Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Baroness Byford

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and thank him for having introduced this debate and moving his amendment. I also congratulate those who tabled the other amendments in this group. I will make only a couple of observations.

After a long life in politics I get very disturbed about self-deluding sentimentalism and effective legislation. We have all sorts of aspirations about food safety and hygiene. We also have aspirations about our commitments to the third world and the rest. But the test of effectiveness is whether the muscle is there in the legislation to turn these aspirations into reality. This is where we have to face the truth: a market will of itself not look to all these interests. The one firm principle operating in the market is of course price and profit; after a long life, let alone in politics, I am totally convinced that you have to have some other absolutes within that. The absolutes concern turning these aspirations into reality.

I am so glad that my noble friend Lady Henig spoke to her amendment with so much feeling and conviction. If we are serious about food hygiene, why can Ministers not put it into the Bill? What is behind their real, underlying position? Is it going to interfere in some way with the liberty of people in future to undercut these aspirations—indeed, these principles and policies which we have established in the past?

I have been deeply involved for much of my life in the third world, which is tired of sentimentalism. The third world wants to see policies that are really going to be effective. It is when we come to trade that this is tested. Are we going to enable third-world countries to build up their economies and look to the interests and well-being of their people, or are we going to turn them into playgrounds for people who are trying to make money? It involves having some discipline in the process and saying that the aspirations which we have held high are actually effective in our trade policy.

I really do not want, in the context of the Bill, to go down as just another sentimentalist who is a completely hapless victim of the open-market, liberal economics principles which are not accountable in effective legislation to the interests of real people in real situations—not least, the well-being of us all in what we eat and our ability to enjoy good health. The people who have moved and spoken to these amendments have done a very good job on our behalf and I hope that they will pursue the issues on Report.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I have not put my name to any of these amendments, but I am very sympathetic to them and, had they not been tabled, I think I would have tabled some. My difficulty, having sat and listened to our earlier debates, is that this is just a Bill to allow us to transpose existing laws into our UK law; it is not really looking forward to trading after that has happened. So I ask my noble friend, before I go into the particular detail I wish to raise: if it is not appropriate at this stage, when is it appropriate during the passage of the Bill? Because somewhere, it must be, and I am not quite sure as to where.

I shall take the amendments as they are and follow the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Perhaps I should declare, as others may, that we are in the farming industry, and while livestock is not our particular area, we produce grain that obviously feeds livestock, and therefore we do have a family interest.

On the question of the rollover and how long this will last, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised very clearly, I ask my noble friend how long she sees this period carrying on for before we look to new deals.

The standards we set in this country are very high, and I believe it is quite right that they are so, but it is not surprising that many of my producer colleagues, particularly those who produce livestock meat and all that side, are very concerned about the long-term interests of their industry. They are quite fearful about imports perhaps coming in at a lower standard. One has to appreciate that, if that did happen in a big way, there would be many farmers who are producing food for us in this country who would not be there in the future. I think that the House has to get that under its belt. It is very easy to think that we can get food anywhere: we go into the supermarket and the shelves are filled. Yes, that is true, but we are dependent on so much of that coming in from abroad, so we need not to protect our industry but to understand the challenges it faces. I do not think producers are looking for special treatment, but they are looking to have that equal trading that many of us wish to see.

When I look at the CLA briefing—I declare that I am a member of the CLA and I was with the NFU earlier today—it says it wants to see exports of UK food outside the EU grow, and we would all support that. It thinks that free and fair trade between the UK and other markets outside the EU is a positive government ambition, and it supports any new free trade deals which meet that ambition. However, in seeking these trade deals it is imperative that equivalence of standards is met—that is what this debate is about—in order to prevent the undercutting of UK markets by the introduction of products that meet lower environmental or animal welfare standards. It believes that that would be very detrimental. Today I met NFU colleagues from East Anglia who were highlighting that.

Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, concerns environmental protections. This question is for her rather than for the Minister. Are we looking to protect the environmental standards that we have in this country, as opposed to the standards that they do not have in their countries at the moment? For example, is it acceptable to pull down rainforests to grow soya or other products, or should that be something which we have in mind ourselves as a detrimental step? So many aspects of the debate we are having tonight are hugely important, but I am not quite sure whether the noble Baroness’s amendment is seeking to protect UK standards as they are at the moment or whether she is thinking about international trading standards as well. There is a great difference between the two.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Byford]

I thank the noble Baroness; I assumed that she would mean exactly that. However, it poses some questions to me on her amendment, which I slightly struggle with. On food safety and food health, we have clearly set out standards in this country as to what is and is not applicable, and I cannot see that changing.

I agree with my noble friend Lady McIntosh entirely. The Bill as it currently is deals with the trade as we know it today, and refers to trade being able to carry on tomorrow, after Brexit. It does not—unless I have not read it through carefully enough—look further into the future. It would be a great shame if at some stage we do not have a discussion about that. There needs to be something in the Bill, somewhere—I cannot decide whether this is the right moment and the right time, or whether we should come back to it. The very nature of agriculture and farming is that it is a very long-term project; you do not come in and out of it quickly. You invest a lot of money in the future, we now have much more technology and things have changed enormously. There needs to be a certain degree of certainty, which I have not read in the Bill as it is.

Is there any chance that the Minister in her response could reflect the strong commitment that Michael Gove has certainly given to our sector and to the country in general to maintaining those standards? We look forward to having the Agriculture Bill, which, as we know, is still stuck in the Commons. It has achieved its Second Reading and Committee, and is parked there—it has gone no further forward. We look forward to seeing that. We do not have a chance to debate that, but trade is hugely important in this Bill. We need something in the Bill which gives a certain degree of confidence to people involved in the food industry; I do not think that I need to tell any noble Lords that the food industry is worth over £112 billion and employs over 3 million people. You are not talking about peanuts. This is a huge industry, and many people in it—I refer to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe—are in small and medium-sized businesses. You are not talking about big businesses, although there are some, but about a lot of people who have a small interest in trying to produce food and supply the needs of our country and, more importantly—

[Lord Judd]

The noble Baroness is putting forward a powerful argument about the interests and well-being of the people in the industries, and of course that matters. But would she agree that what really matters is the health of the British people?

[Baroness Byford]

I hope that I relayed that in what I said earlier. It is hugely important. We are very lucky in this country to have food of an extremely high quality. I say “Best of British” over and over again; as a producer I would, but I believe in it.

However, I also look to the future, when we can export more of our high-quality food as well. Clearly, I am looking to the Minister to give some sort of directional steer to us, because at the moment we are slightly in unknown circumstances. We know what the Bill is trying to do, but we do not know what will happen in the future, nor do we know when we will be able to look at the Agriculture Bill, in which the two overlap. However, I am grateful for all the amendments that have been put down, because they have given us a chance to look at where we are, to look ahead and to raise quite a few important international questions on the whole question of welfare, the way we produce and the environment.

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Baroness Byford

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I very strongly support Amendment 17. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for putting it forward. It is constructive, public-spirited, responsible and sensible—just like the old Bradshaw’s timetables.

There is one caveat I want to make. There is an issue that we all have to face. Those of us who are able to enjoy remote and attractive areas must remember that there are very many people for whom this is not a practical possibility because of their physical condition. We all need to get our minds round the issue of how we can improve access for such people so that they are able to share in something that we all regard as precious. Of course, that has to be done by consultation and, if necessary, appropriate legislation and regulations, but it should be done in a sensible way, with the full co-operation and backing of the authorities that are responsible for a particular piece of land.

Having said that, the noble Lord put it in very moderate language but what he revealed is actually a nightmare. At times it can be described only as vandalism—if it were to happen in an urban area, there would be an outcry—despoiling and ruining decent, attractive countryside and making a hell for some people who are trying to enjoy that countryside in a quiet and peaceful way. In fact it can be quite a frightening experience for those who may be able—I count myself among those now—to just about make those areas, but who may have certain disabilities and so on which make them feel vulnerable. That is not least the case for those with loss of hearing, for whom the sudden noise and disturbance of these vehicles can be an unpleasant experience.

The issue is mainly about what is being done to places of special significance, scenically and in other ways. It is also about this “couldn’t care less” attitude—that it is left to somebody else to deal with and clear up, which is utterly selfish as well as being vandalism. We should all recognise that, and wish godspeed to the noble Lord’s amendment, because it is vital. I should of course declare an interest as patron and former president of Friends of the Lake District, and as vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks, but I assure you that the remarks I have made this evening come from the heart in terms of being a resident of one of the areas that has quite a number of beautiful things that can so easily be ruined and destroyed.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I will add a few words on this amendment, because it is at the very heart of enjoyment of the countryside, and the contributions we have heard from around the Chamber tonight rather reflect the challenges that we place on our countryside. From the perspective of disability access, which my noble friend mentioned, it is hugely important that people who are not able to walk freely, or cannot get around in the way they used to be able to, have access to the countryside. But due to the sort of damage to the green lanes that my noble friend Lord Bradshaw was talking about, they would not be able to get through those anyway. In many cases the countryside is being ruined as the green lanes have become bogs, and the people that do it have very little regard for the enjoyment and pleasure of anybody else.

There are also landowners who are quite willing to open up areas of their own land and make it available to those who wish to follow the sport of 4x4s, who get a thrill from that sort of activity where it is well organised. But it is the result of the devastation that is caused to some of our most beautiful areas that we are trying to address within this amendment. I had not looked to speak in this debate, but I am moved to do so because if we are going to have another working group looking at it, there are clear aspects that need to be taken into account. It is not just a question of saying to people who enjoy the sport of 4x4s, “You can’t do it”, but that they can and that there should be areas in which they can do it; nor saying to people who are disabled who need to have motorised access to the countryside, “You can’t get through because we are going to ban everything”. There is a balance to be found in the way that this is looked at.

I do not know what the Minister’s response will be to this amendment, but I hope that he is able to give some words of encouragement to the setting up of the working group and that it specifically looks at separate issues, because it is all too easy to say, “That will cover the whole”, when it clearly will not. I will again listen with interest to what the Minister has to say on this, but I hope we clearly recognise the needs of those who would like to access countryside but cannot, and those who would like to use 4x4s in a particular manner.

One further thing to add to this debate is the whole question of the countryside and of our wildlife. Not too much takes place on that; I suspect that these issues have been driven aside. Another aside to add is that those of us involved in stewardship and single farm payments know very well where we have got the six-metre strips or whatever it might be. One is very careful as to what motorised vehicle goes over that at all because of the damage to the wildlife and its sustainability. I am delighted that this amendment has been raised, and I look with interest to the response we get from the Minister.