Environmental Targets

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his kind words. I share his and other noble Lords’ disappointment that we have not been able to fulfil the perhaps over-ambitious target date set out in the Act. However, I am confident that we will be able to show that we have meaningful evidence-based targets that will deliver on our overriding commitment to see a reversal in the decline of species by 2030. He is absolutely right to highlight the importance of sites, and the protection of rare and special habitats within them, as part of our 30by30 commitment. We are absolutely determined to achieve this not just for our own domestic benefit but, importantly, so we can say to other countries in the CBD, “We are doing it; so should you”.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the Office for Environmental Protection has also taken this failure seriously. In its latest letter to the Secretary of State, it has pointed out that this is not the only failure to comply with statutory legislation—it has also kindly included an annexe of other failures to comply. It is a non-exhaustive list and, as it says, a pattern is beginning to develop. Can the Minister assure us that Defra is addressing these issues? These are not just policies; they are statutory requirements that have been missed time and again. Can the Minister tell us what the department is doing to get back on track on these issues?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

One reason why we will be publishing these targets later than we would have liked, and later than the Act required, is that we had over 180,000 responses to our consultation. It is important that we listen to those, because these targets affect people whose interests are not directly affected by Defra; they could be right across the whole gamut of what government does and how it regulates. It is important that we get this right.

I would hate for any noble Lord to believe that this is the one area of the Environment Act that really matters. It covers a whole range of other issues: storm overflows, our environmental principles, biodiversity net gain, waste, illegal deforestation, the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection, and local nature recovery strategies. Work on all those are under way, and they were written into the Environment Act, which is what makes it such a world-beating piece of legislation that we want to see implemented.

Environment Act 2021: Targets

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will meet the requirement of the Environment Act 2021 to set targets by 31 October on air and water quality, biodiversity and resource efficiency and waste reduction.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, we are committed to halting the decline of nature by 2030 and will not undermine our obligations to the environment in pursuit of growth. A strong environment and a strong economy go hand in hand. We have legislated through the Environment Act and will continue to improve our regulations and wildlife laws in line with our ambitious vision. His Majesty’s Government remain committed to the Environment Act and will publish ambitious, achievable and robust targets soon.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that failure to set those targets before 31 October is unlawful and risks the Government being taken to court. It also makes a mockery of all those months of hard work we put into debating the then Environment Bill, because without the targets we have no way of measuring the progress the Government are making on the Act’s implementation. Is this another sign that the Government are backtracking on their environmental commitments, as—quite frankly—was becoming all too clear under the previous Prime Minister, who sneered at the broad coalition of environmentalists?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will not sneer at any environmentalists. I sat on the board of several NGOs before I took on this role, and I mind desperately that we continue to be a leading country in how we protect the environment. We have consulted on those targets and had 180,000 responses, which are taking some time to go through. We will produce targets that are science-based, evidence-based and cover a range of issues which were of great concern to noble Lords as we took through the Environment Act. We will honour those commitments.

Food: Imports and Security

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right: there are areas for growth in our farming productivity. We want to see what we can produce. We are more than self-sufficient in produce such as lamb and poultry, but we want the opportunity to export as well. There are huge opportunities in horticulture, which is why we are working really hard with that sector to improve the productivity of food production right across the piece, and to look at the export opportunities that quality foods can achieve.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the fact is that a small number of global food companies are making huge profits out of the current crisis, which is affecting not only consumers but farmers as well. Why do not the Government use the powers in the Environment Act to take action on supply chain regulation to make sure that everybody shares in the profits available there? Furthermore, why do not the Government take action to curb financial speculation in the food markets, because that is at the heart of the problem here?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am very happy to take up any specific cases where the noble Baroness feels that undue influence has been applied to the supply chain. We have complex supply chains in this country; she is quite right to state that some companies are based overseas. However, where we find problems we can take action, not just through the Environment Act but through the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which this Government also set up.

Climate Change and Biodiversity: Food Security

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for this timely debate, at a time of growing concern about rising food prices and increasing food shortages. I add my welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who comes with a significant reputation already. We know that she will make a major contribution to the environmental debates that we will be involved with. This debate is also timely because we have a new Prime Minister, a new BEIS Secretary of State, and a new Defra Secretary of State. We are all anxious to know what their plans are for the environment. I have to say that, so far, it is not looking good.

Of course, Liz Truss has been the Defra Secretary of State before, so I was keen to see what she made of it last time. I googled her record. In the two years that she held the post she never made one keynote speech and gave the impression that she could not wait to leave. What we do know is that in that period she cut the Environment Agency’s budget so much that it became unable to act against water polluters, a legacy that we are still living with today.

Today, she announced the opening of new oil and gas licence applications, and the lifting of the ban on fracking. She is also cutting the green levy, which was introduced to help energy companies fast-track to renewable energy growth. As a result, our progress towards delivering net zero by 2050 is in danger of going into reverse. Can the Minister please tell us whether the PM is still committed to the net-zero target? If so, what steps is she proposing to take to achieve it, given that we are already behind on the current targets and her emphasis on gas and fracking will make matters worse? Given that she has made great play of her plans to rip up remaining EU legislation, where does that leave the retained environmental legislation, such as the habitats and birds directives, which underpin our current biodiversity strategy?

One of the reasons there is so much uncertainty about the future is that Defra lacks a coherent plan to deliver its climate change and biodiversity strategies. The Committee on Climate Change and the Commons EFRA Committee have consistently criticised the department’s approach to this. As they have said, a long-term strategy is required to prepare the agriculture sector for the risks and opportunities that arise from climate change, including higher temperatures, drought and increases in the spread of pests and diseases.

We have seen the huge impacts that arise from extreme weather globally, in the devastating droughts and fires in Australia and the loss of life and homes in the recent Pakistani floods. Clearly, the droughts that we faced this summer are a portent of things to come. The result is lower yields of crops, livestock being fed winter feed as the dried-out grass cannot sustain them, and poor horticulture outputs. This is impacting the bottom line of farmers and growers at a time when fertiliser and energy costs are already making their businesses increasingly unviable. So I ask the Minister: where is the Defra plan to help farmers adapt to the challenges of climate change, so that they can play their full part in delivering net zero?

We already know that the water companies are failing to play their part. We clearly need a strategy to preserve the increasingly scarce and precious water supplies that exist. This means building more reservoirs for storage and fixing the leaks in existing pipework. Farmers and growers need to know what is expected of them from future water use.

A couple of years ago, I spent the day with Norfolk farmers, who are growing many of the fruit and vegetables that feed the nation. They had been told by the Environment Agency that their access to the local aquifer was about to be restricted, as it was running low. Their argument, which was well made, was that if they had been given longer notice of this change, they could have invested in their own water supply units. They simply did not have time to adapt, given the short notice they were given. These are the sorts of challenges that producers across the country are facing.

We know that much bigger changes in agricultural practices will be needed to meet our climate change obligations, including a switch away from livestock farming. This has the twin advantage of also improving the nation’s health. But where is the Defra plan to reduce our share of carbon emissions from agriculture? We are falling badly behind the necessary targets.

Meanwhile, as Minette Batters has said, proposals to help farmers increase food production have been stripped to the bone. We know that costs are rising dramatically for farmers and food producers, putting further pressure on food price inflation. The closure of the UK’s biggest fertiliser plant will add to costs, as will its impact on the supply of CO₂. At the same time, tonnes of food are being left rotting in the field and over 40,000 pigs have been culled, simply because of labour shortages—a problem of the Government’s own making. Our farmers are increasingly being undercut by low-quality imports from abroad.

Where is the plan to support British farmers to increase local food production and ensure that British food is affordable? The Committee on Climate Change flagged up the possibility of a major switch to produce food more suitable to hot, dry climates, such as peaches, apricots, tea, sunflowers, sweet potatoes, watermelons, walnuts and, of course, wine. Is this the future the Government see for horticulture? There is huge popular support for the notion that we should become more self-sufficient in food production in the UK. The increasing food scarcities from war and drought will exacerbate that need, so why do the Government not aim to increase our home-grown production of vegetables beyond the current 54%? Why do we not incentivise planting more fruit trees as part of our tree planting strategy? At a local level, why do we not encourage communities and individuals to grow more of their own food in gardens and public spaces?

Last week, volunteers on my allotment picked six crates of apples and pears to give to FareShare. This is, in effect, free food, and we should replicate that model in communities wherever we can.

Of course, we did have a comprehensive food strategy that began to address these issues. The Dimbleby report set out a comprehensive road map that would have allowed us to fix the broken food system and provide more nutritious and accessible food for the nation. Sadly, as we have debated before, the Government’s response was late and totally inadequate.

The truth is that the Government have failed to deliver a food strategy, are failing on our climate change commitments and are failing farmers. I suspect that they will be punished—rightly—by rural communities at the next election. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, but I doubt there is much he can do to stop that inevitability.

Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for drafting the Bill and setting out the case for reform of clean air legislation so clearly. Noble Lords around the House have spoken passionately about the right to clean air, which I think we all agree should underline this Bill and which we all feel is possible and doable. We will make sure that we contribute to making that happen.

In many ways this is unfinished business, left over from our consideration of the Environment Bill. At that time, noble Lords from across the House supported our amendment to tackle polluted air by setting a limit of fine particulate matter to levels below the World Health Organization guidelines by 2030. Sadly, at that time, the Government continued to resist these measures, despite the fact that air pollution is widely recognised as the single largest risk to public health that we face.

A number of expert reports have attempted to estimate the full impact—a number have been quoted this morning. In 2021, the EFRA Committee reported that poor air quality is still linked to as many as 64,000 early deaths a year. We know, as we have heard this morning, that children are particularly susceptible to illness and death from asthma and bronchitis. The EFRA Committee concluded that the Environment Bill did not provide the robust legal framework needed, given the scale and urgency of the challenge. It urged the Government once again to adopt the specific targets set by the WHO. It also pointed out that the Government’s clean air strategy relies too much on local authorities, delegating most responsibility for delivering air quality improvements to them without providing sufficient competencies and resources to deliver the necessary changes. We agree with this analysis. The Government’s plan lacks ambition and resources and fails to tackle the underlying health inequalities that lie at the heart of the problem. For far too long, the Government have prevaricated, launching consultations, researching and modelling options rather than taking the urgent action needed on this issue.

Meanwhile, independent research at Imperial College and King’s College has concluded that reaching the WHO targets is technically feasible and has produced credible evidence of the links between air pollution and Covid. For example, if you were living in an area of high pollution, you were more likely to end up in hospital or even die if you contracted Covid. In addition, they have shown that exposure to air pollution increases the likelihood of contracting Covid in the first place if you are exposed to the virus. The pernicious effects of pollution therefore go way beyond the known impacts on asthma and bronchitis. This was a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who also highlighted the links to mental health. There are other health impacts, as I say, that go way beyond asthma and bronchitis.

Like others, I pay tribute to Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, who is here today and has campaigned tirelessly on this issue since her daughter Ella’s tragic and untimely death from asthma caused by air pollution—one of many children who had to suffer in this way. We have heard from noble Lords today about awareness of the perils of living by main roads and how, for many, they have only more recently become apparent. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, also made the good point that you cannot see it, so people are not aware of it—if it came out as dirty water from the tap, we would all be slightly more alarmed. We do now understand the full effects and the health damage that can be done.

All this underlines the need for leadership and urgent action by the Government to tackle the ongoing public health crisis. This is why we welcome this Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, as an opportunity once again to press the Government to act. Her Bill rightly identifies that everyone should have the right to clean air, based on WHO standards and the best scientific knowledge. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that my reading of the Bill was different from his; I understood from it that there would be scope for further scientific discovery, which should be taken into account. We can obviously debate this further in Committee.

The noble Baroness’s Bill means that it would no longer be left to individual local authorities to act, which has led to a patchwork of high and low air-polluted areas. Instead, everyone, nationally, would have the same right to clean air. It would require progress to be measured year on year and for statutory bodies to ensure that the targets are monitored and met. It would also place a duty on all the key public sector bodies to play their part in delivering clean air in areas under their jurisdiction.

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, and others also raised the important issue of the polluter pays principle. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, rightly raised the issue of Drax and its impact on emissions. I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, on the need to get to the fundamentals and stop burning things—that is at the heart of the issue.

We recognise that these are crucial elements, but that these measures cannot be implemented overnight. We believe, however, that creating clear national duties with action across government can deliver the change required. I therefore hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will feel able to adopt these measures as a way of delivering the targets due to be set this October. Sadly, I doubt that we will hear such a promising account from the Minister when he winds up today.

Meanwhile, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that not all politicians are the same. I give notice that we in Labour are committed to tackling this health crisis once and for all by introducing a clean air Bill, which would deliver the legal right for citizens to breathe clean air, with citizens enabled to act when standards are breached, statutory monitoring to make sure that WHO clean air guidelines are adhered to and provision to ensure that local air quality standards keep up with the developing science. In the meantime, I wish the noble Baroness well in pursuing her Bill; I am happy to work with her. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Household Waste Recycling

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right that households, particularly hard-pressed households, can save a lot of money by managing their food waste better. It is question of encouragement, education from an early stage and support, but it is not for me or the Government to dictate how people operate in their home. This is an enormous burden on society. We have to dispose of this, and I am delighted that food waste recycling will be consistent over the country, but we want to have to recycle much less.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Further to the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, can the Minister explain the growing disparity in recycling rates between England and Wales? Last year, England’s rate went down to 43.8% while Wales’s rate increased to 65.4%. If Wales can be so successful, why can England not be? What discussions are being held with the Welsh Government so that we can learn those lessons and apply them to England?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that recycling levels have plateaued. Over the pandemic, they went down by 1.5%. The decrease reflects the impact of Covid, with waste tonnages from home increasing as people spent more time at home and waste collections decreasing due to household waste recycling centres being closed. She is also right that there are disparities not just between England and Wales but between different parts of England. That is why, through the provisions in the Environment Act, we want consistency. In every home, even if people move from one part of the country to another, they must know that they can recycle the same articles of their household waste in the same way in all parts of the country to help us hit our targets.

Food Strategy White Paper

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My department has overall responsibility for that, working with other departments. The noble Baroness is right: this is not something government can just mandate. We have an extremely efficient food distribution network and supply chain which was found to be resilient during Covid. It now needs to adapt to a changing world and changing demands from the consumer to make sure that we do not have the vulnerabilities that have been exposed this week in the Netherlands. We want to make sure that we are working with industry to get this right.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The Minister will know that I have the greatest respect for him, and I am surprised to see that he is still in his place today, but nevertheless can he explain how the important health issues in the Dimbleby report, which are about obesity, controlling junk food, advertising and reducing food inequalities, will be taken forward given that they are not included in the food strategy from the Government, regardless of the fact that we do not appear to have any Ministers to deal with it at the current time?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I have a long list here, but I would get in trouble if I read it out. It is all the elements of the Dimbleby report that the Government are taking forward. The noble Baroness is right to refer to issues relating to health and well-being and the obesity strategy. They are massive issues for society and government. We have clear plans to try to tackle them. There have been 14 obesity strategies in her and my lifetime. I hope we now have one that integrates some really good evidence and that we are implementing through a variety of ways: education, health trusts, GPs and a cross-government approach.

Environmental Principles Policy Statement

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for tabling this debate and setting out the concerns of the Environment and Climate Change Committee so clearly and eloquently.

Like other noble Lords, I was extremely interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He raised some important issues and gave us a bit of a history lesson, looking back, but the challenge for us here is looking forward. He referred several times to the statement as regulations, but I am not sure that is quite the status of this document. The question is: what is its status? The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said it was a new animal, a trailblazing mechanism, and I agree. The problem is that what we have before us is not an SI, which at least has a formal procedure, imperfect though it is—negative, affirmative and all those issues. It is not that. When it was first published, I put down a Written Question asking how Parliament was to scrutinise it. It was passed from pillar to post before I finally got an answer from anyone.

Indeed, I do not think we would have been having this debate if the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, had not tabled this Motion. It seems to me that this is wholly inadequate and that there should be a much more formal process for consideration of these sorts of policy statements. I do not know how often the Government were thinking of replicating this, but I certainly hope the Minister can give us some more assurance that there is a proper, formal process and that we do not have to put these special requests in if we want to debate this. It should be part of an established mechanism.

I suppose that then raises the question of what happens. We are now considering a draft. We have all piled in and made comments, and there have been formal comments from some of the committees, so what is the status of all those comments? How can we be assured that they will be taken on board? What is the status of this discussion here? Without getting into a detailed discussion with the Minister, I hope he is able to give us some assurance on all this that these matters are being taken seriously.

All noble Lords have made the point about how important these principles are and how fundamental they are to all the work we are doing on protecting the environment. It is a crucial wing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, of the environmental governance system for England, which we spent many happy hours scrutinising during consideration of the Environment Act. If these principles fail to do their job properly, that undermines the other elements of the environmental governance package, so it is crucial that the wording in this document is clear, unambiguous and consistent with the other provisions of the Act.

That is why I very much commend the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for rightly spending time considering in detail the draft and the intent behind it, and I pay tribute to the care with which it has done so. Like the committee, we feel that there is more to be done to strengthen the wording. For example, we share the concerns expressed today about the repeated emphasis in the draft on the need for a proportionate response to the application of environmental policy statements. It sounds like such a reasonable phrase until you dig down into what exactly is meant and how it is being applied in this context.

As the very helpful briefing from Greener UK points out, proportionality gets mentioned 19 times and is a running theme of the draft. In that context, it encourages Ministers to interpret and proportionately apply the principles rather than making them a requirement of the policy direction, which in effect means an element of watering down rather than having a balanced judgment. It also calls on Ministers to balance social, economic and environmental considerations in making policy and to factor in the financial costs and benefits.

This has resonance with our long debates on the Fisheries Act when we were debating sustainability. The Government’s insistence on balancing sustainability with social and economic factors has resulted in continued overfishing and depletion of stocks, and that is just one example. These considerations could well result in a justification for the cheapest policy option being pursued on the grounds of economic concerns, even if it could result in the greatest environmental detriment. That is not the right balance; you do not balance all those things equally. As we tried to argue in the Fisheries Act, sustainability should be the prime factor and the other factors should be secondary. We were not successful then, but in this case the environmental principles and policies should be the primary factors while other factors should be secondary. In effect, what we have here is that Ministers are given an opt-out clause to ignore the environmental principles if they think other factors are more important. I hope the Minister will feel able to take the draft away on that count and revisit the undue emphasis on proportionality.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, also rightly raises the committee’s concerns about the new interpretation of the well-established precautionary principle. As she says, the wording has moved away from the established use where there is a risk of serious or irreversible damage, even if it lacks full scientific certainty. It is a question of how you measure the unknown unknowns, if you like. Now the draft introduces new caveats about needing sufficient evidence that there is a threat of serious irreversible damage, and any choices to prevent environmental damage should be cost effective. However, it does not make clear how you can judge whether something is cost effective when the full impact of any future harm clearly cannot be calculated.

Again, that gives Ministers an exit route to ignore the precautionary principle, which has stood us in good stead for so many years. As several noble Lords have said, that is worrying; there has been some quite negative briefing against the precautionary principle over the last few months, but it has stood us in good stead and has proved right on many occasions. It is not something that we should ignore easily. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us that a wider interpretation of the precautionary principle will be embedded in the final version of the document.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, also raised concerns about the watering down of the integration principle. The Environment Act is quite clear that the Government’s policy priorities should be integrated across all departments, with a requirement to act on them. The looser wording in the new draft simply calls on policymakers to look for opportunities to apply the environmental policies.

Again, a number of noble Lords have said this: herein lies the real problem. Although Defra Ministers may be committed to the environmental policies which have been developed by the department, the fact is that they do not have the clout or influence to roll them out across other departments—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who gave other examples. We also saw this with the Government’s response to the national food strategy, where there were virtually no commitments to act on the Dimbleby recommendations in the health, education and welfare departments’ responsibilities. This is the real danger in being able to roll out other aspects of the Environment Act which require cross-departmental co-operation. It has not been helped by stories in the news recently that the Prime Minister has dropped his commitment to many of the environmental priorities that had previously been on the agenda. I hope the Minister understands why a clear commitment to the integration principle is essential to making the policies reality.

I hope the Minister can give us some assurance about the timescales for implementing the policy statement and the environmental principles. It has taken us a very long time to get to this point and we really should not have to suffer any further delay. When exactly will the final version of the statement be laid before Parliament? What will be the scrutiny process then for us to have a further look at that draft, and can he assure us that there will be only a limited period of formal implementation, given that the statement will have been in the public domain for many months by then? Can he give more details of how the department intends to use the implementation period to educate and ensure that all departments and public bodies are aware of their new obligations to build the environmental statement into their policy-making processes? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Agricultural Fertiliser and Feed: Rising Costs

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for initiating this timely and important debate and thank all noble Lords who have contributed. We are all acutely aware that these very specific extra agricultural costs are driving food inflation at a time when the cost of living crisis is already causing widespread hardship. More than 1 million people are already regularly using foodbanks and over 2 million are regularly forced to go without food. The impact of food insecurity at a household level is all too clear. It is a real and pressing issue for millions of people in this country.

The tragedy in Ukraine is more than a story of an illegal invasion and thousands of civilians being murdered at the whim of a Russian tyrant. It has also upset our reliance on international sources of fuel, food, fertiliser and labour, and has laid bare the weaknesses of our global markets. Arguably, given how fundamental food security is to the welfare of our nation, the Government should have had more robust contingency arrangements. Instead, an air of complacency has been allowed to creep in.

While tensions were mounting between Ukraine and Russia last year, the Government’s landmark food security report concluded:

“Real wheat prices are expected to decline in the coming years based on large supplies being produced in the Black Sea region”.


So, we have to question what the purpose of this report is if it does not factor in the most obvious upcoming risks. Farmers are taking a major hit from the Government’s lack of effective contingency planning and reliance on world markets. This is why we have argued for a robust food security policy with a commitment to higher UK food production levels, to give better assurance that in a crisis we can feed the nation.

Meanwhile, as noble Lords have said, our farmers are suffering a double whammy on food and fertiliser costs. Prices for agricultural fertiliser in the last year have doubled, and in some cases trebled. As well as price increases, fertiliser is in short supply, with impacts expected to become more serious in the new crop year for 2023. This will lead to higher food prices and lower yields. That is why it is so frustrating that the Government have allowed the permanent closure of the Ince fertiliser plant to go ahead, leading to a major loss of production as well as 350 jobs lost. Removing a large proportion of the UK’s CO₂ supply as a by-product is causing further food production chaos. The owner of the plant, CF Fertilisers, restarted its other operation in Billingham after the Government intervened. Why, therefore, are the Government not intervening on the Ince plant as well?

The fact is that the Government’s measures to address fertiliser inflation are too little, too late. Industry round tables, revised guidance and far-off plans to develop less gas-reliant fertilisers will do little to help the farmers struggling right now. We should use this opportunity to implement the growing scientific evidence that shows that farmers could continue to produce high-yield crops with far less artificial fertiliser if they adopted environmentally sustainable practices, such as rotating peas and beans, which we heard about earlier.

Meanwhile, the Ukraine invasion and the humanitarian tragedy are also impacting on feed costs. Ukraine and Russia produce 30% of the world’s wheat and 50% of its sunflower oil, seeds and meal exports. This is having a direct impact on the cost of animal feed in the UK: for example, the NFU has warned there will definitely be a turkey shortage at Christmas as a result of wheat prices doubling. Pig farmers have also seen a significant rise in costs, with feed prices now contributing up to 70% of costs. So, for a sector that has been struggling anyway, the outlook for pig farmers is dire.

What are the Government doing about this crisis? Obviously, it is welcome that the payments of the basic payment scheme have been brought forward. This might help with cash flow, but it is money to which farmers were entitled anyway; it is not new money. Other than that, the Government’s policy can best be described as “wait and see”. In response to a Question from my honourable friend Daniel Zeichner in the Commons, the Minister, whom the noble Baroness also quoted, said:

“We continue to keep the market situation under review, by working closely with industry-led groups and key stakeholders to monitor the position on animal feed.”


This really is not good enough. This crisis is hitting not only farmers but consumers, as the price of food rockets, and it needs action now. Farmers have no option but to pass on the additional costs, which will fuel further inflation, food shortages and suffering. It should be a national priority to address these issues.

So I hope that, when the Minister responds, he is able to provide greater assurance the Government intend to act on these issues. I look forward to what he has to say.

Plant Health etc. (Miscellaneous Fees) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing the regulations before us. I broadly welcome them, but I have a number of questions.

Paragraph 12.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The impact on business … is that these changes are estimated to save businesses c. £1.2m per annum due to lower levels of checks and subsequent impact on fees.”


Obviously, a lower level of fees will be pleasing for the industry, but I had not grasped that we are introducing a lower level of checks through this instrument.

One of the difficulties of this instrument, which my noble friend just introduced, was also set out in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s fifth report. As my noble friend stated at the outset, there will be a second statutory instrument at the end of June that will set out the regime. Why has the way in which the fees have been structured been separated from the regime? Why have we not had an opportunity to consider them both together? I would have thought that the regime was probably of most interest. When might we expect to see that statutory instrument, as today is already 28 June?

Am I right to assume that paragraph 28 talks about the inspection fees being corrected, as they are being reinstated, when samples of imported consignments are taken for lab testing to confirm the presence of certain plant pests? Can my noble friend elaborate on whether that is done on an ad hoc basis or responding to intelligence? Does it include such laboratories as FERA, which I had the honour to represent in North Yorkshire for the last five years I was in the other place?

Also, is this one of the instruments that appears on the famous dashboard that we heard about last week? Is it one of the 570 statutory instruments that is retained EU law or is it a stand-alone instrument? Will we come back to look at this in a different context? I welcome the opportunity to debate and approve the regulations this afternoon.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and for the helpful briefing that he organised beforehand.

The Explanatory Memorandum makes it clear that the purpose of the regulations is to help reduce biosecurity risk and to protect the environment from the spread of harmful pests and diseases. Obviously, these are objectives that we can all aspire to, but I would like to explore in more detail whether the proposed changes will achieve that result.

The new fees structure set out in this SI is based on a new risk-targeted inspections scheme which is set out in a separate SI, the Official Controls (Plant Health) (Frequency of Checks) Regulations, which this SI says will apply from July 2022, and to which the Minister referred as well. However, that SI has not been published yet. When I queried this with the department, I was told that it would be published on 30 June, which happens to be a couple of days after this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, also raised this point. Where is the parliamentary scrutiny in this process? We are being asked to agree the fees without seeing the risk-based scheme in the first place.

The basis of the proposed changes was set out in a government consultation. In the Government’s response to the consultation, dated 31 March 2022, they concluded that imposing full checks on all categories of plants needed to be balanced with the impact on regulators and trade. In effect, it appears that this is a watering down of our biosecurity risk regime at a time when the threat of importing new plants and diseases with new and emerging pathogens is increasing.

I think it is fair to say that this is not a very reassuring SI in terms of the impact on biosecurity, and that the proposed changes were not greeted with unanimous support during the consultation. For example, the Government’s response to the consultation flags up that concerns were raised about the ability of the plant health risk group to respond quickly to new outbreaks. Obviously, there are different sorts of outbreak; some can be predictable, as can some disease threats, but some occur unusually and out of the blue. Is the plant health risk group really in a position to be able to judge and assess that risk, and to measure the right plants that are coming across our borders? There was a feeling that the inspection methods and technology applications were out of date and that we needed to modernise them. Concerns were also raised about the need for more transparency on the interception of pests and diseases and that, if a new pest or disease had been identified on UK shores, it needed to be shared more immediately.

These are all real challenges that Parliament has not yet had the chance to discuss, so I hope that the Minister can clarify why we have had such limited opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny on a very important issue that we have debated on a number of occasions in the past. Quite rightly, everyone has said that there is an acute need to take biosecurity more seriously.

Returning to this SI, first, it acknowledges that some commodities will be subject to reduced levels of physical and identity checks, leading to a lower fee being applied. However, nowhere does it really say that those at higher risk levels will have to pay a higher fee. I am interested to know how that will work in terms of our biosecurity protection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their points. To continue to protect plant biosecurity while facilitating the trade and movement of plants and plant material, it is essential that consignments that could pose a risk be subject to risk-based inspections before entering Great Britain. As I described, this instrument will maintain the alignment of plant health inspection fees with UK government policy to recover the full costs of official checks to manage risks arising from commercial activity.

I will respond in a rather random way to both questioners—I hope the Committee will forgive me. First, my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked why the two SIs are being dealt with separately and why Parliament has not been given a chance to debate measures in the other SI before deciding on this one. The Official Controls (Plant Health) (Frequency of Checks) Regulations 2022 set out the methods used to calculate the frequencies on which the fees in this instrument are based. Those methods and the resulting frequencies of checks have been published via consultation.

Both SIs are scheduled to come into force on 22 July and require scheduling to ensure that they do so in an aligned fashion. The difference in scheduling of these SIs is due to the different type of parliamentary procedure that they should follow, determined by their parent Acts. The Official Controls (Plant Health) (Frequency of Checks) Regulations 2022 will be open to full parliamentary scrutiny, as per the negative procedure, following being laid on 30 June.

I reassure both noble Baronesses that we have raised the standards of biosecurity in this country since leaving the EU. We have put resources behind it, employing 150 more inspectors, and we are approaching it in a unified way, with Border Force improving our training at ports of entry. As the Committee knows, we are rolling out our BCPs in the coming months to make sure that we stop more high-risk plants at the border, rather than at point of delivery.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about some fees and checks being reduced significantly and whether that means that we are somehow weakening biosecurity as we will not be inspecting so intensively. The new inspection arrangements are based on international standards for categorising commodities according to risk. This will allow the Animal and Plant Health Agency to focus on those commodities representing the highest potential risk, including trees and other woody plants to be grown outdoors, while reducing input on those products representing a low risk due to their intended use, such as houseplants and many fruits and vegetables for consumption. In this way, we will be targeting resources in the most effective way to protect GB biosecurity while avoiding unnecessary burdens and costs on businesses.

The noble Baroness asked who makes this decision. Experts make the decision, not me. Our Chief Plant Health Officer, who I speak to regularly and have spoken to today, and I have a monthly biosecurity meeting where we look at risks, but the risk is managed by people who understand its evidence base. Those are the basic criteria around which we make this decision. The plant health risk group meets monthly and continuously monitors new threats, taking account of the results of import inspections and other relevant information, such as scientific reports and developments in other countries. Inspection frequencies are one tool by which risks can be mitigated, and they will be kept under frequent review. However, it is already the case that the highest-risk plants and products, including trees and woody plants, will be inspected more intensively, and that we will keep our import requirements under continuous review to determine where they need to be strengthened in response to new or altered risks, as was the case in the recent pine processionary moth incident.

Going back to my noble friend Lady McIntosh, certain goods are subject to routine sampling and testing, such as seeds. In other cases, goods are sampled when an inspector sees something concerning during an official import inspection. A sample is taken to confirm the presence or absence of a controlled pest.

A question was asked about the large difference between some fees. It is a good point to make. The risk associated with specific commodities is the basis on which the fees are set. The highest-risk commodities are subject to 100% documentary, identity and physical checks and 100% of associated fees. Lower-risk goods are subject to lower frequencies of checks and therefore proportionately lower fees. Defra and its agencies are not alone in doing this. There is a protocol across Whitehall about charging for these activities. That protocol is set by the Treasury. We work closely with it to make sure that our rules for cost recovery are in accordance with those laid by the Government.

I should say at this point that the Government announced on 28 April that the remaining import controls on goods from the EU, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, including plants and plant products, will no longer be introduced this year. Instead, traders will continue to move their goods from the EU to GB as they do now. The rest of the controls which were planned for introduction on 1 July are no longer going ahead. This means that import checks of high-priority plants and plant products will not be moving to border control posts yet. Deregulated and notifiable produce and cut flowers will not be subject to import checks from July. Low-risk Article 73 goods will no longer require prenotification but will be assessed on a risk basis.

I have received inspiration in reply to a question about who makes the decision. This is agreed on the basis of consultation with stakeholders, as we have done with this SI, which has the support of the industry. That is really important to us.

There was also a question about the flat-rate fee. The fee will be in place until a fees review has taken place. That will involve a full review of all plant health fees, including the methodologies used to determine them. It is a multi-year process involving close work with stakeholders.

The other point I would make is on the disparity in funding for foliage versus physical checks, which the noble Baroness rightly raised. There is a serious risk to seed potatoes, which is why they are charged at a higher cost. Foliage—an apple, for example—is a simple product to assess. We want to make sure that we are doing it on the basis of risk but also in accordance with cross-government rules on charging.

As I have outlined, these regulations ensure that full cost recovery of plant health services is maintained and that the costs of inspecting imported plant health-controlled material are met by those businesses using Defra’s import inspection services. With that—

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, which was, as ever, very comprehensive. I just want to go back to the original point about the missing SI that is not here. The Minister said that it and this SI originally came from two pieces of legislation, which is why they ended up here in a different order, but there must be somebody in Defra who can apply a bit of common sense to that ordering. I do not wish to make too much heavy weather of it but I hope that a lesson is learned from this. The department needs to ensure that, whatever the originating piece of legislation, instruments come before Parliament in a sensible order so that we can deal with concurrent bits of legislation at the same time. I leave that thought with the Minister.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That thought is well made and will be reflected on. We want to make sure that we are doing this properly. As the noble Baroness says, the instruments come from two separate pieces of legislation. Which measures are affirmative or negative, in what is brought before us in this place, is an enigma wrapped in a mystery to me. However, there are wiser minds than mine that understand these things. I accept the point: we try to apply common sense in everything we do and make it easy for noble Lords to hold the Government to account, but we are bound here by two distinct pieces of legislation. I am hopeful that they will go on to the statute book and improve the regime, and be in place by the middle of next month.