Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom, who announced fresh plans to scrap ‘red tape’ in her address to the Oxford Farming Conference on Wednesday, has been criticised by her political rivals. MEPs warned that her plans to abandon greening measures introduced as part of the last Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) reform process confirm environmentalists’ “worst fears” about the Brexiteer’s plans for farm policy after Britain leaves the EU.

Responding to speeches at the Oxford Farming Conference by Leadsom, in which the Defra secretary promised to scrap ‘red tape’ - she identified regulations associated with EU rules and farm inspections as initial targets - but offered little concrete information on what farmers can expect as Brexit unfolds, the Lib Dems’ Defra spokesperson Kate Parminter said, ”Andrea Leadsom has said nothing about the two most important questions facing UK farmers - whether they will still have access to the single market and what subsidies they can expect to receive post-2020.”

The Scottish National Party's Defra Spokesperson Calum Kerr replied to Leadsom’s claims that Britain’s withdrawal from Europe would allow for a better, more tailored agricultural policy for the UK, and farming minister George Eustice’s subsequent promise of a UK-wide policy framework for farming. Kerr demanded different policies for the UK’s devolved nations and said, “Repatriation of powers shouldn’t mean powers move from Brussels to London.”

Slamming the lack of information from Defra on post-Brexit policy, he said, “Hope is not a strategy. There are big, fundamental questions to be addressed.”

Meanwhile, reacting to the fresh assault on ‘red tape’, which will begin with abandoning EU regulations, but may go further as Defra has announced plans to consult with industry this year to identify areas where more regulation could be cut, Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West and a member of the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee, said, “Our worst fears about a post-Brexit farming landscape are being realised. Rather than using the opportunities offered by Brexit to encourage a move towards a diverse and ecologically sustainable farming system this government seem determined to dive headlong into encouraging damaging monocultures.”

Scott-Cato said, “The attack on the three crop rule shows Leadsom is set on shredding measures aimed at safeguarding our soils, protecting habitats and utilizing farmland for capturing and storing carbon.”

The Green Party’s domestic agriculture spokesperson, Oliver Dowding, who is also a farmer, said, “Leadsom is floundering in a vacuous void just at a time when farmers need reassurance. Her government has no plan for agriculture post-Brexit. For instance, there is deep uncertainty on whether we will remain in the single market, or whether farmers will face tariffs on their exports.

“But we need a farming system that looks beyond selling and exporting. We need a long-term policy based on protecting our soils, promoting the health and wellbeing of consumers and encouraging biodiversity.”

Rachael Maskell MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said, “Despite some warm words from Andrea Leadsom today, her department’s continued failure to outline a plan for Brexit is deeply disappointing. Rural communities, and the farming and fishing industries that help sustain them, deserve better.

“What’s more, as the Environmental Audit Committee highlights, the Government’s silence on whether important EU environmental protection laws will be maintained is also a matter of serious concern. No matter where they live, people in this country deserve legal protections for their right to clean air and water, and I continue to urge the Government to guarantee that existing levels of protection will not be watered down.”

As Leadsom was speaking in Oxford, the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee released a report pushing for a new Environmental Protection Act for the UK, post Brexit, as a third of environment legislation won’t be directly transferable from EU to UK law. The report also warns about the impacts Brexit will have on farmers.

In October, Lords on the Environment Sub-Committee warned against using Brexit as an opportunity for deregulation, noting this would affect trade, especially with Europe, and damage Britain’s environment which is already in poor condition. UK soils are being degraded at an alarming rate, with no legal protection and no monitoring, experts fear there are fewer than 100 harvests left in our soils, and our wild species are in free-fall;  Of 218 countries worldwide whose biodiversity has been thoroughly assessed, the UK is ranked 189, way down at the bottom of the scale.

Lords on the Committee who were part of ‘red tape’ task forces, charged with identifying unnecessary legislation and dismantling quangos after the Coalition government came to power in 2010, acknowledged that they had been hard pressed to find any British legislation that went beyond the minimum European standards.