Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill (Instruction)
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)
The instruction would need to be agreed if we are to consider certain amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) in Committee of the whole House. I am enormously sympathetic to his plight and arguments. I am grateful to him for meeting me privately last week to discuss his proposals, which seek to add Northern Ireland to the territorial scope of the Bill. In effect, his proposal is that the ban on livestock exports for slaughter would apply on a UK-wide basis, rather than GB-wide.
There is a crucial difference, as he is aware, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK with respect to the movement of livestock. Farmers in Northern Ireland routinely move animals to the Republic of Ireland for slaughter and fattening. Indeed, in 2022, around 3,500 cattle, 17,000 pigs and 337,000 sheep were moved in that way. The Bill must not jeopardise the access that Northern Irish farmers have to the Republic. That is a point on which I hope the right hon. Gentleman and I agree, as all hon. Members across the House would. His aim is to create a targeted exemption to the expanded ban: the prohibition would not apply to slaughter movements with an end destination in the Republic of Ireland. Unfortunately, that proposal is not an option that is available to us. That is because a range of international agreements and their core principles, including WTO rules, prevent discrimination against different countries in that way. Given that such a carve-out is not possible, extending the Bill to Northern Ireland would end all livestock exports for slaughter and fattening from Northern Ireland, including to the Republic of Ireland, and that is why the Bill is drafted in that respect on its territorial extent.
Sammy Wilson
The Minister knows that eight exceptions are listed by the WTO where it is possible to target trade interventions, and one of them is on the basis of animal health. Does he accept that taking animals from the north of Northern Ireland through the whole island of Ireland, on a 24-hour boat journey to southern France or southern Spain without food, risks animal health and is therefore an exception that we should at least be testing with the WTO, but we cannot do that if we do not accept the instruction?
Mark Spencer
As the right hon. Gentleman knows from our discussions last week, I am enormously sympathetic to his view but, as he will be aware, those movements from the Republic of Ireland to the continent of Europe are a matter for the European Union. That is what we heard from the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry). My understanding is that the EU is looking at some of those rules as we speak. That is, of course, a matter for the Republic of Ireland and the EU, and we cannot in this House legislate for other nations.
If we were to transpose “Republic of Ireland” and “Belgium”, for example, other nations would challenge completely one nation being favoured above others. We could not say, “We won’t export animals for fattening or slaughter to anywhere in the world, apart from Belgium.” That would be challenged instantly by the international trade bodies, and we would lose in court—that is the legal advice I have been given—so the Government are not in a position to put forward legislation that we know is not legally sound.
I am enormously sympathetic to the view of the right hon. Member for East Antrim and, of course, I agree with him. I do not want to see sheep and cattle moved from Belfast all the way to Madrid. That is not what we want to see happen, but we do not have the power to stop that at this moment. That is why it is critical that we protect the Northern Irish economy. Extending livestock exports from Northern Ireland in that way would be devastating if we were to stop them moving to the Republic. I understand his desire for a modified ban to apply in Northern Ireland. However, it is just not possible under our international obligations, and making such a provision for the whole of the United Kingdom in this Bill is not appropriate at this time. I therefore appeal to him, respectfully and hopefully, to find a way to withdraw his motion, in the knowledge that we have enormous sympathy for his position.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Having listened intently to the Minister and to my friends on the Opposition Benches, and having served in Northern Ireland as a Minister and in other roles, my question is this: what is to stop—as we are trying to do—the live transportation of animals for slaughter going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and then going on? We are not preventing something that we are trying to prevent. I know the legal advice, but sometimes Ministers have to challenge the legal advice. I am not saying that the legal advice is right or wrong, but sometimes it has to be challenged. It clearly does not make sense if we can move animals around inside Great Britain and transport them to Northern Ireland, and then say to Northern Ireland, “You can’t adhere to the rules in the rest in the United Kingdom.” Do not get me wrong, I am very supportive of this Bill, and I do not want to jeopardise it in any shape or form, but there seems to be a conflict of interest between what we are trying to do as a Government and what we are succeeding in doing, which is alienating the farmers of Northern Ireland.
Mark Spencer
I am grateful for that intervention. It is important, first, to remember that we are talking only about animals being exported for either fattening or for slaughter. Under the phytosanitary rules of the island of Ireland, the movement of cattle, sheep or pigs from England to Northern Ireland will then incur a 30-day standstill within Northern Ireland before they can be moved to the Republic. That makes it not commercially viable to use that route to get to slaughter or to fattening. I hope that colleagues will understand with sympathy our frustration that we are unable to extend the rules to Northern Ireland.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the ban on using the Great Britain land bridge for live exports is one of the ways this Bill will provide big barriers to live exports continuing from Northern Ireland?
Mark Spencer
My right hon. Friend is right in that live exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic will be able to continue; that is good for the Northern Irish agricultural economy and we do not want to stop that trade. However, this Bill, when we get to debating the actual Bill, is about stopping those long journeys from GB into continental Europe. We have not seen those since Brexit, but we want to ensure that they cannot return in the near future.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Would the Minister term the conundrum posed by the Democratic Unionist party as one of the Brexit benefits that the Government have so often extolled the virtues of?
Mark Spencer
This Bill is genuinely a Brexit benefit: we are able to take control of our ports within GB and stop the live export of animals for slaughter or for fattening. That is a genuine Brexit benefit and one that I hope we can now start to debate. I hope the right hon. Member for East Antrim will withdraw his motion.
Sammy Wilson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.