Agriculture Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I shall speak to Amendment 18, which has not been moved, and to my own Amendment 28. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, for signing it as well.

The common agricultural policy is a huge item in the EU’s budget, making up around one-third of all EU expenditure. The system of payments established under the Bill will be similarly huge, with large sums of public money being paid to private individuals and businesses in exchange for providing public goods. With such huge expenditure, it is, frankly, outrageous that the Bill is so lacking in measures for public scrutiny and accountability for that money. My Amendment 28 seeks to redress this huge accountability deficit by requiring the Secretary of State to publish information about expenditure under the Bill. That does not seem unreasonable to me. Probably every Peer in this House would expect that if they spend money then generally, they will understand where it goes.

That publication would include basic information such as who is receiving how much money and for what. Without that information, I do not see how taxpayers can be expected to trust that public money is being put to good use in fair and proper ways. In particular, I worry that the whole system of public money for public goods will be undermined, resulting in a rolling back of the progress that the Bill represents.

If the Conservative Party were in opposition, they would expect such information to be provided and would want it in the Bill—they would insist that basic accountability be included—so I am horribly disappointed that there is nothing to that effect. I eagerly await the Minister’s explanation as to why a prudent and fiscally responsible Government would avoid publishing such basic information, which would enable the public to ensure that their taxes are being spent properly and effectively.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their forbearance—I was sitting in a bus that had been slowed down due to the requirements of Transport for London. Amendment 18 concerns the lack of an impact assessment for the Bill. I thank my noble friend Lord Lindsay and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, for their support. Both are distinguished experts in the field. I also thank the Minister for a very useful meeting and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for the support of the Opposition in Committee. Other amendments in this group look at various aspects of evaluation and financial assistance, including a welcome government amendment of plans relating to the latter.

Impact assessments are a vital vehicle for evaluation and scrutiny of government actions on a coherent, structured and quantitative basis. They provide good guides to how different groups and businesses will be affected by a Bill or a proposal. They are, rightly, a firmly established part of the landscape, with that on the Immigration Bill being the most recent useful example in our House. This Bill represents a huge change in farming and countryside management in the UK, as we have heard. This needs to be quantified. We need to look at the economic costs, benefits and risks that the new agricultural policies entail. That observation applies to the whole Bill but is most important in respect of Clause 1.

Impact assessments could have been invented with such a Bill in mind—I know because I headed the Cabinet Office deregulation unit that pioneered them. Yet on 20 February, the Regulatory Policy Committee, which independently assesses impact assessments, was forced to publish a little slap in the face to Defra. Having considered the matter, it came to the following stern conclusion:

“The RPC has considered the proposals in the Bills and believe that in both cases”


—they were also referring to another Bill—

“these could have significant impacts on business when they come into effect (as set out in the annex to this statement) and that therefore IAs should have been produced by the Department, submitted to the RPC for independent scrutiny, seen by ministers and presented to Parliament. We expect that, in future, government departments will submit IAs to the RPC before the relevant bill is laid before Parliament. We remain open to DEFRA submitting IAs for both of these bills to the RPC, in order to allow us to provide an opinion on whether or not each IA is fit for purpose.”

Matters have moved on a lot. Will the Minister consider making available the draft that was prepared for ministerial discussion? I suspect that much of the material was an updated version of the economic material he published and referred me to in Committee, but of course, in a much more useful and structured format. I would also welcome details of Defra’s plans for secondary legislation made under different parts of the Bill. We agree on the need for collaboration with the farming sector and others in developing the regulations, and I know that IAs can be useful in bringing out risks and opportunities for the wider economy—for example, businesses supplying the rural economy. This leads to better feedback. I always remember persuading the then DTI not to require the minimum wage to be shown on payslips, because of the cost to businesses of reprogramming all their IT systems to make this happen.

This is not a sexy amendment. It is one devoted to the cause of responsible and coherent government, and I suggest that it is none the worse for that. Allied to proper, timely consultation, impact assessments can identify important factors that have been overlooked in policy formation. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.