Priti Patel, the Member of Parliament for Witham, joined Farming Minister Mark Spencer on a visit to local business King’s Seeds, which is based at Monk’s Farm just outside of Kelvedon, on Thursday 2nd May.
The visit follows on from Priti’s initial meeting with the business in January, where she discussed the challenge they were facing with selling mail order seed to home and hobby customers in Northern Ireland.
Following the meeting, Priti raised the issue with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), including at Defra oral questions on the 1st of February and in Northern Ireland questions on the 26th of February, and invited the minister to visit the business to hear first-hand the problems they were encountering following implementation of the Windsor Framework.
Due to policy implementation issues associated with the framework, Kings Seeds is currently unable to sell their products directly to home gardeners in Northern Ireland. During their visit, Andrew gave the Minister a tour of the business, before sitting down for a productive discussion about the issues they have been encountering with selling directly to customers in Northern Ireland.
Priti said: “It was great to be able to welcome the Farming Minister to the constituency, and follow up on the issues I have raised with him on behalf of Kings Seeds relating to the sale of mail order seed directly to customers in Northern Ireland. Kings Seeds are a fantastic business with longstanding roots in the Kelvedon community, and I will continue to support them on this important issue.”
