DRAFT ANIMALS AND ANIMAL HEALTH, FEED AND FOOD, PLANTS AND PLANT HEALTH (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT TRADE IN ANIMALS AND RELATED PRODUCTS (AMENDMENT AND LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS) REGULATIONS 2022

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. We are discussing the draft Animals and Animal Health, Feed and Food, Plants and Plant Health (Amendment) Regulations 2022 and the draft Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment and Legislative Functions) Regulations 2022. Once again, we are fixing problems that we have encountered since the withdrawal process. I notice that when the matter was discussed in the other place a few minutes ago, the same point was made. We keep having to correct errors from the past. I was expecting to see the Minister’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), but I am delighted to see her here today—not least because he gets cross when I raise points of criticism with him. I was going to please him by not opposing the instruments, but I was then going to disappoint him by saying that I have found others who have points of criticism, which I will come on to in a moment.

The draft Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment and Legislative Functions) Regulations 2022 state that the UK will continue to align itself with the directives and regulations dictating the rules on the importation of animals and animal products as of the date of the UK’s exit. Nothing much will change, which is fine, but, as I have noted before, the world did not stand still the day we left the EU. Rather inconveniently for us, the EU has since revoked many of those directives, replacing them with the EU’s Animal Health Law. We are told in the explanatory memorandum that the instrument

“preserves and maintains the policy and legislative regime as of exit day and does not try to align itself with the EU’s Animal Health Law.”

It seems that we now work to different rules but, of course, we continue to trade.

I ask the Minister what assessment has been made of the impact of any possible divergence now that our exports to the EU are dictated by the EU’s Animal Health Law, and whether that has distorted the level-playing field we hoped British farmers would have when they export to the EU? This is of immediate, practical importance, as I am sure the Minister will know, because the meat export sector has been up in arms in recent weeks, as the EU now requires veterinary attestation confirming animal health checks on sites before an export health certificate can be granted. Of course, we now need an EHC to export to the EU. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has explained that this is to meet the requirements under the EU’s animal health regulations, which stipulate that farms wishing to import into the EU must have had regular animal health visits by a veterinarian. That works for people on accreditation schemes, but many others have had to provide self-declarations to provide that EHC. This new situation creates additional costs and lots more red tape and could result in meat exports becoming non-compliant if there is not enough time for hard-pressed vets to undertake the checks required.

As I understand it, after the alarm was raised, DEFRA kicked the can down the road for another year, but the same problem will emerge on 13 December next year if new digital systems are not in place in time. In relation to this statutory instrument, the point is that the SI solves a legal issue by keeping things as they were, but given that the world has changed, it does not resolve the practical issue facing farmers nor the political issue that we now face of having to make changes because a system is being altered in the EU over which we have no influence.

Moving on to the second SI, there is a legal issue to be flagged, because the eagle-eyed members of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments have found fault with the drafting of both these statutory instruments. It said:

“The Committee accordingly reports the instrument for defective drafting, by virtue of including inaccurate information in the footnote to regulation 9(5)(a), acknowledged by the Department.”

It goes on to cite further drafting errors, including—I am delving into realms that I am probably unqualified to comment on in terms of my legal knowledge—unregistered equidae and various other fine points of law touching on Lebanese potato ring rot. You will be glad to hear that I will not go into detail, Mr Hosie, but the Joint Committee is basically saying, “I’m afraid these have not been drafted correctly.” On the scale of sins committed by this Government, I am not quite sure where that sits but, to be fair, the Department has actually acknowledged mistakes. I guess it is the equivalent of almost getting a yellow card but just getting a ticking off.

This has happened twice now. The Minister is in danger of being benched for our next encounter. I hope the Department will do better with its drafting in future. I will not go any further tonight. There is a lot of detail in here. The serious point is that these are important issues to maintain our biosecurity. I hope we will not have to keep going back over past statutory instruments because of mistakes and drafting errors. I hope the Minister can address some of those points.