Concerns over chlorine-washed chicken potentially holding up a post Brexit UK-US trade deal has been reported in the media after Michael Gove gave evidence to the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove told the committee that the Cabinet had agreed Britain would not relax its food or animal welfare standards in order to secure trade agreements after EU withdrawal.

Environmental concern about a possible American trade deal has highlighted the widespread US process of washing chicken carcasses in chlorinated water, something the EU banned in 1997.

Mr Gove insisted the Government would not backtrack on standards: "We want to have a free trade deal, but, of course, we need to have those protections, and if we can't achieve protections in those areas then any deal will necessarily have a slightly narrower scope."

Pressed on whether the issue of chlorinated chicken could hold up the UK-US trade deal, Mr Gove said: "Yes".

The remarks come after International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said there is no health issue with chlorine-washed chicken, insisting the matter would only be "a detail of the very end stage of one sector of a potential free trade agreement".

Mr Gove told the committee he was working so closely on EU withdrawal issues with Dr Fox and Brexit Secretary David Davis that they were "brothers from a different mother".

Campaigners say allowing chlorine-washed chickens encourages poor hygiene in farms and abattoirs as workers rely on the chemical to rinse the meat of harmful substances at the end of the slaughtering process

The Environment Secretary promised the interests of Britain's farming and fishing industries would not be downgraded during Brexit negotiations in favour of the City of London.

Asked if agriculture and fisheries would be "sold out" to Brussels in order to get a more lucrative deal for the financial sector in EU withdrawal talks, Mr Gove said: "Absolutely not.

"In the conversations that I have had with Cabinet colleagues so far there is a deep appreciation that it is not just the case that agriculture matters because food and drink is our biggest manufacturing sector, it goes far beyond that.

"There are specific opportunities for agriculture and fisheries outside the European Union, greater than perhaps any other sector for a potentially rapid growth."