8. What assurances has the First Minister had from the UK Government that Brexit won't be used to water down food standards currently guaranteed by our membership of the EU? OAQ(5)0439(FM)

These are, of course, devolved. It’ll be a matter for this Assembly to decide what happens with food standards. I know that the Minister for Social Services and Public Health recently met with the chair of the Food Standards Agency. We, of course, effectively, buy in to the services of the Food Standards Agency. They are committed to ensuring that the exit from the EU will not compromise the UK’s first-class food safety standards, built up after many years of problems in the past, of course.

Unfortunately, there are villains across the world who are keen to penetrate any weaknesses in our defences on this matter. We can remember the horse burger scandal. What I’m concerned about is that Theresa May seems hellbent on a deal of some sort with the United States, which has much lower standards of food provenance than this country or any other part of the European Union. So, what assurances have we had from the UK Government that they will bear in mind the important role that the European food standards agency plays in ensuring that the labelling on food is what is says it is, and that we are absolutely up to the mark in terms of identifying adulterated food that might come onto the market otherwise?

It is the case that, during the second world war, American forces wouldn’t use British abattoirs, as their standards were seen to be too low. In the 1990s, I had a bit of a sideline as a lawyer in prosecuting abattoirs and the standards were beyond description in some of them. What we have now, of course, is practice that is world leading, practice that other countries have certainly been following, and practices that mean that our food is amongst the safest in the world. We should not play around with that hard-earned and hard-won status. We will make sure, in terms of our devolved competence, that food standards are not lowered here in Wales.

Thank you, First Minister.