Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate the concerns that farmers have. I think they should look accurately at the figures. My noble friend makes an important point that some large landowners have been using the APR relief as a tax loophole.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the DUP Benches now.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the average holding in Northern Ireland extends to about 101 acres? In England, it is about 200 acres. Agricultural land at present makes between £12,000 and £22,000 per acre. Then take the farm dwelling sum, between £300,000 and £500,000. If you add those figures up, you get far in excess of £1 million. How can the Minister tell us that some 50%, or maybe 60%—I read somewhere it was 70%—would be caught in this valuation? Surely the farmers, particularly in Northern Ireland, are getting a very poor deal—it must be clearly understood. In England, there are many tenanted farmers; that is to a much lesser extent in Northern Ireland. Many of these farm holdings have been handed down from one generation to another, and that has to be taken into consideration.

Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme) Regulations 2023

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

You cannot expect unionists to operate a regime that ruptures the union. We are told to expect the Government’s response in the coming days, and we are told to expect legislation. Such legislation must rectify the current arrangements in all dimensions. It must be effectual and instigate real change. It must not merely be declaratory or simply address problems in areas that do not go to the core of our current difficulties with trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, nor our subservient position under foreign jurisdiction. It must restore our constitutional and economic rights as equal citizens of the United Kingdom. The Government know what they need to do. If they seriously believe in devolution, if they seriously believe in the agreements that they have entered into previously, and if they seriously value the union, as we told they do, then they will legislate for the necessary change—real, effectual change. It is really up to the Government as to what happens next.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I first congratulate my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn, who has set the whole thing out very succinctly, and I hope that the Minister has been listening. When these regulations were published, we immediately saw that they were of huge political importance, not least because they give effect to EU Regulation 2023/1231, which seeks to govern what happens within the United Kingdom— the movement of goods within a country that is not a member state. Specifically, the regulations govern what happens to goods leaving one part of the United Kingdom, namely Great Britain, and entering another part of the United Kingdom, namely Northern Ireland, with the purpose of giving effect to an international customs and SPS border, splitting our country in two. This statute is without precedent, as far as I am aware, anywhere in the world and constitutes the ultimate humiliation of the United Kingdom. It not only blatantly disrespects the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and the essential state functions of the United Kingdom, but it also actively seeks to undermine them.

The EU regulation does not remove any sense of border in the Irish Sea, which is what we were told by the Prime Minister would be secured by Windsor. Rather, it affirms the presence of the border and offers two different border experiences. The removal of the border is not contemplated at any point. Both border experiences are the same in the sense that they both require those wishing to trade to have an export number, to fill in customs and SPS documents and to be subject to 100% documentary checks and at least 5% to 10% identity checks and some physical checks at border control posts. The real presenting distinction is not between one border experience and the other, but rather between these border experiences compared with movements within an internal market, as in GB, France, Japan, Australia et cetera, which, by definition, involves no customs or SPS fettering and thus no border experience at all.

The retail movement and plant health regulations both provide a means of accessing one of the border experiences provided by EU Regulation 2023/1231, which is less disruptive than the default border experience which the EU reserves the right to impose through Article 14. We pointed out in our submission that, contrary to government statements that the Windsor Framework provided unfettered access to and from Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom internal market, these regulations affirm an arrangement that actually accepts an ongoing border in the Irish Sea and the fact that Northern Ireland has not been reconnected with the UK internal market.

Our submission to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was published by the committee in full and the Government issued a response, which was also published by the committee. I would like to look at the Government’s response. The first thing to say is that they do not actually disagree with our analysis, although they seek to give the term “internal market” a new meaning. On EU Regulation 1231/2023, they state:

“This regulation sets out specific rules relating to the entry into NI from other parts of the United Kingdom of certain consignments of retail goods, plants for planting, seed potatoes, machinery and certain vehicles operated for agricultural or forestry purposes, as well as non-commercial movements of certain pet animals into NI”.


There you have it: the Government accept a border, in that the EU makes rules for Northern Ireland that do not apply to GB, such that a border must rest between them, where one set of rules ends and another set of rules starts.

The Government then say:

“The SPS Regulation also disapplies more than 60 provisions of EU law in respect of retail agri-food goods moving into NI under the Scheme, with UK standards to apply in their place, ensuring that the same products available on the shelves in Great Britain can be sold in Northern Ireland”.


That applies to those who access the alternative, less disruptive border arrangement, but critically the Government do not claim that all EU legal requirements, and thus the border, are removed. EU rules continue to apply, and thus the border continues to apply.

The Government then say:

“The Windsor Framework achieves a longstanding UK Government objective to provide for an effective set of trading arrangements for goods remaining within the United Kingdom, as part of supporting the UK internal market. Through its arrangements, it supports the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market, freeing movements of unnecessary paperwork, checks and complex certification requirements. Instead, the Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme will enable consignments to move using a single remotely approved digital certificate, rather than individual certification at product level with inspections required for each certificate under the original Northern Ireland Protocol”.


Again, while this sounds positive, it does not actually call into question anything that we have said, beyond its misapplication of the term “internal market”.

Yes, the regulations before us today seek to access the alternative and less disruptive border experience that will make trade smoother than will be the case for goods being traded in the so-called red lane, but they still involve our looking at goods moving across a customs and SPS border and not the removal of the border and reintegration of Northern Ireland in the UK internal market. In that sense, while the Government talk about promoting “the smooth flow” of goods within the internal market, they are deploying the term “internal market” in a way that destroys the concept of an internal market.

Terms have meanings, and any attempt to drag an established term with an established meaning into a new context in the hope that the general public will not realise that what we are actually looking at no longer is an internal market in any credible sense but something entirely different must be rejected. An internal market is a market that involves the free movement of goods without the fettering of a customs or SPS border with border control posts. These regulations are not part of an attempt to promote smooth trade within the UK internal market; they are about trying to promote smoother trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland now that they are no longer part of the same internal market for goods. We can pretend that the UK internal market for goods still exists, but it does not. It urgently needs to be recreated, with the restoration of Article 6 of the Act of Union.

Our point to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and to this House is that these regulations are of immense political and constitutional importance, because they affirm the splitting of our country into two, and the Government’s response does not question that. Once one allows for the verbal gymnastics involved in the Government’s redesignation of the term “internal market”, and looks past this terminological sleight of hand to the reality that they actually describe, it is plain that all that is on offer is an alternative border experience that makes the border less economically disruptive than would otherwise be the case.



We made a number of points that the Government did not respond to, presumably because they were not in a position to contradict us. First, we pointed out that at the heart of EU Regulation 1231/2023 is Article 14, in which the EU asserts the right to withdraw the alternative border experience, leaving us with just the most disruptive border experience. Moreover, in understanding this we must remember that it has never offered an alternative border experience for all goods, such that they already insist that a significant proportion of products is already subject to the most disruptive border experience.

In this regard two points must be understood. At the moment, the EU is in no position to use its Article 14 rights, because the border control posts that effectively divide the country into two will not be completed until the end of 2025—my noble friend Lord Dodds has already made reference to that. Moreover, it is also really important to understand that, although the red lane is currently supposedly being operated, there is very limited capacity to enforce it because the border control posts are not properly in place. It is currently the worst kept secret that border enforcement has had to be suspended in relation to triangular trade.

In seeking to assess the disruptive implications of the border at the moment, we also need to call out Regulation 11 in the retail movement scheme regulations. Regulation 11 is an extraordinary provision. It asks officials to conduct a risk assessment, prior to conducting checks at the border, that in addition to asking questions about risk also asks questions that, far from being concerned with avoiding risk, provide grounds for ignoring it. Specifically, in making a judgment about whether there is a risk, the regulations ask officials to ask whether they have the capacity to conduct checks to confirm their suspicions. The plain implication is that, even if officials believe that there is a risk, they can ignore it if they do not have capacity to deal with it. This has presumably been inserted to give people the impression that, from 1 October, the Windsor Framework is far less disruptive than is actually the case, something the Government plans that we should not experience until July 2025—it will be too late then —when the border control posts are completed. I suspect that they then intend to move an SI amending Regulation 11, which I am sure will greatly relieve the EU.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

Given what my noble friends Lord Morrow and Lord Dodds have said about the lack of border posts—it will be two years down the line before they are actually put in place—and what my noble friend Lord Morrow said about the lack of capacity for any level of enforcement at the moment, does it not therefore beggar belief that a government Minister said this week that we now have a smooth flow of goods, and that that is the yardstick against which this is based, two years away from any implementation?

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Weir for making that point. I think the Government are now on a mission to try to convince not only themselves but the watching public that all is well. Let me state quite categorically in your Lordships’ House today that all is not well, and it is not going to get better until the Government grasp the situation. We can turn our heads and look the other way, and let on that we do not see or understand, but one day we will understand and, by then, a lot of damage will unfortunately have been done.

Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Grand Committee

I hope I have reassured your Lordships of the purposes and aims of this statutory instrument as a critical part of the Windsor Framework. I hope noble Lords agree that this is a positive step forward for businesses and consumers. I beg to move.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, the ostensible purpose of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 is to make provision for the enforcement of GB standards rather than EU ones in Northern Ireland with respect to public health, marketing and organic products. That sounds like a step forward in efforts to repatriate powers from the EU to the UK. For reasons that I hope to demonstrate, however, quite the opposite is the case.

These regulations can be understood only if read in tandem with the Windsor Framework (Plant Health) Regulations 2023 and the Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Public Health, Marketing and Organic Product Standards and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations, to which they make repeated reference and which were also laid before Parliament the week before last. Furthermore, none of these regulations can be understood apart from Regulation (EU) 2023/1231 of the European Union—otherwise known as the “SPS regulation”—which was passed on 14 June this year and without which none of them make sense. That regulation is the sun around which the regulations we are considering today, and their fellow regulations, orbit, such that it is not possible to scrutinise and understand the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 without also understanding Regulation (EU) 2023/1231.

Before I comment further on the said EU regulation for the purpose of understanding the regulations before us today, I will first set out its centrality to these enforcement regulations. Regulation 3(2) of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 states that, in the regulations, reference to “the SPS Regulation” is a reference to EU Regulation 2023/1231. Meanwhile, Regulation 9(1)(b) of these enforcement regulations defines where the enforcement provisions fall, which is subject to

“Article 1(2) and Annex I to the SPS Regulation”.

Moreover, the regulations reference

“Northern Ireland plant health label”

42 times, defining the term on a basis that again takes us in two steps to Regulation (EU) 2023/1231. Regulation 3(2) of these regulations states that

“‘Northern Ireland plant health label’ has the meaning given in regulation 2 of the Windsor Framework (Plant Health) Regulations 2023”.

Regulation 2 of the Windsor Framework (Plant Health) Regulations 2023 defines “Northern Ireland plant health label” in turn by Regulation (EU) 2023/1231, stating that

“‘Northern Ireland plant health label’ has the meaning given to ‘plant health label’ in Article 2(22) of the SPS Regulation”.

Thus, central to the task of scrutinising and understanding the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 before us today is understanding the SPS regulation, namely Regulation (EU) 2023/1231.

Anyone who has believed government claims to have “got Brexit done” and “taken back control” will be rudely awoken from that particular fantasy by the experience of reading Regulation (EU) 2023/1231. Unlike those EU regulations that apply to Northern Ireland because they apply to the EU as a whole and thus to Northern Ireland, this regulation, which was passed in June, is curious because it applies narrowly and specifically to the Government of the United Kingdom and not to any other part of the EU—even though the legislation was supposedly made some years after Brexit for the UK by the EU legislature, now without any UK representation. Formally, it is designated as this:

“Regulation (EU) 2023/1231 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2023 on specific rules relating to the entry into Northern Ireland from other parts of the United Kingdom of certain consignments of retail goods, plants for planting, seed potatoes, machinery and certain vehicles operated for agricultural or forestry purposes, as well as non-commercial movements of certain pet animals into Northern Ireland”.


Although it is often said that the protocol/Windsor Framework has made Northern Ireland a vassal state of the EU, this legislation demonstrates that, in touching what people can do in the rest of the UK, there is a clear sense in which the vassal status to which we have been submitted impacts not only Northern Ireland but the whole United Kingdom.

EU regulation 2023/1231 makes provision for some goods to be subject to less exacting SPS border requirements than would otherwise obtain if traders submit to certain restrictions, which it is the purpose of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 to enable compliant traders to access.

Specifically, if those in the wider UK bringing goods to Northern Ireland are moving SPS retail goods to a confirmed Northern Ireland consumer with an address in Northern Ireland, and if those goods bear “Not for EU” labels—which are being phased in across a number of stages—and are subject to 10% to 5% identity checks at border control posts, and if the retailers in question have applied to join the trusted trader scheme and successfully obtained and kept trusted trader status, then, and only then, will they benefit from a simplified single SPS certificate.

The implications flowing from this are far reaching. First, contrary to the protestations of the Government, this is not unfettered access, which is the term used for free movement within a single market that, by definition, encounters neither a customs nor an SPS border, nor border control posts. So the first thing we must be clear about is that the alternative border arrangements that the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 help effect do not remove, in the words of the Prime Minister,

“any sense of border in the Irish Sea”.

What they do is facilitate an alternative border experience in which the regulations before us today play an enforcement role, but it is still a border experience—a border whose function is to uphold the integrity of the separate legal regime that now exists in Northern Ireland, which is the result of our disfranchisement. That is an important point that must never be forgotten. The border is not just a dreadful inconvenience with far-reaching negative economic consequences but the symbol of our disfranchisement and humiliation.

Indeed, the EU has not only gone to great lengths to impose its disfranchisement policy on us but, with the connivance of our own Government—who are supposed to protect and defend us through the “all for one, one for all” covenant that makes any body politic possible—rubbed salt in the wound by having the gall to suggest that, rather than being the source of acute embarrassment, the product of our disfranchisement, which is the different legal regime to which we are subjected, should be dignified such that it is deemed worthy of protection through the provision of a border, cutting our country in two, and upheld through the provision of border control posts.

Secondly, the alternative arrangements that it is the purpose of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 to enforce are not transferred to us that we can hold and claim them for ourselves. They are offered by the EU only subject to certain EU regulations that it polices and enforces. In this regard, the most important article of EU regulation 2023/1231, without which one cannot understand the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023, is article 14.

Article 14 defines where the power lies and where the buck really stops. In article 14(5), the EU reserves the right to remove the alternative arrangements and press for its full pound of flesh against the full international border that ultimately remains as in place under Windsor as under the protocol, at which point the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 will become irrelevant. It states:

“If the United Kingdom fails to comply with the conditions laid down in paragraph 1, point (c), or in paragraph 2, point (a) or (b), of this Article, the Commission shall adopt a delegated act in accordance with Article 17 to supplement this Regulation by suspending the application of Articles 4, 5, 6 and 9 to 12”.


In those 57 words, the true sovereignty implications of the Windsor Framework and the Windsor border are exposed and laid bare.

Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I find it rather odd that no one has responded to the opening point from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, about the propriety of transferring these powers from elected legislatures to Ministers. I say I find it odd because I have sat here, as have a number of your Lordships, night after night, during the passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and the retained EU law Bill, listening to Peer after Peer from the Opposition Benches howling about Henry VIII powers and the absolute constitutional monstrosity of transferring powers from Parliament to unelected Ministers. Great, I thought, joy shall be in heaven more over one sinner that repenteth than over 99 just men that have no need for repentance—how wonderful that there is now this great interest in parliamentary sovereignty. You might almost say that Brexit is already working, and that people who had previously shown no great concern for the supremacy of our legislature now care about it very much. I think I may have been premature in saying that.

Here we have exactly such an example—you may say that it is dubious constitutional propriety but you cannot say that this one is okay and all the others were wrong—and yet I look on empty Opposition Benches and hear not a single voice raised to complain about executive overreach. Perhaps we have a little bit further to go before we can say that it has worked.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I thought by now that this House would be acutely aware of how Northern Ireland is governed, but obviously it is not. We have heard comments here tonight that allude to majoritarianism. Northern Ireland is not governed that way, nor has it been. As a matter of fact, from the time I came of voting age Northern Ireland has not been governed that way.

Sinn Féin pulled down the Northern Ireland Assembly for a period of three years. I have been in this House since 2006—I know I do not look that age but I am—and I have never ever heard a single word from the Benches opposite in condemnation of what Sinn Féin had done.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

That is not true.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

Hold on; I did not hear it —and I certainly did not hear it from the Liberal Benches.

We need to get this into our heads. What will happen if you leave one large section of the community behind, as has been advocated here tonight and was advocated from the same Benches in an earlier debate when it was said that if we do not get on with it, Dublin is waiting and will take you over—another threat? It is time that this House, and in particular the Opposition Benches, acted like adults. Do your Lordships not read any history at all? Do you not understand that we had 3,500 people slaughtered on our streets? Does it not dawn upon your souls that we do not need or want to go back to that? Please: we do not govern by majority.

There is this idea of introducing a new voting system and leaving unionists behind—they are naughty boys and girls over there, so we will leave them behind. What happens when it turns round the other way? The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, is a very intelligent man, but he needs to start looking at reality. When you leave one community behind in Northern Ireland, it is a recipe for disaster. It will not work. Just because Sinn Féin has got a few extra seats and the unionists—who we represent the majority of—have not, people think that this is the time to move on. That is a recipe for disaster. Anyone who pushes down that road will live to regret it, and will see that it just does not work, even though it is the other way round. I hope the noble Lord takes cognisance of that.

Many pieces of secondary legislation are introduced without so much as a murmur from the public. It is striking that these proposals resulted in 18 submissions being made to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which published them. Together they amounted to a 48-page document. I am sure that all Members opposite and elsewhere have read them. Most of these submissions are from hauliers, expressing deep-seated concerns about the building of border control posts to service a border within the United Kingdom—a point adequately made by the previous speaker.

A number of submissions from beyond the hauliers made the important point that the purpose of these border control posts was to uphold the integrity of the different legal regime that pertains to Northern Ireland. This is because we are now subject to laws in some 300 areas which are different from those pertaining to the rest of the United Kingdom. I have never heard the Lib Dems refer to that, but maybe I missed it too. Moreover, these laws are the result not of devolution, but of an imposition on us by a polity of which we are not part and on which we have absolutely no representation. These border control posts therefore constitute the border of our disfranchisement; we have been disfranchised. I hope that Members will take note. It is their purpose to protect and uphold the legal consequences of our disfranchisement.

It is quite extraordinary that we should be considering such provisions today, less than two months from the anniversary of the signing of the Belfast agreement, which has now been in existence for almost 25 years. It has had its hiccups and its difficult days, but what novel agreement does not? In signing that agreement, the state parties—the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland—committed themselves to upholding the rights of the people of Northern Ireland to pursue their democratic, national and political aspirations at the level at which those rights were enjoyed at that time. In 1998, the people of Northern Ireland could stand for election to make all the laws to which they were subject, or they could vote for fellow citizens to represent them. Those rights were upheld until 1 January 2021, when the state parties turned their back on that obligation, approving a dramatic erosion of our democratic rights. Today, the law shouts out that the people of England, Wales and Scotland are worthy of the right to make all the laws to which they are subject, just as it shouts out that the people of Northern Ireland are worthy of the right to make only some of the laws to which they are subject. It is the job of these regulations to hold the integrity of the legal regime resulting from our humiliation.

In the last couple of days, we have heard about the Stormont brake which, it is suggested, will fix the democratic deficit. Doubts have already been expressed about whether it will ever be possible to use the brake, or even to find it. This all misses the point. Citizenship of the United Kingdom is about citizenship of a parliamentary democracy wherein we can stand for election and make all the laws to which we are subject, or can elect fellow citizens to undertake this task for us. If we have concern about a Bill, we can contact our legislator and ask for a meeting. They can represent our concern in Parliament in the making of the law, by tabling amendments and making the case for the rest of the Parliament to change what they believe is necessary.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con) [V]]

These amendments collectively require us to impose our own standards on others. That is a perfectly legitimate objective, but none of this Bill is about lowering standards; that is a fiction. What we are confronted with here is a raft of amendments that will throw our food security into doubt by making trade negotiations far more difficult. We need new trade deals; we want new trade deals—not any deals but fair, equitable deals. But why would any trading partner agree to sign trade deals with us that imposed our standards on them without any chance of negotiation or discussion?

Of course, we care about animal welfare and plant welfare and the environment. These are hugely important causes. We also care very much about the future prosperity of our farms. But will these amendments guarantee all these things? Of course not. The provisions of any Bill have to be more than a collection of good intentions; they have to be practicable. We could get all sorts of certification put in place and paperwork about standards signed, but paperwork itself and on its own is not the answer. We cannot root out sweatshops in the centre of Leicester so how can we realistically promise to set standards in chicken coops on the outskirts of Hanoi?

There is a balance to be struck between the operation of the market and the support of sensible regulation. We have a tremendous interest in the production standards of our trading partners, but are we, for instance, going to refuse to buy foodstuffs from desperately poor third- world countries, those most in need, because they find it impossible to meet all our standards of production or environmental requirements even though they satisfy all our food safety and hygiene requirements? That would seem an extraordinary unintended consequence.

Maintaining and improving production standards in many of our trading partners is a process of evolution, wholeheartedly embraced and backed by well-informed consumers in this country. I think the questions from my noble friend Lord Caithness about sensible labelling were very well put. Better-informed consumers will do much more to raise standards in the long term than the undeliverable demands of these amendments. Nothing in the Bill requires us to buy or to eat anything we do not want, and if my noble friend Lord Lilley had not made his excellent speech, I would have been happy to do it for him.

The Bill is not an attempt to lower standards, to force cheap and dodgy food down the throats of unsuspecting consumers, and least of all to sell out to cruel foreigners. These amendments, as high-minded as they sound, will not achieve their stated objectives. What they are likely to do is undermine the market system that has steadily and hugely effectively delivered food of a higher quality, of a wider choice and at a lower price to our consumers over many, many years. These amendments will not even help our own farmers in the long term because their logical conclusion will be to cut off future export opportunities by making trade deals very much more difficult to negotiate; they might even make them impossible. I would suggest that the desire to make a post-EU future difficult or impossible may well be the hidden agenda behind so much of what we have heard.

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, to acknowledge the tolerance, patience and courtesy that the Minister has shown throughout this debate. It has been long and, I suspect, quite tiresome for him at times, but it is appreciated. I speak in general support of Amendments 270 and 271, which call for the establishment of an international-UK food trade and farming standards commission. I say at the outset that I think it is regrettable that the Prime Minister agreed to the calamitous Northern Ireland protocol which will disadvantage and have a negative effect on the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland and on trading in general. It is most unfortunate and will require close scrutiny in the days ahead.

The strengthening of the Bill is essential so that the frequency of reporting on food security is increased to an annual requirement. The establishment of a food and farming standards commission would go some distance towards achieving that. I cannot overemphasise the importance of the agricultural industry to Northern Ireland. It sustains some 100,000 jobs, with a value of approximately £1.5 billion to the local economy. The Government’s commitment to retain the same level of support to farmers until the end of the Parliament is to be welcomed but we all have a duty to look beyond this. A long-term strategy is vital. Any future trade deals must ensure that agricultural imports meet our environmental, animal welfare and food standards. The Government need to clearly define how they intend to achieve this. The Bill will shape our agricultural industry for years to come and must ensure that food imported into the UK is produced to standards that are at least equivalent to those required of producers in the UK. I trust the Government will see the merits of a trade and standards commission, which will add transparency.

I have little doubt that many in your Lordships’ House are in receipt of representation from across the UK urging support for the inclusion in the Bill of vital safeguards for food safety, environmental protection, and the welfare of animals. It cannot be ignored; public interest in this issue is immense. The UK is less than 60% self-sufficient in food. We have learned something from the current pandemic, not least how vulnerable our ability to import food is and how the food chain can be severely strained and tested if we are too reliant on imported goods. Protecting local food production is therefore vital.

I trust the Government will recognise the importance of standing with our agriculture industry at this time. We must not miss the opportunity to ensure that the Bill secures vital safeguards for the high standards of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection that are so highly valued by all the people of the United Kingdom. This has been a very interesting debate right from day one and I look forward to Report.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we have heard many arguments put forward in this debate. I can say only that the fears that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, has expressed are slightly greater than those in Scotland, but there are fears there, nonetheless. I declare an interest as a livestock producer in Scotland, with a particular involvement in sheep. Like the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and many other Peers, my conviction is that this group of amendments deals with the most vital element of the Bill. In particular, I support the noble Lord’s Amendment 279, and in the same spirit I support Amendment 270 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh.

My noble friend the Minister will be very aware that Scotland has particularly strong feelings on market standards. There are good reasons for this. Scottish land and business, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, told us, have laid down their concerns. Some 80% of Scottish land was classified under the common agricultural policy as areas of natural constraint. Noble Lords will know that these areas are where there is limited or no cropping capability and livestock is the main product keeping some form of resident economic activity on the ground. Agriculture might produce only 1% of Scottish GDP, but that same ground is the background for the Scottish tourism industry, which constitutes a large part of the service sector. Overall, that sector contributes 75% of the Scottish economy. Tourism is a major component of it.

Another vital component for Scots is the nature and quality of our food and drink. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, drew to your Lordships’ attention, this agricultural sector is also highly reliant on exports. These exports are built on the same high-quality production. In particular, the trade of sheep with France has been the benchmark for prices of sheep production for the past 40 years in this country, so the introduction of any tariffs or deviation from our present common production standards carries an immense risk to that trade.

As we have heard, the Government have today launched the Trade and Agriculture Commission to address our concerns. This appears to have aroused considerable interest from the various devolved authorities and trade bodies, which have been asked to join in the setting up of such a body. I think we can all welcome that. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, was very clear in pointing out the shortcomings of the current proposals when he spoke to his amendment. Perhaps the Minister will correct me, but I think the Government will be unlikely to give us much of an idea of the effect the body will finally exercise in time for anything meaningful to be included in the Bill, hence the need for your Lordships to propose what are likely to be workable criteria and make it plain to the Government what we would find acceptable.

As my noble friend Lady McIntosh explained, her Amendment 270 proposes a body not unlike what the Government have initiated, but which also points to the main areas that must be addressed. One of its features is that it would not try to limit the negotiating power of government, but, from having heard my noble friend, I like to think that she will watch to see whether the Government will introduce some of the stipulations she mentioned in the next stage of the Bill. If she does not find them there, I hope she will table them in the form of amendments on Report.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. I sympathise with the sentiment behind Amendment 280, but I feel it will report only after the main event. Amendment 279 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, also looks for a supervisory body, but does not demand the same powers envisaged in some of the other amendments. It goes into considerable detail, which is critical for the industry. If the noble Lord’s proposal was followed, it would mean that the Government would have the issues presented in a public forum in which they would have to justify their proposed outcomes. It gives much more detail than the current proposals. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that we will have to see what shape things take as Report comes along, but I hope there will be something to give us a greater sense of security.