Agriculture Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

I had hoped that these amendments were not necessary, because I hoped that the cross-party consensus which was secured would continue. I hope that the Minister can explain why it has not and that the House will reassert its position that it believes in cross-party consensus when it comes to the highest standards that we have already resolved to protect on a statutory basis.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and to be reminded of our debates on the Trade Bill—it seem so many aeons ago—and the amendment which, as I recall, was not adopted in the other place in its revised form.

I have been reflecting for some time on how, if I was still a Minister, I would deal with the three related and important amendments before us: Amendment 93 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, on which I will focus; and two amendments in a later group, Amendment 97 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Amendment 101 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, who for many years has been a towering figure in farming. They raise some similar issues, and they all have lots of supporters and some detractors, led by my noble friend Lord Trenchard.

I am a supporter of the World Trade Organization and its predecessor, GATT. Having been trained as an economist, I know that trade brings great benefits in terms of world prosperity, as is convincingly explained by the theory of comparative advantage. This is particularly important when we face recession and the shock of the Covid pandemic affecting, I am afraid to say, every corner of the globe. That is a very different background from that when we were debating the Trade Bill. We must support the WTO and have regard to its rules. The Minister suggested in Committee that provisions of the kind we see in Amendments 93, 97 and 101 might be incompatible with them. We could be ushering in a new argument with the WTO and major problems of compliance, which would be particularly unfortunate given the current problems with the WTO—in particular with the Appellate Body, referenced by my noble friend Lord Trenchard. It is not easy to see a way round this, and there is a severe difficulty in establishing equivalence in order to implement the necessary criteria for maintaining standards, so we must tread a careful path.

Since this Bill was first presented in the other place, the Government have come a long way. They have established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, in which Red Tractor is involved—I should again register my interest as its chair. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, was kind enough to mention it and the importance of high food standards in the UK, which I endorse. The comments of Henry Dimbleby, quoted by my noble friend Lady McIntosh, were also interesting and relevant.

The new trade commission, which we will discuss later, is a victory for the farming unions who fought for it, as they felt that their interests were being ignored. It has wider value as an excellent sounding board for Liz Truss, the Secretary of State for International Trade, and her teams on a swathe of current trade negotiations. The widely welcomed Japan agreement is the first green shoot and, to pick up the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has not bent the rules.

In closing, I shall revert to my question about what a Minister might do. I would try to address the substantive issues, without coming down in favour of one approach. I would build on what has already been done, by, for example, agreeing to extend the life of the Trade and Agriculture Commission for a few months and by planning some wider consultation to bring in the voice of those who might feel excluded from the commission once it has published first its interim and then its final reports. Among other things, I would do more to reassure, by repeating the promise the Government have made that they are not planning to change food regulations to let in chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef. Such undertakings could not be reversed in the other place, and I rather agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes that we do not always need to make amendments to have concerns addressed. I also agree with her that science and innovation matter a great deal.

The UK benefits greatly from the international order and enduring economic ties, especially free trade. This is the future and we must tread with care. Before there is a vote on any of these important amendments, the Minister may want to comment on whether they could fall foul of WTO rules.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Trenchard and agree with what he, and my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lady Neville-Rolfe, have said. However, listening to this debate, I have occasionally felt the House has been transported back to the debates on the corn laws in the early 19th century. Then, as now, landowners, supported by their friends—romantic believers in an unchanging rural England—argued that we should prevent the import of cheap food, protect the labouring classes from their predilection for it and require them to eat more expensive food and that if we did not, it would mean our farming industry would be destroyed, our fields would remain untilled and our agricultural capacity would be permanently diminished. We know, of course, that the protectionists lost and the free traders won. Most people look back and think that was one of the great victories for progressive legislation in this country which raised the well-being of the labouring classes, although it may have diminished rents of landowners for a time. I hope we will bear that in mind as we consider these amendments.

It is generally accepted that WTO rules permit us to ban foods based on their risks to human health. So it should, as long as those rules are scientifically based. It is also generally accepted that WTO rules do not, unless in rare and exceptional circumstances, permit bans on imports based on the production processes used if they do not have an impact on human health. That is why the EU ban on US poultry washed in peracetic acid or very dilute solution of chlorine is based on the supposed risk to human health, not on the welfare of chickens. We all know the scientific basis for the allegation of risk to human life is tenuous, otherwise the population of North America would not be so large. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and others, want a standard based on the welfare of poultry, not on the welfare of humans. However, to do so would be contrary to WTO rules. Paradoxically, they are asking us to set aside an international treaty, albeit for specific and limited purposes. There are reasons the WTO has these rules. First, when countries prohibit the import of goods, particularly food, based on the alleged inferiority of standards in other countries, it is usually done for protectionist reasons and not for the reasons they give. Secondly, it is extremely difficult to enforce rules about standards applied in another country, unless you adopt quasi-colonial controls reaching out into those countries from more developed countries, which many countries in the world do not want to see themselves subjected to. The WTO recommends where possible we adopt international standards, as my noble friend Lord Trenchard said, such as Codex Alimentarius and so on, as long as they are based on sound science.

I hope that the House will think twice before going back more than a century to introduce protectionism, flout international law and do something where the sole purpose is to raise the cost of food.

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I reserve the right to push the amendment, depending on how the debate goes and where we get to at the end of this group of amendments. I look forward to noble Lords’ contributions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Holmes. He has made an eloquent case against the bureaucracy of new paper-based controls on wine. This is very timely, because Covid makes digital much more appropriate in many areas, and I look forward to hearing what can be done.

I rise to move Amendment 91 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Lindsay—who, unfortunately, cannot be here today—and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle. As we are talking about marketing standards, I again declare an interest as the chair of Red Tractor. This is much the biggest of a number of important agriculture assurance schemes; ours covers £14 billion-worth of food and drink, and benefits from regular inspections by ACAS-accredited bodies to enhance food safety, traceability, animal welfare and environmental protection. As I said in Committee, we carry out regular inspections for the FSA—which has been much mentioned today—and the Environment Agency and help to promote export success based on certified standards. We support government endeavour and try to be the flagship of British food and farming at a very difficult time.

Amendment 91 is important because it strikes at the heart of the debate about the use or abuse of powers repatriated from Brussels and Luxembourg now that we have left the EU. We have seen a taster of what can go wrong in the overuse of such delegated powers in domestic legislation in the Public Health Act 1984, which we will be debating prior to the renewal of Covid restrictions next Monday, ahead of the Commons vote on Wednesday.

I should start, however, by congratulating my noble friend the Minister. This is an extremely difficult Bill to steer through our House. Agriculture, food and the environment are issues that excite us all disproportionately. I have therefore appreciated his readiness to listen and to try to get impact assessments back on the right path—which was the subject of an earlier amendment. I know that he also believes in consultation with the farming industry and other stakeholders in developing ELMS and, no doubt, in setting marketing standards, which are the subject of this clause.

My noble friend helpfully confirmed in Committee that there will be consultation on regulations made under this section—although, rather curiously, this is because marketing standards are covered by EU food law, which is being carried over into UK law. The duty to consult is contained in Article 9 of Regulation 178/2002, as the Minister told the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, in Committee. However, the provision is rather too limited for my taste. It says:

“There shall be open and transparent public consultation”—


which is good—

“directly or through representative bodies, during the preparation, evaluation and revision of food law, except where the urgency of the matter does not allow it.”

The bad news here is that consultation with the public can be direct, which is fine, or through representative bodies, which is not, as they have their own interests and axes to grind. Worse is the very wide exemption

“where the urgency of the matter does not allow it.”

This is exactly the sort of provision used in the Covid crisis, in some cases—such as on mask wearing—needlessly, as the debate about that went on for weeks and would have accommodated as well as benefited from public consultation.

In order to withdraw our amendment, my first request is for an assurance that there will be a bias in favour of consultation—open consultation, including engagement with parliamentarians, not just representative bodies, who can take too narrow a view. During foot and mouth, which was not even fatal, I remember that the NFU—which has actually done a lot today—and the food chain of which I was then part dominated consultation. However, they failed to help the Government to spot the disastrous impact on the tourist industry of closing down the countryside.

Our amendment is narrow. That is my fault, but, since I have given notice of this, perhaps the Minister could also comment on the availability and progress of consultation and/or the applicability of Article 9 to Clauses 36 to 39 and Clauses 40 to 42, which I think might fall outside food law.

The second area where I would like an assurance is, I acknowledge, more difficult. The regulation the Government are relying on—as the House of Lords Library has kindly explained to me—is contained in retained direct principal EU legislation. Such a measure can theoretically be amended not only by an Act of Parliament or by a devolved legislature, but by certain delegated powers. So in principle the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018—or, I suspect, the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020—can be used to modify the provisions of the regulation on which we are relying for consultation. The former has already been used on minor BSE, plant-protection and horse-testing regulations. I should add that all of this has emerged since my very helpful meeting with the two Ministers. Will there be public consultation if these two Acts are used to amend the powers deriving from Regulation 178/2002, on which so much weight is being put? If not, the Government should come forward with a short reassuring clause on consultation, as I have been arguing throughout the Bill.

We must ensure that the Executive are not given powers that are too sweeping, or we will get into an unholy mess. To save the agriculture and food area from this fate, I make a plea to the Minister for the reassurance I have asked for and, if need be, for the Government to rethink on consultation and to follow through soon on the very welcome promise last week on impact assessments.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will be brief. I will speak to Amendment 91. My interests are as listed in the register. In addition, I repeat what I stated when speaking to Amendment 18: I chaired the Better Regulation Executive from 2010 to 2015. It is pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, with her in-depth knowledge and experience of the subject matter, and I am delighted to add my name to this amendment. Like the noble Baroness, I appreciated the commitment from the Minister that impact assessments will be undertaken as the Bill progresses.

I fully endorse the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, in particular the risks we face through time pressures to get legislation through Parliament before the end of this year. We have a very crowded programme. There is a sense of significant pressure on Defra in having not only the Agriculture Bill but the Fisheries Bill and the Environment Bill to progress through the legislative process, against the huge diversion and all-consuming concern of the Covid crisis. It would be a huge mistake if, against this pressure, Defra were to short -circuit the consultation process just to get things done. I appreciate the difficulty that the Minister is under on this issue. However, the consultation process is in place for a purpose and it is essential that we adopt best practice. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.