Draft Agriculture (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Agriculture (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
This is one of a number of statutory instruments relating to our European Union exit that we have had the pleasure of debating. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby took a number of them through Parliament during his tenure of my position, and my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor has enjoyed the Committees on them so much that he volunteered to sit on more of them.
The instrument that we are debating amends retained EU law and domestic legislation on the common agricultural policy—including the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products, also known as the CMO—to ensure their smooth transition into a domestic regime. The technical and operability amendments made in the draft regulations will maintain the effectiveness and continuity of legislation that would otherwise be inoperable following exit from the EU. The regulations will ensure that we continue to operate schemes for important farming sectors, and that we maintain the standards they set; that will support confidence in our farmed goods in domestic and international markets.
The draft regulations are technical in nature and limited in scope. They make changes to ensure that existing standards and processes continue in the UK. Where changes are required, we have endeavoured to ensure that they will have limited impact on businesses and other stakeholders. The regulations amend CAP and CMO functions in EU legislation that are carried out by the European Commission so that they are instead carried out in the United Kingdom by the Secretary of State—or, in one instance in relation to contractual negotiations in the dairy sector, by the Competition and Markets Authority. This will enable those legislative and administrative functions to continue to be used after the UK leaves the European Union.
The EU regulations concerned cover the following areas of the CMO: conversion rates for rice; certification and importation of hops; sugar sector agreements; milk and milk products; import and export of certain proteins derived from egg white or whey; export refunds; adjustments in the common customs tariff; producer organisations and co-operation; and the import of eggs. The EU regulations confer various functions on the Commission, so that it can develop the technical details required to operate a specific regime.
Examples of that include being able to update the legislation when necessary to take account of amendments in so-called CN—combined nomenclature—codes, which are used to identify tariffs in customs; establishing conditions for the fixing of export refunds; specifying certain forms to be used; setting financial limits or prices; defining programme eligibility criteria; setting deadlines; and facilitating producer co-operation and supporting producer organisations. If we were to leave the European Union without making these amendments, the legislative functions in the EU regulations would become inoperable, so this instrument simply uses powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to correct that deficiency to enable the necessary functions currently exercised by the EU to be exercised by the Secretary of State instead.
The draft instrument also makes a minor correction to a domestic EU exit statutory instrument, namely the Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products Framework (Miscellaneous Amendments, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, to clarify that the power contained therein, concerning contracts in the sugar sector, rests with the Secretary of State, since it is a reserved power.
The draft regulations refer to reserved policy areas, but notwithstanding that, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has engaged with the devolved Administrations on its approach to CAP legislation under the 2018 Act, and on this particular instrument, to familiarise them with the legislation ahead of laying it before Parliament. DEFRA has worked collaboratively with the devolved Administrations and has fully involved them in discussions on the regulations. We consulted them extensively to ensure that the legislation that the regulations amend continues to work.
DEFRA has also engaged with stakeholder umbrella organisations and has met regularly with the Rural Payment Agency’s industry partnership group to update the farming and land management sectors on the Government’s plans for the UK’s exit from the European Union, including the approach to retained EU law.
These regulations, in common with many others under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, are really about changing references to EU institutions to references to the UK Secretary of State. Such changes are minor and technical in nature, but they are important to ensure that this body of regulations remains operable. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.
George Eustice
I shall try first to deal with as many as possible of the issues that are pertinent to the statutory instrument. I shall then touch on some of the broader, connected issues that have been raised.
First, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud, is right. The CMO is a complex body of law, so in the context of this exercise it has in some ways been the gift that has kept on giving. He will, however, be pleased to know that we are reaching the end of the process. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I understand that there are just two more items left relating to the CMO and, I think, 12 more left in total linked to EU exit; so we have a few more to do, but we are nearing the end of this process.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the issues are ones that we had to revisit, or whether they were not dealt with originally. There was one exception, which I alluded to, which was a change of a power that was drafted originally as though it were devolved, when it was actually reserved. The vast majority were secondary and tertiary legislation—implementing acts and delegated acts from the Commission. They were deprioritised as not absolutely essential for March, but they were things that we intended to get to.
The right hon. Member for North Durham and the shadow Minister asked what we mean by “technical” and were suspicious of my intent. Let me give a few examples. The vast majority of the changes are about replacing EU-centric terms such as “the Union” and “the European Union” with “the UK” to make provisions operable. We are also replacing “Commission” with “Secretary of State”, so that there is an authority to go to. It is really a matter of making sure that there are UK bodies that can exercise functions currently exercised by the EU, since the EU will no longer be exercising them.
That links to the point about impact assessments and what
“no, or no significant, impact”
means. The purpose of all the EU exit statutory instruments is to keep everything exactly the same. I know many Members of the House would like to keep things so much the same that we do not even leave the European Union, but these particular regulations ensure that when we do leave, all the same procedures can continue to operate. The real cost to business would be if we left whole functions and bodies of law with which they are familiar to become inoperable and no longer work; that would have consequences. By ensuring that systems are operable, we give businesses the continuity that they seek, and we ensure that we have a functioning statute book from the beginning.
The shadow Minister asked about the position of the Northern Ireland SI and why that had been dropped. I understand that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments was unable to clear it in time for today’s debate, which is why it will probably be debated instead on Monday next week.
To return to the technical issues, the types of things dealt with in the instrument are regulations on conversion rates for rice. We are talking about an assumed rate—about x amount of rice flour coming out of x amount of rice milled. An assumption is made about that for the purpose of an import licensing regime. I assure the right hon. Member for North Durham that these things are very technical. In the sugar sector, we have an arrangement at the moment whereby there are some exemptions in competition law to allow the National Farmers Union to corral a collective of sugar beet growers to work with British Sugar, and a collective bargaining system decides the price of sugar for a given year. That enables the Secretary of State to make any changes that they might need to make to keep the sector operable. If the NFU decided that it did not want to do that role anymore, but we decided that we would still like a collective to do that, we would have the option of changing that.
The hon. Member for Rhondda asked about the import of eggs. This relates to article 30 of EU regulation 589/2008. The provision simply confers power on the Secretary of State to make determinations of equivalence on marketing standards as a prerequisite for the import of eggs. We allow eggs to be imported only if they meet our marketing standard, which is currently an EU marketing standard. If in future a third country were to meet that standard, which is set out separately in law, there would need to be a body that attests to the fact. That is a power that the Secretary of State must have in future, as the EU will no longer be able to do that for us.[Official Report, 5 November 2019, Vol. 667, c. 7MC.] Again, that is a very technical thing around determinations of equivalence on marketing standards.
There is a wider issue with eggs: some egg producers are concerned that they might be exposed to competition from other countries, such as Ukraine, under a proposed tariff suspension. Some might also be concerned about their exports. We do not export a huge amount of eggs, but we export poultry meat. Those issues are perhaps for another day; I am sure we will have discussions on tariff rate schedules and so on in the future.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor asked whether we can improve standards. When we have passed the Agriculture Bill, we will have in place the primary legislation that is needed to change and improve these types of processes, but not until then. He will understand that the purpose of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is to bring across, warts and all, the existing EU system. It is not about changing things, but about continuity, and the regulations seek to preserve continuity wherever they can.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor also asked about the devolved Administrations. When we leave the European Union, there will be huge scope for the devolved Administrations to have new powers over their agriculture policy. Agriculture is generally devolved policy, so they will have a new, additional set of powers that they do not have now, as those powers are now exercised by the EU. This statutory instrument is specifically about reserved powers relating to competition law, international trading standards and the like. All the powers set out in the regulations are reserved, and would remain reserved under our devolution settlement, even after we have left the European Union.
I hope that I have addressed as many of the problems and issues raised as possible, and I hope that the Committee will support the statutory instrument.
Question put and agreed to.