Pig Farming

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate, whom I thank, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, my neighbour in North Yorkshire, for calling this debate. I am delighted to sit on what I think is now called the Rural Interest Group of the Church of England General Synod with the right reverend Prelate.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister, whom I welcome to his place today, is listening carefully to the tenor of this debate, because the state of the pig industry is parlous and perilous. We have heard about the loss of workers and abattoirs and post-Brexit skilled labour shortages. There is a lack of butchers and vets; I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Trees, will spell out why vets are needed in this process.

Against that background, we hear of rising costs: the large increases in the cost of fuel and wheat, and feedstuffs—a major part of a pig’s diet—going up from £150 a tonne to more than £300. There is mounting concern both for the welfare of pigs, which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, referred to, being kept on the farm for much longer—for too long—and for pig farmers, who are losing money every single week.

In preparing for today, I received a number of briefings for which I am extremely grateful, particularly from Karro, Cranswick, Pilgrim’s and the National Pig Association and its indefatigable chief executive, Dr Zoe Davies. For me, the starting point of the debate today is clearly the excellent report earlier this year from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on such food and labour shortages. I want to pay tribute to its work and in passing, on a sad note, to recognise the role of the then chairman, Neil Parish, who succeeded me as chair of the committee. Its conclusion 15 is absolutely damning:

“The evidence we have taken leaves us in no doubt about the seriousness of the issues facing the food and farming sector caused by labour shortages. These include food security, animal welfare and the mental health of those working in the sector. In contrast, the Government has not demonstrated a strong understanding of these issues, and even on occasion sought to pass the blame onto the sector on the basis of incorrect information about its own immigration system.”


It ends with a plea:

“The Government must radically shift its attitude and work together with the sector to devise solutions that speedily help address the problems it faces.”


I support the conclusions and recommendations it reached.

It is true—and I am sure my noble friend will reiterate it again today—that Defra has provided a package of measures to support the pig industry, such as temporary work visas for pork butchers, private storage aid and a slaughter incentive payment scheme, which helped to increase the number of pigs going through abattoirs, but I argue that these measures are simply not enough and do not address the problem adequately.

As my noble friend the Minister stated in the debate on Monday, repeating the Statement on the national food strategy, the food sector

“is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK—bigger than automotive and aerospace combined.”—[Official Report, 13/6/22; col. 1423.]

I argue that the pig sector is still a very large part of the food and farming sector. It has been of particular significance in North and east Yorkshire in contributing to the rural economy and employment. Sadly, that is less so since the foot and mouth outbreak of 2000 and 2001.

Prior to that, the pig sector was also dramatically affected by the decision in the late 1990s unilaterally to ban sow stalls and tethers, which meant that 50% of pig producers went out of business. More recently, there is great concern that UK standards of production may be further compromised if imports from third countries are permitted that are produced to lower standards than our own.

I reiterate the problems of the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushing up the cost of feed and energy, but I pay tribute to the potential for exports to China, which for the moment have, sadly, been temporarily shut down. I recognise and pay tribute to the earlier work of the now Foreign Secretary, the right honourable Liz Truss, who, when she was Defra Secretary of State, opened up the Chinese market to UK exports and for the first time placed an agricultural attaché in the British embassy in Beijing. Finally, it seemed that we were learning from other countries, such as Denmark, that are brilliant at marketing their produce, not least their pig produce.

At the time, I represented the Malton bacon factory, now called Karro, in the Thirsk and Malton constituency, which contains Filey. This export contract to China massively increased the exports that it was able to provide of pig parts. I kid you not: trotters and such, while British consumers do not deem them very edible, are deemed to be a delicacy and are eaten in huge numbers in China. So I put it to my noble friend that the temporary loss of that trade is keenly felt by the pig sector at this time.

I take this opportunity to ask my noble friend to consider a few urgent measures that the Government could introduce. In particular, I will look at the situation in China. That is compounded by the fact that political conflict in areas where human rights and trade disputes are foremost has resulted in plants being delisted, and we are unable to have them reapproved for export to the Chinese market. All this is massively impacting the ability of processors to pay the price that our farmers require.

Due to the red tape around exporting pig meat to Europe, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, alluded, and the lack of checks and regulation into the UK, the processing industry is facing an unfair situation into Europe, causing cheap European meat to enter the market here and further suppress the price paid for UK pigs. I hope that my noble friend will take the opportunity to look at that.

Cranswick and Pilgrim’s have also opined on this theme, saying:

“The inability to export pigs to China is having a direct impact on the number of pigs that can be processed, and therefore contributes to the remaining backlog”,


to which the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, referred. This is because carcasses exported to China require less skilled butchery, thus allowing for greater numbers to be processed through the sites even with fewer butchers available. They would also like to see the licences to China replaced, but they are very concerned that more than 100 US meat and poultry plants have been granted export licences, demonstrating that approvals are being issued elsewhere but simply not in this country. Perhaps my noble friend could explain why that is the case.

I shall end with the food strategy that was announced on Monday, about which my noble friend stated, when repeating the Statement from the House next door, that

“we are clear that we want people at home and abroad to be lining up to buy British. Our food strategy sets out our intention to consult on ensuring that the public sector sources at least 50% of food locally or produced to higher standards.”—[Official Report, 13/6/22; col. 1424.]

I agree, but how can my noble friend ensure that those contracts for tender will happen? We are banned by the GPA, saying that any public contract of over $130,000 has to be put out to tender. I hope my noble friend will take the opportunity to square that circle and put in place the other measures that others have alluded to, such as better border controls, better communication and a renewed government focus on pig farming.

Tree Health in England

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble and right reverend Lord on securing this debate. Will my noble friend the Minister join me in paying tribute to and recognising the work of Fera at Sand Hutton, York, on tree health? I will refer to it in a moment.

In March 2014, in response to the immediate threat of ash tree dieback, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, which I had the honour to chair, published a report, Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity. Its recommendations and conclusions have stood the test of time. I refer in particular to recommendation 18,

“that ring-fenced funding is provided for long-term research and development work that focuses on preparation for future plant health threats”;

recommendation 20, that Defra set up

“immediate initiatives … to address the lack of relevant expertise in the field of plant health”;

and recommendation 22, to develop resistant strains of ash trees without diverting funds from other, more immediate control measures. These recommendations have stood the test of time and I hope that Defra will continue to honour them.

It is a matter of note, as set out by my noble friend Lady Fookes, that there is a very wide range of potential tree and pest combinations that may be of concern heading towards this country. I welcome that Defra, FERA and others, such as Forest Research, contribute to Defra’s risk register, which helps to prioritise action against pests and diseases posing potential threats to UK species.

I take this opportunity to raise a number of questions with my noble friend the Minister. The practice of exporting ash tree seeds from the UK to, for example, Denmark and Poland—areas where trees subsequently reached high levels of infection in the early 2010s—and then reimporting them as saplings contributed at the time to infection of ash tree disease in this country. Will my noble friend consider whether it would be worth banning this practice outright rather than allowing it to continue, potentially contributing to the spread of the disease? Do we need to tighten up tree inspections at borders to ensure the health of trees and that they are safe to import? I refer to the fact that there is no longer a requirement to pre-notify consignments of high-risk trees, yet all plants for planting are effectively pre-notified via the phytosanitary certificate system. I am told that saplings coming into the UK will have been classified as healthy at the country of origin and will likely face an inspection—but how likely? Should we therefore tighten up inspections at the port of entry?

Developing ash trees that prove resistant to future strains has not been that successful so far. Up to 90% of UK ash trees are still at risk of infection. I understand from the Tree Council’s toolkit that only a third of local authorities have signed up to tree strategies. I believe that this should be increased.

Finally, as my noble friend Lord Caithness asked, what is the current funding for the tree strategy and the prevention and control of tree diseases? Will the Minister ensure that FERA has all the tools that it needs at its disposal to ensure that it can keep controls and innovation up to speed to protect us from future infections and diseases from other parts of the world?

Farmers

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I am absolutely convinced that farming is going to be a profession and a skill that will be much in demand in a hungry world. But the noble Lord is absolutely right: there is uncertainty because of commodity price spikes internationally and because of changes to farming systems. We are doing all we can to skill up farmers for a different world—a different world of support, in which they will be incentivised. We want to make sure that they do so in a way that reflects how young people want to go into an industry and to be skilled. I am happy to work with the noble Lord and other noble Lords on making sure that we understand how we can help farmers at this difficult time.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Can my noble friend explain to the House what specific support will be given to tenant farmers, who risk being ineligible under the new schemes?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, tenant farmers can access the sustainable farming incentive, which is the entry-level scheme. Where there are difficulties between landlord and tenant, we are seeking to iron them out with the committee headed by my noble friend Lady Rock, which has representatives of the Tenant Farmers Association, the CLA and others, to make sure that tenant farmers will be a fundamental part of future British agriculture. It is the only way for many people to get into farming, and we want to see it thrive.

Zoonoses Research Centre

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This is a major threat and was identified as such in the integrated review. We are corralling expertise within government, academia and the private sector, and our priorities are around genomics research, vector-borne disease research and projects to improve the use of surveillance. We think this is the best way that we can abide by not only the Prime Minister’s commitment but the leadership Britain has given in the G7 and G20 to make sure we have a global response to these threats.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend pay tribute in this regard to Fera, the food science facility at Sand Hutton, near York? I commend the work of many universities outside the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge on this. Does monkeypox not show that just the sort of global framework argued for by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, is needed at this time and that Britain should be at the forefront of it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am very happy to pay tribute to Fera, which does extraordinarily important work and is part of a wide range of different organisations— I apologise to noble Lords; sometimes it is like an alphabet soup—which we are trying to bring together, with their various different strands of expertise, to make sure we tackle all zoonotic diseases. My noble friend is absolutely right that monkeypox is one of them.

Food Price Inflation

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

To the noble Lord’s point about Odessa and getting grain out of Ukraine and on to the world market, it is of course a war zone. While this war ebbs and flows, there may be opportunities for the international community to get involved in precisely what he rightly points out is important. We do not know. However, I can assure him that we are working extremely hard with other countries and the Government of Ukraine to try to achieve this. There was talk earlier about trying to find some sort of land bridge to get some of this produce on to the world market, but that is more difficult. On his last point, of course the Chancellor deals with fiscal matters, but I point out that we have increased the threshold below which people pay income tax, which directly impacts many people on low or modest incomes. It is those sorts of things that have much more impact on household incomes than some of the suggestions that we have had to date.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend share my concern that fruit and vegetable prices may increase because there are no Ukrainian workers coming over? How advanced is the scheme that my noble friend is looking at to bring Ukrainian women and their families over, and would it not be a wonderful idea to accommodate them at RAF Linton, which has family accommodation for both the women and their children?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not aware of the details of that last point, but we are working very closely with the sector. Our information is that there are concerns, but it is thought that they are containable and that the fruit and vegetables will be harvested and available for our domestic market. I assure my noble friend that we are monitoring this daily with the industry to make sure that we are getting this right.

Food Security: Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We have to make sure that we are not, through our environmental policies, just pushing carbon emissions and biodiversity practices that we do not allow here to other countries. We are part of a global community. Our food supply chains are very complex and we want to manage them with our international relations and make sure that we are protecting our environment at home, continuing to produce good food and playing our part abroad as well.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend join me in paying tribute to our farmers, not just for putting food on our plates but for creating and protecting biodiversity? Will he ensure that food security is embraced as a public good and that tenant farmers will continue to benefit from farm payments?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We want the entire spectrum of British agriculture to benefit from the changes. We recognise that this is a difficult time for farming; it would be even if we were not going through the changes we are with commodity price spikes and the like. We are working closely with them and the food sector to make sure that we are supporting our British farmers and that they continue to produce food at the highest welfare and environmental standards now and in the future.

Ukraine War: UK Food Security

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current state of food security in the United Kingdom as a result of the war in Ukraine.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I refer to my interests in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register. I start by paying tribute to Lord Plumb. He had an extraordinary influence on British agriculture and on this place, and his voice needs to be the voice in our heads as we consider Questions such as this.

The UK’s food import dependency on Ukraine and Russia is very low, so the conflict is expected to have limited direct impact on the UK food supply. However, Russia and Ukraine are major global exporters of food commodities, so increases in international commodity and fuel prices are putting pressure on food supply chains. The Government are engaging with industry to understand and mitigate any impacts of the conflict on individual industries and supply chains.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I join my noble friend in paying tribute to Lord Plumb, who gave me my first job in politics in 1982 in the European Parliament.

Given the increasing threat to food security, and the fact that the Agriculture Act and the Environment Act were passed before the hostilities in Ukraine and the rising cost of inflation, will my noble friend promise to keep the phasing out of direct farm payments and the introduction of environmental monies for public goods under review to ensure that food production remains the top priority for farmers, to boost our self-sufficiency? Will he promise to keep market and supply chains under review, and will he take this opportunity to inform us about the programme for seasonal workers, particularly those in fruit and vegetables?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I absolutely understand people’s concerns about the current situation and its effect on farming. The basic payment scheme and area payments have had their day and are indefensible. Some 10% of landowners got over 50% of the BPS budget, and the smallest farmers—one-third—got less than £5,000. What we are proposing is different and it offers farmers much more choice to support their businesses. My noble friend raises a very important point about the market, and we are working very closely through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets, including price supply inputs, trade and recent developments, and we have increased our engagement with the industry. There is much we can do to support farming at this difficult time, and we will continue to do so.

On seasonal workers: we have 30,000 visas agreed and that can be extended to up to 40,000. Our current negotiations with the industry suggest that this is enough, but we are keeping it under review.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as in the register. I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare. I thank the Minister for useful discussions during the passage of this Bill, and I hope that he is a very happy grandfather this afternoon.

I accept these amendments, particularly Amendment 1, but, as a vet and a veterinary scientist, I have to say that I do not condone some of the activities covered under the amendment in terms of,

“religious rites, cultural traditions and historical heritage.”

Some of those activities are not consistent with best practice in animal welfare science or indeed regulation, and I will take this opportunity to make a plea to those directly involved to consider very carefully and to reflect on whether practices which had some historical relevance in ancient times are relevant, necessary or at all acceptable in the 21st century. Having said that, I respect national and international laws pertaining to freedoms—in particular, Article 9 of the Human Rights Act on religious freedoms.

I will make one further point. During prolonged discussions about the Bill in this House, a number of noble Lords raised the potential threat to the use of animals in medical research. That was a fair concern, but one which could be countered—I spoke to that effect, as did others at the time—by the fact that the rigorous application and implementation of our Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 was a sufficient response to the requirement for government departments to have due regard to animal welfare and the development of policies. We have thorough, world-leading regulations around the controlled use of animals in medical research.

Recently, it has come to my notice that there are changes afoot in the Home Office with regard to the implementation of the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act. It is not yet clear to me what the effect of those changes might be on the welfare protection of animals used in medical research. I urge Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that any changes with regard to the implementation of the law pertaining to the use of animals in medical research should not weaken—or be perceived to weaken—that regulation, which could lead to increased legal challenge to the use of animals in medical research when the Bill becomes an Act. I support the amendment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing the Bill to this stage. My concerns about it have not changed, but we are where we are. I want to lend my support to and associate myself in particular with Amendment 1. In doing so, I repeat that I am a fellow of the British Veterinary Association and share some of the concerns outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, regarding its practice.

I seek reassurance from my noble friend as to the response of the devolved Parliaments to the amendments. Have the Government had the chance to square the amendments with them? I further seek reassurance that in the operation of the Bill the Government, particularly my noble friend’s department, will be mindful of the role that farmers and especially livestock producers play in rearing our farm animals, and perhaps recognise that they are best placed to respect animal welfare and are masters in their own right of animal husbandry.

I hope that, in light of the short debate we had elsewhere in Questions this week, the Government will be mindful of the fact that there is still a severe shortage of seasonal workers which is impacting on abattoirs and the slaughter of animals. I hope that there will not be any undue concern over potential animal welfare consequences of that. I realise that it is not entirely within the scope of the Bill, but I wish to draw it to my noble friend’s attention. I congratulate him on accepting the two amendments before us today.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I had thought that the Government had completely forgotten this Bill, because it has been so long threading its way through both Houses. Anyway, I am glad that it is happening. It is not the Bill that I would like to have seen passed, but I guess that we have to accept it, since it is better than nothing—although that is not exactly glowing praise. I hope that we can see some effectiveness coming from the Bill and real action, so I say well done for bringing it back and getting us to this point.

Veterinary Personnel

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Working in an abattoir or assessing the viability of products of animal origin is not necessarily why everyone goes into the veterinary profession, but they are important professions and part of it. We are working with the royal college to make sure that it is a career people want to go into. We are working with the Food Standards Agency, which is now going to recruit 25% of official veterinarians itself, rather than going through a third body, to make sure that we can career-manage them to stay in the profession and prosper in it.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the British Veterinary Association and congratulate my noble friend on the work his department has done. However, on the question of abattoirs, does not he accept that the shortage of veterinary workers is causing the scandal of the backlog? How does he intend to address that?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think it very important to say that there is no threat to human health resulting from the shortage of official veterinarians working in abattoirs. There is adequate coverage. It is a problem, and we are seeking to address it in a number of ways that I have already stated, and others. I hope we can reassure the public that, while there is a shortage, there is no risk to public health.

National Farmers’ Union

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point out that it is vital that we protect the agricultural and food supply chain. We have powers in the Agriculture Act that allow us to introduce statutory codes of conduct that increase the transparency of business relationships and protect farmers and others from imbalanced commercial terms. We are currently exercising that in a number of sectors.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will my noble friend join me in celebrating livestock farming in this country? He will be aware that much livestock production is conducted by tenant farmers in upland and common land areas. What future does he envisage for tenant and livestock farming?