Agriculture Bill

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing the Bill. In the time available I will raise four brief points and then turn to the important role that standards will play in negotiating trade agreements.

First, do the Government intend to publish an impact assessment before the Bill has finished its parliamentary stages? It is irregular for a Bill, even a framework enabling Bill—and especially a Bill of this consequence —to be sent to Parliament without a primary-stage impact assessment at the very least.

My second question arises from the welcome inclusion of food security. However, like others I believe the required reporting cycle should be more frequent than at least every five years. I also believe it should include reference to emissions, climate change impact and supply chain sustainability to ensure a more complete understanding of the realities. Will my noble friend consider this?

My third question is a United Kingdom question, and I declare my interest as a Scottish farmer. While fully accepting that trade is a reserved matter, I believe the Bill has missed an opportunity to clarify the involvement of devolved nations in setting WTO-compliant ceilings and the assessment of impacts from quotas and tariffs. Will my noble friend look again at these arrangements? In the same vein, I add in passing that this Bill is also an opportunity to embed the principles of fair funding for intra-UK allocation—as detailed in the review by the noble Lord, Lord Bew—to add some transparency to the methodology of how any future budget will be allocated.

My fourth point is that, like many others, I believe this Bill is an opportunity for the Government to adopt an amendment that would enable future access to precision-breeding tools such as new gene-editing technologies.

I now turn to the important role that standards will play in negotiating trade agreements. I have two points. First, I ask my noble friend whether the Government’s welcome commitment that trade negotiations will not compromise the UK’s high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards can be understood as referring to UK production standards as a whole. This is critical as, where any production standards are lower than those required of UK producers, imports will impact on the ability of UK producers to compete on a level playing field.

My second point relates to how the importance of maintaining standards in negotiating trade agreements might best be addressed. The UK’s enviable reputation for high standards in food and farming has been achieved through successive Governments’ support for a national framework of standards, measurement and accreditation, collectively referred to as the United Kingdom Quality Infrastructure, UKQI. Here I declare an interest as the chair of the UK Accreditation Service, UKAS, which is the UK’s national accreditation body and a key component of the UKQI. UKAS accreditation is central to ensuring the effectiveness of standards through underpinning their implementation with a robust verification and certification system.

Furthermore, UKAS and BSI—the national standards body—operate within an international framework, as accreditation and standards are global activities. This mutual recognition of standards and accredited conformity assessment underpins many international trade agreements. Should a trade standards commission be established—and I believe there is a good case for doing so—one of its roles could be to look at how accreditation and linked mutual recognition arrangements underpinning standards should be utilised, protected and, where appropriate, enhanced, as a central part of trade negotiations and agreements.