Agriculture: Regulation
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce regulation for farmers.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
Farm regulation provides important protections for the environment, habitats, animals, and public health. For example, it is helping reduce animal disease risk from BtB, avian flu and Foot and Mouth amongst others as we speak, this maintains confidence in our farm produce in both international and domestic markets as well as protecting the profitability of farmers.
If regulation is working well, it should provide clear and fair expectations, allowing farmers to operate their businesses with confidence. However, this is not the case currently with all farm regulation that has been left over to the new Government. This is why I have asked Defra to review farm regulation, focussing on how it can be more coherent, less time consuming and easier to understand for farmers under this new Government. I have also asked all Defra regulators how they are supporting growth.
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