Plant Health (Amendment) (England) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Grand Committee

These instruments will ensure that an operable legal framework is in place for exit day and will facilitate the flow of goods while preserving the current plant health regime’s overall aim of preventing and managing pest and disease threats. I beg to move.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for taking these two statutory instruments together. Although they are huge, they are complementary. I am also grateful to him for his explanation. As he said, it is a matter of making sure that we have an operable legal framework when we leave the EU. I have one or two questions.

I am grateful for the detailed Explanatory Memorandum on the first instrument. Paragraph 2.5 talks about “existing fees”. Will we continue with those fees until at some future time they might be changed if that needs to be done? At the moment it just states that the existing fees will continue.

Paragraph 2.7 talks about the new certificates,

“issued in the country of export in accordance with International Plant Protection Convention obligations”.

I was delighted to see that any imports will not be stopped at the border but will be examined and looked at in great detail at the centres to which they eventually go. I understand that physical checks will not be carried out on anything that has come through existing EU member states, and that that will continue into the future—I hope I am correct and that we get clarification on that—but anything coming in from a third country that does not come through the EU will be dealt with in a totally different way. It is hugely important that we control anything coming into this country. We have seen with great sadness ash and oak trees being lost through infections and diseases. These are really important steps we are taking. Are the premises that will need to be authorised by Defra to provide those inspection facilities all over the UK or based around the London area? It is not clear where they will be based.

We have a new offence in relation to non-compliance with import requirements in this statutory instrument; I welcome the opportunity for us to prosecute serious cases. Do the Government anticipate that there might be set fees for anything coming in that fails to live up to the expected standards, or will they come later?

I turn now to the statutory instrument itself. On page 23, Article 22A(3) states:

“The conditions are that—(a) the packaging in which the relevant material is transported and any vehicle which is used to transport the material is free from soil and plant debris and any relevant tree pest”.


I do not know how one can fully guarantee that, even if the material is wrapped and fully secure, there will not be some leakage or mishap during transition. Has thought been given to that? Then on page 29, in Part D of Schedule 13A, paragraph 11(a)(vii)(cc) refers to,

“controls for the disposal of waste, soil and water, as appropriate”.

The two do not seem to sit terribly well together. Why is there different wording in different areas? It may be that I have missed something, but I am not quite clear and I would be grateful for clarification.

Basically I very much welcome these regulations, because—like other noble Lords who will take part in this debate—I have for many years been very conscious of the risks we run. The more plants and shrubs we import, the greater the risk to our native species. Also, the climate is warming here, and therefore we may well, as we are seeing, be able to grow more vines and things, but as we import additional shrubs and other habitats into this country, the risk is even greater than before. It is just a matter of trying to make sure that the system we are establishing here is strong enough and has enough powers. Hence my questions on the way fees will be dealt with and on what regulations there will be about the charges when people do not live up to the standards we are setting in these instruments. They are hugely important. I would not normally speak at such great length, but I am very aware that while we cannot control certain things, such as wind-borne diseases, we certainly can control physical things coming into our country. I want to make sure we have taken enough precautions in these two statutory instruments.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for so clearly outlining the changes. If we enter a no-deal Brexit scenario, we will lose a fully-functioning system that regulates the very important trade in fruit, vegetables, freshly-cut flowers and timber that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said, is critical to ensuring our continuing biosecurity.

I have three points. First, I struggled to get a sense from the Explanatory Memorandum of what increase in the inspection rates will be necessary as a result of this new scenario in the event of no deal. As the Minister rightly said at the beginning, the majority of plants and fresh fruit will not have any more inspection, but all the plants and produce coming in by virtue of the EU plant passport regime, which are not subject to inspection now, will be subject to inspection in future. I was grateful for the responses that I had from the staff when I asked them that question: they made it clear that we are looking at a 30% increase in the number of inspections necessary in plants, fruit and cut flowers, and a 50% increase in timber. We are not talking about small numbers here. The figures that they gave me are that at the moment we have about 100,000 consignments per year of regulated goods, so a 30% increase on those figures is not going to be small. There will therefore be considerable on-costs to the public purse as the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Forestry Commission will have to undertake those inspections.

The staff helpfully made it clear that at the moment the Forestry Commission has 10 inspectors who undertake inspections but, if we have to go forward with this SI because of a no-deal Brexit, it will have to have increase its inspectors by 50%, which means another five. In real terms that does not sound like a very large number, but it is still of 50% more inspectors, not in the London area, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, rightly highlighted, but geographically spread out, so it will not just be a question of staff costs; it will mean resources to get them out and about in the country. There will be significant on-costs to the public purse as a result of the necessary increase in inspections if we leave the EU.

Secondly, I would like to tease out a bit more on the inspections that are going to take place at authorised premises in order to ensure that there are no backlogs at the RORO points. The Explanatory Memorandum is quite clear that the Government want to avoid that, and I think we all wish that. The Minister just said, if I heard him correctly, that 35 businesses have applied to have authorised premises so that these inspections can take place at their facilities around the country. My understanding from the Explanatory Memorandum is that 900 businesses that are presently engaged in this arena. So 35 business have have applied to have their premises authorised and there are potentially 900 businesses that are already within this arena. Again, I am grateful to the staff because when I asked them how many of those 900 businesses had premises that they thought would be suitable—not everyone is going to have premises that are—they very kindly indicated that they thought between 75 to 100 businesses would have suitable premises. So up to 100 of those 900 businesses are potentially able to get their premises licensed, and only 35, so far, have done so. Will the Minister say a bit more about exactly how we will ensure that we do not get delays at the ports? I applaud the desire to have no backlog at the ports but, at the moment, the figures do not quite seem to stack up.

--- Later in debate ---

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned the additional costs. The cost of the additional plant health inspectors required in a no-deal scenario to facilitate inland checks is covered in the additional £7.4 million that the Animal and Plant Health Agency has been allocated for 2018-19. It is also to support Defra’s wide-ranging and ambitious portfolio of preparations for exit. I work with the Animal and Plant Health Agency and it has strong expertise.

[Baroness Byford]

I thank my noble friend for clarifying the extra money that has been allocated. Will that money be clawed back from importers and people who are buying the products, or will the Government put the money up and make no attempt to get recompense? I thought from the conversations we had earlier that there would be a charge.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The fees are for the costs of inspection or whatever. The additional costs for people will partly be borne by the Exchequer. I think I had better have complete clarification on that. As far as I am concerned, the fees cover the cost of inspections and we will have to upscale them. It might be helpful if that £7.4 million is allocated in a way that my noble friend and other noble Lords can appreciate, so that we get it right and I get it on the record right.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Parminter, mentioned the 33 premises. There are obviously other businesses. Officials are engaging with export businesses and encouraging applications. We look forward to being helpful because it is important that these premises are inspected, secure and fit for purpose. Then we can help to ensure that these products come to the inland premises as swiftly as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked about future plans. The policies in regulations are risk-based and proportionate, and will apply temporarily from day one until we develop our future plant health regime. This will include consideration of the extent to which we implement aspects of revived arrangements to be introduced in the EU from December 2019 through its new regulations on plant health and official controls, given their significant influence in shaping these new arrangements. Clearly what we in this country want to do is to have the highest possible standards of biosecurity. We will be looking at the advantage of available technologies to facilitate trade that is as frictionless as possible, but the paramount importance is to have high standards of biosecurity. Defra and the Food Standards Agency are working closely together to develop proposals for this and plan to consult on them this year.

The noble Baroness asked about Scotland. By chance, I met Mairi Gougeon, the Scottish Biosecurity Minister, along with Lesley Griffiths from Wales only about three hours ago as they were in for other meetings at Defra. I requested that the three of us meet, perhaps when this particular hiatus is over, so that we can work positively together. For Scotland, the Plant Health (EU Exit) (Scotland) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2019 were laid in draft on 13 March and were debated and passed scrutiny unchallenged on 14 March, while similar regulations for Wales were laid in draft on 19 February.

I am going to have a close look at Hansard regarding other points. My noble friend Lady Byford mentioned climate change. Obviously, this is an area where we all need to work collaboratively across the world. Because of climate change, plant diseases and pests have, in my view, become much more alarming. The issue of physical and windborne is absolutely the case. I am afraid that we would have got Chalara even if we had not done the unwise things that we did because, as my noble friend Lord Deben and others will know, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and such eastern counties are suffering because of it being airborne. That leads to a much wider issue: whatever our arrangements with our friends in the EU 27, this is an area where we all have to collaborate. I am afraid the challenge that I would put back to Europe in this area is that a lot of things are coming here because when they arrived in Europe, there has not been zero tolerance. I mention the oak processionary moth and the Asian hornet as examples of where arrivals in Europe have not been dealt with, so we are having to seek to deal with them here. We do not have enough sea to match the ambition of New Zealand or Australia; it is only 22 miles wide. We all need to do very much more.

On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, about the maximum penalty, I might not have a note from the Box but I think the fine is limitless. All I can say is that if someone transgresses, I hope the fine is substantial because the disasters that can befall our country due to these pests and diseases is very grave. I will study Hansard. I will write if there are embellishments or further details that I can supply.