Brexit: UK’s trade deals risk rendering efforts to protect environment and animal welfare ‘pointless,’ food tsar warns

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The post-Brexit trade deal Boris Johnson wants will cause such damage to the environment and animal welfare it will make UK efforts to avoid harm “pointless”, his food tsar is warning. “If they do this kind of no-tariff, no-quota deal with Brazil or the US, it would not only export huge amounts of environmental and animal welfare harms – making what we’re doing pointless in this country – but it would lay waste to the livelihoods of a large percentage of our farmers too,” he said. Criticising that secrecy, Mr Dimbleby told BBC Radio 4 the Australia deal “has an animal welfare chapter”, but warned: “We haven’t seen what’s in it.” Announcing the deal last month, the trade secretary Liz Truss repeatedly refused to guarantee that meat treated with antibiotics, or pesticides, will continue to be barred. Ms Truss accused MPs raising fears about antibiotics of demanding “regulatory harmonisation” and saying only: “We are not lowering our food import standards as a result of this deal.” Joe Biden’s administration has slammed the brakes on talks on a US trade deal, but Ms Truss is visiting the country for a week, as UK hopes of progress endure In the Commons, as fears were raised about Brazil allowing the Amazon rainforest to become a “source” of carbon emissions, her deputy Greg Hands said: “We are not currently negotiating a trade agreement with Brazil.” Mr Dimbleby spoke out as Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, suggested the government will reject his proposals for new sugar and salt taxes on junk food.