Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Campbell-Savours

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick.

I congratulate the authors of this interesting group of amendments on the thought and effort that they have put into them. As I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, will realise, I have some concerns about her amendments, particularly regarding the drafting and how they might be interpreted; for example, the word “drifting” is open to interpretation. The noble Baroness herself highlighted some of the difficulties this group would have. It would be enormously helpful if the Minister could explain the current regulations when summing up. I am not totally familiar with this area but I understand that it is heavily regulated and that there is quite stringent provision in the current code of practice, which is operated by the Health and Safety Executive and was itself updated quite recently, I think in 2005.

I am also concerned about Amendment 78, which is loosely drafted. Subsection (1) includes the phrase,

“prohibiting the application of any pesticide … near”.

That seems very loosely drafted, so I would be interested to hear how the Minister thinks the provision could be implemented, were it to be passed today.

This is a good opportunity for the Minister to raise our awareness of previous research and commercial innovation relevant to air levels and other controls of pesticides. I am minded of the fact that a lot of work is going on, I think in Essex, breeding bugs that eat and destroy other bugs, which I presume would fall within the remit of Amendment 80 in the name of my noble friend Lord Dundee.

My concern is that, for the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, this area is already heavily regulated and the amendments could be very difficult to implement as drafted.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, because I do not want to detain the House, this is the only amendment that I am speaking on today.

I strongly support Amendment 79 and have personal reasons for doing so, so I need to tell a story. It is about the late Dr Bill Fakes, an old friend of mine, a former GP in my former Workington constituency who I met nearly 50 years ago. He was a brilliant man—yes, a bit eccentric, but that is often the case with gifted people. He was a biologist with an intense interest in entomology. He had been brought up in the Fenlands in the small rural community of Willingham. It was a market garden, an arable area, and with his love of nature he took a particular interest in the ditches and characteristics of the land where, with other children and friends, he would gather beetles and other insects, carefully logging their every characteristic. As a bright boy inspired by these activities as a child, he went on to study medicine at UCL in London, ultimately ending up in Workington as a young—yes, rather eccentric but brilliant—general practitioner.

In 1995 Dr Fakes was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and ended up, via West Cumberland Hospital, at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, where a fellow medic and consultant took a particular interest in his condition. What they were not to know at that stage was that a number of his relatives and friends were subsequently to be stricken down with similar or associated conditions. They included his sister, his mother and one of his best young friends, Brian Haddon, all within a few years of each other and all from within the vicinity of the Fakes’ home in the Fens.

Dr Fakes’ response was to research his condition in detail, taking up much of his own time. Part of the research was to arrange for his pituitary gland, I think it was, to be removed from his body on death and sent for autopsy assessment at a special unit in Glasgow. Bill Fakes had been assiduous in making these arrangements as he believed that such an assessment would expose the danger of underregulated spraying arrangements. However, somewhere along the line the gland disappeared and was lost, and all the preparation came to nothing. Dr Fakes was convinced that his condition and that of his family and friends related directly to the use of pesticides in the vicinity of buildings and installations to which the public had access next to his home. He wanted all deaths in pesticide spray areas to be reviewed with a view to amendments to legislation dealing with pesticides, which brings me to Amendment 78 in the name of my noble friend.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Campbell-Savours

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

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I raise this amendment to probe the Government on the intention behind Clause 32.

Some 27 years ago, as a Member of the Commons, I moved an amendment from the Opposition Front Bench for the establishment of a cattle identification and traceability service. I did so having been prompted by the British Cattle Breeders Club. In 1998, the scheme was set up in Workington, in my former constituency, in the form of the BCMS—the British Cattle Movement Service. At its peak it employed over 1,000 people, although with efficiency savings and the application of new technology, it now employs some 400 people and is one of the largest employers in west Cumbria. It was with some surprise that we noticed reference in the Bill to

“Identification and traceability of animals”


under Clause 32. The Bill having cleared its Commons stages, I was asked to seek some assurances in the Lords.

The Explanatory Notes, in describing the proposed amendments to the legislation for identification and traceability, state:

“The purpose of the clause is to prepare for the introduction of a new digital and multi-species traceability service, the Livestock Information Service (LIS), based on a database of animal identification, health and movement data. Subsection (1) … will allow the Secretary of State to assign to a board … functions related to collecting, managing and sharing certain information in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This information is identification, movement or health data of animals. It will also allow the assignment of functions relating to the means of identifying animals such as issuing individual identification numbers to animals … These amendments enable the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) to be assigned the function of managing the new Livestock Identification Service.”


First, what is the driver behind the introduction of a new digital and multi-species traceability service, now to be called the livestock information service? Secondly, what is the construct and day-to-day role of the board in the new

“data collecting and sharing functions”?

In what sense would it be able to

“enable the assignment of functions relating to the means of identifying animals”,

and

“disapply … EU legislation on the identification and traceability of cattle, sheep and goats”?

What are the implications of that disapplication here in the United Kingdom? Thirdly, where it states that the board will be able to assign

“functions relating to the means of identifying animals”,

does that have implications for the management of the current service in Workington? On that matter, we are told that the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board will

“be assigned the function of managing the … Livestock Identification Service”.

What is the thinking behind that?

Why am I asking these questions and probing Ministers for answers? I am simply trying to establish, for the benefit of the people in west Cumbria, what stands behind these proposals. At the same time, I seek an assurance that the high-quality service currently provided in Workington will be retained in the long term and will perhaps be further developed with additional services now that we are leaving the European Union.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I opposed him in 1987 and did my level best to become the next Member of Parliament for Workington, but sadly it was not to be.

I congratulate the Government and my noble friend on bringing in Clause 32 on identification and traceability of animals. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who will speak next, served on the Select Committee with me when we looked at the implications of horsegate, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred in bringing forward her Amendment 208, which I thank her for. That was a classic example of the supermarkets taking as gospel the food that was provided to them, and there is a very real need to bring forward the highest standards of traceability. Will my noble friend, in summing up, see whether the clause as it stands achieves the purposes he would intend it to?