Sustainable Livestock Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and David Nuttall

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a point that I shall raise shortly, because the Bill is silent on that.

The list of bodies that support the Bill also includes the National Trust, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Campaign for Real Farming, Compassion in World Farming, War on Want, the World Wildlife Fund, the Grasslands Trust, and even the Guild of Food Writers, to name but a few.

One may well ask why the Bill attracts such wide support. The reason, I submit, is that they all intend to use it to achieve their own particular campaigning ends. The Bill might, on the face of it, appear to be simply about sustaining livestock, but all those diverse organisations see it as a means of forcing Government to carry out the policies that they would wish to see implemented. The House will have noted that unusually for a Bill, it does not contain any specific policies. It does, I accept, set out what might be called a policy aspiration, but there are no specifics as to what Government are expected to do. We can only speculate on what such policies might entail. Indeed, some may venture that the reason specific policies are not contained in the Bill is that they would be so unpopular that they would engender yet more opposition to it.

One clue is contained in the postcard campaign organised by Friends of the Earth which is headed “Join the Moovement”, with the strapline,

“Put your hoof down for planet-friendly farming”.

The covering letter sent to Members with the postcard states:

“The Bill calls on Government to produce a strategy that assesses the impacts the livestock sector has on the environment, sets out the policy changes needed to reduce them, ensures problems are not simply moved overseas, and supports a sustainable and thriving UK farming industry.”

Having read the Bill, I cannot see where the word “strategy” appears at all, and nowhere are any policy changes set out. I am not sure whether the promoter and sponsors of the Bill had considered the coalition Government’s “Programme for Government” document, but if they had, they would have found a series of policies—real policies—that seem to cover many of the areas of concern mentioned in the Bill. For example, on page 17 there is a commitment to introduce measures to protect wildlife, halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity. There is a commitment to working towards a “zero waste economy”, and on page 18 there is a commitment to promote high standards of farm animal welfare.

I submit that the reason none of these policies is sufficient is that the promoter and many of the supporters of the Bill would like to see the United Kingdom go much further. I entirely accept that these interest groups represent areas of concern for many people, but I wonder whether it is appropriate for what is, by any assessment, a minority of people to use this Bill as a Trojan horse eventually to force others to accept the diet that they themselves have chosen to adopt.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Given what has been said about the Bill by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend, does he acknowledge that it has, in fact, had support from a very wide range of farming organisations that have not been named? They include Farm, the Family Farmers Association, the Small Farms Association, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, the Soil Association and the National Trust—which, I accept, is not a farming organisation, but it has an interest.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would like an acknowledgement that not only environmental groups but very many farmers organisations are enthusiastically backing this Bill and supporting it all the way.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend reads out that list, and I accept that those organisations no doubt support the Bill. However, I wonder what they have been told the Bill seeks to do, because I suspect that if they had actually looked at it they might have been somewhat surprised by its content. It is probably easier to get people to say that they support a Bill if one tells them that it is going to do something that perhaps it is not going to do.

Of course, the one group who will be more directly affected by the Bill than any other is our nation’s farmers. It is worth noting what the president of the National Farmers Union has said about it. In a press release issued the day after it had been published, he said:

“First and foremost, this Bill represents policy aspiration, not law.

I believe the UK government, present or future, should be free to develop its policy on the sustainability of the food and farming sector, working in partnership with industry and other interested organisations, as it sees fit. While the aspirations of this Bill are admirable, they are unsuited to legislation.

I remain convinced there are better ways of improving farming’s environmental impact, primarily by seeing through the voluntary and industry-led initiatives that are already underway rather than by adding further burdensome regulation.”

As far as I can see, and as we have heard this morning, one of the primary reasons why the Bill has been introduced is the belief of some that farmers in this country are too reliant on feeding their livestock with animal feed based on soya imported from abroad. I appreciate that there is concern about the destruction of the south American rain forest for the purpose of growing soya crops, but that problem is already being dealt with. Farmers have taken steps to encourage the sustainable production of soya in Brazil through the feed materials assurance scheme, or FEMAS. The UK imported 2.2 million tonnes of soya in 2009, mostly from south America, although it should be noted that not all of it was used in animal feed. Some was used in consumer foods such as vegetable oil. Already, about 1 million tonnes of UK imports from Brazil are certified under the FEMAS production module, which not only covers deforestation but ensures compliance with social legislation.

Soya is an important source of protein for livestock production in the UK, although its exact share of the livestock diet varies from as low as 3% for ruminants, through to 10% for pigs and up to 30% for broilers. Those involved in the farming industry have already agreed that the supply of responsibly sourced soya should be expanded by supporting schemes that can properly certify it as having been grown in compliance with sustainable principles, including environmental responsibility, responsible labour conditions and good agricultural practice.

Just in case clause 1 would not generate enough red tape, clause 2 would impose yet another duty on the Secretary of State—a duty to publish targets and report regularly on what progress had been made in achieving them. Subsection (1) would force the Secretary of State to publish the steps that were to be taken to show compliance with clause 1, including a set of indicators showing how progress would be measured. I would not like to venture a view as to whether an indicator is the same as a milestone, or even an horizon, but whatever they are, subsection (2) would require the Secretary of State, having published them, also to publish and update information about what progress has actually been made in meeting those targets. Those progress reports must include an explanation of the actual measures taken to achieve progress, and a comparison against the indicators. It sounds like a civil servant’s dream—new plans, new targets, more indicators, more progress reports.

If all that were not enough to keep the Secretary of State on track, there is a specific requirement in clause 2(4) for an “overall review of progress” to be published every two years. Fortunately, for the sake of all those rain forests that the Bill is intended to protect, subsection (5) specifically allows that the plethora of indicators, progress reports, updates, explanations, comparisons and reviews may be in electronic or hard-copy form. I sincerely hope that they would appear only in electronic form.

It seems reasonable to assume that having gone to such great lengths to spell out the duties and obligations on the Secretary of State, the Bill should contain some pretty blood-curdling consequences for failure to comply with its provisions. In fact, it is completely silent in that regard. Not a single sanction. There are no sanctions, no remedies, nothing. I could suggest that that is because the Bill contains so many vague terms and contentious definitions that any sanction would be effectively unenforceable.

I believe that the view of those who support the Bill is that remedy would be by way of judicial review. I can see the lawyers rubbing their hands with glee already. Day upon day would be spent in the High Court determining what actually constituted research into sustainable livestock practices, or perhaps whether the explanation provided under clause 2(3) was comprehensive enough. The list of potential areas of litigation would, I submit, be virtually endless. I argue that the Bill, which fails to include any remedy or sanction, is bad law. Surely it is the task of this House, and of their lordships in the other place, to determine the appropriate remedy for failure to comply with a law that we put on the statute book. We should not simply leave it up to the courts.

As was mentioned, perhaps one of the most worrying aspects of the Bill is the effect that it would have on public expenditure. As the House will note, it places onerous duties on the Secretary of State to consider numerous matters covering not only every aspect of farming but other matters. They include the provision of public information, food labelling, research, the reduction and disposal of food waste, and extending the nature of the negotiations that we carry on with other countries. It also includes a duty to consult a very wide range of expert individuals and organisations, not just on those matters but on others such as food retailing, the production of animal foodstuffs, climate change, biodiversity, the effects on human health of eating produce from livestock and animal health and welfare. Then, as we have just heard, there are all the progress reports that the Secretary of State must prepare and publish.

There can be no doubt at all that those tasks will be very time-consuming, and time costs money. The need to engage expert consultants in at least seven different areas will not be cheap, and it is fair and reasonable to assume that those experts will charge for the benefit of providing their expert opinion. Even if they all provided a lot of free advice, a raft of new civil servants would be required to meet the new obligations.

Nowhere in the explanatory notes is there any assessment of what all that will cost. Exactly what is the assessment of how many new staff will be needed? What will be the start-up costs to establish the new regulatory framework? What will be the cost of providing new offices and equipment? All that at a time when the Government are trying to reduce the level of bureaucracy and administration.