Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 15 seeks to answer the question: what would happen if a public authority imposed a boycott campaign which related to Israel and arose as a result of environmental misconduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, illegal under international law?

Under the Bill’s Schedule, the Clause 1 prohibition on the consideration of moral or political disapproval is lifted, so far as that

“consideration … relates to environmental misconduct”.

This includes, according to the Schedule,

“consideration related to the possibility of environmental misconduct having taken place or taking place in the future”,

while the definition of environmental misconduct here

“means conduct that … amounts to an offence, whether under the law of a part of the United Kingdom or any other country or territory, and … caused, or had the potential to cause, significant harm to the environment, including the life and health of plants and animals”.

Surely such accusations of environmental misconduct should also apply to the State of Israel. There is credible evidence that Israel has engaged in such misconduct, particularly through the actions of the Israel Defense Forces, in its occupation and military actions.

In its military action in Gaza, there are serious questions to be raised about environmental misconduct. Dr Saeed Bagheri, scholar of international law at the University of Reading, stated of Israel in January this year that there may

“be evidence to suggest that they have acted contrary to the International Committee of the Red Cross … position that the prohibition on inflicting widespread, long-term and severe harm to the natural environment is a rule of customary international law”.

He added:

“The actions by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza have left chemicals from white phosphorus weapons that could linger in the environment for years. This can have a long term impact on the soil, affecting the growth of crops, and in Gaza agriculture takes up about a quarter of land. For individual farmers and their communities, this pollution and its long-term impacts could be devastating”.


However, such questions far pre-date the current horror in Gaza. The Institute for Middle East Understanding has set out a long list of allegations of environmental misconduct. In its actions in the Occupied Territories, long-standing allegations against Israel have been made about the deliberate destruction of olive trees and olive orchards; at least 2.5 million trees have been destroyed since 1967, yet Palestinians depend on these trees as a primary source of food and income. The destruction of natural wildlife since October has been stark: a recent estimate states that around 4,300 acres of trees and plant life have been cleared around the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, not to mention the complete devastation of the natural and built environment within the Gaza Strip.

What of Israel siphoning off water supplies from the Occupied Territories? This has caused a permanent drop in the West Bank’s water table and distorted water flows, damaging agriculture and increasing flood and drought vulnerability. In February this year, the IDF itself confirmed that it is dumping seawater into tunnels and waterways below Gaza, an act which the director-general of the Geneva Water Hub described as polluting and contaminating, and poisoning Gaza’s aquifer.

We also know that Israel discharges 52 million cubic yards of untreated sewage and other hazardous materials each year into the West Bank. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories reported:

“Israel’s environmental policy in the West Bank—including situating polluting waste treatment facilities there—is part and parcel of the policy of dispossession and annexation it has practiced in the West Bank for the past fifty years.”


In the West Bank, and in contravention of the Geneva convention, Israel has appropriated most water sources for itself and restricts Palestinian access to them. Of course, this is not Israeli state or Israel Defense Forces activity alone; the administration of this occupation relies on a vast number of agencies and companies. Is it not reasonable for any public authority doing due diligence on environmental matters to prefer to disengage with any companies or agencies which are involved in such acts?

Many of these instances could feasibly fall foul of international law, such as Rome statute prohibitions on inflicting damage to the natural environment, Hague regulations provisions on natural resource use, and customary international humanitarian law principles on hostilities to the natural environment, to name a few. But the matter goes beyond the practical application of these examples raised. The question is also: can we exempt Israel and the Occupied Territories from the Schedule’s considerations without denying the very real possibility, now or in the future, of Israeli state or corporate environmental misconduct?

Israel’s human destruction of Gaza is being compounded by an environmental crisis. In Rafah, large family groups have been living cramped together with no running water or fuel, while surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up. Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie ruined orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers. Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, has shown how family farms close to Gaza’s border with Israel, cultivated for generations, have been destroyed, their orchards uprooted and replaced by military roads. Israel has suggested it could make this sort of thing permanent to create buffer zones along the border, where a lot of Palestinian farms are sited.

An analysis of satellite imagery, reported by the Guardian newspaper recently, showed the destruction of nearly half of Gaza’s tree cover and farmland—mainly because of the military onslaught by the Israel Defense Forces but also because, starved of fuel, desperate Gaza residents have cut down trees to burn for cooking or heating. Not only have olive groves and farms been reduced to rubble but soil and groundwater have been contaminated by munitions and toxins. The sea is full of sewage and waste. The air is polluted by smoke and particulates. The impact on Gaza’s ecosystems and biodiversity is colossal, leading to calls for it to be recognised as ecocide and investigated as a possible war crime.

United Nations environmental experts report massive amounts of debris and hazardous material in Gaza, with harmful substances such as asbestos, heavy metals, fire contaminants, unexploded ordnance and hazardous chemicals. When Israel cut off fuel to Gaza after the 7 October terrorist pogrom, power cuts meant that wastewater could not be pumped to treatment plants, leading to 100,000 cubic metres of sewage a day spewing into the sea. The sheer scale and long-term impact of all this environmental destruction has led to calls for it to be investigated as a potential war crime, and to be classed as ecocide, which covers damage done to the environment by deliberate or negligent actions.

Under the Rome statute, which governs the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime to intentionally launch an excessive attack knowing that it will cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. The Geneva conventions require that warring parties do not use methods of warfare that cause

“widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment”.

Forensic Architecture argues that:

“The destruction of agricultural land and infrastructure in Gaza is a deliberate act of ecocide”.


I put Amendment 15 to your Lordships’ Committee with the intention of asking: how should a public authority act if it wishes to disengage with a company or enterprise which may be involved in acts such as these, which could amount to environmental misconduct under UK or international law, if that company is Israeli or if it engages in alleged misconduct overseen by the State of Israel?

The Bill is clear that the Schedule considerations override Clause 1 prohibitions on boycotts. However, it is not clear whether the Schedule also applies to Clause 3, which likewise overrules Clause 1. This could present a glaring contradiction in the current formulation of this Bill, and one which I very much hope the Government and the Minister will respond to. It needs to be resolved through this amendment. I hope the Minister will come back on Report having accepted the amendment to deal with this matter.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 32A and 32B. Amendment 32A would expand the environmental grounds on which a public body is allowed to make certain economic decisions. Amendment 32B would extend the definition of environmental misconduct to include damage, regardless of whether it is legal or illegal, and to include species, habitats and the natural world.

It is quite positive that this Bill at least recognises that public authorities should be able to consider environmental issues when deciding whether to spend taxpayers’ money on goods and services purchased from outside the UK, or when deciding how to invest the pensions of public sector workers and retirees. However, this environmental carve-out is far too narrow. I do not understand how public authorities can be forced to ignore environmental destruction as long as that destruction is not a criminal offence. I have worked closely with Friends of the Earth on these amendments, and they were also tabled in the Commons by my honourable friend Caroline Lucas.

We are all deeply concerned about this fundamentally flawed Bill and the impact it will have on public bodies’ legitimate procurement or investment decisions about companies or products that are destroying the natural environment, including pollution overseas and climate breakdown. All public bodies must be free to avoid investment in fossil fuels, which are contributing to climate breakdown.

This Bill sets out an uneven treatment between local or UK-based businesses and foreign enterprises, particularly where they are owned or controlled by a foreign state. A local council will remain entitled to refuse to purchase timber from a business that is clear-cutting the local woodland, but if it is in a foreign country linked to a foreign Government then the council will be prohibited from even considering the impact of clear-cutting woodlands and rainforests around the world. These types of considerations—so-called ESG criteria—are now quite routine, even mundane, among both the public and private sector. Public authorities should be entitled to consider the same types of environmental issues that they would consider if interacting with a UK-based business. There is no justification for it to be any other way, other than a totally misguided belief that the nature, land, air and water in the United Kingdom is inherently more valuable or deserving of protection than that outside the United Kingdom. That sounds slightly colonial to me.

Why have the Government chosen to draft this so tightly, so that the only environmental considerations are whether or not the environmental damage constitutes a criminal offence? I hope the Minister can see the glaring flaws in this approach and the obvious harms it will lead to. I ask noble Lords across the Committee, including the Minister, to work with us on this issue so that we can bring something that we can all support to Report. Environmental crime must not be set as a bar beyond which anything goes in public procurement and the investment of public pensions.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Could I just mention to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, that these are ordinary people who protest? These are people who quite often just do not agree with the Government. I support a lot of protests that happen at the moment; there are sometimes protests that I do not support, but I support those people’s right to protest. On noise, I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. How do the Government seriously think that protest is going to happen without noise? That is a fundamental part of it, whether it is drums, chanting or singing, or just talking through a megaphone. These provisions really are so oppressive. I have attached my name to Amendments 122, 133 and 147. These clauses should be deleted from the Bill. They are repressive and plain nasty, and they really have to go.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendments in this group standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, particularly those related to striking out Clauses 56, 57, 58 and 62. Briefly, in my view the Bill represents the biggest threat to the right to dissent and non-violent protest in my lifetime. It is deeply reactionary. It is an authoritarian attack on the fundamental liberties of our citizens.

If enacted in past generations, it would have throttled the suffragettes and blocked their ability to rattle Parliament’s cage to secure votes for women. It would have prevented antifascists stopping Mosley’s bullying, anti-Semitic blackshirts at Cable Street in the East End of London in 1936. It would have thwarted anti-apartheid protests that I led, in 1969 and 1970, which successfully stopped all white South African sports tours—a success which Nelson Mandela, then on Robben Island, hailed as a vital stepping stone in the ultimate defeat of apartheid. It would have prevented the Anti-Nazi League protests that stopped a resurgent and anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and fascist National Front in its tracks between 1977 and 1980, and in the early 1990s, similarly, the BNP. If Boris Johnson and Priti Patel want to be on the wrong side of history, the Bill is certainly the way to do it. I hope that this House will resist them.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I speak in support of Amendment 132B, in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, to which I have added my name, and which provides for a new clause in the Bill. I ask the Minister to listen quite carefully and consider bringing back a government amendment on Report to address the issues that we have raised. There is a really important issue about the accountability and scrutiny of these developing technologies of surveillance and weapons.

The purpose of the proposed new clause is to ensure that drones and other new surveillance or weapons technology can be deployed by the police only within parameters and regulations set by the Secretary of State; in other words, it seeks to ensure proper parliamentary accountability and scrutiny rather than leaving it as a matter of exclusive police discretion. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti has pointed out, when, in the past, other forms of technological surveillance, and indeed digital technology, were not properly regulated, they started to encroach on privacy in a major way. We have all seen examples of that or experienced it ourselves.

Police in England and Wales are considering using drone-mounted cameras that could film high-quality live footage from 1,500 feet—457 metres—away, which raises concerns among civil liberties campaigners. The National Police Air Service—NPAS—which provides air support to 46 police forces, has asked private companies for information about systems that offer both airborne imaging and air-to-ground communication. A government website stated on 21 September:

“The imaging systems are intended for use on BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) remotely-piloted aircraft systems: ‘Drones’.”


The NPAS told potential bidders that the systems should be capable of transmitting live, high-quality images even in low light, using electro-optical or infra-red systems. It said that this would enable officers to pick out detail such as facial features, as well as clothing and vehicle registration plates, at a distance of between 500 feet and 1,500 feet. The NPAS added that the cameras should be able to operate on a drone that stays in the air for up to four hours and flies up to 30 miles from the base station from which it is controlled.

Drones have been used by various English and Welsh police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, which has explained that they have been deployed to survey crime scenes and provide live footage of operations. That is all to the good as a response to serious crime. It seems, however, that the NPAS may plan a national rollout of drone technology, which raises all manner of civil liberty issues, including privacy, how much autonomy will be granted to private companies operating such drone technology for surveillance by the state, and whether it will target legitimate protesters as opposed to criminals and terrorists.

I ask these questions because these important issues cannot simply be a matter for operational police decision-making. They should be placed within an accountable regulatory environment that can be scrutinised by Parliament. CCTV is already ubiquitous and operated by private companies able to watch whatever we do, certainly in urban areas. Surveillance of the vehicles we drive is also universal. Big tech companies are increasingly monitoring almost our every move.

Deployment of police drones with algorithmic and facial recognition technology should be properly regulated. This is the essence of what I am asking the Minister to respond to. Drone surveillance has even been used to stalk dog walkers during lockdown. It is not acceptable for a Home Office spokesperson simply to say, recently:

“Use of drones is an operational matter for police forces.”


Nor is it sufficient for Ministers to say that the police are already subject to the Air Navigation Order and the general data protection regulation. Although it was reported in the Guardian that the Home Office says increased use of drones would allow police forces to replace helicopters, reducing noise and carbon emissions, that should not be a reason to duck the necessity for proper accountability and scrutiny. I stress, to the Minister and to your Lordships’ House, that this amendment does not seek to block police deployment of drones for legitimate purposes such as to tackle criminals, drug or people traffickers, terrorists, or racist or fascist demonstrations targeting black, Jewish or Muslims citizens.

The Undercover Policing Inquiry, to which I gave evidence earlier this year, has already revealed stark injustices and abuses of liberty and privacy. The High Court has recognised this in its recent judgment finding against the Metropolitan Police in a case brought by environmental protestor Kate Wilson, who was intimately and improperly befriended by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. Other example like this were revealed by the Undercover Policing Inquiry. I mention these because they relate to accountability, scrutiny and proper regulation. One undercover police officer told the inquiry that she did not know why she was infiltrating one feminist group, as only four people attended a meeting she went to. But she was deployed in this way, instead of on serious undercover police work, such as what I saw and approved as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. That was legitimate undercover police work.

This amendment is about ensuring drone technology is used to put serious crime under proper surveillance, is accountable and does not get out of control, as undercover police officers did. I have spoken previously in this House, on another Bill, about the improper use of undercover police officers to monitor and put under surveillance anti-Apartheid demonstrators, instead of pursuing the South African security services who were bombing Nelson Mandela’s headquarters in London. I will not go on about this, but my point is that the deployment of undercover police officers should have been more properly regulated. I hope that the current inquiry, headed by Judge Mitting, will produce recommendation to that effect, given that it was set up by the Government, which I welcome. The question is how deployment is regulated and who makes the ultimate decisions. I believe it should be based on a warrant—which I signed hundreds of, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and when substituting for the Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary—to deal with serious crime.

To give an example of what I think would have been a legitimate deployment of drone technology if it had existed then—I will describe this generally so as not to give away what was really going on—I witnessed graphic video-based surveillance of paramilitary members with guns seeking to attack fellow citizens in Belfast when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 2005. That was done for entirely legitimate purposes. I will not describe how exactly it was done because I do not think that should be publicly revealed. The operation of a drone in that situation—because drone technology did not exist in the form that it does now—would have been entirely legitimate and I saw at first hand the way it could be legitimately deployed.

However, I can also see how this could be spread, if it is simply an operational decision by police, to target non-violent demonstrators and environmental activists. We may not approve of their methods, but we have already seen members of Extinction Rebellion put on a terrorist list by police forces. When that was revealed they of course said that they should not have been. This is about parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. Without such accountability, how do we know that drone-based surveillance is not being targeted on illegitimate purposes like undercover police officers most certainly were?

If the noble Baroness is willing to look at this, and she might find some technical reasons why our amendment is not acceptable to her, it may be that the same kind of authority should be given as under the warrant procedure for authorising surveillance. As I have just explained, I signed hundreds of those as Northern Ireland Secretary of State and in other capacities. Maybe that is one of the ways in which ultimately the Secretary of State would take the decision and be ultimately accountable under the legislation that Parliament passes. Parliament can therefore scrutinise, if not every decision, then the general pattern of decisions made. We need something similar for drone surveillance and this amendment tabled by my noble friend provides for that. I hope the Government will address this so that we do not have to bring back the same amendment or a similar one on Report, because the Government will have recognised this is an important issue and taken the initiative themselves. I ask her to consider that.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, way back in 2004 I was the Deputy Mayor of London—when there was only one deputy mayor and not a whole host of them. In that role I attended DSEI, the arms fair. What struck me was that there was a terrifying amount of military equipment being sold and repurposed for use by police forces and Governments against their own citizens. That was a few years ago and I imagine the situation has got much worse since.

On another occasion I was outside a kettle in Whitehall chatting to the senior police officer trying to give him some good advice about how to communicate with the crowd. He had a phone call, he stepped away to take it and when he came back, he said “I’ve just been told not to speak to you any more.” I asked, “Who by?” and he pointed at the helicopter that had been flying over us. That was the first time I realised just how powerful the cameras were; they had not only been able to photograph me but also recognise me which, from the top of my head, I would have thought almost impossible.

There is always a great amount of mission creep with this type of technology and people can get carried away with it. Our own Prime Minister infamously wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money buying illegal water cannons when he was Mayor of London. They ended up rotting down in Kent and I am not sure we ever managed to sell them—perhaps we sold them for scrap. As far as I know there is still no oversight or regulation of the facial recognition technology. I would be very interested to hear the Minister tell me about that, because I have been agitating for that for some time.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, here we are on day seven of four—Douglas Adams would be proud of us. But seven days in Committee, for a Bill of this importance and relevance, with the huge impact it will have, is not particularly long.

My Amendment 273, which is supported by the noble Lords, Lord Randall, Lord Greaves and Lord Addington, for which I thank them, is relatively simple. It would simply ensure that UK standards regarding food safety, the environment and animal welfare cannot be undermined by imports produced to lower standards. That seems self-evident to me. In fact, this group of amendments is one of the most significant in the whole Bill, because it is the one area that is strongly supported by the public. It is a fact that the Government have managed to ensure that there is an opposition of green groups, farmers, NGOs, producers, supermarkets—a whole mix of people who would not usually share a particular view. If the Government tried to ignore this issue, I hope there would be a Back-Bench revolt, because it is incredibly important.

There is huge recognition out there that trade deals are a threat to standards. We need protections in law to ensure that these standards are not undermined. The US Secretary of Agriculture has described our environmental and animal welfare standards as protectionism which should be removed in a trade deal. Well, I am with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on this: I want to protect. That is a very good word and we should all be proud of and want to use it on issues that the majority of Britons really care about. I am terrified that our Government, desperate for the political victory of securing a US trade deal, will give in to the Americans on this issue. It is not just the United States, of course. What about future dealings with, for example, Brazil, which burns huge swathes of the Amazon rainforest to make way for cattle pastures? Trade policy is a huge tool for international diplomacy. Your Lordships must be able to trust the Government to make the right decisions when they make these deals.

The merits of these amendments aside, we will have to have this same fight again on the Trade Bill. The Minister might even say that the Trade Bill is the proper place to discuss these issues. But one has only to read Hansard on the Trade Bill in the other place from last week to see that Ministers told MPs that the Agriculture Bill had dealt with all these issues and that MPs had nothing more to worry about. It is normally considered out of order to refer to proceedings in the other place, but it is very important when the Government simultaneously tell each House the opposite thing. That is exceptional and needs drawing to your Lordships’ attention.

I hope the Minister will commit to working constructively to bring forward an amendment on these issues on Report. I am certain that we will pass one of these amendments, and it might as well be one that the Government can accept. We will pull together on this, along with the British public, to make sure we protect our farmers, our farming regimes, our standards on animal welfare and the way our food is produced.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said about public interest in this particular issue. I also follow my noble friend Lord Foulkes in thanking the Minister, the public Bill staff, the Government Whips and the broadcast facility staff for their marathon effort and courtesy.

My Amendment 276 would require new international treaties on the import of agricultural and food products to comply with World Trade Organization safety rules and the UK’s own standards. It was first proposed by the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, the Conservative MP Neil Parish, and is backed by the British Veterinary Association, the National Farmers’ Union, the RSPCA, the Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Soil Association and the World Wide Fund for Nature. It reflects a lack of trust that we can rely on the Conservative Party manifesto, which promised:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”


Sadly, the amendment was voted down by government loyalists in the other place. We note that whenever Ministers have been challenged in debates on the Bill to back up this pledge with legal protections, all that has been offered have been vague aspirational murmurings. I hope I do not give any offence to the Minister, who is diligent on these matters, but that is the truth.

The legal protections that European Union membership provided in these and many other areas, including agricultural workers’ rights and targets for reaching net-zero emissions for the agriculture industry, are nowhere to be found in the Bill. It has become clear that the Government regard such protections for our farmers and the environment as a barrier to a trade deal with the United States. So desperate are the Brexiteers to declare UDI from the EU that they are prepared to prostrate themselves at the door of Donald Trump’s “America first” trade and sell out our farmers, while turning a blind eye to environmental degradation and poor animal welfare standards abroad.

Now we are no longer part of a major trading bloc —the biggest trading bloc in the world—the Brexiteers’ sacred cow of sovereignty will not prevent Washington using its superior economic weight to set the terms of any deal with an isolated United Kingdom. British farmers and our food processors would be undercut by imports of food whose production is banned here. Of course, cheap, poorer-quality US food imports will remain cheap only as long as our domestic production proves viable enough to provide a meaningful competitive market. Farmers would face a choice between lowering standards and seeing their livelihoods destroyed. Minette Batters of the National Farmers’ Union has said:

“Farmers are going to feel betrayed … I don’t recall anyone selling a vision of post-Brexit Britain as one involving lower-standard food filling shop shelves while British farmers … go out of business.”


If UK agriculture cannot survive, prices of imports will rise, leaving the country dependent on imported food of dubious quality.

Lowering UK standards will, in turn, create barriers to agreeing a trade deal with the European Union, which is needed to preserve farmers’ important EU export markets, since US food standards are incompatible with those of the EU. Europe is not only the most significant destination by far for our agricultural exports; in addition, the EU has negotiated international trade agreements on our behalf with our most important non-EU trading partners, so replacement deals will also have to be negotiated to ensure continued agricultural access to those markets. The EU is also our largest source of food imports, providing fully 30% of our food supplies, so more empty shelves could be in store.

Even before the Brexit decision was made, UK farming already faced major challenges, including increasing globalisation, international competition, changing consumer expectations and preferences, accelerating technological innovation, and longer-term pressures brought about by climate change. As everyone knows, farmers are subject to price volatility and market pressures that continue to put their livelihoods at risk. The added uncertainty of future trade deals with the EU puts their future export markets at risk. The EU provides a vital destination for UK food exports, with the Irish Republic, France, Germany and the Netherlands being the principal markets.

A trade deal with the US would also threaten the National Health Service and would be imposed without consent. The Trade Bill, which had its First Reading in your Lordships’ House last week, makes no provision for parliamentary scrutiny of future trade deals and will grant the Government Henry VIII powers to change the law on trade agreements without parliamentary approval. The devolved Administrations do not have any role in negotiating or approving international trade treaties.

Rather than taking back control, the UK could even become a satellite state of Donald Trump’s US in a race to the bottom. That is the reality of these harmful plans for a hard Brexit, which threatens not just our food producers but animal welfare and the environment. The pandemic has shown the importance of food security, a healthy diet and a harmonious relationship with nature. These plans need to be opposed before it is too late.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, here we are, back again with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

My Amendments 211 and 213 to 216 seek to improve Clause 33. I can also see the power and value in Amendment 212 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. My amendments would require an animal slaughter levy to be established for all animals slaughtered in the United Kingdom. The funds raised from that levy would then be used to support farms to transition from livestock to plant-based food production.

As many Peers have said, meat consumption in the British diet is, on average, far too high. It is too much meat for our health. If all other countries in the developing world aspired to eat as much meat as we do, we would need dozens more planets to accommodate that meat production. As we have only one planet, reducing meat production and promoting plant-based foods are major steps in creating a fair and sustainable world.

Tucked into Amendment 211 is a requirement that the animal slaughter levy actually be set up, since the current drafting of Clause 33 grants the power to establish a red meat levy but places no duty on the Government to implement it. It is worth noting that creating a red meat levy is a big step for the Government; it is the kind of thing that, until very recently, us Greens have been mocked for even suggesting. Can the Minister be bolder than just red meat and go the whole hog to make this a full animal slaughter levy? I beg to move.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments, specifically those on Amendment 212, standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Wigley, which seeks to

“provide for repatriation of the levy collected in the United Kingdom supply chain to the devolved administration of origin.”

The agricultural processing sector in Wales, from whence I am speaking, is relatively small in comparison to the agricultural output of Welsh farms. The red meat sector is the predominant agricultural activity in Wales, and the processing facilities servicing this sector are strategically placed throughout the UK to maximise accessibility in a system that is heavily reliant on roads and HGV transportation for the movement of livestock.

With levy funding allocated according to place of cull rather than an animal’s point of origin, the centralised processing system disadvantages farmers in Wales. Furthermore, key products such as Welsh lamb and beef, which benefit from the protected geographical indication status—PGI—and derive a greater market share due to this status, are culled in other areas of the UK. It is these locations, not Wales, that receive the levy funds. This imbalance, driven by the streamlining and consolidation of the red meat processing and supply chain sector, is causing additional stress on a red meat sector already under significant financial strain in Wales. Levy Boards, with their increasingly important role in promoting the food products of Wales and working with the agricultural sector to improve efficiency and profitability through knowledge and best practice, should receive an equitable share of levy funds that allow them to work effectively in their respective areas of the UK.

As the UK seeks to negotiate new trade deals with other nations, it is the successful marketing and promotion of our flagship products in Wales, such Welsh lamb, 92% of which is currently exported to the European Union, that could deliver transformational change for farmers there. It would be unfortunate if these opportunities could not be delivered due to a poorly structured levy funding mechanism.

The issue of fair levy funding dispersal is also an important consideration when looking at the delivery of sustainable food production in the UK, a point referred to in passing by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. A proportionately funded levy body could look beyond helping farmers and the supply chain with economic performance towards a focus on environmental and social considerations, especially sustainability.

Looking further ahead, we would all like to see a food supply chain based around local production, processing and consumption; that would provide potential benefits not only for the farmer but for the climate change mitigation agenda, which is so crucial. That is the long-term goal. In the meantime, having resources allocated fairly to the levy bodies will enable them better to support our agricultural producers as they move towards economic and environmental sustainability. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment and indicate that when he comes to reply.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has explained this issue extremely clearly. Essentially, Amendments 174 and 285 would greatly improve the definition of when exceptional market conditions exist, which would be a very sensible thing to include in the Bill.

My Amendment 176 would prevent financial assistance in exceptional market conditions being given to producers who do not meet animal welfare standards. I set out the arguments for restricting this assistance in the debates on previous groupings but, in short, public money should not be given to producers who fail on animal welfare—in fact, such producers should not be in business at all.

[Lord Hain [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who speaks with such authority and passion on these agricultural questions.

I wish to speak to my Amendment 175; I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The agricultural sector has always been subject to the whims of nature and climate. However, recent years have seen an increase in disruptive weather patterns, such as prolonged, unseasonal periods of flooding, extreme cold and heat, and drought—often with different challenges at the same time in different areas of the country. We have also experienced the impact that invasive diseases, such as bird influenza, blue tongue and ash dieback, can have on plants and animals.

These unexpected, often catastrophic, events can deliver significant damage to our agriculture businesses, both individuals and whole sectors. A year’s worth of income can be decimated by one bad storm or a few rain-free months during a growing season. In Wales, the 2013 heavy spring snow is a good example; by the way, England was even worse hit then. Another example in Wales is the long summer droughts of 2018 and 2019 that caused even secure water sources to dry up and arable yields to drop significantly as water for irrigation was unavailable. These farming “natural disasters” are at such a scale that there is a case for state sector intervention of the kind that this amendment proposes—especially with the growing impact of climate change, which is undoubtedly a cause of them.

These uncontrollable factors uniquely affect the products that we grow from our land. Increasingly, it is not just the market conditions of the globalised agricultural commodity markets that affect our core industry of food and farming; it is the untameable elements of nature that are getting increasingly erratic and wild. This new reality, already acknowledged and understood when we look at actions around climate change adaptation, needs to be extended into the thinking on how we support farming businesses affected by these situations. The drivers of exceptional circumstances have changed, and we must change with them. I hope that the Government take heed of that.

Indeed, that imperative is underlined by official Defra statistics showing that our food sector is heavily reliant on imports. We export £2.1 billion of meat but import £6.6 billion, and we export £1.3 billion of fruit and veg but import a massive £11.5 billion. We are so vulnerable as a nation over our food supplies; that is made worse by the ravaging effects of climate change.

The policy objective of this Bill is admirable. It is to encourage and incentivise our farmers, the custodians of our countryside and the managers of our land, to deliver more environmental benefits from their land use and use new trade opportunities and markets to increase economic sustainability. This ambition must be balanced with a fresh look at how, when and why the Government are willing to provide additional support to a key economic sector in crisis. That means looking beyond the traditional and narrow definition of what drives economic failures. It also means acknowledging and providing emergency support tools to deal with the reality that our climate, our weather and our environment are changing and that businesses operating in the natural environment will be detrimentally impacted by factors completely beyond their control—indeed, beyond our control—including the Covid-19 pandemic, an unexpected crisis that has shaken the world economy beyond anybody’s imagination. We should be using this opportunity to make sure that we have the tools and powers in place to allow us to support those businesses if and when a natural crisis occurs, which is what Amendment 175 seeks to do. I hope that it finds favour with the Minister, who has played such a constructive role in his sympathetic handling of this Bill.

Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Hain

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, Amendment 19 is a very important amendment to probe the Government on what they anticipate the application of Clause 2 will be. I very much enjoyed some of the other contributions today, particular that of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, which was particularly scathing and deserves to be in a newspaper somewhere. I loathe the Government trying to make these power grabs. The idea that they can just extend the concept of a crime is inherently damaging to democracy.

In particular, the key question that I need the Minister to address is in what circumstances he foresees a private international law agreement creating or amending criminal offences. As I understand it, the Bill and the agreements that it seeks to implement are entirely focused on the resolution of disputes between individual people or companies. Can he tell us what situations would give rise to any criminal liability, as opposed to civil liability? Does he anticipate that we will attach criminal fines and imprisonment to civil disputes? If there are not any good examples, why is this provision contained in the Bill and should your Lordships’ House not amend the Bill exactly in the way proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton?

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 20 to Schedule 6 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer on the matter of proper consultation, which it would require. As a former Secretary of State for Wales and still living here, I am aware that no legislative consent Motion is required for this Brexit-consequential Bill and that the Welsh Government appear to seem at least content with it. But, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy highlighted, there are real concerns about the delegated powers to join future private international law agreements.

I understand that the UK Government have provided assurances to the devolved Administrations that, first, there are not any agreements in view at the moment that touch on matters within devolved competences and that, secondly, if any such agreement emerges the UK Government will guarantee to consult the Welsh Government, and presumably the Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government. I would be grateful if the Minister specifically confirms this when he replies. I ask because, for nearly four years, Conservative Governments have had a sorry record of failing properly to enable devolved Governments to participate in framing a series of European Union withdrawal and Brexit-related Bills. Consequently, UK Ministers were regularly accused, as noble Lords might recall, of a power grab—of using the transfer of functions from Brussels back to the UK to recover to Whitehall previously devolved powers.

The First Ministers of Wales and Scotland both repeatedly complained about a failure of Whitehall Ministers to consult. Indeed, I have argued exactly that in your Lordships’ House on several occasions. There were also refusals to grant legislative consent Motions in Wales and Scotland until a satisfactory series of outcomes were belatedly conceded by the UK Government. This is not a good advertisement for the unity of the UK when it is under greater threat than ever.

I will put on record some specific examples of a failure to build consent, as Amendment 20 implies must be the case, because these must not be repeated. The 2017 EU withdrawal Bill, as originally drafted, represented a major assault on devolved competence. It was only as a result of very strong cross-party support in your Lordships’ House that the Government were forced to agree to a default position that all powers vested in the EU on matters of devolved competence would revert to the devolved institutions when we left the EU. This has led to a more consensual approach to the work of developing common frameworks where all four Governments agree that there needs to be a shared understanding and approach across the UK.