Earlier this week, an influential neoliberal think tank released a report on Brexit and food policy.

In the report, authors from Policy Exchange, which was touted as being former Prime Minister David Cameron’s favourite think tank, recommended shifting farm subsidies away from land-based payments to payments designed to support ‘ecosystem services’, and advocated the abolishment of tariffs, which they said would make the UK a free-trade powerhouse.

However, they also acknowledged that removing tariffs would have consequences for the UK’s food safety regime, admitting that it would result in shift from an EU-style approach to food safety, to one they call ‘science-based’, but under which suspect practices and technologies could only be legislated against if there was indisputable “Evidence of demonstrated harm.” Whilst this may sound reasonable on paper, it would prove much more difficult to attribute evidence of harm to one sole practice or unsafe product in reality, as debates over glyphosate, neonicotinoids, DDT and establishing which practices are contributing to developing antibiotic resistance all demonstrate. This is without considering the relative power, wealth and influence of groups on each side of these debates.

The Policy Exchange paper was published less than a fortnight after a paper from three of the UK’s leading food and agriculture academics who warned in their own report that the UK food system is not ready for Brexit. The ‘A Food Brexit’ report (also known as the Three Professors report) warned that there is currently no overarching Government vision for food or agriculture in Britain, yet prices, quality, supply and the environment will all be adversely affected even with a ‘soft’ Brexit.

They highlighted that British consumers have not been informed about the “enormous” implications for their food, a third of which comes from within the European Union, and the disparity in nutrition Brexit stands to reveal; Britain imports fresh, nutritious food from the EU, whilst exporting relatively unhealthy products, predominantly processed and luxury foods and alcohol.

Reacting to the Policy Exchange paper’s recommendations, Professor Erik Millstone from the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex and one of the authors of the Three Professors report, said, “It is not surprising to learn that a Conservative-supporting Think Tank has recommended changing the basis of food safety policy making in the UK post-Brexit in favour of an extreme version of a so-called ‘risk based’ approach.  That is precisely the approach that Owen Paterson advocated when Secretary of State at DEFRA in the coalition government.   The suggestion that the UK should adopt an approach that only restricts products and processes concerning which ‘…evidence of demonstrated harm…’ is available would represent an abrupt shift, not just from current EU approach, but even from the approach adopted by the UK before it joined the EEC.  It is tantamount to insisting that restrictions should only be introduced once harm has been caused, and sufficient harm has been caused for scientists reliably to have traced the source of that harm to a particular product or process.”
 
The Sussex professor of Science Policy continued, “Policy Exchange claims that the EU’s approach has been and remains based on the so-called Precautionary Principle, but that reveals the ignorance of the authors of the Policy Exchange report both on matters of science and on policy.  While the European Commission published a document endorsing precaution in 2000, the guidance in that report has been ‘…more honoured in the breach than in the observance.’ [quoting Hamlet] There are numerous examples where evidence has emerged indicating that currently permitted products and processes may pose significant risks, and even cases where relevant harm has been demonstrated, yet their continued use remains permitted.”  
 
Turning to the recommendations for changes to the subsidy regime, Prof Millstone said, “There are good reasons for wanting a [subsidy] regime that differs significantly from the prevailing Common Agricultural Policy (or CAP).  CAP currently provides the largest subsidies to those who need it least and the least subsidies to those who need it most.  On the other hand, critics such as the authors of the Policy Exchange report fail to appreciate the importance of agricultural subsidies apart from their benefits in terms of environmental protection and ecosystems services.  In the absence of all and any production subsidies, history and policy analysis show that supplies and prices in unregulated agricultural markets are notoriously volatile.” 

He added, “Environmental protection is undoubtedly a public good, but so too are stable supplies and food prices.  The policies recommended by the authors of the Policy Exchange report constitute a recipe for undermining food security in the UK, and are consequently ill-informed and unacceptable.”