Defra secretary Michael Gove has restated his commitment to greener food and farming in an interview with Andrew Marr.

His discussion on the Andrew Marr Show followed the Defra Secretary’s first interview with a major newspaper since his return to the Cabinet. Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr Gove said he is minded to support better animal welfare legislation (including a ban on live animal exports) in post-Brexit Britain, and to make farming subsidies dependent on fulfilment of environmental goods, rather than based on landownership.  

Questions relating to food and farming were squeezed into the last few minutes of the interview with Marr on Sunday. Asked to guarantee “that our environmental and food standards would not be loosened in any way as a result of leaving the EU and doing free trade deals with other countries, including America” Gove gave a one-word assurance: “Yes,” he said, he will maintain standards.  

The Defra secretary also confirmed that wealthier landowners are set receive less money under the government’s plans for subsidy reform; this followed on from comments in his Sunday Times interview, which pointed to an end to the current area-based distribution of farm payments.

Mr Gove was also challenged on the Tories’ payout to the DUP, which Marr referred to as “a bung”, on public sector pay and the ruling party’s many U-turns enacted since the General Election, when the Conservatives failed to secure a Parliamentary majority.

Even so, small farm groups welcomed the new Environment Secretary’s promises on food and farming. The Landworker’s Alliance (LWA) praised his guarantee to oppose concessions on imports of unlabelled-GMO products, hormone-treated beef and chlorinated chicken into the UK post-Brexit.

Mr Gove’s promise on farm payments came just days after a report released by Greenpeace UK identified that 20 of the UK’s top 100 Basic Payment recipients also feature in the Sunday Times Rich List. The Greenpeace probe revealed that the share of farm payments going to the UK’s richest landowners increased in 2016, with £11.2m in payments going to Rich List landowners in 2016 (up from £10.6m in 2015) despite an overall decline in the amount of money paid out in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).

Despite Mr Gove’s confirmation that farm payments will be reformed, there is still virtually no information available on what kind of payment regime will replace the EU’s CAP system, or what agriculture policy priorities will be in Britain post-Brexit.

Landworkers’ Alliance spokesperson Ed Hamer commented, “We’re delighted that the Secretary of State has set out his position so clearly regarding some of our trade policy concerns. We’re also encouraged that Mr Gove is demonstrating his commitment to high animal welfare and “quality” in both UK food and farming.’

“The Landworkers’ Alliance represents many of the 35,000 CAP recipients in the UK who received less collectively than the £50m paid in direct support to the largest 100 recipients in 2016. We have been campaigning for a number of years for farm support to be allocated more effectively to a broader range of farming models. This announcement is a welcome indication that the Secretary and his Department have indeed been listening and are engaging with the wider farming community.”

In its report on farm payments, Greenpeace noted that, in interview with the Yorkshire Post whilst campaigning ahead of the EU Referendum, Mr Gove expressed very different ideas about farm payments distribution. In 2016, he said there would be “No reduction in what people get from the CAP but what we do want to look at is the bureaucracy which leads to delays in payments”.