heart and back the Lords’ amendments before the bill went back to the Commons for its third reading last night (November 4).

Cllr Cottle-Hunkin said: ‘I come from a farming family. We have been farmers for generations and I hope to take on the farm in the future, and would like to think that one of my children might be interested in doing the same. But this isn’t just about farmers, this is about everyone who eats food, and that is us all.

‘Our Government promised us that in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. The Government now has the opportunity to take this promise, and enshrine it in law through the Agriculture Bill, as recommended by the House of Lords, yet they are failing to do so.

‘The Agriculture Bill has been “ping-ponging” between the House of Lords and the House of Commons and will go back to the Commons on November 4 when MPs will be asked for a third time to stand up for British Farmers by voting for amendments to support our high standards.

‘At the last vote, 16 Conservative MPs put their heads above the parapet and rebelled, including MP for Tiverton and Honiton Neil Parish, a former dairy farmer and chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, MP for North Dorset Simon Hoare, and vet and MP for Penrith and The Border Dr Neil Hudson.  But we need more MPs to put their communities first and do the same this time.

She added: ‘The current bill leaves the door open to our domestic standards being undercut in new trade deals. It risks letting in cheaper agricultural imports, undercutting the high-welfare, healthy food our farmers produce, as well as their competitiveness.

‘This is not just about hormone-treated beef and chlorine-washed chicken, but also matters such as stocking densities, battery cages, antibiotic use, pesticides, fungicides and more.

‘At present we risk being sold out, and there’s the possibility we could let in lower-quality food to clinch a trade deal, which is why it must be ruled out and the amendment to the Agriculture Bill must be agreed.’

Cllr Chris Leather dismissed Cllr Cottle-Hunkin’s appeal to ‘save British farming’ as a political statement being made by the Liberal Democrats.

However councillors nonetheless voted by 20 votes to five, with ten abstentions, to support the motion that will see Torridge District Council express its anger and disappointment on the Government’s decision to vote against protecting food standards in the Agriculture Bill.

The council will also be asking MPs, including their own MP Geoffrey Cox to back the amendments.