European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

I was going on to emphasise, once again, the ecumenical nature of this whole process, and the tribute paid by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and others to what the Government have done in response. I am grateful to the briefing note that was given by the Repeal Bill Alliance, which represents so many widespread different bodies, that it is necessary to get the guarantee and the certainty in the text of the Bill. I agree with the alliance when it says:

“The original drafting of the bill leaves gaps in environmental protections by excluding vital environmental principles such as the ‘polluter pays’ and ‘precautionary principles’ as well as EU directives that include environmental safeguards and obligations”.


Is it a preposterous idea that the Lords should propose serious amendments to a Bill and send them to the Commons, asking it to consider them, even on Third Reading? I think that is quite a normal part of the process of the parliamentary interchange between the Houses. It is up to the Commons to decide how to react. The reality, as we know, is that the Commons does not react in the open and free way that it would if it were on the basis of free votes in all parts of the House. Because of the magic mechanism of the only constitutional safeguard we have—the three-line Whip—the Conservative MPs would end up either having to do that or to become rebels themselves, which is always a difficult thing.

So when the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said that he was representing wider interests, I disagree. He was representing the salient interest of the Brexit lobby of the divided and broken Conservative Party in the Commons. Therefore, it is very important for us to remember—I quote from the press on 10 May:

“The cliché that the war is over because the eurosceptics have won is wrong. Brexit has created another divide between those evangelical about the UK going it alone and those that know such visions are fantastical. Every now and again May indicates she is in the latter group. There are some like John Major who is urgently aware from his experience that either way the UK is heading for the cliff’s edge”.


That means that the logic of what the Lords does is justified; it is nothing to do with party politics.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important amendment. At various stages, I have spoken very strongly in favour of environmental protection. Whether or not noble Lords agree with my conclusion is up to them, but it is very important that the House be aware that I am absolutely 100% in favour of protecting the environment.

I have a difficulty with the amendment before us. Had the Government not brought forward their consultation document, I would be repeating many of the things that have been said. In fairness, however, they have, and I think there are things we can do in the future better than we have done them in the past. I have listed a number of bodies that are either directly or indirectly affected by things to do with the environment. My question to the House at the end of the day is, could we do it in a simpler way and better way, and is not this consultation document exactly what Brexit is about?

With the leave of the House, therefore, I will talk about existing bodies that have some say on the environment. We have the Commons EFRA Committee and the Commons Environmental Audit Committee; the Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee; the Lords Select Committee on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which we have just debated; the National Audit Office; the Natural Capital Committee; the Joint Nature Conservation Committee; a committee on climate change, for which my noble friend Lord Deben has done so much; the Environment Agency; Natural England; the Rural Payments Agency—I am not so sure there—and the many groups and charities dealing with wildlife and conservation. We now have the opportunity of a consultation document—and I wonder how many people who have spoken have actually read right through it; I plead guilty to having read right through it—and we are promised that, in the autumn of this year, a Bill will come forward.

Therefore, I ask myself and other noble Lords: are our present arrangements doing what we want them to do? I would be shaking my head and saying, “I think that we can do it better”. We have had an overlapping of many of the organisations, and a waste of money and time. I encourage Members of your Lordships’ House to at least consider what is in here, and for those who think that there is not enough in here, this is our opportunity to do something about it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for setting out so clearly the arguments for this amendment, and to all noble Lords who have spoken in support of it. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, that he clearly has not listened to our arguments or to the respectful and considered way in which we have conducted ourselves throughout the debate on the environmental and other issues.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, the subject of animals is an extremely important one and I have great sympathy with the spirit behind both the amendments in this group. However, this subject needs to be properly dealt with in a statute of the United Kingdom. I know that criticism has been made of the attempts so far, but there is always room for improvement, and constructive suggestions have been liberally made in the consultations. As far as I am concerned, it would be much better to have a good United Kingdom statute for these animals than to try to do it through adapting part of an EU treaty.

The technical question of judicial review is quite difficult. I am not sure just how crucial it is to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Trees, but, years back, skilful Lords of Appeal—Lord Reid, a Scottish judge, and Lord Wilberforce from this jurisdiction—developed a theory that makes it next to impossible to prevent judicial review in an Act of Parliament. They did so by saying that what Parliament has protected is the judgment that is supposed to be come to, but, if the judgment that is come to has been falsified by some mistake or lack of proper process, then it is not a judgment protected by these provisions—Anisminic was the case. As was said by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Judge, at the end of a long process, the attempt to restrict judicial review was eventually torpedoed by these judges, with support of course. It is for that reason that the Government decided some considerable time ago not to put such protected clauses into legislation, because it is apt to mislead the public—they think that these clauses are, at face value, worth while, but when Lord Reid and Lord Wilberforce got on to them, they were not worth the paper they were written on.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to these amendments. I am one of perhaps three or four people in the Chamber today who took through the original Animal Welfare Act 2006, so I am supportive of anything we can do to make sure that animal welfare is top of the agenda. As an associate member of the BVA and the royal college, and as somebody who has had animals on the farm, this is a key interest of mine.

I have talked often with the noble Lord, Lord Trees, about the fact that although I am 100% behind what he is trying to do, I am not sure in my mind that this amendment is the right vehicle. I apologise if that is a disappointment to him. I am grateful for the observations of the noble and learned Lords, which were above the understanding I had before the debate started. It is very clear that the Government have tried to rectify a problem that was raised in the House of Commons by bringing forward a draft Bill. I think they realise, in hindsight, that that Bill is not sufficient to do what they wish it to. As others have said, it is quite difficult to deal with this on Report because we have to wait and then we cannot come back. However, I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to give us much greater clarification than we have had up to now as to the Government’s thinking about where we stand. While we are not fully behind the wording of the amendment, I hope no one thinks that we in any way do not believe in the full commitment we should have to animal welfare. Although I have no idea what the Minister is going to say, I hope he will bring us up to date on where we are and what the Government’s thinking is.

I say to my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and others that I am grateful to them for bringing forward this amendment. It has given the House another chance to reflect on an issue that some people might think is not important but which, I say to my noble friend the Minister, is hugely important. I hope his words will give greater resolve to those of us who wish to see this welfare issue taken forward in a meaningful way.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, to which I have added my name.

The noble Lord made an authoritative contribution explaining why this issue is important, as have a number of other noble Lords. It followed the excellent debate in Committee, which had widespread support from around the House. At that time the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, confirmed that animals should be regarded as sentient beings. The question we are debating now is how best to enshrine that in UK law.

We can all agree that the rushed Animal Welfare Bill was not fit for purpose. As the Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said in a scathing report on that Bill, animals,

“deserve better than to be treated in a cavalier fashion”.

As we have heard, the closing date for the consultation on that flawed Bill was 31 January. We are still waiting for the Government’s response. It is now April and we do not have a revised animal sentience Bill or a commitment in this Bill to recognise animals as sentient beings. This is the worst of all worlds.

During the debate the Minister tried to reassure us. He said that the Government would publish their summary of the consultation on the Bill and the next steps in due course and, hopefully, before Report. Indeed, he went further and said that if that was not the case, he would look at what could be done in its place. We still have not got the information that the Minister said—I would not say promised—he hoped to give us before Report. We are therefore left with the dilemma of how to plug that governance gap.

Time is going on. We are leaving next year and, if our amendment is rejected today, we will not have that commitment in the Bill as it stands and we will not have anything in its place. Our amendment provides that stop-gap. It provides reassurance to those in this Chamber and outside it who care about this issue that the recognition of animal sentience will transfer over and will apply from day one.

We await with interest the Government’s future plans to extend the application of animal sentience—they may answer all of the issues raised today—but we do not have that before us and I venture that we will not have it on the statute book before next March. A report on the next steps of a draft Bill, which the Minister may offer today, is not the same as delivering primary legislation before Brexit day.

As time ticks by, the number of Defra Bills promised but not delivered is stacking up. While I do not think that deliberate on anyone’s part, the fact is that the Defra Secretary of State is losing control of his promises and of the scheduling. Perhaps his civil servants are finding it hard to keep up with him or he might be embroiled, as we read in the papers, in the battle for his priorities with other Cabinet colleagues. I am not going to go there. However, I know that the timetables for other Bills are slipping. Any separate animal sentience legislation will need to take its place behind other Defra Bills, including Bills on agriculture and fishing. We have been promised a Bill on the environment and primary legislation is needed for a ban on ivory sales. So an animal sentience Bill will have to take its place in that queue.

A number of noble Lords have said that they want to get this right—I understand that; we all want to get it right—and when the new version of the animal sentience Bill is published and we see it, we will want to get that right too. We do not want to be rushed to agree it; we want to take time on it. The sensible thing to do today is to agree a simple amendment now which sets recognition of animal sentience as a duty in UK law. That is our holding position and our amendment will deliver it. We can then take time to craft a new animal sentience Bill which delivers Michael Gove’s promise of improving animal welfare post Brexit.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, asked whether this Bill was the right place for this issue. Yes, it is, because it is an important environmental principle. We have been promised that before and after exit day, rights and protections will be the same. However, if we do not put it in this Bill in this form, those rights will not be the same the day after Brexit. This is the right place to put it.

In the absence of a government amendment, which is where we find ourselves today, I hope noble Lords will agree that this is the right way forward and, given the dilemma in which we now find ourselves and lacking any other way of plugging this gap, will see fit to support our amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

My question follows what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said. When we have left the EU, who is going to do the audit? It quite clearly cannot be left to the UK Government, because this independent audit has discovered that the four countries have been failing anyway. It is crucial between England and Scotland—because most of the fishing fleet is based in Scotland—that we comply. Who is going to perform that function? Will it be an independent body with teeth or are the UK Government saying that we will carry on as we did before? Carrying on as we did before is a failure, and the EU might well use economic sanctions against us if we are not delivering. So there is the threat. The Government are well aware of this. This is no surprise to them, because it has been in the reports of EU Committees of this House—I think about 25 have now been delivered. Nothing new has come out in recent discussions that has not been in those reports. I wonder whether the Government have been reading them.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

I shall follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because I put my name to Amendment 112, which calls on the Government to look at the independent body. When I spoke at Second Reading I said that it was essential that the proposed new body should have teeth, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for reinforcing that point. The questions that I posed then—I shall not repeat the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, because that would test the temper of the Committee to say the least—were: who staffs it? Who pays for it? Who interprets it? What relationship does it have with other agencies? It is key that the new independent body that we are promised should be set up in time, and Clause 112 sets down a timescale. It may be that the Minister is not able to accept the amendment as it stands, but it is hugely important that we realise the strength of feeling about getting this body in place in time so that the laws will be regulated in the way that they have been traditionally—so I totally accept what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned the 25-year environment plan earlier. I hope I misunderstood her, because she is very good on her brief, but I think she indicated that there was no 25-year environment plan. I thought it was out: I have read it and was looking forward to responding to it. The Government are looking to go out to consultation on it. Is the Minister able to give the Committee any direction on the timing of that? Will it be a UK consultation or an England one with the devolved assemblies looking at it from their point of view as well, and will the new body reflect this? It is hugely important that it is a UK one because that is the law that, hopefully, we are taking over from the EU in the way it is now.

On the question of feedback on the environment side, there will be very great differences, I suspect, between how England responds and how Scotland, particularly, and Northern Ireland and maybe Wales do. There are some very real and slightly wider issues here. I think it comes to the amendment to which I added my name because I was clearly very unhappy that we had no timetable. We have no idea whether the body will have teeth or who will impose it—and, importantly for me, who will pay for it and how independent the person paying for it will be. These are questions that we need answered today. I have others, but that is enough from me.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I will just clarify that I did not mention the 25-year environment plan. I referred to a new national policy statement setting out environmental principles, which I think is a different document. Otherwise, I agree with everything the noble Baroness said.

Brexit: Trade in Goods (EUC Report)

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the committee, which was ably chaired by my noble friend Lady Verma, on its excellent report Brexit: Trade in Goods. The committee considered the UK’s conditions of trade with the 27 EU member states and more than 60 countries with which the EU has preferential trade agreements. The report focused on six major manufacturing and primary commodity sectors. Some noble Lords have raised issues for northern areas, but today I will keep my remarks to one of those sectors, the food and beverages industry. At this point, I remind the House of my farming and other interests set out in the register.

Food and drink manufacturers add £28.2 billion to our GDP. They generate more than £20 billion in exports. Some 400,000 people earn their living in food and drink manufacturing in some 6,800 firms. The farm-to-fork industry is worth £110 billion to the UK and employs more than 4 million people. In some ways, although people say it is a small industry, it is one of the biggest manufacturing industries. From the many recommendations within the report, I wish to focus this afternoon on three areas: first, tariffs; secondly, labour; and, thirdly, trade and regulations.

At paragraph 128, the report calls on the Government to give particular consideration to the implication of tariffs for the UK agricultural sector. Here, I stress the important effect that they may well have on Ireland. Higher tariffs on imports would raise the cost of food to consumers, whereas lower tariffs would reduce it but might undermine the domestic agricultural sector’s competitiveness. This point was raised recently by three university professors in their report on food matters. Professor Lang said:

“UK food security and sustainability are now at stake. A food system which has an estimated three to five days of stocks cannot just walk away from the EU, which provides us with 31 per cent of our food”.


We face great challenges, but Defra has made it clear that it is determined to benefit from tariff-free trade for our goods which is as frictionless as possible. When the Minister responds, perhaps she may be able to give us more information. This will indeed be a challenge. In its evidence, set out in paragraph 96, the AHDB identified that EU tariffs in the agricultural sector,

“differ significantly by product, being as high as 87% for frozen beef down to 3.8% on whole, fresh sweet potatoes”.

It is a very complex area.

Secondly, on the issue of labour, paragraph 34 of the report records agriculture as employing some 476,000 people. Of these, around 115,000 are regular employees, 67,000 are seasonal, casual or gang workers and 294,000 are farmers, business partners and directors. Of those 115,000 regular employees, 20% are EU nationals. On the issue of immigration, paragraph 4 of the summary states:

“The ability to recruit staff from the EU-27, and move staff to and from the EU-27 … is essential”,


and should continue. The report claims that the Government’s Brexit policy should allow for this. Will the Minister comment on this?

In future, we could well attract workers worldwide from outside the EU. The question then arises: will that be subject to their having a definite job to come to in this country, whether that be for casual or skilled workers? Often we focus on casual workers, but this country needs skilled workers too. This issue is key to the future of horticulture and agriculture. Professor Lang told the committee that we,

“would not get any fresh … vegetables or fruit if it were not for migrant labour … There would be no food manufacturing”.

That was clearly a definite overstatement, but his comments highlight the dependency of the sector on casual seasonal workers. What discussions are taking place, and has any progress been made?

In paragraph 182 of the report, the committee welcomes the Government’s decision to preserve existing EU regulations in domestic law. The report states, in paragraph 184, that two separate regulatory standards for the domestic and EU markets would be costly for UK businesses. In addition to this, and from a purely farming perspective, the whole question of welfare standards for livestock and of the need to protect animal and plant disease from being imported is essential. The labelling of imported goods, stating the country of origin, will help, but clearly there will need to be stronger checking once we leave the EU.

The report gives us the opportunity to look forward to developing new trade agreements worldwide. These past 40 years have given us the opportunity to develop special trade arrangements with our European neighbours. Hopefully, that trade will continue in future and indeed grow, but we also need exports to other countries. We are a country that over the years has always traded. If I might turn the clock back some 50 years, my father-in-law started as the youngest son of a farmer whose farm could not support one extra man on the farm, so he went and learned a trade in a sock business in Leicester. It started with two men and two machines in one shop but ended up employing 2,000 people, exporting 50% of all the socks they produced. I share this with you because his biggest bonus was when he was awarded the Queen’s award for industry for his exports, particularly to the United States.

I believe there is a great future out there, but we have some practical issues, which I have tried to highlight today, particularly affecting the food and farming manufacturing industries—and those two are interlinked. Other noble Lords have spoken of the close work between services and the goods that we make and sell. That is crucial, but our particular section of the industry has some bigger questions to be answered than perhaps some of the other manufacturing industries. I look forward to moving things forward. We are where we are, and we need to push ahead. It would certainly help business in these uncertain times to have a clearer steer from the Government.