Solar Farms and Food Production
Lord Hain Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord has not said which solar farms he is referring to, but a number of large solar farms have been approved in East Anglia recently. With regard to the Sunnica energy farm, which he may be referring to, I am aware that the examining body considered the impact on farming to carry moderate negative weight. However, the Secretary of State concluded that it carried “slightly” negative weight, which is why it was overruled in favour of allowing permission. My understanding is that it was grade 3 and below land, not 1 and 2, but I am happy to check that.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I commend my noble friend the Minister’s sensible response to this issue of balancing food with land use in general.
However, does she agree that these rants which we got from the opposite Benches against solar power, wind farms—onshore wind farms—when they were in government and refusing to strike a deal with offshore wind through a sensible strike price, are in defiance of the reality of the climate emergency which we have just seen with the terrible flooding across the country in recent days?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My noble friend raises a really important point. In a nutshell, we have to recognise that climate change is a much bigger threat to farming and to our food security, and we have to take action to secure that. A move to renewable energy is a central part.
Farmers: Flooding Compensation
Lord Hain Excerpts(8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Douglas-Miller) (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Farmers will receive payments from the new farming recovery fund for all land parcels that are flooded contiguous to a river with notably high river level gauge readings, following Storm Henk during January this year. Currently, eligible areas are Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, West Northamptonshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. The fund remains under review and flexible as we ensure that it supports areas where farmland is most impacted. We are currently reviewing a further eight areas.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but why on earth are Ministers not fully compensating all farmers whose entire cropping land is submerged under water? They are at their wits’ end, refused compensation even when right alongside a major river because their farms are more than 150 metres from the centre of it. After six months of nearly solid rain—there has been nothing like that for nearly 200 years, says the Met Office—and with the climate emergency likely to make this a regular pattern, also threatening food production, surely farmers should be fully compensated now. We should bin these ridiculously restrictive rules, for goodness’ sake.
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
The noble Lord is right about the 150-metre restriction, which was lifted within 48 hours of that announcement. The farming recovery fund will pay farmers who suffered uninsurable damage from exceptionally high continued rainfall from Storm Henk in the period 2 to 12 January this year. The fund is a contribution towards the cost of recultivating whole land parcels flooded by notably high river levels caused by the storm. For grassland, the grant is towards the cost of recultivating grassland ready for reseeding; for arable land, it is for getting the land ready to plant crops. I appreciate the noble Lord’s point that there is extensive damage over a lot of areas, but it is not the Government’s intention or job to compensate every single farmer for all those issues.
Agriculture Bill
Lord Hain ExcerptsTuesday 28th July 2020
(4 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-VII Seventh marshalled list for Committee - (23 Jul 2020)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]
My Lords, here we are on day seven of four—Douglas Adams would be proud of us. But seven days in Committee, for a Bill of this importance and relevance, with the huge impact it will have, is not particularly long.
My Amendment 273, which is supported by the noble Lords, Lord Randall, Lord Greaves and Lord Addington, for which I thank them, is relatively simple. It would simply ensure that UK standards regarding food safety, the environment and animal welfare cannot be undermined by imports produced to lower standards. That seems self-evident to me. In fact, this group of amendments is one of the most significant in the whole Bill, because it is the one area that is strongly supported by the public. It is a fact that the Government have managed to ensure that there is an opposition of green groups, farmers, NGOs, producers, supermarkets—a whole mix of people who would not usually share a particular view. If the Government tried to ignore this issue, I hope there would be a Back-Bench revolt, because it is incredibly important.
There is huge recognition out there that trade deals are a threat to standards. We need protections in law to ensure that these standards are not undermined. The US Secretary of Agriculture has described our environmental and animal welfare standards as protectionism which should be removed in a trade deal. Well, I am with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on this: I want to protect. That is a very good word and we should all be proud of and want to use it on issues that the majority of Britons really care about. I am terrified that our Government, desperate for the political victory of securing a US trade deal, will give in to the Americans on this issue. It is not just the United States, of course. What about future dealings with, for example, Brazil, which burns huge swathes of the Amazon rainforest to make way for cattle pastures? Trade policy is a huge tool for international diplomacy. Your Lordships must be able to trust the Government to make the right decisions when they make these deals.
The merits of these amendments aside, we will have to have this same fight again on the Trade Bill. The Minister might even say that the Trade Bill is the proper place to discuss these issues. But one has only to read Hansard on the Trade Bill in the other place from last week to see that Ministers told MPs that the Agriculture Bill had dealt with all these issues and that MPs had nothing more to worry about. It is normally considered out of order to refer to proceedings in the other place, but it is very important when the Government simultaneously tell each House the opposite thing. That is exceptional and needs drawing to your Lordships’ attention.
I hope the Minister will commit to working constructively to bring forward an amendment on these issues on Report. I am certain that we will pass one of these amendments, and it might as well be one that the Government can accept. We will pull together on this, along with the British public, to make sure we protect our farmers, our farming regimes, our standards on animal welfare and the way our food is produced.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said about public interest in this particular issue. I also follow my noble friend Lord Foulkes in thanking the Minister, the public Bill staff, the Government Whips and the broadcast facility staff for their marathon effort and courtesy.
My Amendment 276 would require new international treaties on the import of agricultural and food products to comply with World Trade Organization safety rules and the UK’s own standards. It was first proposed by the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, the Conservative MP Neil Parish, and is backed by the British Veterinary Association, the National Farmers’ Union, the RSPCA, the Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Soil Association and the World Wide Fund for Nature. It reflects a lack of trust that we can rely on the Conservative Party manifesto, which promised:
“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”
Sadly, the amendment was voted down by government loyalists in the other place. We note that whenever Ministers have been challenged in debates on the Bill to back up this pledge with legal protections, all that has been offered have been vague aspirational murmurings. I hope I do not give any offence to the Minister, who is diligent on these matters, but that is the truth.
The legal protections that European Union membership provided in these and many other areas, including agricultural workers’ rights and targets for reaching net-zero emissions for the agriculture industry, are nowhere to be found in the Bill. It has become clear that the Government regard such protections for our farmers and the environment as a barrier to a trade deal with the United States. So desperate are the Brexiteers to declare UDI from the EU that they are prepared to prostrate themselves at the door of Donald Trump’s “America first” trade and sell out our farmers, while turning a blind eye to environmental degradation and poor animal welfare standards abroad.
Now we are no longer part of a major trading bloc —the biggest trading bloc in the world—the Brexiteers’ sacred cow of sovereignty will not prevent Washington using its superior economic weight to set the terms of any deal with an isolated United Kingdom. British farmers and our food processors would be undercut by imports of food whose production is banned here. Of course, cheap, poorer-quality US food imports will remain cheap only as long as our domestic production proves viable enough to provide a meaningful competitive market. Farmers would face a choice between lowering standards and seeing their livelihoods destroyed. Minette Batters of the National Farmers’ Union has said:
“Farmers are going to feel betrayed … I don’t recall anyone selling a vision of post-Brexit Britain as one involving lower-standard food filling shop shelves while British farmers … go out of business.”
If UK agriculture cannot survive, prices of imports will rise, leaving the country dependent on imported food of dubious quality.
Lowering UK standards will, in turn, create barriers to agreeing a trade deal with the European Union, which is needed to preserve farmers’ important EU export markets, since US food standards are incompatible with those of the EU. Europe is not only the most significant destination by far for our agricultural exports; in addition, the EU has negotiated international trade agreements on our behalf with our most important non-EU trading partners, so replacement deals will also have to be negotiated to ensure continued agricultural access to those markets. The EU is also our largest source of food imports, providing fully 30% of our food supplies, so more empty shelves could be in store.
Even before the Brexit decision was made, UK farming already faced major challenges, including increasing globalisation, international competition, changing consumer expectations and preferences, accelerating technological innovation, and longer-term pressures brought about by climate change. As everyone knows, farmers are subject to price volatility and market pressures that continue to put their livelihoods at risk. The added uncertainty of future trade deals with the EU puts their future export markets at risk. The EU provides a vital destination for UK food exports, with the Irish Republic, France, Germany and the Netherlands being the principal markets.
A trade deal with the US would also threaten the National Health Service and would be imposed without consent. The Trade Bill, which had its First Reading in your Lordships’ House last week, makes no provision for parliamentary scrutiny of future trade deals and will grant the Government Henry VIII powers to change the law on trade agreements without parliamentary approval. The devolved Administrations do not have any role in negotiating or approving international trade treaties.
Rather than taking back control, the UK could even become a satellite state of Donald Trump’s US in a race to the bottom. That is the reality of these harmful plans for a hard Brexit, which threatens not just our food producers but animal welfare and the environment. The pandemic has shown the importance of food security, a healthy diet and a harmonious relationship with nature. These plans need to be opposed before it is too late.
Agriculture Bill
Lord Hain ExcerptsThursday 23rd July 2020
(4 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-VII Seventh marshalled list for Committee - (23 Jul 2020)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]
My Lords, here we are, back again with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
My Amendments 211 and 213 to 216 seek to improve Clause 33. I can also see the power and value in Amendment 212 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. My amendments would require an animal slaughter levy to be established for all animals slaughtered in the United Kingdom. The funds raised from that levy would then be used to support farms to transition from livestock to plant-based food production.
As many Peers have said, meat consumption in the British diet is, on average, far too high. It is too much meat for our health. If all other countries in the developing world aspired to eat as much meat as we do, we would need dozens more planets to accommodate that meat production. As we have only one planet, reducing meat production and promoting plant-based foods are major steps in creating a fair and sustainable world.
Tucked into Amendment 211 is a requirement that the animal slaughter levy actually be set up, since the current drafting of Clause 33 grants the power to establish a red meat levy but places no duty on the Government to implement it. It is worth noting that creating a red meat levy is a big step for the Government; it is the kind of thing that, until very recently, us Greens have been mocked for even suggesting. Can the Minister be bolder than just red meat and go the whole hog to make this a full animal slaughter levy? I beg to move.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments, specifically those on Amendment 212, standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Wigley, which seeks to
“provide for repatriation of the levy collected in the United Kingdom supply chain to the devolved administration of origin.”
The agricultural processing sector in Wales, from whence I am speaking, is relatively small in comparison to the agricultural output of Welsh farms. The red meat sector is the predominant agricultural activity in Wales, and the processing facilities servicing this sector are strategically placed throughout the UK to maximise accessibility in a system that is heavily reliant on roads and HGV transportation for the movement of livestock.
With levy funding allocated according to place of cull rather than an animal’s point of origin, the centralised processing system disadvantages farmers in Wales. Furthermore, key products such as Welsh lamb and beef, which benefit from the protected geographical indication status—PGI—and derive a greater market share due to this status, are culled in other areas of the UK. It is these locations, not Wales, that receive the levy funds. This imbalance, driven by the streamlining and consolidation of the red meat processing and supply chain sector, is causing additional stress on a red meat sector already under significant financial strain in Wales. Levy Boards, with their increasingly important role in promoting the food products of Wales and working with the agricultural sector to improve efficiency and profitability through knowledge and best practice, should receive an equitable share of levy funds that allow them to work effectively in their respective areas of the UK.
As the UK seeks to negotiate new trade deals with other nations, it is the successful marketing and promotion of our flagship products in Wales, such Welsh lamb, 92% of which is currently exported to the European Union, that could deliver transformational change for farmers there. It would be unfortunate if these opportunities could not be delivered due to a poorly structured levy funding mechanism.
The issue of fair levy funding dispersal is also an important consideration when looking at the delivery of sustainable food production in the UK, a point referred to in passing by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. A proportionately funded levy body could look beyond helping farmers and the supply chain with economic performance towards a focus on environmental and social considerations, especially sustainability.
Looking further ahead, we would all like to see a food supply chain based around local production, processing and consumption; that would provide potential benefits not only for the farmer but for the climate change mitigation agenda, which is so crucial. That is the long-term goal. In the meantime, having resources allocated fairly to the levy bodies will enable them better to support our agricultural producers as they move towards economic and environmental sustainability. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment and indicate that when he comes to reply.
Lord Wigley (PC) [V]
My Lords, I am happy to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and I agree with her comments. I also agree particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about the sectoral challenges in Wales and the importance of the facilities being available and of directing, as far as possible, resources towards sustaining them.
Slaughter being located close to the point of production is important from the environmental point of view and indeed to sustaining employment in rural areas. This has been challenged in recent years by a number of economic factors which have tended to favour moves towards centralisation. The question of the resources available from the levy has been a burning issue in Wales. I am convinced that Ministers are aware of that; indeed, the Government have acknowledged it. It is therefore important that a guarantee be put into the Bill regarding the availability of such a levy to Wales, as well as to other locations where beef slaughter takes place. For these reasons, I strongly support the amendment.
Lord Hain [V]
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 269 standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Wigley.
Brexit has returned significant powers to the UK Government to negotiate and agree international trade agreements with other nations. As a reserved power, it is the responsibility of the UK Government to represent the interests of the agriculture sectors throughout the UK, including those within the political boundaries of devolved Administrations.
To ensure that agriculture businesses in Wales have access to equal opportunities in relation to trade as counterparts in England, it is reasonable to assume that any devolved Administration, responsible as they are for their own agriculture policy, support and monitoring, would share any information necessary with the UK Government in relation to trade. Enabling, where reasonable, the sharing of information to support trade policy and enable the free flow of tradable commodities within and beyond the UK should surely be considered a common-sense matter.
Large areas of rural Wales are heavily dependent on the agriculture sector as their primary economic industry. The symbiosis of agriculture and trade should be a priority; these policy areas must work together to ease the short-term economic shock and longer-term adaptation to new markets that will arise from the UK’s new trading arrangements. It is not an area where political wrangling should overrule what is most beneficial to the people and livelihoods of those affected on the ground.
As food has become a global commodity, the UK does not have the land area to compete on a volume basis with larger developing nations where agricultural production is increasing year on year. However, due in no small part to the structure of the CAP, the agriculture sector in the UK, and Wales in particular, produces agricultural outputs at a commodity scale where the amount of land available would indicate that a focus on higher-quality outputs rather than quantity would be more beneficial.
Generally within the UK, but more specifically in Wales, where legislation such as the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Environment (Wales) Act (2016) are steering the nation to deliver against sustainability goals, there is a growing and marketable evidence base around the value of the sustainable production of food products. This provides significant potential for agriculture producers in Wales not only to promote our current high standards for animal health and welfare but to move into the added value, niche world of “sustainable brand values”, with the potential that this brings to extend into new international markets. Such standards and brand values would demonstrate that a foodstuff grown in Wales was produced with all due consideration for its impact against every aspect of sustainable food production and the sustainable management of natural resources. Businesses in Wales are already starting to look at the potential such a USP could deliver.
To deliver a trade policy that complements Welsh farmers and food businesses, it is essential that the UK Government not only adheres to our existing high standards when negotiating trade deals involving agricultural produce but opens wider avenues for those within the UK whose ambition reaches beyond our current understanding of food standards, to open new and exciting markets. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will indicate the Government’s acceptance of the substance of this amendment.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, on his Amendments 264 and 265, which I was delighted to sign. I endorse his sentiments and hope my noble friend will look favourably on his amendments, particularly Amendment 264, in much the same vein as I support my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s Amendment 257. I think it is essential there should be proper consultation with the relevant interested parties before regulations are adopted, as I will set out. For the same reason, I support Amendment 265, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I am sure my noble friend will agree that this is a genuine oversight and I hope she will look favourably at approving these or similar provisions before the Bill leaves the House. I also associate myself with Amendment 269, which is incredibly similar to the provisions in my Amendment 256, which was supported by other noble Lords: I would like to see the same apply in Wales as in England and other parts of the United Kingdom.
Agriculture Bill
Lord Hain ExcerptsTuesday 21st July 2020
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-VI(Rev) Revised sixth marshalled list for Committee - (21 Jul 2020)
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who spoke with such authority. I wish to speak to my Amendments 164, 167 and 170, to Amendment 160 in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and to Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others. They seek to ensure that food security is properly recognised in the Bill, in a way that takes full and explicit account of the legitimate interests of all the devolved Administrations. I am grateful for the support of colleagues who have put their names to my amendments.
The tragedy of the Covid pandemic has demonstrated the links between access to nutritious food and public health. Conditions such as obesity and diabetes, which are linked to poor nutritional standards, have been associated with a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalisation and death from Covid-19.
The panic buying we saw in anticipation of lockdown reminded many of us of the importance of the sustainability, resilience and security of our food supply. However, for many people panic buying is not an option, as poverty means that a secure and nutritious food supply is an everyday challenge. A decade of austerity has widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society, and the recent loss of earnings due to Covid-19 has added massively to the numbers struggling with food insecurity.
The pressures on food banks have increased, and it is estimated by the Food Foundation that over 8 million people, including 2 million children, in the UK have faced food insecurity of some kind during the pandemic. Recently, it took the intervention of Premier League footballer Marcus Rashford to elicit a response from this Government on the need to continue free school meal vouchers over the school holidays. However, as the Children’s Society pointed out, the Government should make the extension of free school meal vouchers over the holiday permanent, whether or not there is a pandemic. The Government need to take much more responsibility for ensuring that all UK citizens have access to adequate supplies of nutritious food.
In a nation where 50% of food is currently imported—30% from the European Union—the importance of protecting high standards of nutritional value, and of the security and quality of both our domestic production and the high-quality fresh produce we import from the EU, cannot be overestimated. The subsector is very dependent on imports, as only 16% of the fruit and 53% of the vegetables we consume are grown in the UK. In this situation, retailers will face potential shortages of supplies if trade barriers are introduced because of a hard Brexit.
Our reliance on fruit and vegetable trucks coming across from Europe reminds us of the importance of securing an extension to the Brexit transition period to allow time to recover from the impacts of the pandemic and for the negotiators to strike the right Brexit deal. However, on the contrary, the Government appear to be prioritising trade deals with countries far beyond Europe, such as the United States, with its inferior food production and unsafe animal welfare standards. If such trade deals are allowed, with no requirement to preserve the high standards that Britain and the European Union have maintained, they will undercut our farmers with poorer-quality cheap food.
For agriculture and the food industry, and for both imports and exports, the continuation of European Union trade, where we have a level playing field, is vital. We need to ensure that Brexit does not mean that supply lines of fresh food from the EU are interrupted because of tariff barriers, or that our farmers lose their important export markets in the EU. In the post-Covid world, to meet nutritional and environmental goals, we need to trade more, not less, with our nearest neighbours.
A legal guarantee of future food, animal welfare and environmental standards would safeguard all UK consumers from unhealthy and unsafe food, while also protecting British farmers at risk of being undercut by poor-quality imports. However, so far, the Government have failed to support calls for such amendments to the Bill. The Bill is an opportunity to protect all British consumers and farmers from food imports of dubious quality, and to maintain current nutritional, environmental and animal welfare standards for vital imports of fresh food.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has explained this issue extremely clearly. Essentially, Amendments 174 and 285 would greatly improve the definition of when exceptional market conditions exist, which would be a very sensible thing to include in the Bill.
My Amendment 176 would prevent financial assistance in exceptional market conditions being given to producers who do not meet animal welfare standards. I set out the arguments for restricting this assistance in the debates on previous groupings but, in short, public money should not be given to producers who fail on animal welfare—in fact, such producers should not be in business at all.
Lord Hain [V]
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who speaks with such authority and passion on these agricultural questions.
I wish to speak to my Amendment 175; I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The agricultural sector has always been subject to the whims of nature and climate. However, recent years have seen an increase in disruptive weather patterns, such as prolonged, unseasonal periods of flooding, extreme cold and heat, and drought—often with different challenges at the same time in different areas of the country. We have also experienced the impact that invasive diseases, such as bird influenza, blue tongue and ash dieback, can have on plants and animals.
These unexpected, often catastrophic, events can deliver significant damage to our agriculture businesses, both individuals and whole sectors. A year’s worth of income can be decimated by one bad storm or a few rain-free months during a growing season. In Wales, the 2013 heavy spring snow is a good example; by the way, England was even worse hit then. Another example in Wales is the long summer droughts of 2018 and 2019 that caused even secure water sources to dry up and arable yields to drop significantly as water for irrigation was unavailable. These farming “natural disasters” are at such a scale that there is a case for state sector intervention of the kind that this amendment proposes—especially with the growing impact of climate change, which is undoubtedly a cause of them.
These uncontrollable factors uniquely affect the products that we grow from our land. Increasingly, it is not just the market conditions of the globalised agricultural commodity markets that affect our core industry of food and farming; it is the untameable elements of nature that are getting increasingly erratic and wild. This new reality, already acknowledged and understood when we look at actions around climate change adaptation, needs to be extended into the thinking on how we support farming businesses affected by these situations. The drivers of exceptional circumstances have changed, and we must change with them. I hope that the Government take heed of that.
Indeed, that imperative is underlined by official Defra statistics showing that our food sector is heavily reliant on imports. We export £2.1 billion of meat but import £6.6 billion, and we export £1.3 billion of fruit and veg but import a massive £11.5 billion. We are so vulnerable as a nation over our food supplies; that is made worse by the ravaging effects of climate change.
The policy objective of this Bill is admirable. It is to encourage and incentivise our farmers, the custodians of our countryside and the managers of our land, to deliver more environmental benefits from their land use and use new trade opportunities and markets to increase economic sustainability. This ambition must be balanced with a fresh look at how, when and why the Government are willing to provide additional support to a key economic sector in crisis. That means looking beyond the traditional and narrow definition of what drives economic failures. It also means acknowledging and providing emergency support tools to deal with the reality that our climate, our weather and our environment are changing and that businesses operating in the natural environment will be detrimentally impacted by factors completely beyond their control—indeed, beyond our control—including the Covid-19 pandemic, an unexpected crisis that has shaken the world economy beyond anybody’s imagination. We should be using this opportunity to make sure that we have the tools and powers in place to allow us to support those businesses if and when a natural crisis occurs, which is what Amendment 175 seeks to do. I hope that it finds favour with the Minister, who has played such a constructive role in his sympathetic handling of this Bill.
Lord Carrington
My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner, as set out in the register. I had great pleasure in putting my name to the important Amendment 174, and to Amendment 285, proposed by the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. This amendment has the support of the Tenant Farmers Association, the National Farmers’ Union and the CLA, together with a high proportion of farmers. They have the invaluable experience of farming the land and are well aware of the many unpredictable factors that can quickly turn a crop from profit to loss or livestock from asset to liability.
Amendment 174 widens the definition of “exceptional market conditions” to make sure that as many circumstances as possible are covered. It moves beyond global market changes to other triggers, such as severe weather and disease. The intention is not to provide an easy escape route for farmers to claim that circumstances have conspired against them. The definition remains tighter than many would wish. It is particularly important that we get this right, in view of the removal of the overall safety net of the basic payment scheme, which has protected farmers from so much volatility, often caused by exceptional market conditions, for over 40 years.
The importance of the amendment is shown by the events earlier this year when rain caused devastating flooding. Happily, the Government stepped in and support was given to flooded farms. However, the effects of this—hopefully exceptional—weather event were felt much more broadly, and the result can be seen across the country: land left fallow, patchy crops and much more. Most farmers have relied on the BPS to cover their fall in income. This sorry situation was compounded by the length of time it took the Government to repeal the three-crop rule. Desperate farmers drilled crops in unsuitable conditions to adhere to the rule, and this has caused environmental damage to soil structure and more.
It is also vital that a process exists to ensure that there are no delays in triggering intervention. The impact of Covid-19 on the dairy industry is a good case in point. Although a support scheme was implemented, it took an inordinate amount of lobbying by the industry to achieve a positive result.
Finally, I am not a lawyer, but I ask the Minister to clarify exactly what is meant by “prices achievable” in subsection (2)(b). It is surely a matter not just of price but of income too. Can the Minister confirm that it covers the situation where a farmer or grower cannot achieve the price because he does not have the product to sell, due to drought, flood, disease or other exceptional conditions?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 267, to which the noble Lords, Lords Bruce of Bennachie and Lord Wigley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, have very kindly added their names. It seeks to insert into Clause 40 a provision designed to protect the interests of the devolved authorities with regard to the exercise of the regulation-making powers conferred on the Secretary of State by that clause.
I express my support for Amendment 291, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Bruce and Lord Thomas of Gresford. I am also very much in sympathy with the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has just spoken to and to which my Amendment 255, which will be debated some time on Thursday, closely relates.
Turning to my own amendment, Part 6 of the Bill, of which Clause 40 forms part, concerns the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, which came into force in 1995. The agreement, reduced to its simplest terms, contains three pillars: domestic support, market access and export subsidies. The EU’s common agricultural policy has been subject to its discipline ever since the agreement was entered into. That responsibility, so far as the UK is concerned, will pass to the Government of the United Kingdom when the transitional period comes to an end. That, as I understand it, and in short, is what Part 6, and Clause 40 in particular, is all about.
It has been drafted on the assumption that it will be the responsibility of the Government at Westminster to ensure that all UK policies on domestic support, including those of the devolved Administrations, are compliant with the agreement. That is because, so the argument goes, the UK will be the signatory to the agreement, not the individual nations within it. As a matter of international law, there can be no argument with this approach, but the Bill is concerned with the exercise of this responsibility within the United Kingdom. This is a matter which needs to have regard to our own domestic arrangements, and especially to the fact that agriculture is devolved.
Indeed, agriculture is not, in the case of any of the Administrations, reserved to Westminster. Therefore, as these Administrations see it, the starting point for any system of regulation to ensure WTO compliance by the UK as a whole must be that it is the responsibility of each of the devolved Administrations to devise its own system for the support of agriculture with whatever resources may be available.
When one examines Part 6 in that light, it can be seen that it fails to respect these domestic arrangements. Clause 41(5) will enable the Secretary of State, in the exercise of the Clause 40 power, to set financial ceilings in relation to agricultural support provided by the devolved Administrations of a kind that is classified as “Amber Box” by the WTO, and to establish a decision -making process for the classification of agricultural support in accordance with WTO criteria.
The Secretary of State could set limits on the amount of domestic support targeted at specific measures that the devolved Administrations were seeking to apply to meet their own objectives. Those could be at a lower ceiling than exists under the current arrangements. Reducing the amount of support given to sheep farmers in Wales and Scotland, for example, would be a matter of very great concern, given the narrow margins within which hill farmers in those countries have to operate and the formidable challenges they now face due to the collapse of the export market for wool, to take just one example.
My amendment seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State will consult the devolved Administrations when he prepares regulations under this clause. It does not go so far as to require him to secure their agreement. In an ideal world, that would of course be desirable so that all parts of the UK could work together on this matter but, given the political tensions that currently exist, asking him to secure agreement may be asking for too much. I am not asking for that, but I stress the importance of consultation so that the Secretary of State is fully informed before decisions are taken and that this is written into the Bill.
It is good that, as can be seen from Amendment 268, the Government have departed from insisting on the provision of information by the devolved Administrations about their own proposed or existing farming support, as that is their business. But consultation about steps that the Secretary of State proposes to take is essential if serious misunderstandings and, worse still, a real sense of injustice and resentment are to be avoided. I should add that NFU Scotland supports this amendment, although it would prefer that decisions on financial ceilings should be taken not just after consultation but with the agreement of the devolved Administrations.
I recall that on 7 July, replying to an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, the Minister said:
“Good progress has already been made by the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Administrations in developing an administrative framework for co-ordinating agricultural policy on the basis of co-operation and mutual consent.”—[Official Report, 7/7/20; col. 1043.]
I think he has said the same thing on a number of occasions this evening. I very much welcome that but I hope that, in that spirit, he will look favourably on my amendment and I look forward very much to his reply.
Lord Hain [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, who made some compelling arguments, especially about the devolved question. I endorse the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, about Wales and the Welsh Government’s needs.
I wish to speak to Amendment 284 in my name. The shape and political make-up of the UK have shifted significantly since the last time we laid domestic agriculture legislation 40 years ago. When the UK first adopted the common agricultural policy, it was on behalf of the whole UK. Now, as we seek to replace that policy, we are doing so as four distinct Administrations with overarchingly aligned but divergent interpretations of what the common agricultural policy is able to deliver.
Devolution developed within the context of the CAP. The Welsh Government were given competence for agriculture policy in 1999. The strength of devolution, for agriculture in particular, is that it gave the constituent parts of the UK—areas whose topography and climate have produced vastly different agriculture sectors—the ability to shape the policy and support to suit individual needs. The flexibility to tailor individual needs while working with high-level parameters and outcomes, laid out in the framework of the CAP, was a key component of what made the policy work in terms of its structure, while delivering the careful balance between divergence and uniformity. The common overarching objectives—the commitment to seven-year funding cycles, the broad agreements on spending limits and the overall breadth and intention of the policy framework —combined to produce a competitive but level playing field. It was a structure that enabled disparate areas with different agricultural systems to address local needs while working towards strategic goals.
As the UK Government and devolved Administrations develop new agricultural policy with new policy intent, we must surely take time to consider not merely what CAP delivered but how it delivered it. While the landscape and agricultural sectors of Wales may be different from England or Scotland—or Northern Ireland, for that matter—we are unified by the need to trade effectively both internally and externally. The fundamental need to unify areas of common interest should be accounted for in this Bill.
For Wales, the most pressing issue is the ability to agree and deliver a multi-annual funding arrangement with Her Majesty’s Treasury. Multi-annual funding is key to providing stability to a sector that takes time to see the impact of any investment or delivery of any environmental outcome.
Currently, the budget for Wales is set through the annual spending review negotiation between the Treasury and the Welsh Government. An annual funding mechanism for agriculture and land management will create too much uncertainty for Welsh farmers. This lack of stability will destroy the level playing field for farmers and agribusinesses in Wales and consequently the integrated food supply chain within the UK. This is a uniquely Welsh constitutional and political problem.
In this Agriculture Bill, we have a clear opportunity to put in place steps to design and deliver a multi-annual funding arrangement that can create a common structure with shared opportunity against shared UK objectives while allowing devolved Administrations to meet domestic needs. It is the first building block to ensuring that we can accommodate and build resilience into our agricultural sector, our food and drink sector, and the UK’s national security. This is the context in which I have spoken to my amendments.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]
I support the amendments in my name. Amendment 289 seeks to introduce a sunset clause so that provisions relating to Northern Ireland are timebound, while allowing suitable time for the development of bespoke legislation within the next Assembly term—some time post-2022—and taking into account disruptions in future planning as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, providing a clear timeframe for Northern Ireland.
As the Minister has mentioned, Clause 45 and Schedule 6 refer to the devolved regions and, in that respect, to Northern Ireland. While the schedule provides much-needed certainty in the short term, Northern Ireland is still left without a long-term vision for how agriculture and the environment will be supported in the future and without clarity around what outcomes a future policy framework should aim to deliver.
This is despite widespread recognition from stakeholders that the current system is not fit for purpose. Northern Ireland is facing considerable challenges in terms of species and habitat loss, agricultural GHG emissions, poor water quality and marked volatility, among others. The way we manage our land use will directly impact on our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as helping meet a range of other environmental commitments.
There is a need to reform how we farm and manage our land and move towards a resilient, profitable and environmentally sustainable farming sector. The need to outline a future direction of travel for Northern Ireland is of paramount importance. Currently, a risk exists that the provisions within the Northern Ireland schedule could continue indefinitely, and this would result in the long-term continuation of direct payments in their current form, which have been criticised by a range of stakeholders and do little to address the numerous crises facing farming and the environment. While the provisions in the Northern Ireland schedule are similar to those that apply in Wales, there is an important difference: the Welsh provision will expire in 2024, while there is no sunset clause outlined for those relating to Northern Ireland. This is largely due to the fact that the Bill was created in the absence of an operational Assembly. We have now had an operational Assembly since 11 January this year and, in fact, this amendment has already been discussed by the DAERA Assembly Committee in Northern Ireland, which supports it. It is also supported by the Nature Friendly Farming Network.
In that regard, I thank the noble Lords who signed my amendment, including the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Hain. I know that other noble Lords also support it, so it is important to noble Lords that the presence of a sunset clause relating to the Welsh schedule creates an onus on the Welsh Government to develop domestic legislation in a time-bound manner. The absence of that sunset clause relating to the Northern Ireland schedule creates a risk of the development of a future agricultural policy framework for Northern Ireland being further delayed—hence my amendment. I beg to move.
Agriculture Bill
Lord Hain ExcerptsThursday 9th July 2020
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-III Third marshalled list for Committee - (9 Jul 2020)
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I particularly enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who I have known for over 50 years, when he talked about his local bird life and the implications it has in this debate.
I support Amendment 42 to Clause 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and others, which relates to whole-farm agroecological systems and organic farming. The pandemic has been a tragic lesson in how broken our connection to our life support systems, by permission of nature, has become. In March, the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen, told us that
“Nature is sending us a message”
with the coronavirus and ongoing climate crisis.
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published the most comprehensive study into the health of the planet ever undertaken. It concluded that human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of nature, on which the survival of the human race depends. This ongoing work is telling us that
“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming … as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a perfect storm for the spillover of diseases.”
The scientists leading this work have warned that
“The health of people is intimately connected to the health of wildlife, the health of livestock and the health of the environment. It’s actually one health.”
Agroecological agriculture—of which organic is one system—supports small farms that are diverse, integrated and use low levels of chemical input to ensure the long-term balance between food production and the sustainability of natural resources. Although agroecology is recognised in the Bill, it is in a very minor way. In Clause 1(5), the Bill states that
“better understanding of the environment”
—one of the purposes for which the Secretary of State may give assistance—
“includes better understanding of agroecology”.
This appears to signify a basic misconception of what agroecology is and what a large-scale transformation to agroecological farming could deliver for farmers, wildlife, climate and public health. It should not be relegated to a legislative footnote; it should be a key part of this Bill and the Government’s broader agricultural policy, as others have said.
While I welcome this reference in the Bill, a more substantive reference, such as that proposed in Amendment 42, is also needed to create a specific commitment under Clause 1(1) for financial and wider support for existing agroecological farms—such as organic—and to ensure that all farmers can promote agroecological practices on the whole farm. This would then allow for support and incentives for farmers to facilitate the integration of food production with the delivery of environmental and social public purposes, in line with the avowed objectives of the Bill. It would ensure that farmers could transition to ecological farming models, producing food while restoring environments and nature.
These benefits are enhanced when they are part of the whole-farm system, rather than in reserved areas or only on the margins. Organic farms have been shown to support 50% more wildlife than is found on conventionally farmed land and healthier soils, with 44% higher capacity to store long-term soil carbon. Agroecological farms can also improve public access to nutritious, affordable fruit and vegetables, and to community projects, supporting improved public health outcomes for us all, as well as enterprise. I therefore hope that the Minister will indicate his acceptance of Amendment 42 in particular.
Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, I sympathise with Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, although I wonder whether it is necessary. Is it not covered effectively by Clause 1(1)(j)?
On Amendment 38, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, I observe that the best and by far the cheapest way to implement integrated pest and weed management measures will follow from our freedom from EU regulation, which has unnecessarily banned some pesticides and fungicides which could be used to reduce pest and weed problems without any negative environmental consequences. Of course, many chemicals have rightly been banned, but some have been banned without definitive scientific evidence.
I am sure that all noble Lords would support nature-friendly farming, as advocated by my noble friend Lord Caithness in Amendments 39 and 96. However, I believe it is already clear that nature-friendly practices are wholly consistent with the purposes listed in Clause 1.
Amendments 40 and 84, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, seek to add agroforestry schemes to the list of approved purposes. I agree with the noble Lord but believe that they are unnecessary, because agroforestry is surely included within the scope of Clause 1(1)(I). Similarly, my noble friend Lord Dundee reminds us that the Government have committed to plant 30 million trees without taking any agricultural land out of production. Will the planting of these trees lose us 7% of agricultural land, as I thought he also said, and how many of these trees will be planted on brownfield sites? Was this policy adopted before or after it was recognised that ash dieback might decimate the country’s population of ash trees?
The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in his Amendment 48 seeks to widen the purposes for which financial assistance may be paid to include conversion to organic and ecologically sustainable farming. I believe that the noble Duke is right: farmers who follow ecologically sustainable practices should be rewarded. I had believed that consumer demand meant that farmers were replacing less ecologically sound practices with organic practices and was surprised to hear how small the organic acreage is. Ultimately, organic produce should command significantly higher prices, which will increase the profitability of farmers who produce it. I support the noble Duke’s amendment.
We have already noted the introduction of a new concept: agroecology. Through Amendment 97, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, wishes to include whole-farm ecological systems as an additional and distinct model. I think that what it represents is already included in the Bill, and it would be better not to complicate the Bill unnecessarily.
I am not at all opposed to—indeed, I would support—increased monitoring of soil health, as proposed in Amendments 217 and 224, but I would not be able to support Amendment 259 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. Growing crops such as oilseed rape in this country has become unsustainable because EU regulations, which rely too much on the precautionary principle, have placed unnecessary and costly burdens on farmers and unnecessarily exposed their crops to various diseases. One of the benefits of leaving the European Union is that we will be free to develop our own food standards. These must of course maintain the highest standards, but should no longer unnecessarily apply rules which are unsupported by scientific evidence and which artificially raise the prices of food, especially at a time when many consumers are badly affected by the serious economic damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Lord Hain ExcerptsWednesday 24th June 2020
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Fisheries Act 2020 View all Fisheries Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-R-II(Rev) Revised second marshalled list for Report - (22 Jun 2020)
Lord Naseby [V]
My Lords, for better or worse, I read economics at Cambridge. I remember the lectures on competition policy—I looked them up prior to this debate.
It seems that we are lacking in evidence at the moment. Presumably, we need to establish the capacity of the current under-10-metre fleet to take up the extra quotas that will be available. Sitting here, I do not know what proportion of the new quotas that will come to UK fishing can be met by the current under-10-metre fishing fleet; perhaps the Minister can tell us. That is important, really. People cast aside the idea of super-efficient shipping, but at any level, you must have a viable shipping and fishing industry. It does not matter whether it is under 10 metres or over 10 metres. The last thing that any of us would want to see—perhaps that is a little too sweeping but I do not think that many of us would want to see it—is a situation where we have to subsidise 10-metre fishing boats from general taxation.
What ought to happen is that there should be an opportunity for new entrants and perhaps we should give priority to under-10-metre fishing boats. However, I want to see them pitch for the business and tell those who are to adjudicate why they are going into the industry, what they think they can bring to the industry and whether they are able to fish successfully. We do not want a quasi-monopoly without looking at the economics of the thing. I hate the word subsidy. One of the great things that we have gotten rid of in this country is subsidising parts of British industry.
For me, there is an opportunity for Brexit, obviously. Perhaps a proportion of the new quotas should go to the under-10-metre new entrants, but whoever comes forward must make a pitch to the authorities as to why and how they will succeed. At the moment, I do not think that that needs to be written in hard wording after Clause 25, but I will listen with great interest to what my noble friend on the Front Bench says on this amendment.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is an excellent amendment, focusing as it does on the need for fair quotas for smaller vessels of under 10 metres.
In England and Wales, and in smaller communities along the west coast of Scotland, fishing is dominated by the shellfish sector. This is led by smaller vessels, which still constitute 80% of the UK fleet in number and often use traditional methods, earning low incomes. These boats are also particularly important for remote coastal communities with limited employment opportunities. There is no doubt that, because of Brexit, media coverage of the UK’s fishing industry has increased. However, this may have given undue prominence to the views of representatives of larger fishing enterprises, such as those in north-east Scotland, at the expense of representatives of smaller vessels.
This amendment therefore deserves our support in relation to the need for future allocation of quotas by the UK Government to include smaller vessels. However, the fact is that such fishers will not have a future at all if there is a no-deal Brexit because they will lose access to the EU markets on which they depend. For example, most Welsh fishing boats specialise in shellfish, with 90% of their catch currently exported to the EU in overnight frictionless trade. In addition, as most fish consumed in the UK is imported, this trade within the single market is also vital for our fish processing industry. Even some large British boats depend for access to Norwegian waters on EU-agreed quotas, which will no longer apply in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Within the UK industry, therefore, there are many competing interests between England and Scotland, deep-sea and inshore, industrial and small-scale boats and fishermen and fish processing. Without doubt, the balance of advantage for the industry as a whole lies in an amicable agreement with the EU, which will guarantee the continuation of frictionless trade. The Brexiteer narrative encourages us to believe that it was the EU that first allowed foreign boats to fish in UK waters. However, the common fisheries policy, established in 1983, enshrined historic fishing rights that went back centuries.
Not surprisingly, EU Governments are legitimately concerned to protect an economically precarious sector whose finances have been hit hard by the pandemic lockdown. It is not just access to UK waters that is important for European Union countries—many rely on the supply of UK fish both for consumption and processing. In 2017, for instance, just under two-thirds of UK mackerel was exported, the vast majority to the EU and more than a third to the Netherlands alone. Of course, this merely serves to illustrate yet again how easy access to these EU markets is key for UK fishers.
Authoritative analysis has shown that the most likely outcome of attempting to close the UK’s sea borders—the last I heard, fish are no respecters of political boundaries—would be higher prices, less choice for consumers and lower earnings for fishers on both sides. Of course, an agreement will involve compromise, including some continued access for EU boats from coastal communities across the channel.
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Lord Hain ExcerptsMonday 22nd June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Fisheries Act 2020 View all Fisheries Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-R-II(Rev) Revised second marshalled list for Report - (22 Jun 2020)
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the concept of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It is right that we discuss this. However, the more I look at it, the more complicated I feel even this new version will be. It will be very important to hear what my noble friend the Minister says on this. Of course, we feel that it is the nation—I take the point that four nations comprise the United Kingdom and, knowing that some of them are a little more territorial than others at the moment, they might start claiming the fish stocks as they move across—and that the concept is absolutely right, but I am waiting to see what my noble friend says on this before I make up my mind on whether or not to support this amendment.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I speaking to Amendment 1, I will speak also to Amendments 4 to 6. What concerns me about all these is that if the UK and the EU fail to reach a deal by the end of the year, they will be bound by international law; namely, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—UNCLOS—which requires co-operation and efforts to agree rules on access to waters, as well as setting catch limits and standards on conservation and management of marine resources.
In the bizarre world of Brexit, the fishing sector—which represents a fraction of 1% of the UK economy—may be the issue that determines whether the current trade negotiations with the EU succeed or fail. Escape from the common fisheries policy was touted by the Brexiteers during the campaign as a great prize to be won, but this sector is heavily dependent on easy access to EU markets, whereas British consumers prefer to eat fish imported from Europe.
I suggest that the future of UK fishing should be determined not by this vacuous Bill or by Amendments 1, 4, 5 and 6, but by a sensible and detailed negotiation with the EU in the current trade talks. At present, regrettably, there is little sign of this happening, and there is now a danger that this issue will prove to be the rock on which a potential deal founders.
As everybody in this debate will be aware, the UK fishing industry, including processing, is heavily concentrated in coastal communities of the nations and regions, which rightly deserve protection in view of their high levels of deprivation and low levels of income and education. However, these communities are heavily reliant on easy access to EU markets. About two-thirds of fish caught by British fishers is sold to the EU in frictionless overnight trade. Most Welsh fishing boats specialise in shellfish, with 90% of their catch currently exported to the EU; I am speaking from my home in Wales at the moment. Meanwhile, UK consumers prefer fish imported from Europe, so our fish processing industry is also heavily reliant on imports from the EU.
After years of one-sided propaganda about “our fish” and claims in the tabloids that a single British fishing industry will benefit from reclaiming the proportion of fish caught by EU boats in UK waters—probably around 60% by weight and 40% by value—a more complex picture now emerges, as this catch is mostly fish for which there is little demand in the UK. There are also large British boats that depend on EU-agreed quotas for their access to Norwegian waters.
In April 2019 the biggest whitefish trawler in the UK fleet sailed up the Thames to highlight the threats facing the fishing industry if Brexit negotiations end in no deal. This is because in that event there would be no automatic access for British boats to these key waters. The jobs of hundreds of fishermen and many hundreds more in fish processing in north-east England will be at risk unless a deal is reached whereby UK vessels are able to continue in such waters that have long been open to UK fleets.
Unsurprisingly, protecting their own vulnerable coastal communities, and ensuring that fishing rights that have existed for hundreds of years do not die, is also a priority for a number of coastal EU member states, such as Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. This became evident earlier this month when EU Fisheries Ministers were reported to have rejected Michel Barnier’s proposals for compromise and instructed him to hold firm to his red lines. Just as the Conservatives may be wary of being seen as having betrayed Scottish fishers—as they are worried about the Scottish Parliament elections next year—President Macron of France, for example, will have in mind that he faces an election in 2022.
Incredibly, our dogmatist Government—I acquit the Minister of this charge, because I think he is doing an honest job—seem willing even to sacrifice the chance of a beneficial deal for the UK financial services industry to save UK waters for the British fishing industry. The financial services sector accounted for 7% of UK GDP in 2018, employing an estimated 2 million people. In any event, the UK fishing industry is likely to suffer, rather than prosper, if there are EU-UK cod wars, as, among other things, there will be a danger to sustainability of stocks through overfishing. It would therefore be a spectacular own goal if the UK refused a deal relating to finance as the price of not reaching an agreement on fishing.
What might constitute a reasonable deal? Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, outside the common fisheries policy the UK is still legally obliged to consider the historical fishing rights of its neighbours, which suggests that some continued access to UK waters for fishers across the channel would be a reasonable expectation. As a quid pro quo, and irrespective of Brexit, as a result of fish migration there is probably a case for review of some UK quotas for mackerel, herring, cod and hake, but that does not need to be at a scale that destroys the livelihoods of hundreds of EU fishers.
However, a no-deal Brexit would destroy the significant parts of the UK industry that are dependent on frictionless overnight trade in fish, impact fish processing—which depends on access to EU imports—and cause loss of access to waters off non-EU states for large UK boats that currently benefit from EU access. I am really not sure how Amendments 1, 4, 5 and 6 help deal with that predicament.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I was very interested to hear the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, gave for bringing a slightly amended version of this amendment back on Report. While I am sympathetic to what I think he is trying to achieve, I have great difficulty in finding this amendment appropriate. I fear it looks at the issue from a particularly English perspective, and I hazard a guess that the Scots may take a different view. I was fortunate to receive briefings from both the Scottish fisheries organisation and the Law Society of Scotland, and we must appreciate that the fisheries opportunities in Scotland are immensely important. They represent 58% of the value and 64% of the tonnage of all fish landed by UK vessels, so I am struggling to understand.
I see that we have changed the wording from “marine stocks” to “fish”, probably in recognition of the fact that, in Scotland, there are many other uses of the exclusive economic zone. But the argument remains: the citizens of the four nations, and in particular those of Scotland, would argue that they have a right to a lion’s share of the fish.
Proposed new subsection (2) goes on to talk about quotas. I have tabled an amendment to Clause 48, which we will come to much later, when I will develop my argument on quotas more fully. I wait with great interest to hear what my noble friend the Minister has to say on this matter, but I am not entirely convinced that the law as it currently stands does not encompass what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is trying to achieve. If noble Lords will forgive the pun, I believe that this amendment will, if anything, rather muddy the waters and not take the arguments any further forward.
Agriculture Bill
Lord Hain ExcerptsWednesday 10th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 13 May 2020 - large font accessible version - (13 May 2020)
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in a nation where 50% of food is currently imported—fully 30% from the European Union—the protection of high standards on imported food cannot be overestimated. Anyone who cares about the quality of the food we eat, animal welfare and the environment should be very worried about this Bill, which threatens the very survival of British agriculture, putting both its UK market and its important export markets in the European Union in jeopardy and sacrificing Britain’s high food and animal welfare standards and with them our farming industry.
Legal protections to guarantee animal welfare, food hygiene rules, agricultural workers’ rights, environmental protections on the food we import and targets for reaching net-zero emissions for the agriculture industry are all deliberately omitted from the Bill. Presumably, this is to preserve the prospect of future post-Brexit trade deals with the United States and Pacific Rim countries, which may initially lead to cheaper imports but at a devastating long-term cost to both UK producers and consumers.
The truth is that if existing food standards are not maintained for imports, the UK’s agricultural sector will be unable to compete and our farmers will be faced with a choice of either lowering standards or going out of business. Import prices would then rise, leaving the country dependent on food imports of compromised quality.
Sadly, a majority of MPs voted against proposed new Clause 2, an all-party amendment requiring new international treaties on the import of agricultural and food products to comply with World Trade Organization safety rules and the UK’s own standards. Significantly, it was proposed by the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Conservative MP Neil Parish, and backed by the British Veterinary Association, the National Farmers’ Union, the RSPCA, the Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Soil Association and the World Wildlife Fund.
Speaking against the proposed new Clause 2 on 13 May, former International Trade Secretary Liam Fox gave the game away, saying that
“the US would walk were the proposals to become law in the United Kingdom, and it would be swiftly followed by others … They do not want the incorporation of UK rules to become a prerequisite to trading agreements with the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/5/20; col. 323.]
Our high standards are viewed by some outside the EU as a barrier to trade, but having a requirement to uphold environmental standards as part of the Agriculture Bill would surely help prevent a race to the bottom.
The Financial Times reported on 14 May that
“the Department for International Trade was preparing to offer a ‘big concession package’ to US negotiators in the coming months that would reduce the cost of some agricultural imports to unlock a trade deal with Washington.”
Such concessions to the US would effectively impede the prospects of a comprehensive trade deal with the European Union, which provides vital export markets to British farmers. For example, nearly three-quarters of all Welsh food and drink exports and over 90% of Welsh beef and lamb exports were destined for the EU in 2018. I therefore ask the Minister to give a categorical commitment to negotiate agreements with the Welsh and other devolved Governments at all stages of future negotiations.
I agree with my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lady Quin on the need to prioritise a trade deal with the European Union to protect our farmers’ important export markets and our food and environmental standards.
Garden Centres
Lord Hain Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, with a name like mine, of course I understand the importance of garden centres and horticulture. As I said, we are working very closely with James Barnes, the chairman of the Horticultural Trades Association, and we have had some very productive discussions. The HTA has drafted a traders’ protocol on social distancing. I am working very closely with the HTA and I am very conscious of what my noble friend said.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I echo strongly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. The situation is really confusing and clarity and logicality are needed. We have a local business that has a pet shop where you can go in and get bird feed, for example—socially distancing and safely—and alongside it you can collect pre-ordered compost but you cannot buy plants. This does not make any sense. There is an urgent need, especially since most garden suppliers and nurseries actually make all their money in these spring weeks in order to sustain them over the year, and they are not able to sell their plants. It really does not add up and the Government must act with real urgency.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I understand what the noble Lord says. That is why I am working very closely with the Horticultural Trades Association. I am particularly conscious of the bedding plant issue at this time. We are obviously dealing with a health crisis and social distancing is going to be essential. That is why I am very pleased that the traders’ protocol on this has been presented to Public Health England. We are waiting for its feedback, but I do understand the urgency of this.