Agriculture Bill (First sitting)

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Colin Clark]

Thank you.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Q For better or worse, you have operated within a framework guided by the European Union for as long as probably all of you have been in the business. You have talked about mutual recognition and standards. Do you think the Bill could be doing more about not just undercutting within the UK, which you have talked about, and within different nations of the UK, should they choose to take different paths on some issues, but also about undercutting from overseas imports in the future? How significant a risk do you see that as being, and do you think this Bill is doing anything that could help relieve that anxiety?

Patrick Begg: I would say it is a very significant risk. You would find cross-sectoral agreement that more needs to be done—probably in the Trade Bill—around ensuring that imports do not undercut the environmental standards we already have and are talking about cementing for the future. Without that, it is a huge risk.

Martin Lines: Trade deals are going to be massive. We do not just want to have high standards here and export our environmental footprint; we want to be leading here, exporting those high standards, and buying produce from abroad that matches those high standards. There is a lot of concern around that.

Thomas Lancaster: I would agree, certainly on international trade, standards and imports. As Patrick says, we are speaking with one voice with the National Farmers Union and the Country Land and Business Association and other farming and food organisations on that point. In terms of UK co-operation, agriculture is a devolved policy, and it is right that individual devolved Administrations should have the flexibility to develop policies that are right for their country. We would like co-operation on issues such as how those policies are designed and how we can prevent market distortion. From our perspective, environmental challenges are transboundary—there are shared catchments that span borders within the UK—so how will we secure environmental outcomes across boundaries through future agriculture policy? That is a huge unanswered question.

Martin Lines: I would like to see the Government leading the way in procurement of their own food. Governments throughout the UK buy huge amounts of food. Where are you setting the higher standards in trying to procure that food locally and sustainably, and leading the way? That sets the direction for the rest of the public to follow.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Talking of public goods, we have been talking almost exclusively so far about environmental enhancement, but there is one public good that many members of the public would like to see: better public access. That can of course produce conflict, particularly with some of the environmental objectives. Indeed, one of the best bird habitats that I have seen was the oil refinery at Immingham, where not only were there lots of things for the birds to perch on, but the public—and their dogs in particular—were excluded. Do you think we can get the balance right? Do you think public access should be part of this, or if we are to encourage ground-nesting birds such as curlews, do we need to ensure that we do not have as much public access as some would perhaps wish?

Patrick Begg: We live and breathe this every day. This is at the heart of what the National Trust does. It is always a balance, and there will always be trade-offs. There is no blanket policy that you can apply here, but I think we would all agree that more public access that allows people to get the spiritual and physical refreshment that our countryside offers is absolutely critical.

The Bill is incredibly welcome, in that one legitimate area for public investment in future will be increased public access. I could not agree more strongly with what has been done in the Bill on that. Sometimes we can find small examples of disturbance where people and wildlife do not match up very well, and think that it is a universal problem. I think it is not universal. Our experience is that there is a large amount of open countryside in which people can happily co-exist with wildlife. There will have to be some careful thought put into how we make sure that the interface between people and livestock works. Dogs and livestock can be problematic—let us be honest. Again, we have methods for dealing with that. There is public education. It is interesting that the countryside code has gone off the agenda and no longer gets talked about. That can be revitalised, and people can be made to feel engaged in their countryside and feel that they have a shared responsibility for what happens out there, not just as users, but as people invested in it.

Martin Lines: On public access, it is good for people’s health to get out into the countryside, but it needs to be managed because of dogs and the health and safety aspects of people walking around on farms. This is also about access to information. Hopefully, we can deliver environmental land management plans to let the community have that knowledge and make it publicly accessible. The community around me can access what we are delivering as farmers, and put it on their community pages, so when they use the countryside and the footpaths, they understand what we are delivering.

As an industry, we can communicate positive messages, and talk about some of the trouble and hassle we get from public access, how people can use the landscape, and the food and public goods that we produce. That should connect back to society, because much of society is disconnected from what the landscape is used for, the food and animals that are used, and the threats that can come from wandering around nesting habitats or letting your dog run free.

Thomas Lancaster: Access is a good one to talk about, in terms of thinking about how you can have a holistic approach to securing public goods and food, with a solid regulatory foundation. We would not want farmers and landowners to be paid to keep rights of way open. That is a legal requirement, so you would not pay for that through public payments. What you might do is to pay for permissive access where it makes sense to join up rights of way, and where there is a real desire to connect one part of the local community to another part, but currently there is no path to do so. The farmers we work with are almost always passionate about educational access. They really love the support for it that they get through current schemes and agreements.

There will be instances where access is not suitable for biodiversity reasons, or on a Ministry of Defence firing range or whatever. That points to the need to have really good advice and guidance when we develop future schemes, to enable whoever is putting together the land management contracts to do so in a way that balances all the public goods and secures the best net outcome from any given farm or area of land.

Gilles Deprez: My knowledge is not good enough for this question. It is important to have public access. From what I have seen, we have a lot of public footpaths in Cornwall, for example. It is not always easy, to be honest. If you have a public footpath that goes across the middle of your most productive area of land, it is not easy, but we are already doing it today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

Q A lot of doubt has been expressed around the Government’s commitment to the maintenance, or indeed the improvement, of animal welfare standards in the face of future difficult trade deals. What concerns do you have about that? What commitments might you might like to see placed in the Bill?

David Bowles: The RSPCA, like the previous witnesses, has huge anxiety about future trade deals. Let us look at the number of countries that we are looking to do trade deals with. At the moment we are obviously looking to do a trade deal with the EU. We have broadly a level playing field with the EU, because we have had animal welfare standards since 1974 and they cover most of the species in the EU. Of course we would like to see them higher, but they are pretty good. The EU and the UK have probably some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, so that means that anybody else that we are trying to do trade deals with has lower standards—the only exception is New Zealand. The USA has hugely lower standards. Not only is it still using methods that are illegal in the UK, such as beef hormones or ractopamine, but it is also using standards that are illegal in the UK, such as the conventional battery cage and sow stalls.

The RSPCA would like to see an amendment to the Bill that was rejected by the House of Commons on the Trade Bill—that any trade deals would allow in only products that are produced at least to the standards in the UK. If we do not have that, we have a race to the bottom; we are just exporting our good animal welfare standards to somewhere else and we do not want to see that. We want to see a vibrant, healthy farming community in the UK, producing at higher welfare standards and giving the consumers what they want, not the bringing in of products and food that are produced to illegal or worse standards than here.

ffinlo Costain: I echo what David said, but I would also say that, in my meetings with Ministers and officials at DEFRA, I think there was a genuine commitment to improving farm animal welfare. I have been really heartened by that as we have been going forward. At the same time, there are some really challenging balances, exactly as David said. However, at the heart of this is what is the market in the UK, not only for our farmers at home, but abroad, and it is about quality. If we have lower standards coming in, it undermines our marketplace and our rural economy. It is essential that we recognise that we are never going to win a race to the bottom; we cannot. We can win a race to the top. We already have good quality products that could be much better quality in terms of welfare and the environment that we can sell as a story, as a whole product, whether that is branding, as Tom was talking about before—Cumbrian lamb or whatever—or whether it is selling branding at home; whether it is building the business case through public goods to our local communities and to the taxpayer for additional assistance in terms of land management and public goods; or whether it is underpinning the British brand and selling and promoting that quality around the world.

In addition, if we are building a market based on quality and reviving our rural economy, whether it is small, medium or large farm businesses, we will be developing new technologies and new machinery that we can also export. We want to see not only a growth in improved welfare and environmental standards, but a revival in the countryside. The Bill is a fantastic step in the right direction, but it is just framework legislation. We need to see more work in the future—for example, the gold standard work that DEFRA is engaged in.

Simon Doherty: I agree with the two previous correspondents entirely. I will not repeat everything that they have said. We have had some very encouraging, strong lines from DEFRA. The disappointment has been that there have been weaker lines from the Department for International Trade. We need to make sure that there is a join-up across Government to make sure that we are all singing off the same hymn sheet in relation to welfare, so that we do not have one part of Government saying one thing and another part doing another. Obviously, I will say this as the president of the British Veterinary Association. We feel that we are absolutely at the juxtaposition of animal health and welfare. We are here today because the role of the BVA is to represent the veterinary profession to Government. We hope that one of the outcomes across the board will be a recognition of the role of vets in veterinary public health, in animal welfare, in animal health, and ultimately in food security for the country.

David Bowles: Of course, the other way to stop this, apart from in trade deals, is to give the consumer information. At the moment we only have one mandatory method of production label, which is on eggs, and we know that that has worked. It has driven the market up to 55% now for free range eggs, because the consumers wanted that. We hope that in the Bill we get some mandatory method of production labelling going into other areas. There is a chance of getting that. I know the Government share some of that enthusiasm, and that would be really good. The consumers always say they want higher animal welfare, but some of the time they are confused because the label does not show that.

ffinlo Costain: The evidence shows that, where method of production labelling exists, at least 50% of consumers choose the higher welfare option, which is often a little more expensive. Method of production labelling is not only important in terms of helping to drive that market, but is really about improving communication. There is a big disparity between, particularly, people who live in the city, but also often people who live in the countryside as well, and the way that food is produced; I do not know whether that is driven by CBeebies. I have a four and a six-year-old and they constantly see one model of farming that does not necessarily reflect the way that farming is. Labelling and communication in general builds the case for improved prices and for commitment to local farmers, or farmers at a British level, and across the board. I think it is really important.

[Jenny Chapman]

Q I note what you say about the positive comments from DEFRA on the animal welfare that we have at the moment, but the Bill needs to be future-proof, and not all future DEFRA Ministers might be as cute and cuddly as the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth. You talked about a level playing field with the European Union. We need to make sure that we maintain at least that. I am told that we have probably the best animal welfare standards in the world. How can we make sure that the Bill stands the test of time and that we maintain that position? Some people argue that we ought to be almost pegging our standards to those of the EU so that we do not fall behind, and future Governments might experience pressure in the light of trade deals that might come in future years.

David Bowles: One of the most exciting things about trade deals at the moment—if I can use the words “exciting” and “trade deals” in the same sentence—is that we are starting to see language in them about equivalence on animal welfare standards. The EU has been a driver for this. It started with South Korea and has now got it with Chile, and it is looking at getting it with Mexico as well. That is a real incentive. We want to see similar language on equivalence with the EU, as well as with others. RSPCA Assured has shown that raising animal welfare standards can be done on a commercial basis—consumers will vote with their purses if they are given the right information and if there is enough transparency on the retailer market shelf—but some specific language on equivalence needs to be put into trade deals.

ffinlo Costain: Being in the lead is not something that continues unless you keep working at it. There are areas in which other countries are catching up with the UK, and possibly one or two in which they are starting to move ahead. It is therefore critical that we have metrics to measure the inputs and outcomes, and to understand at a national level where we want to be and how successful policy is at making that progress. We should be leaders—this is our opportunity. We will not win the race to the bottom, but we can win on quality by selling at home and selling abroad.

Look at Origin Green in Ireland. It is a unique national brand, although its climate outcomes are nowhere near as strong as what I would like to see. If we had a national brand based on metrics for climate change and biodiversity, with farm animal welfare used as a critical indicator of progress in both areas, it could be part of our gold standard work. It would underpin our progress and ensure it continues, and be a national brand that we could sell abroad. Origin Green is a really good place to look for an opportunity that we could quickly overtake and surpass in export and home production.

Simon Doherty: There is a huge commercial advantage from other parts of the world opening up to exploring improved animal welfare. We have consultancy firms such as FAI Farms that are working globally to help other jurisdictions to raise their standards towards those that we work at in Europe and in the UK.

I mentioned the underpinning research and development that is going on in the field of animal welfare. There are certainly other parts of northern Europe that are working on curly tails on pigs, for example, or improving health indicators such as mastitis or lameness in dairy cows. We have that world-class expertise across the board, and we need to continue to build on it. We also need to ensure that the funding is there to underpin that research.

[Mr Dunne]

Q I know that we are almost out of time, but I have one more question. The Government are looking to simplify some aspects of inspection regimes and so on through the Bill. In the areas that you are responsible for in animal welfare, do you have any recommendations that are not already in the Bill for improving but simplifying things?

David Bowles: We have been working with Dame Glenys Stacey on her review. Slightly worryingly, she has said that its recommendations will not be published in time for the Bill. There is a mismatch in terms of how we ensure good enforcement, particularly now that cross-compliance is ending, so we would like to see a commitment in the Bill to implementing some of the Stacey review’s recommendations on enforcement. The Government’s own research has shown that those who farm under a welfare assurance scheme, particularly one such as RSPCA Assured, are much less likely to break the law. We would like to see payments given to higher welfare assurance schemes, not just because they produce animal welfare benefits, but because they improve enforcement.

ffinlo Costain: We would like to see a reduction in the paperwork that farmers need to do. Reducing that burden is important if farmers are to become more productive and efficient, but we also want to see an increase in what is measured. We can achieve that by promoting self-assessment on farms and farmers’ participation in assurance schemes, and by increasing the measurement of data collected on use of technology to assist farmers, so that they feel the benefit day to day. We also need to work with slaughterhouses on livestock to ensure that we are doing much more measurement and standardising it. By pinning all that work together—self-assessment, technology, use of data and use of slaughterhouses—we can measure more, measure more effectively and reduce the burden.