Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8 November be approved.

Relevant Documents: 7th and 8th Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 8 December.

Motion agreed.

Universities: Alternative Medicine

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare an interest as chairman of Sense About Science, a charity that promotes evidence-based medicine.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, universities decide what they should or should not teach. This is a key protection of academic freedom and helps to maintain the world-class reputation of our higher education institutions.

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, with great respect, as lawyers used to say when they meant the opposite, will the Minister convey to his department that that is not an entirely satisfactory Answer? How can the Government justify supporting universities that show no regard for academic standards and offer science degrees in courses which teach that certain essential oils cure specific diseases, areas of the foot lead to pathways to certain inner organs, and health depends on the pattern of energy flows within the body? If the Government believe in evidence-based science, can they really remain indifferent to the fact that some of their funds are used to promote quackery and mumbo-jumbo and call it science?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I again remind my noble friend that it is very important to remember that universities are autonomous bodies and it is for them to make decisions about these matters. The Government have no power to intervene. I have some sympathy with the message that my noble friend is getting across but it would be wrong for the Government to intervene in these matters.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, is it not the case that the Government have differentially removed resources from universities on the basis of some of the courses concerned? Does the fact that resources are not being withdrawn from these Bachelor of Science courses suggest that the Government are endorsing the pseudo-science that is implicit within them? If they are not endorsing that pseudo-science, why are they allowing the funding to continue?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is trying to take us back to a debate we had last week. Those matters have been dealt with. I am making clear that it is not for the Government to interfere. We offer guidance to HEFCE. The letter to HEFCE from Dr Vince Cable and David Willetts went out yesterday. That sets out the parameters for HEFCE to make the appropriate decisions about university funding, but it is not right that we should do that.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, given the legislation that went through this House last week, which will now see the taxpayer underwriting degree courses at £9,000 a year, does the Minister accept that the taxpayer should not fund what is little less than quackery in universities such as Thames Valley which offer BSc honours courses in homeopathy?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, again I make it clear that it is for the higher education institutions themselves to make these decisions. It would not be right for the Government to interfere.

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, in choosing to fund these courses in universities, will HEFCE treat them as science, technology, engineering and medicine courses, in which case they will receive a higher allocation than if they were not treated as such?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. I do not know the answer to it but I will certainly make inquiries and write to him. Again, I reiterate the fundamental point that these are matters for HEFCE to decide, not the Government.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be a mistake to dismiss the emerging evidence of the benefits of traditional Chinese medicine? I declare two interests. I represented the All-Party Parliamentary China Group at a seminar at Cambridge University last summer in which some very striking evidence was produced. That seminar was attended by six fellows of the Royal Society. I also declare a personal interest in that for the past 10 years I have taken a Chinese mushroom pill daily.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is obviously flourishing on his Chinese mushroom pill. I have no strong views about Chinese mushroom pills or other aspects of complementary medicine. However, I want to make it clear that the Government remain neutral on the whole area of complementary and alternative medicines, and we leave all decisions on commissioning and funding in that area to the NHS.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the patron of the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine in this country and as someone who has benefited much from it over the years, like the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. In that capacity, can I ask the Government to do nothing to discourage these courses, many of which are of very high quality and give assurance to the millions of people in this country who have benefited from alternative and complementary medicine?

[Lord Henley]

I am sure that the noble Lord has also benefited from his mushrooms over the years. Some noble Lords do and some do not, and different noble Lords have different views. I just want to make it clear that we remain neutral on this issue.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the noble Lord says that it is at the discretion of HEFCE as to how university courses should be funded differentially. Is he actually saying to the House that it is a matter for HEFCE as to whether or not funding for the humanities and social sciences teaching is to be cut by 100 per cent?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we have offered guidance to HEFCE in the letter that I mentioned, which was published yesterday. I will make a copy available to the noble Lord. It is then for HEFCE to make its decisions.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, what does that guidance say about pseudo-science and the courses which the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, mentioned in the first place?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I will make the letter available to the noble Lord as well.

Draft United Kingdom Marine Policy Statement

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the Grand Committee do consider the draft United Kingdom Marine Policy Statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I should like to say how pleased I am to open this debate on the United Kingdom marine policy statement. Having been in the House for some 32 and a half years, I think that this is the first time that I have ever taken part in or opened a debate on a policy statement of this sort. It is nice to know that there is always something new that one can do, particularly as the marine policy statement is a landmark, not just in the implementation of marine planning but in the implementation of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 as a whole, an Act which was supported by all parties and all others—or stakeholders, as we have to call them—who were involved.

The current system for managing our seas is seen as inconsistent and failing to consider fully the cumulative impact that we have on the marine environment. Regulators and industry consider the current system to be burdensome and a barrier to economic development. The Marine and Coastal Access Act enables the introduction of marine planning—a means to move away from the old consent-led approach and towards the strategic, integrated and transparent management of our seas. The new marine planning system will be based on openness, a clear evidence base and joint working among Government, regulators, industry and communities. Our ambition is to enable economic developments in locations that maximise benefits and minimise environmental impacts and to empower coastal communities to help shape the management of their own marine resources.

The marine policy statement is also the first step in implementing marine planning. The MPS is unique in its purpose and UK status, will ensure a consistent approach to the development of marine plans across the United Kingdom and will direct decision-makers and users towards more efficient and sustainable use of marine resources. The MPS will help achieve the UK Government vision of having,

“clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas”.

The marine policy statement includes a wide range of activities and sectors, from renewable energy and oil and gas to nature conservation, fishing, recreation and tourism. The marine policy statement sets the economic, social and environmental framework that applies in the UK marine area. Within that framework, it sets out the policy context, direction and considerations that must be given to each activity when developing marine plans or taking licensing decisions.

While the marine policy statement brings together a range of policies, we are here today not to debate the individual policies but to discuss whether the draft marine policy statement is fit for purpose. We strongly believe that it is. The marine policy statement has been developed over the past four years throughout the passage of the Marine and Coastal Access Act and is a product of comprehensive joint working across Whitehall and the UK devolved Administrations.

The marine policy statement is not just a product of government but a product of all interested parties in the marine environment. Engagement has been thorough and ongoing and has been informed by a statement of public participation to explain transparently how and when contributions could be made. Regional and national stakeholder workshops have been held and a discussion paper, which was issued in March 2010, enabled stakeholders to influence the development of the marine policy statement. Officials are currently considering responses to a further consultation that closed in October 2010, and they are discussing the results directly with those stakeholders as well as with policy-makers, including in the devolved Administrations.

Crucial throughout its development has been the idea that the marine policy statement should respect the devolved nature of many aspects of marine planning and the importance of consistency being achieved. The marine policy statement does that through identifying activities to which a degree of priority should be attached. However, the statement does not say which activities should take priority over others, as that can only be determined by each Administration when considering specific geographical areas in the marine planning process.

By adopting the marine policy statement, the devolved Administrations will be able to plan holistically for their inshore and offshore marine regions, including for retained functions. A number of administrative safeguards exist to ensure effective and co-ordinated cross-border planning, and all issues will need to be agreed by the Secretary of State. The aim is for all United Kingdom Administrations to adopt jointly the marine policy statement by March 2011, when work starts in earnest on the first marine plans.

As required by the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, the marine policy statement and the marine planning system as a whole must contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. The marine policy statement has been developed alongside an appraisal of sustainability, which assessed the likely economic, social and environmental effects of the statement and reasonable alternatives, with a view to promoting sustainable development. That extensive process means that the marine policy statement achieves the ambition set for it.

Marine plans will be developed in accordance with the marine policy statement and they, too, must contribute to sustainable development. As such, they will be subject to a sustainability appraisal, strengthened by the full engagement of national and local interested parties and integrated with terrestrial planning.

Marine planning is new and has the prospect of delivering huge benefits, yet we are the first country in the world to introduce such a comprehensive approach. In order to explain how marine planning will work, each Administration is in the process of developing guidance and working together to ensure that cross-border planning can be taken forward. In England, a consultation has just closed on the marine planning system in order to establish a baseline of understanding among stakeholders and relevant delivery organisations. The Marine Management Organisation will now be taking matters forward as it begins marine planning in spring 2011, starting with the first two plans in the east inshore and offshore areas. In 2013, our collective ambitions for the management of our seas will be a reality: the first marine plans will be in place. As the marine policy statement is finalised and marine planning unfolds, we will continue to work with and listen to stakeholders to ensure that we achieve our ambitious aims, both at national and local levels.

I look forward to this debate and to responding in due course to the various points raised. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am very grateful for all the comments made about the marine policy statement. Obviously we will take them on board and consider them as we turn the draft into a final report. I want to say a little about the parliamentary process because the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, requested a further debate, particularly on the common fisheries policy. I can assure her that my honourable friend Mr Benyon is, I think, still in Brussels at this moment for that rather ghastly extended meeting which goes on for a number of days when these matters are discussed. I am sure that he will take a robust line on behalf of the United Kingdom. However, it is a difficult process and whether we are to debate the issues is obviously a matter for the usual channels, but no doubt the noble Baroness will put on pressure as appropriate to achieve that.

I can also say that my honourable friend Mr Benyon has been before the EFRA Select Committee, which is how this draft statement was dealt with in another place. In this House it was felt appropriate to deal with it by means of a debate in this Room. That is how we have decided to deal with such policy statements. Whether that is appropriate or whether in the future we will have committees to look at these sorts of things, again that is a matter for others.

I was also interested, because it took me back a long way, to hear the noble Baroness talk about border-related problems. I can assure her that those problems are often even more complicated than she thinks. I can remember at the time of the devolution Bill my late noble friend, the great Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, discussing with me the problems of defining the border in places such as the Solway, which I know well, as the river and the sandbanks shift here and shift there. The border, as far as I understand it, is never quite clear, and this causes great problems in terms of who regulates fishing on either side of the river. It has also led to problems with the regulation of fishing where the tributaries of some rivers entirely in Scotland will be part of the English administration, and vice versa according to which rivers they are. The noble Baroness will know about that. That is just one of the problems of devolution but it is one that we have to live with. I am sure that we can all cope with it. I shall say just a little on the questions that my noble friend the Duke of Montrose asked about the devolved Administrations later when I come to deal with some of the points that have been raised.

I shall not address every point that has been raised because I would weary your Lordships and we would be here overlong were I to do so. However, there are a number of points that need addressing, the first of which is the whole question of the draft and what it looks like. I was grateful for the comment from my noble kinsman Lord Eden when he talked about needing less colour and less gloss in the document in front of us. I tend to agree. If we are being non-party-political then I should say that, like one or two other noble Lords, I can remember a rather good White Paper from the Labour Government in the mid-1970s called Food from Our Own Resources. That was back in the days when White Papers were produced on a smaller-sized paper—I cannot remember what size it is—and were literally just white papers. There were no photographs or gloss. Perhaps it is time, particularly in a department such as Defra, that we reverted to such an idea. I just put that forward as a suggestion. It will no doubt be vetoed and I will be told that it is far more expensive to do it that way, and that it is far cheaper to produce it, and people expect to have it, in colour. But I feed it through as an idea. If I had cross-party support from Peers, you never know, we might achieve something.

I turn to the draft itself, and I start with my noble friend Lady Miller, who talked about it needing further work. She said that it should set out options and that the Government should make clear what they tend to favour. We should also make clear that it should be a route map. She wanted the Government to face up to hard choices. I have to say to her that that is what government is all about: it is about hard choices and setting out priorities. My noble friend Lord Selborne commended the consultative process, which I think has worked very well, but he also agreed with my noble friend Lady Miller that the document is full of platitudes and needs more work. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said that there is too much verbiage—again I say that we might save a bit of money by cutting down on the verbiage—but that the document is reasonably comprehensive. Of course, there are tensions between cutting down on the verbiage and ensuring that it is comprehensive. That is just the spirit of a number of the comments that were made. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who also said that there is too much verbiage and too many acronyms—which, as someone who briefly served in the Ministry of Defence, I think are awful things. If we could get rid of acronyms, or at least if we knew what they meant, life would be a lot easier, particularly when reading some of the papers that one has to read.

I take on all those comments and criticisms. We will look at those matters when we come to produce the next version. This debate has been useful in dealing with those matters and dealing with the draft and I thank all noble Lords for their remarks. As I said, I would like to cover a number of questions, but I do not want to weary the Committee by dealing with every point raised as we would be here too long. The important thing is that we have those questions on record so that we in the department can take them on board and consider them when we produce the next version.

On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, about the resources for the MMO—I should not slip into using acronyms, but as a group of experts we probably now all know that I mean the Marine Management Organisation—settlements on funding are still to take place, but I can give the noble Lord an assurance that the MMO is prioritising and protecting funding for marine planning. We will ensure that that continues to happen. As regards the departure of both the chairman and the chief executive, I am advised that that had nothing to do with funding. It is regrettable that those individuals had to go at the same time, but we are assured that the organisation will still be able to achieve all that it needs to do.

My noble friend the Duke of Montrose asked about the review and comprehensive monitoring of the marine plans. A new report on the plans needs to be produced every three years, in accordance with the Act. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, also asked about the issue of undesignated archaeological sites, which relates to the sites where designation is being considered but not yet completed. Clarification on that is actively being discussed by officials.

My noble friend Lord Selborne asked about the evidence base. I certainly welcome his comments and I recognise the problems. Page 26 of the marine policy statement deals with that as well as with the high-level approach to planning. On the importance of co-ordination with the devolved Administrations, I refer him to page 22. The United Kingdom marine monitoring assessment strategy will be important in closing gaps, as will the marine plans themselves. The consultation on the marine planning system in England, as well as the MPS, stressed the need for a monitoring and review process, which still needs to take place.

Turning to the questions on the devolved Administrations raised by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, I accept that there are problems. The aim is for all countries jointly to adopt the marine policy statement, and we have been working closely to achieve that. We all have to work together, but in the end it is for the Secretary of State, who has a United Kingdom role on this occasion, to adopt the marine policy statement for it to be valid. If difficulties in negotiations arise, the marine policy statement can be adopted by some but not all devolved Administrations without that affecting its validity for the Administrations that adopt it. In the end, it is for the Secretary of State to make sure that adoption take place.

Lastly, the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, asked about the involvement of the coastal communities in the development of the marine plans. There has been extensive engagement—I thank the noble Baroness for her supportive comments on that—which will extend into marine planning as a whole. Everyone with an interest in a marine plan will be able to get involved in its development.

I said that I would not be able to answer all the questions that have been raised, but again I stress that this is all part of the process. The current marine policy statement is a draft for consultation, so we will take all the points that have been made by noble Lords into account as we develop the policy further. I appreciate that, as the noble Baroness put it, the timetable is tight, but it is always possible to achieve things in a relatively tight timetable, particularly when, as she knows, the matter has been ongoing for a considerable time. Before the election in May, the pre-consultation paper was published in March 2010 and this draft marine policy statement was published in July. There will be more to come, and we welcome the comments of the Committee. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the draft regulations laid before the House on 29 November be approved.

Relevant documents: 10th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 14th Report from the Merits Committee.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I will speak also to the second Motion in my name, on the higher amount, to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I will explain why the House should not support either the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, or the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria.

The subject that we are considering has aroused strong feelings. I will talk about the package of measures that the coalition Government are proposing, but will start by describing factually the Motions before the House. The Higher Education Act 2004 allowed publicly funded higher education institutions to charge for their tuition costs, subject to conditions. It created the concept of a basic amount and a higher amount for these charges; there are effectively two caps, a basic cap and a higher cap. Any higher education institution can charge below the basic amount, and the Act sets no conditions for this. An institution that wishes to charge above the basic amount can do so only if it has first agreed an access plan with the Director of Fair Access. No publicly funded institution can charge above the higher amount.

More than six years after the Act was passed, the Motions before the House today propose increases to the basic amount and to the higher amount. For the basic amount, the proposed figure is £6,000; for the higher amount, it is £9,000. The basic amount of £6,000 is not a minimum figure; it is a cap, beyond which any institution looking to charge more requires an access agreement. There is nothing to stop any provider of higher education charging less. I should also explain how this translates into the Motions on the Order Paper today.

Changes to the basic cap on tuition charges, set at £1,200 by the 2004 Act, can be made by statutory instrument subject to an affirmative resolution. A Motion to approve draft regulations raising the basic amount is therefore the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper today.

The amendment to my first Motion, tabled late yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, would, if carried, prevent the regulations being approved and is consequently fatal. I should remind the House what fatal means. There is absolutely no mechanism for the Commons to address or put right a defeat in these circumstances, and accepting one or both of the noble Lord’s amendments would therefore, in practice, be a veto. There is no ping-pong in this case.

During the passage of the Higher Education Act 2004, concern was expressed in this House and in another place about the arrangements for increasing the higher level for tuition charges. There was concern that Ministers should not be able to make new regulations, setting new higher levels, without a debate on the Floor of both Houses. The solution agreed is set out in Section 26 of that Act. Regulations that would increase the higher level can be made only if both Houses have previously passed a resolution specifying what the new higher level should be and the date from which it applies. Only once that resolution has been passed can regulations be made to increase the higher level to that amount.

A resolution under Section 24 of the Higher Education Act 2004 raising the higher amount is therefore the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper today. I should stress that the amendment to my second Motion proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is also fatal. If the amendment were carried, my resolution would no longer meet the requirements of the Higher Education Act 2004. My two Motions, which have been approved in similar terms by another place, are part of a package and they are linked.

The Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, is a free-standing resolution. Although it will be debated alongside my two Motions and the amendments thereto, it will be decided separately and independently at the end of our debate if the noble Lord decides to move it. The Motion calls on the Government not to implement increases in the higher level or basic level in 2012. The Government believe that that course of action would damage our higher education system, and I will consequently be urging the House not to support the noble Lord’s Motion.

The backdrop to our proposals is the huge fiscal deficit that we inherited. We can no longer ask the taxpayer to continue the current level of higher education funding. In tackling that deficit, we want to maintain a high-quality university sector that is more responsive to the needs of students and is underpinned by a progressive system of graduate contributions.

We have carefully studied the independent review of higher education funding and student finance undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, who reported in October after months of consultation. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for that report, in which he made a powerful case for reform. We have also listened to representations from universities, students and parents. I cannot accept the suggestion that appears in the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, that there has not been enough discussion of these issues.

In essence, we are changing the way that funding flows to our universities and colleges. From 2012-13, we will start to reduce the amount of funding that we provide to the Higher Education Funding Council for England to support university courses. This is in line with our announcements in the October spending review. The council will still get funding for the highest-cost subjects and for those that are strategically important and vulnerable.

We are correspondingly increasing the public money that we will make available as loans for students who want to attend higher education. In all, we do not expect the overall income of the higher education sector to reduce. We are also maintaining, in cash terms, our spending on the science budget with resource spending of £4.6 billion a year by 2014-15.

The regulations and resolution that we are proposing today enable those universities and colleges that can attract students to get the funding that they need to offer high-quality teaching. Universities will decide what charges they make for which of their courses. They will need to estimate the value that students place on what they are offering and adjust their charges accordingly. We believe that having to consider carefully what potential students want and need will benefit universities as well as students. Crucially, no full-time undergraduate student studying for their first degree will need to pay any of their tuition costs up front. The tuition loans from the public purse will not be means-tested and will cover the full costs of the courses. We will, for the first time, be giving part-time undergraduate students a similar entitlement to tuition loans as full-time students, on a pro rata basis. Following representations from universities with large numbers of part-time students, we are extending the entitlement to tuition loans to students studying for at least one-quarter of their time, rather than one-third of their time as was originally proposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can the Minister confirm that there are two Motions today; one deals with the regulations, and the other deals with a Motion? Can he confirm that the second one cannot be treated as secondary legislation?

[Lord Henley]

There are two Motions. The second one is not secondary legislation at all, but it is a Motion that we have to pass under the 2004 Act, which the noble Lord’s Government passed. As I explained, they passed the concept of the Motion, because there was a concern both in this House and in another place, where I think that the noble Lord was at the time, about proposals for increasing fees. That is the proposal before us and that is why we are discussing it.

As I was making clear before I was interrupted by the noble Lord, the regulations and the resolution form only part of our higher education proposals, but they are an urgent part. We bring them forward today because students, their families, and universities all need to know what the arrangements will be from the 2012-13 academic year. The fatal amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, would put a halt to that, while the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, asks us to delay, but these decisions are needed now. We also plan to issue a White Paper early in 2011, to deal with the equally important but less urgent higher education questions. As I said, today’s proposals are part of a progressive package that will put higher education on a stronger footing for the future, and I commend them to the House. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

Perhaps it would help if I explained that it is up to my noble friend Lord Ashdown to decide whether he gives way. My noble friend has already taken two or three interventions; he is under no obligation to take any more if he does not wish to.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I apologise to the noble Lord. I have already been speaking for 11 minutes and if I were to take his intervention, I would be testing the patience of the House, so I will finish. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, painted a Dickensian picture of the poor family who cannot afford to pay the fees. However, it will not be poor families who pay, but graduates when they are earning more than £21,000. The question is; are these proposals fairer or less fair than the present system? The answer is that instead of starting repayments on a salary of £15,000, students will start them on a salary of £21,000. The level of their repayment will be about half what they are paying at present. The rich will pay more than the poor; that is not the case under the present system. Part-time students will not pay up front; that is not the case at present. The fact that students will be repaying the costs for longer will mean that they will be able to repay when their salaries are higher. Many students have told me that one consequence of the present system is that they are repaying in their mid-30s, precisely when it is most difficult. They will now be repaying in their mid-40s, when it will be far easier.

When I vote tonight in favour of the proposals, I will vote not out of defensiveness but because I believe that they are progressive, that they will be followed elsewhere in the world, that they are right for higher education and, above all, that they are fairer for students, especially students from poorer families.

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, I, too—

[Lord Henley]

If the House would like me to intervene, I will make a few remarks. Others wanted to speak, but I am in the hands of the House. I will start by saying a word or two—I will give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of these regulations. I do so after spending 10 years validating the polytechnic sector on the Council for National Academic Awards. My experience is unusual; I am a non-academic who spent 10 years close to higher education. That experience leads me to suggest that if the Government's plans result in the closure of a large number of courses in the humanities departments of the former polytechnics—in particular teacher training courses—that would be a considerable achievement. It would save a lot of money that could be channelled to serious courses, and it would stop the short-changing of many thousands of students who attend humanities courses and find themselves ill equipped for the world of work, or indeed for making any useful contribution to wider society. The students themselves will be the best judges of the courses and will not enrol on those that they consider to be a waste of their time—indeed, perhaps even a waste of their lives.

I also congratulate the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, on his attempts substantially to raise the quality of teacher training. I believe that these regulations will do much to help him to achieve that.

Beyond that, and finally, I believe that these regulations will start to create something which has been sadly missing in our system of higher education—a system of quality control. I know that there is a system of quality assurance but that is not at all the same thing. The quality control brought in by these regulations will be manned by the students with the teeth to make it effective, and I cannot think of anyone better to do it. Therefore, I support the regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, it is wonderful to be so welcome. I noticed the declaration of interests that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, made at the beginning of his somewhat lengthy speech, although it was none the worse for that. My noble friend Lady Shephard described him as having a silky tongue. I had better declare another interest in that I was one of those higher education Ministers who saw him, and I declare the interest that I greatly enjoyed the lunch that he gave me some 13 or so years ago. I am not sure that I ever declared it at the time but it was a very useful meeting, as he explained to me just how many members of his union were in both Houses. I think he claimed that he had more than any other trade union leader in the history of trade union leaders having members in this House.

I listened with interest to the somewhat lengthy speech of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, but I heard no coherent argument in it whatever. It was a mere rant, with no solution put forward by the party that got us into the mess that my noble friend Lady Shephard described. He claims that there is no evidence and that there was no consultation, but does he not think that the report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and commissioned by the Government of whom he has been a member, provided just that? In that report there is evidence, and in the production of that report there was a great deal of consultation.

A great number of points have been made during this debate and I want to deal with some of them in order to knock the myths that are growing up. The first one—addressed, first, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln but brought back to us again and again—is the idea that the poorest will be deterred. The right reverend Prelate referred to the removal of the education maintenance allowance for 17 and 18 year-olds. I understand that the removal of the EMA was examined in a report by the party opposite when it was in government. The report showed that some 90 per cent of the money was being wasted, and it was not encouraging the children involved to stay on at school, as they would have stayed on anyway. I think that my right honourable friend did exactly the right thing in suggesting that that money could be moved and made better use of.

In terms of the poorest being deterred, many of us made that argument when student fees were introduced. It started, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, in 1998 and was then enhanced by the 2004 Act. On both occasions we saw an increase in those from less well-off homes going into higher education, and I do not see any reason why that should not happen again. We will certainly continue to examine what happens after these changes come into force.

The next point—put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs—is that our decision to increase the upper cap to £9,000 is purely a political choice and that we have made it for no other reason than we want to save money. I must make it clear that in their Pre-Budget Report of 2009 the previous Government identified some £600 million of cuts to higher education and science to be made by 2012-13. The department responsible for universities, BIS, was not protected in Labour’s public expenditure plans, so it is hard to see what protection a Labour Government would have produced over the spending review period if they had not been able to cut departments’ budgets by some 25 per cent, which is exactly what we have done.

That deficit exists—we inherited it—and the Government are responsible for the interests of all taxpayers in meeting it. At a time of real financial hardship, we believe it is right to make cuts across public spending, but we do not believe that it is right to ask those on low incomes to pay additional taxes to prop up an unaffordable university funding system from which they do not benefit directly. Obviously there is a benefit to all of society—I accept that—but there is a greater benefit for the individuals going to university and I do not think that we can get away from that.

The second point that I want to address is the idea put forward—again, by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—that the new system will not save any money. She quoted the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Higher Education Policy Institute, which have both questioned whether the policy will save money in the end. I say to the noble Baroness that our proposals contribute directly to paying down the deficit because they replace grants with loans, of which about 70 per cent are expected to be repaid in due course by those on higher earnings. We are reducing the direct funding of universities via the teaching grant—

[Baroness Blackstone]

My Lords—

[Lord Henley]

I shall give way when I have finished this point and then the noble Baroness can spring to her feet. However, it is up to me to decide whether I give way. We are reducing the teaching grant and increasing the loans, and therefore universities’ funding will not be affected.

[Baroness Blackstone]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that HEPI has carried out substantial analytical work which suggests that the Government have been over-optimistic in their assumptions—I do not want to go into all the detail now—about how much of the loans will be repaid? It has come up with a figure much closer to 50 per cent than 70 per cent.

[Lord Henley]

HEPI has done its research based on its assumptions; we have done ours based on our assumptions, and I am confident that our assumptions—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Henley]

This is not the time or place for the noble Baroness and me to go into these matters. The noble Baroness and I have been arguing points for 14, 15 or even 20 years and we have never necessarily agreed, so I do not suppose that we would agree if we argued for a bit longer about this. The simple fact is that we are confident about the robustness of our assumptions, and HEPI obviously takes a different view.

Those were the two principal myths that I wanted to stress. I also make it clear that we have considered all these issues carefully. However, as I said in my opening remarks, we recognise that very strong feelings have been aroused. I underline and re-emphasise that our proposals mean that when graduates come to pay—and they will not pay until they earn more than £21,000, and in due course that £21,000 will be uprated in line with earnings—they will pay less per month than they do at the moment. I also stress that that will be needs-blank and that in many cases they will not be paying anything at all, particularly if they have taken a career break or are not earning up to that limit.

These regulations will also allow us to provide a funding stream which enables our universities to attract a flow of income to sustain their world-class position. I am very grateful that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, stressed the global status of our universities. There is unprecedented global demand for higher education and we cannot let our HE sector drop behind our international competitors. I think that the number of people coming from overseas indicates that they are maintaining their position. However, in this current fiscal climate, that requires significant changes to higher education funding and student finance.

The next thing that I want to stress, which is contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said, is that we greatly value the autonomy of our higher education sectors. They are not emanations of the state, as the noble Lord put it. Each university and college is autonomous and each will be free to decide what contribution it sets for its courses. As we know, a number of vice-chancellors in England have indicated publicly that the Government’s proposals for university funding are reasonable and retain fundamentally important progressive elements. Again, I am grateful for all those who have stressed, like the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, the progressive nature of our proposals.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I thank the Minister for giving way and I declare an interest in that I hold a chair with Liverpool John Moores University and am a visiting fellow at St Andrews. I want to test the Minister on whether the proposals are progressive, as has been asserted all the way through this debate, even though the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that they are regressive. The IFS says that those who will be hit the hardest are not those coming from the free-school-meals category but those in the 30 per cent category of the lowest income earners in this country. Does the Minister agree with that assessment?

[Lord Henley]

I do not agree with that assessment because no one will be paying anything until they earn £21,000 or whatever the figure will be after it has been increased. That figure of £21,000 is roughly the average wage. Thereafter, we go on up to about £42,000 before people pay the maximum, which is RPI plus 3 per cent. I do not think that that is the credit card levels of interest that the noble Lord and others seem to imply. That is not a heavy repayment to ask of someone on £30,000, £40,000 or even £50,000 or £60,000. If we take medical students as an example, a GP now earns in excess of £100,000. When one thinks of their investment, that is not a bad return.

I now want to deal with timing, as it has been alleged that we are rushing this through too fast. I want to stress again that we have a responsibility to give students, their families and the universities certainty about what arrangements will be in place for the 2012-13 academic year. One has to remember that, although the White Paper will not come out until early in the new year, already by then students will be beginning to visit the universities that they want to apply to for 2012. They will be starting to apply in the summer of 2011 for some courses, so everyone, including the institutions, need to know where they stand and when they can plan ahead.

Finally, I come back to the nature of the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, has sought to reassure the House that his amendments are merely an invitation to the Government and another place to think again. I make it clear in no uncertain terms that this is not an occasion when we can think again. These two amendments are fatal and, if carried, would negate and override the vote in another place last week.

[Lord Wills]

Before the Minister concludes his remarks, I wonder whether he will address the question of humanities in the curriculum of our universities. What guarantee can he give that humanities will continue to have an appropriate place in curriculums?

[Lord Henley]

They will have an appropriate place in the curriculum. Universities will be able to charge fees to students and will receive them up front without the students having to repay anything. The fees will then go to the universities. That is what this is all about. In the end, the good universities will flourish and good courses will also flourish.

[Lord May of Oxford]

Has the noble Lord given thought to the fact that, although a vote against the regulations would cause chaos in its immediate wake, as he just mentioned, it would prompt immediate action, whereas the alternative of embracing these regulations will set in train something that will persist for years and arguably inflict huge damage? How does he weigh the two?

[Lord Henley]

Voting against the regulations would inflict huge damage for the reasons that I have explained, given the nature of the loans and the fact that they will not be repaid until the individual is earning a reasonable amount. If the individual never earns anything or takes a career break, he will not have to repay. I do not believe that the regulations will inflict that damage. I am making it clear that for the House to reject the Motion would be fatal.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve]

The Minister is reminding us that the difficulties on the consumer side are not as great as some noble Lords have suggested. I accept that this is an ingenious splice of a graduate tax and a graduate loan system that is highly protective of the poorest. I think that many noble Lords are asking the Minister to address the question of damage to the supply side produced by moving too rapidly. I hope that, before the Minister finishes his speech, he could say a bit about the Government’s assumptions on the range of closures, mergers, bankruptcies and disproportionate patterns of damage to certain courses but not others. That will give the House a better basis for understanding what the Government anticipate than continual harping on an issue that I accept is of great concern to prospective students and their families but has not been sufficiently well explained. The students are well protected, but the institutions may not be.

[Lord Henley]

I believe that the institutions themselves can benefit from this, as I made clear in my opening remarks. The institutions are autonomous; they are not, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, put it, emanations of the state. Those autonomous institutions can make decisions on what courses they offer in seeking to attract appropriate students and on matters such as the length of courses and in what fields they are offered. There will be changes, but it is not for the Government to predict what will happen. We believe that we are making provision for students and those from less well-off families and we are providing opportunities for the institutions themselves. We also believe that it is necessary to put the measures in place so that everyone knows what is happening for the academic year starting in autumn 2012. That is why I stress again, as I have done two or three times, that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, are fatal.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

Does the Minister recall that, on 17 January 2007, the elected House gave this House the right to vote on statutory instruments when they might prove to be fatal, when it debated the all-party report on the conventions between the two Houses? The other place gave us that right without dissent and this House did the same the day before.

[Lord Henley]

We have always accepted that this House has a right, if it feels appropriate, to vote down orders. However, this House should consider that very carefully before doing so. That is why I am warning the House that it ought to remember that these two amendments are fatal. For that reason, I recommend that the House rejects them.

[Lord Triesman]

I shall be brief. If I made points at length before, I apologise but I thought them important. I certainly do not apologise for the links that I have had with former Ministers responsible for education. That was always part of the consultative process. In those days I always thought that they were welcome, as I welcomed the opportunity as well. As a consequence they will make no difference at all to my Christmas card list. In those conversations we always agreed that one of the most cherished things about universities was their autonomy. It is certainly true that because some of the money that goes to universities flows through the Exchequer it was always the case that they were emanations in that sense, unless you can move it off the books, which is the cunning mechanism that is being described this time.

Of course they are fully and proudly autonomous organisations. Has there been change and reassessment on this side of the House? I hope so. There were always reasons for thinking about whether the proposals that we made were the right ones, and if you lose an election—and we did—it is essential that you think again about what you proposed, to consider whether it was most appropriate. I have no doubt that that has been the case for every party that has lost elections, including the previous one—including the Liberal Democrats, who lost that one as well.

I want to make only one or two specific comments. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, because it has been illuminating for me. I promise you, I could not do justice to what has been said; I would speak for too long and that would probably meet with your disapproval.

First, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that I am not chiding anyone about using the right. It was plain that the right to vote or speak against such a proposal was put into primary legislation for good reason. That is not chiding: I welcome it, I applaud it, and those who pushed it were right to push it.

Secondly, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, that I read documents and understand that students will not be repaying while they are at university. I hope that everyone in the House will do each other the credit of believing that they have read and understood the fundamental documents, without patronising one another.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

That, for the purpose of section 24 of the Higher Education Act 2004, the higher amount should be increased to £9,000, and to £4,500 in the cases described in Regulation 5 of the draft regulations in Command Paper 7986, and that the increase should take effect from 1 September 2012.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have spoken to this Motion, and I think that I would weary the House if I spoke again. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the draft regulations, which we hope will be agreed by the House later. The coalition Government are, as always, committed to improved standards of animal welfare. It certainly forms part of my own department, Defra’s, structural reform plan.

These regulations remove the ban on beak-trimming of laying hens which is due to come in on 1 January 2011, to allow for routine beak-trimming of day-old chicks intended for laying to be carried out using the infra-red technique only, with other methods restricted to emergency use only. I recognise that this issue has generated a lot of interest in another place. A Written Statement was provided to both Houses last month setting out the background behind these amending regulations, explaining the Government’s determination to work closely with the industry with the objective of making a ban on beak-trimming possible in 2016. That is a commitment that I made and that my honourable friend Mr Jim Paice made in a Written Statement some two months ago.

The current position is that the UK makes use of a derogation in the EU Council Directive 99/74/EC on the welfare of laying hens, which allows for beak-trimming of laying hens that are less than 10 days old if carried out by qualified staff. The procedure is only permitted to prevent feather-pecking and cannibalism, which is a common but unpredictable behaviour in commercial flocks of laying hens and a significant welfare issue. The Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) Regulations 2007 implement this derogation but only allow routine beak-trimming to be carried out until 31 December 2010, after which beak-trimming of laying hens would be banned.

The ban was put in place when the laying hens directive was implemented in the UK in 2002, allowing eight years to develop a strategy to manage birds without the need to beak-trim. The Beak Trimming Action Group—comprising representatives from industry, welfare groups, Defra, scientific and veterinary professions—was established to develop this strategy. However, progress in the control of injurious pecking in England has not been sufficient to implement a ban on beak-trimming without causing a significant risk to animal welfare. In the mean time, a new infra-red technique was developed and is now used to beak-trim birds commercially, as an alternative to hot-blading. Currently, the infra-red technique is used on 95 per cent of all beak-trimmed laying hens.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council reviewed the evidence in 2007 and 2009 and recommended that the ban on beak-trimming should be deferred until it can be demonstrated reliably under commercial conditions that laying hens can be managed without beak-trimming, without a greater risk to their welfare than that caused by beak-trimming itself. The FAWC recommended that infra-red beak treatment should be the only method used routinely, as the evidence indicated that it does not induce chronic pain.

The Government’s long-term goal is to ban routine beak-trimming, but FAWC’s advice represents a sensible and pragmatic approach in the circumstances. A ban on beak-trimming for laying hens at this time would result in significant welfare problems through outbreaks of feather-pecking and cannibalism. It is therefore right that the legislation needs to be amended to remove the impending ban, which would otherwise come into force on 1 January 2011.

The Government see the proposed removal of the ban very much as an interim solution. The previous Government’s consultation on proposals to amend the legislation did not propose any dates to review the policy or for a future ban. This Government have taken heed of the strength of feeling on this issue and decided to adopt the Farm Animal Welfare Council’s recommendation of setting a review date of 2015. We will assess the output of this work, with the objective of banning routine beak-trimming in 2016. The Beak Trimming Action Group will be reconvened; its first meeting has been arranged for January. We are committed to working with the group to find solutions to this very complex issue. The group will establish an action plan to include the key milestones which were laid out in the Written Statement, leading up to a full review of beak-trimming in 2015.

The review will consider results of ongoing research projects that are investigating practical and realistic ways to rear laying hens without the need for beak- trimming. Bristol University, for example, funded by the Tubney Charitable Trust, is carrying out a three-year intervention study. It is developing a trialling and advisory package to help producers reduce the risk of injurious pecking through changes to housing and husbandry. All the key stakeholder groups are on the steering group for this project, with representatives from industry, welfare organisations, researchers, economists and Defra. The Beak Trimming Action Group will begin to consider the outputs from this study next summer.

We recognise that any future strategy will have to identify the lessons that can be learnt from those countries that already have a ban in place or just do not beak-trim, such as Austria, Sweden and Switzerland, so we have asked the industry to undertake some study tours to such countries. Feather-pecking is greatest in systems of management which do not house birds in cages. Therefore, the risk to the welfare of laying hens from injurious pecking is likely to increase after the ban on conventional cages comes into force on 1 January 2012. A review in 2015 will allow producers time to increase their experience of managing flocks in alternative systems.

The review in 2015 will assess the achievements on eliminating beak-trimming to date and advise whether a ban on routine beak-trimming of laying hens will achieve the maximum welfare outcome, which is what we desire, with a view to reinstating the ban in 2016. These regulations will improve existing welfare standards for laying hens in the short term while we work hard to find a lasting solution, which will bring an end to the need for routine beak-trimming. They also complete the implementation of Council Directive 2007/43/EC by implementing the mutilations provisions for meat chickens and I commend them to the Committee.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the instrument. We fully support the aim of ending beak-trimming and the general desire across government to do so. As the Minister explained, without this instrument the ban would legally have come into force although, given the difficulties, I imagine that even had there not been a change of Government we would have been in a similar situation, particularly given the responses to the consultation that the previous Government held earlier this year. There is the difficult equation of balancing a possible deterioration in animal welfare standards by not continuing with the derogation and the concern that changing the system at this point could have meant that we would have had extra imports coming in from countries with lower welfare standards. I can therefore see some of the difficulties that were involved in calculating how to take this issue forward for the future and, for that reason, I understand the action that the Government are proposing in these regulations.

As the Minister said, however, there is considerable public and parliamentary interest in this issue. That is not surprising because there is a strong degree of commitment to animal welfare among the public and in Parliament and to seeing increased animal welfare standards for the future. Certainly, that concern was reflected in an Early Day Motion in the other House, which was proposed by a Conservative but endorsed by Members from many parties, particularly my own. Their desire is that beak-trimming should be brought to an end as soon as practicable. Indeed, that underlines the idea of creating some kind of deadline for this to happen, which the Government have done in deciding on the review period and the ban date as the Minister outlined to us.

Obviously, 2016 is some time off. I am not trying to make a party-political point because I know that the process has already been a long one. None the less, if there are any other ways of trying to shorten the timetable I would certainly encourage the Government look at them. One aspect of the work that needs to be undertaken between now and then is the study tour of EU and other European countries that do not have beak- trimming. I would have thought that that work could start soon and I understand that it will be proceeded with expeditiously. I understand what the Minister said about the three-year research project. That obviously takes us to some time in the future. However, having said that, I certainly hope that at the very least the timetable that has been set out can be adhered to.

I do not know whether the Government considered putting the deadlines in the regulations, but I hope that it will be made very clear that this is the deadline to which the Government are working. It would not be good for a signal to be sent out that nothing much will be happening immediately so therefore people do not need to worry about it. That has been a problem in the past and we do not want it to be a problem in the future.

On another issue, I strongly support what the Minister said in terms of favouring the infra-red method as opposed to the hot-blade method. As he said, 95 per cent of production is subject to the infra-red method. However, the regulations say that in the case of a sudden outbreak, it would be possible to use the hot-blade procedure. I understand from the debate that took place in the other House that such emergencies have not occurred recently. None the less, I note that the British Veterinary Association, in its response to the Government, is concerned that the regulations could be interpreted as allowing the arbitrary use of hot-blade beak-trimming after 10 days to control moderate or even minor outbreaks of injurious pecking. The association felt that in order to counteract that, the term “emergency” should be more clearly defined. Has consideration been given to that as a way forward? Or is it that, as was described in the other House, the concerns of the British Veterinary Association are not causing too much worry to the Government at present because this procedure is not really being used at the moment?

The regulations state that holdings with fewer than 350 birds are exempt from the regulations. I would like to ask the Minister a little more about that. Why should not the infra-red technique be prescribed for those holdings as well? I do not know whether there is routing beak-trimming in holdings with fewer than 350 birdsI note that in the debate in the other place the Minister said that such holdings would in any case be covered under the Animal Welfare Act, which was passed by the previous Government with all-party support. If the provisions in that Act were sufficient, why would these regulations be necessary? I am not quite sure why the older Act is sufficient in the case of holdings with fewer than 350 birds but not for holdings with more than 350 birds. The very helpful Explanatory Memorandum says that there are 1,323 holdings housing more than 350 laying hens. Does the Minister have any statistics for how many holdings have fewer than 350 birds? I could not see that information in the Explanatory Memorandum. If it is there, I apologise for having missed it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I, too, accept the regulations as an interim measure ahead of a ban on beak-trimming. There is much common ground between both sides of the Committee, so I shall not repeat any of the very good points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin.

I was slightly disappointed that no firm date for a ban has been given. The Explanatory Memorandum says clearly,

“with a view to banning … in 2016”.

How can we ensure that pressure is maintained on the industry to deliver to that timetable which we all want to see? I ask that question as a member of EU Sub-Committee D on agriculture, environment and fisheries, which is undertaking a review of innovation in agriculture. Many of the submissions that we have received tell of how the industry is struggling with the twin challenges of addressing climate change and the need for food security. Given that the industry is coping with finding funding for innovative research in those areas, how, without a firm cut-off date of 2016 for beak-trimming, can pressure be maintained on the industry to ensure that the necessary funding for research is delivered? I acknowledge what the Minister said about the research project in Bristol and the work of the Beak Trimming Action Group, but I should like to hear specifically how he will seek to keep pressure on the industry at a time when it is already struggling to find funding for innovative research in other areas of agriculture.

[Lord Henley]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I shall try to deal with the various questions that have been put to me.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for accepting the difficulties involved, but she went on to say that 2016 is a long time off. I hate ever to make party-political points and, as the noble Baroness knows, I never do—well, I try not to—but I should point out that the previous Government had eight years in which to deal with this matter and they found it difficult. We are seeking another six years to take us up to 2016, and I hope that we shall be able to do what we can. We will work as quickly as possible in these matters. The noble Baroness asked particularly how we would expedite the process and start study tours to other countries—which is a very good idea. I can assure her that, early in the new year, the industry will present its plan for getting these things looked at and seeing what happens overseas.

Both the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lady Parminter said that they would like “2016” to appear in the regulations. I appreciate that it was in the previous regulations; that is why we are here today debating these regulations—it is possibly no bad thing on occasions to force Governments to come back. The commitments made by my honourable friend, which I repeated in a Written Statement, should be sufficient. However, my honourable friend made it clear that that we would do it only if it was possible. We do not want to compromise animal welfare provisions. Therefore, we will work as hard as we can and push forward as fast as we can but only, as I stress again to the noble Baroness, if these matters are possible.

The noble Baroness then asked for some idea of what we meant by “in emergencies” and when we would use something other than the infra-red treatment—that is, when we would use hot-blading. I must stress that hot-blading is intended only as a last resort and is carried out only in the interests of animal welfare. It is suitable only for the older birds and only after other provisions have been tried. Beak-trimming an adult flock is not a task that is undertaken lightly. All those poultry farmers who are involved understand the wish not to do so. I would not want to define what “emergency” means but those on the ground know what it means.

Moving on to statistics, the noble Baroness asked how many flocks had fewer than 350 laying birds. I am afraid I do not have a figure but there are a substantial number. There is, as the noble Baroness will know, no need for farmers with fewer than 50 birds to be registered. I have seven laying birds, which lay the odd egg but not that many. Those with more must be registered. I could find her an answer on the number of farmers who have between 50 and 350 birds. If that is possible, as long as it is not too expensive, I will do so.

My noble friend the Duke of Montrose asked about the evidence that infra-red technology was better than other methods. I accept that, like all methods, it is extremely likely to cause short-term pain but this has not yet been confirmed. However, on balance, the current evidence suggests that infra-red beak-trimming does not induce long-term pain. For those reasons, we are satisfied.

Lastly, the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, rightly asked about what we are doing to build alliances in Europe, in both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. I am glad that she stressed the importance of both. She spoke from her experience as a former Member of the European Parliament. It is important that we concentrate on both the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. We will certainly do what we can to build up the appropriate allowances and work with people. This will be generally true of everything that Defra does. Defra probably has more to do with the EU than any other department. I certainly notice that my honourable friends in Defra in another place are frequently in Brussels. The noble Baroness will know this from her own experience. We shall continue to work with others and we will certainly continue to keep other member states updated on the progress of what we are doing in our industry, just as we will continue to try to learn as much as possible from other member states. I referred in particular to Sweden and Austria; I forget which the third was.

I hope I have dealt with most of the questions that have been put to me.

Motion agreed.

Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, these regulations implement Council directive 2007/43, which establishes for the first time rules governing the conditions under which meat chickens are kept and the monitoring of the birds in slaughterhouses for poor on-farm welfare. The directive is unique in that it looks not only at inputs but at welfare outcomes.

A small section of the directive dealing with mutilations will be implemented through the regulations which the Committee has just discussed.

These regulations apply to holdings with 500 or more birds. They do not apply to breeding stocks of meat chickens, hatcheries or chickens marketed as extensive indoor, free-range or organic. However, these birds are subject to the provisions of Schedule 1 to the welfare of farmed animals regulations 2007, which sets down general conditions for the way in which animals are kept. For the purposes of these regulations, we have defined the chickens in scope as “conventionally reared meat chicken”.

Meat chicken welfare is an important issue. Around 850 million meat chickens are produced in the UK per year and 4 billion across the European Union. The United Kingdom is one of the largest meat chicken producers in the EU, and the total value of the UK industry is estimated at £1.6 billion. There has also been an increase in public awareness of meat chicken welfare over recent years, reflected in significant sales of chicken produced to higher welfare standards by major retailers.

The directive came into force on 30 June 2010. There has been a delay in implementing it in English law due to the change of government and the new processes that have been put in place to ensure the close scrutiny of all new legislation. However, I know that the industry and enforcement bodies have started to take account of the EU legislation in their activities, including training, and I much appreciate their commitment and good will in working with us on implementation. It has been an example of partnership working at its best.

Currently, there is no legal maximum stocking density for meat chickens in England. The directive permits member states to allow a maximum stocking density of up to 42 kilograms per square metre provided that certain criteria are met, including a challenging cumulative daily mortality figure over seven consecutive flocks. Therefore, a producer would have to meet these criteria and provide the evidence before being allowed to stock at 42 kilograms per square metre.

We have decided not to take advantage of this derogation on animal welfare grounds. The draft regulations set instead a maximum stocking density for conventionally reared meat chickens of 33 kilograms per square metre, with the opportunity to stock up to 39 kilograms per square metre provided that additional house documentation requirements and environmental parameters are met. This is in line with the commitment in the coalition agreement to improved standards of farm animal welfare.

There is evidence that meat chicken welfare can be compromised at densities higher than 40 kilograms per square metre. A Defra-funded study at Oxford University showed that, while mortality and leg defects were not compromised at higher stocking densities, other measures were affected, such as jostling, a reduction in growth rate and fewer birds showing the best gait scores, which is an assessment of chicken walking ability. The Farm Animal Welfare Council has also advised against the adoption of a maximum stocking density of 42 kilograms per square metre. In addition, more than 90 per cent of domestic chicken production is currently subject to assurance scheme requirements, which operate at stocking densities at or lower than 38 kilograms per square metre.

Adopting this approach allows us to show leadership on animal welfare. The industry should aim to provide consumers with this information and promote the fact that English chicken meat meets the higher welfare standards set by this Government. Consumers can then make an informed choice. We are not alone in setting a maximum stocking density of 39 kilograms per square metre. I understand that Wales and Scotland have also already taken this approach.

However, we are not going to set this stocking density and walk away. The maximum stocking density will be reviewed as part of the post-implementation review of the regulations. In addition, the EU Commission will publish a report in 2012 looking at the directive’s application and influence on chicken welfare.

We intend to commission a socioeconomic research project to assess the impact of implementing the regulations on the relevant monetary and non-monetary costs and benefits identified in the impact assessment. As part of that, the analysis will look at the impact of the regulations on the industry, enforcement body activity, the effectiveness of slaughterhouse welfare triggers, welfare outcomes and the experience of other member states, some of which will be operating a maximum stocking density of 42 kilograms per square metre.

As I mentioned earlier, the regulations are unique in that they will also look at the welfare outcomes for the birds. All birds will be subject to post-mortem inspections in the slaughterhouse for possible indications of poor on-farm welfare.

For flocks stocked at over 33 kilograms per square metre, mortality information will also be assessed as an indicator of poor welfare. “Poor welfare” will be defined through the setting of welfare triggers for mortality and post-mortem inspections in the slaughterhouse. Any concerns will be communicated to the producer and to Animal Health in order for them to take appropriate action. That might include the drawing up of an action plan in conjunction with Animal Health to outline how a welfare problem will be addressed.

This system of welfare triggers will allow for a more consistent approach across slaughterhouses to the identification of potential on-farm welfare problems. The welfare triggers have been based in part on a pilot study that saw some of the largest meat chicken companies working with us and Animal Health. This is another good example of people working together to improve welfare.

As highlighted, these draft regulations are certainly an important step in improving the welfare of meat chickens and I commend them to the Committee.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, the Opposition are generally supportive of these regulations and the directive behind them. Indeed, the directive was agreed in European Union negotiations under the previous Government, and the regulations implement the directive here. The Minister is correct in saying that this is a useful and important step forward. This is the first time that rules governing conditions under which meat chickens are kept have been agreed at EU level and there is monitoring of birds for poor on-farm welfare. That incorporates some of the animal welfare concerns, which are very recent concerns in EU legislation, so I welcome that.

The Minister was also right to stress that this is an important industry for us. Very often in the EU context we tend to think that other countries are more agriculturally focused than we are, but in terms of this industry, as the Minister pointed out, the UK is one of the largest chicken producers in the European Union. The industry's total value has been estimated at £1.6 billion.

Obviously, the regulations also relate to public concern in terms of the increased demand for food that is produced to higher welfare standards. There has been an increase in the number of consumers wanting assured produce in terms of animal welfare as well as other things. Speaking as a consumer rather than a parliamentarian, I find that the labels can sometimes be confusing with all the different assurance schemes that exist. I know that this has been tried for a number of years, but it would be good if we could move towards more simplification and greater certainty for consumers in this respect. None the less, the trend that we have seen overall is a welcome one.

In general, the Government have tried to strike a balance between animal welfare concerns and the dangers of getting into a situation where we become over-reliant on imports that do not meet the same high standards. It has been a difficult balance to strike. I agree with the Government that the limit of 39 kilos per square metre should be supported, as should not going up to 42.

The Minister rightly said that Wales and Scotland are working along similar lines. I understand, however, that in Northern Ireland a limit of 42 kilos per square metre has been sought. While I fully respect the devolution settlement and the ability of different jurisdictions to decide on their policies, it none the less would be a desirable goal for the UK to operate similar conditions for trading reasons, just as it is a good idea for similar high standards to operate throughout the EU as a whole, even though that is a much more ambitious goal. I do not know whether the Minister has had any discussions with his Northern Ireland counterparts about this, or whether there are special reasons for this of which I am not aware.

The Minister also said that we are not going to walk away from trying to improve standards as time goes on. I think that those were his words. While we have not gone much beyond the minimum standards of the EU in these regulations, what does the Minister see as the possibilities for reducing stocking densities further—from, say, 39 to 33 kilograms per square metre? Does he see us moving in that direction over the next few years?

The regulations are slightly late in being introduced to Parliament but that is not surprising, given that an election took place earlier this year. Does the Minister have any information about whether the regulations and the directive have now come into force in other member states, or whether there are some member states that have not yet adopted the legislation in the way that they are supposed to?

Information from the British Veterinary Association raised some concerns that it originally had about the proposed regulations. It wanted more detail on environmental enrichment to reduce the risk of leg problems in poultry, on litter management to maintain optimum conditions and on the importance of floor temperature. Does the Minister know whether the various concerns raised by the British Veterinary Association have been met?

I recognise that there are costs attached to these regulations. What I did not quite understand from the Explanatory Memorandum is how much of the costs involved are on-farm costs and how much are off-farm, relating to slaughterhouses, inspection processes and so on, to see whether animal welfare issues have arisen. If the Minister does not have that information immediately to hand, I would be happy for him to write to me. It could be, however, that it is in the information and I just have not managed to spot it.

Compliance with these regulations will be very important. The impact assessment accompanying the directive states that there was a 19.1 per cent failure rate for compliance with existing meat chicken welfare standards. Do the bodies concerned, which I understand are the Food Standards Agency and Animal Health, have the resources to try to ensure full compliance with these regulations? I know that the Minister in another place said firmly that he was determined to stamp out abuses in animal welfare practice, but it would be good if the Minister could give us any further information on this.

Finally, repeating something that I said earlier, which the Minister was kind enough to agree with, building alliances for higher welfare standards will be very important at European Union level. I wish the Government well in that task.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for her general support for the regulations and for her comments on the meat chicken industry, which, as she suggests, is very important. I would like to deal with one or two points.

First, the noble Baroness talked about problems for the consumer in terms of confusion about labelling. I agree that there is still much confusion here, but I hope that, gradually, bit by bit, through the industry and in other ways, we can address it so that there is greater transparency and so that consumers can ultimately make appropriate and rational choices. However, it should mainly be a matter for the industry to get these things right, and I am pleased with what has recently been happening in this area.

Secondly, the noble Baroness talked about what was happening in Northern Ireland, where they have a higher limit and have gone for 42 kilograms per square metre. One has to say that this is devolution and that is where we are. That decision was taken following a consultation in Northern Ireland about these matters and we have to accept that. I have certainly had no discussions with devolved Ministers there, although I do not know whether my honourable friend Mr Paice has. However, I agree with the noble Baroness to some extent, in that these things are important not just in relation to Northern Ireland but across the whole EU. We should all be talking to each other, particularly if it is felt that there is an unfair advantage with one country having a higher stocking rate. In terms of animal welfare, we never want to be in a position where we are, as it were, exporting bad treatment of animals to other countries by sometimes overdoing our rules when other countries do not do the same.

That leads me to what was almost the noble Baroness’s final statement, in which she asked whether we would continue to discuss these matters with colleagues in the EU Parliament and Council. We will certainly do that because it is important to get things right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, also asked whether we wanted to go further in reviewing the stocking density in the future. Certainly, as part of our consideration of policy, a post-implementation review of the new legislation is required to be carried out. In addition, the Commission will publish a report in 2012 looking at the directive’s application and influence on chicken welfare and, as I said, we intend to commission further research into that. Therefore, we will look at this matter, although I obviously cannot give any assurances at the moment.

As regards implementation of the legislation in the rest of the EU, the noble Baroness understood why there had been a delay. This year we had an election, which often causes delays in these matters. My understanding is that it is now in force in the majority of other member states. However, we are aware that Italy and the Netherlands have only just started the process of implementation, so we will not necessarily be the last to do so.

The noble Baroness also asked about the costs on-farm and elsewhere—in slaughterhouses. I am afraid that I do not have the figures, so I shall write to the noble Baroness in due course if I can find something of use to say to her, otherwise I shall not do so. I am sure she will accept that.

Again, I thank my noble friend Lady Parminter for offering congratulations to the Government on doing something. She asked about the enrichment of cages. These regulations relate to meat chickens and do not cover the enrichment of cages. I understand that meat chickens are not kept in cages in this country, so that matter is not relevant.

My noble friend then moved on to problems which go slightly wide of the regulations. She asked about cattle and some of the new super-dairies. I shall not comment on that, other than to say that this is very much a planning issue and not one for us. However, whatever the conditions in which cattle, chicken or other animals are kept and stored, we will ensure that animal welfare issues are always taken into account.

I hope that I have dealt with the questions put to me and I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

Finally, I should also like to ask about the situation regarding this area in the devolved territories. Certainly, on the Welsh Assembly Government’s website there is still information about how to apply to agricultural dwelling house committees. It would be good to know from the Minister what consultations he has had with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations and whether they have raised some of the concerns about the way forward which have been raised today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, in moving this amendment, my noble friend Lord Greaves said that this was his first amendment during what he described as a rapid canter through Committee on this Bill. I am not much of an equestrian, but “rapid” and “canter” are not the words that I would necessarily give to it at this stage. But I accept that my noble friend was merely putting forward a probing amendment. Therefore, I will try to set out why we think it is right that we are abolishing these committees.

As many noble Lords have said, ADHACs were set up under the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976. The noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, remembers the Act, as does my noble friend Lord Caithness. Sadly, I was not in the House, so I cannot go back quite that far. But I listened to both of them and they had rather different views. My noble friend made clear that ADHACs were set up to have an advisory role—I was very grateful he stressed that—in the rehousing of agricultural workers. To get on to the whole problem of accommodation in rural areas is stretching the point a bit too far. We are talking only about ADHACs and the advisory role that they had.

The purpose of the Act was to give those who lived in tied houses, such as agricultural workers, former workers and their successors, security of tenure and protection from eviction by their employer. Under the Act, a landlord can make an application to a local housing authority to rehouse a protected tenant on the grounds that the property is required for a new worker; that he is unable to provide suitable alternative accommodation for the existing tenant; and that the housing authority ought, in the interests of efficient agriculture, to provide suitable alternative accommodation. The landlord, the tenant or the local authority may refer such applications to the local ADHAC for advice on the agricultural need and the urgency of the application. However, there is no statutory requirement to consult an ADHAC. Again, I am grateful to my noble friend for stressing that point. Where advice is sought, the housing authority is currently obliged to take that advice into account when considering its housing priorities. But it is only a matter for the housing authority to take that advice into account.

Since the Rent (Agriculture) Act came into force, there have been significant changes to housing legislation, which have enabled farmers to let cottages to farm workers using an assured shorthold tenancy. As a result of these changes and changing employment practices within the farming industry, the use of ADHACs has fallen from what used to be something of the order of 500 cases per year in the 1980s to something fewer than 10 this year. To assist the noble Baroness with those figures, I can tell her that in 2007 there were nine cases, in 2008 there was a dramatic increase to 12, and in 2009 there were a further 12. So far we have had eight this year. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, put it, demand for this service is diminishing—and it is diminishing pretty fast.

In the light of this, the Government consider that, as the functions of the ADHACs are largely defunct, it is difficult to justify the retention of 17 different committees. Again, my noble friend referred to 16 different committees; I can assure him that there are 17 different committees covering England and Wales, with the associated administrative burden of recruitment and training of members. I appreciate that the cost is relatively low. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, asked whether it was just £13,000. That is the figure I have for the direct administrative costs, but there will be other costs to the department in terms of the secretariat needed for 17 different committees in England and Wales.

Furthermore, it should be made clear that the function can be, and indeed is, carried out equally effectively by the local housing authorities on their own account, as my noble friend Lord Greaves seems to suggest. Many local authorities already take decisions on rehousing without the advice of an ADHAC. I can assure the Committee that the abolition of ADHACs will not remove any of the protection afforded to agricultural workers and their successors in tied housing. The only change will be when a local authority receives an application for rehousing a worker in a tied cottage; the local authority will need to determine the agricultural need and urgency of the application on its own account, as it does now in the vast majority of cases. Again, I stress, we have had eight uses of ADHACs in this year. I imagine, as we are already into December, that figure is unlikely to increase by that much.

There is no intention to change the provisions in the 1976 Act which give security of tenure to protected tenants; tenants will not be disadvantaged by the proposed abolition of ADHACs.

The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, asked about devolved Administrations—obviously in this case we are talking only about Wales, because this part covers only Wales. Yes, we will consult the Welsh Administration in the appropriate manner.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Caithness asked whether—or seemed to imply—we would need 17 different orders to abolish these. My understanding is that the power is such that there will be only one. I think that we—the noble Baroness as the opposition spokesman, and I as the Minister dealing with this in the Moses Room—will have to deal with only one rather than 17 different ones; I cannot remember whether the procedure is affirmative or negative. I hope with those reassurances my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am grateful to everybody for the constructive and consensual way in which the amendment has been discussed. The question of the number of individual cases per year has been raised. I am sorry if the figures I cited were rather larger than is actually the case. The figures came from what I took to be an official authoritative source on the internet, but perhaps that is a lesson for us all. I will go back and check that source, but that is clearly what it said.

A question of general interest was raised. I deliberately did not call the bodies “quangos”, for the very reasons that noble Lords mentioned; that is, that their scale and cost are small. In many ways, they strike me more as part of the big society than as quangos, but perhaps I should not pursue that very far. Perhaps there are parts of the big society which have performed a useful function in the past and are now redundant.

The Minister responded to my use of the phrase “rapid canter”. It is always a little dangerous to try to use irony in your Lordships' House, not least because Hansard has not yet got round to the use of smileys, which, as many of us know to our cost, are necessary if you are trying to say something ironic because a lot of people will otherwise read it absolutely flatly. I therefore make it quite clear that I was being absolutely ironic in talking about taking a rapid canter through the Bill, but—who knows?—it may be a rapid canter by the time we have finished.

I am very grateful for the Minister’s assurances that the legal protection for people who have tied tenancies will not change in any way. On that basis, and on the basis that I think that we have had the kind of discussion that I would have hoped for to make the position absolutely clear, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I feel that this decision is a highly regrettable one if the Government decide to go ahead. It is not being done on grounds of cost but for political reasons. It is unjust, it is unfair, it does not make economic sense and it does not serve agriculture well. I hope that the Minister, in replying, will change tack and respond positively to the powerful concerns which have been expressed so well in this debate.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I will start, as is proper, by offering an apology to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for possibly misquoting her, as she alleged earlier in her somewhat lengthy speech. I am not sure whether I did, but I will look at the record and, if I have misquoted her, I will offer my sincere apologies for so doing. If I can quote her again, I noted that she made the point towards the end of her speech that there was possibly a case for strengthening the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales. I think that the noble Baroness accepts my quotation. I note that as a new commitment by the party opposite from its Front Bench.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, listened to his noble friend’s speech with great attention and I was grateful for his admission that the Government of which he was part had considered the abolition of the agricultural wages board. They decided not to for reasons that I cannot speculate on, but the range of speakers who come from the other side might give some indication as to why they changed their mind on the issue. We have examined the issue again and we have decided to go ahead with abolition. I will try to set out just why we wish to do that.

When the wages board and the committees were established in 1948—in fact, they were established earlier than that, but the parent Act is the 1948 one—farm workers had very little protection available to them from exploitation. The close working relationship between workers and employers, where the former were often dependent on the latter for housing, meant that workers were often at a disadvantage in negotiations on wages. In these circumstances, it was sensible to provide an independent statutory forum where farm workers and employers could come together to agree pay and conditions. Since that time, we have seen tremendous changes in wider employment legislation, both nationally and, as my noble friend Lord Caithness said, at an EU level, which protects and benefits workers in all sectors of the economy, including farm workers. Those changes include the introduction of legislation on the national minimum wage, which has been referred to. That makes it illegal to pay a worker below the current national minimum wage. There are also the working time regulations referred to by others, which, among other provisions, set a statutory minimum entitlement to a minimum wage.

For these reasons and all the changes that we have seen since 1924 and 1948, the agricultural minimum wage framework set out in that 1948 Act is, we believe, anachronistic. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, and the noble Lord, Lord Clark, put it, in more or less the same words, life moves on. I accept that life moves on. Life has changed considerably since 1948 and it is no longer necessary to do what the Act does and effectively duplicate and gold-plate wider employment legislation. It adds an unnecessary regulatory burden for businesses in the agricultural and horticultural sectors, many of which are small businesses. It is a particular burden for farm businesses that also operate in sectors outside those covered by the agricultural wages legislation and hence have to cope with dual regimes. Moreover, the agricultural wages legislation effectively prevents the payment of annual salaries and fair piece rates, preventing farm businesses from adopting modern, flexible practices. That can also be disadvantageous to the workers.

I will say a word or two about Amendment 21, which would remove from the Bill the agricultural wages committees. Most of the functions of those committees, as my noble friend Lord Caithness made clear, have lapsed in practice or have been replaced by wider legislation. As my noble friend put it, there are currently 15 committees in England and one in Wales and their only remaining active functions are to appoint members of the agricultural dwelling house advisory committees and to report to the Secretary of State on their proceedings, which are now limited to holding an annual general meeting. I do not think that there is any case for retaining them.

It is for these reasons that we consider that the separate employment regime for agricultural workers is no longer appropriate. I am grateful again for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who pointed out that he was not going to get away with paying the lower wages that seemed to be suggested by the party opposite. People just would not accept them. The same could be said for the intervention from my noble friend Lord Eccles when he pointed out that the whole industry has changed too much in terms of the sophistication of the skills that are required for many workers to confine themselves to pay rates of the sort that we are talking about. We believe that by abolishing the agricultural wages board—

[Lord Whitty]

Apologies if the Minister was moving on to this point, but do the Government have an impact assessment of the effect of the abolition of the legal minimum on wage rates, given that when each of the other wages boards was abolished the rate in that sector fell? Clearly, there are always some who are paid more than the minimum, but have the Government done that calculation? If so, I think that we should know.

[Lord Henley]

I do not think that it is necessary for that work to have been done. As I said, we believe that with the abolition of the board the industry will be able to operate more flexibly, which would lead to more job creation and better opportunities. What the noble Lord and others have been asking us to do is describe what picture, as they put it, we see for the future. I believe that it is one where it is open to the industry to come together to set up its own system. Again, I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who said that the NFU ought to be out there seeking to put something together. What I did not hear from the representatives of Unite or Unite’s predecessor, the Transport and General Workers’ Union, was whether they were prepared to come together with the NFU and put something together. I do not see why the NFU, Unite and other industry representatives cannot come together and create their own advisory committee to discuss these matters. We do not think that it is necessarily a matter for the Government.

[Baroness Quin]

If I could follow up on my noble friend’s point, I thought that the Government had said that they would routinely carry out impact assessments in coming forward with legislation. I do not understand why they do not seem prepared to do so in this case.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as I made clear, I do not think that it is necessary in this case to carry out an impact assessment. If it was necessary, we would do so. What I am saying is that, after the abolition of the wages board, it is open to the industry to look at its own arrangements. That is why I was grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who said that the NFU could do this, but I do not see why the NFU cannot do it along with Unite and all the other representatives of the industry.

I appreciate that we have now spent an hour and a half discussing these matters. We will no doubt come back to this in due course. My noble friend Lord Maclennan said that there was still much time to discuss these matters. There certainly will be time, because noble Lords opposite wish to make sure that there is. We will discuss these matters further, therefore, but I have not heard anything yet this afternoon that would encourage me to say that there was a case for preserving the agricultural wages board or the agricultural wages committees. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has taken part in an excellent and sensibly tempered debate with a huge amount of expertise on an important issue. It is curious that we are having this kind of debate on the Public Bodies Bill, which is not, on the face of it, about agricultural wages or, indeed, about many of the other things that we will debate in the course of its consideration in Committee, except that it is about everything. It is a curious Bill about everything and nothing but, if it leads to debates like this, the Committee will be doing the Government a service as well as the country generally.

I was particularly taken by the range of expertise in the debate. I do not want to reply to everybody, because it would take far too long, but I was slightly amused by what the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, said in her excellent contribution. It took me back to the great Liberal Governments of a hundred years ago, who had a great deal to do with the introduction of wages councils. However, times have changed and the solutions of a hundred years ago are not necessarily the solutions of today.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is one of a large number of speakers with ministerial experience, particularly in this area, who are distinguished Members of the House. He referred to the possible involvement of the Low Pay Unit as part of the solution to this conundrum. I am aware that such discussions are taking place in some areas. Whether they will come to anything, I do not know, but at least there is some time to pursue them and other discussions in the mean time.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, got me wondering about what I would do if I had my time again. I thought that I would perhaps have liked to have had a more outdoors life. If it were a choice of looking after sheep on a Scottish hillside or looking after the cattle of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, there would be no real choice: I would spend my life on the noble Duke’s Scottish mountainside and probably enjoy myself more than I have done, although I have enjoyed a great deal, especially being able to stand and make speeches in your Lordships’ House.

The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, raised an important question: do the Government have the facts about agricultural wages at the moment? How many agricultural workers are at the moment on the basic levels of pay set out by the agricultural wages board? I have not seen this information, but it must exist somewhere. How many of them are working for more enlightened employers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, or perhaps for employers who are exposed to a market that requires that they pay higher wages, or for a combination of both? We need that information before we can get to the bottom of how much the existing protection is required. Unite, among others, is saying that it has evidence of farmers telling their existing workers that if the protection is removed their wages will go down. I do not know whether this is tittle-tattle or hard evidence, but we need evidence to probe and investigate in the mean time.

Some noble Lords have argued that the legislation is not needed because they know of lots of people who are paid more than the level set out or, indeed, who employ people who are paid more than the level set out. I take that with a slight pinch of salt because you could apply that argument to the national minimum wage. Most people in this country are paid more than the national minimum wage, a lot of people are paid a great deal more than the national minimum wage and some people are paid astronomical sums—millions of pounds a year, according to what we read in the newspapers—but just because a lot of bankers are apparently paid these huge salaries is no argument for saying that the national minimum wage is not necessary or is not a good thing, because it protects a lot of other people who need protection. Again, I think that we need the kind of facts that the noble Viscount suggested that we should have. I hope that the Government will find it possible to dig out those facts, circulate them and write to all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s debate.

Having said that and having said what an excellent House of Lords debate this has been, with propositions made, questions asked and debates enjoined, I should add that the other part of the equation that is traditionally necessary in the House of Lords is for the Government to listen to what has been said, think about it and respond to it. I thought that I detected in the Minister some softening and some willingness to continue to take part in the debate. I hope that that is the case. He said that we will discuss these issues again further. I hope that he did not mean that we will have to wait until Report, when we can have a set-piece battle with everybody lining up with their pitchforks or whatever people use nowadays instead of pitchforks. I hope that the discussion will take place in the several weeks that will be available to us before we get to Report.

Let us keep talking and let us have further discussions wherever we can. Let us bring the matter back on Report if we need to, but in the mean time let us hope to find a way through the issues that have been raised today and find some sort of compromise. Let us distinguish between closing down a quango, which the Government are adamant they want to do, perhaps saving quite a bit of the £250,000-plus that it costs to run, and keeping at least some of the functions, which might be carried out by somebody else. Even if that is not possible, let us understand what kind of negotiating system and procedure there might be in future between employers and employees at a national level and what sort of guarantee there might be that that will result in solutions that will stick rather than advice that can be ignored.

There is a great deal to be discussed further. The burden to business is being exaggerated a little, but with reform, modernisation and streamlining of the system it might be possible to reduce quite a few of those burdens without taking away the essential safeguards of the floors that exist to protect a group of people who, as many noble Lords have said, are more vulnerable than many other groups nowadays. The world has changed, so let us change the systems in response to that without taking away what is valuable.

I think that there is a general view around the Committee that we should not divide on this occasion. Indeed, in view of what I have said, it would be totally inappropriate for me to ask for the opinion of the Committee at this stage. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Henley Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

How will the expert committees that will replace those bodies function? I ask not only in terms of openness but whether there will be a general continuity in the work of the existing bodies and in the membership of the organisations. There are a number of such questions on which we seek assurance, so I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I hope I can answer some of the points put by the noble Baroness and her noble friends. I thank her for the point about Defra and the fact that I was going to respond regarding this amendment and a number of others in relation to that department. I appreciate there are quite a number of Defra arm’s-length bodies that are being referred to and I hope I can deal with them in due course as they happen. It may take a day or two before we cover them all but I will try to deal with them as and where appropriate.

The noble Baroness also said that some of these bodies have existed for a very long time indeed. I suppose she was appealing to my nature as a hard-line reactionary Conservative who does not want to see anything change at all. I see the noble Lord nodding in agreement—the arch reactionary here speaks. I am not sure that I am. Things do move on and from time to time we have to change them. For that reason I will not be able to support the noble Baroness in saying that everything should continue as it is just because it always has existed in the past.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, talked about vultures and leopards. I saw one of his noble colleagues, on the edge of the Chamber, who found some of these remarks faintly comic. He should not have done; I did not find them comic because the points were serious. For some reason, when you hear remarks about vultures in this House late at night—well, I think all noble Lords know what I mean. I will certainly take on board the points the noble Lord was making.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, spoke about the Food Standards Agency and asked if we are going to populate these bodies with the wrong people. That is certainly not going to be the case and I hope to deal with that when I deal with the substance of the amendments.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for moving these amendments. I appreciate there are four of us who have served in Defra or its former bodies, so we all know what it is like.

The first point I should make is that the bodies are listed in alphabetical order and we are now dealing with the first of the Defra organisations; there will be others later as we work through Schedule 1, as the noble Lord knows. He also knows perfectly well that theirs is not the only advice that Ministers receive—I was grateful that he stressed this—and that when Ministers receive advice from such bodies they are not bound to accept it. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for nodding his head on this point. In the end, Ministers of whatever persuasion have to make a decision. They take advice from all kinds of experts and then make a decision. I believe one of my colleagues, who is not in this House, wrote a book on the subject called Ministers Decide, or something like that, but we all write books of that kind.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to the problems that neighbours might have with the some of the things we use in gardens. At that point one thought, “Gosh, what about North Korea?”. However, I take on board what the noble Lord had to say about the problems that different things can cause in different ways.

The amendment seeks to remove the three committees—it relates also to the Northern Ireland committee—from Schedule 1 so that we would not be able to abolish them. I shall set out why we wish to abolish them and explain how we wish their work to continue. I acknowledge that those committees have provided independent, expert and impartial advice to Governments of all political persuasions on hazardous chemicals and pesticides. That advice continues to be of value and I can assure the Committee and all noble Lords that abolition of these three committees in their current form will enable us to put in place better arrangements for the work to continue through expert scientific committees.

This reflects the work that the Cabinet Office has been doing with Sir John Beddington, the government Chief Scientific Adviser and the head of the Government Office for Science, and departments to identify more accountable and effective ways to deliver independent, high-quality scientific advice to government to meet the objectives of the public bodies reform programme and the principles of scientific advice to government.

We also need to recognise that statutory regimes for hazardous chemicals and pesticides are increasingly driven by EU legislation. Those three expert committees will remain independent and be able to put advice direct to Ministers, where appropriate, and will adhere carefully to the government code of practice for scientific and advisory committees.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked what savings would be available as a result of this. I wish to make it clear to the noble Lord that we are not looking particularly for savings; the savings, in fact, will be negligible. We are reorganising how the department commissions and applies scientific evidence and looking at ways to do this more coherently and efficiently. These bodies are being reconstituted as expert scientific committees to the department rather than as statutory NDPBs. That will allow them to provide better advice to us in an equally independent way without any particular savings. I hope the noble Lord will accept that.

With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment at this stage. Failing that, we will have to look at it again at a later stage.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for explaining some of the background to this. It was intended as a probing amendment and I think that we have probed something out of it. The Minister said in the latter part of his remarks that this was part of a discussion of the best way to deliver scientific advice, in conjunction with the Cabinet Office and the Chief Secretary. My query arose not so much because I want everything to be set in aspic and that no change should take place, but because there should be a rationale for it. After the Minister’s remarks I still do not quite understand why these two committees, both of which are particularly sensitive in a political and media way, do not deserve a clearly statutorily-based form of advice, whereas a significant number of the rest of Defra’s advisory committees are not on this list, and, if you took it across Whitehall, obviously the picture is wider.

This is why I argued that, in order to have this debate on a rational basis, we need some background from the Minister, or the Minister for Science or from BIS saying what our overall approach to advisory committees is. If it is, in general, that we move away from statutorily-based committees to expert panels, there may be an argument for that. The problem is that we have not heard that argument and that this seems to be differentially applied to bodies within the same department, let alone across Whitehall as a whole. There is a much bigger issue behind this that, at some point, the House is going to have to look at before we can easily give our consent to including some of these bodies on one or other of the schedules to the Bill.

I am glad that the Minister has, in a sense, opened that up, because maybe there is a bigger background that we will come back to at a later stage of the Bill. I am certainly not utterly convinced that the expert panel is much different from a statutory body in terms of the quality of its advice or procedures and, clearly, there is no great cost advantage. I still think that Ministers have, themselves, the protection that, if there is a statutory body giving them advice, at least that part of their advice is clear. Where there are other aspects to it and they take a different decision, that is a separate matter.

Clearly, I have opened up something here and I am glad that I have. For tonight, I will withdraw the amendment, but I think that we will probably be returning to this, or a wider debate.

Flooding: Cornwall

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the response to the flooding in Cornwall; and what action is being taken to avert or diminish a future incident of this kind.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the response to last Wednesday’s flooding in Cornwall was truly a team effort. Over 250 properties in all were flooded and people were evacuated overnight. I would like to echo the praise given by the leader of Cornwall Council for the emergency services and offer sympathy to those whose lives have been disrupted. We will review what happened with partners to see whether lessons can be learnt about the future handling of such incidents.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it the case that flood defences, pumps, telephone warnings and ditches were deficient and that longer-term defences are likely to be hit hard by the cuts, thereby imperilling thousands of people, despite promises to the contrary? All this is happening when, as the Secretary of State for Climate Change has acknowledged, extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord’s first point. Environment Agency teams were out there before the floods happened, clearing out streams and culverts and doing all that they could to make sure that things were mitigated as far as possible. Sadly, the weather was so extreme that these measures were not able to cope with what happened. Something of the order of one and a half inches—that is 38.8 millimetres, if the noble Lord prefers that measure—of rain fell in one hour and, quite frankly, what was in place could not cope with that. I do not accept what the noble Lord said about cuts. We will be spending something of the order of £2.1 billion on flooding and coastal erosion over the next four years, which is only a very small reduction on the previous four years.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I echo the Minister’s congratulations to people in Cornwall. A couple of properties within a quarter of a mile of my house were under five feet of water. Given that Cornwall abuts the Atlantic, the south-westerlies and the fact that these occurrences will happen more frequently, will the Government undertake a dialogue with councils in the south-west, particularly in Cornwall, to put in place more permanent arrangements for dealing with these incidents in the future?

[Lord Henley]

I accept my noble friend’s point that these things are likely to happen more frequently as a result of climate change. We will continue to talk with local authorities and all others, which is why today we have made an announcement about our response to the Pitt review and the new approach that should be followed to deal with floods and the danger of floods. We will look at new approaches to allow more schemes to go ahead that will attract money not only from the Government, through the Environment Agency, but from all other sectors.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is not the lesson that we learnt from the floods in west Cumbria, where the noble Lord lives, and Cornwall that the aftermath always brings problems over house insurance costs? Cannot the Government now take a role in co-ordinating meetings with the insurance industry in order to get a better deal for home owners, who are greatly losing out and very often cannot reinsure their properties?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord referred to the floods in Cumbria. I visited Cockermouth only last week on the anniversary of those floods and I was pleased to see the resilience with which the people of west Cumbria, where both the noble Lord and I come from, have dealt with the situation; I imagine that the same will be true of the people of Cornwall, who are equally resilient. He makes a perfectly valid point about insurance and the Government are talking—and will continue to talk—to the Association of British Insurers about how we can deal with these matters.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, can the Minister assure me that the new Government have had access to the report of the lessons learnt from the floods of six years ago in Boscastle, Cornwall? As I understand it, the role of helicopters, in particular, was absolutely critical in rescue operations then and may well be again in the future. Have the Government had access to any assessment of those lessons?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we look at the lessons learnt from all floods and we have made great progress—as did the previous Government—in getting all agencies, whether local authorities or the voluntary sector, to work together in this field. My noble friend is quite right to refer to the role that helicopters can play, but there is also a large role to be played by the emergency services and the voluntary sector. We greatly praise the RNLI, which I know helped out in west Cumbria, the Red Cross, mountain rescue and many others who help on these occasions.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I extend from this Front Bench the Opposition’s sympathy and support for those who have been affected by the floods in Cornwall, particularly those who had to be evacuated from their homes. Given the concerns expressed by the Environment Agency, the Institution of Civil Engineers and others about funding cuts in the next four years, and given that communities such as those in Cornwall and Cumbria need certainty about which flood protection projects will go ahead, may I ask the Minister what local authorities will receive from the CLG formula grant next year and when his department will publish a definitive list of projects that will receive funding and those that will not?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness is referring to the help that we will provide to local authorities under the Flood and Water Management Act. I understand that they will receive some £21 million next year, due to phasing in, but thereafter it will be some £36 million. That will help local resilience forums, which are local authority-based, to do all the work that is necessary. We believe that the £8.1 billion that we are providing for capital work on floods is a pretty fair settlement in light of the deficit that we faced when we came into government. It represents only a very small reduction on what was available for the previous four years.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords—

Abattoirs: CCTV

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will encourage or require the installation of closed circuit television cameras in abattoirs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, we recognise that CCTV can play a role in helping slaughterhouse operators monitor welfare and we welcome recent industry-led initiatives to install CCTV on a voluntary basis. We have no powers to require CCTV installation in abattoirs.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that half-helpful Answer. Has he seen the appalling CCTV images which have been put on to the internet by the charity Animal Aid, and does he agree with Tim Smith, chief executive of the Food Standards Agency, that they are,

“sickening … It doesn’t really matter how this footage was obtained or how it came into our presence”?

He went on to make it clear that what is important is that something should be done about it. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Morrisons on agreeing to install CCTV in the three abattoirs it owns and controls, including the Woodhead Bros abattoir, which is a major employer in the Lancashire town of Colne where I live.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, obviously I offer my congratulations to Morrisons because we would encourage all owners of abattoirs to install CCTV if that is necessary. However, I stress to my noble friend that although I have not seen the film, we do not condone animal cruelty of any sort. We will ensure that all allegations of the ill treatment of animals are fully investigated and, where necessary, prosecutions are made.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, if that is so, should not those of us of the Christian culture, with our attendant laws for animal welfare, understand the practice of halal slaughter, and also be told when we may be eating that meat and therefore supporting the practice?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I believe that that is another Question, but I can say that we have no plans whatever to make the practice of halal or kosher killing illegal. However, we think that it is worth considering the appropriate labelling of all meat so that people know exactly what it is that they are eating and how the meat has been killed.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, given that Defra recently refused to prosecute practices which seemed to be contrary to the law on the grounds that the evidence had been illegally obtained, can the Minister inform the House how, without mandatory CCTV, slaughterhouse enforcement can be improved?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there are many factors other than compulsory CCTV; it is important to have vets working in all abattoirs and for inspections to take place at an appropriate level. I can assure my noble friend that any decision on whether to prosecute will be taken by independent prosecution lawyers; Ministers have no say in it. In the case that my noble friend refers to, the independent prosecution lawyer took into account previous court decisions which make it clear that evidence which has been unlawfully obtained cannot be used and will be excluded in such cases.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, given the alarming footage referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the disturbing report in the Independent last Friday, can we have an assurance that despite the decision made on court proceedings, not only will Defra’s commitment to animal welfare be reinforced rather than weakened, but the cuts imposed by the Department for Communities and Local Government will not impact on the ability of local authorities to carry out their important animal welfare role in monitoring abattoirs and markets?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, of course they will not affect the role of local authorities in that regard. What is important is that Defra, through the Food Standards Agency, will continue to make sure that abattoirs are operating carefully, and we will make sure that appropriate funds are available for that. We are also going to consult on whether we should look to a full costs recovery scheme for the costs of monitoring what goes on in abattoirs, but obviously that is something which has to be discussed with the industry.

[Lord Palmer]

My Lords, given that the coalition Government have made it quite clear that the noble Lord’s department in particular wishes to cut red tape, insisting that every abattoir has CCTV would surely go against its principles.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we have no power to insist that every abattoir should have CCTV, and that will be made even clearer when the latest EU regulation, Regulation 1099/2009, comes into effect. We will continue to encourage all abattoirs to install CCTV, but that is only one method of ensuring that appropriate monitoring takes place. There are other tools that can be used.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate]

My Lords, given the evidence that CCTV prevents and detects crime on the streets, can the Minister explain why the coalition intends to reduce coverage on the streets by CCTV?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is a completely different question from the one on the Order Paper and has nothing whatever to do with slaughterhouses.

[Lord Tebbit]

Can my noble friend tell me whether the European Union has power to enforce CCTV in abattoirs?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my understanding is that the new regulation to which I referred—EU Regulation 1099/2009, which was agreed under the previous Government’s administration and came into force in 2009—constrains the use of national rules and would prohibit government action to require compulsory installation of CCTV in the future.

[Lord Dykes]

Can the Minister enlighten the House by saying how many prosecutions of abattoir operators there have been in the past five years?

[Lord Henley]

I cannot give a precise figure. However, I can assure my noble friend that there have been prosecutions since the current Government came into office.