UK-EU Agritrade: SPS Agreement

Debate between Christine Jardine and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 12th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

We begin with a Select Committee statement. Mr Alistair Carmichael will speak on the publication of the fifth report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, HC 1661, “UK-EU agritrade: making an SPS agreement work”, for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of it, and I will call Mr Alistair Carmichael to respond to those in turn. Questions should be brief, and Members may ask only one question each. I call Mr Alistair Carmichael, Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Thank you, Ms Jardine. It is, as ever, an inestimable pleasure to serve under your stewardship in Westminster Hall. May I place on record my appreciation of the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for me to make a statement to mark the publication of our Committee’s fifth report of this Parliament, “UK-EU agritrade: making an SPS agreement work”?

The report is the third major output of our long-term inquiry into animal and plant health. As part of our inquiry, we have spent time in discussion with domestic stakeholders in farming and food production and with officials and parliamentarians in Brussels. It is clear from our time in Brussels that the Prime Minister’s reset in May 2025 has created a political environment in which the early conclusion of a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union is a realistic objective.

Progressing towards an agreement at pace brings with it both opportunities and threats. The main threat we identify is that the process of dynamic alignment could result in us aligning with regulations that weaken the position of our food producers, as it might deny them access to products on which they currently rely. That threat is particularly acute in relation to plant protection products used by our arable farmers. This is a complex area where the needs of our farmers must be understood and protected. I do not doubt that in the negotiation of the agreement the Government will seek to do that. I am less convinced, however, that in practice they will have the depth of knowledge necessary to avoid the law of unintended consequences coming into play. That depth of knowledge exists and is readily accessible for the Government from British farmers and other businesses involved in the manufacture of plant protection products. Securing their fullest engagement is the best way to ensure that any agreement is workable and will not leave our food producers at a disadvantage.

On the subject of engagement, I observe in passing that, when in Brussels, the Committee benefited from high-level and good-quality engagement from officials in the Commission and Members of the European Parliament, as well as other relevant organisations. By contrast, our engagement with our own Government has been less straightforward. The Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations declined our invitation to appear before the Committee and has offered instead a private briefing for me as Chair. I am afraid that that offer, while appreciated, rather misses the point of how Select Committees work, and especially how the EFRA Committee works. I am not blind to the sensitivities of a live negotiation, but we are a Select Committee of the House of Commons charged with the scrutiny of the Government. For us not to scrutinise fully the Government’s conduct of these negotiations would be a dereliction of our duty, which I am not prepared to countenance.

Let me place on record that the Committee’s work on this most important of areas for our food producers is continuing and that we look to the Government for better engagement than we have had. If the sensitivities of the negotiation mean that Ministers are unwilling to appear in public—that is not an unreasonable position—other means must be found for the Committee to fulfil its duties. At the very least, I would hope to see a briefing of the whole Committee in private.

A central issue in these negotiations is dynamic regulatory alignment. Under such a model, the UK may be required to adjust domestic laws when the EU changes its own, particularly in areas such as animal welfare, pesticide regulation and precision breeding. We heard deep concerns from the agrifood sector that unqualified dynamic alignment risks placing additional burdens on UK farmers, while undercutting them with cheaper imports produced under weaker standards. Our report therefore recommends that the Government seek a Swiss-style carve-out for animal welfare rules, ensuring that the UK is not compelled to follow every regulatory change that could be to the detriment of higher UK standards in this area.

Similarly, the Government should seek an exemption from dynamic alignment for precision-bred products. Some of the UK is ahead of the EU in this area, with farmers in England already having been enabled to grow and market precision-bred seeds, plants, food and animal feed. Without an exemption, we risk losing the benefits of moving first. Mandatory alignment with future EU rules could undermine our progress and innovation and weaken the UK’s leadership in the sector.

On pesticides and maximum residue levels, we heard evidence that EU rules developed post Brexit may not reflect UK agronomic conditions. Imposing them without consideration of our climate, crops and production systems risks unnecessary burdens for growers, which at best may be impractical, but at worst may be impossible. We therefore recommend that any sanitary and phyto- sanitary agreement must guarantee that UK scientific evidence is fully considered in all risk-based decisions affecting our agriculture.

Our inquiry also highlighted that SPS alignment will not succeed without public understanding and trust. Dynamic alignment involves choices. We need a national conversation between Government and the public to set out the realities, opportunities and constraints of a potential SPS deal.

I turn now to Northern Ireland and the provision of veterinary medicines. Although veterinary medicines are not formally within the scope of the SPS agreement, they remain an unresolved and urgent issue under the Windsor framework. The continued uncertainty about the availability of veterinary medicines in Northern Ireland poses real risks to animal health, farm businesses and trade. We therefore recommend that the Government pursue a veterinary medicines agreement with the EU, concurrently with the SPS discussions, and set out clear timelines and priorities for doing so.

For Parliament, these negotiations raise fundamental questions. If future EU regulatory changes may affect UK law, Parliament must have a clear and meaningful role in scrutinising the negotiations and any subsequent rule changes. We have recommended that the Government publish detailed plans for parliamentary scrutiny, including how EU legislation would be assessed before being considered for assimilation into UK law.

A workable SPS agreement will require careful, phased implementation. Border authorities, the Food Standards Agency, local authorities, port health teams, laboratories and industry all made clear to us that significant regulatory change requires long lead-in times. Staff training, new systems and revised working practices cannot be introduced overnight. We therefore recommend a minimum 24-month implementation period for any major regulatory changes arising from an SPS agreement.

In this report, we have set out the opportunities of an SPS agreement, and they are significant. A well-designed agreement could ease trade, reduce costs and strengthen ties with our largest trading partner. But the risks are also significant. Poorly managed alignment could burden farmers, erode trust, undermine innovation and weaken the UK’s ability to act on its own scientific evidence.

Our recommendations are practical and proportionate. They are designed to ensure that any SPS agreement supports UK agriculture, strengthens biosecurity and commands public and parliamentary confidence. It is crucial that the Government enter these negotiations with absolute clarity and purpose and a determination to safeguard the interests of the UK’s agrifood sector. Farmers need certainty, fairness and a Government who recognise the weight of their responsibility. The stakes for our farmers, food system and national resilience are simply too high for anything less.

Marine Renewables Industry

Debate between Christine Jardine and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 16th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

I do agree. I suspect that I do not have as much expertise as the hon. Lady in tidal barrage—or whatever we are calling it these days. Most of the interest I have developed over the years is in tidal stream, but there is never going to be a single technology or a single silver bullet here; there has to be an opportunity for all the different technologies to contribute. The USP of tidal energy, however we capture it, is of course its predictability, so it can contribute to baseload. I will discuss later how the industry is able to engage with Government, because there are parallels to be drawn with what has been done in the past for the oil and gas industry, which might now be done for renewables, particularly marine renewables.

I shall first dwell briefly on the progress we have made thus far. Orbital Marine Power, for example, now deploys the world’s most powerful tidal turbine—in Orkney, obviously. It is estimated that that device, manufactured in Dundee, has on its own created something in the region of 80 full-time equivalent jobs across the United Kingdom. Since its incorporation, Orbital has raised and deployed £84 million of capital. It won two contracts for difference in round 5, totalling £7.2 million, on top of the £7.4 million that it had been awarded in AR4. It is expected that the first power from these contracts will be collected in 2026. These are serious companies doing serious business. This is no longer a sort of aspirational, slightly hippy niche subject; these are serious businesses that require serious attention from Government and regulators.

Nova Innovation, which operates in Shetland, as it happens—I am told other island groups are available—installed the world’s first offshore tidal array in Bluemull sound between Yell and Unst in Shetland. It has six two-bladed horizontal axis tidal stream turbines and is the largest array yet deployed. In AR6 Nova secured three 15-year contracts totalling 6 MW of tidal energy capacity. As a consequence of the last allocation round, the UK is on track to have in excess of 130 MW deployed by 2029. Nova is also involved in floating solar developments, and it is estimated that floating solar has the potential to produce 9.343 TWh in the future. That is the scale of the opportunity that presents itself.

The real catalyst of this serious and determined progress was the setting up in 2003 of the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, a body that had its roots in a report of the Science and Technology Committee of this House, which was taken up and driven by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and then the Scottish Executive. I pay tribute to my predecessor in this House, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who as Deputy First Minister of Scotland saw the opportunity, got the resource and the political drive behind it, and set up EMEC, which is the facility for demonstrating and testing wave and tidal devices.

EMEC’s operations since 2003 have contributed £370 million GVA to the UK economy. EMEC’s success is due in no small measure to Neil Kermode, its director since 2005. I am not going to turn around because he is in the Gallery and I know that he will be staring daggers at me for singling him out, but Neil’s contribution to the success of that institution must not be underestimated, as it shows the difference that one person in the right place at the right time can make.

Another significant driver of progress in Orkney is Heriot-Watt University’s campus there, the International Centre for Island Technology. In recent years, its postgraduate taught courses in renewables have grown a skills base at postgraduate level which has been an important part of driving the progress we have seen. We cannot make progress without skilled people; we can get in all the investment we like, but it will only take us so far if we do not have people who are capable of using and developing it. Despite that, in 2019, the Scottish Funding Council grant scheme that had supported the tuition for these postgraduate taught courses ended. That has precipitated a fall in student numbers.

Although this issue is principally within the Scottish Government’s remit, I want to put it on the Minister’s radar, because if achieving development and deployment goals is part of UK Government policy, there must be a means of finding UK Government money for these courses. Whether it is done by sponsorship of places or some other means, the cost of 20 students a year at £9,200 each would be £920,000 over a five-year period. Think about that in the context of the numbers that I have spoken about—the potential that the sector adds to the UK economy. If we do not make this investment now, we will be penny wise but pound foolish.

I have some key asks of the Government as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on marine energy, in consultation with the Marine Energy Council, Scottish Renewables and RenewableUK. The most important thing, as we head towards allocation round 7, is an increase in the ringfenced budget for marine energy. The last three consecutive ringfences for tidal stream through contracts for difference have delivered an unprecedented deployment pipeline, but the last round saw a fall in the contracted amount at a point where we really needed to build momentum for the sector. I am told by those in the industry that there is sufficient eligible capacity to ensure that there would be competition for a ringfence set at that level. Scottish Renewables and the Marine Energy Council believe that the UK Government should set a £30 million ringfence for tidal and a £5 million ringfence for wave energy in this year’s round—a round, incidentally, that they described to me as “crucial”.

We also look to the Government to enable support for marine energy through GB Energy and the national wealth fund. High capital costs and unconventional risk profiles are hindering some of the progress in securing adequate finance for a move towards large-scale commercial construction. GB Energy and the national wealth fund could accelerate deployment of and embed UK content in marine energy projects. They could provide finance under commercial terms for viable projects that have secured a CfD. That is not asking them to make a particularly risky investment, but it would allow them to bring to final investment decision, and thus construction, some of those projects in this parliamentary term.

The third ask is to provide a voice for marine energy with a marine energy taskforce, which brings me back to my answer to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers). In addition to supporting investment, both the Scottish and UK Governments have an important role to play in bringing key stakeholders together. Again, it is about sending signals. Scottish Renewables and the Marine Energy Council believe that the UK Government should establish that energy taskforce to develop a strategic road map, to tackle barriers to deployment, to secure investment, to increase innovation funding and to deliver value for money.

When I was in Government, we set up a body for the oil and gas industry called PILOT. It was essentially the forum in which all the various majors, and those with any production interests in the UK continental shelf, could sit down and inform Government on the progress of their industry, and on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. That was a formal body, so that there was a degree of transparency associated with it. If PILOT could be set up for the oil and gas industry in the past, a similar body for marine renewables would be a particularly positive development. Again, it is about sending signals to the markets to give them the confidence to make the necessary investment.

We are looking for the Scottish Government—this is obviously not a point for the Minister—to prioritise marine energy in their energy strategy; for the Minister to speak to his colleagues in other Departments as we get the industrial strategy; and for both Governments to set bolder targets, which we believe would boost investor confidence. These asks do not come with particularly large price tags attached. The CfD levels would of course be a significant increase, but that is money that is already there and accounted for. Everything else is essentially about sending signals. We saw at the time of the creation of the first ringfence, at AR4, that sending these signals can be an enormously significant catalyst for investment.

There are a couple of issues that I want to put on the Minister’s radar. They do not necessarily fall under his portfolio, but I know that Ministers talk to each other. First, as the deployment of marine renewables and offshore wind continues to develop apace, there has to be some mechanism for holding the ring between renewables and other users of the sea and the seabed. The Minister knows that I have big concerns about the role that has been given to the Crown Estate Commission as owners of the seabed. I would like to think that the commission would be a body that could hold the ring, as it owns and licenses the use of the seabed, but experience tells me that it does not always work out like that. If we give the powers to the Crown Estate Commission that are anticipated in the Crown Estate Bill, which is going through the House, while retaining the obligation on it as a primary duty to maximise return to the estate, then there could be an issue. To be successful, we have to be able to bring island and coastal communities along with us, otherwise this becomes another thing that is done to those communities, rather than something in which they feel they have a role.

Finally, if we are going to deploy more resource at sea—and obviously, I think we should—we have to take the question of cable security seriously. We have to look at what happened just before Christmas, when the Russian so-called ghost fleet cut the cable going into the south of Finland. We know that Russia has had some activity, which we believe to be malign, in the UK continental shelf, so let us get ahead of the game and take that seriously.

The placing of cables on the seabed will only become more significant. I recently met Xlinks, which is bringing a significant amount of solar energy from Morocco to the United Kingdom via a subsea cable, which it is burying as it goes. It is at these points that we realise that with every opportunity there is a threat, and we must take the threats seriously. That is not within the Minister’s purview, but at the end of the day it has to be part of the way that we approach the outcomes.

Thank you for the opportunity to bring these concerns to the House, Ms Jardine. I am thankful that a good number of colleagues have stayed here on a Thursday afternoon. I appreciate their commitment, and I hope it will bear fruit.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.