Imported Beef

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. That is of great assistance to the Government and regulators, as well as to retailers which want to make a virtue of the kinds of products they put on sale. It is also of great help to the consumer for them to make the right choices about the products that they wish to buy.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, not for the first time, I feel sorry for the Minister having to come to the House because I am convinced that, privately, his department must have approached our Trade Ministers saying that this is a bad deal. It is always possible for Defra Ministers to alienate some of their clientele but, today, they alienate farmers, environmentalists, animal welfare people and a big chunk of consumers, all at the same time, for the sake of paltry deals that will have a minimal effect on our standard of living. It seems like a humiliation to me. I hope that, if other deals come up, Defra will be stronger in making its views known.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am always grateful for the noble Lord’s sympathy, but it is unnecessary in these circumstances. We work closely across government; there has been a slightly changed landscape in government, with big new departments appearing. What is really important is that current trade deals, and future ones as they come in, have proper parliamentary scrutiny—there is a process for that—and reflect the high environmental and animal welfare standards that we have achieved in this country, which we want to see continue.

Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

The third salient point is that the benefits of doing so would be very rapid indeed. The CMO’s report suggests that 30% of the reduction in mortality from reducing air pollution occurs in the first year, and 50% in years two to five. Let us think about that. A reduction of between 30% and 50% of up to 38,000 deaths a year would be an extraordinary gain for the people of this country. However, because, unlike the smog in the 1950s, we are dealing with something that is essentially invisible, at the proposed rate of knots primary school playgrounds, GP surgeries, shops and high streets will continue to have killer levels of pollution that will go unattended for years to come. Surely the Government should think again.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have long taken an interest in this subject. When I came into this Chamber I did not intend to speak, but I was utterly shocked by the way the Minister—who in many respects I have some respect for—dismissed the case for a much more ambitious target. My noble friend has set out in great detail how that could be achieved, and why it should be achieved.

I was, until recently, the president of Environmental Protection UK, whose origins were in the National Society for Clean Air, which proposed the Clean Air Act in the 1950s. It was the Minister’s predecessors, in the Conservative Government of Anthony Eden—which does not have a high historic record—who adopted the Clean Air Act when they were told by people, like those who have got at the Minister, “You’re going to try and change people’s habits and they’re not going to stop burning coal”—but they did. I speak as a child bought up in London with asthma in the 1950s. Those five years, in which they cleaned up London, probably mean I am still alive and here in your Lordships’ House today.

It was incredibly dismissive of the Government to condemn those who were advocating tighter regulations. They are based on strong medical evidence; the campaigns that the evidence here dismisses are mainly informed by strong medical evidence that this kills, it deforms and it limits life in all its respects. The Minister needs to take a grip, think again and come back and respond to my noble friend with something better. Otherwise, this Government have something to be seriously ashamed of.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, we all have a growing understanding of the devastating effects of PM2.5 and particulate matter in general on human health, and we welcome efforts to bear down on them. I think I heard the noble Baroness sidestep the question of what an appropriate target was, preferring simply to demand more ambition. Although other noble Lords have made some suggestions, she did not answer my noble friend the Minister’s question of what actions she specifically proposes should be banned or seriously cut back. It is important that the public know what they are.

Future Farming Programme: Small Farms

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to raise this. I speak with some experience, as a regular victim of such crime. Like everyone, I would like to see greater measures brought in. We are working closely with our Home Office colleagues to ensure that proper provision can be brought in to clamp down on this particularly unpleasant crime, and I will keep him informed.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that, while we may broadly support the general direction of agricultural policy, a number of farmers, particularly more elderly ones, do not think that they will be able to cope with the new system and are considering quitting and selling up? In the light of that, rather than allow their land to be bought by big agribusinesses or speculative funds, would it not be sensible for the Government to facilitate counties acquiring that land to establish a new generation of county farms and bring a new generation of farmers into the industry?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The county farm structure is very attractive to me and my fellow Ministers, and there are certainly discussions on trying to expand it. We are also trying to make sure that those who want to exit the industry can do so with dignity and some resource, through the lump sum payment. We are also supporting new entrants: it is absolutely key that we create some mobility in the industry. So a combination of that and a potential increase in county farms is, I think, the right way forward.

Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee Report

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a bit daunting to follow a Bishop and an ex-Archbishop. I wish to congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on the rare achievement of a second maiden speech in this House. I served on the committee too, and I would like to pay tribute to the way the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, conducted the committee and marshalled the views, not only of a heterogeneous committee, but also of a wide range of witnesses. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the staff in producing this report.

Food, from farm to fork, is by far our largest single industry. It has repercussions for difficult areas of public policy on health and diet, the local and global environment, air, water and soil quality, our nature, countryside and biodiversity. It is noticeable that the distribution of the benefits and detriments in the way we deliver food creates severe social inequalities and some serious health dysfunctions. Healthy food is often not affordable, particularly among our poorest communities.

In this report, we have attempted to deal with all aspects, with recommendations that will involve several departments beyond Defra and the Department for International Trade. The same will be true of the report we hope to see shortly from Henry Dimbleby, the second stage of which I hope the Government will treat rather more seriously than their response to this report has yet shown. Our media is unaccountable: for some reason, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, received rather less media attention than Marcus Rashford for his recommendations on school meals and universal credit. The Government did at least respond in part to that.

I wish to focus on a less obvious and more mundane aspect, which is the institutional one. My points relate to the structure of the food system as a whole and the ineffectiveness of the regulatory structure and enforcement we currently have. Our specific recommendations range from more effective local planning controls for retail outlets right through to the creation of an independent body analogous to the Committee on Climate Change. One key proposition is that we should reverse the decision made a decade ago and give the responsibility for nutrition, labelling and reformulation back to the Food Standards Agency.

At present, our regulatory system on food is concentrated on the two ends of the food chain—farmers and their methods, and consumer protection. Underlying the totality of the chain is the domination in the middle of it by major, often multinational, corporate players who largely escape criticism. The regulation on farmers is arguably about to become more complex through the new subsidy system replacing the CAP, which most of us support. The operation of public goods will be extremely complex, and the proposed ELMS and related interventions on agriculture to deliver public goods will inevitably involve a very sophisticated form of regulatory intervention. At the consumer end, both the Government and the report propose more sophisticated systems of labelling and consumer protection for safety and nutritional reasons. Again, those will need to be implemented in a way that improves the consumer experience rather than confuses the consumer. Between those two, regulation is and will be much less.

However, this market is hugely dominated by a limited number of large companies in the middle: the big supermarket retailers—obviously; the big processors and manufacturers; the big wholesalers and importers; and the big catering chains and food service companies. Although there is a market distortion in terms of a tendency to both oligopoly and oligopsony, it is in those fields where the decisions of those large companies determine the nature, quality and standards to which food is produced, the availability of it, and the price, and therefore affordability, to the ultimate consumers. Standards formulation and pricing conditions and, of course, advertising—the primary information that goes to consumers and smaller retail outlets—are dominated by the priorities of those companies.

There have been previous interventions. The relationship between the big supermarkets and farmers and other first-line producers were supposed to be regulated, or at least overseen, by the groceries code. To be fair, some of the standards and contract formulations have significantly improved for small producers, but not only has enforcement been extremely light-touch, but the reality is that the groceries code deals with only a small part of the issue and is largely confined to the large supermarkets dealing directly with primary producers, whereas the reality is that virtually the whole of our largest sector, the food chain as a whole, is a markets and competition issue, with wider repercussions for consumer protection and health and environmental impacts.

Given the externalities we have been concerned about in this debate, on the environment and on health, we need to take further steps. To take two examples, advertising expenditure by the large companies in the food chain is 40 times larger on confectionery than it is on fresh food and vegetables. No wonder our consumer diets are so far from ideal. The balance of market power between processors and primary producers means that, for most farmers, there is no profit without subsidy, and the new agricultural regime will not change that. The office of the Groceries Code Adjudicator is inadequate to the task. We need a much more effective body and, although the report does not spell this out in detail, it points inexorably in that direction.

I have a final point. Trade is a vital part of our food chain and imports provide us with key products, but when most assessments of sustainability in our food system emphasise the desirability of shorter supply chains, the Government’s emphasis is to prioritise a trade deal with Australia—one which potentially undermines our environmental and welfare standards and which appears to be concluded without a view from the safeguarding mechanism we all agreed in the process of delivering the Agriculture Act: the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission. If we go down that road, it will not improve the health and diet of our nation, nor will it improve the environment. It may drive out a few livestock producers, but it will provide no solution to the problem that this report identifies.

Pesticides

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I share the noble and right reverend Lord’s concern for pollinators and particularly honeybees. I was pleased that the impact of the field scale studies on neonicotinoids resulted in the ban in 2018. Concern was raised by many at the temporary allowance of one to be used on the sugar beet crop, but it was never actually used because the threshold for use was so high. It is right to use science as the absolute arbiter in this, but also to be fleet of foot. Where we have to increase the number of sprays on the banned list, we will.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that a number of chemicals used as pesticides, even if used in accordance with the instructions, can damage several species, including humans? Does the Minister recall that during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, this House passed an amendment which would have seriously limited pesticide use in the vicinity of residences and public spaces? It was rejected by the House of Commons, partly on the grounds that it would be more suitable for inclusion in the Environment Bill. Can we therefore look forward to the Minister supporting a similar amendment to the Environment Bill, or indeed, promoting one, and if not, why not?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sure there will be a great many amendments to the Environment Bill, and I look forward to debating them with your Lordships. The question of pesticide use close to population is a very important one. It is very clear in the regulations on pesticide use and the codes of practice that spray operators have to abide by that it is a criminal offence to breach those rules. We have a robust system and we need to be constantly looking to see whether it can be improved. There will be plenty of legislative opportunities for Members of this House to raise these issues, not just in the Environment Bill, but in other forthcoming legislation.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions and Simplifications) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, first, I suppose I should apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for not sitting opposite him at this point. I commend those who come in but I have not yet managed it myself.

I want to intervene briefly. I understand the necessity of the regulations, and I supported the general direction of the Agriculture Act towards the public good, but I want to query aspects of the broader transitional strategy on farm support and its differential impact on different forms and sizes of farm.

The one benefit of the much-derided direct land-based payment was that it applied—theoretically, at least—to the whole of farmed land. If the cross-compliance of environmental and agricultural standards had been properly directed and enforced, there would have been a benefit to the whole environment, the agricultural state of the farm and the income of the farmer. Regrettably, that did not happen. It needs to be rectified in this phase. By the end of the transitional period, we need to ensure that, whatever regulations are there, the various schemes and payments are properly explained, understood and enforced.

This is no criticism of Defra—I know that it has put in an enormous amount of work in getting this far—but the pace and sequence of the rundown of direct payments, and the introduction of ELMS and the other payments provided in the Agriculture Act to support land management, must pay heed to two things. The first is the type of farming and the degree of past dependence on direct payments. The second is the appropriate form of ELMS that would suit the land and history of a particular farm.

It is clear from papers published by the Government before the introduction of the then Agriculture Bill that the most dependent on direct payments—in some cases, up to and over 100% of profits—were LFA hill farmers, then lowland livestock, then mixed farms and dairy farms. Plus, it impacted more on tenant farmers, in general, and some part-tenanted farms. It is also likely that it will be those very farmers who will find multiple, piecemeal ELM offers the most difficult to understand and fulfil, and will need the most concerted effort to develop them.

As I said several times during the passage of the Bill, that underlines the need to concentrate on whole-farm schemes for ELMS and other provisions. It is right to decrease direct payments to those who are the most vulnerable in this sense more slowly, but it is also important to develop whole-farm schemes for such farms more quickly and not simply go slowly in that direction—although these regulations do move a little in that direction. There needs to be differentiation and a full understanding of the impact on what are largely small farms, or at least small businesses even if, in geographical terms, they are relatively large farms in the uplands.

My second point on this issue is rather different. I ask the Minister: is it the objective of policy to shift English farming away from livestock towards horticulture and vegetable production? I do so because, like the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, last year I was a member of the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. One of our conclusions—only one—was that UK diets, particularly those of low-income groups and children, need to move more strongly towards fresh fruit and vegetables. Part of providing that would be having more home-produced fresh vegetables and to otherwise subsidise and incentivise more horticulture in this country.

The problem is that, in many instances, the land now used for livestock is often—though not always—unsuitable for horticulture. Is it the Government’s aim to achieve such a shift in production and diet? Is that part of this transitional period? If so, can they achieve that while avoiding a dangerous escalation in the overly heavy use of fertilisers to make less fertile soil more fertile? That goes for pesticides, too, with the concomitant damage to watercourses, air quality, soil, human and animal health, and biodiversity. Should the approach, particularly in upland areas, be to focus on rewilding some of the land rather than shifting production away from raising livestock and towards producing fruit and vegetables? That is a long-term aim but I would like the Government’s comments on it.

Farming: New Entrants

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, we value the role that council farms play in providing opportunities for new entrants. That is why we want to incentivise councils to retain and invest in their farm estates so that they can continue to provide opportunities into the future.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, post-Brexit British agriculture and horticulture require a new generation of farmers and a larger and more highly skilled UK-based workforce. In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about county farms, will the Government urge counties to stop divesting their county tenancies and start investing in new opportunities for those who wish to farm but do not inherit and cannot buy the land? Are they proposing to produce an updated recruitment, skills training and career structure for UK land workers in agriculture and horticulture?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, one of the reasons the Government are reforming post-16 technical education to provide clearer routes into skilled employment in agriculture and other associated sectors is precisely to address the point the noble Lord has made. The other issue, as I will repeat, is that we want councils to retain and invest in their farm estates and for other landowners to take the opportunity of the new entrant scheme that we are developing because we think that this is a positive part of the future in agriculture.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak also to Motions C, C1, F and F1. At this juncture, I should declare my farming interests, as set out in the register.

I start by once again acknowledging the work of your Lordships in the scrutiny of the Bill. These debates have provided a valuable opportunity to clarify the Government’s agenda of reform for agriculture in this country.

Turning to Amendment 1, I agree wholeheartedly with the intent behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The strategic priorities of multi-annual financial assistance plans drawn up under Clause 4 will most definitely consider those objectives and those of future environmental improvement plans.

I turn to Amendment 11, and Amendment 11B proposed in lieu by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in Motion C1. The exacting process of scientific assessment applied to all pesticides specifically addresses the situation of those living near to where pesticides are applied. The Health and Safety Executive is the regulator covering the safety of chemicals, including pesticides. Staff working on pesticide assessments are scientists who specialise either in one part of the risk assessment, such as the fate and behaviour of pesticides in the environment, or in interpreting the specialist findings to reach conclusions on a product’s safety. No pesticide is allowed on to the market unless these scientists are satisfied that it poses no threat to the health of those living near farmland where it might be applied. This assessment process applies to all new pesticides, and the safety of existing pesticides is regularly reviewed.

Some noble Lords are concerned that the Government could face a gap in powers at the end of the transition period. I want to reassure your Lordships that that is not the case. We have the powers needed in this area. Section 16 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 allows the Government to make regulations that prohibit the use of pesticides in certain specified areas. Section 17 of the same Act allows the Government to make codes of practice providing practical guidance on pesticide use. Other powers include Article 6 of Regulation 1107/2009, which allows the designation of areas where the use of plant protection products containing a particular active substance may not be authorised.

A wide range of monitoring activities takes place to ensure compliance with legal requirements, and intelligence- led enforcement action is taken where problems are identified. The Official Controls (Plant Protection Products) Regulations 2020 provide additional powers to enable the responsible bodies to operate proactive controls, targeting enforcement where it is most needed.

I turn to Amendments 17 and 17B, and Motion F1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The Paris Agreement was ratified by the United Kingdom in 2016 as a sign of its continued commitment to climate action and reductions of CO₂ emissions across the world. The Government are bound by it as an international environmental law treaty. The Climate Change Act 2008 set targets in domestic law, which were strengthened to include an obligation for the Government to ensure that the net UK carbon account is 100% lower than the 1990 baseline by 2050.

In previous debates, the Pensions Bill has been given as a precedent for the inclusion of a reference to climate change on the face of a Bill. I looked into this, and the duty is placed on trustees or managers of occupational pension schemes, not the Secretary of State, who is already bound by these obligations. On Thursday 15 October, the Government published their response to the Committee on Climate Change’s Reducing UK Emissions: 2020 Progress Report to Parliament.

Amendment 16B requires the Secretary of State to lay a strategy outlining policies that will be taken towards net zero. I am therefore very pleased to confirm that our response to the Committee on Climate Change includes a new commitment to publish a comprehensive net-zero strategy ahead of COP 26, which will be a wide-reaching and cross-departmental document, making the most of new growth and employment opportunities across the United Kingdom. This will raise ambition as we outline our path to hit our 2050 target. I beg to move.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I oppose the Commons deletion and commend Amendment 11B, which proposes a revised version of what was Clause 38 in the Bill as it left this House.

I thank the Minister for his explanation, and for his courtesy, throughout this discussion and when meeting me yesterday, but I am afraid that he has not yet convinced me. I appreciate that many in this House do not regard this issue as important enough to be dealt with at this late stage in the Bill’s passage, but the Bill will define the future practice of agriculture in this country. We are dealing with agriculture’s relationship with nature, the environment, the food trade and so on, but it also must be about its relationship with those human beings who live and work in our countryside alongside that agriculture. Too many of those rural inhabitants have had health effects from exposure to pesticides, which have been and remain a serious threat to their physical quality of life. They deserve at least the limited and straightforward protection which my amendment provides by requiring the Government to regulate the distance between them and pesticide operations.

There have essentially been only three arguments from the Government against this principle. The first is what the Minister has just said: that the EU authorisation process nowadays ensures that even repeated exposure to the application of legally authorised pesticides cannot lead to serious health effects. I regret to say that medical reports and evidence from rural residents, some of which noble Lords will have seen, suggest substantially otherwise. Noble Lords will also recall the powerful speech on Report by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on the medical issues that residents and others affected by pesticide poisoning have suffered.

I accept that there have been significant changes in EU pesticide authorisation, but they are not sufficient. One of the easiest and most obvious ways to prevent such exposure from causing health effects is to ensure that the exposure to crop spraying is at a prescribed minimum distance from where people are most likely to be: in their own homes, their children’s schools, and so on.

The principle of my original amendment continues to be supported by many in this House, if not all, including my original co-sponsors the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, of the Liberal Democrats, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, of the Conservatives, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb for the Greens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. However, perhaps it was phrased a little loosely. The main objection in the other place by the Defra Minister, Victoria Prentis—she used slightly overstated terms—was that it would close every field to pesticide application. That was never the intention, so we have deleted the wording which gave rise to that objection and taken out what was originally subsection (1)(b). The only open spaces referred to now are those that are part of education or healthcare facilities. That should deal with the substantive objections that were made from the Government Benches in the Commons.

The other objection, repeated by the Minister just now and in the wording of the Commons reasons, is that Ministers already have these powers. I have two comments on this. There is a key word in my amendment —“must”. If Ministers did have these powers, they have not used them. This amendment would require them to produce draft regulations and to submit them to the usual consultations, and then to both Houses. At the last stage, and in correspondence, Ministers argued that they had possessed these powers since the EU directive in 2009 and the transposition of that in 2012. The Minister has just said that they have actually had these powers since the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. There is no specific reference there to distance or to residential property—there is a brief reference to healthcare facilities—but even if Ministers are right, and they do in general terms have the right to prescribe distance, why have they not done so in the eight years since the transposition of the EU regulation, and in particular since that 1985 Act? If they are claiming that they already have those powers, they must explain to the House why they have not used them. If we do not pass my amendment indicating that they must introduce such regulations, we may have to wait another 35 years for rural residents to be protected.

I give notice—I should have done so at the beginning —that, unless I hear something different from the Minister, I intend to press this amendment to a Division at the end of this debate.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 17B, which would create a new clause for a strategy to reduce emissions from agriculture, having regard to our national and international obligations, and requiring an interim strategy for 2030 commensurate with meeting our 2050 net-zero target.

This is a clearer and simpler version of Amendment 100, which we passed by a 49-vote majority on Report. I have since had a further opportunity to reflect on the Minister’s detailed response to my amendment, and I am also grateful for the meetings that he has arranged before today, and the promise of a future meeting. I have also read with interest what the Minister in the other place, Victoria Prentis, had to say about our amendments.

At the heart of our disagreement is whether individual government departments should be required to spell out how they are going to meet their share of the obligation to deliver net zero by 2050. In the debate on the Bill last week, the Commons Minister said:

“If we are to achieve the UK’s net zero target, emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors. Not setting sector-specific targets allows us to meet our climate change commitments in the best and speediest way.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/10/74; col. 74.]


Of course I agree that emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors, but I fail to see how this can be achieved unless you precisely set sector-specific metrics and outcomes. If not, you end up with precisely the criticisms levelled by the Committee on Climate Change, which said that the voluntary approach in agriculture has not worked, and that there is no coherent approach to emissions reductions in agriculture at present. The result, as noble Lords will know, is that our agricultural emissions have stayed static, at about 10% of the total, when we should be playing our part in driving emissions down. Given that the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008—12 years ago—we have quite some catching up to do. This is why our amendment introduces the concept of a strategy to be published for staged progress to be delivered by 2030. Given that we seem to have made little progress in agriculture in the first 12 years, this interim strategy seems all too necessary, otherwise we risk getting close to 2050 and realising it is too late to take deliverable measures to meet our target.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

At end insert “but do propose amendment 11B in lieu—

11B: Insert the following new Clause—
“Application of pesticides: limitations on use to protect human health
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prohibiting the application of pesticides for the purposes of agriculture or horticulture near—
(a) buildings used for human habitation; and
(b) public or private buildings and associated open spaces where members of the public may be present, including but not limited to—
(i) education and childcare nurseries; and
(ii) hospitals and health care facilities.
(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must specify a minimum distance from any of the locations listed under subsection (1)(a) and (b) to be maintained during the application of pesticides.
(3) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.””

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will speak to his amendment and I urge all to support it at the vote. It will plug a gap after next January. Without it, the UK will be left with a hole in its legislative framework which will be extensively exploited by the pesticide industry, to the detriment of human health and the long-term improvement of a biodiverse ecology, which is what the Bill aims to achieve. I beg to move.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 78 and I need to make it absolutely clear that I intend to seek the opinion of the House on it when we reach it. I am very much indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her support and her indication that she will back my amendment. She has made a significant part of my case by identifying the medical impact of exposure to pesticides and the doubts about the authorisation process.

I also thank my co-signatories, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall—demonstrating the cross-party support for this vital but very simple and specific amendment.

I should also thank the Minister for the meeting to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred. It was useful but we did not agree. As the noble Baroness said, it appears that the department’s line is that there is no need for the amendment because, under EU law now transposed and retained in UK law, the Government already have the discretion to come forward with such regulations. Leaving aside the fact that they have not done so over the 11 years since that law was put in place, on closer examination that assertion appears to be only partly true, and from January, as the noble Baroness, explained, it will not be true at all. We therefore need to put such a provision in this legislation.

In this amendment we are addressing the effect of pesticides on human beings—on those who are exposed to doses of chemicals not designed for humans and in many cases, particularly among residents, on those subject to multiple exposures to multiple chemicals. We want to see a regulatory framework imposing minimum distances between the buildings in which people live and which the public frequent, and the spraying operations of pesticides.

Regrettably, we are not talking about unusual events. Most of the harm comes from everyday tractor-based pesticide spraying at certain times of the year. Local residents, schoolchildren, members of the public visiting public buildings, medical facilities and educational buildings, and other bystanders are all vulnerable.

We have rightly spent some time on this Bill talking about protecting wildlife, biodiversity, farm animals, watercourses and soil from harmful effects of agricultural practice. This amendment is a vital but limited step in the right direction to protect human beings—primarily, residents in rural areas—by requiring spraying to be well away from homes, public buildings and places where the public are congregated. In particular, it moves towards protecting those who live, full-time, adjacent to crops that are subject to blanket applications and those who attend public spaces adjacent to such fields. As I have said, this is a very simple amendment. It requires Ministers to come forward with regulations establishing a minimum distance between such applications and the buildings.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has spelled out the terrible damage that can be done to humans by ingesting chemical pesticides directly into the lungs and bloodstream. Regrettably, pesticides—including some still used on UK farms and elsewhere—on their own or in combination, can cause the breakdown of the immune system and can poison the nervous system, and can cause cancer, mutations and birth defects. The noble Baroness has convincingly spelled that out.

Noble Lords will have received materials from campaigners on this issue, including from the redoubtable Georgina Downs, who has dossiers on rural families who have suffered. In Committee, I cited just a couple of those testimonies; I will now share a couple more. Chris from Sawtry said:

“We have farmers spraying near our home and school. The fumes cause headaches, dizziness and burn the throat.”


Victoria from Curry Rivel said:

“I have witnessed crops being sprayed just metres from my Daughter’s rural school and have had signs of chemical scorching on our fruit trees in our garden … Just meters from my Daughter’s sand pit!”


As I said in Committee, manufacturers rightly and responsibly label their pesticides, insecticides and herbicides with warnings, such as “Very toxic by inhalation”, “Do not breathe spray” and “Risk of serious damage to the eyes”. Farmers and farmworkers are advised under health and safety laws, and by manufacturers, to wear protective clothing, and most do so—but residents are not so protected. Guidance to users that they should inform residents, and that the chemical used should be clearly identified, is very frequently ignored and pretty well never enforced. Ministers and others have lauded the UK pesticides regime as one of the best in the world, but it is wrong to say that it, or the EU system, is safe. In particular, they are not protecting those who live close by.

This amendment would have the effect of protecting members of the public from hazardous health impacts near buildings. It is a simple, straightforward amendment requiring the Government to come up with minimum distances from the application of such pesticides. It is best to leave the precise distance for consultation and scientific measurement, but let us today establish the principle. My amendment is a very small but vital part of the journey to protect our rural populations.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and of course the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I support these amendments wholeheartedly. I would like to speak at length about them, but I will keep my remarks quite short so that we have plenty of time for a vote.

It seems strange that in America, Monsanto—or rather the new company, Bayer—is paying out $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims that Roundup causes cancer, yet it still claims that this a perfectly healthy product, does not put warning labels on the product and says that it is safe. It strikes me as very strange that anybody could deny that this amendment is necessary.

The amendment does not do what I would like it to do—that is, ban all pesticides from 9 am this morning—but it protects the more vulnerable people in our country. In particular, it protects children in schools, childcare settings and nurseries, people in hospitals, and people in any building used for human habitation. It seems such a sensible amendment—I do not know why the Government do not see that it is necessary.

I urge all noble Lords to please vote for this and make sure that the Government get the message very clearly.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

78: After Clause 34, insert the following new Clause—
“Application of pesticides: limitations on use to protect human health
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prohibiting the application of any pesticide for the purposes of agriculture or horticulture near—(a) any building used for human habitation;(b) any building or open space used for work or recreation; or (c) any public or private building where members of the public may be present, including but not limited to—(i) schools and childcare nurseries;(ii) hospitals.(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must specify a minimum distance from any of the locations listed under subsection (1)(a) to (c) to be maintained during the application of any pesticide.(3) For the purposes of this section “public building” includes any building used for the purposes of education.(4) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would protect members of the public from hazardous health impacts from the application of chemical pesticides near buildings and spaces used by residents and members of the public.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spelled out, I wish to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing forward his amendments on this issue. I would still prefer the reporting to be annual, but he has made a move towards us, and I will not dispute his suggestion of three years.

My noble friend Lord Dundee made some interesting and useful points about animal feeds and the damage caused when growing them in other countries, particularly in Brazil, as we have seen recently on television in the Attenborough programme. It is a matter of concern.

More generally, I am concerned about getting too detailed about food security. We must remember that a great many British farmers rely on exports, and if we are restrictive on our imports, it is going to be very easy for other countries to be restrictive on our exports. As the situation stands, I fear the EU could be extremely difficult about our lamb and beef exports in the not-too-distant future. That would have a profound effect on farming, and it is something my noble friend will have to be aware of. Overall, we are not doing too badly on producing our own food. We import an awful lot we do not need for our own diet, but we are lucky to be rich enough to afford it.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 53, of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in this group because it relates to food insecurity. The point I want to make today, when shortly we are to debate the whole of the food strategy with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is that the issue of food insecurity for our poorest households—but not exclusively poor households—is a whole food chain issue. That is why I was a bit disturbed on Tuesday, when it was suggested that this Bill was about the agriculture sector’s relationship with government and government subsidy or support to deliver public goods, expressed primarily in terms of farming’s relationships to the environment, the countryside, biodiversity in the countryside, animal welfare and, perhaps, the wider rural economy.

Those are all vital issues, but arguably the biggest public good is the contribution to the delivery of a safe, accessible and healthy diet to our population. That involves the relationships of farmers not just with the Government or the environment but the whole apparatus of the food chain with which farming trades. Together, they need to deliver an effective food strategy to improve our population’s diet, drastically reduce obesity and other food-related disorders and make healthy food available to all at affordable prices. Food insecurity exacerbates poverty and disease and explains, in large part, the escalating dependence on food banks. That is why we need a national food strategy.

Like others, I served on the Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. The work of that committee, together with that of Henry Dimbleby’s food commission, will hopefully form the basis of that new government strategy. But it will if society recognises the crisis of unhealthy diet is an important one we are all facing, which has to be addressed, in part, through the relationship between farming and the other key players in the food chain.

Much of the regulation on food focuses on farmers, who are generally small businesses, and final outlets—restaurants, cafés, food shops and takeaways—which are also, largely, small businesses. But the nature of the food chain—the economics of it and, to some extent, its whole regulatory structure—is determined by the substantial companies in the middle of the journey from farm to fork, such as processors, wholesalers and supermarkets. These sectors are highly oligopolistic, but their decisions affect the price and standards to which farmers produce, as well as the tastes of consumers and the price and availability of food. They influence via their advertising budgets and their store displays in a way that affects price, diet and the availability of healthy food. These industries spend 20 times more on advertising highly processed food and confectionery than they do on fresh fruit and vegetables. Farmers and consumers need fairer, more balanced, greener contracts as we trade throughout the food chain.