Brexit secretary Dominic Raab admits food will need to be stockpiled – but stresses there will be “adequate” supply
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has admitted food will have to be stockpiled in the event of a hard Brexit – but insisted there will be "adequate food supply".
During a terse grilling by the Brexit Select Committee, Raab stressed he would not "drip feed out" information, pointing to the "series of technical notices" that are scheduled to be published throughout the summer, "explaining what we are doing to mitigate the risks, while giving the full picture so that whether it's farmers or citizens or other businesses, they understand what their position is and what support we will provide".
Speaking just minutes after Prime Minister Theresa May officially restructured his department, confirming he would be "deputising" for her going forward, Raab promised that government would make sure there was "adequate" food for the country.
"It would be wrong to describe it as the government doing the stockpiling," he said. "What we will make sure, and the idea that we only get food imports from one continent is not appropriate, but we will look at this issue in the round and make sure there is adequate food supply".
During the same back-and-forth, Theresa May's Europe adviser Olly Robbins was forced to play down suggestions he was the power behind the throne.
At one point, committee member and former culture secretary John Whittingdale suggested an unamused Robbins and Raab switch places "because in actual fact you are the Secretary of State and you are being supported by your official sitting next to you".
Robbins repeatedly fended off suggestions that Cabinet ministers had not been properly briefed in the run-up to the Chequers away-day, or that the Brexit white paper that emerged from the summit was a "significant departure" from May's original position.
Asked by Brexiter Peter Bone about a second white paper, widely rumoured to have unseated a parallel paper produced by former Brexit secretary David Davis and his team, Robbins stressed: "There was never a second, secret white paper."