Food Security

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I congratulate all those who secured the debate, the three Select Committee Chairs on their very thoughtful introductions—exactly as one would expect—and the members of those Committees, who put in so much hard work. I assure all those people that I will look very closely at their recommendations. I also thank others for their contributions. I found myself very much in agreement with the comments on biosecurity made by the hon. Members for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) and for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). I struggled slightly with some of the other contributions on hedgerow protection. We find ourselves in the unfortunate position of hedgerows being currently unprotected because the Government have failed to introduce legislation quickly enough.

On food security in general, I am delighted by the conversion of Government Members to the cause that Labour and I were advancing four years ago during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020. Government Members consistently voted down our amendments proposing an annual food security review. We have now come to that point, which I welcome, but I remind those Members that it was not what they supported four or five years ago.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

rose—

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will not take interventions, because Conservative Members have spoken at length this afternoon and we do not have much time. I do not mean in any way to disregard the significance of the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

As far as Labour is concerned, food security is absolutely a matter of national security. As the reports point out, the sector has seen significant shocks over the last few years, as various climate events across the globe have impacted on so many crops and harvests, and made life so hard for many farmers, particularly the recent floods. However, some challenges are not consequences of things beyond our control; quite frankly, some have been made worse by political decisions made here. Others—the skyrocketing costs of fertiliser, animal feed and energy—are consequences of the situation in Ukraine. Alongside that, there has been a difficult transition from the previous agricultural support system to ELMS, and persistent labour shortages.

I will ask the Minister about the Government’s response to John Shropshire’s good report on the agricultural workforce, which highlights many of the problems that the EFRA Committee report picks up. I think his analysis and many of his recommendations are sensible. He is very critical of the overly bureaucratic and slow administration of visas, and of the lack of a long-term strategic workforce plan, and he calls for urgent action from the Government. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when we might expect the Government to respond.

I could speak at length about ELMS—almost as long as others have—but I will not. It seems to me that ELMS have left too many people, particularly in the uplands, in a parlous state. Although I support the overall goals of that move to public money for public goods, I absolutely endorse the Environmental Audit Committee’s argument that food security is a public good—there is a bit of a discussion with economists about what those terms mean. I have been arguing for some time that food security should be a public good. We have not mentioned the problems that tenant farmers face at the moment. Will the Minister say a little about when we can expect more responses to Baroness Rock’s report, because they are long overdue?

Put all that together and it is pretty clear that we are seeing a decline in food production, which is disappointing and worrying. Staples such as eggs and some vegetables are in decline—there is less and less. At the NFU conference the other week, an interesting Farmers Guardian article rather summarised the situation pretty starkly:

“UK food production in free fall”.

Frankly, that is not the position that we want to be in. If that is to change, we must ensure that farm businesses get a decent return, because they are businesses, and for too many, the risk-reward ratio is out of kilter at the moment.

As we know, that has also hit consumers. The rise in prices has slowed, which is welcome—they were very high a few years ago—but prices are still going up. There is a whole range of reasons why that is happening. We also know that too many of our fellow citizens are struggling. The Trussell Trust statistics on the escalating reliance on food banks is deeply shocking. The EFRA Committee report echoes that feeling of, “Do they feel food secure? Clearly, they do not.” I welcome and agree with the Committee’s criticism of the fact that the Minister with responsibility for food has claimed that the issue of household affordability and access to food does not constitute food security.

There are many matters that I would be happy to cover, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am rushing through my remarks because I am conscious of time. Let me turn briefly to the food chain supply issues, and particularly waste, which is relevant to these discussions. It is pretty clear that pressures in the food chain, such as last-minute changes to specification, are leading to economic stress for producers and to disappointing levels of waste. One grower told me that, at best, he sells only about 50% of the lettuces that he grows. It is particularly depressing that that food is being wasted at a time when so many of our fellow citizens are struggling. The NFU reported that as much as £60 million of food on farms was wasted in the first half of 2022 alone.

To turn briefly to pesticides, a very interesting set of observations was made by the Chair of the EFRA Committee, the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill), and the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). I would just point to the evidence that is given in the Science and Technology Committee’s report—the view of the experts on neonicotinoids. Once again, for the third year running, they pointed out that they were not able to support an authorisation for Cruiser SB because

“the potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators”

outweigh the likely benefits. I am not going to rehearse the entire debate—we have also had debates on Westminster Hall on this issue—but it is clearly a major issue, and the public are clearly concerned. Quite frankly, it is time that we stopped ignoring expert advice.

However, I fully understand the problems that farmers face and the serious points that were raised by the Chair of the EFRA Committee. Sadly, it looks like the weather is not with us again this year, and we are going to see problems from virus yellows. I have been out in the field, looking at sugar beet plants with the British Beet Research Organisation, and there are some economic choices here. We might have to move to other varieties, but there is a yield penalty. To me, that is the decision and the challenge we face: not just producing food, but producing it in an environmentally sustainable and nature- positive way.

As I say, I am not going to go through all the recommendations, but I will just make a few comments. I take very seriously the points made by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells about insect decline, and will look very closely at that issue. I have to say, I think the prospect of an invertebrates strategy will be a joy for parliamentary sketch writers, but possibly we can get them beyond that. I also echo the points about the wait for the national action plan on pesticides—it really is unacceptable. I hope the Minister can say something about it, but after a six-year wait, I do not think we are going to be holding our breath.

It will not come as a surprise to anyone to hear that Labour agrees with the Environmental Audit Committee report about using the Government’s purchasing power to ensure that more food in our hospitals and prisons is locally produced. That is Labour policy, and I think it is also Government policy; the question is whether the Government can actually make it happen. Should we get the opportunity, we will endeavour to do so.

The land use framework is another thing that we are waiting for with bated breath. I have challenged a colleague of the Minister on new ways of defining the words “soon”, “next”, “spring” or whatever. We really would like to see that framework, but again, if this Government cannot do it, I hope whoever forms the next Government will pick it up. It is a really important point as we deal with the complicated trade-offs of trying to ensure food security while recovering nature and not causing further environmental damage.

Finally, I will just pick up on the points that Henry Dimbleby made, referred to in the EFRA Committee report. I do not want to reopen the whole debate, but I do not think it is surprising that he says that in his view, the Government do not have anything resembling a proper food strategy, and that one is long overdue.

I reiterate my thanks for all the hard work that has been done to produce such comprehensive reports. I will be referring to them frequently for guidance—I already do so, because they identify some of the most urgent challenges we now face. To me, they are an example of Parliament working at its best, because they can inform not just Government thinking but certainly Opposition thinking too. For us, the goal of delivering food security and stability while optimising social, economic and environmental objectives is a priority.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to follow the Minister, who is, by my accounting, the fourth Minister at the Dispatch Box on this Bill. We had two in two days during the Committee stage, but I am still here, as is his colleague on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). I thank her for the inclusive way in which she introduced the Bill at the beginning. It is a complicated Bill and she gave us access to officials, which was very helpful.

I take this opportunity, in case the Minister missed it, to remind him of the mantra that has guided the Opposition’s view on the Bill. Labour is pro-science and pro-innovation, but we also know that to secure both public and investor confidence, a strong and robust regulatory framework is required. Disappointingly, that is the part the Government have failed to provide.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman represents a city that is full of science, particularly in its universities, so does he agree that we can bring forward this legislation only because we have left the European Union and that new wheat varieties that are 50% lower in acrylamide, a chemical that can induce cancer, is good news for both farmers and consumers of wheat?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for that. We have had this discussion before and I have to disappoint him slightly, in the sense that of course the EU is moving as well on this. I suspect we will probably end up in a similar place at a similar time. However, he is absolutely right to point out the potential advantages.

The amendments before us are all Government amendments, because, despite the excellent learned and erudite arguments put by my colleagues in the other place—I pay tribute to Baroness Hayman, Baroness Jones and Lords Winston, Krebs, Trees and Cameron, among others—not much has changed, and that is genuinely disappointing. However, some improvements have been made. A number of the amendments move regulations to the affirmative procedure, as the Minister explained, and that allows some, if limited, further scrutiny, which is welcome. Amendment 1 to clause 1 is the Government’s further attempt to codify a particular knotty problem that we discussed at length in Committee. So the Minister will be pleased to know that we will not be opposing their amendments tonight. We will merely pointing be out how much more improved the Bill could have been had they had the confidence to embrace our positive suggestions.

I say that not least, Mr Deputy Speaker, because if you had the chance to peruse the Sunday newspapers, as I hope you had the time to do and enjoy, you would have seen comment on today’s gathering of international experts on human gene editing. Although the techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 may be similar, this is of course a different issue from those under consideration today. However, I would argue that many of the ethical issues around animals are not dissimilar. That is why the Government’s refusal to adopt our suggestion of an overseeing authority to look at these very complicated and challenging issues is so disappointing. We have a great chance to be genuinely world-leading in this area. We have brilliant people such as those at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, yet the Government are, apparently, not interested. That is a wasted opportunity.

Let us look at these amendments in more detail. As I have said, on a number of issues the Government have bowed to informed argument in the other place and agreed that regulations should be subject to the affirmative procedure: on the release or marketing of genetically edited organisms; on information that must be included in the register; on the animal welfare declaration that has to be made; and on the body to be designated as the animal welfare advisory body. That is all welcome. But one of the most powerful and consistent criticisms has been the vagueness of the Bill on many issues and the lack of detail, particularly relating to the proposals regarding animals and when regulations might take effect. I am afraid that these amendments do not seem to help us on this, and I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on it. The promise at the outset was that nothing would be done on animals until the science was further advanced; it has been described as a “step-by-step approach”. Will the Minister reconfirm that commitment today and tell us what timeframe is actually envisaged? As for companion animals or primates, can he give any reassurances on that today? Many people will be keen to hear what he has to say on it.

As I have already indicated, the most significant amendment is to clause 1, as the Government seek once again to explain what they consider to be a natural process. We had an interesting and extensive discussion in Committee on this point, both with those giving evidence and between members, and it was discussed at length in the other place. I fear that the Government have struggled with this, and I am not sure the new wording takes us much further forward. In general, the Government have sought to define a new category, “precision breeding” which many expert witnesses doubt has much meaning. The particular concern is whether the definitions accurately describe gene editing, without allowing gene modification in through the back door, with one of the key issues being whether exogenous material is included.

The amendment before us introduces yet another term—modern biotechnology. This is also ill-defined, and, as argued by Lord Krebs in the other place, may not stand the test of time, or, more importantly, as we heard in expert evidence, legal scrutiny and challenge. I appreciate that this is difficult territory and hard to define, and almost any sentence fails to capture the complexity, but we were promised at the outset that GM is excluded, and it would be helpful to have the Minister confirm that clearly again today.

l am conscious that you do not want lengthy speeches, Mr Deputy Speaker, so let me conclude. The learned and lengthy discussions in the other place showed just how complicated this subject is. Sadly, the Government have made only limited changes in the light of those discussions. Those changes are welcome, so we will not oppose them, but we think that this is a missed opportunity to set out the strong regulatory framework that would have reassured the public, and given investors the confidence that the sector needs.

There is significant opportunity for good here, but there are also risks—risks we may not fully understand. It is also worth bearing in mind that one mistake could tarnish the entire technology. As so often, the Government have gone for the short-term quick fix—the sticking plaster. How much better it would have been to have set up the robust long-term framework that could have established the UK as the setter of the standard that others will follow. That is unfinished business, and it is for another day.

Badger Culling

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 21st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come back to that point. As has already been said, it is amazing what can be done quite quickly when scientists really get behind something. I suspect many would agree with the point made by the hon. Lady.

The argument is frequently polarised: those who believe that culling badgers is the answer and those who disagree both believe that they are following the science. The problem is that the science is not entirely clear; statistics that appear to back both sides of the argument can be found and quoted. It is worth putting on the record that the Godfray review, commissioned by the Government back in 2018, set out this issue in its opening statement:

“The deeply held beliefs of people who cannot countenance culling badgers deserve respect, as do the beliefs of people who argue that sacrificing badgers is justified to reduce the burden of this disease on livestock and farmers. The decision whether or not to cull badgers must be informed by evidence which provides important information on likely outcomes. However, final decisions have to take into account the irreconcilable views of different stakeholders and so inevitably require judgements to be made by ministers”—

and different Ministers will make different judgments.

Labour would stop the culling of badgers. Our bovine TB control strategy would be based on vaccination, testing and better biosecurity measures, and we believe we have public support for that position. However, no one should be in any doubt that we are absolutely determined to put an end to the spread of bovine TB.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

If we had a vaccine that allowed us to differentiate between a vaccinated animal and an infected animal, that policy would stand up. However, until we have that vaccine, the only alternative is to continue culling, which has proven successful in getting on top of the disease in areas such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin).

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was very pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman walk in because I expected him to make exactly that intervention; we had a similar discussion during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020. As I am sure he will appreciate, the DIVA test is well advanced. He is right to say that we need to make progress, exactly as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said. Science moves; I am, perhaps, more optimistic about the pace of that movement than others.

The petition has a significant number of signatures. It focuses on the killing of badgers rather than the bovine TB issue, which I shall return to. The view expressed is that the shooting of badgers is poorly monitored and inhumane. Anecdotally, one is certainly told of cases where badgers are not shot cleanly and are left with injuries. According to Natural England’s compliance monitoring report for 2020, badgers were shot at but not retrieved in 11.4% of cases, but only one case of a badger being shot at but wounded and lost was reported; presumably some of the rest may not have been found. As with all such figures, the situation is not clear. I suggest that there is some cause for concern.

Can the Minister say why the number of badgers culled through free shooting rather than cage-trapping has changed so dramatically? According to the figures in the very good briefing prepared by the House of Commons Library, those numbers have increased from rough parity in 2014 to around four in five in 2020, creating a greater risk of inhumane culling. What is the reason for that? It seems that that is directly relevant to the question raised by the petitioners.

The wider question is about the future of shooting badgers in general and the continuance of the cull. I remember when the Government finally responded to the Godfray review while we were sitting on the Agriculture Bill Committee. By complete chance, they responded on the very day that Labour happened to have tabled an amendment addressing this very question—it was one of a number of cases when Government statements appeared miraculously on certain days during the course of the Agriculture Bill’s passage through Parliament. What we took from the Government announcement, the headlines and the spin was that the cull was to end. However, what we have seen since has shown that that was not the whole story.

Despite the points made by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, given that the cull has been going on for 10 years or so, it is worth asking what the Government’s policy on badger culling has done to get this horrible disease under control. One thing we know for sure is that it has killed a lot of badgers—more than 140,000. That is not in doubt. Every year since 2015, the number culled has grown, with more than 38,600 killed in 2020. Last year’s figures are due any time; they are expected to be larger still.

The Badger Trust tells me that in some areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset, badgers are now all but extinct. It also predicts that, by the end of the cull, the number of badgers in England will have been halved. As I reflected on earlier, the sad truth is that some of those badgers will have had unpleasant deaths. There are then the financial costs. Again, the Badger Trust estimates that, between 2013 and 2019, the cost of the cull was around £60 million—although I hear the points made by Government Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s points, because I think that the crux of the question is, “Does the culling of badgers achieve the desired result?” That is one of the points at issue. I find it slightly surprising that there are no tests once badgers have been culled, so we do not really know the ratio of infected to healthy badgers being killed. Perhaps the Minister could explain why those are not done.

Staggeringly—to many of us—the current system is set up so that, in some instances, badgers that have been vaccinated will then go on to be culled. A couple of years ago, I visited the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its volunteers to see just how badger vaccination works, and to meet a badger. I am grateful to Debbie Bailey and her colleagues for letting me join them—I must say, very early in the morning—to see how it is done. It is painstaking work, carried out by volunteers, and with financial support from the Government. However, as I say, incredibly, those very same badgers, vaccinated at taxpayer expense, are then sometimes shot as part of the cull. Can the Minister explain how that makes sense?

I warned earlier that the statistics can be read in many different ways, but I would also point out that, during the past decade, the number of cattle slaughtered due to TB has remained fairly consistent, at between 26,000 and 33,000 per year. In 2021, the number of cattle slaughtered decreased by only 1% on the previous 12 months to 27,581, with more cattle slaughtered in 2021 than in 2013, the year that the culls started. Herd incidence was at 8.8% in 2021—down only 0.6% on the previous year—and has also remained fairly static throughout the cull, at between 11% and 8.6%.

As I have been at pains to point out, different people will read those figures in different ways. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire will perhaps see them as a great success, while others will look at them and say that there are many other variables, and that there has not been sufficient progress to justify a Government policy costing millions of pounds and resulting in the deaths of close to 150,000 members of a protected species.

I would appreciate it if the Minister explained what she takes from those figures and whether she considers the cull to be a success so far. To mix my metaphors, I would say that the Government have placed too many of their eggs in one basket—each year, ramping up the killing, licensing more and more cull areas, but to insufficient avail. The science around this has long been contested. I think we have heard accounts of that. It has been looked at on a number of occasions.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, if one looks at New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, where culling the wildlife vector was so effective, we can see how the policy is based on clear science and clear examples, from other countries around the world, of how effective it can be?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I always bow to the right hon. Gentleman’s superior knowledge on this, but my recollection from reading the Godfray review is that other factors were involved as well.

Part of the problem with the whole debate is trying to separate out the different issues with the governance structures, the New Zealand example and so on, so I suspect we are not going to agree on this. But from the evidence I have seen and had explained to me, cow-to-cow infections are far more significant than those from badger to cow. Indeed, the Godfray report described the benefits of the cull to the farming industry as “circumscribed” and raised a range of other potential ways forward.

In 2020, Labour welcomed the Government’s announcement that they were finally planning to phase out culls, with the end date set for 2025. Despite saying that no new licences would be granted after 2022, in late 2021 seven new licensing zones were announced. In answer to a written question, the Minister said the culling of badgers will remain an option

“where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed.”

Can the Minister clarify that the Government do not intend to allow a perpetual culling of badgers by the back door and that the commitment to end the cull by 2025 remains in place?

Our Labour view is that we are more likely to beat bovine TB through better vaccination, better testing and better biosecurity, particularly when it comes to testing pre and post movement of cattle between farms, together, as I have already suggested, with a much bigger push into researching and administering effective TB vaccines for both cattle and badgers.

To conclude, I return to the Godfray review of 2018. Can the Minister say what happened to some of its other proposals? It queried the current governance arrangements, saying that, in its view, too many Government bodies were involved, and it suggested a single bovine TB authority. What is the Government’s view on that? To some extent, the review was looking at the New Zealand example. The review recommended moving to using a more sensitive test in the high risk and edge area. Does the Minister agree with that? It argued that a key problem is the high level of cattle movements in England, and that risky trading should be disincentivised. Again, does she agree? If so, what does she plan to do about it?

The review recommended mandatory post-movement testing and using the most sensitive test; the Minister’s comments on that would be welcome. It describes the number of “no regret” biosecurity options being taken up by farmers as “disappointingly low”. That was back in 2018, so can she tell us if there has been any progress since then?

As always, there are many questions, but there are many ways to tackle bovine TB. The Government and Members on the Government side clearly believe that shooting badgers is the preferred option, but in our view the evidence of efficacy is unclear. On the Opposition side, we would take a different path, as I outlined earlier—but let me clear that we will be absolutely steadfast in our resolve to eliminate bovine TB.

UK-EU Fisheries Allocations

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am always happy to listen to all voices, but these are people who have a strong interest in the industry. The report carries on to say:

“Access to fish in UK waters—a key bargaining lever in annual fisheries negotiations—was ceded to the EU for 6 years (at least)”,

as we have already heard. We even failed to secure an exclusive 12-mile limit, which is something that most coastal states take for granted.

We have heard from other Members why we got to this state, because we all remember what was happening this time last year. I am sure the Minister will remember the desperate telephone call over new year to try and explain what had been going on. We know what had been going on: it was rushed and botched. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said, the fishers were betrayed on this issue and became the problem child and so on. I suspect the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) wants me to give way.

[Mr Goodwill]

Of course, we are all disappointed at the delay in becoming a truly independent coastal state. Does the hon. Gentleman also recognise that, as a country that exports most of the fish that we catch, we still have access to the European markets, which is as important for many—particularly for shellfish fishermen off the Yorkshire coast—as the fisheries agreement for quota stocks?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I absolutely recognise that point. The point I am making, though, is that things have not gone well over the past year and it is entirely reasonable, a year on, for us to challenge the Minister as she goes into negotiations. To complete the point about the NFFO report, in the introduction by Barrie Deas, where the Government’s figures mention £148 million in additional benefit for the UK fishing fleet by 2026, the NFFO’s figures suggest a £300 million loss. I do not dispute that different people can cut the figures different ways. They are not simple issues. I just report what people are telling us.

In this morning’s debate, we have heard about the complexity of the issues and the range of experiences around the British Isles. It is an extraordinarily complicated industry and, frankly, I do not think the Opposition have to make the points because they have been well made. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) made a powerful contribution, and I am sure the Minister heard loud and clear the problems to which he alluded. Throughout this year, my hon. Friends have raised repeated concerns about the plight of small boats, particularly through the pandemic. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has been relentless in criticising the hapless catch app, which was quick to be implemented in contrast to the speed at which support for small boats was not supplied. We also heard about the paper fish in the quotas. Sadly, hon. Members have made the point that the quotas are not always as they seem, and the quota swaps issues, complicated as they are, clearly are not working for our people. The shellfish sector was in the headlines at the beginning of this year and the problems continue. If it has had problems, so too has the distant water fleet.

I could not help noticing the Minister’s visit to Norway in the summer to meet the splendidly named Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen, who was Norway’s Minister of Fisheries at the time. I am glad that she went, but what were the consequences of the visit? What progress has been made? That brings me to a series of questions that are not dissimilar from some that have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members, and which I hope that the Minister will be able to answer. Will she spell out what the Government’s objectives are for December’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council? Will she tell us where the Norway deal is for our distant water fleet, particularly those based out of Hull? Will she make a statement to the House on the outcome of any deal and any quotas?

In conclusion, it is absolutely clear that the Government were guilty of overpromising and underdelivering. Thankfully, the Opposition want exactly the opposite, and we want to build on developing a new, constructive relationship with our neighbours—not to get headlines, but to get the outcome that our fishers need.

Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 5th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

New clause 26 is broadly similar to new clause 5, which my hon. Friend has just moved. She spoke powerfully about the plight of our county farms. She did mention, of course, successes in Cambridgeshire. I rarely find reason to praise Cambridgeshire County Council, but on this occasion, I think that it is doing good work.

As farms owned by local authorities that can be let out at below-market rents—I suspect that there is agreement on this—they are a vital means to encourage young and first-time farmers into the sector. They provide a key way in for those who have not had the good fortune to inherit or are lacking the capital required to buy or rent. As well as offering a sustainable income stream for local authorities, these farms have been recognised as particularly well placed to deliver locally driven social and environmental goods, ranging from tree planting and local education initiatives on farming to public procurement of locally produced food.

As we have heard, however, county farms have been left in serious long-term decline. An investigation last year by Who Owns England? showed that the acreage has halved in the past 40 years—first driven by the privatisation drive and cuts to county budgets and powers under the Thatcher and Major Governments, and by the austerity agenda in recent times. Cash-strapped local authorities making difficult decisions have been forced to take cost-saving measures, and 7% of England’s county farms estate was sold off between 2010 and 2018, with three quarters of all smallholding authorities having sold parts of their estate.

As we have heard, some authorities, such as my own in Cambridgeshire, have recognised the importance of county farms and have increased the number of acres in the past decade. Interestingly, they are now bringing in a sustainable income for the authorities. I am told that, in Cambridgeshire’s case, that is in excess of £4 million each year. However, the situation is not so good elsewhere. I am told that Herefordshire, for instance, has sold many of its county farms; there has been a decline of 89%.

The Government’s recent policy document on farming for the future mentions that funding will be offered to councils with county farm estates, but we still have no clear detail on how much that would be and whether it would be sufficient. It is rather surprising that in a flagship Bill on reforming our agricultural system—

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Are there any examples of where local authorities have sold the farms but to the tenants so that they can become owner-occupiers—a sort of right-to-buy scheme —or are the farms being sold off outside the sphere of those tenants?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I do not know the answer, but I am happy to go away and look for it, because that sounds like an interesting idea.

Let me explain what our worry is. We are here discussing major, flagship legislation for the future of the sector, and to us it would seem sensible to ensure that there was provision for this very important part of the sector, particularly when there was such an opportunity, through the local authorities, to deliver a range of public goods, including land management practices that mitigate climate change; public access; and even the promotion of innovative food production systems, such as vertical farms or city farms. If local authorities were to build into their management practices for their smallholdings the aims of aiding nature recovery and carbon sequestration and of promoting biodiversity, county farms could be a very useful tool for local communities, particularly in areas such as mine, where we have such interest in environmental issues being promoted.

It is important that we stop the loss and refresh the purpose of our county farms. I am not sure that that makes it easier for local authorities, because they are making difficult decisions, but it would make it harder for them to make that particular decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

What does the hon. Gentleman think about the example of Staffordshire County Council? When selling off farms, the council has given tenants the first opportunity to buy, but if that has not happened it has sold the farms with sitting tenants. The tenants continue their tenancies, but the council can use the money to spend on other priorities, such as schools, getting homeless people into housing and all the other local authority priorities.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I appreciate what the right hon. Member says. We are not seeking to stop that kind of process. We are trying to make it more difficult for councils to respond to funding cuts by selling county farms, which in some ways I do not criticise because they face difficult choices. If that practice is not stopped, then, frankly, it will go on happening, unless there are significant changes in funding for local authorities.

In recognition of the key role that local authorities can play in incentivising these farms to be environmental public goods, we would also require local authorities to submit proposals on how they intended to manage their smallholdings in a way that contributed to those various public goods, including the mitigation of climate change and reducing gas emissions. As discussed, our new clause would also limit the continued disposal of farms by stipulating that no local authority smallholding would need to have its ownership transferred unless that was clearly in accordance with those purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Picture this: it is a lovely sunny day and everyone is outside. Kids are playing in the park, with their mums and dads looking on. What we do not often think about when we picture these happy scenarios, because we do not look for them, are herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. They may well be blowing in on spores and from nearby crops or, more directly, kids may be playing on grass in a park that has been treated with pesticides or weed-killing chemicals.

Quite rightly, we are now being told every day because of coronavirus that we need to wash our hands and not touch our mouths, eyes or nose. In more usual times, we are perhaps a bit more slack about possible transference of dangerous substances into our bodies—and these substances can be dangerous. A selection of the labels on pesticide products used in the UK contains warnings such as “Very toxic by inhalation”, “Do not breathe spray/fumes/vapour”, “Risk of serious damage to eyes”, “Harmful: possible risk of irreversible effects through inhalation”, “May cause cancer by inhalation”, and even “May be fatal if inhaled.” Cornell University’s work on pesticides points to the risk of deformities, mutations, cancer and poisoning of the nervous system. These are dangerous chemicals, and we need to keep a close eye on their impact.

Children and pregnant mothers are more exposed to the potential impact of pesticides than most of us, because they have a higher exposure rate. Children absorb pesticides more easily through their skin: not only is a child’s skin more permeable than an adult’s, but their skin surface area is higher relative to their body weight. That makes it easier for them to absorb higher rates of pesticides; in fact, infants will absorb around three times more pesticides than adults from similar exposure episodes. Children take in more air, water and food than adults relative to their body weight, which also increases their exposure. As an example, the breathing rate of a child in its first 12 years is roughly double that of an adult, and as a result the amount of airborne contaminants reaching the surface of the lung can be much higher.

Not only is exposure likely to be higher, but that child’s ability to cope with pesticide poisoning will differ from that of an adult. The systems in our bodies used to deal with toxins are less well developed in children, which can make them less able to cope with such substances than adults. As they grow, children’s brains and bodies undergo complex changes that affect tissue growth and organ development. Incidents of exposure that would be tolerated by adults can cause irreversible damage to unborn babies, infants and adolescents. What is worrying about this Bill is that not only does it completely omit any requirement for the protection of human health and the environment from pesticides, but it does not make a single recommendation for simply monitoring pesticides or their effects.

[Mr Goodwill]

One of the ways in which farmers can reduce their reliance on pesticides is by using new varieties derived though gene editing. Potatoes can be engineered to be resistant to blight, for example. Do Labour Front Benchers support that innovative technology that will reduce our reliance on pesticides?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Aha! As ever, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He has touched on a subject that is of some interest to me, as I chair the all-party parliamentary group for life sciences. I look forward to having a detailed conversation with him about CRISPR-Cas9 and other exciting techniques.

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, we are absolutely interested in looking at ways in which we can reduce pesticide use. As I indicated earlier, I am well aware that farmers do not use pesticides without due caution, or without bearing in mind the current safety regulations and the costs involved. Having said that, we believe there should be additional measures in this Bill. We fully accept that pesticides are needed in some situations, but other new technologies might be available, including drones and satellite images that have the potential to make the application of these chemicals much more targeted and less damaging. I am told that those techniques are already being used in other countries, but if we are not monitoring pesticides and their impact, there is no way that we will be able to encourage or assist farmers to adopt more selective and less damaging techniques.

All Members present have been repeatedly promised by Ministers that when we left Europe, we would bring in stronger human and environmental protections, or at least equivalence. The Labour party believes that that is an absolute minimum, we should monitor what impact pesticides are having; where that impact is concentrated; and whether children, mothers and babies have been affected, especially in rural communities where exposure is likely to be higher. This amendment does not ban anything. It does not stop any farmer who needs to use safe pesticides on their crops, or to use them to increase their yields, from doing so. It simply states that we are not averting our gaze, but keeping our eyes open to the known risks; that we look to reduce those risks; and that we will particularly protect women and children in rural communities. On that basis, I ask that the clause be read a Second time.

Agriculture Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 5th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

I have to say that I do not normally find myself in agreement with the Daily Mail, but on this occasion there may be something in it. The important point is that there are clearly people close to Government who have dramatic views that seem different to those of the vast majority of Conservative Members, as well as Labour Members. It is a question for the Government to decide who they choose to seek advice from, but it can hardly be denied that it is out there.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in an earlier evidence session George Monbiot advocated for precisely those points, and argued for desisting in the production of sheep and cattle on the uplands and planting them with trees? Does he subscribe to that view, as espoused by The Guardian?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but there is a subtle difference between witness evidence and the evidence that has been given in the important Dimbleby review on our future food policy. I think there is a difference, but, as always, I respect his observation.

Moving on from jousting about newspapers, it is important that to have a discussion about levels of food security, as I have mentioned. It is an intellectually plausible position to say that we do not have to produce our own food and that we could become like Singapore. That is an important political debate that should be had transparently, not in private emails between advisers. Without proper legal protection in place, many people will feel that whatever the Government say will just be warm words.

To go back to the point raised by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, at the last DEFRA questions the previous Secretary of State said pretty much what she just said. She said:

“Our high environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards are already in law, including legislating to prevent the importation of chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef”.—[Official Report, 6 February 2020; Vol. 671, c. 438.]

We were interested by that statement. Can the Minister clarify further the statement that they are “already in law” by providing the details of the legislation where those standards can be found? Can she explain what mechanism would be used if the Government are required in a trade negotiation to amend or remove any of the standards and describe, in that scenario, the level of parliamentary scrutiny that would apply?

That should be good ground for the Minister as she is an esteemed lawyer. I am neither esteemed nor a lawyer, so I was grateful that, after the exchange at DEFRA questions, the shadow Secretary of State sought advice. We have advice from the House of Commons Library and—guess what?—it is complicated. Inevitably, trying to unravel the complexity of bringing EU law into domestic law and the overlaps is difficult. I suspect the law would need to be tested and, as ever, different lawyers would give different advice; that tends to happen. Some think that EU-derived domestic legislation covering these matters could, in some circumstances, be changed by the Government using delegated powers in the Food Safety Act 1990, without the need even to seek parliamentary approval, let alone primary legislation.

We are questioning the Government on this. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State queried it with the previous Secretary of State, and we await a response with interest, because it is an important point. However, the seeming lack of clarity hardly fills us with confidence, because this is such an issue. Clearly, in the interests of certainty and clarity—which, in fairness, we can agree we do not have—we should put this in the Bill. We should agree an amendment to create a proper legislative guarantee that future trade deals will not allow imports of agricultural goods used to lower environmental, public health, and animal welfare standards. This is that amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

It is, because it was made clear that there would be a clear response. I suspect that the issue is complicated and people are working on it, but I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concern. This is something we need clarity on.

[Mr Goodwill]

I absolutely understand and sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s objectives. His new clause talks about “agricultural goods”, which presumably includes animal feed. It is pretty much accepted that environmental standards in Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Canada are lower than ours. Would the new clause ban the importation of all agricultural feed, including soya beans and maize, into the United Kingdom, should the exporting country’s environmental standards not be as high as ours, given that those products are mixed, so it could not be done on an individual farm basis?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I fully accept that the provision would need to be thought through and worked through in future. My point is that in general we must be careful about such changes, because I do not want our agriculture sector to be put at a disadvantage.

We do not want what I have just been outlining to happen. I suspect that the Minister and the vast majority of her colleagues do not want it to happen either. I mentioned the chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, and it is worth spending a moment to remind ourselves of the exact nature of the kinds of low-standard food imports that we need to guard against.

When it comes to a trade deal with the US, we know that by and large its regulations on farm animal welfare are substantially lower than those of the UK. My understanding is that the US has no federal regulations at all in many of the areas in which the UK has enacted detailed regulations. The RSPCA raised, in evidence, the fact that 55% of the pork meat and bacon that we eat is imported. Virtually all of it comes from the EU, which follows comparatively high standards of production.

If we start going to the US, where they still use sow stalls and inject pigs with ractopamine, both of which are rightly illegal in UK pig farming on animal welfare grounds, we completely undermine our moral commitments against those practices, and allow undercutting of our farmers, who are committed to such higher standards. I remind members of the Committee that ractopamine is a feed additive used to manipulate growth in pigs, which has been shown to be highly detrimental to pig welfare, causing lameness, stiffness, trembling and shortness of breath. There is a reason we do not use it. It is the same for hormone-treated beef, which is produced in the US by injecting cattle with growth hormones to generate greater mass more quickly. That is banned in the EU on animal welfare and public health grounds.

The issue with the chlorinated chicken produced in the US is that the chickens have been kept in such dismal and intensive conditions that the chlorine is required to wash off the pathogens that they have become infected with during rearing and slaughter. The principle is animal welfare, but there is also a real question over food safety. Of course, we heard evidence on that. It is fair to say that there is dispute about the comparative rates of food-borne illnesses in the US and the UK but, as we heard from Professor Keevil of the University of Southampton, there are now studies that suggest that chlorine washing is not as effective as was once thought, and can make pathogens undetectable without actually killing them, so that they may remain capable of causing disease.

I feel strongly that those are not products that we want on our shelves or in our freezer cabinets. I will echo the words of the president of the National Farmers Union, who last week delivered this statement to a clearly discomfited Secretary of State:

“To sign up to a trade deal which results in opening our ports, shelves and fridges to food which would be illegal to produce here would not only be morally bankrupt, it would be the work of the insane.”

I might not have used exactly the same words, but I agree with the sentiment, and I think that the Secretary of State was discomfited because he knows that she is right.

It is crystal clear that we need a safeguard. How on earth do the Government expect to negotiate their way out of this, when the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has clearly said that chlorinated chicken must be part of any UK-US trade agreement? Why not come clean and admit that in the negotiations there will be trade-offs, one of which, sadly, could be selling out our farmers and our environment?

New clauses 30 to 32 are particularly interesting, and members of the Committee who have read them will note that they are detailed. They may think, “Gosh, what a clever bunch they are on the Labour side.” They may not—but it is actually better than that. Let me explain where the new clauses came from. I suspect that some Members already know, and I hope that the Minister was warned when she took the job. The new clauses—the exact words—were tabled to the previous Bill by none other than the current Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). That Bill never reached Report and there was no opportunity to debate the new clauses. I am grateful to eagle-eyed experts from an organisation that shall remain nameless—they know who they are—for drawing them to our attention.

We judge that it would be of use to the Committee to consider the new clauses. They are deeply probing and have an illustrious pedigree, because they first saw the light of day during the brief, tricky period when the current Secretary of State was on the Back Benches, having resigned his post over a difference of opinion with the then Prime Minister about our relationship with the European Union. To some extent, we are slightly puzzled that those amendments have not been re-tabled by the Government for this version of the Bill. It would be useful to hear the Minister explain why the Government apparently now feel that these worthy proposals, tabled then, are not worth revisiting now. I will choose my words carefully, because the Secretary of State is clearly not part of the Committee. I ask the Minister, why does she not agree with the proposals? Perhaps she does.

We were particularly struck by what these new clauses seemed to be looking to achieve. Members of the Committee will agree that they deal with complex and technical matters on which a degree of expertise is needed in matters of animal health and veterinary pharmaceutical practice. Our understanding is that the aim here was to place in primary legislation many of the protections and safeguards on food safety and animal welfare that already currently exist in secondary legislation, both retained EU and domestic. The force of the proposals would be to ban the sale of animals or products from animals that have been treated with a range of compounds whose use is currently illegal in this country, except in restricted circumstances where they are being used under veterinary supervision for veterinary therapeutic purposes, and only then if residues are acceptably low.

It is truly a fascinating read to see what these compounds include. Schedule 1 lists testosterone, progesterone, oestradiol 17β, stilbenes and trenbolone, which are all hormones permitted as growth promoters in US beef production. The beta-agonists listed are used as growth promoters, more commonly in pig production, and I believe that ractopamine, which I mentioned earlier, would be classified under that category.

Most interestingly, new clause 31 would prohibit the sale, for hygiene reasons, of any animal product that comes from animals being treated with any substance other than potable water for the purpose of removing surface contamination. By my understanding, that would essentially preclude the sale of chlorine or oplactose-acid washed chicken in this country.

[Mr Goodwill]

New clause 31 does not actually refer to post-slaughter use and, as it is sloppily drafted, would apply to the washing of show animals at shows, the use of saline solution for washing eyes or, indeed, the use of diluted sheep dip after docking of sheep. Does the hon. Member recognise that the new clause needs tightening up? It refers to an animal during its entire lifecycle.

[Daniel Zeichner]

As ever, I am hugely grateful to the right hon. Member, whose drafting skills I would happily draw on in trying to improve the amendments. He will reflect that the new clause was sloppily drafted not by Opposition Members, but by the current Secretary of State. We are very happy to work with the right hon. Member on improving it, but I think he knows what was being referred to in those circumstances.

It seems to us that the Government are currently refusing to include in the Bill a ban on food imports produced to lower standards than our own. They have also dodged amendments to the Bill that were suggested previously by the current Secretary of State himself, which seemed to aim to ensure the exact same thing—banning the sale of animal products in this country that had been subjected to chemicals and processes that we do currently allow here.

What exactly has been going on? The Minister needs to come clean on this. The Secretary of State did not include these prohibitions either in the previous Bill or in the current Bill, even though he was the Minister in charge of both Bills. What came over him when he briefly left the Government? What conditions was he made to accept when he agreed to come back and then to become Secretary of State? Does this whole episode not show that, in his heart of hearts, he probably agrees with us that the only way to safeguard our animal welfare and food safety standards and to prevent our hard-pressed British farmers from being undercut by cheap, sub-standard imports, is to put these provisions in the Bill?

We believe that new clause 1 is the crucial amendment. It would not just strengthen the Bill but safeguard its core aims. We make no apology whatever about pressing it to a vote. I urge the Minister to listen closely to the unanimity of voices on this amendment and to recognise the need for this addition to the Bill. I appreciate that this is a tough moment for Government Members. As they vote, they must be aware that the future of many of their constituents is on the line. I want to safeguard their future, our countryside and our food safety.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Of course. Last week, we had an interesting discussion about labelling. I take Members back to that because on page 16 of the document is a theoretical discussion of the effect of labelling. The Government tell us:

“Tapping into the consumer willingness to pay begins with understanding the value-action gap”—

which I am sure is being discussed on every omnibus around the country—and that

“it is possible for someone to derive positive value from the fact that animals are being well cared for as a result of another’s purchasing decision. Those not buying animal products should be included in any assessment of public value, one person’s holding of this value does not detract from another’s.”

I find that a puzzling suggestion. I tried it out on my partner—I will not say what she said, but she was not convinced that, basically, other people buying poorly produced food somehow does not detract from the wider public good. That is a theoretical discussion the Government may want to go back to. The following page states:

“Addressing consumer understanding, and understanding how purchasing decisions are made in practice in the retail environment and online, are also key elements…It is important to note that improved transparency alone can only address information asymmetry, and does not capture the public value held by non-consumers.”

I am not sure what any of that means, and I am sure that the public have little idea of what it means. I think it shows that labelling is not simple; there is a big discussion to be had. Is it enough to use labelling? The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby and I had an exchange on that last week; there are sincerely held differences of opinion about it.

Back in the simpler, empirical world, we have seen the positive impact that labelling can have on eggs. Since 2004, when EU law began to require eggs and egg packs to be labelled to highlight production method, there has been a considerable move in the market towards free-range eggs and away from caged egg sales. I am told that around 52% of all UK eggs come from cage-free systems, which is welcome.

It is not the same in other sectors. Consumers are still very much in the dark about the production of meat and milk. It is hard to find meat or dairy products that have a labelled method of production. For meat, there is some labelling of free range and organic, but not much else. There is even less information about the farming methods of milk. Most milk is pooled together, making it difficult to distinguish between pasture-based and intensively produced milk. From personal experience perusing the supermarket shelves, it seems the world is becoming more complicated these days; there is a greater range, but we need to go further. I find it confusing. It is confusing for consumers and it does a disservice to farmers who are already producing to higher standards but do not have any means of distinguishing their products because of labelling ambiguities.

A lot of marketing and packaging borders on the misleading. Intensively produced meat and dairy products, where animals may have seen very little of the outside world, are packaged in pretty green packets featuring rolling hills and what looks like a welfare-friendly world. That does not help consumers make informed choices, and it does not help producers extract the higher value that they deserve from their products. Proper labelling would work in everyone’s interests.

The production methods highlighted would differ for different products, but mandatory labelling could be used to indicate on the packet whether the product has been produced intensively indoors or extensively outdoors, with the full range of production methods in between, so that consumers can make a decision in the shop about what they want. That is something that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recommended twice to the Government in 2018, and it makes a lot of sense.

At the moment, any consumer demand for less intensively produced meat and dairy is impeded by the lack of clear information at the point of sale about how the products have been produced. Informing consumers about methods of production allows them to make that choice. We could see important shifts in the market towards the production of food that is less intensive, more environmentally sustainable and based on higher animal welfare.

A good labelling system could also play an important role in further incentivising farmers to take up environmental land management schemes and deliver the public goods that we discussed last week under clause 1, particularly those who seek to promote higher animal welfare measures, by giving them the recognition they deserve for using less intensive production methods. If the consumer has no idea what farmers are doing, it stands to reason that farmers will see the benefits of making positive changes only in the direct payments they receive, rather than in any changes in consumer demand. There needs to be a way for farmers to demonstrate that they are delivering food in a way that consumers may choose to pay for.

International debate is moving quickly in this area. We heard evidence of the number of schemes that are being looked into across Europe. The Government have talked big talk about using the new opportunity post Brexit to improve our animal welfare standards and modernise our farming processes. It is important that we do not miss key opportunities to adopt mechanisms that can help support that. A relatively simple change of wording would give this clause the strength it needs to deliver the Government’s aim of achieving an impact we all support.

[Mr Goodwill]

I note that the amendment would substitute “must” for “may” in subsection (1), but all the other subsections contain the word “may” too. Has not the hon. Gentleman made an omission by not seeking to insert “must” in all the others? Surely having “must” in subsection (1) would be completely counteracted by all the “may”s in the rest of the clause.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Welcome back, everybody. Our aim with this group of amendments is to highlight the need for financial assistance in clause 1 to be provided for the purpose of protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock only if farmers go above and beyond current animal welfare standards.

I have already touched on this issue. We believe it is important to avoid a situation where public money is paid for current welfare standards being met. I think the public would find that curious, but it is a risk given the systems we have inherited. The nod of enthusiasm from the Minister confirms that the authors of the Bill rather agree, although we say that it is still not entirely clear. I think it is agreed that the taxpayer’s principal role should be to provide funding for public goods that the market cannot deliver or can deliver only partially, such as high environmental and animal welfare standards. The funds available should be used not for marginal welfare gains but to support best practice and farmers who are willing to go substantially beyond the legal minimum requirements.

Of course, there is a whole series of potential issues associated with that. How much improvement? Do we want to set standards to which we want people to move quickly? I am struck when I talk to people about this that I think the industry will do what it is asked to do. Clearly, however, if it is not directed and just responds to the market, people will produce to different price points. Again, that is an issue for the politicians to think about. We had a discussion the other day with the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby about whether labelling gets us there. There are different views, and this is our view.

There are clear ways of identifying significant steps up in welfare for different species of farm animals, and it is extremely important that we tailor our welfare standards appropriately to what would achieve those outcomes for each species. Let me make a few suggestions for the high standards we would like ultimately to be achieved across each sector.

For pigs, funding could be made available to farmers who achieve intact—neither docked nor bitten—tails. There are schemes along those lines in other countries. Getting pigs to slaughter with intact tails is recognised by the Farm Animal Welfare Committee as a good outcome-based indicator of high welfare. This morning, in our discussion of the environmental land management document—I am pleased to see it is now on the table for all to enjoy—we touched on whether payments should be for what is done or what is achieved. I think the debate about that is moving; many of us would like to see outcome-based payments. At least in this area, we can discuss the outcomes we are looking for, and I suggest they are more easily measured. I am told—we heard this from witnesses, too—that such schemes already exist in Germany.

As we outlined in a previous amendment, which sadly was not taken up by the Government, we believe that the Government should encourage a move to free farrowing systems. However, we acknowledge that there is extra cost involved and we believe some payments could be made to cover a proportion of the capital costs involved in making that change. It is a decision for us as a country, as well as for consumers, as to where we want to get to on these standards. This is a clear opportunity.

For laying hens, we would like to see funding made available for farmers who use the best free range systems, such as low stocking density, low flock size, mobile housing and provision of trees and bushes. Outcome measures that one could look at are not trimming hens’ beaks, achieving low mortality and good plumage scores. Such outcomes can be measured; that is a decision we could make. This Committee is a good place to have such discussions, which, over time, could attempt to lift welfare standards in this country.

For broiler chickens, the key issue is often substantial overcrowding. Many UK broilers are stocked at 38 kg per square metre. As chickens in the UK often weigh around 2.2 kg at slaughter, that means approximately 17 chickens are kept per square metre. Without going into the wider points, we know the British public want to see higher welfare standards and many would probably be shocked to see those conditions. As Government Members have pointed out, people want food at affordable prices. We agree with that, so there is a tension and a balance in this, but if one has £3 billion to spend, to some extent one has choices.

At such high densities, sadly broilers can have high levels of infectious pathogens, leg disorders, foot-pad dermatitis and mortality. We believe that to be granted financial assistance, the maximum permitted broiler stocking density could be reduced to a specific number. We have talked today about the long transition period, but on another day we will come to the more show-stopping amendment on standards elsewhere in the world. We have to make decisions about where we want to get to, and then make sure we do not disadvantage our producers.

Funding could support the use of slow-growing breeds and low stocking densities, as scientific research shows that these bring welfare benefits. As an outcome measure, receipt of funding could be contingent on achieving low foot-pad dermatitis scores, which could be measured at slaughter.

Moving to dairy cows, a key issue is those that are kept indoors. Around 20% of UK dairy cows are zero grazed—that is, they are kept indoors for all or nearly all of the year. Again, funding could be made available for farmers who keep their cows in pasture during the grass-growing season, except when the weather is too wet. Such schemes already exist in Sweden. Research shows that pasture-based cows have lower levels of lameness, hoof pathologies, hock lesions, mastitis and mortality than zero-grazed cows. A potential outcome-based funding opportunity could be made contingent on pasture-based farmers achieving low levels of lameness and mastitis. We believe grass-based beef and sheep farmers could receive support for achieving low levels of lameness and disease.

Different research projects sometimes produce different outcomes. It is vital to have effective research into the impact on animal welfare of highly intensive livestock farming. We need that to contribute to a better understanding of what can improve animal welfare above the baseline and what better welfare practices can be promoted within the public goods element of the Bill. Therefore, we will be tabling an amendment to include a requirement for the Secretary of State to promote the conduct of research into the impact of highly intensive livestock farming practices on animal welfare, which, I believe, would be welcomed by many constituents and citizens.

Labour has argued in the past—and we continue to make the case—for an independent animal welfare commissioner, who would keep track of the most up-to-date and evidence-based science on animal welfare, in order to inform and update policy. We think that would be beneficial. We have proposed it in the past and I hope it is something the Government might consider. I am not aware that the Government have indicated thus far that they might do that, but let us see.

We back the great sections of the British public who call for an end to the use of cages on our farms once and for all. The Bill represents a real opportunity for the Government to get behind that call, if they can put in place the financial support needed for farmers to move away from high-intensity farming methods towards those that are significantly more supportive of animal freedoms and welfare. The Bill lacks detail on how financial assistance for improved animal welfare should be used. I hope the Minister has given due consideration to the careful planning needed to ensure that those receiving money for the clause 1(1)(f) public good are truly rewarded for achieving significant evidence-based improvements in animal welfare above the norm. Amendment 42 provides that financial assistance for the purpose of protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock would be given only if the recipient had exceeded a set of baseline regulatory standards, as established in new clause 9.

Amendment 4 provides an expanded alternative. We have a slight sense that the previous amendment may not be carried, so it is good to have a second string. It would put in place a provision that financial assistance would be provided for the public good of improving animal welfare and health only if the Secretary of State was satisfied that the recipient had gone beyond minimum requirements and followed a number of important measures to guarantee animal welfare, as set out in paragraphs (b) to (e). They include that the recipient has raised animals

“in such a way that enables them to carry out their natural behaviours”.

I suspect there would be considerable support for that among the wider public.

High animal welfare means taking into account scientific research that increasingly indicates that good animal welfare helps not only the prevention of suffering but the opportunity for animals to have positive experiences and exhibit their natural behaviours.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. Would he consider, as some animal welfare campaigners do, that natural behaviour would be to allow a cow to keep her calf with her for perhaps the first six months? It is quite difficult to be specific about what natural behaviour might be.

[Daniel Zeichner]

As ever, the right hon. Gentleman asks a probing question. I made the point earlier that there are many levels of welfare to which we can aspire. Some are even contentious, in the sense that not everything natural is necessarily something that we want to happen.

Responding to consumer demand is complicated. If consumers want the kind of standard of welfare that the right hon. Gentleman suggests, I would suggest that, in the business world, it is a good idea to give them what they want—normally the argument made by the other side—but that is costly. There is a dilemma, again, for this mythical £3 billion pot we are all busily spending—[Interruption.] Well, it may not be £3 billion, we will see. There is a dilemma about which sectors to support, which we will come back to, and what level of welfare is reasonable.

Beyond that, there is a further question. As the right hon. Gentleman suggested, there may be things that lift to a very high standard, but who makes that decision? I suspect that, as ever, there will be a spectrum. There can be very high standards, which we see with the plant-based milk alternatives people are choosing. I choose them in my office, because my colleague does not drink dairy milk. We pay a premium, but we are happy to pay that. Consumers should be given the choice. That would be the answer to his intervention.

Pigs need space; they need a quantity of bedding and materials to fill a range of species-specific behaviours, such as rooting, foraging, nesting and exploring. Providing fibrous materials, including straw, brown wood, mushroom compost or natural vegetation, assists with comfort and can reduce aggression. Similarly, systems for laying hens should allow for species-specific behaviours such as nesting, foraging, dust bathing, perching and exercise, including walking, running and brief bursts of flying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the reason we can discuss this practice is because we have left the European Union and have the freedom not to comply with single market rules?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, as he well knows. At the very least, it seems evident that those involved in the live export trade should not be receiving public subsidy for good animal welfare. There is probably widespread agreement on that. Having said all that, there need to be exceptions for genuine cross-border movements from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, provided that the animals involved are not re-exported from the Republic. We provide such an exemption in amendment 4.

Other requirements for receiving money for higher standards should include that livestock are not subjected to prohibited procedures such as mutilations, as defined in the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and that livestock are killed only in the controlled environment of a slaughterhouse unless a veterinary surgeon certifies it necessary due to the animal’s poor health, and the method of killing is humane. Amendment 5 provides definitions for the practices outlined in amendment 4.

[Mr Goodwill]

I will be brief. Under clause 1, which we discussed earlier in the week, the list of objectives for which financial assistance can be given includes, under subsection (1)(f),

“protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock”.

Therefore, much of what the hon. Gentleman talks about is already covered in the Bill. While I can understand his wish to incentivise less tail docking and castration of pigs, reduce the density of broiler chickens and phase out farrowing crates, the intensive pig and poultry sectors have not received funding through the common agricultural policy system. My worry is that he is looking at ways of switching support from the farms that have relied on it —particularly extensive farms in the uplands, those farms that are producing the habitats and environmental public goods that we want to protect—to the intensive sector, which already manages very nicely. Switching to some of these more welfare-friendly methods on a large scale could mop up quite large amounts of the money available.

My second concern is about amendment 4’s proposed new subsection (4A)(d) to clause 2 of the Bill, which talks about killing livestock

“in any place other than in a slaughterhouse”.

I am a little worried about the practicalities of how that relates to sick and injured animals on farms. The amendment states that a veterinary surgeon must have certified that the animal should be put out of its misery because of poor health, and that

“the method of killing is humane”.

I read that to mean that on every occasion when a farmer wishes to humanely put an animal out of its pain or misery, they must be observed by a vet. In our village, I have a neighbour whose farm has 16,000 laying hens. It is an extensive system; they go outside. They are barn-raised hens produced under the very best welfare standards, but from time to time a hen will be injured or, in some cases, attacked by other hens and my neighbour will need to euthanise it. I do not think it is realistic or practical to expect that the farmer will call a veterinary surgeon on every occasion that happens and incur a fee of maybe £40 or £50.

Similarly, on my own farm, until last Saturday we had four hens. Unfortunately, a pet dog got into our field on Saturday afternoon and killed two of them, and when I went on Sunday morning to let the two remaining hens out of the shed, one of them was obviously in a very bad way. The tail feathers that we thought had been pulled out by the dog were hiding quite a nasty injury, and I had to kill that hen myself. It would not have been realistic for me to take that hen to the vet, or to call a vet out. There are many instances in which an animal is in great distress, maybe because it has a broken leg, and waiting for a vet to come would not be practical, even if it were economically feasible.

I hope the hon. Gentleman will understand if I do not support his amendment, because I do not think he has looked into the practicalities of animal welfare on a farm when animals are sick. I think back to when we used to keep a load of sheep. Sometimes sheep were in a very bad way; perhaps they had had difficult lambing and were haemorrhaging. This might be taking place at 2 o’clock in the morning, so the most humane thing to do was to put them out of their misery straightaway, without any delay and certainly without waiting for a vet to come, even if that were practical. If the hon. Gentleman wants to come back with similar amendments on Report, I hope he will look at paragraph (d) again, because most practising farmers would look at it and say, “This is not going to help animal welfare. This is going to mean animals dying in suffering, particularly if by breaking these rules I lose all my subsidies.” I think many farmers would be very worried about that, so I hope the hon. Gentleman understands the practicalities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

That was an interesting and illuminating discussion that, as ever, probably raised as many questions as it answered, sadly.

I will start with the points made by the sharp-eyed right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby. I am sorry to hear about his unfortunate incident with the dog at the weekend.

[Mr Goodwill]

It was our favourite.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am sorry to hear that. The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. I fully concede that this was not a drafting error; I am not sure we guided those doing the drafting in quite the right way. I accept that we could improve on that. What we are trying to tease out, however, relates to the questions and points that I have already raised about what the public want from the Bill. He implied that he was tempted to support one of the amendments. I would like to tempt him to support the other one, which does not have those objections attached to it, but I fear that I shall be disappointed.

We are pushing for a commitment to much higher standards. The Minister made a series of important points. On live animal export, we absolutely support using the opportunities available and we hope that the Government will get on with it. We would all like that to happen.

The point relates to some of the earlier tensions. I think the Minister said that there is no intention to pay for basic welfare standards, which I understand. Page 20 of the policy discussion document—I hate to keep referring to it, but it makes the point and has illuminated the discussion—asks what tier 1 could pay for and gives a wide range of examples. There is a tension between what she said and some of those examples, not least because what it could pay for depends on exactly what is being paid for on what unit. Farms are not all the same; some are mixed farms.

The cross-compliance regulations that we had under the European Union made it incumbent on the whole enterprise to conform to rules and regulations, but we do not know, frankly, how that will work in this new set-up and whether one part doing one thing disqualifies or qualifies. Those are exactly the reasons why we wanted a more detailed discussion, because we do not know the answers.

I understand the Minister’s predicament, but it is all very well for her to say, “Ah well, these things are difficult. It’s going to take time. The world’s going to change,” and all the rest of it, but it ain’t going to change for the people who are farming next year. They will have to deal with this, alongside the reductions that are coming, like the sword of Damocles over them, at an unspecified pace. I am afraid that I do not think that is good enough. We need to sort out some of the thinking behind it.

I hear the Minister’s point about the potential unintended consequences when one is trying to apply a measure to entire herds, but I am not convinced that it is impossible to frame it in such a way that we could do that and still insist on high welfare standards for public money. This is a matter of huge public interest, which is reflected in the amount of correspondence that most MPs get on the issue. If the Government want popular support for these policies, this is exactly the kind of amendment that they would do well to look at. On that basis, I will press the amendment to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which answers the shadow Minister’s point very well. He has talked about the will of the people: the will of the people was expressed on 12 December last year, when they elected a majority Conservative Government.

I conducted an extensive survey of my constituents prior to my election. We got about 20,000 replies to that questionnaire, which asked lots of questions, including one about hunting. The Whitby part of my constituency was about 60/40 in favour of hunting; in the Scarborough part, it was about 60/40 the other way. I went to a primary school not long before the election, and as we all do when we visit schools, I talked about the issues that the children wanted to talk about. Hunting did come up, and one child who came from a farming family made it very clear that she took a dim view of foxes, and the fact that they had been in her family’s hen coop and were taking newborn lambs. She underlined the need to control foxes.

We are not revisiting the hunting legislation in this Committee; rather, we are looking at what the practical implications would be if this amendment were on the face of the Bill, with its provisions being retrospective and applicable to exempt activities such as one dog killing one rat or two dogs being used to flush a rabbit to be shot. If those exemptions were removed, almost every farm in the country would be covered by that retrospective application.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I fully accept that we can always improve the drafting. What I am trying to get at is whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that public money—taxpayers’ money—should be supporting hunting, in whatever form. We are trying to get at that to build on the landmark legislation that has been so popular. As we know, the Government are fairly reluctant to get back into this debate.

[Mr Goodwill]

My first point is that if the hon. Member for Newport West had drafted the amendment herself, she might have looked in a bit more detail at what schedule 1 of the Hunting Act 2004 actually says and what exemptions should be referred to, rather than making a general reference to exempt practices. We all rely on pressure groups and lobby groups to help with our work, but taking things at face value is not always the best way forward. Secondly, the objective of the Bill is not to support people killing rats with terriers, or people conducting legal activity within the context of the Hunting Act; it is to support our agricultural industry in a way that also achieves the green environmental objectives that we all want to meet.

The hon. Member for Cambridge will not be surprised to hear that I will not be supporting these amendments. Whether or not Members agree with hunting is almost beside the point, because the amendments are drafted in such a way as to destroy the objective of the Bill, which is to give support to farmers, particularly in some of the most challenging parts of our country—those areas where farming is most difficult to make economically attractive, where predation from foxes and rats are problems, and where other types of pest control need to be carried out. The exemptions within the Hunting Act exist to allow those legal activities to take place, and my guess is that using the amendments to take them out of that Act and make those farms exempt from support would take out nearly 100% of the farmland in the United Kingdom. Even farmers farming National Trust land where hunting is not allowed by the landlord will be carrying out rabbit and rat control, which is one of the exemptions that the hon. Member for Newport West is seeking to bring back in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 8, page 8, line 5, after “extending” insert

“or pausing the transition process and”.

It is my pleasure to move this amendment, although I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to satisfy me that it is superfluous. As we have already heard, the Government’s plan is to switch over from the basic payment scheme, which pays farmers for being farmers, to a system of environmental land management that pays farmers for delivering public goods. That will be a seven-year graduated transition, which I hope will be smooth and go according to plan.

However, clause 8(3) allows a degree of flexibility if things do not go entirely according to plan. There are a number of reasons why that might happen—some within the Government’s control and some beyond their control. We have heard that the environmental land management pilots will be concluded by 2024. We have been slow getting started with those—partly because of the parliamentary inertia over the past three and a half years; I will not suggest who might be to blame for some of that—but we are now in a position where we can move forward. The British people have given us a majority and our marching orders, which are for a quick march towards the ambition of delivering these objectives for our farmers.

We may not have all the evidence we need to fully develop and deliver every aspect of environmental land management at the time we hope to start doing so. Therefore, this amendment will allow us to not waste public money on a scheme that has not been fully proven with the evidence, including scientific advice and ecological evidence, that we need. There may be some administrative glitches in the introduction of the new system; Governments do not have a good track record of delivering big IT systems on time—or, indeed, on budget. There may also be external factors relating to weather or disease and the impact they may have on farming, so it makes sense to have the flexibility that clause 8 allows for.

I hope the Minister can give me some clarity about how this may work in practice. If the process is to be extended and the seven-year transition ends up being, for example, a nine-year transition, will that take place in nine equal steps, or will we be able to—as my amendment allows for—pause the transition and start a little bit later? Could we stop the clock on the transition from BPS to ELM, and then resume after a one-year or two-year pause? I am sure that the Minister will be able to reassure me that that is perhaps not intended but allowed within the flexibility of the clause without my amendment. However, the reassurance would be very helpful to me, because I suspect that the existence of the clause in the Bill just might have something to do with the time that I spent at DEFRA last year.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I certainly would not want to intrude on a private argument on the Government side, but our view is that this is symptomatic of the problem of just how slow the process has been in coming forward. We have before us, of course, a Bill that has been delayed. The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby made suggestions as to where the responsibility might lie, and we can all argue about that one. I suggest that there would have been a simple solution, but I am sure that he would not agree. The trouble is that a huge number of questions are left unanswered, as we have been highlighting throughout the day, and the suggestion that there might be further delay is cause for great concern.

It is worth highlighting what the National Farmers Union says:

“The NFU believes that with less than a year to go, time is rapidly running out for the government to have all of the necessary legislation and implementation decisions and process in place for this timescale. There are still many aspects of the transition and the successor future farming support policy which remain unclear and the concern is that there will be a ‘gap’ before alternative and effective schemes are in place and the start of the phasing out.”

As I think has become apparent in this Committee, we very much share those doubts: we have been talking about the reasons pretty much all day. We understand how ambitious many of the things that the Government are trying to do are. In the document to which we have been referring for much of the day, there are timelines, although I have to say that they are a bit like Mr Barnier’s account of the trade position of various countries. The timelines are not entirely clear in terms of where we are likely to be at a particular point.

We would be worried about a further pause, because as I have said we just cannot afford it. We are in a climate and ecological emergency. There is no pause button there. The Bill has already been delayed. If we are to reach net zero more quickly than 2050—my suspicion is that the Government would like to do so, although that date is what they are committed to—we will have to move more quickly, so any pause or delay to a more sustainable and environmentally supportive system of land management is disappointing.

We recognise the delicate balance, because if what we are discussing proves as difficult as I am suggesting it might be, there is then a dilemma for the Government. One of the gaps in the explanations today has been about the period, probably post 2024, as we go through the next part. It is one thing to do tests and trials and then to move to a national pilot, but to then move it on to a national scale is challenging, for many of the reasons to which I have referred.

We would want to go more quickly—[Interruption.] The Minister enjoys the fact that I am in the privileged position of being able to say that in opposition, but basically this entire institution should be bending itself, at every opportunity, to find ways of moving more quickly to challenge the climate crisis. That is what we would be doing.

The Bill needs to be stronger and quicker. We need the clearer targets. I am therefore inclined not to support the amendment. I think the message that needs to go out after today’s discussions is that we need much more clarity, and providing more clarity would actually help the Government to achieve what we all want, which is to move to a new system more quickly and more efficiently and ensure that it works for all those in rural communities.

Agriculture Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I will say more about that, as she can imagine.

This discussion is hugely important, and I hope that we will be able to give it the attention it deserves. As my hon. Friend said, the document was delayed until half an hour after the Committee had started our sitting, although I am grateful to Ministers for having the grace to look a little sheepish and to be apologetic—not their fault, I suspect. Frankly, however, it was a poor way to behave, although ironically the desired outcome was not achieved—for reasons that I am not entirely au fait with, the Secretary of State went to the NFU the day after anyway, and I understand that he had a fairly traditional welcome. It is not unusual for Ministers to go to industry events and get a bit of a roasting. I am opposed to all forms of cruelty—we will come to that later—but he clearly had a tough day.

More importantly, I fear that this has skewed the way in which we are discussing the Bill. Had we had the document in advance, we would have framed a different set of amendments to the key clause 1. I am grateful to you, Mr Stringer, and to Sir David for exercising discretion, which allowed us to table amendments to clause 2. That would not normally have been possible within the timescale. I put on record my thanks to the hard-working staff in our offices, who were up until late at night working on that, and to the Clerks, who were also up late working on potential amendments. People were under considerable pressure, and I hope to do justice to their work this morning.

I have to say that something made me cross and, when I came to read the environmental land management policy discussion document that we are talking about, at times it made me even crosser. It is a mixed bag. Some of it is excellent, and we will be supportive, but my overriding impression was that, despite detecting some extremely hard work and thought put in by officials, they had been hampered by some basic contradictions in the Government’s thinking. That is a political failing—not a policy failing—which I suspect partly reflects changes in personnel and thinking over time. The original architects—the unrepentant sinners to whom I referred on Tuesday—have moved on, and others have been left to figure out how to make a complicated set of ambitions work.

The thing that made me cross—we do not have to read far—is virtually in the opening line, although I understand that the prefaces to such documents are often bolted on at the end, possibly by eager-to-please special advisers. I will read the opening sentence:

“For more than forty years, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy…has dictated how we farm our land”.

“Dictated”—think about that sentence. We were members of the European Union of our own free will—[Interruption.] I do not want to go over old ground, but I invite people to think about how that reads to those who might not share in support for the current situation, which is possibly half the country. It is a poor way to start the document.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

As a farmer, I can only describe the three-crop rule as dictating what I can grow on my farm. I cannot see any other interpretation.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure we will have a to and fro this morning. We will come to the three-crop rule later. I have a suggestion for a more conciliatory word: “framed” is a more accurate term, frankly. “Dictated” is highly contentious and in some ways designed to rile, and I can say to whomever did that, it succeeded. Some of us take exception to the idea that the Government of our country seems to have become a Vote Leave franchise operation.

To add evidence, I have a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs press release from 2013, when the then Farming Minister—different context, different time, obviously—who is now the Secretary of State, told us:

“The UK ensured that we have choices in how we implement the Common Agricultural Policy, rather than having to work with a one-size-fits-all approach from the European Commission…This gives us the flexibility to target funding in ways that will deliver real benefits to the environment, boost the competitiveness of our farming industry and grow the rural economy.”

I actually agree with him, but it does not sound like the policy has been “dictated” to us. I make a gentle plea to the Minister to change that one word, which might help people to be brought together.

Now that I have got that off my chest, we can move on to the substance of my argument. To be fair, there is something much more welcome a few lines later in the document, although it is not entirely reflected in the body of the document. It talks about the new system making it

“possible to meet the objectives of protecting the environment and producing food.”

That is a significant discussion within the document, and I will come back to that point. I appreciate that this is a framework Bill—as the Government constantly tell us—but there needs to be scrutiny as the framework is fleshed out. That is what we seek to do with our amendments.

As I will show in the next few minutes, these are complicated, interesting and important issues, which need scrutiny. I hope the Government will see sense and merit in our proposal. I hope the excellent Government Whip might consider allowing his side a little leeway, as we have considerable expertise present on the Government Benches today. Although he was gloriously successful in ensuring that people did not make contributions earlier in the process, it would be helpful if a little leeway could be shown at this point in our discussions on the Bill, because we are now getting into the real meat of it.

Some Members will have attended Second Reading of the Environment Bill yesterday. The interaction between these various Bills is really important, as was mentioned by the Chair of Select Committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). I think many of us have come to the same conclusion. As so often happens, the debate yesterday strayed into the Agriculture Bill by mistake at one or two points. That is no surprise, because the Bill is important.

There are number of puzzles and contradictions in the policy discussion document that are worthy of discussion. I will come to some of the positive aspects, but one or two sentences jumped out at me. On page 6 —I suspect this is by the same author who wrote the opening remarks to which I referred—there is a sort of eulogy to our wonderful system at the moment. The document quite rightly praises our farmers for the wonderful things they do. However, one of them is

“supporting our supply of clean water”.

I think that will jar slightly, particularly with some of the water companies, which know that one of the unintended consequences of our current agricultural system is that they, and as a consequence all our constituents, have to pay considerable costs to clean up some of the water. Obviously, the hope is that our new system will have ways to deal with that.

Later in the document there are some very positive proposals, but there are also some big unanswered questions about the interaction between the documents. Again, that point was raised yesterday in the discussion on the Environment Bill. This is a particularly pressing issue, given our current situation with flooding in this country. Some things look in danger of falling between the cracks, particularly overall land use policy. Our amendment is designed to allow proper scrutiny of how the proposals will be developed. Given that this is a very long-term set of pilots in development, things will change and lessons will be learned. Having proper parliamentary scrutiny seems to be well worth while.

The document—as I said, I suspect it had various authors—is littered with problems and quite a few internal contradictions. On page 7, there is a hopeful claim that environmental land management schemes will

“help us maintain our food security.”

That feels as though it is a bolted-on, pious hope, given the tension between environmental goods, which we all support, and food production. Indeed, in the list of public goods on page 7 there is no mention of food. There are some non-sequiturs here, although if I were to be generous, the fact that some of these problems have not been entirely reconciled may explain some of the delay in producing the document.

It actually gets worse. On page 7, at the end of the introduction, it says that the goal is to “improve” existing standards, but later in the same sentence it says it is to possibly maintain them. This is one of the key conundrums of the legislation—what are we actually supporting? The document goes on to say a bit more about that, which I will come to later.

The key issue is whether we should support people who have already made improvements to get to a high standard or target resources on lifting others. That is an important and difficult point—we could call it additionality, if we want to get into jargon—but it is a profound issue. Page 8 defines two strategic aims. I do not have any issue with them, but there is no strategic aim for food production, so this running internal contradiction continues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I beg to move amendment 48, in clause 2, page 3, line 30, at end insert—

“(3A) Financial assistance allocated to a scheme in a particular year but not spent within that year may be carried over to a future year for spending on one or more schemes.”

This amendment would enable Ministers to “carry over” any monies left unspent at the end of a particular budget year for spending in subsequent years.

This is a more probing amendment and one that we do not intend to put to a vote, so hon. Members can be at ease. Mr Stringer, you will be pleased to hear that I will not read out the amendment.

I may have misunderstood how DEFRA’s economics works, and I am ready to stand corrected. The Government have not put it in legislation but have indicated that the money will be available for the remainder of the Parliament. If not all that money is used in one year, what happens to it? All I am looking for is some explanation, as the amendment suggests, that it would be possible to carry over money into subsequent years. That point has been raised on a number of occasions by a number of people, and there may be a simple explanation.

When debating the statutory instrument on Monday and looking back at our old friend regulation 1307/2013, it struck me that the current system has quite complicated reserves that the CAP specifies for dealing with some issues around fines, compliance and so on. It goes into considerable detail about how that should work. A similar system may be envisaged for us. I asked some questions about the issue during the debate on the statutory instrument, so perhaps when there is a reply there will be some clarity.

Again, it has been said that this is a framework Bill. That is fine—we get that. But this is the opportunity for Parliament to ask these questions. The headline figure of money is a concern to some in rural communities, and it may not be available if is not within the right timeframe. I suppose I have a simple question.

[Mr Goodwill]

Is the hon. Gentleman talking about money allocated to a scheme in general that is then not used, or money allocated to a farm that is not used due to some situation on that farm? Is he talking about the specifics of money allocated to farms or the generality of money allocated to a scheme?

[Daniel Zeichner]

That is a good point. Some of this discussion has conflated the two things, which may not be helpful for people. Actually, no money is allocated nationally. It is a political promise; it is not in legislation. Of course, no Parliament can bind future spending allocations. We will watch with interest what happens in the coming weeks, but the political promise has been given.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Is that issue not covered by clause 8, which allows for the extension of the scheme? When I come to discuss my amendment 9, we can explore the matter. One could possibly freeze the switch from the basic payment scheme to ELM schemes. I guess that the hon. Gentleman is discussing the situation in which the uptake of ELMS is not very high, because we are fairly sure that the uptake of the BPS will be pretty much 100%. Is this not already covered in that clause of the Bill?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I am not sure that the issue is covered; that is why I am seeking clarification. I am afraid these points are about a lack of certainty. We are looking ahead a long way—seven years, potentially—for the transition. We have some clarity on the 5% plus, capping and so on for the next year, but beyond that —I hate to go back to the ELMS document, but there are timelines in there—some of it looks a touch optimistic, frankly.

Given that the process was begun 18 months ago, I hope that it will become clearer through the trials and tests, but we would like to pin down the finances. That is what we are trying to achieve through the amendment. I understand why Government Ministers cannot concede, but I suspect that, as people look more closely, quite a lot of them would agree with this position; if we are going to embark on these ambitious environmental schemes, as we want to, we want as much money as possible to be drawn from the Treasury. It is a very unusual situation, politically, to have a pot of money that looks like it has been allocated before. Where does it go in the future? That is what we are trying to pin down.

Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Amendment 40 relates to clause 1(1)(f), on

“protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock”,

and would ensure that farmers receive financial assistance to improve the standard of accommodation for farrowing sows. New clause 12 and amendment 41 would end the use of sow farrowing crates, subject to delayed commencement at the discretion of the Secretary of State. The provision in clause 53 means that the ban outlined in new clause 12 would not come into effect immediately when the Bill becomes an Act, but on such day that the Secretary of State makes a statutory instrument to that effect.

That is all totally incomprehensible to most people, but, taken together, the amendments and the new clause would allow for a phasing out of farrowing stalls and make available resources and finance to support farmers with the capital costs of that process, as well as those who take interim measures to improve the conditions of farrowing sows. I suspect there will be widespread support for that aim, but I fully appreciate that this is a contentious subject that has been well rehearsed on other occasions. The public take the issue seriously and we would all like it to be achieved over time. As I have said on many occasions, it is a question of ensuring that the resource is available for people to make changes and to not be disadvantaged by competition elsewhere.

To give some background, although sow stalls that kept pigs caged for the entirety of their pregnancy were banned by Labour in 1999, it is still permitted for female pigs to be kept in farrowing stalls for seven days before they give birth and until the piglets are weaned. That can result in sows being caged for up to five weeks at a time. If they farrow twice a year, that means that they spend up to three months a year in an extremely restricted space. It may be called a crate or a stall, but it is effectively a cage. The crate length is such that the sow is only able to lie down or stand up. The standards state that the space should not allow excessive free movement. Before anyone jumps in, I will come to the reasons for that in a moment.

The sow is often completely unable to turn around. She can scarcely take a step forwards or backwards, and she cannot reach the piglets placed next to her for suckling. I am told that 60% of the 350,000 to 400,000 sows in Britain are kept in such crates to give birth. We know that keeping pigs caged in that way causes distress and leads to repeated bar biting, and it limits the pig’s ability to exhibit important natural behaviours, such as nest building.

Trapping the animal in that way also creates a breeding ground for diseases. E. coli in newly born piglets often presents in conditions where the mothers have been moved into farrowing crates to give birth and suckle their young. We know that is not done out of cruelty; it is done because keeping a mother restrained prevents the death of piglets by accidental crushing. We would argue that that in itself is a direct consequence of high-intensity farming techniques. In normal conditions, in the wild, the mother pigs would make effective nests and have the space to keep the piglets safe.

As with so much in this area, the research is contested, but robust studies suggest that there is clear evidence of a significant difference between the mortality rates of piglets reared in crated systems and those reared in loose housed systems. There are also other systems, which I shall come on to. The individual farrowing arks or huts used in the outdoor systems of organic farming are deep bedded with straw. There are many examples across eastern England.

Although piglet morality rates can increase in extremely cold and wet weather, UK figures show that outdoor systems can rear largely the same number of piglets as farrowing crates. Good production figures have also been attained from the so-called Swedish group system, where each sow has her own box to farrow in and can leave her piglets and carry out normal activity.

We contend that there are alternatives, though we fully appreciate that they are more expensive. The industry rightly points out that consumers buy at different price points and that producers respond to that demand. We understand the economics but, as I said earlier, this is an opportunity to use public money for public good.

This issue has been debated many times in this place over the past 20 years. We rightly pride ourselves on pursuing higher animal welfare standards, but other countries are already ahead of us and have moved on to alternative systems. I am told that Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have already banned farrowing crates and that free farrowing systems are being developed in other European countries, particularly Denmark and the Netherlands.

In response to animal welfare concerns, the Soil Association and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals already prohibit the use of farrowing crates under their labelling systems. This is another example of this country’s multi-tiered system of food production, with food being produced at different prices for the consumer. The question is how we can lift standards while protecting the interests of farmers by making it economically viable.

Back in 2015, the Farm Animal Welfare Committee’s report on free farrowing systems recommended taking action to encourage the replacement of farrowing crates, and called for the adoption of free farrowing systems to be reviewed in five years. Well, 2015 plus five is 2020—it is five years later. We contend that the Bill is the perfect opportunity for the Minister to make it clear that financial support for higher animal welfare includes specific provisions for farrowing sows in relation to such crates.

We recognise that it would be a challenge for the industry. As I have said, a ban would need to be phased in with financial support, which is what the amendment would provide for. Back in 1999, when sow stalls were rightly banned by the Labour Government, it is undeniable that that had an impact on the domestic pig industry. We contend that Government support for alternative systems is vital to encourage a switch, while protecting the UK pig sector.

The flipside, of course—this will be a repeated refrain—is that we have to ensure that any home production of pigmeat to higher welfare standards is not simply replaced by imports produced in other countries that continue to use such stalls. It is important that we protect all our animal welfare standards, and that in upcoming trade deals we do not sell out our farmers by allowing lower-standard imports. We will insist on provisions being added to the Bill to guarantee that, and will seek to amend it later to guarantee against that danger. In the meantime, we urge the Minister to consider this important clarification to the Bill to allow financial support to improve pig welfare, specifically in relation to such restrictive crates.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

I would not argue with anything the hon. Member has said. We all wish to have the very best welfare standards for pigs in this country. Indeed, the Red Tractor label assures customers that very high standards are being met. My only slight caution is that history might repeat itself, and the law of unintended consequences may come into play. Members may well recall that when veal crates were banned in the UK, the result was that calves were flown to Holland and elsewhere to be turned into veal under the very systems that we wanted to ban. Owing to single market rules, we could not ban that movement.

Similarly, when dry sow stalls were banned in 1999, there was an erosion of the British pig market, particularly by such countries as Denmark and Holland where dry sow stalls were still being used. Indeed, most of the EU still allows dry sow stalls from up to four weeks after service to birth, when in some cases they may be put into farrowing crates as well.

My concern is that, were we to act unilaterally through legislation, we could end up having more pigs coming into the country as imports. It is all very well saying, “Let’s ban the importation of pig products not produced to our high standards.” It would be very difficult to ban imports from the European Union given the degree of reliance on that market and the cross-border trade in pig products. The different parts of the carcase that are consumed in the UK and in Europe mean that there is a vibrant market in different cuts of meat, to meet those particular markets. Were that to be destroyed or undermined, it would cause great problems for the British pig industry.

Of course, if we had more pigs coming into the country from abroad, that would mean more castrated pigs. In the UK, only 2% of pigs are castrated. In Sweden, the figure is 94%, in Denmark 95%, the Netherlands 20%, Germany 80%, and Spain 20%. It could, in effect, result in more pigs coming on to our supermarket shelves and into our restaurants and cafés produced under systems that we do not wish to see in this country. Surely the answer is not legislation, but better consumer awareness of those production methods, better labelling, and better understanding of the labelling systems, so that supermarkets and customers, who would be enlightened, can do what we did regarding battery cages, which was to get people on to free-range eggs not through banning batteries but by consumers understanding that it is right to make choices based on animal welfare.

Although I agree with what the hon. Member for Cambridge said about trying to improve standards, I note that he made the slight caveat that at certain times of the year, particularly at the moment, some of our outdoor farrowing systems result in quite high piglet mortality. I have seen piglets trampled into the mud in the quagmires in outdoor systems. That aside, we should look at how we can move the industry into a better place, particularly in terms of farrowing crates, but without allowing our market to be eroded by other countries, particularly in the European Union, that do not have the same high welfare standards as us. I would not like to see history repeating itself in terms of what happened with veal crates and dry sow stalls in 1999.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response. I will not withdraw the amendment.

In a way, the Minister conceded something important—that clause 1(1)(f) shows that resources can be used, which I am sure will be welcome to some. However, the clause also points to some of the general difficulties in the Bill. The pig sector benefits only indirectly from support under the current system. The clause rather suggests that money will be moved around the system, and I wonder whether everyone is aware that there will be winners and losers as a result. As we all know, one generally hears from the losers, not the winners, but that is a problem for the Government, not me. I am pleased about that concession, but I do not quite see why the Government could not actually do themselves some extra good by making the positive benefits specific, as we suggest. I encourage them to do that.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby. I was chided by one or two of my colleagues for agreeing with him too much earlier, but I disagree with him robustly now, in a civilised way. He makes an important point about where responsibility for these decisions should lie. We have been trying with labelling over many years, and he is right that it has proven more successful in some areas than others.

However—this is probably a fundamental philosophical division between us—I think that putting the onus of responsibility on individual consumers is problematic, not least because, as we heard the evidence sessions and in written evidence, it is pretty clear that many people subscribe to notions of higher standards until they get into a supermarket and are confronted with price differences. I suspect that many of us in this room are now in the fortunate position of being able to make an informed choice and not worry so much about the price, but for vast numbers of our fellow citizens, price is still a key driver. For many people who would probably like to support higher standards, if the price is too high, they have no choice.

We want not to take that responsibility away from people, but as with so many other things, to make it easier for them to make the right choice; in other words, to exclude the low-cost alternatives. I am not an economist—it was suggested earlier that I might be, about which I am partly flattered and partly not flattered—but there is clear evidence that, if standards are lifted, industries respond and prices begin to settle. This is a case of needing leadership. We have done it before. There are consequences, but we have public money to spend, and it could well be that the public would actually be very happy that we offered this kind of support, which would to some extent get them out of that price dilemma.

It is a bit like the dilemma around the smoking ban. I lost track of the number of smokers who told me that they were delighted that, basically, the ban made it easier for them to give up smoking, because the Government had intervened. That was during the last Labour Government, and I remember Tony Blair being very nervous about suggestions that he had offloaded responsibility on to local councils, which did not go down well. In the end, it needed cross-party leadership—it has to be something supported across the House—to make it easier for people to make the right choice. It is a judgment call.

[Mr Goodwill]

In many ways, the hon. Gentleman is enlarging on my argument, given that when we banned dry sow stalls consumers chose to buy the cheaper pork and bacon produced in Holland and Denmark, where a was not in place. It made the problem worse in many ways because those consumers made those choices.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman is making my life much more difficult and I am going to have to be horrid to him again. Yes, in one sense, he is correct, but that is the challenge. Throughout this, if we do not find ways, whether in trade agreements or whatever, to protect—and it is protect—our higher standards against lower standards, we are lost entirely. That will be a recurring theme throughout this debate. I do not think it is beyond the wit of hon. Members to find a way of doing that. The right hon. Gentleman may disagree with me, and that will probably be a fundamental point of difference.

I have two final points to make: first, I do not think it is fair to offload the responsibility entirely on to consumers. We should take the lead. Secondly, we need to take the lead on making sure that we can protect our higher standards. That would attract considerable support across the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 1, page 3, line 13, after “kept” insert “or managed”.

In clause 1(1)(d), reference is made to

“managing land, water or livestock”.

The amendment would change a reference later in the same clause to keeping, not managing, creatures. My worry is that relying on the word “kept” may exclude some of the most environmentally beneficial land uses, where birds or mammals are to a greater or lesser extent wild and thus, by definition, not kept.

I have a number of examples, such as the Chillingham wild cattle in Northumberland. The herd, of about 100, has not been touched by human hand or been seen by a vet for more than a century. They are certainly not kept, but the environment at Chillingham Castle is managed for the benefit of the many species and birds that thrive there.

Wild ponies also carry out important land management tasks. I have had ponies on my own farm from the Yorkshire Exmoor Pony Trust for a while; they carry out a great role in managing the land. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I have done in previous sittings—I am a family farmer myself.

Most importantly, we should recognise the importance of game as an integral part of many rural economies and ecosystems. Some species, such as pheasant, may well be kept for part of their life, when they are reared in captivity, but once released, they become free to range far and wide. Many shoots—I would suggest the more enlightened ones—do not artificially rear birds and strive to create the conditions for wild birds to breed. Those birds are never kept, but the management of the necessary ecosystem and environment would certainly not be in conflict with the wider public goods we seek to create, using this Bill as a tool.

The same argument must certainly apply to grouse, which cannot be reared in captivity. Managing moorland for the benefit of grouse not only favours other ground-nesting birds, such as golden plover and lapwing, but also the sustainability of sheep farming on our grouse uplands. They can only go hand in hand together if the moor is managed correctly.

According to the BBC “Countryfile” website, the UK’s deer population is at its highest level for 1,000 years, at around 2 million deer of the various species. Numbers have doubled since 1999. That has an impact on crops, wildlife and, in particular, forestry. The Forestry Commission estimates that the damage to plantations and commercial woodlands in Scotland amounts to £4.5 million per annum. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates that around 350,000 deer are culled each year. In the absence of natural predators such as lynx and wolves, culling has to be carried out to maintain a stable population and prevent damage. In the main, those deer are not kept, but managed, and they may range over more than one landowner’s property. Deer management is vital to meeting our objectives.

There was some confusion during the evidence sessions about whether game was within the scope of the Bill. I would argue that it is vital that the definition of livestock in the Bill must include game species, which produce some of the most sustainable and healthy food available to consumers. The amendment would clarify that, to encompass not only creatures that are “kept” in the strict definition of controlling virtually every aspect of an animal or bird’s existence, but the production of healthy and sustainable game products in an environment that is managed to produce many of the public goods that we wish to reward, and sustained economically by the income from that game.

Of course, I strongly criticise the situation that we have read about in the press where game is dumped and not eaten. In some cases, I understand that game had been breasted, so the breast meat had been removed, but from an environmental perspective and from a food waste perspective that is not an acceptable practice, and I would criticise it. We need more promotion of the healthy game produced in our country, and we need more websites, such as the one that my son went on recently—I think the wives of the people on small shoots got sick of plucking and drawing pheasants, and made the game available free of charge locally. That is just the sort of website that we want. I also pay tribute to YouTube, which has some excellent opportunities for people to learn how to skin rabbits and prepare game in their own kitchens.

I hope that the Minister will recognise what I have said, and reassure me that the amendment may be withdrawn. I look forward to hearing that game is food and should be within the scope of the Bill.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was intrigued to discover the direction in which the amendment would take us; I probably should have known in advance. It gives me an opportunity to have a genuine disagreement with the right hon. Member, because I think many of our constituents would be astonished at the idea of sporting shooting being considered a public good, in terms of putting public money in, although I recognise that for some Members that would be legitimate.

Again, it points to the whole new world that has been opened up by taking the pot of money that used to go directly to farmers based on area. We are now facing up to some really quite hard decisions about the kind of world in which we want to live. I have to say to the right hon. Member that for many constituents, I suspect in my seat and many others, it would not seem an appropriate use of public money. Although that may cause disagreement, that is what we are here to resolve. I do not think that the Opposition will be able to support the amendment.

[Victoria Prentis]

I thank my predecessor and right hon. Friend for his amendment. I believe that he wishes to ensure that we are being comprehensive in our coverage of the word “livestock” in clause 1. I, too, am keen to ensure that we cover everything that we need to in the Bill.

Good management of livestock is a key part of delivering the public goods that we want to support in our future agricultural policy. That, of course, is reflected by the purposes listed in clause 1. Under subsection 1(f), the Secretary of State will be able to support action to improve animal health and welfare, reduce endemic disease and keep livestock well maintained and healthy. The plan is that not only will that deliver better animal health and welfare, which itself can be considered a public good, but through addressing endemic disease we can also deliver other public goods, such as lower antibiotic use and lower greenhouse gases, due to less intensive livestock production.

Subsection 1(g) will enable us to provide financial assistance for measures to support the conservation and maintenance of UK native genetic resources relating to both rare breed livestock and equines, into which category I suspect Chillingham cattle very firmly fall, and indeed Exmoor ponies, whether or not they are to be found in Yorkshire—that confused me somewhat, but there we are. The measures could be used to incentivise farmers to rear rare and native breeds and species. That is undoubtedly, to my mind, a public good and the sort of thing that we are trying to achieve.

Game such as wild pheasants and partridges, while kept in captivity, would come within the definition of livestock and could be eligible for support, where they are kept for one of the purposes mentioned in clause 1 and its definitions of livestock. As my right hon. Friend said, grouse are not reared in captivity, so I cannot see how they would be covered. However, once the birds are no longer in captivity, following their release into the wild, they are classed as game. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to class them as farm poultry or livestock.

That legal position is supported by the definitions used in animal disease control legislation and the Game Acts. Farmers, after all, cannot be considered responsible for birds that have been released into the wild.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying some of those points. She said that the Government aim to create as much certainty as possible. That is sadly not how it feels to many in the sector. Part of the reason for people’s concerns is that they wonder why some of this was not in the original Bill. That is why I keep returning to the underlying philosophical principles driving this. That is my concern and what has fed people’s worries.

Of course, we welcome the changes and improvements to the Bill. However, as I said earlier, Government Members raised questions 14 or 15 months ago. I suspect they will not necessarily be reassured by this. They would like to see something stronger, as we would. That is why—as this part of the Bill is so important—we will press the amendment to a Division.

I noticed—although I am not surprised—that the Minister did not feel able to respond to the observation from the British Poultry Council. Those are very strong statements coming from some sectors. I am of an age that I can remember the debates about manufacturing in the 1990s. I recall a visit that I made to one of the shoe factories in Norwich with the late, great Robin Cook. We were stunned to hear from that business that they had had a visit from a very enthusiastic Minister in the then Conservative Government to tell them, essentially, that they were not needed any more; the future was going to be different.

My concern, which is reflected by others, is that extraordinarily, in our great country, with its wonderful rural traditions, there is in some quarters a school of thought that sees the same outcome as a possibility for agriculture and farming. That is why we are so concerned and why we believe the powers should be strengthened.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman not concerned that the inclusion of the word “must” could open up the Government to judicial review from farmers who could make a sensible argument that not all the objectives are being fully funded? They could then revert to the courts to try to get that through. That is not what I believe the Government should be doing with the Bill.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I always listen carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, because he knows of what he speaks, but I wonder whether that is a slight red herring in this case. What he warns of could come about, but on balance I would say that that is a risk worth taking to strengthen the Bill. To me, the risks that I have just outlined are greater.

I have huge confidence in the future of the sector, but some ideologues in the world have strange ideas. I do not think that is unique to one party or another. I would just caution Government Members to be aware that they, too, have people with some interesting thoughts on their side. In my view, the country needs such people to be seen off. I suspect that there is, if not unanimity, then considerable cross-party support for that point. We want our agricultural sector to continue to thrive and prosper. Food production is a key part of that, and we want that strengthened in this legislation. On that basis, I will press the amendment to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

We have had a good discussion pointing out some of the interesting trade-offs and tensions that we face as we look ahead. I was struck by the point made by the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, because it seems there are potentially many unintended consequences of the changes that we are about to make. I absolutely understand his point about oversupply. All I would say is that if we are trying to tackle the climate crisis, we will have to manage the transition. That is one of the great challenges of the Bill.

A long time ago, I was a student of early modern economic history. The terrible crisis that faced farmers and communities was the constant problem of how people deal with dearth and plenty. Year after year, we saw populations across Europe struggling with that. I gently suggest that the post-war settlement, and the development of a system to try to manage that problem, was what the common agricultural policy was originally about. That is one of the reasons that we now have to change it and reform it. It was never set up to deal with the environmental challenges, although there have been attempts to reform it. The basic question of how we ensure that we have sufficient food for our population, and a decent return for those producing it and living in rural communities, does not go away just because it has not been a problem for a while.

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible and considered point. My concern was that, in the same way as we strove to reduce our carbon footprint in the metallurgical industries by offshoring some of the production of steel and aluminium outside our country, we might see a risk. For example, it is virtually impossible to produce oilseed rape in an organic way; the weed pressure is such that it is almost impossible. We might find that we export production of oilseed rape to countries where that production is less sustainable, resulting in more carbon being burned and possible deforestation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

The amendments cover a huge number of areas that could occupy us for many hours, no doubt. I promise I shall spare the Committee that. Greatly missing from the Bill, however, is the understanding that how we manage our agricultural systems not only has implications for the environment but for public health. What we grow and the support we provide for that affects the availability of healthy food, as we have already discussed. The current overuse of antibiotics to counter high stocking densities in livestock continues to be linked to worrying trends in levels of antibiotic-resistant diseases. Pesticide use can also have impacts beyond biodiversity on human health.

The Government’s White Paper “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”, which prefigured the Bill, highlighted the key links between our agricultural and food supply systems and public health outcomes. Yet, as my predecessor pointed out, where has health gone in the Bill? It does not seem to be there, and we think it should be.

Amendment 34 would therefore include “improving public health” in the list of public goods for which farmers would be eligible to receive financial assistance. Amendment 35 outlines specific priority areas we believe should receive funding, including the key areas of reducing antibiotic use; reducing harm from the use of chemicals and pesticides, particularly pesticide residue on food; and increasing the availability and affordability of healthy produce such as fruits, vegetables and pulses to encourage healthier diets.

Reducing antibiotic use in particular is a clear global public good. We know that antimicrobial resistance is increasing across the world and that the United Nations has identified the overuse of antibiotics in farming as one of the biggest emerging threats to human health. In particular, routine preventive dosing of healthy animals with antibiotics has implications for the rise of potentially fatal viruses, and we have already seen outbreaks of viral diseases that have spread to people, such as bird flu and swine flu, which have been directly linked to intensive farming.

Over the last few years, our farmers have rightly cut back on using antibiotics. We appreciate that, but we believe that more needs to be done. We also think that moving outside the European Union and its rules has put a question mark over our position on that. At the moment, we have our UK voluntary standard produced by RUMA—the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture alliance—which requires farmers to avoid routine use of antibiotics, but we still do not have legislation banning the routine use of preventive antibiotics on groups of healthy animals in the UK.

The European Union has seen the light and has agreed to end the use of all routine antibiotic use, including group preventive treatments, by January 2022. So far as I am aware, however, we have heard nothing from the Government on whether we will follow suit. I would appreciate the Minister’s observations.

We believe that we need concrete incentives in the Bill to reduce antibiotic use now. I am well aware that farmers operate in a marketplace and need to produce food at affordable prices, and indeed at various price points. That is why we believe that help for people is legitimate when we want to make that change. Finance should be made available to support farmers to make those changes.

Surprisingly, as far as we can see, the Bill makes little mention of pesticides. We will discuss the need to monitor pesticide use in relation to the environment with a later amendment, but we all know that those chemicals can have an effect on human health. Last year, Soil Association research showed that reliance on modern intensive farming methods means that every day we are exposed to traces of potentially carcinogenic compounds left on fruit and veg. I suspect that we will return to such contentious points later, but some foodstuff tested by the Soil Association was contaminated with up to 14 different chemicals.

In the evidence sessions, we heard some of the difficult questions about the science of such issues, and I fully admit that it is contested. None the less, it is important. When we used to work under the precautionary principle, we were cautious about such things. According to the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food, pesticide traces were found in 45% of thousands of tested samples of food and drink bought in the UK in 2018, so it is a significant issue.

The potential implications of repeated spraying of pesticides in rural areas on the health of rural communities has also been well documented in the past, although I fully acknowledge that all farmers are cautious and careful, not least because of the costs involved—people do not do this willy-nilly—but, sadly, not always in ways that necessarily protect the adjoining rural communities.

[Mr Goodwill]

I understand that pesticide residues must be minimised, but is it not the case that the current generation that is living to ever-increasing ages, with more people than ever before at 100 years of age, is the first generation not to be brought up entirely on organic food?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to go back to the Marmot report. Sadly, not everyone is living to 100—not everyone necessarily wants to live to 110 or 120, of course—and the worry is that the increase in life expectancy appears to have stalled. However, he makes an important point. I am not one of those who thinks that life was so much better in the past. Most of us can recognise plenty to celebrate in the modern world and in the technological advances we have made, but alongside those advances we have learnt some of the downsides and unintended consequences of some of the things that we can now do. Perhaps we are at a point in time—to go back to this being a key moment in developing our policy for the future—to look at the decisions made 40 years ago to tackle scarcity and shortage. Now, we might be tackling a different set of problems. That is why the debate is so important, but the right hon. Gentleman makes an important contribution.

Going back to the potential issues with pesticides, in March 2017 the report of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food highlighted the fact that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides has been associated with several diseases and conditions, including cancer, developmental disorders and sterility, and that those living near crop fields are particularly vulnerable to exposure to those chemicals.

Again, I acknowledge that some of that is contested, but it would be unwise to suggest that there is no potential problem here. If we can find ways of reducing the risk, that is surely something to be sought. It is also the case that, while those who are administering the pesticides should use protective equipment when using agricultural pesticides and there are clear guidelines and rules on that, adjacent rural residents and communities do not necessarily have anything like the same protection—most do not have any protection at all—and there are still no mandatory measures in the UK specifically for the protection of those rural systems.

Alongside that, boosting our supply of fruit and veg is particularly important for public health, as we have just discussed, so that people can have access to fresh, sustainably produced fruit and vegetables closer to home. We know that low intake of fruit and veg is among the most important dietary risk factors for chronic disease, including heart disease and stroke. I am told that, sadly, only 31% of British adults and 8% of children currently achieve the Government’s recommendation of five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

We are using far less of our agricultural land to produce fruit and vegetables than we could—only 1.4% in England, when the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit estimates that we could be using up to 19% of land to cultivate crops of fruit and vegetables. Looking back, we had a very different mix in past times. This is part of the wider discussion about the extent to which we are part of a global trading system and want to import things that we could very well produce here. Again, it is part of the economic trade-offs.

Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q I have one additional question that has not come up very much. We talk about public goods and public money, but should there be some public voice in all this, for any decisions about what goes on locally? Where are the people in all this?

George Monbiot: That is a very good question. The Bill discusses both natural heritage and cultural heritage. Both are very important values and neither should be dismissed, but there is an assumption in a great deal of rural thinking in Britain that they are one and the same. We have to acknowledge that they are often in direct conflict. Maintaining sheep on the land is highly damaging to ecosystems, but getting rid of sheep farmers can be highly damaging to local cultures and languages. We have to see that a balance should be struck.

We have so often fudged the issue, the classic example being the world heritage bid in the Lake district, where they were assumed to be one and the same. It is always resolved in favour of farming, because farming is assumed to be good for ecosystems, but in the great majority of cases it is not—the best thing to do for an ecosystem is to withdraw farming from it. But because we do not acknowledge that there is a conflict, we do not produce a balance that ever favours wildlife.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Mr Monbiot, you are on record as saying that

“farming is no longer essential to human survival”.

In contradiction to what the Soil Association told us this morning—that we should have more mixed farming and more livestock, allowing soils to be improved by the use of natural manures—you suggest that we should abandon livestock production, particularly on the uplands, and plant trees and rewild large areas of our country. Is that a correct appraisal?

George Monbiot: That is broadly correct. One thing to say is that in the uplands there is almost no mixed farming. In fact, it would be very hard for mixed farming to be established in the uplands, which are very unsuitable on the whole for arable. In the lowlands, if we were to reintroduce mixed farming, at the microlevel that could be a very good thing by comparison to the arable deserts of East Anglia, but we would see a major decline in total yield. There is very little research on what that decline would be, but everyone can more or less accept that we will see that decline.

The global conundrum we are in is that roughly half the global population is dependent on NPK, to put it crudely, and certainly on nitrogen and other artificial fertilisers. If we were to take those out of the system, we would have mass starvation—huge numbers of people would die. However, we are aware that applications of N, P and K and others are causing global disaster: they contribute significantly to climate breakdown, soil loss, downstream pollution, air pollution and a whole load of other issues. We cannot live with it and cannot live without it. We are in an astonishing and very difficult conundrum. If we were to switch—as the Soil Association recommends and as my instincts would tell us to do—to mixed rotation or organic farming, we would not be able to produce enough food. It is as simple as that.

How do we get out of that conundrum? I see some hope in factory-produced food—microbial protein and cultured meat. That could be the only way of reconciling environmental needs of future generations and the rest of life on Earth with the need to feed people alive today and in future. We need to find ways of feeding the planet without devouring it. That could be the way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon, Professor Keevil. When I came to this debate a few weeks ago and started reading about it, I found the apparently contradictory claims about the safety of the various systems confusing. I was struck by your evidence, and I wondered if you could take us through it. You say at one point that it is difficult to make comparisons, but I must say that in most of our debates people make comparisons with huge amounts of confidence, depending on which side of the debate they are on. You also say that the USA reports that 14.7% of its population contracts a food-borne illness annually, while in the UK the figure is 1.5%. Could you amplify that?

Professor Keevil: As you rightly say, when we look at the data, depending on the source, it can be difficult to interpret because of the way it is recovered. For example, in the USA, they report on infections, some of which are assumed from the evidence they have available. If you look at the reporting of the numbers of pathogens in American produce, such as poultry, they report it in terms of the answer to the question, “Does the food contain more than”—for example—“400 counts of a pathogen per gram of food?” In the UK, the Food Standards Agency reports in terms of “low”, “medium” or “high”. National surveys such as sampling from supermarkets, for example, show that 50% of poultry have very low numbers of pathogens such as a salmonella; only about 5% or 6% have food samples with over 1,000 counts of a pathogen. By those criteria, UK foods appear to be safer—but, I must stress, according to those criteria.

As I say in the written evidence, we now have this vexed question of viable but non-culturable—VBNC—bacteria. When looking at some of the published data, it is very difficult to take that into account, but the work that we and other labs have done is now telling us that we cannot ignore it. We have published our work on chlorine treatment, but we have also looked at what happens when you stress a pathogen such as listeria by depriving it of nutrients. For example, in a factory where you are washing down with tap water, the listeria can still survive, and in those conditions it can become this VBNC form. If all you are doing is regular swabbing and then reporting, you could say, “Our factory is clear of listeria.” In fact, if we used the more modern methods, that might be found to be not true.

We are really talking not just about standards now, but the standards we should adopt in the future, both in the UK and in what we would expect other countries to adopt if we are going to import food from them.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q We occasionally hear of outbreaks of food poisoning, but this is the Agriculture Bill, which relates to food only once it passes the farm gate. To what extent is the problem within agriculture and to what extent is it in the transportation, processing, storage or preparation of food?

Professor Keevil: As you rightly to point out, it is very complex. We have to talk about the food chain, but let us look at the route which is the primary source of pathogen ingress into the food chain. To take the case of poultry, one of the issues is that some countries, including America, they have intensive rearing of poultry; they also have cattle feed lots, where animals are raised and fed in a dense community. In the UK and Europe, our husbandry standards appear to be better, poultry are reared in less intensive conditions and we do not have cattle in feed lots like the Americans do, so the animals have more space, they appear to be healthier and, from what we have seen so far, they have reduced numbers of pathogens at that stage.

Of course, you are quite correct that every step in the food chain is a potential source of contamination. If we use lorries, provided that those lorries are properly cleaned and decontaminated, that should not be an issue. When food is produced for restaurants, if the staff adopt good hygiene, they should not transmit pathogens to the customers—that has been well documented. The supermarkets are very responsible; they have a reputation to maintain—they do not want to be seen as the supermarket that poisons their customers—so they maintain very high standards.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Before we turn to Compassion, on the antibiotics point, do you think there should be stronger, more directive provisions in the Bill?

Vicki Hird: I think that would be very helpful. We designed a clause for the previous version of this Bill that mentioned that, along with exposure to pesticides for consumers, workers and the community, and other aspects of public health. There therefore is a clause available, if anybody wants to table it.

Antibiotic reduction is important. I know that the industry has already gone some way. It is doing a good job, but it needs to be supported in that, through animal health and welfare financial support, and through training, advice and demonstration. The Budget should definitely be strong enough and big enough to provide farmers with that kind of support, to take things in the direction of lower antibiotic use.

James West: The question was about subsidies, and bars on subsidies. We support the use of subsidies for delivering the public goods that are in the Bill. Again, we would like that to be a requirement rather than a “may”. Essentially, public money should deliver genuinely higher standards of welfare; it should not be for meeting the regulatory baseline or going marginally beyond it. If you are looking at the top line, you might consider such things as allowing animals to express their natural behaviour, access to pasture for dairy cows, and the provision of enrichment materials for pigs. Obviously, depending on which species you look at, there will be different requirements, but broadly speaking, they will be lower stocking densities, slower-growing breeds, if we are talking about meat chickens, and access to pasture outdoors.

You might also look at things that would disqualify someone from receiving an animal welfare payment. One of the things that Compassion works on is ending the live export of animals. From our point of view, if you are involved in the live export trade, you should probably not receive the public subsidy for good animal welfare. In the area of mutilations, going back to pigs, you have enrichment. In Germany, they provide a premium for pigs at slaughter when the pig gets to the slaughterhouse with an intact tail, because that means that you have almost certainly run a very good system. The amount of space, enrichment and so on that you will have given the pigs during the rearing process will have been such that you will not have needed to tail-dock the pig, as you might in more intensive systems. We have fairly detailed documents with what may or may not qualify you for a subsidy, but broadly speaking it is natural behaviours and space.

Dr Palmer: The absence of a clear percentage commitment regarding the amount of support that will be given for animal welfare purposes means that a degree of uncertainty remains, which is bad for the whole agricultural industry. A farmer needs to know that what amount of money is potentially available, so that they can try to work for it. With respect to the new Chancellor, we are unlikely to get an infinite amount of subsidy in the Budget, so it makes sense that the available money is used to help farmers to become among the best in the world, rather than to move marginally from a fairly low base to a slightly higher one.

In the long term, the future of British farming has to be at the top of the scale. If we try to race to the bottom, we will fail. The British farming industry will not succeed on that basis, so we should consider the areas where we can help farmers to move towards higher welfare—for instance, ending the use of farrowing crates. There is a one-off cost, which it is reasonable to help them with. Once they have moved away from that, there should not be an additional cost. They will then, in association with the better labelling scheme, be able to tell consumers that British farming has produced higher welfare, higher quality meat.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q To follow smoothly on from that, British farmers pride themselves on having the highest welfare standards in the world. Indeed, in some ways we were held back by the European Union, because we tried to ban things like dry sow stalls, but we could not stop their pork coming in.

However, I noticed that the Compassion in World Farming website talks about ending “the horror” of factory farming. I just wondered if you felt that there were any farms in this country that that definition would apply to. You talked about housed livestock—for example, dairy cattle that are housed in winter. Do you think that is acceptable? Where do you set the bar in describing what British farmers are doing, perfectly legally, as “horror”?

Dr Palmer: When we are talking about horrific factory farming, we are talking about the caging of egg-laying hens, which is still one third of the total in Britain; we are talking about the use of farrowing crates, which keep the sow unable even to turn round for up to five weeks.

Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Is there anything you would like to see in the Bill that would help that to happen?

Richard Self: There is nothing specific that I would like to see. At this stage, it is about trying to keep it as wide as possible, so that we keep our options open and look at every stage of making the environment right for co-operatives to thrive and succeed.

The UK is well behind most other developed agricultural systems in its use of farmer co-operatives. France, Germany and the USA are all developing a number of co-operatives, while the number of our co-operatives is reducing. We need to change that balance around. Our market share of co-operatives, based on my most recent figures from a few years ago, is about 6%, compared with Germany’s 17%. I think France has something like 55% and Denmark somewhere over 60%. Their market share is much greater. The value added that those co-operatives bring is returned to the primary producer.

The other advantage with co-operatives is that they make the markets less volatile. That is one of the things we are worried about in the future—volatile markets. A co-operative can help balance out that market to make it work well, so that there is less volatility in the price of goods—the primary produce. It also makes sure that the supply chains are fairer for the farmer because they are working together.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q From what you have just said, it appears that the structure of UK agriculture, with larger units, does not lend itself particularly well to co-operatives; whereas, on the continent, you have lots of small farmers who, for example, never get a fertiliser salesman on their farm for the size of their operation.

Do you think that, under the old system as part of the European Union, we have in many ways been trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, and fit what is going on here into the way that we can access funds? How do you think in future we can actually produce a system to encourage co-operatives, of the sort that would maybe work in the UK, rather than trying to emulate those across the water?

Richard Self: Generally, we have some very good co-operatives out there. The governance angle of co-operatives is the key thing. If we get that right, and get them well managed at the leadership level, that will help to address the sort of thing that we have had in the past.

We have large farmers in our country, compared with some of the others, but in fact it is the small farmers who do not tend to collaborate so much. I think the larger farmers tend to be very professional in what they are doing, and they are looking at this as a business arrangement, as opposed to the smaller farmers, who want to do things themselves. The evidence I have seen basically says that we need to target smaller farmers probably more than we do the larger farmers.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

Q May I press you on that point? This is a big transition that is envisaged, possibly over a compressed timeframe. Is there the capacity to provide the advice and to do the negotiation? If there is not, what needs to be done to get it in place?

Jim Egan: I think there is underlying capacity out there. There are enough people to do it. There will be a change of mindset in some sectors, but bear in mind that business is seeing some of the opportunities here as well. Jake is right: it needs to be somebody the farmer trusts—there is a wide range of advisers trusted by farmers—and the advisers need to believe in the scheme. Many advisers have not sold environmental work for the past five years, because they do not believe in the scheme; they do not want to put their name on the line when the payments are late, and when the agreement does not turn up for a year after you have entered into it.

You should not underestimate the impact that that has, because if your adviser walks up the drive and says, “I can’t put my name to that, because I can’t advise you about that future income and part of your business,” it puts people off. We are starting to get a lot of certainty now about stewardship. I know it will change and evolve, but we need that certainty of scheme and of process. The advice is there; people just need to believe in it.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Many land managers derive significant income from the sporting potential of their farms or estates—not just from the sale of game, but from the people who pay to stalk or shoot or to catch salmon in their rivers. Indeed, before agri-environmental schemes came in, the farms and estates managed in that way were probably the ones already doing what we want them to do now. How important do you think it is that any new schemes under ELM dovetail in with the way that these estates are being managed? Do we need to take particular account, for example, of grouse moors and the uplands, where we have a fragile environment that, if managed in a different way, could well revert to what some might see as a carbon sink, but others would see as a downgrading of that precious environment?

Graeme Willis: Referring to uplands, we have signed a letter to say that we want peatland burning to end rapidly, and the Committee on Climate Change has taken the same view. I want those landscapes to be managed in a re-wetted form, which might help different forms of game. It might not be the same kinds of game management.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q I very much agree with you about the complex interaction between the pieces of legislation, but we know that the sector produces a certain amount. Could there not be a target for the sector?

Graeme Willis: A target for the sector would be very interesting. I know that the NFU has come up with its own leadership statement of a 2040 target. It would be interesting for the sector. I would flag up that when emissions from agriculture are referenced they are land use, land-use change and forestry emissions, which relate to agriculture. Peatland use, particularly, is not mentioned, which is very high indeed—particularly on lowland peat. Those need to be factored in. It is of great concern that those do not get mentioned adequately. I think there are powers within the Bill to address those.

I suspect that if you had sector targets for agriculture you would argue for targets for other sectors. I am not sure whether those are in place. In the agriculture sector, I think that there will be ambition, given the right funding, to do a lot more on climate change, certainly in terms of locking carbon up in soils, where it belongs, rather than losing it to the air. There is great potential for that.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q I am trying to get my head around the deal in payments with respect to an early retirement scheme. When answering an earlier question, you talked about the way it could affect the value of the land. Could there be a situation in which a tenant takes the money and runs, and then the landowner is looking for a new tenant but without the agricultural support? It is difficult to attract one. How will the environment be managed if the payments that would have been forthcoming for the environmental land management schemes were not there? What would happen in practice in a situation where a tenant takes early retirement and takes the money, and then expects the landlord to pick up the pieces?

Jake Fiennes: There could be a technical mechanism relating to tenant’s dilapidations from the landlord’s perspective. The landlord could seek to recoup that if he was going to devalue the land by taking those future payments away. There is a technical mechanism that allows that to happen. That strengthens the landlord’s ability to retain that land to rent to others or to new entrants. It is important that there is some kind of mechanism within the Bill for that. Potentially there would be land abandonment because it has no value, or we would see deep intensification of land areas that have no support mechanism. Then we are trying to deliver environmental land management on a landscape scale, and we have these blackspots in between with no support mechanism. That would be my concern.