Agriculture Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I acknowledge the support from all sides of the House for all that we can do to encourage climate change mitigation, but I believe that that intention is already fully provided in Bill.

[Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 272. I shall make a few points, while being mindful of what the Minister just said.

Healthy land is also healthy food. At the moment so much of our acreage is given over to growing grains that end up in very cheap, white, processed bread and the like. These fields are covered in chemicals. Any move that we can make in the right direction not only improves our biodiversity—agriculture is to blame for the 80% loss that has been suffered across the world—but is a win-win situation. I do not understand why the Government appear to be afraid of setting a target. We cannot make this target without agriculture being part of it; it is too big a part of our system.

Henry Dimbleby is producing a report for the Government, and I am very proud to say that I am an adviser on it. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that an interim report is coming soon. If the Agriculture Bill does not set up sufficient pillars and legislation to change the way we farm, which can then change the way we eat, Henry Dimbleby’s terrific report will not have the impact that it needs.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I agree with everything the noble Baroness has said about healthy land meaning healthy food. The Bill is designed to do all that we can to encourage farmers to produce healthy land. We do not have a sector-specific target for agriculture because the Committee on Climate Change advised that emissions reductions would be needed in all sectors. We know that to achieve net zero more is needed from this sector, and we are looking to reduce agricultural emissions controlled directly within the farm boundary with a broad range of cost-effective measures, primarily through improvements in on-farm efficiency and land use change.

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[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a farmer and landowner, as set out in the register. I shall speak to Amendments 202, 203, 204 and 205 in my name. The basic purpose of these amendments is to set the conditions in which future delegated legislation under the auspices of this Bill is fair, transparent, responsive, proportionate and equitable.

Amendment 202, on publishing information related to producer organisation grants, seeks to delete the requirement to publish grant application decisions online. Such a requirement is disproportionate, and the publication could contain commercially sensitive information that buyers could seek to use against the producer organisation.

Amendments 203, 204 and 205 relate to competition law. I fear there are no baubles here; we begin to get technical. The Competition Act 1998 contains the following exemption in relation to agricultural products:

“The Chapter I prohibition does not apply to an agreement to the extent to which it relates to production of or trade in an agricultural product and—


(a) forms an integral part of a national market organisation;


(b) is necessary for the attainment of the objectives set out in Article 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; or


(c) is an agreement of farmers or farmers’ associations (or associations of such associations) belonging to a single member State which concerns—


(i) the production or sale of agricultural products, or


(ii) the use of joint facilities for the storage, treatment or processing of agricultural products, and under which there is no obligation to charge identical prices.”


I did not write that.

As currently drafted, the Agriculture Bill removes this exemption and replaces it with exemptions relating specifically to producer organisations, associations of producer organisations and recognised interbranch organisations. In doing this, the current exemption for agreements, which is necessary for the attainment of the objectives set out in Article 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union—in other words, the common agricultural policy objectives—is removed. There does not appear to be any justification for the removal of this exemption, particularly during the period when the UK’s domestic agricultural policy is being developed. If an agreement between farmers is necessary to achieve the current CAP objectives, it should remain exempt from the prohibition of agreements contained in Chapter 1 of the Competition Act 1998. The removal of block exemptions from specific aspects of competition law, with no clear justification, is concerning. It is necessary to understand whether there is any objective and sensible justification for removing the existing agricultural exemption. I would be most grateful for the Minister’s comments.

[Baroness Boycott [V]]

My Lords, I would first like to add my voice to the praise of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for Christine Tacon while she was in the role of Groceries Code Adjudicator. It is a very important role, and I would like to hear whether the Minister plans to beef it up and give her more powers.

Following what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said about animal welfare and the need for someone to look over it, it occurs to me that someone in a similar position to the Groceries Code Adjudicator, overlooking the welfare of animals with the power to fine and bring people to book, might be worth looking at.

I am here to make a brief intervention to support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, because I am a bit obsessive about fungi and feel that they are overlooked. They were once classified as plants because they come out of the soil and have rigid cell walls, but are now placed independently in their own kingdom with equal rank to animals and plants. In fact, they are nearer animals than plants.

An astonishing though not well-known fact, which I thought your Lordships might like to know, is that the world’s largest living organism is thought to be a honey fungus measuring 3.4 miles. It is across the Blue Mountains of Oregon and estimated to be 8,650 years old. Obviously, what we know better are varieties such as mushrooms, which are important to our diet and packed with vitamins and minerals. But they are also incredibly important to research. Penicillin, the foundation of all our modern medicine, comes from the fungus Penicillium. The everyday product yeast is also a fungus. While some can make you ill, they are essential in chemicals and drug manufacture. I know, as I travel to South America quite a lot, that scientists know that there is much more to discover about this amazing microscopic world.

From the point of view of the Agriculture Bill, fungi have the most enormous environmental benefit. They feed on dead organic matter, including leaf litter, soil and, of course, dead animals. They recycle 85% of the carbon from dead organic matter and release locked-up nutrients to be used by other organisms. This makes fungi completely essential to the ongoing health of our ecosystems. Sustainable life would not have a prayer without this magical, often microscopic, and too often ignored living group. This speech was to bring this to the Committee’s attention, and to say that I hope it maintains a proper place somewhere in the Bill.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 197 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Amendment 207 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and I thank them for their support.

Amendments 197 and 207 seek to achieve the same aim, which is to ensure proper scrutiny of the new supply chain measures being introduced under the Bill, which are to be greatly welcomed. I too congratulate and pay tribute to the Groceries Code Adjudicator, Christine Tacon, and her team for all that they have achieved under the code. The adjudicator has done a very good job in regulating the relationships between the major retailers and their direct suppliers.

However, I believe there has been a major regulatory gap in respect of relationships further upstream in the supply chain involving primary producers, the first purchasers and processors—what I refer to as the indirect supply chain. While it is good news that the Bill attempts to plug that gap, it is disappointing that seemingly little thought has been given to how the new arrangements contained in the Bill are to be governed. I understand that there have been discussions between officials and interested parties, and within those it has been suggested that for some reason the Rural Payments Agency could provide the oversight for these aspects of the Bill. I beg to differ. The RPA is not the appropriate body. It lacks the necessary skills, capacity and gravitas to be able to adequately deal with these aspects of the Bill, and is in any event sufficiently employed with its daily work.

Although the Bill is sponsored by Defra, it would be good to see a little joined-up thinking within the Government so that Defra and BEIS were on the same page in their approach to this. BEIS would like to expand the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to cover these new and important provisions, thus creating one single regulator from farm to fork. I hope that Defra will hold the upper hand and ensure that supply chains are functioning well for the long-term benefit of UK citizens, and the Groceries Code Adjudicator is the right body and team to do that.

These matters were considered in a recent review of the role and remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, and it is disappointing that at that stage BEIS decided against an expansion of the adjudicator’s remit. However, now that Defra has identified the need in the Bill for further supply chain provisions, with which I wholeheartedly agree, it seems perfectly sensible to give responsibility for the oversight of those arrangements to a body that is tried and tested and already has skills and expertise in this area. Without an adequate regulator identified in the Bill, we run the risk that the provisions on supply chains will simply not be adequately administered or enforced. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, those who have co-signed Amendment 207 and I have identified, the Groceries Code Adjudicator is the right place for this work to be conducted.

With regard to the wider remit, there are many reasons to include the indirect supply chain. More often than not, they are small growers or producers. It is very difficult for them to bring a complaint. I would like to see an own-initiative investigation started by the Groceries Code Adjudicator because it is difficult to rely completely on complaints from small producers and growers, which can so easily be identified with those with whom they have the contract and so fear losing the contract. With those few words, I commend Amendment 207 and support Amendment 197.