When the now Environment Secretary was on the backbenches in 2019, he tabled an amendment to the Agriculture Bill to try to protect the UK’s high animal welfare and food hygiene standards by banning the sale of lower standard foods such as chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-injected beef.

Labour today tabled the exact same amendment to the government’s new bill but Eustice voted it down.

Other Tory MPs, including Farming Minister Victoria Prentis, also voted against it.

Luke Pollard MP, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, said:

“This government is in chaos. Labour used the exact same text put forward by the Secretary of State when he was a backbencher, that would have protected our food standards. Now he and the Tories have voted it down.

“The Conservatives are tying themselves in knots to get a damaging trade deal with Donald Trump, whatever the cost.

“If this amendment was good enough for the Environment Secretary when he wrote it, why does he now oppose it?”