Queen’s Speech

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, in particular my involvement with the BioRISC initiative at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. I am delighted to follow the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury. I pay particular attention to his remarks and I thank him for raising the continued use of lead ammunition in this debate. As he indicated, he and I, with others, have been discussing this issue over some months. I have discussed this with the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, and I know that he has an interest in this issue.

From my perspective, this is a simple issue. Lead is a poison. We ban it in many areas of our lives, but still use it in game shooting. The use of lead ammunition is partly banned and ought to be banned completely. There is compelling evidence that lead shot pollution damages extensively the environment in which it is used, poisoning wildlife that graze on it accidentally and poisoning meat served as food, posing dangers to the vulnerable, particularly our children.

The 2019 Great British Game Week, which begins on 25 November, aims to promote the Game to Eat campaign and I expect it will have a high profile in Parliament’s catering outlets. We have been reassured that no lead shot meat will be served in the House of Lords catering outlets, but we need to ensure that none is served in any of the catering outlets in the Palace of Westminster. Of course, we then need to address the question that if we are not prepared to eat lead shot meat because we know it is potentially poisonous, why do we allow other people, particularly children, to eat it? Following up on the noble Earl’s remarks, it is our intention to invite ammunition manufacturers to come to your Lordships’ House to brief us on the alternatives. It is my intention to invite the Minister to join us at that meeting. This could be done relatively simply.

In my remaining time, I want to concentrate on one point only: measures to stop invasive species coming into the UK through existing and potential new trading routes. This may seem rather a narrow point, but it is a significant issue. Invasive non-native species cost the UK an estimated £1.7 billion per year. Ash dieback alone is predicted to cost the UK £15 billion over the next 100 years, with about half of the cost—£7.5 billion—occurring in the coming decade.

Invasive species are the focus of an inquiry of the Environmental Audit Select Committee of the other place. The committee convened an evidence session at St Catharine’s College in Cambridge at which it took evidence from a wide range of experts. On another occasion, on 9 July, the Minister himself gave evidence to the Select Committee. The evidence-taking having concluded, the committee’s report is expected to be published soon. I think it will make some very stringent recommendations.

The adequacy of measures to stop invasive species entering via trading routes was raised with the Minister when he gave evidence to that committee. Caroline Lucas raised the specific question that I want to concentrate on: the degree to which the Government are prepared for the inevitable change in this threat that will occur as a result of their ambition to expand and open up new trading routes post Brexit.

This summer, an expert workshop held at Cambridge University identified changing trading patterns as one of the key risks to biosecurity in the UK. Under Brexit, we might reasonably expect novel pests and diseases to arrive through new trading patterns. For example, as a result, the UK might shift from being an overall recipient to an overall donor of tree pests and diseases into Europe.

Historically, the UK has received most invasive species after they have already established and spread through mainland Europe. Consequently, we have benefited greatly from engaging with our European partners to anticipate and to understand the likely risks posed by them, and from tried-and-tested management techniques developed first on the continent with the species before it gets here. That is about to change dramatically.

When questioned, the Minister revealed a commendable level of knowledge of this issue. He agreed with Caroline Lucas that an inspectorate dedicated to invasive species at the UK border ought to be considered and expressed sympathy with that consideration. Further, he said that it was something his department would be looking at in the spending review because,

“it is vital that we raise the bar on the considerations of invasive species”.

On 15 May, during a Brexit debate on plant and animal biosecurity, I asked what assessment the Government have made of our capacity to discharge this responsibility in a post-Brexit world, where we would have considerably more trade directly with countries such as China, the USA and the 53 diverse members of the Commonwealth. The informative answer I received at the conclusion of that debate was that we,

“will leave this well established and effective system and replicate it, as best we can, on our own”.—[Official Report, 15/5/19; cols. 1628.]

It appears from his evidence to the Select Committee that the Minister is in a position to give a better and more detailed answer on this issue. In addition to updating the House on his department’s deliberations in the context of the spending review, I should be obliged if he would respond to the following two additional questions. How well prepared is the UK for understanding and prioritising risks to biosecurity under changing trade patterns? How will the UK continue to engage with European partners in sharing information about emerging biological risks? These are essential and necessary questions.

US-imposed Trade Tariffs

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my understanding is that tariffs will be levied on the Airbus nations and the EU. The data shows me that 38% of French trade is directly targeted, compared to 10% of ours. These tariffs will affect the EU as well. My noble friend is right—to repeat it and put it on the record—that Scotch whisky is the UK’s largest agrifood export, at £4.7 billion in 2018. It is the largest contributor to the UK’s balance of trade in goods and, thinking of Scotland, it provides 7,000 rural jobs and 11,000 in total. It is very important to Scotland.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his answer but I cannot help but contrast it with the answer given by the Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, on Thursday when asked a similar question about 25% tariffs on Scotch whisky. He saw the opportunity to attack the EU for what he calls its illegal acts and he stated that the Scotch whisky industry would be better off post-Brexit—if we can believe that, given the amount we sell to Europe.

In his answer, the noble Lord substantially reflects the press release the Government put out when the WTO ruling was made. I am reassured that he has repeated the Government’s view that they are not acting illegally, and that no European nation is; that is very important. If we can get the WTO to establish that, that is good. There is no question of illegality, despite what Jacob Rees-Mogg said, but now there is a question about support for engineering jobs in Airbus. He was disparaging about them. Some 124,000 people in the United Kingdom are employed or supported by Airbus. Will the Minister join me and the Unite union and write to every one of those 124,000 to say that the Government still support that industry?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the Government are clear that the United Kingdom is compliant with WTO rulings in the Airbus dispute. That is where we pitch our line. We think we are compliant so it is not right that the US Administration should impose tariffs when we are clear that we are acting lawfully. I use this opportunity to encourage our friends in the United States to see that this is a time when we should be seeking free trade and encouraging these industries, wherever they are, whether they are small rural ones or large industrial ones.

Brexit: Plant and Animal Biosecurity

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Earl. I think that the Minister will be pleased that I have only two questions to add to the impressive list that has already been put before him.

As I intend to restrict my remarks to two issues and mainly to the part of the report that deals with UK-EU biosecurity collaboration, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly the reference to my relationship with St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. That relates to the setting-up of BioRISC, a research initiative to provide cutting-edge, evidence-based information about existing and emerging biological security threats and interventions—I can sense those who know me wondering why I am involved in that given my background, but it is proving a significant education to me.

I add to the congratulations and appreciation expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and his committee on this wide-ranging and very good report. As the noble Lord reminded us, biosecurity is an important issue. The Government agree with that. So serious a matter is it that, in July last year, they published a UK Biological Security Strategy. Governments do not publish national strategies unless the nature of the threat merits it. We can infer from the publication of this document that the National Security Council, the main forum for discussion of national security, found agreement that biological security is a priority for our collective security.

The very existence of the strategy leads me to the preamble to my first point. It is astonishing that, in late 2018, when I last looked, a search of Hansard revealed no reference to it—no ministerial Statement, not even when it was launched; no debate; no Written or Oral Question; apparently no committee interest; and no parliamentary accountability or scrutiny whatever. Not only Ministers but Members of both Houses have been largely silent on the strategy. A conversation at least, and in this House, is long overdue. I ask the Minister whether, in government time, we can have a debate on the national biological security strategy.

As on all other issues of national security, the Government rightly say that this strategy cannot be delivered by government on its own. Clearly, there is a role for many parts of society, for industry and for academia. Unfortunately, from my reading of the strategy, it contains lots of statements about what people are doing beyond the Government in relation to biological research, but there is no plan as to how this partnership and its activities will be taken forward. Perhaps in a more detailed debate we could tease out from the Government how they will administer and bring into action their strategic approach to biosecurity. At St Catharine’s, we intend to take advantage of the first anniversary of the strategy and have a conference of experts in order to identify 100 questions that need to be answered to implement it. Thereafter, we intend that these questions will form a coherent programme of academic research and study, perhaps for years to come, to deliver the strategy.

I have no criticism of this important report’s recommendations. On the contrary, I welcome its publication; it does this House and the country a great service. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said the following on its publication—I feel rather awkward having to read his words, when he read virtually none in his wide-ranging speech—which sums up effectively the point that I want to make:

“The existing”—


that is, European Union—

“arrangements are far from perfect but significant gaps will be created when the UK leaves them. We rely on the EU for everything from auditing plant nurseries and farms to funding our research laboratories. The UK Government has a huge amount of work to do to replace this system in time for Brexit, and failure to do so could have an economic and environmental impact that would be felt for decades to come."

Those words describe the scale of the challenge that we face at Brexit probably better than I could myself.

I regret that I cannot be so positive about the Government’s response. In it, they rely on various forms of the “we will work to build on existing capabilities”-type statements. For example, the responses to recommendations 10 and 13 are redolent of this approach. This language betrays a lack of recognition that we will be building not on the existing state of capabilities following Brexit but on a reduced set of capabilities, since the EU-based components will be necessarily diminished in various ways and substantial work will be needed to bring those diminished capabilities back up to existing levels to sustain them, never mind to build on them. If anybody has any doubt as to why that is the case, I recommend to them—I shall not read it—Michel Barnier’s speech to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in June 2018. In it, he spelled out the legal obligations that we among others imposed on the European Union that mean that we will have a necessarily diminished relationship with the European Union. It is impossible for us to sustain anything like the relationship that we currently have with those countries and their institutions.

My second point relates to the topical issue of the threat of invasive species. On cue, we read today of the Costa Rican frog that turned up, apparently healthy, in a shipment of bananas in a Lidl supermarket in Nottinghamshire. It has been all over the papers. The frog has even been given a name by those who discovered it.

Understanding the donor regions, vectors and introduction pathways of invasive species, plant pests and animal diseases is central to the effective prioritisation and management of future biological threats to the UK. Trade patterns have been demonstrated to be central to explaining the introduction of high-profile biological threats into this country, including foot and mouth, ash dieback and many invasive animals and plants.

Post-Brexit, the Government’s policy is that our trading patterns will change considerably. This is likely to have a profound effect on the origin and type of organisms that are introduced into the UK. This is an important point: before we joined the EEC in 1973, the vast majority of invasive species discovered in the UK had first established populations in mainland Europe. In the 40-odd years that we have been in the EU, that has reversed. It comes to us now predominantly from Europe, but that means that we get prior notice and sometimes guidance from them on the most effective management tools.

Changed trade patterns under Brexit are likely to result in the UK changing from being a recipient to being a donor of emerging biological threats to Europe. If the Government build the trading patterns that they anticipate, with countries such as China, the US and the 53 diverse members of the Commonwealth, we will have an enormous responsibility to develop tools for horizon-scanning, early detection, containment and possible eradication, as we will be the recipient and the introducer of many such threats. My question to the Minister is relatively simple: what planning do we have for that significant change, given our new trade policy?