A RYEDALE councillor has criticised Ryedale’s MP for voting against a motion to maintain environmental protection principles in the UK following Brexit.

In a letter to the MP Kevin Hollinrake, Cllr Derek Chapman of Kirkbymoorside Town Council said: “Voting for environmental protection would be to vote for the protection of our British high standards for food and farming, for the protection of our countryside, for public health protection.

“Our farmers, specifically smaller farmers, face a raft of uncertainties in the coming years. For our Government to allow British environmental standards to fall during the Brexit transition would be negligent, and absolutely unacceptable.

“Do not allow us to join a negligent ‘race to the bottom’ of global agricultural norms, while courting environmental neglect.”

The amendment to the EU Withdrawal Act was tabled by Lord Krebs in the House of Lords on May 16. At the time, Lord Krebs said: “We have heard many times that the purpose of the Bill is to ensure that everything is the same the day after Brexit as it was the day before, yet for environmental protection things will not be the same.

“We are talking here about ?protection of our air quality, water quality, rivers, oceans, habitats and biodiversity.

“That is because, although the rules for protecting our environment will be translated into UK legislation, crucially, the environmental principles underpinning those rules will not and, furthermore, the current mechanisms for enforcing the rules will disappear and not be replaced.

“If approved, the amendment would fill those gaps and so ensure that, as intended, the protection of our environment after Brexit will indeed remain the same as it is now.”

The principles in EU law Lord Krebs referred to included the so-called "precautionary principle" and the "polluter pays principle".

But Mr Hollinrake said that the amendment would have been “insufficient” to achieve its aims, and that there will be a Bill on environmental principles to be published in the autumn.

Mr Hollinrake said: “The EU (Withdrawal) Act converts all EU environmental law into UK law when we leave the Union next year.

“A consultation has already been launched on environmental principles and governance and it proposes a new Environmental Principles and Governance Bill to ensure that environmental principles, such as the ‘polluter pays’ and the ‘precautionary principle’ are embedded into UK law.

“The Bill would also create a world-leading, independent environmental watchdog to hold the Government to account.

“I did not believe that Lord Krebs’s amendment would have been sufficient to achieve its laudable aims and I did not support it for that reason.

“However, I did support another amendment which puts a legal obligation on the Government to publish an Environmental Principles Bill containing nine environmental principles within six months of the EU (Withdrawal) Act becoming law.”

According to the Hansard record, the Krebs amendment was disagreed to in the House of Commons on June 13 with 320 votes against 296.