Agricultural Products, Food and Drink (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]]

My Lords, our Benches are content with these two statutory instruments and I thank the Minister and her civil servants for the meeting she arranged to brief us in advance.

As other noble Lords have said, these are important statutory instruments because geographical indication schemes are important to our food and drink industry, particularly our exports. My understanding is that the schemes represent around one quarter of all UK food and drink exports by value, which is approximately £6 billion in export value each year—a significant part of our food industry. Equally, getting these statutory instruments right is about guaranteeing the authenticity of the regulations and the trading of foods, providing reassurances for shoppers and protecting British producers from imitations.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about reciprocity and no deal. My understanding is that if there is no deal, we have no guarantee that UK GIs will be recognised, and companies will be subject to third-country status. That will amount to a lot of extra time for businesses large and small, because they will need to apply first to the UK scheme and then to the EU scheme, or vice versa in the case of Northern Ireland. Many businesses have spent many years developing their applications and securing their protections. We therefore need to get this sorted as soon as we can to ensure that those products can be retained on the shelves and we do not have to take them off-shelf because the packaging is no longer approved, and to allow those businesses to get back exporting as soon as possible.

There are also issues around the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, in that Northern Ireland products with protections of geographical and traditional names will remain under the rules of the EU scheme. My understanding is that seven Irish products are currently granted protected geographical status under EU law, which means they will equally be obliged to maintain the EU logo, with its visual links to the flag of the European Union. That will apply to three all-Ireland spirits—Irish whiskey, Irish cream and Irish poteen. However, four exclusively Northern Ireland food products will be required to carry on using the logo, with its visual links to the flag of the European Union: Comber new potatoes—I apologise in advance if my pronunciation is wrong—Lough Neagh eels and pollan, and Armagh bramley apples.

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, mentioned the issue of geographical indications being reserved matters. Clearly, there are sensitivities over our sense of place and identity and its visual representations. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for taking the time to spell out the close links and discussions with the devolved Administrations, which will continue throughout the scheme. I hope that will also include a review of the scheme.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned the extra burdens on and costs for business. I am keen to hear what the Minister has to say about that. Will she also say a few words about the estimated time the new approvals will take for businesses? I appreciate that there will now be one stage, as opposed to two, so I hope that the time between applying for and completing verification will be shorter. Is there a future time frame for businesses that wish to receive verification?

Finally, in addressing an issue that has not been touched on by others, I am keen to say something fresh about the budget implications for Defra. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, there is no impact assessment for this scheme because of the limited implications for business. However, this will be a significant area of spend for the department in terms of processing and verifying applications, maintaining the register, appeals, enforcement and communication—an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I appreciate that other departments are involved, especially HMRC with verifications and other departments with communications, but Defra will still need a significant amount. I understand that Defra asked for extra money in the departmental spending review to facilitate running these new schemes. Does the Minister know whether the requested extra money was approved?