Agriculture Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 73 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and Amendments 272 and 274, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

Protecting the environment is important to me. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, I believe that over the last 10 years we have seen many severe weather events that have had a direct impact on our land, our nature and, above all, our soil texture and quality. The land has been leached of essential nutrients, thereby disabling agricultural production and the capacity to produce food. This debate is really all about food and the quality of food for consumption by all our citizens.

There is a value and a benefit to the environment in making financial provision, financial entitlement and financial qualification a means of encouraging a reduction in climate change emissions. It is worth remembering that our Select Committee report entitled Hungry for Change, which was published last week, stated that the features of a sustainable food system are that it should be environmentally sustainable, that land must be managed to ensure that it is used appropriately and is continuously viable for food production, and that the negative impacts of GHG emissions and water and air pollution on habitats and diversity must be substantially reduced, while carbon sequestration and flood management are enhanced. It is important that the forthcoming national food strategy considers those factors, as well as ensuring that our food supply is socially and economically viable.

Therefore, I have no problem in supporting these amendments, because I believe that we have to reduce our CO₂ emissions. We have to make that contribution to net-zero emissions and there should be financial payments to our farming folk that recognise that. What better way to do that than to recognise it on the face of the Bill? I hope that in replying the Minister will indicate the Government’s response to these amendments and set out how they intend to contribute to net-zero emissions through farming and food production.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendments 272 and 274 in the names of the two noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Jones, respectively—you can never have too many Lady Joneses, in my view.

These amendments would put an urgency and a framework into the objective of substantially reducing the carbon impact of farming, and would include a series of targets and interim targets in line with successive carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said that the amendments were too declamatory and mandatory, and that is why I support them. We need a bit of backbone to make sure that this vital purpose is achieved.

Agriculture accounts for 11% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, and that percentage has not reduced very much over the last 10 years. Unless change can be incentivised financially, agriculture will account for a greater proportion of our UK emissions, as other sectors decarbonise quickly. On the other hand, land is an essential resource for tackling climate change through its ability to sequester and store carbon, and that needs to be taken into account at the same time.

I know that the Minister will say that the purposes in Clause 1 already enable support to be provided for measures to combat climate change. However, the amendments before us provide a much stronger framework to drive the urgent changes required in agricultural practice, and I urge him to consider the extra welly that they will provide for this vital purpose.

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[The Earl of Dundee [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 90, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, which includes fungi as subject to conservation, and Amendment 183 from my noble friend Lucas, which also covers wild plants within an agri-food supply chain. Through Amendments 178 and 185 respectively, my noble friend Lord Lucas also points to the need for a proper analysis of agri-food supply chains, not least to that for relevant data collection in the first place.

With Amendments 187, 190 to 192 and 194, on how information itself should be best gathered through tactful and fair-minded approaches to people asked to give it, my noble friend Lord Caithness offers excellent guidance, as does my noble friend Lord Carrington with a number of proposals, including Amendment 203, which would retain the current common agricultural policy objectives exemption from competition law for relevant agreements.

Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister may agree that, taken together, and if incorporated within the Bill, all these proposed adjustments, mainly concerning information and analysis, would provide useful and necessary checks and balances, and equally that he might feel able to support Amendment 195, tabled by my noble friend Lord Empey and myself, which would ensure the provision of regulations for fair-dealing obligations of business purchasers of agricultural products.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 195 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee; Amendment 197 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch; and Amendment 207 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to which I and others are signatories.

Clause 27 is about fair dealing with agricultural producers and others in the supply chain. For a considerable time I have felt that there has been an imbalance in the supply chain that has been disproportionate and has had a diminishing impact on producers. If we believe in public money for public goods, we should be trying to cherish and protect our farm producers.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator is perhaps a very good place for the regulations specified in Clause 27 to be enforced. I would like the Minister to indicate how the regulations will be governed; in the absence of that, I can see a need for proper scrutiny and oversight of the supply chain. That is a missing area. Surely the oversight could be provided by the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

I pay tribute to Christine Tacon. I recall that when the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, was chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the other place, of which I was also a member, we took evidence from Ms Tacon and examined the relationships within the supply chain.

I also believe—and this is a singular view—that smaller retailers should be subject to scrutiny as well, because they have caused many major problems for producers in our supply chain.

We need greater joined-up working between Defra and BEIS, but to provide that oversight, we also need the Groceries Code Adjudicator. Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I see a direct link between Amendments 197 and 207. This would ensure that the role of regulating agricultural contracts was given to the Groceries Code Adjudicator. As well as telling us how the regulations will be governed, perhaps the Minister will advise us about ongoing discussions between Defra and BEIS about a possible role for the GCA in this respect. Or perhaps there would be another body. But surely the body that has been tried and tested, and has proved its worth, should be the one.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 197, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and to Amendment 207, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and others. I very much welcome Clause 27. The Government’s commitment to include fair dealing within supply chains in the Bill is important and much needed.

I speak as someone who established a reasonably successful agricultural co-operative to market livestock, finished beef cattle and lambs, during the 1990s, so I am only too well aware of pressures in food supply chains. I still have the scars. Clause 27 goes into a huge amount of detail on how fair dealing obligations will be applied. That is welcome. For far too long, insufficient information has been available on input costs and benchmarks on which to base sensible modern contractual arrangements.

As has already been said, when pressure is applied to supply chains, the primary producer is, ultimately, the fall guy and the weak link in the chain. The buck stops there. So, however welcome the provision is, I am concerned because, in this part of the Bill, the Government are particularly vague about the location of the administration of the function. Like others who have spoken, I think I understand why. I am aware that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is reluctant to expand the scope of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady McIntosh, have said, under the current chair, Christine Tacon, the office of the adjudicator has been established with huge credibility and influence. It is the logical home for this function, and I would encourage the Minister, in negotiations with his colleagues in BEIS, to persist in trying to achieve that outcome. There is no other logical place, even if we consider the RPA, with the experience for the function to be sited there. A new chair of the Groceries Code Adjudicator will be appointed later this year, when the current chair steps down, and that will present an opportunity to review and expand its remit. I support the amendments.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 124 and 138, which have my name attached, and which have already been ably covered by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market.

I have a couple of points to raise on Amendment 124. A strategic approach to financial assistance is required and should be necessary. Such an approach would specifically align the contents of the multiannual financial assistance plans with each of the purposes listed in Clause 1. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, was absolutely right when she talked about the need to have a coherent long-term national plan for each of the public goods to be delivered through financial assistance to farmers.

Amendment 138 was tabled because it would allow for greater clarity on the different public goods delivered through the financial assistance scheme, including public access to the countryside, farmland, water—which I would like to see greater clarity on—and, of course, woodland. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to support Amendments 105 and 112, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and Amendment 127, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to which I am a co-signatory. On the funding issue, it is important that there is rollover of funding, as Amendment 112 indicates, because that provides that level of certainty to the farming community.

It is also important to seek assurances from the Minister that there will be no diminution of funding for farming, agricultural and connected purposes in the new dispensation. For many communities, irrespective of farm type, whether in the lowlands or uplands, farming is the base of their economic activity. I would like the Minister to give us assurances on this matter, and an indication of whether resources or funding for the ongoing issues have been discussed at official and perhaps at ministerial level with the devolved regions.

On the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I agree that a framework for expenditure and a clear direction of travel have to be written into the Bill, and the budgeted annual expenditure available to achieve each of the strategic priorities, which underpin food production, farming and the principle of public money for public goods, has to be set out. I say to the Minister that if we are to provide security to the farming community and prove that the Bill works, it has to benefit farmers and those directly involved in food production in the supply chain.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, whenever I talk to farmers, read the farming press or otherwise see them in the media, they are worried that they do not know how this will work, and that it will simply result in a cut in their income and will be a danger to the future of their business. I have listened to what has so far been an extraordinary seminar on all this business—it will go on rather longer; I did warn people about that —but we still do not get answers from the Government. Those of us who will again be asked by farmers, “What will happen?”, will have to say that we do not know, but we can tell them what might. It is not satisfactory.

The CAP changed several times. Fifteen years ago, it changed very substantially. It was decoupled—that is always the word used on these occasions—from a production-based subsidy system to the area-based schemes: the single farm payment with cross-compliance, which morphed into the basic payment plus greening, which was a bit different but not a lot. It was a major change that inevitably had a seven-year transition period in this country, which resulted in complete chaos with the payments.

I remember that when I was responsible for Defra issues for our party I asked questions time and again in this Chamber about the fact that the Rural Payments Agency was not able to perform its functions properly. People were not being paid on time and some were not being paid at all. The Government will say that it has settled down substantially now. That is true, but that is because the transition has finished, the changes have taken place and people now know what they are doing.

What will happen now? The answer is that everyone will be plunged into a new transition period and another fundamental change where, the Government say, direct subsidies to farms and farmers will be abolished and people will be paid under the new environmental land management scheme. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, said that it will definitely start in 2024. Without wanting to be too cynical, my answer to that is, “Pull the other one.” It might start, but it will not be completed at all. I wonder whether it will even start then.