Draft Market Measures (Marketing Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Market Measures Payment Schemes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Market Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 General Committees

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

I want to check a couple of things with the Minister before he sums up. My understanding of what we are undertaking in Committee and in all the other Committees on which I have sat considering EU-shared parts of regulation being transferred into UK law is that we are ensuring that we do not fall off a cliff edge without any regulations to cover important areas. Whoever was in government, including Labour had it won the 2017 general election, would have had to do exactly the same. In its manifesto, the Labour party made it very clear—it was on all our leaflets—that the British people’s decision to leave the European Union has been settled, or words to that effect. To transpose the legislation into UK law is not a matter of changing any of the regulations, but simply of making sure that they conform to British law, in many respects—and this might seem daft to the public—by inserting “UK” instead of “EU”.

Would the Minister confirm, however, that when we leave the European Union, Parliament will have the opportunity to look at all the regulations covering all areas that this and other Delegated Legislation Committees have discussed, to improve them if we want to, and to set them on a course beyond the EU’s minimum standard for agreement among the 27 member states?

I just wanted to make sure that that is clear for the record. I have found it quite difficult to understand why we have not opposed the statutory instruments in Committee, but we are asked to vote against them on a three-line Whip in deferred Divisions.

[The Chair]

Just before I call Brendan O’Hara, I will clarify the situation. Apparently, there has been an administrative mix-up. Brendan O’Hara is not a member of the Committee, but he is completely in order to speak and will be recorded as present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. What will hopefully be clear is how producers and consumers are well served by passing the instruments, which will make operable retained EU law and domestic legislation on the organisation of agriculture markets to protect standards and our vital farming sector.

The draft Market Measures (Marketing Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 make operability changes to a suite of EU regulations laying down marketing standards and related rules for the seven areas: bananas, beef and veal, carcase classification, fruit and vegetables, hops, milk, milk products and spreadable fats, and pigmeat.

The draft Market Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 make the appropriate amendments to ensure operability for a number of domestic statutory instruments that provide for enforcement of EU rules for marketing standards for fresh horticultural produce, beef and veal labelling, carcase classification, green bananas, olive oil, and hops, as well as for enforcement of the rules of the school milk scheme and for reporting prices of milk and milk products.

The draft Market Measures Payment Schemes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 make appropriate amendments to EU regulations laying down detailed rules for the three areas of public intervention and aid for private storage, measures to promote agricultural products, and conversion rates for rice. The amendments will ensure that the legislation can operate in a domestic context.

A number of points were raised during the debate, which I will refer to briefly where they are relevant to the measures. The hon. Member for Ipswich seems to still be fighting the last referendum campaign. Although leaving with no deal would deliver for the 52% who voted to leave, I believe that the deal that the Prime Minister has produced is a deal that delivers for everybody and that we should all get behind. He mentioned that it was technical in nature, but the changes are simple; they merely take account of the fact that we will be leaving the European Union. Indeed, when we have left the European Union, we will be able to change things if we want, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley said, because we will be an independent nation. It sounds as if the hon. Member for Ipswich would like to stay in the European Union and not be given the freedoms that the British people voted for.

If we choose to align with EU standards, for example on carcase classification, that will be our choice. Indeed, companies in the UK are well used to exporting to markets around the world and can meet the specifications required in a whole range of countries, so there is no reason why we cannot make changes ourselves, should we wish. I repeat, however, that the amendments do not make changes to the regulation.

The hon. Member for Ipswich mentioned consultation. We had some consultation. We carried out targeted stakeholder engagement on the instruments relating to the CMO in November 2018, engaging stakeholders with a particular interest in the areas covered by the instruments. The stakeholders did not raise any significant concerns, and responses were mostly seeking to clarify issues of policy. We acknowledge the responses from stakeholders and thank them for their comments. Some stakeholders asked DEFRA to consider longer transitional periods for proposed labelling changes. We took their comments on board and provided for longer transitional periods.

The right hon. Member for Don Valley said that the measures before us ensure that we do not fall off a cliff edge. The measures will be relevant whether we have a deal or a no-deal situation and will ensure that business can carry on as usual. The hon. Member for Ipswich was talking about how everything that comes out of Europe seems to be fantastic and how we sign up to everything, but I respectfully remind him that the United Kingdom was held back in a number of areas when we moved on animal welfare. We banned dry sow stalls and veal crates and we took a number of measures on battery hens. We legislated ourselves, but we found that our markets were eroded by others not moving in the same direction. We have been held back in some ways by the EU.

To those who say that the Government will not maintain standards, I say that agricultural food standards in England are already very high, as they are consumer and retailer-led. They often go over and above the current standards set by EU legislation. For example, in the hops sector, brewers have the ability to set the standards they require from their suppliers, and those are often above the minimum EU standards. There is no desire for standards to be lowered for domestic or imported products.

[Caroline Flint]

The Minister makes an important point about standards. I absolutely agree that in many respects, we have been ahead of the European Union. We could go further, particularly in the transport of livestock, which is another area that could be improved. I take this opportunity to say that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench have confirmed that we have not objected to as many SIs as I perceived. We have agreed to hundreds and hundreds of SIs and changes. For the most part, Labour has agreed with the transposition of the regulations, and I wanted to correct the record on that.

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank the right hon. Lady for those comments. In many ways, the Labour party has not stood in the way of such measures as the ones we are considering. However, the Labour party has stood in the way of the big one: the Brexit deal. Many Labour Members have voted against the deal, meaning that we cannot make progress in moving to the situation where we can make those changes, for which the regulations are the preamble.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute raised the sensible and reasonable point of what happens if we make mistakes. Well, we will fix them. As the changes are small and technical, it is unlikely there will be any major mistakes. As I have said, we have already picked up something where the EU had moved and the numbering of particular articles in the schedule had changed because a few were added at the top. He is absolutely right that under a no-deal situation, the tariff regime would be very difficult for the sheep markets. Tariffs in the region of 40% would be difficult for sheep farmers not only in Scotland, but elsewhere in the United Kingdom, given that we export 30% of our lamb. In particular, the carcases that tend to go on to the EU market are the small hill carcases, such as those produced in his constituency. Once again, the message is clear: vote for the deal so that we will not have a no-deal Brexit and so that we can negotiate a long-term farming agreement.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the plight of hill farmers. I am not a hill farmer—we grow grain on some wonderful lowland areas—but I know from my constituency how tough it is being a hill farmer. The measures in the Agriculture Bill seek to switch aid from direct payments for production or for just being a farmer to public goods. I would argue that the public goods that hill farmers are delivering in terms of the wildlife and the environment—the walls, the hedges, and all those other features—are just the sort of things that Scottish farmers would want to grasp with both hands. It is disappointing that the Scottish Administration are perhaps not taking the same line as we are. When British taxpayers’ money goes into agriculture in the future, we will no longer be able to rely on French farmers burning tyres in the road and marching up the Champs-Élysées to protect farmers’ support. Under the Agriculture Bill regime, if Governments were to suggest cutting agricultural support, people would be writing to their MPs asking about the hedgehogs, the badgers, the bumble bees, the hedges and all those other features—those public goods—that the money will support. I hope that Scotland will be late arrivals at the Agriculture Bill ball, and join in on what I believe will be revolutionary changes to how we support agriculture, in a way that the general public as well as farmers will welcome.

The technical and operability amendments made in the regulations will maintain the effectiveness and continuity of the CMO legislation, which would otherwise be inoperable following our exit from the European Union. They will ensure that we can continue to operate schemes under the regulations for our vital farming sector, and maintain the standards they set, which support confidence in our farmed goods on domestic and international markets. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Market Measures (Marketing Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

Draft Market Measures Payment Schemes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Market Measures Payment Schemes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.— (Mr Goodwill.)

Draft Market Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Market Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.—(Mr Goodwill.)