Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lord Inglewood

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood [V]]

My Lords, ever since the age of the hunter-gatherers, earth has been supplying humankind’s food needs. That is why I am pleased to support the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the thrust of many of the other amendments which have been grouped with it.

Over the centuries, famine has been a regular feature of human history in different parts of the world. It is worth recalling that in western Europe, immediately post the Second World War, in the period that the Germans call Die Stunde Null—that is, within living memory of people alive today—people were starving to death. Of course, it was partly for this reason that the common agricultural policy was set up in the way in which it was. Given that, it is not perhaps as silly as it is sometimes thought to be by certain not very well-informed commentators in this country.

I think it is generally agreed that one of the duties of a state is to ensure with reasonable certainty that its citizens have enough to eat of an appropriate quality and at a reasonable price. It seems that if it is necessary and appropriate to do so, the state should spend money to ensure that this happens. Of course, medieval chroniclers tell us that, on occasion, people in besieged cities lived on cats, rats and dogs, but I do not imagine that many people would consider that a desirable state of affairs.

What is interesting about the first clause of the Bill is that climate change is mentioned, because it affects the earth we live on, and in turn the future of humanity. Equally, however, I believe that food security should be included in this section of the Bill because, in a completely different way, it just as much affects the future of humanity.

Some of your Lordships may remember that it was not all that long ago that there was a very poor wheat harvest, and suddenly the price of bread shot up in the supermarkets. If you were to believe the tabloid press, there was a huge crisis. Equally, there was an interesting article in the House magazine this week written by the managing director of Arla Foods—I declare a specific interest in that I sell my milk to Arla. He said that it is interesting that in this country we still import 35.5% of the yoghurt we consume, just under 40% of the butter and just under 68% of all cheese. Our security of supply is in a number of temperate foodstuffs—obviously, we cannot produce bananas and things like that here—very far from secure. It is rather like pandemics, is it not? “Oh no, it couldn’t happen here”—but then suddenly Covid-19 comes out of left field and we are all caught in a very exposed position.

The Minister may well argue that food security is by inference present around the Bill because it is part of general policy that the state should be guarantor of food security. However, if you look at the way in which the Bill is constructed, and you look at Clause 1, you see that those provisions are there to set out the ground rules for our future agricultural order and the financial support for it. I believe, for the reasons I have just explained, that food security should be included within it so that the ground rules are clear to everybody.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to followed the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and to support the amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. This group of amendments is quite clearly about the need to fight and campaign for, but above all to establish and place in the Bill, food security. While food security might be implicit, it needs to be explicit.

Like the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I was a member—albeit not for as long as they were—of the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that published the report last week entitled, Hungry for Change: Fixing the Failures in Food. I agree with my colleagues that a holistic, systems approach has to be taken to food, from the moment it is produced and grown by the farmer, right through processing and retailers, through to the consumer and food waste. These things are all vital. I urge the Minister to read that report. In advance of the government response, I urge him to indicate in his response today whether he has read our Select Committee report and whether he has any initial thoughts. Will he ensure that these amendments dealing with food security—now heightened as a result of the Covid situation—are placed in the Bill?

We are also still awaiting the report from Henry Dimbleby, who coincidentally gave us evidence. It is important that the national food strategy comes forward as quickly as possible, because we want to encourage people to eat healthily.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I would like to see the day when people do not have to access food banks because of their inability to purchase food due to lack of resources. It is therefore important that we build a robust, resilient food supply. This is an issue for all of government, not solely Defra.

The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, talks about food sustainability and farming

“in an environmentally sustainable way”,

which is vital. It is also important that this Bill reflects food security directly related to health and well-being as important components in qualification for financial assistance.

A whole chapter of our report dealt with food security. One of our recommendations is

“built around the central aim of ensuring that everyone, regardless of income, has access to a healthy”,

affordable and sustainable diet. An onus should be placed on farmers to ensure food security as part of the food system.

Equally, like the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I say an onus has to be placed on the processors and retailers to ensure they are providing food of a healthy, nutritious quality, not subject to reformulation through the addition of fats and salts. We have to create a healthy nation of people who have good health and well-being. If that means more fruit and vegetables are eaten, that is all to the good.

I support this group of amendments, in particular Amendments 35 and 36. I also commend the report from our Select Committee and look forward to the Minister’s response to it, indicating support and that cross-departmental action will be taken across government to ensure that its recommendations are fully implemented.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lord Inglewood

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury. I live in the countryside, albeit I am not involved in farming, and I have always believed that there is interdependence and a symbiotic relationship between health and welfare when it comes to livestock: both go together. I want to probe the Minister to find out why it should be an either/or subject. The majority of noble Lords who have spoken this evening have said quite clearly that it should be conjunctive—health and welfare.

I take on board what the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said about animal welfare. Of course animal welfare is important because we must have good animal husbandry if we seek to have a sound, productive system that provides health and well-being. We therefore need health and welfare in terms of good livestock and that symbiotic relationship, but we also need to ensure there is good-quality food that people can access—food security, not food insecurity. I am happy to support Amendments 26, 125 and 136, as long as noble Lords recognise the importance of health and welfare together. I also welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who, I must say, is looking very well indeed. I wish him well.

[Lord Inglewood [V]]

My Lords, I am sure contributors are right to distinguish between animal health and animal welfare. The important thing is to combine the two: you can conceive of an animal being entirely healthy but having extremely unsatisfactory welfare conditions. Therefore, regardless of how you draft provisions, it is important that each is recognised as an independent concept. Support for livestock farming should be dependent on the satisfactory standards being reached in respect of each. I should declare that I am a livestock farmer and president of the Livestock Auctioneers’ Association.

The core issue we are discussing with these amendments was articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, earlier when she said that animals should have a good life and a good death. That must be the starting point.

Like many of your Lordships, I am also delighted to see the return of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who combines expertise and robust common sense about these things. Of course, he is right. I personally do not like factory farming, but one has to recognise that, to feed our population, various forms of intensive animal husbandry will take place. I hope we can improve the standards of welfare that the animals experience over time and there must be a level below which the standards should now not be allowed to fall.

Against this background, it seems entirely appropriate that welfare and health should be a component of any support that might be provided for animal farmers. First, it must be right that the conditions in which animals live have to be above a certain minimum. Secondly, it is worth remembering that you have to move animals about. The conditions in which they are moved must also be appropriate. Finally, of course, we must turn our attention to the food on the shelves of our supermarkets and shops. No doubt we shall go back to this at a later stage in the proceedings and the Bill, but I have serious problems with the standards experienced by animals that are dead on the shelves, which would in no way be permitted if they had been reared in this country. That was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, alluded to.

It is a difficult problem for the reason one of the noble Baronesses gave: we are not creating new criminal law here. Issues of animal welfare depend on the animal, not on the system of agriculture in which it is reared. While I do not believe that animals have rights, I do believe that we have obligations towards them, which we jolly well must honour.