Agriculture: Regulation

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, normally when winding up for the Opposition, I would hope to be able to acknowledge most, if not all, of the speeches. However, given that I have only three minutes, as others do, I think that even if I attempted to list all the names of speakers I would run out of time. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will excuse me for not picking up on many of the excellent points that have been made in this debate. I would like to compliment all noble Lords who have spoken on having been able to make quality speeches within such a restricted timeframe. I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, both on securing this debate and, given that she first tabled it some time ago, on showing patience and tenacity in managing to bring the debate forward today.

The issue of the burden of regulation in agriculture has been around for a long time, as my noble friend said. Indeed, I remember complaints about the gold-plating of EU directives from the days when I sat on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, so I know that these issues have been around a long time. I believe that the previous Labour Government were involved in a number of efforts to seek to reduce the regulatory burden in agriculture from 1998 onwards. Indeed, there was the Hampton review, the Better Regulation Task Force report, Regulation—Less is More, the attempts by Defra to try to simplify regulations and legislation, and some results that the department achieved in consequence.

From these Benches I certainly do not oppose the current Government’s efforts to tackle this problem and indeed wish the Macdonald review every success. I would like to ask the Minister a little bit more about the timing of the review. In the initial announcements of the task force, it was intended to report early in 2011. I also know that issues of significant concern were supposed to be raised with Ministers as soon as they arose through that process. It would be good to know from the Minister whether any such issues have been raised up to now and whether he can give us an update on when the report will be published. Finally, in order to respond fully to the comments that have been made in this valuable debate today, I ask the Minister to ensure that we will have a debate at much greater length once the review is published and its recommendations have been established.