Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Fruit and Vegetable Producer Organisations, Tariff Quotas and Wine) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2021

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful introduction to these regulations. They are, as she says, broadly technical in nature, correcting, in that now familiar phrase, “errors and deficiencies” in previous SIs. While I cannot claim to have reread all the previous SIs that are corrected here, I looked back at the Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Producer Organisations and Wine) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/1446), as the EM suggested in paragraph 7.5 that they should be read in conjunction with each other. Then I discovered that the earlier SI was correcting errors and deficiencies in a previous SI. Now we seem to be correcting errors and deficiencies in previous errors and deficiencies. It makes one wonder how the organisations affected by these changes ever keep abreast of the layers of these amendments. I am sure that the Minister will agree that this is far from an ideal situation.

Given where we are, I have a few questions to follow up. Some of them have been raised by other noble Lords in the debate. First, the Explanatory Note states:

“There is doubt as to whether the amendments made by Part 4 of those Regulations came into force, as intended, on IP completion day”.


Further on, it states that part of the earlier SI

“may not have existed due to the error in the commencement provision”.

Again the Minister explained this in her introduction. What has been the impact of these errors? Have businesses or producer organisations been adversely affected by the fact that these regulations have not been watertight and might not have been introduced in a timely way? Is there any recourse to compensation when errors are found to occur in this way? For example, has there been an occasion when the fruit and vegetable aid scheme might have been invoked because of market failure but payments were unable to be made?

Secondly, this SI seems to require the head office of a producer organisation to be sited in the nation where the majority of its marketed production takes place. Does this change the provision for transnational producer organisations that we have previously discussed? Will they still be able to access funds in the UK even if their head office is elsewhere?

Thirdly, I shall pick up an issue raised by other noble Lords about the market for established wine designations and GIs for UK wine, particularly the implications of the trade and co-operation agreement which was signed in December after we had agreed the previous SI. Do we now have an established UK process for approving new designations and retaining the reputation of UK wines, which was envisaged at that time? In the previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said:

“Our aim is to ensure that imports of third-country wines continues unaffected while continuing to increase domestic wine production.”—[Official Report, 18/11/20; cols. GC 710-11.]


Do UK wines now have the flourishing market in the EU and third countries unhindered by tariffs and red tape that was envisaged at the time by the Minister? Have the Government now reached an agreement with the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, which at that time was very unhappy with the certification process for shipments of EU wines into the UK, which it felt to be overburdensome? That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has scratched, so I call the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield.