SCOTTISH beef exporters were celebrating yesterday after it was confirmed that Scotland and Northern Ireland have been given the lowest risk level status available for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

The confirmation is expected to help open international market access for beef exports outside of the EU.

It was part of a double boost for Scottish agriculture as UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced that the Westminster Government would not allow chlorine-washed chickens into Britain under a US-UK trade deal.

Chlorinated chicken was banned by the European Union, and Scottish poultry farmers feared their markets would be swamped by American imports.

The US was one of the countries that banned Scottish beef and meat products when the BSE “mad cow disease” epidemic began in the 1980s.

Yesterday, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said it recognises that the BSE risk from beef raised in Scotland and Northern Ireland is at the safest level available — negligible risk. England and Wales continue to be recognised as having “controlled risk” status.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said: “This is a landmark day for our red meat sector, with Scotland achieving the lowest possible risk status for BSE.

“This is reward for years of hard work from the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers, producers, our red meat businesses, vets, and this Government all of whom have worked tirelessly to build a failsafe system which protects our animal and public health.

“Scotland’s meat exports are thriving and this certification stands us in good stead for our exporters to increase Scottish beef exports even further.”

Frank Clark, president of the meat wholesalers’ association, said: “The support given to the industry’s case by the Cabinet Secretary and his officials has been invaluable, delivering a major advance for our industry and a boost for member companies.”

In London, Gove’s intervention to take chlorinated chicken out of any future US-UK trade deal was being seen as unhelpful to Liam Fox, the minister responsible for negotiating such deals.

Gove was adamant, however, that the Government was unanimous in keeping EU-style animal welfare and environmental standards.

He said: “Critically, we need to ensure that we do not compromise those standards.

“I said last week when I was speaking to the WWF environmental charity that we need to be in a position as we leave the European Union to be leaders in environmental and in animal welfare standards.”

Chlorinated chicken has become the main topic of debate because it is seen as a prime example of American products that do not comply with EU standards.

Fox has called it a “minor detail” in possibly very complex future negotiations, but refused to say whether he would eat a chlorine-washed chicken himself.

The Trade Secretary has hinted that American farmers would get greater access to the British markets and was quoted as telling reporters that the media were obsessed with the topic of chlorine-washed chicken, which was a “detail of the very end-stage of one sector of a potential free trade agreement”.

Gove said yesterday that the UK will not “dilute our high animal welfare standards or our high environmental standards in pursuit of any trade deal”.

He added: “The Trade Secretary quite rightly pointed out that, of course, this issue is important.

But we mustn’t concentrate on this one issue when we look at the huge potential that a trade deal can bring.”

Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, said: “By arguing the case for chlorine-washed chicken, Liam Fox shows he is ready to abandon British poultry farmers in favour of cheap US imports that do not meet our sanitary or animal welfare standards.”

Gardiner added: “You should never trust a Fox in your hen coop.”