An example of disruptive thinking in Whitehall, and it doesn’t get more disruptive than this ! – Owl.

One of the Government’s most senior officials has made the incendiary suggestion that Britain does not need its own farming industry.

Glen Owen www.dailymail.co.uk 

One of the Government’s most senior officials has made the incendiary suggestion that Britain does not need its own farming industry.

In leaked emails obtained by The Mail on Sunday, powerful Treasury adviser Tim Leunig argues that the food sector is not ‘critically important’ to the economy – and that agriculture and fishery production ‘certainly isn’t’. 

In his astonishing remarks – which comes as the UK prepares to enter crunch post-Brexit trade talks with Donald Trump – Dr Leunig implies that the UK could follow the example of Singapore ‘which is rich without having its own agricultural sector’.

Dr Leunig is a long-standing colleague of Boris Johnson‘s No 10 enforcer Dominic Cummings, and his intervention exemplifies the radical thinking within Boris Johnson’s inner circle against bastions of the Establishment such as the Civil Service and the BBC.

A senior economic adviser to new Chancellor Rishi Sunak has argued that Britain could become ‘like Singapore’ and import all our food.

In his controversial comments, he also suggests farmers should not be given tax breaks denied to other industries.

Last night, a bullish Boris Johnson said: ‘We have the best negotiators in the business.’ And he vowed to ‘drive a hard bargain’ with President Donald Trump which would trade ‘Scottish smoked salmon for Stetson hats’.

Dr Leunig, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, who also holds advisory positions in the Education and Environment Departments, made his arguments in emails sent last week to the National Food Strategy, the Government’s wholesale review of the British food system.

He wrote: ‘Food sector isn’t critically important to the UK, and ag[riculture] and fish production certainly isn’t’. He pointed to figures suggesting that it adds just 0.5 per cent in extra value to the economy.

Dr Leunig then questioned the special tax breaks given to farmers, saying: ‘We know that supermarkets also make very little, and that lots of restaurants go bust.

When he was challenged by fellow members of the review’s advisory panel, he responded: ‘All I am saying is that, as a logical possibility, a nation (or region) can import stuff. We see that in many places for many goods and services. Singapore imports (almost) all its food, Germany all its oil, Japan all its planes and all its oil, Australia and New Zealand import all their cars, all their planes and all their oil, while Iceland imports oil, cars, planes and graduate-level education.’

Last night, a senior industry insider said: ‘The UK is a fantastic place to produce food and we have some of the highest standards in the world. In a trade deal with the US, we face the prospect of imports of food produced to standards that would be illegal for our own farmers to employ. Why would any adviser to Government seek to decimate our own farming sector?

‘Surely the first duties of any Government should be to defend and feed its people. It seems to me that a country that cannot feed itself is no country at all.’

But a Government spokesman said that Dr Leunig’s comments were ‘not Government policy’.

International Trade Secretary Liz Truss will tomorrow announce the UK’s negotiating objectives for a transatlantic trade deal, and is set to say it must ‘uphold our high standards on food safety and animal welfare’ as well as protect the NHS.

The National Farmers’ Union has been pressing the Government not to relax standards, saying it would be ‘morally bankrupt’ to allow chemically cleaned poultry, hormone-treated beef and genetically modified fruit and vegetables.

The union said it would be ‘insane’ to sign a trade deal on that basis.

Tim Leuing most controversial policy idea – until today – was to pull all Government support from ‘failed’ Northern cities and encourage the inhabitants to migrate South.

‘Barmy,’ said a furious David Cameron, who was Tory leader when Dr Leunig floated it in a think-tank report in 2008. ‘Rubbish from start to finish.’

Mr Cameron added: ‘I hear he is off to Australia. The sooner he gets on the ship, the better.’

But Dr Leunig was not planning to emigrate – and four years later he sailed into the heart of Mr Cameron’s Government as an adviser to Michael Gove.

He now holds an unusually powerful position in Whitehall, with footholds in the departments of Education, the Environment and the Treasury, where he became economic adviser to the Chancellor just weeks after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister last summer……….  

[Article continues in this vein – if you are at a loose end this weekend, read on – Owl]