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During an election campaign, politicians are known for making outlandish claims but a Brexit Party MEP has really gone for it.

Nathan Gill MEP was campaigning in the recent Brecon and Radnorshire by-election when he made the wild claim that schools in the area were forced to only source their food from Germany and France because of the EU's "procurement arrangement".

He said that this was preventing them from buying from local farmers.

Speaking to Sky News, he claimed: "When we leave the EU we will leave the procurement arrangement which means that schools here in Brecon have to buy produce from France or Germany they can be buying from local farmers."

He then repeated his claim on his Facebook page. That is shocking right?

Poor Powys schools surrounded by wonderful farms unable to buy local because they are forced to buy from the French and Germans.

In his replies, people were outraged. One said: "We have the best fresh produce in the world."

Mr Gill's claim may be shocking, but it is also an outright lie.

We decided to have a look at what the situation really is.

First we checked with Powys council which manges the schools in the area.

A spokesman for the council said: "Schools are locally managed and can buy local produce."

Pretty unequivocal right?

Not only that, the council also holds "meet the buyer" events where local tradespeople and companies are invited to meet the major contract holders. On top of this, the council also hold a business breakfasts where they provide information to local business on how to work with local government.

So it certainly seems like they are not compelled by an evil EU directive to "only buy German".

To be extra careful, we checked with the Welsh Government.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: "Local authorities and schools themselves have the responsibility for purchasing food for schools.

"A number of rural local authorities already buy local and Welsh produce for use in school canteens, which is a great way to connect pupils with the origins of their food, reduces the carbon footprint and supports the local economy too, which we fully support."

Clearly Mr Gill got this totally wrong. Concerned that he may have simply made a mistake we approached him about his clear and obvious error.

Instead of responding to our question about why he said the schools were not able to buy locally produced food, he answered a question that hadn't been asked.

He said: "Under EU procurement rules, local authorities, schools and hospitals are required to tender to the whole of the EU.

"Once we have left the EU, the Welsh Government will be able to legally demand that all hospitals and schools purchase their food products from local farms, grown within a reasonable distance.

"As is, local companies may have tenders to supply food, but they do not have to purchase their supplies from farms nearby, but can find cheapest products from all over Europe.

"I am advocating to help local farmers and reduce the carbon footprint, that schools and hospitals purchase from as growers as close as possible."

The only thing we can say to this is good luck to those schools and hospitals looking for Welsh farmers to supply them with Welsh oranges when Mr Gill forces them to buy everything locally.

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This wasn't the only whopper Mr Gill said in that video.

He also said that money that used to go to the EU could be used to find "new markets" like China. He added that "China is a huge market for pork, for lamb, for all kinds of products."

Well that is fair enough right? Once we are free of the EU we can finally sell China our pork and lamb!

Except again this is very misleading because we can already do that. Well we can sell our pork.

As the latest figures here show, China is already second only to the USA for agricultural exports from the EU.

We are not able to sell export lamb or beef to mainland China because a ban on UK beef and lamb was put in place by China years ago after the BSE crisis.

This is nothing to do with the EU. China, like the USA have so far refused to lift the ban.

Finally it is worth looking at the "procurement arrangement" Mr Gill incorrectly said was stopping schools buying local produce. What exactly is it?

The procurement arrangement is in place to try create a transparent and fair way for public bodies to buy things to obtain better value for taxpayer money.

This includes many safeguards and public bodies are not, as Mr Gill suggested, forced to take the lowest offer.

Any EU company can tender for public contracts but the local authority does not have to choose a German/French contract just because it is cheaper. The can decide to prioritise a local companies for instance because of the environmental benefit.

An EU Commision spokeswoman said: "Those rules specifically allow EU Member States’ public authorities to take multiple factors into account when awarding public contracts. They encourage public authorities to procure strategically and to put innovation, social responsibility and sustainability (including environmental sustainability) at the heart of their procurement procedures. This avoids awarding contracts solely on the basis of the lowest price."

When we asked Powys council about this, a spokesman for the council said: "Like other councils we have to meet financial regulations but can build into contracts community benefits which support local jobs and apprenticeships."