Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment) Order 2020

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these SIs and the helpful briefing beforehand. I shall deal with the SI on the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board first.

It obviously makes sense to have a streamlined and digitalised system for recording the movement of animals around the UK. This is crucial to manage and control any outbreak of disease or the spread of invasive pests. We know from painful experiences of the past the devastation that diseases such as foot and mouth can cause. That can be exacerbated by the movement of animals around the country. On the face of it, setting up a separate body in England to provide a multi-species traceability system will be a welcome and progressive move, and I note that it is broadly supported by the stakeholder organisations and devolved Administrations that were consulted. However, I just have a few questions about the status and operation of the livestock information service being established as a subsidiary of the AHDB.

The estimated cost of delivering the new service is £32 million over three years, and the net benefit over 10 years is estimated to be £30 million. However, as it is a limited company, does this mean that it will also be a for-profit company? Will it have directors, and to whom will they report? Farmers currently pay a levy to use the ADHB service. Will they have to pay for the new LIS service, and how do the anticipated charges for farmers compare to the current costs?

If the new service is intended to begin in spring next year, can I echo the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, about the state of the new IT system? Is it already functioning and has it been properly stress-tested? Has it been tested to deal with the quantity of data to which she referred? Will the existing and the new systems run in parallel for a period of time, or is it proposed to have a D-day switch from one to the other? If there subsequently prove to be errors in the data collection, who will be responsible? There could be catastrophic results, if that was the case.

I also ask about the devolved implications. This is an England-only scheme. As the EM points out, Scotland and Northern Ireland intend to operate their own schemes, issuing identification numbers for animals that would allow them to be traced. Are they all proposing their own digital services and, if so, will they be compatible with the English version? Will the data generated be shared across the four devolved nations? Obviously, animals can and do move across the borders quite frequently. Is it proposed that the English data system will be able to identify and track the unique identification codes issued by the devolved nations?

Turning to the second SI on direct payments to farmers, the Minister will know that when we were dealing with the direct payments to farmers Bill earlier this year, I and others pressed him on why that Bill had a sunset clause which allowed for the extension of the basic farm payment scheme for one year only. The Minister’s response at the time was that the provisions of the Agriculture Bill would then kick in. But I said then that we would need some persuading that the transitional arrangements envisaged in the Agriculture Bill would be ready to be implemented on 1 January next year—and so it has come to pass.

Since the SI was published, we have seen the Government’s plan for sustainable farming announced this week. It confirms a cut of 5% in the direct payments next year, with further cuts thereafter, so when will we see a separate set of regulations confirming the cuts in these payments? Will it be necessary before the end of the year? Has Defra undertaken an impact assessment on the impact on different sectors and farm sizes? What financial support will be made available for farmers whose livelihoods are threatened by these proposals? These proposals are for England only, so has Defra done an assessment of the impact of different levels of farm subsidies being paid across the four devolved nations and the consequences for prices and the internal market of any divergence from a standard set of prices?

Finally, I will just say a few words on the WTO SI. Again, these have significant implications for relations with the devolved nations, as we discussed during consideration of the Agriculture Bill. At that time, there were concerns that the Bill gave the Secretary of State too much power to decide how farm support payments anywhere in the UK should be classified in relation to WTO rules and to set limits on those payments.

The EM says that these regulations were drafted in consultation with the devolved Administrations and that the majority of their comments were accommodated. Can the Minister say a little more about the nature of these discussions and what areas of dispute remain with the devolved Administrations? Paragraph 6 of the EM says that any devolved nation which wants to make changes to a scheme must notify the others. But what happens if another devolved nation is unhappy with these actions, and what would be the consequences if it followed that through?

I look forward to the Minister’s response to these questions.