Animals

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Drew]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. Clearly, it is a dreadful story, and she has filled in the back details.

As I have said, I know the British are a nation of animal lovers, but it is wonderful that 150,000 people put their signature where their heart was. The petition was launched by Beverley Cuddy, editor of Dogs Today magazine. She made the rather rash statement that if the Government accepted it, she would wear an “I love Michael Gove” T-shirt. She may like to give that to the President of the United States when she has finished with it, so he can be completely clear about who that is. She subsequently said that she would wear such a T-shirt about my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), the shadow Secretary of State, but we will leave that there.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron)—I never get the constituency quite right, but I will keep trying—who is a doyenne of the all-party group on dog advisory welfare. Of course, a lot of other Members have supported this. Behind the scenes, there has been tireless campaigning by Pup Aid, CARIAD or Care and Respect Includes All Dogs, Canine Action UK, the RSPCA, the Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs and Cats, and Cats Protection, as well as others I have not mentioned. We can be justly proud of how they have managed to get the law through to this stage. That was not difficult in terms of the complication of the legislation, but the sheer effort of trying to get things through this place does take time and effort.

[Chris Davies]

There is a name the hon. Gentleman has missed out, which is Marc Abraham, who has been right behind this campaign. We heard from the Minister that he is a vet of distinction, and he really has led this campaign from the front. I would like the Opposition Front Bencher to pay him credit.

As the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the T-shirt about loving him, perhaps from the Conservative side of the House I could praise an organisation I do not usually praise, which is the Daily Mirror? It led a very good campaign on Lucy’s law, and we should pay it credit for doing so.

[Dr Drew]

I was coming on to Marc Abraham, but the hon. Gentleman has pre-empted me. I will take that bit out, as he has paid due regard to Marc.

There are many dog and cat breeders who will hopefully continue to provide the route that people should use to buy their pets. Animal companionship is something that we greatly underestimate. A number of us have fought hard to make sure that places that previously banned people from taking their pets in, including sheltered housing, rethought that, because it is important for people, particularly older people who may live alone, to have such companionship. We strongly support the statutory instrument, but would ask the Minister where the money is coming from, as this is not a nil cost. It is about having to up our game on supervising this operation. Organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are our eyes and ears, but at the end of the day, we have to recognise that there will be an impact on the public purse.

The Dogs Trust has said that this is one of a number of changes that it wishes to see. It is seeking an update in the pet travel scheme, which is connected to puppy smuggling, as some people abuse the way in which we can rightly bring animals into the country. Much tougher controls on that illegal operation are needed. Is that something that the Government have in train? I have asked about sentencing and sentience, and the regulation of animal centres, refuges and rehoming centres. Pet passports need to be revisited, because things have moved on since the original legislation was introduced.

Marc Abraham has written to us all, asking a number of rhetorical questions to show why the legislation needs to be introduced and looking at the Aunt Sallies that have been set up. Will the Minister say on public record why we can be assured that the measure will bear down on this dreadful trade? Marc asked why we are debating this today. That is down to him and to many other people. He also asked whether rehoming centres could be used as a devious device by people in the trade acting immorally but not illegally. Will the Minister explain how we are to make sure that Lucy’s law works in practice? Likewise, if the trade goes underground, as it could if we are not careful, what measures would the Government put in place? Marc answered that by saying that this was a perfectly good bit of legislation. It is important in its own right, but we should not lose sight of the fact that puppy smuggling is an ever-present and immoral trade. He ended by looking at that to make sure that if we agreed legislation today, it would have a positive impact on puppy smuggling, otherwise we would fail and would need to revisit the legislation and widen it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt), in a debate that I attended, looked at the need to regulate animal rescue centres. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s views on that. Is it something that the Government will introduce in due course? The RSPCA has argued that the difference between the best centres for the rehoming and rescue of animals and the worst is so dramatic that we need to look at how we ensure that the poorer centres are removed.

Without further ado, I am very happy to say that we support the regulations. We hope the Government will see them as not just a feather in their cap, but a feather in the cap of all those who led the charge in getting this piece of legislation through. I hope the Minister will say some good things about the other points I have mentioned, because it is no good just passing these regulations if we ignore the other important areas where it is clear there is animal abuse. Everyone in the Chamber wants to bear down on that. We can do our bit not just through this statutory instrument, but by what we do subsequently.

Agriculture Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman on many of those points. In fact, my local authority, Powys County Council, is investing in the county farm structure, which is really positive. Is the hon. Gentleman proposing that county councils—national Government, in fact—invest in smallholdings? Does he agree with the shadow Chancellor that we should do away with all private farms and have community farms?

[Dr Drew]

That would be a very good thing in the sense that we would have much more access to the land. I do talk to the shadow Chancellor from time to time, and he is very keen on the idea that land is available, not by sequestration, but by taking it into public ownership to give people the chance to farm. That is what we are about here. This is very important.

[Chris Davies]

Following on from the shadow Chancellor’s background, the hon. Gentleman says, “taking farms into public ownership”. I am very interested in that definition.

[Dr Drew]

I will be very careful. I will reword what I said. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt read what I said when the Official Report is published. I am very clear that there has always been a role for some public ownership of land through local authorities, because that is an avenue by which people can come into farming. It is simply much more difficult—I talk from some experience here. A long time ago, I chaired the county farms estate in Gloucestershire when I was a county councillor. I saw people coming through, desperate to get on the land, and it was always really sad that we had to turn down very good people because never enough holdings became available for the numbers chasing them. Too often, it was not necessarily the farmers themselves but who their partners were that was a vital factor in who got the holdings, which I always thought was grossly unfair. That was the reality of trying to make good what is a difficult operation.

I am merely making the point that we ought to do more to protect county farms and smallholdings. I want to grow them but, at the moment, there should be an embargo on the future sale. The old acre for acre policy was always sensible; somebody sold a bit of land and invested in a new bit of land. The problem is a wholesale reduction of the county farms estate, which precludes many people from coming into farming.

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[Chris Davies]

I have had concerns about the Rural Payments Agency. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that opening up a consultation is just going to confuse and delay matters? Surely the Minister should just decide which organisation is going to administer it and then get on with it.

[Dr Drew]

If the Minister wants to say today that he has some brand spanking new agency in his back pocket that is going to take over and run this, we are more than happy to listen and give our support. I am merely the messenger saying that I still receive countless complaints about late payments, wrong payments and reasons unknown for people not receiving the moneys they thought they should have received. The field margins and the way in which the scheme was set up was unduly complicated, but this will potentially be as complicated, and some would say more complicated.

Why can we not just listen and learn from past mistakes and at least give people an opportunity to help frame what could replace the Rural Payments Agency? It has already taken on many Natural England employees, so it is ready for its new incarnation, but I am worried about skill levels, about the computer system and about how this will be perceived if we start on the back foot with an agency that has not been fit for purpose.

I will not cast aspersions on the people who work for the RPA—no doubt they work long hours to try to get things right—but there has been something integrally wrong with the way it has operated for a long time. I am giving the Minister an open goal to shoot at—a way for us to move forward across the party divide to try to get an agency that is fit for purpose for a very different type of agricultural scheme.

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[Dr Drew]

Again, there are going to be commercial obligations, because the fact is that we are looking for a ban. As far as I know, both parties have talked about this quite openly. Certainly representatives of the parties have talked about it. We looked at it as regards the withdrawal agreement. From memory, and we will come on to live exports later, it is one of the things that certain people prayed in aid of the advantage of leaving the EU—that is, that we could bring about some of these animal welfare changes. It was a crucial argument. It was not quite as big an argument as the £350 million a week for the NHS, but it was nevertheless an argument.

[Chris Davies]

The hon. Gentleman mentions animal welfare. Is this an opportunity for Members on his side of the House to put animal rights views forward? Is this the place to be bringing this up?

[Dr Drew]

Again, I make the point that we have limited opportunity to consider legislative change. As far as I know, the hon. Member for Crawley is hardly some animal rights activist who has been out on demonstrations to demand that this practice ends. He is a Conservative MP whose constituents have no doubt written to him saying that it is not something that they wish to condone.

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[Dr Drew]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. It is important because, as I have said, animals move backwards and forwards over that border for fattening purposes or other reasons. We do not intend to ban that.

We are debating this issue here because this is an agriculture Bill. If we do not, whatever one’s opinion on the issues are, people will cast aspersions that we have not done our job as Opposition Members and that the Government have not put on the record their current thinking. Until recently, the Government were using banning live exports as one argument for leaving the EU. Is that still the Government’s case or not?

[Chris Davies]

rose—

[Dr Drew]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can clarify that.

[Chris Davies]

People voted to leave the EU for many different reasons; I do not think the hon. Gentleman’s putting his hat on that one necessarily makes it the reason for Brexit.

I ask for clarity, because proposed subsection (2)(a) suggests that the Opposition are quite happy for livestock to be exported from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. From what I remember of geography, it is about 50 miles across the Irish sea, whereas it is about 23 miles across the Bristol channel. It is interesting that the Opposition would allow animals to travel, say, 200 miles within the island of Ireland and to the Irish border, 50 miles across that sea and then to go on perhaps another 200 or 300 miles on the UK mainland, while seeming averse to allowing cattle or sheep from within the UK to go any further. The export of sheep is very important to Welsh farmers.

[Dr Drew]

I am not sure that I actually said that, but I re-emphasise that we would not stop any live exports within the United Kingdom, for so long as the United Kingdom exists. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington says, we would even allow live exports within the island of Ireland.

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[Dr Drew]

I thank my hon. Friend for clarifying that, so I do not need to—

[Chris Davies]

rose—

[Dr Drew]

If you want to re-clarify that clarification, feel free.

[The Chair]

Order. I am getting closer to the Front Bench so I can rap you over the knuckles. “You” means me, and I do not have an opinion on this. Allow me to rephrase that: when I am in the Chair, I do not have an opinion—I am strictly impartial.

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[Chris Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Drew]

In a second—just let me finish my peroration.

I thank Rob Wakely, who did a sterling job to keep us on the straight and narrow, and Jessica Cobbett from my office, who helped me on more than one occasion. I thank the civil servants, who have done a really good job, and the Minister. I feel sorry for him, because he will have to start all over again tomorrow with the Second Reading of the Fisheries Bill. As much as we think we have done our bit, he still has to do his.

I give way to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire.

[Chris Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have nothing to add—I am just enjoying intervening on him.

[Dr Drew]

If nothing else, that gave me a chance to rest my voice.

This is an important Bill. We got it through in time—it is a good job we left enough. Although I am using this opportunity to thank everyone from both the Opposition and the Government, I hope that, to finish with, we will hear some good noises about tenancy reform. People will be watching, listening or reading even at this stage because their livelihoods depend on that, so the Minister should listen and, if nothing else, accept this final new clause.

Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Thursday 15th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Davies]

I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon, who is a joint signatory to the amendment. We both thank the Minister for supporting the amendment, discussing it with us and agreeing a way forward. This has been called for—not just by the farming unions, but by farmers themselves—for a very long time in Wales and, as we have just heard, in Scotland. I am sure that it is the same in England.

As somebody whose constituency is right on the border, I feel that what the Minister said is very appropriate. Sadly, so many slaughterhouses have closed that people cross borders with their stock. In Wales, we have lost a lot of revenue across Offa’s Dyke. Money has perhaps been spent not on Welsh land promotion, but on other things.

Opposition Members will certainly know how the meat levy is worked out: it is a jointly funded levy that is paid by both the producer and the slaughterer or exporter. Under Hybu Cig Cymru, the current price paid per head of cattle in Wales is £5.67. It is 83p per sheep, and £1.30 per pig. That may not sound like a great deal per item, but when one considers how many animals are slaughtered each year for consumption, both in this country and across the world, it adds up to a considerable amount of money that is sometimes not correctly spent on the area that the animals come from. This has been called for for a very long time, and I am delighted that the Government are supporting it under new clause 30.

[Dr Drew]

It is good to see how cross-party collaboration can have an impact. I congratulate Conservative Members on getting the Minister to move—it is important. I am not an expert on this part of the Bill; we do not have that much beef farming in my part of the world, but some dairy cows get slaughtered and it is important that we know the impact of the levy boards. I am interested in what happens in Northern Ireland, which is not part of the scheme. Can they be brought in?

I am interested to know to what extent the separate boards—the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, Hybu Cig Cymru operating in Wales and Quality Meat Scotland—will maintain their independence, given that the Bill, which is primary legislation, is making a change to how the moneys will be devolved. It would be useful to know to what extent the different organisations will maintain complete independence or whether the administration of the funding will become more complex. I suppose the AHDB would take over all responsibility and devolve the moneys down to the different organisations.

It is good. This is what primary legislation is for: to improve what we have at the moment and do it differently and better. It is pleasing that it seems that all the farming organisations are in favour of the proposal, so I cannot see any reason why the Opposition would not be in favour of it. Again, I would like some clarity about exactly how the scheme operates at the moment and the changes that are, hopefully, going to make it better. We support what is proposed and hope that this good bit of the Bill will receive unanimous support at every level of debate, both in this place and the other place.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his praise—as praise indeed it was—but, unlike him, I am happy with the Minister’s response and I shall be voting with the Government.

[Dr Drew]

Sadly—I thought we might have enticed the hon. Gentleman over to this side. It could have made all the difference, and the Government would have, in due course, thought that it was great that Back Benchers spoke for themselves and voted accordingly. One always has these hopes that might be dashed at a later stage. We will press the amendment to a vote, but we hope the Government will understand that we are willing and able to see how this can be improved on Report.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Davies]

As the Minister has had a very busy day and has overlooked answering my question, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman—whose constituency is, of course, not far from the border—shares my concerns about cross-border land ownership, and areas where there are devolved Governments, where decoupling could cause a problem.

[Dr Drew]

We need some lawyers in England, but we will need some multilingual lawyers when it is a matter of England and Wales. That is an absolutely fair point, and perhaps the Minister will want to intervene on me to give clarity—or not, as the case may be.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I thank my hon. Friend, because that is exactly the point we are making. This concerns not only obesity but its consequences, such as the rise of diabetes, which has doubled over the past 20 years. I am told—although I cannot source this—that the UK already has the most ultra-processed diet in Europe. I think that means we eat too much fast food, which the Bill must recognise is a huge public health issue.

Despite the title of the White Paper, “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”, health has been marginalised. That is disappointing. Health should be central to the whole debate on the food we produce, who it is produced for, and whether it is affordable.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I am interested in the direction of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Does he agree that this is about production, and that everything is either safe or dangerous depending on moderation? Moderation is key here; not how we produce food, or why we produce it, but eating it in moderation.

[Dr Drew]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is also an issue of distribution and who is able to afford certain types of food. Clearly we are trying to move the debate towards ways that we can encourage people to eat better food and maybe less of it, which we will not manage unless we can talk about those issues in the Agriculture Bill Committee. It is not just about domestic production, but where other food comes from. We have a very successful export industry, but we import a huge amount of food from abroad that we could substitute through domestic production.

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[Chris Davies]

I am sorry to intervene yet again, but I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s line of direction. Could he give an example of food produced in this country that is not healthy?

[Dr Drew]

The interesting thing is that we have introduced a sugar tax. We produce sugar beet, and the tax has had an impact on that industry.

[Chris Davies]

So we should not produce sugar?

[Dr Drew]

We should produce sugar, but we should put a tax in place to determine the amount of sugar in products. I have a producer of fizzy drinks that has had to go through the whole process of taking the sugar out—it used to do that but then put the sugar back in; it no longer does that. I will not mention it by name, but it has been quite an impingement on the business. It did that because that was what it was told to do. We do not want to be overzealous in how we treat the production of food, but if we do not do something about it, the consequences will be dire. There are consequences at the moment, with so many people suffering from obesity.

Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Chris Davies and David Drew

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

Q Do you think there is any clarity in the Bill on what the mechanism could and should be? Are the existing institutions the right institutions to do this, or should we be inventing new institutions?

Professor Marsden: Clearly, that is an institutional question. There are a lot of institutional questions that this implies that may not eventually need to go into the Bill, but it does obviously have institutional implications.

In my view, all of this is leading to more place-based systems of integrated management of land and the biosphere. One way or another, with bottom-up partnerships or with some level of regional sensitivity, we have to manage regional diversity in the land base of the UK. That means the landholders and stakeholders being fostered to come together in different ways, not necessarily through a top-down, dirigiste infrastructure, but to develop whole tracts of land—not just a farm, but whole regions—such that we have catchments and regions that are much more sustainable and that are delivering the big goals on climate change as well as individual farm landscape. There is a big institutional challenge here to get local diversity and regional diversity at the heart of these sorts of policies.

David Baldock: As you said, the Bill does not spell out how the policy would work. We are all wondering how that might operate, and there have been some indications in a separate paper. This is clearly a source of uncertainty at the moment; you have powers with less specificity about how they are used. In principle, the public goods frame provides a good framework for delivering the right outcomes in the uplands or elsewhere, but it would be helpful to spell out how that will be met and how the local dynamics, which Terry talked about, can be matched with national objectives as well. If we look at the implications of the 1.5 degree target for the UK and for the world, we find that agriculture will have to make pretty significant changes over the next 20 years to the way soil carbon is managed and to the way energy is used in agriculture. That means that you need some strategic vision of where agriculture and land management are going, and you need to spell that out in a series of objectives a bit more clearly so that we do not have a slightly random selection of public goods that are produced according to local whims. I very much support the bottom-up approach, but that must be balanced by some quite clear strategic goals—we know we have them, but they have not been incorporated in a way we can see yet.

Vicki Hird: To add something on your question on institutions, David, we do not currently have the capacity to do that—the capacity is quite atomised. There is a lot of really good stuff on agri-environment, nature and conservation that is not doing the job adequately, because it has not got the capacity. We need to build that up, and it would have to fit with the vision, as David said.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Q We have had various farming organisations in front of us who have criticised the Bill for not having enough about agriculture. Looking at your biogs—forgive me for saying this—you seem to have a bias, as academics, towards the environment. Is it fair of the farming organisations to criticise the Bill for not having enough about agriculture? If not, why is that not fair criticism?

Professor Marsden: In a sense, it is fair for them to make that assumption at the moment. The message to get across to farmers’ interests is that it needs to be in there, but it needs to be there in a different way. We need to encourage a transition in the UK towards much more sustainable types of farming and towards the production of food of a healthier sort, which creates health benefits for consumers. It is not business as usual here—the point is that it cannot be business as usual for agriculture post Brexit—but neither is it simply an environmental agenda. That is why I say we need agriculture plus environment at the centre of this.