Agriculture Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsTuesday 14th July 2020
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-IV(Rev) Revised fourth marshalled list for Committee - (14 Jul 2020)
“( ) protecting or improving the food security of citizens and access to food that promotes good health and wellbeing.”
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 70. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for their support for Amendment 35. I also thank the two noble Baronesses, as well as my noble friend Lord Caithness, for their support of Amendment 70.
Amendment 35 seeks to add a further subsection to Clause 1(1) to ensure that
“protecting or improving the food security of citizens and access to food that promotes good health and wellbeing”
will qualify for financial assistance. The purpose of the amendment is to put public interest in food security front and centre in the Bill. While I accept that other parts of the Bill provide a requirement on the Government to report on food security and to have regard to food production in the use of their powers under Clause 1 on financial assistance, there is nothing in the Bill that specifically addresses the need to focus attention on matters relating to food security.
This is an issue of great importance to all citizens. At a time when we have seen our food system come under huge pressure as a result of the impact of Covid-19 and the government response to its spread, it is remarkable that the Government do not see the need for greater focus on this most important concern of the British public. It is not simply about driving self-sufficiency, which has fallen to about 60%; it is also about the fact that production of food from our own resources is an important part of food security. Indeed, the Government’s own food policy tsar, Henry Dimbleby, has highlighted the need for greater attention to be given to this important policy area. It is a matter of regret that we have not, and will not, have sight of his much-anticipated report at the time that the Bill is adopted in this place. With more than 1 million people having signed a petition seeking greater support for food standards, we in this place must be in step with the British people, ensuring that we share their concerns on what is given proper pre-eminence in the important legislation before the Committee today.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I will have to look again at Amendment 60. The construct is about where, following the Health and Harmony consultation we undertook, it was decided that we should recognise support for farmers in a post-CAP world. It was recognised that we needed to put food production and food security in the Bill, and we have put them in. This is the difficulty when you have improvements in iterations. They were valuable new iterations, but the point about rewarding food production is that, with better fair dealing, the farmer gets a reward from the market. They do not as yet for the purposes in Clause 1(1)(a) to (j), and we think that is where the reward should be.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to all who have contributed to this group of amendments. There were almost 40 contributors, including the Minister and me. It has been a vigorous debate and almost all noble Lords were united.
I am grateful for the response from the Minister. My remaining concern, as has been reflected in the questions, including those following his speech and his response to them, is that food production should be considered a public good. I am not quite sure that we have established that yet. Also, I remain deeply concerned —as, I believe, do other noble Lords—about the future of food security. We have not had and will not have sight of the Dimbleby report on food strategy, in which a lot of this will be dealt with, according to my noble friend said. That is regrettable. But the hour is late. For the moment, I will withdraw this amendment, but I reserve the right to return to it later. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 35.
Agriculture Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsThursday 9th July 2020
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-III Third marshalled list for Committee - (9 Jul 2020)
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and in particular that I sit on the rural affairs group of the Church of England. I apologise if I failed to mention that on Tuesday. I support Amendments 12, 13 and 62. My comments are more in the form of questions.
We have before us the policy statement. What is its status in relation to the Bill? In responding to this group, will my noble friend the Minister bring us up to date?
On Amendments 12 and 13 regarding educating children, from which budget should that come? I am a great supporter not just of farm visits but of visits of schoolchildren to country shows. When I was at school in Harrogate I had the great good fortune to visit the Great Yorkshire Show. We had a day off for the purpose. Will my noble friend use his good offices to liaise with his counterpart in the Department for Education to ensure that such visits continue? I am a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and know that it is very keen to receive those visits. For the first time the show will be online, like a number of rural shows across North Yorkshire. It is a wonderful opportunity to engage children without them having to leave school or their home. However, I think it should more properly come out of the education budget.
My noble friend Lord Holmes referred to crops under glass, on which our noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach is obviously a great expert. Will my noble friend the Minister liaise with BEIS to ensure that, if we are to benefit from energy from waste, we educate the public about its benefits, even though it means using incinerators? In Denmark, Germany and Holland this is not a problem for the public, and we should not hold our farmers and horticulturalists back by a lack of understanding in this regard.
I pay tribute to the work of Fera at Sand Hutton and the Rothamsted institute. Will that type of research fall under the new financial assistance proposed in Clause 1 or should it more properly come from R&D budgets elsewhere? That clarification would be most helpful.
I support Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lady Rock. Diversification lies at the heart of our future farm policy. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take this opportunity to identify those who can advise our farmers, particularly smallholders and tenants, about the best thing to use.
In supporting Amendment 101, which relates to new entrants, I refer to the policy statement, which points out most helpfully on page 39 that regrettably those farmers
“after the reference period are unlikely to be eligible for delinked payments.”
Will my noble friend do what is set out here by making it easier for farmers who wish to retire to do so and who, by delinking, will free land for new entrants? We have to support new entrants as far as possible. This, together with the expected reductions in rent prices we are told about, should help them to get a foothold in the industry. That links to the amendments I will move later relating to tenancy holdings. This could be very useful. We need a bit of flesh on the bones in the policy statement.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendments 12 and 13, and I endorse what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and other noble Lords, on the importance of robotics in agriculture. I well remember being involved in this in the 1980s. We were the world leaders in new robotic developments, but of course, constrained by the state subsidy rules of the European Union, we lost out to Japan and the United States, where, in particular, the use of contract compliance with state orders for the military gave them the competitive advantage to protect their fledgling industry.
My appeal to the Government as we leave the European Union is this. In this country, state aid is generally seen as protecting old, dying industries, but, at its essence, it is to protect fledgling industries that need link-ups with universities and the ability to experiment to get products that work to market. In robotics and artificial intelligence, not least in the area of agriculture, our potential is huge. If we were to win that battle, we would be more self-reliant and more competitively advantaged internationally. We should grab those opportunities before it is too late, not least because China is doing the same thing; it is leading the market and getting that market advantage.
At the same time, we should not copy the Chinese model for GM food. One thing that most surprises me about the debate on agriculture in this country is how we have allowed a form of quasi-communism to run it. Look at the role of the supermarkets: every strawberry and carrot must be identical in size and taste. This is specified by supermarket contracts, which farmers struggle to meet and make a profit under. The answer is not to move towards GM food—the ultimate communist dream of every product looking the same and tasting the same—but to go in the opposite direction. Something far more radical than farmers’ markets is needed, although they are a good starting point, conceptually. The whole basis of the tax incentive system for local food needs radically overhauling in his country. The incentives should be for real production, as the farmer sees it taken to the local market, to take out the food miles and to challenge directly this communism of the supermarkets in making everything the same. Again, in leaving the European Union, we have the opportunity to give that incentive to those local markets, and we should be doing so in a very big way.
Finally, I have a comment on trees and forestry. Pit timber used to grow alongside the collieries of this country in a very big way. We failed to learn the lessons of that in our forestry planting. Forestry planting has been seen as the preserve of the rural economy, yet on former coalfield sites we have huge swathes of reclaimed land, once brownfield and often still laid to waste. It would be ideal for reforestation as an industry, exactly as was done for those pit timbers 100 and 150 years ago—the remnants of which still exist. That would also give an amenity to local communities over the next 50 years. We should rethink precisely where our forests are being planted.
The Earl of Shrewsbury [V]
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I believe it to be an extremely important one and I congratulate him on the way in which he moved it. It is a very wide-ranging subject. I have no problem at all with public access to land, so long as no damage is caused to property or to livestock. I believe firmly that if such damage is caused—not everyone who benefits from access to the countryside acts in a responsible manner—it is only fair that the owner or tenant of the property in question is compensated for the cost of that damage and its reparation.
To give an example, during the recent very hot spell, and with lockdown and social distancing in force, a field on the River Dove, very close to where I live in an idyllic part of the world called Dovedale—an area of outstanding natural beauty—was invaded by a large group of people, who picnicked there and swam in the river. The litter they left, both in Dovedale and by the river down in Mapleton, was like a carpet of detritus. It was atrocious—bottles, plastic bags, human waste and all sorts. It was cleared up and disposed of by the landowner at his own expense. Under the terms of my noble friend’s amendment, that landowner would have been reimbursed for his trouble. That seems to me to be only fair and right.
The other day, at Questions in your Lordships’ House, I asked my noble friend Lord Goldsmith whether it was the case that the landowner or the tenant should not be responsible for paying for the clearing of fly-tipping on their land. The answer that I got was less than satisfactory. My noble friend told me—to paraphrase—that the landowner or the tenant should pay for this because it was part of his responsibility of farming the land. That could not be further from the truth, and I think that is a pretty rough statement to make.
I support my noble friend’s amendment and I look forward to listening to what my noble friend the Minister has to say in this regard.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this amendment. I shall be brief, because it covers many of the points that I made on the third group. I also thank the Minister for adding Clause 1(1)(b), but I have questions for him. What form might the compensation take? Is one of the problems perhaps that rural crime is not taken as seriously as it might be?
I believe that such prosecutions come under the Environment Agency rather than the police. Should there be a wider use of cameras in rural areas believed to be prone to this? Where there is shared access between, for example, a county council as well as a different user of the land, should there be some arrangement to negotiate between them about who is responsible for policing this? How does my noble friend intend to police the current provision under Clause 1?
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I am glad to take part in this brief debate, and it is nice to have a debate on one specific amendment, dealing with a particular problem or series of problems.
I do not suppose there is a single one of your Lordships who was not totally disturbed and revolted by the photograph of that wonderful, 500 year-old oak tree burnt down last weekend in Herefordshire as a result of irresponsible barbecuing. That is a totemic picture and shows—alongside the graphic descriptions by my noble friend Lord Caithness, who moved this amendment splendidly—what we are up against.
I have a specific suggestion to make to my noble friend the Minister. I was taken by the explanatory statement of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on the Marshalled List:
“This amendment is to highlight the extra costs that farmers and foresters can face”—
he has done that graphically and splendidly—
“and discuss the effectiveness of the Countryside Code.”
I understand that the code is in the process of being revised, which is good. However, I do not suppose that very many of those people who created squalor in Dorset or who burnt down that beautiful old oak in Herefordshire have a clue what the Countryside Code is.
My suggestion to the Minister is this: I have spoken in your Lordships’ House before on the subject of citizenship, and I believe that every young person leaving full-time education should go through a citizenship ceremony, having studied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship for a year at least. One of the prime responsibilities of being a good citizen is to help to look after and enhance the environment.
There should be compulsory education on the Countryside Code and looking after the environment, which we have inherited and have a duty to pass on to successive generations. I would very much like to see, as part of the graduation process from school, the issuing of a countryside passport that young people are proud of and can carry with them. If they transgress—of course, it is not a problem of young people only, but one has to start somewhere—there should be exemplary fines and penalties. A cancelled passport should be one of these, because those who have shown that they do not appreciate and care for their environment and for the countryside should not be allowed to trespass and transgress upon it. I do not use “trespass” narrowly.
If we really mean what we say, and if we really want to strengthen the Bill in the way in which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has suggested, we must have not only compensation but, at the forefront of our mind, the creation of a culture where compensation will not be needed because people will not despoil and damage their environment. I recommend to my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, and to my noble friend Lord Gardiner, who has been meticulous in his attendance, devising some sort of system along these lines.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, who speaks with great authority and knowledge on these issues. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for introducing this little group of amendments and for the opportunity to discuss native—and, perhaps I might say, non-native—species. I will limit my remarks to Amendment 19. The biggest threats to native species, as I see it, are the uninvited, unwelcome guests of non-native species. For example, I have seen first-hand the damage that Himalayan balsam can cause, particularly along the length of a stream; how difficult it is to eradicate; and the time and expense taken up by land managers in this regard.
When I was on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the other place, we looked at this in a report on Chalara, which causes the ash tree dieback. I hope that when my noble friend the Minister sums up she will confirm that the practice by which, for some bizarre reason, seeds used to be exported from this country to others such as Denmark, Poland and others where the disease existed, and then we reimported those trees as saplings from those countries, has been stamped out and will not be repeated. It brought a high level of infection to this country. We now have a number of endemic diseases in the horse chestnut, which I fear may go the same way as elms did. We heard only this week in the Lords of a new threat, particularly to lavender and other plants, from Xylella fastidiosa.
I again commend the work of Fera—I know that it has changed its name, forgive me—which does great work in this regard, as well as on ash tree dieback. If the Government were to look favourably on this little group of amendments, I invite my noble friend to consider whether farmers and land managers could be reimbursed for the work that they do in trying to protect our native species from these unwelcome and uninvited non-native species.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. Lord Marlesford? If the noble Lord does not wish to speak, we will move on to the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is on such fine form. I thank my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury for bringing forward this excellent amendment. I will ask my noble friend the Minister one specific question, which follows on directly from what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, just said. I am conscious that many livestock producers, predominantly pig producers, have cut down heavily on the use of antibiotics, at some considerable expense. As I understand it, the alternatives are a great deal more expensive. Will the Minister confirm that Clause 1(1)(f) will enable alternatives to be covered by the provisions of financial assistance under that clause? I entirely endorse the thinking behind what my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury said. It is absolutely right to see animal health and welfare as interdependent.
The Duke of Wellington (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I had intended to withdraw to speed up proceedings, but now that I have been called I will simply say that I support the principle behind Amendment 44. It is in my opinion desirable, where the terrain and climate admit, to winter animals outside. It is good for their health. Therefore, I totally support what is behind that amendment. I need say no more.
Agriculture Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsTuesday 7th July 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-II(Rev) Revised second marshalled list for Committee - (7 Jul 2020)
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group. Amendments 5, 17 and 89 question the different wording in different sections of the Bill. Clause 1(1)(a) uses “protects or improves”; Clause 1(1)(c) uses “maintains, restores or enhances”; elsewhere, “conserves” is used, which is defined as including “restoring or enhancing”.
Using different words in close proximity in the Bill gives the strong impression that different things are meant by them and that words which are not included each time are therefore in some way excluded. For simplicity of reading, we should choose one word. I would choose “enhances”; I have gone with “conserves” because that is the Government’s choice. If we have one word which is defined to encompass all the other concepts, this clause will read more clearly.
With Amendments 27 and 28, I wish to check with the Government that we are not confining ourselves to additional varieties and species, but that we will be able to apply funds to new species of animal livestock and in particular to new plant crop species. Genetic engineering should mean that we can move many of the crops that now grow some way south of us a good way north and therefore improve the resilience and variety of our agriculture.
Amendment 86 checks where the boundary is for an activity such as coppicing. It was not clear to me from the words used that the whole process of felling trees and particularly extracting them from woodland could be covered by finance. If we are going to make it profitable for small woods in particular—I declare an interest in owning one—to supply coppice for the power station industry, for instance, we must look at how we will get that wood extracted. If not, there will be no benefit in extracting it and therefore no benefit in coppicing.
Lastly and most importantly, Amendment 76 addresses local nature partnerships. In the Bill we ought ideally to recognise the role that these have come to play in the negotiations between the various entities which have a finger in the pie of looking after nature in our countryside. They have been remarkably successful and I very much hope we will continue to support them and embed them in how we take decisions about nature and the countryside.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to my three amendments, I take this opportunity to thank the Minister, the Bill team and everybody for getting us to this stage. It is quite remarkable that we have a book of amendments almost as large as the Bill itself. I know the lengths to which my noble friend will go to accommodate us.
I will speak first to Amendments 24 and 104 in my name. I thank other noble Lords who have joined me in signing Amendment 24, which is for probing and debating purposes only. Obviously, I do not wish to see land taken out of “managing land or water” that will benefit from new financial assistance under the Bill. I am grateful to my noble friend, who is responding today, and to our noble friend Lord Goldsmith for responding to my concerns, which I have also set out in Amendment 104.
There will be opportunities for farmers to create reservoirs, working either on their own or with water companies. This will be recognised as financial assistance, other than where they may already fall within a flood plain, which I think is the one exclusion. My noble friend said that the equivalent of 25 Olympic-sized pools would fall within the provisions of the Reservoirs Act 1975.
We are absolutely delighted to have the Slowing the Flow at Pickering scheme. I am sure that many other schemes like it will benefit from the provisions of this Bill. I welcome that. It could be not just for farm use, but caravan parks and golf clubs may consider storing water temporarily or more permanently on their land. However, could my noble friend be a little more precise? In my noble friend Lord Goldsmith’s reply to me in a letter on 2 July, he said:
“The temporary storage of floodwater on land would not necessarily constitute a raised reservoir and would therefore be exempt from reservoir safety regulations in England.”
It would be helpful if my noble friend could place that letter in the Library so that I do not need to refer to it in any more detail. Could we have an assurance today on what will be considered temporary storage and what permanent storage, to reassure those seeking to retain water temporarily as floodwater that they will not fall within the provisions of the 1975 Act, which are particularly onerous for reservoirs and would reduce it to 10,000 cubic metres?
Further, the reservoir we had initially sought for the Slowing the Flow scheme could not be signed off by the panel engineer from the Institution of Civil Engineers. Can my noble friend assure the House today that even water stored temporarily to retain floodwater on land will not fall into that category? That would be most helpful.
Amendment 24 relates to financial assistance for upland and hill farms in particular, which produce pasture-fed livestock. There are concerns that hill farmers may not benefit because many of them are tenants. In North Yorkshire and other parts, I think almost 50% of farms are tenanted. Later we will consider county council farms, which are almost exclusively tenanted farms by their very nature. This is a probing amendment to see whether my noble friend would be minded to use financial assistance to promote pasture-fed livestock farming systems. It is something that we are particularly good at in the United Kingdom, in parts of northern England, Scotland, Devon and, I am sure, Wales and other parts as well. The taste of the spring lamb off the North Yorkshire moors is hard to beat but that is not why we are here today.
Pasture-fed livestock farming is responsible for the management of a significant part of our landscape. The national parks have done a great piece of work on this, which we will come on to consider. But it is particularly important in this regard to seek financial assistance for the way the uplands are managed. Too often, calves and other animals that are fattened on the pastures come in for unnecessary and unwanted attacks from interest groups which perhaps do not understand how red meat is produced and how important it is to a balanced diet. The uplands also play a role as a carbon sink—storing carbon in the grasslands—and in harvesting carbon from the atmosphere on an ongoing basis. Given the wider benefits of pasture-fed systems, I urge the Government to address this sector within the realm of public goods, under Clause 1(1).
I make it clear that this is complementary to and supportive of the provisions on native breeds, whether on pasture or other systems. I acknowledge that native breeds are probably already recognised, so I nudge my noble friend towards considering that pasture-fed livestock also come under the provision, for biodiversity and public health reasons as well.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, whose closing remarks on pasture-fed livestock echo my own Amendment 78, which seeks the following:
“In framing any financial assistance scheme, the Secretary of State must have regard to maintaining support for hill farms and other marginal land previously designated as less favoured areas.”
I support what the noble Baroness said in praise—not just support—of those areas.
We need to recognise the geographical importance as well as the environmental, agricultural and food production importance. Less favoured areas in England cover the Pennines, the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales —Yorkshire generally—Devon and Cornwall and most of Wales; and, of course, a huge chunk of Scotland, which I know is not directly covered by the Bill but this demonstrates how important it is. In those areas it is a very significant part of the local economy, in terms of employment, the environment, access and the general diversity of the economy. As the noble Baroness made clear, our uplands—our hill lands—are most useful for livestock rearing, grazing and pasture feeding, particularly of lamb and beef, and are not suitable, really, for cropping, other than in marginal circumstances.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, the origins of this amendment are fairly straightforward. As we go through this Bill, we talk about great changes to agriculture. We start off with a list of changes and where things are going to change in relation to government support for agriculture. We do not actually define those whom we are going to support, and I feel that they should be on the face of the Bill. If they are not on the face of the Bill, we should know exactly where that list is.
All the positive changes that might affect the environment and people’s access to it, which I will discuss at considerable length in the next group, are going to be dependent upon farmers taking much of the action and getting through financially in what they need to do. Unless the Government pay them, it is not going to happen. Unless we are getting some sort of new force that is going to go marching into the countryside equipped with whatever it is and on whatever legal authority it is—which I have seen no hint of anywhere —we are dependent on those involved in farming and related industries actually to fulfil this for us. The only way we can reasonably expect them to do it is if they are properly paid, so there is a symbiotic relationship there: they get money for changing their behaviour.
The change of behaviour for farmers is going to be difficult: culturally, financially and in every other way, it is going to be a change in a way of life in many cases. To what extent and where depends on who they are and in what situation, but that is what I am trying to get on the face of the Bill. I do not pretend that this amendment is perfect because I literally went through and thought, “Good, this is in the Bill or that’s in the Bill” and at the end of it, I said, “What about land managers? Let us try to get some idea about this.” They are the delivery system for the other changes set out in the Bill, so let us make sure that they get some support. It does not really go much further than that, other than to say that we have to make sure that they are there and identified. If the identification comes somewhere else, that is great, but if it means running down a list saying, “By the way, if you look across and go legally through and jump across sideways, that’s where the definition is,” that is the classic way to make mistakes. The lay person will not be able to find out what is going on. We have all, in this Chamber, been involved in situations where somebody said, “Legally, it was there,” but we could not find it. It might be slightly more straightforward here than in some of the cases we are talking about, but that is what I am trying to get at.
There is another amendment in my name, Amendment 115, on the accountability system for taking on any action. That probably would have read better in the next group, but if the Government have any undertakings on this, let us find out what is going on. That is really what my initial thinking was about, and I look forward to hearing from those who are going to speak on the rest of the group, but that is my primary motive for moving this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
My Lords, I will speak to three amendments in my name in this group and thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and my noble friend Lord Caithness for supporting Amendment 65. The purpose of this amendment is again to probe the Government. As was said in conclusion by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, we have a limited pot of money being spread very thinly. I hope that we can focus where the money goes on farming, obviously within the remit of agriculture, horticulture and forestry.
In keeping the focus on farming, I will turn to Amendment 103. Just before I do, I will take the opportunity to ask my noble friend the Minister about the types of activities that he feels may be covered. For example, there have been sectors in the past that have received no support but have spent huge amounts of money—I am thinking in particular about antibiotic use, which we have reduced at some considerable expense, although I think this has put Britain in the driving seat with regard to the reduction of antibiotics.
There may be possibilities of supporting, for example, pigs through outbuildings and storage facilities, which will help to tackle climate change and bring a number of benefits while improving the way that we manage—or rather pig producers manage; I do not, obviously—manure and slurry reduction. While it has not been beneficial in the past, I hope that it will help to tackle climate change and increase production. Is that something that my noble friend thinks might be supported?
I want to flag up something that I am sure we will return to in later groups: the potential funding gap between when basic farm payments phase out and when ELMS—which I know we are going to explore in more detail in further amendments—will come in. How is that going to be addressed? I am also looking at the socioeconomic aspects of this, where natural capital seems to have been the focus of great emphasis, although it benefits only those who own the land, for the most part, and it cannot necessarily be shared with tenant farmers, who actually do much of the farming on that land in many circumstances.
I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for supporting Amendment 103. I am sure that my noble friend will recognise this text because it has come, in great part, from the Government’s own paper Health and Harmony. The public good is very ephemeral and opaque, and I give him the opportunity to put more meat on the bones and reward activities that are related directly to the production of food or farming in its broader aspects and, furthermore, activities from which tenants may benefit. We might focus too much on trees and the planting of crops like special grasses that soak up the water and have many qualities, and I want to make sure that landowners and tenants will benefit.
Lord Clark of Windermere [V]
I was going to do that. We have 19 million visitors. In order to accommodate them, there need to be facilities. If we are going to have public access, we need small car parks and public transport to get people to the attractive areas.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
My Lords, I shall be brief as I do not have amendments in this little group. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Overall, access has been a phenomenal success although we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that that is not always the case. My concern is that the flip side of access should be responsibility on the part of those using the access. Over the lockdown period we saw regrettable behaviour by a few irresponsible people which unfortunately tarnished it for many.
I remember that when I was growing up there was something—I think there may be a later amendment on this—called the countryside code. It was on television. There were adverts saying simple things like, if you walk on the Pennine Way, which is near where I grew up, you close the gate if there is livestock in the field and that it is dangerous to enter a field where there is a calf, as the cow will defend it to the death. We have even seen a vet, who was walking their dog through a field, killed in the past two years. Like the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I cut my parliamentary teeth next door on the CROW Bill, so I bear the scars. We ran one or two very unsuccessful exercises as an opposition, I recall. How can the Government ensure that the flip side of access will be responsibility and that the costs will not be disproportionate to the enjoyment? I hope those using the access will behave in a responsible manner. We saw some malicious fires—It was not just fly-tipping; the materials were burned to get rid of them so they could not be traced—and the irresponsible use of barbeques. When there are crops growing in a field, you cannot have access until the crops have been taken out. We need responsible behaviour so that the cost will be proportionate to the enjoyment.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington. As somebody who over the years has supported access to the countryside, I fully understand and appreciate that. However, I come back to the principle, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the Minister, of the balance of competing rights: the right of people to enjoy the countryside, and their right to have access to it while at the same time respecting it. Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I am well aware that during lockdown there was a certain despoliation of the countryside—a considerable level of littering and probably interference with farm animals. It comes back to the issue of getting the balance right. After all, access to the countryside can be a pretty disputatious issue if it is not managed properly.
Direct Payments Ceilings Regulations 2020
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing forward these regulations today, sandwiched so neatly between the Fisheries Bill and the Agriculture Bill next week. Like other noble Lords, I express my concern about how these regulations under the current system apply to smaller farmers and, in particular, those on hill farms, where I grew up and which I represented for 18 years in the other place, and tenant farmers.
I welcome the certainty that my noble friend has presented today, with the rate being fixed at an exchange rate of 89p to the euro. My question is one which I am sure has been asked in other years. I understand that the euro currently stands at 90p, or even slightly higher. Who picks up the shortfall in the costs of the exchange rate? Does that mean that fewer funds are available to the farmer, as it has to come out of the £2.8 billion allocated to the direct payments? I would be interested to know. Obviously, someone has to pay if there is a currency discrepancy there in this particularly volatile current period.
My noble friend referred to the ceilings regulation and the fact that, as I understand it, the ceiling is being kept the same. As we go into the transition period, where these will be phased out, will my noble friend say whether the Government intend to keep the pro rata within the ceiling, so that as the total comes down, the pro rata will remain the same and there will be a similar cap in future years? Can my noble friend address specifically a potential continuity gap between the regulations before us today and the new regulations, which will not come into effect until the end of the payments transition period? I understand that a consultation on ELMs has reopened, and I accept that that is an issue for another day. However, it is difficult to respond to a consultation if the farmers or those who wish to respond do not know the outcome of the trials and we have no idea what the nature of the pilots will be. Any light that my noble friend can cast on that would be very welcome.
The continuity gap that concerns me, which I hope my noble friend might briefly address, is: as we phase out these payments over the period to the end of the 2020s and the new payments come into effect, how does my noble friend intend that the Government will address that? Obviously, this is an argument for another day, but I hope that he will look favourably on the amendment to delay the transition phase from 2021 to 2022 in the context of the Agriculture Bill when we reach that next week.
Looking ahead to that Bill, I know that a number of noble Lords today have argued for transfers of payments from pillar 1 to pillar 2. My concern is that we are taking money away from the active farmer and often giving it to those not involved in farming at all. That will be an even bigger issue when we come to address financial assistance or public goods. I hope that my noble friend will address that when he comes to consider the comments that we have made in this little debate, but I thank him and I support these regulations.
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsWednesday 24th June 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for his explanation of Amendment 55. It was slightly mystifying when Schedule 10, which was brief and pithy and revoked four articles and one annexe of the common fisheries policy regulation, suddenly spanned eight pages of the Marshalled List. Some of this is tidying, as the Minister says—although I am not wholly convinced that tidying needs to be done at this moment.
Many of the provisions are in reference to the fisheries objectives. Can the Minister confirm whether the schedule would need to be amended further if your Lordships’ excellent amendment on the sustainability objective, which we voted for on Monday, were upheld in the other place or—dare I say—accepted by the Government? He also mentioned provisions relevant to the landing obligation and to multiannual plans for stocks, which give the Secretary of State powers to make decisions that depart from some of the requirements of the Bill as a result of a “relevant change in circumstances”. I understand that flexibility is required owing to relevant changes of circumstances, but can the Minister tell us what safeguards will be put in place to ensure that those powers are not overused?
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have just a couple of questions. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that this is not a change of policy? It is good to have the opportunity to discuss these amendments as part of our discussions on the Bill.
My noble friend said that under the review, particularly when a calendar year is being replaced by
“such year or other period as may be specified in the determination”,
this would be based on scientific evidence. In order to be absolutely clear, may I ask what that scientific evidence will be? Will it include not just the home scientific evidence that we have from England, Scotland and other parts of the UK but scientific evidence from ICES?
I have two anxieties. As my noble friend explained, changing the period from a calendar year could be eminently sensible, but would it not be better to say something like “such year or part-year as may be specified in the determination”? The amendment as drafted is quite open-ended. I would like some reassurance that we are not looking to set, for example, a 20-year value. The ability to use a non-calendar year, or a part-year, seems useful, and I could support that. I just want reassurance that we are not going to see 20 years’ catch allocation being taken in the first year, which would obviously lead to a disproportionate result. I hope my noble friend can reassure me on that.
Amendment 33 is about issues involved in setting the quota of catch or effort for English purposes. Are those issues affecting the setting of the quota of catch or the effort for English purposes only? It suggests that only the EU quota will count as quota that can be overfished, but can my noble friend explain the position of quota that the UK sets for whatever reason? Surely, we in the UK need to know what is happening to stock for which we are responsible. If overfishing is not recorded, how can we address the issue? This is a matter of taking the scientific evidence and the actual recording over whatever time period, whether it is part of a year, and to rule out a 20-year period in the first instance. That is what I am particularly concerned about. Lastly, I would like a reassurance that this is not a change of policy.
The Deputy Speaker
We had a problem earlier on in getting the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and I would like to try again. Lord Naseby?
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received a request from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to ask a short question for elucidation.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
I am increasingly alarmed by what my noble friend says. This seems to be a step backwards. We heard clear undertakings at Second Reading and in Committee that we would continue to take the science from the tried-and-tested research capability to which we contribute financially at present and whose excellent experts we previously heard from in the EU Environment Sub-Committee of our European Union Committee. I am alarmed that there is any question of us moving away from the international science community. As we have established, we do not have unique control over the fish. They move around. I want an assurance that we will not look at moving away in the next five or 10 years, as well as a further commitment from my noble friend that our current commitment to financing ICES after 31 December this year is assured.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, we may be at cross purposes here. We have no intention of not using the best science. In fact, I have worked collaboratively with ICES. I assure my noble friend and your Lordships that there is no intention of doing anything other than seeking the best scientific evidence available. That is why we are working with ICES, why ICES has an international reputation and why we have a very strong record here. My noble friend asked about the next five to 10 years. I cannot commit on what a further Government might want to do, of course, but I can say categorically that this Government work closely with ICES, which contributes in many respects to ensuring that we have the best science and the best scientific advice. The scientific objective in the Bill could not be clearer. I am troubled and will therefore write to my noble friend because we may be at cross purposes. There is no intention of doing anything other than going forward with the best scientific advice.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]
My Lords, I noted that in the earlier version of this Fisheries Bill, which came out over 18 months ago now, there was a clause early on that tried to define a UK fishing boat as one with at least one UK shareholder holding more than 5%. That seemed quite a low bar to me, but the thinking behind it was probably based on the 1970s attempt by the UK to apply an ownership limit to foreign investment in UK fishing boats of 75%. For the record, the UK lost its case in the courts because ownership caps at that time could apply only to EU ownership, not British ownership.
Nowadays, of course, the widespread and sometimes complicated international ownership of all businesses—in this case boats—creates far too tangled a web to unweave through legislation, which is probably why the words I referred to in the earlier version of the Bill were dropped. Anyway, maybe it does not matter who is investing money in our fisheries and boats, as long as they are creating the jobs in the UK. As others have said, we all know that for every one job on a boat, whoever owns it, there are 10 jobs on land in the processing, handling, transporting, marketing, selling, et cetera, of the fish.
So it was very sensible of the Government to drop the reference to the percentage of UK shareholding in a boat, but sadly they did not follow through with any sort of landing requirement. It seems that they understood the issue but, having realised that their solution would not work, failed to see that a landing requirement would achieve almost the same end but by a slightly different means.
This is an important amendment. Such a landing requirement could make a huge difference to coastal communities—and, believe me, they need this boost. Of the 25 local authorities with the highest rates of insolvency, 16 are coastal—and that was before Covid-19 came along to make matters worse.
I hope that the Government will accept this enabling amendment, or agree to bring in a similar amendment of their own. I accept that such a commitment might be dependent on Brexit negotiations, but I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort in his reply and indicate that such a requirement is very much at the forefront of the Government’s mind.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on bringing forward this debate on a key topic in the Bill. I agree entirely with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy: the key to coastal community economic success is processing activities. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, put so eloquently how these have been devastated in communities such as Grimsby.
There is another side-effect. If we do not have a national landing requirement, as set out in this amendment, I struggle to see how we can apply Clause 28, in which the Government hope to introduce a discard prevention charging scheme. My noble friend will recall my disappointment that we have moved away from discard being an objective in Clause 1, but we are now going to have a discard prevention charging scheme. A bycatch objective has now been added to Clause 1. How can we police the bycatch and impose a discard prevention charging scheme if we do not have a national landing requirement?
Baroness Young of Old Scone [V]
My Lords, I support this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The situation reminds me of what used to happen with EU structural funds, which were intended to promote regional development and often funded roads and railways into remote rural areas. These promptly allowed all primary agricultural and other products and skills to be sucked out of those rural areas and processed elsewhere, which resulted in more impoverishment of the very areas the investment was intended to help. We do not want an example in the Fisheries Bill of inadvertent consequences of this sort.
Bearing in mind that we are repatriating and setting forth towards a brave new world of our own fisheries management independence, it is highly appropriate that this amendment aims at ensuring that our new fisheries regime will make sure that UK producers, processors and coastal communities play a full role in a thriving and sustainable fisheries market, and at the promotion of UK jobs and skills. This is a highly appropriate amendment.
The Earl of Caithness [V]
My Lords, I am very grateful for the clear way in which the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, introduced this amendment. That was helpful.
I have a concern about the word “entrants” in the amendment. We are talking about a fishing industry which comprises both crew and owners. In 2018 the Seafish review put the average age of crew at about 38 and of owners at about 50. Surely we are trying to get more boats and therefore more owners, who will then employ more crew, into our fishing fleet. I particularly welcome the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, of focusing on helping boats of under 10 metres, but that will all depend on the economic viability of fishing. If fishing is not a viable, sustainable industry, there will be no owners wanting quotas and, as a result, no crew employed. That will have a detrimental effect on coastal areas, as we have already discussed.
The quota system, which is how the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is attacking the issue in this amendment, is perhaps not as beneficial for increasing the overall ability for new entrants to come into the industry as another way might be. I do not know quite what that way is, and I will rely on my noble friend Lord Gardiner to help me with that, but focusing on the new entrants will not be as beneficial because the quota belongs to the boat owner.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I am minded to support this amendment, as it addresses an issue I have raised ever since we had the informal briefing with the then Minister for Fisheries, now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am slightly concerned because, in spite of what we hear about various schemes for new entrants, I have not identified a great rush for new entrants over and above what the current provisions allow. I raised this at the informal briefing and was given an assurance on it; currently the under-10 fishermen—I had the privilege of working with them most recently in Filey, but also in other parts of the country—rely very heavily on shellfish, but, as was said previously, are given scraps of other whitefish under the table through the very complicated system of top-slicing discards which are then gathered into a pool from which the under-10s can benefit.
We were led to believe in the informal briefing that an official mechanism would be put in place to ensure a stricter, clearer, more transparent situation in which the under-10s would benefit from any remaining quota on an annual basis. My noble friend the Minister may well be able to put my mind at rest here, that that provision is somewhere and I am not immediately seeing it, but that promise was made and I invoke it here: that under the provisions of this Bill, under-10s will benefit from a higher and more regular quota going forward.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville [V]
My Lords, like all industries, a vibrant fishing industry relies on a rotating workforce. Many families around our coastlines have been engaged in fishing for generations. Sons and occasionally daughters learn from their fathers and become part of the team. However, as we have heard, it is becoming increasingly difficult for new entrants and the under-10s to get a toehold in the industry and an allocation of quota to get started. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, also pressed the case for fresh young blood in the fishing industry. The examples of Denmark and the Shetland Islands prove that it is possible to encourage new entrants.
For new entrants to feel confident that they can make a living out of fishing and for the under-10s to be able to put a roof over their heads in the much sought-after properties around fishing ports, quota will need to be reserved and increased to be allocated to this vital sector. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asked whether the Government are happy for the profits of fishing to go to pension funds and shareholders or whether they want to support our coastal communities and young people waiting to move into fishing.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said in his introduction that this is a minor amendment for England only. When making amendments, the Secretary of State would consider the previous three years’ quota; it would provide a degree of certainty to new entrants and the under-10s. Fisheries plans should consider historic catch. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, gave a graphic description of how the monthly quota system disadvantages the under-10 fleet. It is time for a change.
My noble friend Lord Teverson spoke about protecting our coastal communities. This amendment allows that to happen. Putting all our eggs—or fish—into the one basket of larger fishing vessels does nothing for our coastal communities. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has drawn attention to the shellfish fisheries around our shores. These are largely small vessels, and most of their catch is sold to EU countries. He gave an excellent synopsis of how the Bill is likely to play out if no deal is agreed on Brexit.
If the fishing industry is to survive, it must be vibrant and have new entrants. The under-10 fleet must be a consideration in quota distribution and not be fobbed off with the scraps left by the deep-sea fishing fleet. I could not follow the logic of the arguments of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; there will be no rush of new entrants unless they can be assured of receiving a quota to live on. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but if it is not sufficient, I will join others in the virtual Lobby.
“( ) In making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must ensure that fishing rights—(a) may not be sold on to other persons following the original purchase,(b) are not sold to non-active fishers, and(c) are prioritised for sale to vessels under 10 metres.”
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to Amendment 35A to Clause 27. This is a neat amendment which encapsulates three important points. Paragraph (a) states that quota
“may not be sold … to other persons following the original purchase”.
It should specifically not be sold to non-active fishers and should be
“prioritised for sale to vessels under 10 metres.”
Paragraph (c) has been debated to a large extent under the previous amendment, and the fact that that amendment was carried negates my having to speak to that part of my amendment.
My main concern lies with a practice that has become widespread. I do not think it was ever intended that quotas should be tradable, but it is a bit like the milk quotas. If you give something an economic value, it suddenly becomes of great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke about hedge funds. I was surprised to learn that football clubs had chosen to invest in fish quotas. I cannot think of anything that could possibly be further removed from an active fisherman. I would like to return to active fishermen benefiting. We have discussed how boats under 10 metres do not have access to anything other than shellfish, for which no quota is set, but they would like to have further access. As I say, that point has now been addressed, but I would prefer to see that quotas are not sold under any circumstances to non-active fishers. I should be interested to know the Government’s position—whether they would look favourably in that regard.
More especially, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the fact that this practice of quotas becoming tradable is regrettable. We should revert to the original practice, where those who bought the quotas kept them and did not sell them on. I do not think it is good practice to sell the quotas on and, if we can couple ownership to the use of quota, we will develop more responsible behaviour as to how the quota is exercised. It would be my fervent wish that quota is, in both the shorter and longer term, owned and used by fishermen directly, which gives everyone the opportunity to behave better, not being able to cut and run and sell quota off as surplus to their requirements purely as an economic commodity.
With those few remarks, I hope to gain the support of the Government in this regard for ceasing the practice of tradable quotas and to revert to practices where the quotas are sold to those who use them and, ideally, active fishermen. I do not intend to press this to a vote, but at this stage, I beg to move.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for tabling this amendment; I will be interested to hear the Government’s response to it. As the noble Baroness said, milk quotas became purely financial instruments, and it is absolutely right that we should not be in that position. They should not appear on the London futures market or whatever it may be because that is not what this is about, especially in the area of fisheries.
However, in Cornwall there is an organisation called the Duchy Fish Quota Company. While it is not itself a fishing concern, it attempts to use money from donors to buy quota in order to keep it for Cornish fishers. It does so because we have the exact problem that has been set out so well by the noble Baroness: these quotas are traded and there tends to be a concentration of them with the risk that they can be owned outside the United Kingdom. The nice thing is that if this problem could be solved through such an amendment or a similar policy, an organisation like the Duchy Fish Quota Company would no longer be necessary. I am strongly in favour of this amendment in principle and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response in terms of its policy for the future in this area.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her amendment, which seeks to place additional requirements were the Government to introduce schemes for the sale of rights to use fishing quota in England. These include requirements that rights must not be sold to non-active fishers and are prioritised for sale to under-10 metre vessels. As noble Lords will be aware, Clause 27 relates to the sale to English boats of rights to use fishing quota for set periods of time. It provides the necessary powers for the Government to make regulations in the future allowing the auction or tender of such rights in England. It is important to note that such rights may be sold for only a fixed period and do not give rise to any long-term rights to quota, which will impact on their tradability.
The Bill as drafted provides flexibility for any scheme to be tailored to future needs. This includes broad powers for the Secretary of State to specify persons or descriptions of persons who are eligible or ineligible to buy these fishing opportunities. This includes all of the criteria set out by my noble friend in her amendment. Clause 27(3)(d) allows any scheme to specify the persons or descriptions of persons who are eligible or ineligible to buy rights. Clause 27(3)(h) allows a scheme to permit rights to be sold or not to be sold to a person who meets certain conditions. Clause 27(3)(k) and (l) allow any scheme to permit or to prohibit the transfer of rights.
In England, we will tailor any auction scheme to our marine environment and fishing industry. The criteria to be applied to any future auction or tender could address concerns raised in relation to the under-10-metre fleet. Measures could be introduced to limit the lots being tendered, the amount of time they are tendered for and the groups they are targeted towards. The Government would fully consult on the scheme and any allocation criteria before it was introduced. It would be unhelpful to restrict the scheme before we had competed that consultation.
With regard to my noble friend’s point about whether fishing rights could be sold after purchase, that would be determined when developing any such scheme. The Government could place restrictions on this, including restricting the onward sale of certain stocks upon which different parts of the English fleet place more importance. However, it might be appropriate to allow the onward sale of rights to use some stocks. This could provide flexibility to the industry and allow rights to be exchanged throughout the year in response to market conditions, weather patterns and suchlike. Fishing is not always a predictable business and it is important that the industry can adapt to changing circumstances.
To summarise, under the current drafting in the Bill the Government can already introduce the provisions set out in the amendment. It is also right that the specific arrangements or criteria for any auction scheme are developed in consultation with stakeholders, rather than being prescribed in advance. The scheme will be consulted on and will be brought forward under the affirmative procedure, so noble Lords will have the chance to debate the structure at that point. The consultation and parliamentary scrutiny processes should ensure that stakeholders’ views are fed into the setting up of the scheme.
With that explanation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
I am very grateful to those who have contributed to this short debate, and I thank my noble friend Lady Bloomfield for her remarks.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, under whom I have the honour to serve on the EU environment sub-committee, rightly identified the comparison with milk quotas and explained why that would be regrettable. I thought that the scheme that he described for Cornwall was a good one and would not trade the quota for use by anyone other than active fishermen.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for his kind remarks. He pointed out the slight deficiency in the amendment, which at this stage I tabled more for the purposes of debate. I congratulate him on potentially securing the position of under-10-metre vessels through the adoption of his amendment earlier this afternoon.
I take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lady Bloomfield for confirming that this issue will be set out in more detail through the affirmative procedure. With those few remarks, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Speaker
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has asked to be readmitted to this debate.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
I am most grateful. I seemed to have fallen off the speakers’ list so I thank the House for reinstating me.
I have a quick question for the Minister. Given the time, I do not want to rehearse things that I agree or disagree with. I am sure that the Minister stated at Second Reading, or in the informal briefing prior to Second Reading, that the Government are minded to introduce remote electronic monitoring. At what stage of preparation is the Government’s introduction of REM? Do the Government have a point of principle against introducing REM at this stage or is it simply a matter of timing and preparation, as other speakers have alluded to?
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville [V]
My Lords, we had an extensive debate in Committee on the use of remote electronic monitoring of all fishing vessels. Noble Lords on all sides of the House have expressed concern at the state of fish stocks and the amount of bycatch and discards. It is not that we do not trust our fishing industry to stick to the quota and species rules; it is more that a degree of realism is needed when dealing with this issue. The discard ban is not being observed, and not just in the UK. Full compliance, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, told us, is essential. In the past, fish stocks have been decimated, cod in particular, which has led to a switch to other species. Due to stringent measures, including REM, cod stocks are beginning to recover. The only fail-safe way of protecting fish stocks is to have fish monitored at the point of catching, and REM is the most effective way of doing this.
Marine conservation has to be led by scientific data. My noble friend Lord Teverson has explained the purpose of REM as an enforcement tool. Where this is currently used, it is effective. I regret that I am unable to agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that now is not the time to make REM mandatory. Now it is precisely the time. If we leave this to the discretion of fishermen, fish stocks data will be insufficient.
This amendment has cross-party support; it covers the current UK over-10-metre fishing fleet fishing within the UK exclusive economic zone; it covers the UK fishing fleet outside the UK EEZ; and it covers all motorised vessels fishing in the UK EEZ, whatever their nationality. In the vernacular, what’s not to like? As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, told us, supermarkets do not wish to sell and the public do not want to buy illegally caught fish. The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, called this amendment the most important change we can make to the Bill.
Many noble Lords have mentioned data collection. It is essential that we know where fish are moving as result of changing sea temperatures and flows. How can we do this if data is not collected? REM would allow data to come back regularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, told us. This is not new technology; it is tried and tested.
The conditions in the amendment are stringent, but they need to be to protect our fish stocks. Without protecting our fish stocks, future fisheries will find fish stocks depleted and that there is nothing for them to catch. The arguments have been made and I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I fear I will probably be voting virtually.
Lord Krebs [V]
My Lords, it is getting late, so I will try to be as brief as possible. I start by thanking the Minister and his officials for extensive discussion of this matter and my Oxford University colleague Professor EJ Milner-Gulland for her advice and help.
In earlier stages of this Bill I spoke against the use of MSY as a target in UK fisheries policy. I cited leading fisheries scientists from the UK and US, who described it as outmoded and dangerous. I also referred to the fact that leading jurisdictions such as Australia and the USA no longer use MSY, because they have recognised its limitations. Sadly, I have lost that battle. I now seek to ensure that the definition of MSY in the Bill minimises its potential for harm.
Just to recap briefly: the concept of MSY dates back to the 1950s. Fisheries scientists wanted to work out in theory how many fish one could catch without driving the stock to extinction. The answer can be summarised very simply: when the harvest exactly matches the recruitment of new harvestable fish, the population is in balance and the harvest is sustainable. Harvest a bit over this limit, and the fish population begins to decline to extinction; harvest below, and fishing opportunities are missed.
The trouble with this neat theoretical idea is that in practice you often do not have enough accurate information to calculate the rate of recruitment, nor do you usually know the precise harvest. That is why some fisheries harvested at MSY have in the past collapsed. These problems are compounded when dealing with mixed fisheries, where setting MSY for one species may incidentally cause another to be overfished. Furthermore, as the environment changes—for instance, as a result of climate change—the recruitment rate and other variables will change, so the MSY will no longer be appropriate. That is why the wording in the Bill needs to be changed.
Clause 48 defines MSY as
“the highest theoretical equilibrium yield that can be continuously taken on average … under existing environmental conditions without … affecting the reproduction process”.
The problems with this definition are as follows. First, it refers to a theoretical calculation rather than relying on actual data from the sea. Secondly, it refers to the recruitment process, which is only one factor that can affect the viability of fish stocks. Other factors, such as environmental change, can also be important. Thirdly, it is not appropriate for mixed fisheries.
My proposed change is very simple: remove the word “theoretical”, so that the calculation is based on real data, and replace “reproduction process” with “viability of the stock”, which allows for both environmental change and mixed fisheries.
I was pleased to hear the Minister say this afternoon that ICES is the body whose advice the Government respect and use. Here is what ICES says in its advice on the management of the exploitation of living marine resources:
“ICES considers ecosystem-based management … as the primary way of managing human activities affecting marine ecosystems with ecosystem-based fisheries management … specifically addressing the fishing sector.”
It goes on to say that MSY
“is a broad conceptual objective … The MSY concept can be applied to an entire ecosystem, a fish community, or a single stock. … ICES interpretation of MSY is maximizing the average long-term yield from a given stock while maintaining productive fish stocks within healthy marine ecosystems.”
My question to the Minister and his officials when I met with them was: why not simply use the ICES definition in the Bill? Remarkably, one of the officials said that, although he had helped to draft the ICES definition, the definition of MSY in the Bill could not be changed because it was the definition used in the common fisheries policy. I thought the point of Brexit was that we would determine our own way of doing things, but apparently not in this case; this has actually been a recurrent theme in debates on the Bill.
I fear that the Minister will not agree to change the wording in the Bill, even though I strongly believe that my wording is an improvement on what is currently there. If the Minister is not willing to change the wording, it would at least be encouraging if he were to reassure the House that the management of fisheries will be based on real data and that it will include broader ecosystem considerations such as environmental change. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for bringing forward these two amendments. I had the opportunity, just out of personal interest, to meet the scientists at ICES in their Copenhagen offices on two separate occasions. I was very amused to learn that they have annual visits from the Scottish fishermen, who try to massage some of the research figures; I am delighted to say that the ICES scientists have managed to bat these away—they are leading independent scientists in this field.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has done the House a great service this evening by identifying why MSY is possibly outdated and no longer fit for purpose and pointing to the basis on which ICES relies, which is an ecosystem-based management. Recognising that MSY might be moving forward and given the fact that climate change is changing the nature of fisheries—the waters are warming in certain parts and the fish are moving to cooler waters—I support the sentiments behind these two amendments and indeed have lent my name to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has pointed out, ICES is the leading marine scientific base of research. These amendments give my noble friend the Minister an opportunity once again to confirm that we will continue to take its research going forward, at the very least—he could not commit to five or 10 years —for the next year or two. I do lend my support to these two little amendments.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge [V]
My Lords, I shall not detain the House for long. I support completely the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. He has stated the reason for them admirably. Given that we have just been having a debate about the importance of data, I cannot understand why we would then look at theoretical information—how we can base judgments on theory when we should be looking all the time to base them on data and science.
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsMonday 22nd June 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Fisheries Act 2020 View all Fisheries Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-R-II(Rev) Revised second marshalled list for Report - (22 Jun 2020)
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I speaking to Amendment 1, I will speak also to Amendments 4 to 6. What concerns me about all these is that if the UK and the EU fail to reach a deal by the end of the year, they will be bound by international law; namely, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—UNCLOS—which requires co-operation and efforts to agree rules on access to waters, as well as setting catch limits and standards on conservation and management of marine resources.
In the bizarre world of Brexit, the fishing sector—which represents a fraction of 1% of the UK economy—may be the issue that determines whether the current trade negotiations with the EU succeed or fail. Escape from the common fisheries policy was touted by the Brexiteers during the campaign as a great prize to be won, but this sector is heavily dependent on easy access to EU markets, whereas British consumers prefer to eat fish imported from Europe.
I suggest that the future of UK fishing should be determined not by this vacuous Bill or by Amendments 1, 4, 5 and 6, but by a sensible and detailed negotiation with the EU in the current trade talks. At present, regrettably, there is little sign of this happening, and there is now a danger that this issue will prove to be the rock on which a potential deal founders.
As everybody in this debate will be aware, the UK fishing industry, including processing, is heavily concentrated in coastal communities of the nations and regions, which rightly deserve protection in view of their high levels of deprivation and low levels of income and education. However, these communities are heavily reliant on easy access to EU markets. About two-thirds of fish caught by British fishers is sold to the EU in frictionless overnight trade. Most Welsh fishing boats specialise in shellfish, with 90% of their catch currently exported to the EU; I am speaking from my home in Wales at the moment. Meanwhile, UK consumers prefer fish imported from Europe, so our fish processing industry is also heavily reliant on imports from the EU.
After years of one-sided propaganda about “our fish” and claims in the tabloids that a single British fishing industry will benefit from reclaiming the proportion of fish caught by EU boats in UK waters—probably around 60% by weight and 40% by value—a more complex picture now emerges, as this catch is mostly fish for which there is little demand in the UK. There are also large British boats that depend on EU-agreed quotas for their access to Norwegian waters.
In April 2019 the biggest whitefish trawler in the UK fleet sailed up the Thames to highlight the threats facing the fishing industry if Brexit negotiations end in no deal. This is because in that event there would be no automatic access for British boats to these key waters. The jobs of hundreds of fishermen and many hundreds more in fish processing in north-east England will be at risk unless a deal is reached whereby UK vessels are able to continue in such waters that have long been open to UK fleets.
Unsurprisingly, protecting their own vulnerable coastal communities, and ensuring that fishing rights that have existed for hundreds of years do not die, is also a priority for a number of coastal EU member states, such as Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. This became evident earlier this month when EU Fisheries Ministers were reported to have rejected Michel Barnier’s proposals for compromise and instructed him to hold firm to his red lines. Just as the Conservatives may be wary of being seen as having betrayed Scottish fishers—as they are worried about the Scottish Parliament elections next year—President Macron of France, for example, will have in mind that he faces an election in 2022.
Incredibly, our dogmatist Government—I acquit the Minister of this charge, because I think he is doing an honest job—seem willing even to sacrifice the chance of a beneficial deal for the UK financial services industry to save UK waters for the British fishing industry. The financial services sector accounted for 7% of UK GDP in 2018, employing an estimated 2 million people. In any event, the UK fishing industry is likely to suffer, rather than prosper, if there are EU-UK cod wars, as, among other things, there will be a danger to sustainability of stocks through overfishing. It would therefore be a spectacular own goal if the UK refused a deal relating to finance as the price of not reaching an agreement on fishing.
What might constitute a reasonable deal? Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, outside the common fisheries policy the UK is still legally obliged to consider the historical fishing rights of its neighbours, which suggests that some continued access to UK waters for fishers across the channel would be a reasonable expectation. As a quid pro quo, and irrespective of Brexit, as a result of fish migration there is probably a case for review of some UK quotas for mackerel, herring, cod and hake, but that does not need to be at a scale that destroys the livelihoods of hundreds of EU fishers.
However, a no-deal Brexit would destroy the significant parts of the UK industry that are dependent on frictionless overnight trade in fish, impact fish processing—which depends on access to EU imports—and cause loss of access to waters off non-EU states for large UK boats that currently benefit from EU access. I am really not sure how Amendments 1, 4, 5 and 6 help deal with that predicament.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I was very interested to hear the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, gave for bringing a slightly amended version of this amendment back on Report. While I am sympathetic to what I think he is trying to achieve, I have great difficulty in finding this amendment appropriate. I fear it looks at the issue from a particularly English perspective, and I hazard a guess that the Scots may take a different view. I was fortunate to receive briefings from both the Scottish fisheries organisation and the Law Society of Scotland, and we must appreciate that the fisheries opportunities in Scotland are immensely important. They represent 58% of the value and 64% of the tonnage of all fish landed by UK vessels, so I am struggling to understand.
I see that we have changed the wording from “marine stocks” to “fish”, probably in recognition of the fact that, in Scotland, there are many other uses of the exclusive economic zone. But the argument remains: the citizens of the four nations, and in particular those of Scotland, would argue that they have a right to a lion’s share of the fish.
Proposed new subsection (2) goes on to talk about quotas. I have tabled an amendment to Clause 48, which we will come to much later, when I will develop my argument on quotas more fully. I wait with great interest to hear what my noble friend the Minister has to say on this matter, but I am not entirely convinced that the law as it currently stands does not encompass what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is trying to achieve. If noble Lords will forgive the pun, I believe that this amendment will, if anything, rather muddy the waters and not take the arguments any further forward.
Lord Krebs (CB) [V]
My Lords, we spent a great deal of time discussing sustainability during earlier stages of the Bill so I do not wish to repeat the arguments at length. However, because it has been well over three months since we last discussed this issue, I will recap briefly.
This amendment supports the Government’s own aim. At Second Reading, the Minister told us that
“this Bill creates a strong and legally binding framework to deliver this Government’s ambition to leave the natural environment in a better state than we inherited it.”—[Official Report, 11/2/20; col. 2167.]
He also said that sustainability is at the heart of the Bill. Sure enough, the first fisheries objective in Clause 1(1) is the sustainability objective. Unfortunately, however, as drafted, the Bill does not guarantee the protection of fish stocks and the wider marine environment. To be absolutely sure that the Bill does what it claims on the tin, let us get the commitment to protecting the natural environment written into it. That is the purpose of this amendment.
What is the problem? History shows that whenever there is a trade-off between short-term economic and employment considerations and longer-term environmental sustainability, short-term factors nearly always win. This is what has led to overfishing and long-term damage to the marine environment in many of the world’s fisheries, including those covered by the common fisheries policy. That is the key point. The Bill as drafted allows for the possibility of short-term economic and social factors overruling environmental sustainability in making trade-offs.
Clause 1(2) defines the sustainability objective as having three elements: environmental, social and economic. I do not argue with the fact that sustainability has these three components; indeed, the Minister reminded us that they are the UN framework. I want to ensure, however, that socio-economic factors do not win out over protection of the marine environment. That is why the first part of the amendment ensures that, in calculating trade-offs between these three, the environment always remains the priority. This will ensure that we do not repeat past mistakes of putting short-term economic and social interests ahead of protecting the environment.
The second part of the amendment refers back to Clause 1(1). As we discussed in detail at earlier stages of the Bill, the eight fisheries objectives are not all born equal. The sustainability objective, as redefined in the amendment, takes precedence. The other seven fisheries objectives should support, or be subordinate to, environmental sustainability. This would make it unequivocal that the aim of the Bill is to harvest our marine resources without compromising the health of the marine environment. The amendment is not saying: “no fishing”; it is saying: “sensible fishing”. It is not saying that there will not have to be trade-offs, but it sets boundary conditions for the calculation of the trade-offs.
At earlier stages of the Bill, the Minister did not agree with the arguments that I have rehearsed. I suspect that he will argue again for a proportionate approach that gives equal, or at least undetermined, weight to all three components of sustainability. In Committee he acknowledged:
“We might have a collision point on sustainability.”—[Official Report, 4/3/20; col. 629.]
He also said:
“We must balance the protection of our marine environment with our objective of supporting thriving fishing and aquaculture sectors.”—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 461.]
If the Minister is not minded to accept this amendment, I would ask him to explain how these trade-offs will be made in practice.
This is our big chance to get the management of our fisheries on a genuinely sustainable footing and avoid the mistakes of the past. We can join the leading nations in the world such as Australia, New Zealand and the USA, managing our fisheries in a genuinely environmentally sustainable way, or we can languish lower down the international league table, with the risk of putting short-term gain ahead of long-term pain. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s reply at the end of this debate, but unless there is a significant change of tack, I would wish to test the opinion of the House on this crucial issue of the Fisheries Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I lend my support to this amendment. There is a certain attraction in having one objective, namely sustainability, in the context of the Fisheries Bill, as the primary objective. Part of my reasoning for this is that the House might wish to take a broader view and make sure that we come to the same view on the Fisheries Bill as we do, for example, when we come to consider the Environment Bill. We should not consider one in isolation from the other.
I was very taken by the Minister’s argument in Committee that in relation to objectives, there was a three-legged stool, whereby environmental, social and economic objectives should be given equal weight. There is a distinct attraction in singling out the environmental objective as the “prime fisheries objective”, as it says in the amendment. I know that it is a concern of Scottish fishermen and the Scottish Government in particular that we should look at the broader use of the marine environment, particularly in regard to renewables and other resources. There is an overwhelming attraction in having the sustainability objective as the prime objective. To put my mind at rest, I would be very interested to learn from the Minister, in the event of a contest between the three legs of the stool, how the Government would decide to prioritise between the economic, social and sustainability objectives.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I know that my local fishermen and those involved in the catching and processing sector want fishing to be a leader in the marine food system. They also want to ensure that people have access to good-quality products in the various fish species which they catch. I firmly believe that this can be achieved through the principle of environmental sustainability and the commitment to protect the natural environment. We are in no doubt that sustainable fishing means leaving enough fish in the ocean, respecting the habitats and ensuring that people who depend on fishing can maintain their livelihoods. It is a bit of a balancing act and I hope the Minister will address that issue.
The Bill provides a framework for future fisheries management. However, in some quarters, it is felt that the Bill will not achieve the Government’s aim of world-leading sustainable fisheries management because sustainable fisheries depend on a healthy marine environment. Environmental legislation has featured little in the fisheries and Brexit debates so far. Of particular relevance to a healthy marine environment are the European marine strategy framework directive, the birds directive, the habitats directive, the bathing waters directive and the water framework directive. Will the Minister outline how this will be achieved in the post-transition period, while at the same time protecting the local fishing industry?
It is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said when he moved the amendment, that fishing and aquacultural activity do not compromise environmental sustainability in the short or long term. This legislation presents us with a unique opportunity to ensure that environmental sustainability and the principle of sustainability take precedence in the various elements of sustainability and that sustainability is a prime fisheries objective. We should grasp that opportunity now, but be mindful of not ending up with legislation that is too rigid in the eyes of those in the fishing sector—both catching and processing—because we do not want to replicate the challenges that beset the fishing industry as a result of the common fisheries policy.
Lord Krebs [V]
My Lords, I hope and expect that this amendment will not take as long as Amendment 2, so I will be very brief in my introduction. First, I thank the Minister and his officials for their very helpful discussions on the question of bycatch, and my Oxford University colleague Professor EJ Milner-Gulland for her expertise and advice in drafting the amendment.
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the bycatch objective focuses on the desired outcome, rather than on the processes that might contribute to the outcome. As drafted, the objective appears to focus primarily on undersized and unwanted fish species rather than on the wider marine environment. Yet we know that, globally, non-selective fishing gear—including long lines, gill nets and trawling—causes major mortality among non-target species. According to WWF, bycatch is the single largest cause of mortality in small cetaceans; it causes significant mortality in turtles and 26 species of seabirds; and it destroys large areas of coral reef. North Sea trawlers are estimated to discard up to 150,000 tonnes of marine invertebrates annually, including starfish, sea urchins, sponges and marine worms.
In Committee, the Minister assured us:
“The Government are resolutely committed to minimising bycatch of sensitive species as much as is practically possible”.—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 461.]
That is absolutely in line with the purpose of this amendment. He also referred specifically to seabirds, cetaceans, sharks and rays, and to the definition of “sensitive species”, which goes wider than the category of endangered species. Furthermore, he pointed out that the ecosystem objective encompasses the bycatch of species that are not covered by the bycatch objective.
In short, the intent of the Bill seems to me quite appropriate, although it may appear to some to be slightly confusing to have the issue of bycatch spread across two fisheries objectives. It would be very helpful if, in his reply, the Minister were able to remove any ambiguity by confirming that the bycatch objective aims to reduce bycatch—and bycatch mortality—to support the conservation of not only fish stocks but the wider marine environment. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on bringing forward this amendment, which I have signed and am lending my support to. The amendment seeks to delete subsection (6) from the original Clause 1. I have particular difficulty with subsection (6)(c) and the wording therein. It says that,
“bycatch that is fish is landed, but only where this is appropriate and … does not create an incentive to catch fish that are below minimum conservation reference size”.
My noble friend Lord Gardiner will recall my disappointment in Committee that the original Bill had looked to have a discard objective. I would still place on record my belief that that is preferable to bycatch, or should be seen as additional to bycatch. During his comments in Committee my noble friend said:
“One limb of the bycatch objective is that catches are recorded and accounted for. We will improve the accuracy of the data available on fishing mortality and enable sustainable quota setting that avoids overfishing”.—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 425.]
I will take this opportunity to ask my noble friend how he expects to achieve that. As a supplementary point, it would be helpful to understand precisely what the bycatch objective is.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has put this very succinctly. I have concerns, not just about the fish bycatch but about the wider marine environment, which he mentioned. It may be of interest to noble Lords that Saturday was World Albatross Day. As many noble Lords will know, a large number of the world’s population of those birds breed in the UK’s overseas territories so, as well as having a general interest in biodiversity, we should all take this seriously. On the subject of albatrosses and other sea-bird bycatch, I recommend that, if he has not already, the Minister looks at a British invention called Hookpod that cuts sea-bird bycatch on long-line fishing. I will not detain the House with a long discussion of it, but it has made significant progress in reducing that bycatch in a cost-effective way. I would be interested in what the Minister says on the whole subject of bycatch, because I have great concerns about it.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend the Minister for not being able to take part in the Second Reading of this very important Bill. I come to this from the perspective of someone who used to look at legislation in great detail in the other place to decide whether Bills were overarching Bills, out of which would flow secondary legislation, or ones that would generate very little secondary legislation.
This Bill deals with the key objectives behind a very novel situation for us as a country as we leave the EU, in the sense that 60% of the fish caught in the UK’s exclusive economic zone were not caught by the UK fleet. It is very transitional, in the sense not just of time but of quantum. A huge change will take place. One has to look only at the scale of Norway to understand the real size of this change.
Against that situation, and as someone who was in commerce and industry for most of my life before I entered the other place, I believe that objectives have to be clear and not very long. There is nothing wrong with the sentiment of what my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern puts forward; they are clear objectives. However, I am grateful to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, which reminds us in its briefing that this is enabling legislation. It is framework legislation that provides for arrangements to be developed for fisheries management in the UK. They are workable in their current form, but the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation cautions against amendments that would add unnecessary complexity through primary statute when the detail that will be needed for fisheries management and managers should rightly lie in secondary legislation made through the Bill’s powers that reflect what is needed.
I am on that side: the side of clear, precise objectives. That does not mean that I am against what my noble and learned friend and others are saying, but that is underneath the clear objectives. Therefore, I am not in a position to support these amendments.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern for bringing forward Amendment 4, which I support. My question in regard to that amendment and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley is the relationship between these amendments and the devolved Administrations. I pay tribute to the Minister, who I know has spent a great deal of time trying to ensure that the devolution aspects in relation to the devolved Administrations are respected as far as possible. If we were to accept this amendment, how would it impact on the way in which this provision would be interpreted by the devolved Administrations?
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I too support the amendments and thank my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern for bringing them before the House. The amendments reflect the sad fact that farming and fishing are two of our most dangerous industries, with perhaps a higher number of casualties and fatalities than any other. However, is it the Minister’s position that the sentiments behind Amendments 5 and 6 fall better within normal health and safety legislation and wider maritime law, which would be the usual place for such amendments to be found? Having said that, I welcome this opportunity to consider the great service that our fishermen do in battling the elements and bringing their excellent produce to our tables.
Lord Lansley
My Lords, I join my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and other noble Lords in paying tribute to the courage, fortitude and skill of those who work in our fishing fleets. In that sense, I think that we are all very much behind the spirit of the two amendments.
I hope that it will be unnecessary to insert an additional clause on sustaining the workforce, because it is implied by the fisheries objectives as they exist, but I hope that the Minister might also tell us more about the ways in which the Government are proposing to assist Seafish, the NDPB which under the Fisheries Act 1981 has responsibility to provide support to the workforce of the sea fish industry and, under regulations introduced in 1982, the ability to place a levy on the first sale of sea foods in this country. Its corporate plan is due to be renewed. It would be helpful, if not this evening then perhaps subsequently in a letter placed in the Library of the House, if the Minister were able to say something about how the Government hope to support Seafish in its endeavours. Its last corporate plan had as one of its five challenges to support a safe and skilled workforce. The issues that we are talking about, of recruitment to the industry, of training for those in it and the achievement of an as-safe-as-possible working environment for them, are things that Seafish is endeavouring to address, and we want to see it supported.
Lord Krebs [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for tabling Amendments 7 and 53. I have added my name to the latter. I strongly support them for the reasons she set out so clearly.
The climate change committee will publish its annual report to Parliament this Thursday. It will be a very uncomfortable read for the Government. The committee’s chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is reported in yesterday’s press as saying that the response to the climate crisis in the UK is being run by the Government like a Dad’s Army operation. Fisheries and aquaculture may not be the biggest contributor to our greenhouse gas inventory but, if we are to get to net zero by 2050 or even sooner, every sector of the UK will have to make its contribution. Furthermore, the way in which we fish will have to change as a result of the inevitable climate change to which we are already committed as a result of the greenhouse gases that we have pumped into the atmosphere over the past 150 years. For instance, there is growing evidence that changes in ocean temperature will affect the distribution of the plankton that form the basis of the marine food chain. As a consequence, the distribution and abundance of fish will change, and this will need to be taken into account and anticipated.
I had the privilege of sitting on the climate change committee for eight years, and chaired its adaptation sub-committee. In every one of our annual reports we called for a step change in action by the Government: on both mitigation, reducing our greenhouse gas footprint; and on adaptation, preparing for the inevitable climate change that we will experience in coming decades. Amendment 53 will ensure that fisheries and aquaculture contribute to that step change. There is overwhelming public support for more action from the Government on climate change. For instance, the recent Climate Assembly poll showed that 80% of people agree or strongly agree that, in the post-Covid world, government plans to achieve net zero should be advanced.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for bringing forward these two amendments and allowing the House to debate this issue briefly. What will be the relationship between this part of the Bill—and the new climate change objective, to which she referred—and the Environment Bill? Can my noble friend confirm my understanding that fisheries activities do not themselves contribute greatly to climate change? We should recognise that and commend this activity as being fairly neutral in that regard. My concern is the impact of climate change on our waters, as so eloquently expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. My understanding is that, as the waters warm, various species migrate as they cannot adapt to the warmer temperatures. This will obviously have an impact on any agreement, either within the United Kingdom or, as a coastal state, with our erstwhile partners in the European Union under the new arrangements. How can the Minister and the Government be absolutely sure that any arrangement that we come to will not be undermined by the fact that the fish are no longer where we thought they were, but have migrated to colder waters?
The Deputy Speaker
Do we have the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge? We do not seem to. Perhaps we will try to get him later. The noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, have both withdrawn from this group, so I call the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. Oh, do we have the noble Earl?
Agriculture Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsWednesday 10th June 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 13 May 2020 - large font accessible version - (13 May 2020)
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests. I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak at the Second Reading of such an important piece of legislation and congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his eloquent introduction to it.
We currently have the highest standards of production for animal health, hygiene and welfare. These standards must not be compromised or negotiated away. I refer to those of us who remember the unilateral sow stall and tether ban introduced by a Conservative Government in the late 1990s, yet we continued to allow imports from other EU countries and elsewhere that used them. Consumers voted with their feet, choosing the lower-priced, imported products that did not meet our high standards. As a result, 50% of our pig producers left the market. Now we face similar challenges to our home- produced chicken, beef and flour at the risk of inferior imports that are not produced to our high standards.
I have had a letter, as I am sure many have, from the chair of the FSA, Heather Hancock, in which she clearly states:
“The FSA will publish its risk assessments and its risk management advice to Ministers, who would then decide whether to accept this advice.”
After that, all that would be required to change the existing regulations or authorisations would be for statutory instruments to be laid in Parliament—a mere swipe of the pen and an SI, and our standards could be changed overnight. No primary legislation would be required. For the avoidance of doubt, let us put the case in the Bill for our current standards to be maintained and matched against any imports under any future trade agreement.
I raise the issue of vets and their capacity to meet increased demand for veterinary certification and supervision on import and export checks. This is a very serious issue. I hope my noble friend will today give the House a commitment that we will have enough vets in the UK to provide this service.
Many noble Lords have referred to the sketchy information available on ELMS at this stage. I welcome my noble friend’s commitment to introduce mitigation against flooding as a public good, from which farmers and others will benefit. We have certainly benefited in North Yorkshire from the Pickering Slowing the Flow scheme, but will my noble friend address the issue of reservoirs in the Bill and the stringent requirements of operation, particularly in its review of the Reservoirs Act 1975? How will water storage on farmland be regulated under ELMS? If pilot schemes for ELMS are to start only in 2021, when will the results be known?
I will also raise the position of tenant farmers, who make up 47% of farmers in North Yorkshire and the north of England. Will they continue to benefit under the scheme? Is there a danger that they might be excluded since they do not own the land? What, also, is the future for hill farming?
I pay tribute to our farmers, who work all hours and produce food in all weathers, particularly in this crisis. Now that we have left the European Union, we are not bound by public procurement rules. Will my noble friend ensure that all our schools, hospitals, prisons, care homes, shops, restaurants and homes source our food from the UK to our high standards of animal welfare and hygiene? Will he agree to set up an international trade commission, independent of government, to set the criteria to be met in any negotiation on international trade? Will he agree to defer the phasing out of basic farm payments for one year, particularly in the light of Covid-19? Will he agree that agriculture, horticulture and forestry activities must lie at the heart of farm policy under the Bill?
Direct Payments to Farmers (Crop Diversification Derogation) (England) Regulations 2020
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward this much- needed emergency measure. I join him in thanking the farmers for working through what has been a very difficult time, including a pandemic, to put food on our plates.
I applaud the investment that the Government have made in forecasting for extreme weather events. My noble friend referred to the background to this measure as one of severe flooding—not least, may I say, in North Yorkshire and the whole of the Yorkshire region. Yet now we find ourselves in a time of potential drought. Will he update us on the research and continuous fore- casting that is done, so that in future extreme weather events farmers may be better prepared for where the deluge might fall? The game changer came, as was recognised in the Pitt review in 2007, when we saw weather events that we had never seen before—in particular, deluges of rain falling in one place and not moving on, making farming extremely difficult.
While looking ahead to the Agriculture Bill, I welcome the environmental and greening aspects of the measure before us today and recognise that this currently amounts, as my noble friend said, to 30% of farm incomes. Will he give us an assurance today that future provisions will have an emphasis on crops, livestock and other food production, particularly in view of food security and self-sufficiency? At no time has that been more important than now, when we have seen all the difficulties of the Covid-19 virus.
Food Supply and Security
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the role of farmers and the food industry in putting food on our plates, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on bringing this debate and putting local food production front and centre. Ideally, local food, locally distributed and bought in local shops should be what we are aiming for, and it complies with the essential requirement of traceability. Food and drink are part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, and the ability to feed ourselves is essential and should be at the heart of any government policy.
In addition to sourcing more food locally, I make a plea to my noble friend the Minister that we should now avail ourselves of public procurement policy that is no longer bound by EU policy. Will the Government issue guidance to ensure that schools, hospitals, prisons, local authorities and other public bodies source more domestically produced food?
Imports of fruit, meat and vegetables are higher than what we currently produce, so will the Government take action to ensure that we have greater self-sufficiency by boosting home production? That is not to say that exports are not important, particularly in areas such as pig-farming—pig parts are appetising to the Chinese and provide a great export opportunity for somewhere such as the Malton bacon factory. Will the Minister ensure that we do more to improve our self-sufficiency, by taking more home-produced food, and that animals are moving through the chain, through livestock marts and abattoirs?
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering ExcerptsWednesday 11th March 2020
(6 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Fisheries Act 2020 View all Fisheries Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-IV Fourth marshalled list for Committee - (9 Mar 2020)
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I very much support the amendment. I admit that there is, perhaps uncharacteristically, a smidgen of innovation in this part of the Bill. The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and I will listen to the Minister’s reply very carefully because, as we know from Northern Ireland and “cash for ash”, these schemes can have unintended consequences. While, as always, I commend the Government on being determined to keep the discard ban active and well managed, we need to understand how this will operate practically and make sure that those unintended consequences do not arise.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I seek clarification as I raised a number of points earlier in the Bill relating to this issue. The amendment is useful in that regard to tweak information out of my noble friend. I wondered what the background was to the move away from eliminating discards to this discard prevention charging scheme. Is it from the model developed in New Zealand, and are the Government satisfied that that model is working better now than when there were initial teething problems?
I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify, but I understand that this provision is not deemed to apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Has he had any discussions with the devolved Administrations to see if they are proposing to go down this path at a future stage? I understand that the Scottish Government may bring forward their own Scottish fisheries Bill in this regard; I simply do not know the answer to that.
In Clause 28, how does my noble friend imagine the discard prevention charges being monitored? The way that subsection (4)(a) and (b) is drafted could indicate that this is a voluntary scheme. Are the Government minded to link the scheme to the REM that we discussed earlier, and would that involve cameras on boats as well as other equipment?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her proposed amendment, and as I have made clear in Committee and at Second Reading, the United Kingdom remains fully committed to ending the extremely wasteful practice of discarding. Now that we are an independent coastal state, the UK can develop a new discards policy that is best suited to our marine environment and our fishing industry. It is important that this new policy reflects the complexity of UK fisheries, including our mixed fisheries, where we have many different stocks in the same area, which can make it difficult to avoid unwanted bycatch completely.
In mixed fisheries, when the quota for bycatch stocks is exhausted, fishers are effectively unable to go fishing for their target species. This is because they cannot lawfully catch and land bycatch stocks without quota, but at the same time cannot avoid the bycatch stock when trying to fish their target species. This problem, termed choke, can lead to whole fisheries being closed. This has serious economic consequences for those fishers and coastal communities who rely on those fisheries. That is why we need a pragmatic balance between ensuring that bycatch is minimised—and where possible eliminated—and enabling fishers to continue to fish where appropriate.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on tabling these amendments, and I have a very short query.
It was, I think, when we took evidence on the financing of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and the data that would be gathered—I look to the chairman of the Select Committee for confirmation—that the Secretary of State responded by saying that the Government were committing to the long-term future of our involvement with ICES, but that he could not tell us at that point from which budget that would come. I am very keen on the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea; I have twice visited it, and it has a fantastic website which is hugely interesting for anybody interested in sustainability. Can the Minister tell us today whether this was resolved in the Budget and the Finance Bill, or whether this will be sent out and covered in the comprehensive spending review? I would like to know that we are going to cover precisely the same percentage, which is some 11% to 13% of the total ICES budget contribution; we take a similar amount of research from it. I entirely endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said: we cannot really proceed as an independent coastal state if we do not know what the data is.
There is one other area that vexes me, and I do not think that anybody is doing research into it at the moment because no one is fishing in the area. We know that the seas currently jointly fished by UK and EU fleets have warmed. Does the Minister have any idea who might do the research in areas where species such as cod and other fish from our waters have moved to? That might explain why sustainability appears to have fallen in those species.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group which deal with the financial assistance covered by Clause 33.
On the first day in Committee, we debated at length the incompatibility of the sustainability objective and the socioeconomic objective in Clause 1. The Fisheries Bill has been heralded as taking back control of UK fishing rights and waters and is eagerly awaited around our coastlines. Many voters supported Brexit on the basis of having control over our fishing rights and waters. However, what they did not do was vote for our fish stocks to become exhausted by the rush for profit. The dichotomy of sustainability over socioeconomics is an issue which we must tackle before the Bill becomes law. To be successful, we must ensure that those fishermen who find that they are catching less as the sustainability of their usual catch reaches a critical point, and are facing financial implications, are not disadvantaged. It is unwise in the extreme to jeopardise the sustainability of our fish stocks by allowing continued fishing when the scientific evidence demonstrates that the stocks are depleted.
The Government could do much to assist in preserving fish stocks by using financial assistance to recompense vessel owners and crews for reduced or exhausted fishing opportunities. Unless such assistance is forthcoming, there will be no incentive for the fishing of depleted stocks to cease. This will result in the socioeconomic objective becoming the overriding objective and swamping the sustainability objective. Why would fishers willingly lose money by staying in port? The scientific evidence will need to be overwhelming.
To be able correctly to monitor fish stocks and prevent bycatch and overfishing, it is essential that the Government invest in new technologies to be used across the fishing fleet, with both large vessels and those under-10 metres. The passage of the Fisheries Bill provides the Secretary of State with a golden opportunity to establish a research and implementation fund. This could promote new and improved methods of selectivity and encourage and assist vessel owners to replace old nets and other technologies with those capable of more refined selectivity, to avoid choke species.
The gathering of scientific data to inform the management of fish stocks, alongside technologies to improve fishing techniques, are some of the tools available to the fishing industry. They will ensure that we do not reach the stage at which the children of future generations are left wondering what cod and haddock taste like. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said at Second Reading, it could be fish fingers for everybody if we do not get this Bill right. However, if we do not take action to ensure fish stocks are preserved, I can envisage a situation in which there will be no fish fingers for anyone.
I hope the Minister is aware of the strength of feeling in the Committee on these issues and is ready to give assurances that these amendments will indeed appear on the face of the Bill. If he is unable to do that, I hope he will think about bringing forward similar amendments on Report.