Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill (Second sitting)

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Jo Churchill]

Right—noted.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Q I start by thanking you and your colleagues for your excellent evidence, some of it submitted to the consultation. It has certainly informed a lot of our thinking, although it also raised a lot of questions. In your introductions, you restated what was essentially in the evidence, which is that there is a problematic set of definitions and this would not necessarily have been the way that you would have gone.

I want to explore something slightly different: the role of advisory bodies. You began to touch on that in your last answer. The Bill at the moment is very thin on what the advisory bodies are there to do. In some of your written evidence, both your organisations suggested that the different bodies should have some kind of remit to look at the wider public good. Could you say a little bit about that? I have been taken by the example of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, or some aspects of the work that it does.

Professor Lovell-Badge: I have been very much involved in the HFEA public engagement exercises. When you are considering a broad area, or potential uses and outcomes, it is really important to have proper public engagement, including democracy, dialogue, or however you want to refer to it, where you really get to understand what the public will think about a topic.

When it comes to assessing technical aspects, it will be challenging. It is fine to have a lay member on a panel, but I do not know whether consulting the public about really detailed, technical issues might be challenging. It depends on what the advisory committee’s role is and whether it is to look more broadly at potential uses and outcomes or to focus on the specific techniques that are being used.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Let me press you on that slightly. In terms of some of the animal welfare issues, it is pretty clear that some of the things that could be done could be designed to make animals more resistant to heat or more liable to be able to survive certain conditions. That does not seem to us a good use of this technology. It is not entirely clear to me on what grounds the advisory bodies would make decisions. If it is just left to a market-driven system, you could argue that, provided it produces a better return, that is good enough, but the ethical issues would be wider than that.

Professor Lovell-Badge: This is another point. I was a bit confused because there is quite a lot of emphasis in the Bill on animal welfare and how they would have a role to play in that. If you are doing an experiment with an animal, you have to have Home Office approval. Animal welfare is a top priority. Many of the things that you might want to do would already be weeded out at that stage. If you wanted to make an animal that felt no pain, for example, you might just about be able to get away with justifying that for research purposes, but certainly not for developing any product.

The regulations about welfare are already there. Sure, it is important to have some input into your advisory committee that says, “This has to be looked at. Have they thought about all the consequences of what they are doing?” Exactly how you would achieve that under the Bill, I am not certain.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q There is now a new player in town: the animal sentience committee, which is not established yet. How would you see the interplay with that, given what you have just said?

Professor Lovell-Badge: I know little about that.

Alessandro Coatti: It is an interesting new player, welcomed by many parties across the House. It looks like it will be an expert committee. Mostly the members will be people with relevant expertise in veterinary sciences, potentially neuroscience, so it would not be an arena for a public dialogue, but that is not to say that they cannot commission it and then take recommendations on board. In my view, they could play a role, but it would be hard. The new animal welfare committee that would overlook the authorisations in the Bill would look at a notifier that said, “We want to do this on an animal, but we do not foresee any health or welfare implications for it.” That committee would focus very much on the health and welfare of the single individual animal, but it is not clear to me whether it would consider higher-level questions such as, “What does it mean for the production of that livestock, the density, the husbandry and so on?”

Of course, the existing DEFRA Animal Welfare and Animal Sentience Committees could be brought in. You could say, “We have a new line of pigs that are resistant to this disease. On paper, it looks very good, because we made a very small, tailored change to a part of it, not a rough deletion of an entire gene. The animals under research and development look fine in contained circumstances and they are well. Would you be happy for us to license them to go on to a breeding trial to expand the number of animals from the 20 in the research study to 200, and to map whether there are any health and welfare impacts on a bigger number of animals?” Those committees could advise the new animal welfare committee on that matter.

Following on from that, the bigger question is: “What do we want for UK farming, agriculture and so on?” That is one of those pillar questions that bigger Government policy, not the Bill, will resolve.

Professor Lovell-Badge: My colleague makes a very good point. If you take things out into the field, the conditions are different from lab conditions in which you originally generated the animals. If you introduce another breeding programme, or a different genetic background, the consequences of what you have done could change. It is the same with traditional breeding, but on all those things, there needs to be long-term feedback. As you would have with humans in clinical trials, you get a phase 3 clinical trial in which you get a lot of people feeding back information—much more than in a phase 2 trial—and then there is always post-market reporting whereby any adverse effects are notified over the years.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q That is a really important point. I may be wrong, but I do not see anything in the Bill enabling that.

Professor Lovell-Badge: Nor do I.

Alessandro Coatti: Under clause 11, when a marketing notice is given in relation to a precision bred animal, the Secretary of State reserves the right to get information from the notifier, over a specified period of time, about the health and welfare of the animal, so that is already covered in the Bill.

Professor Lovell-Badge: But how you do that is not clear.

Alessandro Coatti: No, and a lot will depend on very good guidance from DEFRA or ACRE about how to do that. But that power is in the Bill, at least.

Again, the need for post-marketing monitoring comes down to the trade that you are introducing, not whether you use a technique. It will be important for whoever advises the Secretary of State to be able to tell them, “This change warrants longer-term monitoring, but this other one does not, because we have seen it in the species over many years. This is just a better way of doing it, and it will not dramatically alter what we already know about the trait.”

Professor Lovell-Badge: Remember, many genes have effects in multiple tissues, so you may be focused on changing something—modifying CCR5 for HIV resistance, for example—but not realise that it may also be active and play some role in the brain. That is a clear example of where you may have an issue.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Q The Regulatory Policy Committee brought out a report just a few days ago that concludes that the Government have not made a convincing business case for the deregulation of precision bred organisms in the food system, and it suggests that more narrative around

“competition, innovation, consumer and environmental impacts”

should be included in the Bill. Would you agree that there is insufficient detail on that in the Bill currently?

Professor Lovell-Badge: I think I would agree it is insufficient. You have to factor in everything: the environment, farming practice—how whatever you are doing, whether it is with plant or animal, is going to fit in with or change farming practices. I think there needs to be a lot more thought about those issues.

Alessandro Coatti: I am not entirely sure I agree. Could you tell me again—those people said that the Government have not made a case for deregulation of these organisms?

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[The Chair]

I remind people that we have until 3.15 pm for this session. A couple of Members have caught my eye. I will start with Daniel Zeichner.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Thank you, Ms McVey. Bill, I was very taken with what you were saying about your concerns about the intellectual property rights associated with some of this issue. I got the sense that you do not feel that the Bill as it stands answers those questions. What would you like to see? What would give the protections that would reassure you on these issues?

William Angus: At the moment, what I would like to see is no change to the status quo. Let us take this as an example: company A produces a variety and he introduces a trait into that variety. In two years’ time, once that variety has been added to the UK national list, another breeder can use that trait. That is the freedom to operate. It is really important that that is sustained and that people are not locked out of new developments. What may happen—this is an area I feel quite uncomfortable with—is that we may start to see larger organisations move the goalposts in terms of trying to stop other breeders from using genetic resources that have been developed.

Now, I am quite happy—here, we develop our own genetic resources and we give those away freely, to anybody. If anybody on the Committee would like some wheat, I will send them some genetics, no problem at all. That is freedom to operate. That is really all that I would look for—that we do not change the current status so that people think that, somehow, a naturally developed product or a GE product is any different, and that there is still that freedom to operate.

Can I make one comment on Johnathan and Nigel’s remarks? I have sat on a number of Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council committees. I chaired the horticulture and potato initiative and so on. I am not saying this because they are here, but the UK is absolutely blessed with the best public research on wheat around the world. They are absolutely right to make the point about the fact that this is not developed as well as it could be, primarily because the promotion system is based on paper publications. It is lovely to hear both of these guys talking about taking stuff to the market. That would be another comment that I would make. It is great to hear.

Going back to your question, let us be careful that there are mechanisms in place to protect this freedom of exchange of germplasm that happens not just in the UK but globally. It is really important that we do that. There have been steps in America to patent genes. We really must not go down that route. In my opinion, it will stifle innovation and it would put the control of our food supplies in the hands of large multinationals, which I would be very concerned about.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q To be clear, this follows on from the notion that these could have occurred naturally. They should be treated in that way, rather than being put in a special category.

William Angus: Yes. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say it occurs naturally and then I am going to change it and now it is different. I agree.

It is very difficult when I come from the environment I do—my views tend to be slightly different from those who come from large multinational companies—but I think it is a really important point, that we protect innovation from big companies and so on, but that we also protect the right of individuals to start up their own businesses. The way I look on it is, you know, Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic—he was allowed to do that. One man started with one aeroplane, and off he went; brilliant, great, good for him. It would be sad if people like that or companies such as easyJet were excluded from the market because someone said, “This is an aeroplane, and you’re not allowed to fly it.” I would like to reiterate that we need that protection in there.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Thank you, that’s helpful. May I turn to the two professors? On innovation in general, in essence, the argument is that innovation will happen because obstacles are being removed. Is that enough to foster the kind of innovation that you would hope to see, based on your passion and excitement for this technology?

Professor Napier: I think it was mentioned earlier that with innovation, it probably needs to be developed as a public-private partnership, which sort of implies that there needs to be a market pull. Using the term “market” can be slightly perturbing because, in reality, the drivers for what we want to see translated are much bigger than the economics. They are things like global climate change, food security and all the global pandemics associated with malnutrition and overconsumption. Those are the challenges enshrined in sustainable development goals and things like that. Those are the things that we should be occupying ourselves with. We need to use everything we can to try to fix those challenges. Rothamsted and other places like that—in fact, everybody—should be working towards those goals and overcoming those challenges.

Listening to what Bill said about IP, I spend an enormous amount of time thinking about IP because it is an area that I have to think about a lot. The beauty about the UK is that we have a really strong research use exemption, which allows us to operate in a way that is not encumbered, at least at the research level, by IP. We are in a really good place. I think the bigger barrier to innovation is what I have already mentioned: it is not IP but the cost of regulatory approval. That is why I am so worried that in new legislation, if we start building in layers of costs associated with more regulation, we are just replicating what we had previously under the EU regulation. I think that would be an enormous missed opportunity if we go down that road. That is my personal view.

[Deidre Brock]

Q I want to go back to Mr Angus’s comments about ownership or the licensing of genes and his concern about that. How would you address that, as people involved in this area? What measures should be taken? Clearly, people are concerned about the patenting of crops.

Professor Napier: You cannot patent a gene. There was a case in the US that made it quite clear that you cannot hold a patent on a gene. That legal precedent is quite clear, from the famous case of Myriad. I am not too worried about that. In reality, it is analogous to what you see in the pharmaceutical sector and relates exactly to your point about understanding the drivers for innovation. You need to couple it with economics.

All these things are moving parts, which you need to make the whole thing work. To pull it forward, you need to have an economic case and some form of protecting your invention—patents are a good way of doing that. The example I always give is that my mobile phone probably has 2,000 patents-worth of components in. Nobody gets upset about that. It is about understanding how you can best use this technology. I also do not want to sound like some sort of gung-ho free marketeer, because I am absolutely not. I work in a Government-supported institute. I do not work in the private sector. I probably want the best of both worlds.

Professor Halford: As public sector scientists, at times in our careers we have been told we should be patenting everything, and at times in our careers we have said, “Well, it's unethical to be patenting this stuff.” I think we have a pretty robust patents system. You cannot patent discoveries of genes; you have to patent an invention. That seems to have worked for mobile phones and it works with pharmaceuticals, many of which are biologicals. I do not see why it cannot work in crop high technology.

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[Jo Churchill]

Right, okay. I am not sure that I entirely understand why you feel it would be any different with GE, which is a completely different technique—with all due respect—from GM. If I could tease out that animal welfare point, you are predicating your argument on the idea that everything is detrimental on a welfare front. Surely the eradication of avian flu—particularly as we have had the challenge in the last year—would be beneficial to free-range birds as well. I am keen that the rest of the Committee has its chance to contribute, though.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and welcome. I am glad that you raised the impact assessment because there is a lot of interesting stuff there. Some of it is a touch surprising, which we will probably explore in more detail when we go through the Bill line by line. You already touched on some of this, but what are the threats from these developments for your sector? What would you like to see in the Bill to deal with those challenges, as you see them?

Roger Kerr: From an organic regulatory basis, as Chris has already indicated, GE is still defined as GM. We need to be much clearer about what GE is being defined as, and we still do not have that clarity. As things stand, it is not allowed within the organic regulation, so the risk is where there is a lack of co-existence measures in place, which means that organic crops are contaminated. Organic consumers make these purchasing decisions because they believe they are avoiding GM, and that is a right they should have.

By not having robust co-existence measures in place, we are obviously putting our consumers at risk, because they are purchasing organic products on the basis that they do not believe they are consuming GM. It is a personal choice—I am not saying that you should not—and the organic sector is not saying per se that we should not have genetic editing. What we are saying is that it is incompatible with organic. Organic is out there, and there is a market for it, as Steve has clearly stated. There is a significant opportunity, both domestically and internationally, for the UK organic sector.

We should protect the organic sector, and there should be some visibility in terms of GE—where it is being grown, what is being grown and what the potential risks associated with that are for the organic sector—so we can ensure that the organic sector remains free from GM or GE, as it is at the moment. There is concern that if we are looking to provide consumers with the choice of having GE or not, we will end up with quite a significant cost within the supply chain to ensure co-existence, in terms of space and time, between GM and non-GM. This is not organic per se; it is just GM and non-GM. We will then have to have extra storage, more vehicle movements and a much higher level of testing. There are concerns that, without real clarity about what is going on and where the potential points of contamination arise, a significant cost will be borne by the food sector, which is already under significant pressure.

Joanna Lewis: I understand that you are addressing us as the organic industry and the organic sector, but I just want to reiterate that the Soil Association is a charity of 70 years’ standing that represents all citizens, farmers, growers and scientists who want to see a mainstream transition to agroecological farming and regenerative farming for climate, nature and health.

The response to the consultation on the Bill—85% of people and businesses were opposed—reflects a deeper unease not just about the safety issues and technicalities around the distinction between gene editing and GMOs. That is what I was trying to bring through with reference to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’s public dialogue. It is really important to emphasise the very legitimate public concerns about the fact that breeding as a whole—plant and animal breeding—has been on an unhelpful trajectory that is not up to the challenge of the Government’s goals on sustainable farming transition. We therefore need to ensure that we are not accelerating that trend through carte blanche deregulation.

There is an opportunity to put good governance at the heart of this Bill, set that public interest test, and ensure full supply chain traceability, transparency and labelling for citizens who want and deserve the right to choose whether this is the solution for them. I would not want it narrowed down to saying we are representing an economic sector. This is a broader movement, and it is very much one for mainstream transition.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q How would you achieve that public interest test?

Joanna Lewis: I would really recommend that you look to Norway’s gene technology Act. I have not gone through it line by line, but it feels like a valuable precedent from a country that also sits outside the European Union and is looking at what governance can apply—to make sure we are not just presupposing the benefits. Commercial drivers are not given free rein, and if there is to be a relaxation of regulation, you can do it with the confidence that it is going in the direction of supporting more sustainable farming. I believe the test that it set is that something is of community benefit and supports sustainable development. I do not know whether that is fully adequate, but it is a precedent that is out there and merits some consideration.

[Deidre Brock]

Q Clause 3 sets out the conditions under which a person can release a precision bred organism in England. Do you think the measures within that are sufficient? Probably not. I would be interested to hear where you think they might be strengthened.

Christopher Atkinson: You are right in supposing that we feel the measures are insufficient. We need a high degree of traceability and the ability for organic producers in particular to understand where crops are being grown and the risk of contamination.

Roger Kerr: The other aspect is that, as we have heard from previous speakers, there is not going to be a significant amount of investment in producing this material unless there is sufficient visibility over where it is, because of the likelihood that it will disappear into the food system and the businesses that have developed the technology will not be able to recover the costs. There is an issue in understanding the full and public visibility over where these crops are being grown, who is growing them and where they are going, so that there is the opportunity to see where that product has gone, so that people can recover their investment.

Steven Jacobs: The Bill says that the organism is

“a marketable precision bred organism”

and

“the qualifying progeny of a marketable precision bred organism”.

One of the issues is what will happen if there are—and we are assuming there will be—many precision bred events put into one product, whether that is livestock or crops. In crops, for instance, you can have stacked traits. The issue is around that crop being bred with something else and some of those traits being passed over, perhaps unknowingly.

We have seen incidents where herbicide resistance has gone out into the wilder environment and that has caused problems. For instance, there was a case on the Swiss-Italian border where herbicide-resistant oilseed rape that was not grown in Switzerland was found on the railway. It had leaked out of the railway carriages. That is a problem because they spray herbicide to keep the railway sidings—all the ballast—stabilised. Now, they have a situation where there is a herbicide-resistant weed in a location that would normally be sprayed in order to keep the railway safe. There are incidents where one would need to see some measure of traceability in order to evaluate. It is not just our need; I would suggest that there is a public and commercial need.

Roger Kerr: On livestock, take a genetically edited bull, for argument’s sake—I have picked cows because I like cows. He will have sired innumerable daughters that will go on to be crossed back. They may be crossed back with a non-GE sire. At what point do they become non-GE? Obviously, going back through their parentage, there will be GE material in there. From our point of view—from an organic standpoint—the question is: at what point is it no longer a genetically edited animal, if its forebears were genetically edited? There is a lot of concern around how we manage this issue, how those things are defined and who, ultimately, owns the genetic material within that animal, albeit it is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of something. There are concerns there.

Joanna Lewis: It also feels that the solution in terms of implementing supply chain transparency, traceability and labelling is eminently achievable. It does not feel like a big barrier to bring that into the scope of the Bill in order to address those concerns and allow the legitimate needs of citizens who reserve the right to choose to reject this technology, and to preserve the integrity of organic systems. We are obviously at a point in time where the industry is buzzing with big data supply chain solutions and wanting a whole new resurgence in food labelling to show the citizen everything about the provenance, origin and production practices of their food. It should not be a big barrier to this Bill’s intent to include that requirement for full supply chain transparency and labelling.

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[Jo Churchill]

Q When you are doing this research, you are bound by regulatory frameworks and have to keep the safety of the product. How do you, as leaders in science, challenge yourselves to make sure that the products that end up on our shelves—albeit that they have to go through FSA approval and so on—are bred for safety, and how we and the consumers assure ourselves of that?

Professor Oldroyd: There are currently very tight restrictions on validating the health and safety of GM products. For products produced by conventional breeding, we also have tests with regards to their performance in the environment, their performance relative to other varieties and their health. We have a robust regulatory framework in place that addresses the safety of the consumer, and it has served us well over many decades. I cannot think of an example where we can say, “Okay, this line has caused genuine risk to human health,” and that is because of the regulatory framework that exists.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and a warm welcome to you. May I say how much I enjoyed visiting your splendid new offices a few months ago to meet your new director?

My questions are about public confidence. We know that this has been a vexed debate over many years. There is fantastic science being done in Cambridge, but it often strikes me that the wider public have very little idea about it; that is hardly a unique issue there. Do you think there are sufficient measures in the Bill to secure the public confidence that is needed? If not, what extra could be put in to secure that?

Dr Harrison: The key point is proportionality. In all the preamble to the Bill, it is suggested that there is a proportionate response to how the technology is regulated. What we must never forget about gene editing and the scope of the types of changes that can be introduced is that they are indistinguishable from nature, so fundamentally we are not doing anything that could not happen or arise through natural processes.

The level and proportionality of the regulation of, and the transparency of, those products is important, and it is important that the public are aware, which I suppose is why there are systems in the Bill to register intent to put into the existing system gene edited products, but I do not think we need to stretch much beyond that. We have, as Bill Angus said, very well established regulatory frameworks in which to evaluate the performance of crops. We have the DUS system—distinctiveness, uniformity and stability—and we have the value for cultivatable use system. They have shown over many years that when varieties are put on the market, they are safe. The legislation that exists beyond that gives any country the right, if they find a problem with a variety, to remove that from what is the common catalogue in the EU, or, in our case, from our national list. As long as the proportionality is adhered to, the Bill is appropriate.

Professor Oldroyd: There are a lot of studies that have looked at the general public’s position on biotechnology. There are really only a few at either extreme—who absolutely support it outright or who are very scared of it. Most of the general public are looking to people like me—to scientists—and to the regulatory framework to define what is safe to consume.

Within precision breeding, as is intrinsic to the Bill, is the fact that these are events that could happen by exactly the same natural diversity and so already could be introduced, theoretically, through a conventional breeding process. One of the issues is that some—in particular, those on the previous panel—have taken as a presumption that anything that is biotechnology is inherently dangerous, and that is not correct. It is not correct to say that just because it is being developed by this mechanism there is an inherent danger in that approach. That is the erroneous position to take when comparing with conventional breeding.

We use many varieties that have been generated by mutagenesis breeding, by double haploid production. These are conventional breeding approaches. There is very little about gene editing that is different from that in the end product; it is just how you get to that event.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Where do you stand on the labelling issues? What kind of labelling do you think would be appropriate, given the advice from the Food Standards Agency?

Dr Harrison: My personal view is that I do not think there is any scientific rationale to have additional labelling criteria for gene-edited products, because they are fundamentally indistinguishable from nature. There is a sort of logical incoherence in saying, “Well, they are indistinguishable in nature, yet we must discriminate and show that they are different.” I think there is transparency in the system because there is a register. When farmers choose to grow varieties or there is a protected chain of production to discriminate one set of things from another, people are growing varieties—it is not magicked out of thin air. When people are planting, they will know whether it is a gene-edited variety or not. That is the point at which the choice can be made. I do not think there is any scientific rationale for then extending that labelling requirement to the post-marketing of products.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q What do you think the purpose of the registers are, in that case?

Dr Harrison: Everybody has said, and many panels have shown, that there is a need, when you are bringing a new technology into the market, to have an additional level of transparency in order to inspire public confidence. I think the question is what level of balance you need for public confidence. I think that the registers are there in order to say, “This is a product that has been produced with this technology,” and there is therefore then the ability for people to choose it, should they want to. That is what I see them being there for—to give people freedom of choice.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q There seems to be a slight inconsistency to me, though.

Dr Harrison: That is why I was saying that, at the time of planting, people can choose. The supply chain fits around that decision, at that point, much as it does with other production systems. To distinguish a gene-edited product on the basis that it is somehow different from a conventionally bred product is the thing that I am saying is a bit logically incoherent.

Professor Oldroyd: If I may add to that, the Bill itself states that only those that are considered to be equivalent to something that could be achieved by natural transformation are included under the Bill. So by definition we are saying that this product could be achieved by more conventional methods. Therefore, it is illogical to separate it out at some later stage and say, “This product is different”, when intrinsic to the Bill is the fact that it is not different. That is the only way it can be taken forward.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Which begs the question of why you had to register. However, I think we could probably go round in circles on this. Chair, I am quite happy for us to move on to other questioners.

[Deidre Brock]

Q Professor Oldroyd, you mentioned tight restrictions on validating the safety of gene-edited organisms. I just wondered whether it is possible to use field trials to assess sufficiently whether there are major impacts, or even minor impacts, on local ecologies once the crops are grown at a commercial scale. How do you take that into account?

Professor Oldroyd: Let me describe how we get to the point. For instance, I have some gene-edited material out in the field right now and we measure everything we can possibly measure in that material, from its effect. These are affecting plant microbial interactions, so we are particularly looking, for instance, at what is happening in the soil. We have the wild type and we have the gene-edited line, so we can precisely compare, to understand any differences in the local environment caused by the gene-edited type or the wild type. That is intrinsic to the research programme and we have to do those field trials before anything even gets close to commercialisation.

Therefore, intrinsic to working with this material is that we are already putting it out in the field. If I then hand it to breeder, they will then be doing breeding in their lines with that material and also doing extensive field trials, testing many factors, according to their performance relative to other lines. Ultimately, if it gets released as a variety, then NIAB, under the jurisdiction from the Government, tests and compares those lines relative to other lines on their performance in the field.

So there are many points along this track where we are actually testing the performance—as a researcher myself; as a breeding company; and then as NIAB, creating the recommended list. There are multiple factors all along the way that are already intrinsic to the process.

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[The Chair]

May I jump in here? We have about four and a half minutes left, and Daniel Zeichner wants to ask a question as well.

Professor Oldroyd: A lot of eyes are focused on this country at the moment, with regard to how we approach this. We have to recognise that we influence quite a bit. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are absolutely looking to Europe, to the UK, for leadership on this. Our position will influence internationally how these technologies are legislated for. Certainly, we have a lot. I am excited about the potential to drive up food production for smallholders, as well as the sustainability of farming practices here in the UK. The opportunities are immense. Definitely, having this, the ability to use gene editing, will facilitate that delivery both to smallholder farmers and to UK farmers.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is definitely paying attention to what is happening here in the UK. With regard to additional investment, this Bill opens up opportunities for the UK. We are already a leader—we really are a leader in agricultural research—and I think it will position us even more greatly to be spearheading the impact of all that agricultural research.

Dr Harrison: I, too, see a big opportunity for the UK not only to lead, but to garner additional investment. At NIAB, where we operate in both the private and public sectors, we have seen on both sides a big increase in the attention given to the services we offer to industry and academia for crop transformation and gene editing. I definitely think there is an opportunity here. In the kind of ecosystems that you see around major university cities such as Cambridge, there are a lot of start-ups that are very much trying to bridge the gap between the need to use crop science to transform food and farming to be sustainable, and the use of new technologies. A definite opportunity.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q You made a powerful case for the development of SMEs, although you are publicly funded, and for allowing that space to develop for the public good—but it is a very Cambridge-y conversation, in the sense that we know that the Cambridge experience is often that small start-ups get bought up and are then used for other purposes. Would it not further the cause that you are promoting to have a public good test somewhere in this process to enable that to be done for the public good, rather than to be potentially lost down the line?

Dr Harrison: Personally, I would say that, and not just for this Bill and gene editing. If one wants a public good test, one should apply it to everything in terms of crop varieties, and not single out gene edited varieties as a unique case. I return to my comments on looking at the listing system and making sure that, again, it is proportionate. Breeders have to spend a lot of money bringing varieties to market, so if there was public good funding coming from Government, it should be to support breeders in developing those varieties that have enhanced public good traits. You should look at it in the round.

Professor Oldroyd: I think it would be very hard to define what is not a public good. Production is for the public good. We have to have production. Production tends to be where the private sector focuses—it is total productivity—but it has raised productivity across the past century. That has certainly given it a competitive edge as individual industries, but it has meant that we have kept our production up with the growing population and the growing demand. That is public good. I would find it very hard to differentiate what is public good from what is not public good when trying to manage such legislation.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I think we might find some examples, but that is for another day.

[The Chair]

That draws us neatly to the end of the time allocated for this session. A big thank you to Dr Richard Harrison and Professor Giles Oldroyd.

Examination of Witness

Sam Brooke gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

Q One final question from me before I hand over: what would you not want to see in this Bill?

Sam Brooke: As a whole, the BSPB is incredibly supportive of the Bill and what it is trying to achieve. Our main concern would be around clause 3 and a risk assessment around food and feed. All the scientific evidence would show that there is no greater risk in using these technologies than in using what we currently are in conventional or traditional breeding—or whatever we want to call it—so I feel that there is no reason for that extra risk assessment step. We are very concerned that that could act as a blocker to early stage research and development.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and welcome. I will follow on from some of the previous questions and ask a similar question, really. In the end, it seems that one of the big challenges here is in maintaining public trust. While scientists may give a whole a series of assurances, if the public and perhaps some of the major retailers are not convinced, then there is a problem.

The key issue is getting the balance right between reassuring the public and following the science. However, to many of us, this Bill looks very thin on the “reassuring the public” side—so much so that, despite the FSA and its polling showing that the public would really like more information, as the Bill stands, that is not the way it will be. How convinced are you that the issue of public confidence will be resolved in favour of the science?

Sam Brooke: Having lived and breathed plant breeding for just over 20 years, I think we should have shouted more, and earlier, about how regulated the industry is, both at plant-breeding and seed level. We have a rigorous testing system in the national list process. Each variety undergoes at least two years of testing before it comes to the market. Every variety must be on that UK national list before it can go into sale. All that is underpinned, obviously, by laws on food safety, novel foods, and so on. We have this incredible history of safety of plant breeding in the UK, and of bringing those products into the market in a safe, sensible and secure way.

On top of the registration process, we also have seed marketing legislation, which really protects the user. Naturally, it protects the consumer in that it ensures that all seeds that go out into the market meet a common and prescribed standard. I think that is really important, and it is probably our fault as breeders that we have not shouted in the past about how legislated the process of producing new varieties and seeds actually is. That is what we need to go out and talk about, and tell the consumers. I am a consumer—we are all consumers—and I think, had consumers had more information and knowledge about how regulated varieties and seeds already are, we might already be a step closer to having that absolute trust.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q I will follow up on that, in that case. If there is that confidence, why the reluctance to allow consumers to know how their food is being produced? Polling from the Food Standards Agency suggests that consumers want that. Is there not a danger that it looks as if you are trying to hide something?

Sam Brooke: We are absolutely not against full transparency of breeding methods. Most breeders have already taken their own initiative to highlight, on their websites and social media platforms, how varieties are produced. I think it was back in March 2021 that we wrote to the Secretary of State, George Eustice, and said, “No, BSPB is absolutely up for transparency on the breeding process.” It is just that the best way of doing that is through the chain.

We have worked with DEFRA and looked at how we can easily bring that step into the national list process by highlighting what breeding process was used, because we already do, to a certain extent. For example, if it was a hybridised crop, we would have to highlight if it was cytoplasmic male sterility or a chemical-hybridising agent system, so we are already doing that. That, for me, would be another step forward and would support the public register, which is in the Bill and which we absolutely support.

[Deidre Brock]

Q You just spoke of the UK’s considerable reputation for offering protections around the breeding processes and so on, making them very safe. Does that differ markedly from the protections that the EU offers? Is the UK leading in that respect?

Sam Brooke: Naturally, we have been following EU legislation and have been historically aligning, quite rightly, with EU legislation on this, where we have our nearest trading partners and the majority of plant breeders. Because it is such an expensive industry, the majority of plant breeders are breeding at least for Europe if not internationally, because varieties travel quite nicely, especially to our nearest countries in the EU. We align with that. The key difference is probably that we have a lot of expertise in the UK and we want to keep that, because plant breeders are based here and actively breeding here—they have labs and food trials here and we have this fantastic, world-leading research and development in the likes of NIAB, John Innes and Rothamsted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

Q Good afternoon, Dr Tinch. Can I ask how you anticipate the Bill helping in the area of aquatic species? How do you see it fitting in with the international regulatory environment?

Dr Tinch: That is an interesting question. I think all livestock breeding is now very much international, so it is difficult for small companies based in one country to operate successfully. There are a number of large international operators in genetics. In aquaculture in particular, we are not as far down the development of the species as some of the terrestrial species. We have been farming and breeding fish for about 40 to 50 years, so we are domesticating many of the species already. We are working hard to improve things such as disease resistance. There is good evidence, and we have seen very good examples, of genes that can be used to improve health and welfare of fish—particularly with Atlantic salmon, where a Scottish group identified a gene that accounted for over 80% of the variation of disease resistance. That was bred into the salmon populations and is now in most farmed salmon populations, making them resistant to the infectious pancreatic necrosis virus.

I see the implementation of gene editing allowing us to do similar things. Without having to go into the field, if you like, and look for animals that are carrying favourable mutations, we are able to identify genes that affect things like disease resistance, make targeted changes in those genes and make fish resistant as a result. I think that is a very positive way of taking breeding forward. It is not the only tool in the toolbox, but it certainly allows us to do some very interesting and valuable things for the health and welfare of the animals we farm.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon. You will probably find my line of questioning fairly predictable. Animal welfare organisations have consistently said that they are concerned about the introduction of traits, which would allow animals to be farmed more intensively. Given the concerns that have been raised around aquaculture in general, how concerned are you that that is the way it will be perceived and seen? My second question is more to do with the trade issues and comes almost on the back of the first question. If our European partners take a different view on this issue, what effect would it have on your industry’s exports?

Dr Tinch: That is a tough question. The association between improving the ability of animals to perform and changing disease resistance, and the idea that that means we are going to increase stocking density and make welfare worse, is very simplistic, and it is not as simple as that. That is not the way farmers tend to operate, and it is not the way that breeders operate practically. That argument is raised quite often as being a reason not to improve farm animals, but it is not like that.

We should use the technologies that we have to improve animals. We are putting them in a farming environment that is different from the environment they evolved in. We have to adapt them, using genetics, to the farming environment, and that is what we aim to do. We aim to improve health, welfare and the sustainability of the animals from an economic point of view and an ecological point of view, and we use a number of different methods to take that forward. The tool is genetics, and gene editing is the next step forward in our ability to change different things. We should look at how we aim to improve animals in a constructive and welfare-driven way.

On the trade issues, if the legislation put us in a position where we were restricted in the use of the technology, we would be faced with the problem of people farming gene edited animals in other countries, and we would not be as competitive. We are already seeing gene edited animals being farmed in Japan, for example, and there is very permissive legislation in places such as Canada and Australia. I think those countries will be the first to bring in this technology. I see that coming first in some of the economic traits, and we will face competition as a result—maybe not in the species that they are planning and gene editing at the moment, but as it comes through the system in these areas, we will see our industries being uncompetitive in their performance.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q To follow up, I was thinking more of it the other way round. If there was a time lag or a different view was taken in Europe, would you have to have two different production systems—one using gene edited animals, and one not? What are the practicalities of that?

Dr Tinch: If the legislation puts in place a system whereby gene edited animals would need to be labelled, you would need to have parallel systems. My argument would be that gene editing is a means of creating genetic variation that is identical to the variation that would occur naturally. As a consequence of that, we are not seeing products that are different.

If I identified a gene for disease resistance in a group of animals in the population that I was farming and bred it into the population for supply into the food chain, or I gene-edited the animal with the same genetic change—the same mutation—those animals would be identical in their genetics and performance, but if we labelled them and identified them differently, we would be creating two levels of animals within the production system that are essentially different. That would cause more problems than required in terms of the science behind the technology and the proportionality of how we are dealing with that lack of genetic difference.

[Deidre Brock]

Q Hello, Dr Tinch. It is good to see you. We have heard from folk who have been dealing with arable crops and so on, and there is a suggestion that the commercial benefits of this Bill would not be realised for anywhere between five and 11 years, but I wonder what the difference would be for aquaculture. Say the Bill becomes law, how quickly could we see commercial benefits for aquaculture farmers?

Dr Tinch: The key difference—let me know if I get too technical, as I do not want to drift away—is in the amount of time it takes to go from generation to generation. Some aquaculture species have a very short generation interval and can grow up and produce eggs quite quickly. For a lot of the warm water species that are farmed, and imported and exported around the world, we could move quite quickly because they have a short generation interval and they produce large numbers of eggs, so we could quickly be in a situation where we are producing animals with gene edits. That would be species like shrimp and tilapia. Shrimp are consumed at high levels in the UK. Tilapia are not, but they are still consumed at high rates around the world.

Atlantic salmon are much slower in terms of their growth and maturation. It takes at least three years—probably four years—to go through that cycle from egg to egg. From a practical point of view, we are not going to do it in one generation—it would be a couple of generations—so for Atlantic salmon we are talking at least four years, probably nearer eight years, until there were significant numbers of Atlantic salmon edited in the populations.

Farmed Animals: Cages

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I join Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who introduced the debate in a very measured way. I also thought he was very brave to mentioned Peppa Pig in his introduction. He set the scene very effectively for a debate on what is a large petition, with over 100,000 signatures. I congratulate Compassion in World Farming and others on securing such support. We know that the support is widespread across the country. I very much enjoyed addressing the rally by Compassion in World Farming outside Parliament last week. It demanded that the Government get on with ending the live export of animals. I will return to that issue.

We had a very similar debate on this issue just over two years ago in Westminster Hall. Members might reflect on whether much has changed in that time. I am sure the Minister would be keen to say that much has, but I am not sure that it has. I reflect on the very powerful contribution made by Sir David Amess that day. It was the most powerful contribution in that debate, I think. He made a plea to move things forward.

Members have noted that there have been improvements over the past few decades. We have seen the end of barren battery cages, veal cages for calves and sow stalls for pigs, but we still have a long way to go. Every year, we keep around 16 million farmed animals in cages. There are alternatives. I thought some of the points made by Government Members were very interesting. There is clearly not a settled position on the Government side on trade policy on this issue. There is absolutely no point making improvements here if we just export cruelty elsewhere. There is also no point introducing measures that our industry cannot cope with. That is why we must make changes in a sensible, measured way.

I thought the point made by the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), was powerful. These are not easy issues. There are easy slogans, but these are hard issues. Those who saw the article in The Times on Saturday will see that the current Secretary of State is perhaps at odds with other members of the Government on this. It is an ongoing discussion. There can be no solution to this problem unless we can work with others.

I will not repeat a lot of the statistics that have been mentioned about egg-laying hens. These points are probably the same ones that I and others made two years ago and which others have made today. It is interesting to see the supermarkets moving in response to consumer demand, but it is not just the retail sector that uses eggs, and not all supermarkets have come to the same conclusion.

When consumers are hard pressed, price does matter. There is no point denying that. There are extra costs, particularly at a time when we are suffering huge problems with avian flu, which has created difficulties for the sector. Earlier this afternoon, I was talking to people in the industry, who warned me that some egg producers are within weeks of having to make some big decisions. That is bad for them, but it is also bad for us, because later in the year there is a risk that we will suddenly not have a regular supply of eggs. These are complicated questions.

[Tracey Crouch]

Does the hon. Member agree that as the UK continues to be gripped by the cost of living crisis, it is really important that retailers—especially ones that pride themselves on offering less expensive food—embrace the drive to be cage-free, so that all consumers can benefit from better welfare standards?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Indeed. That goes to the heart of some of the difficult issues in the supply chains. It is also the case that the Groceries Code Adjudicator has seen more claims in recent times because of the pressure in the supply chain. We can all understand that. It goes back to some fairly basic questions about how we address rising energy prices, but that is a debate for another day. The knock-on effect through sectors like this is very real. I fear that it will be difficult for some in the supply chain. We have problems in the poultry sector, but we have also seen huge problems in the pig sector over the last year or two. The Minister and I have exchanged strong words about this many times at the Dispatch Box.

Leaving aside the issue of the cages, some of the ways in which we have had to cull healthy pigs are not great, nor are some of the conditions that pigs have had to be kept in, as they get too big for the space. There are problems throughout the sectors. We have heard about the problems with cages, and the distress that that can cause by stopping pigs engaging in out their natural behaviours, such as nesting. I have been on pig farms and must say, when I see biting behaviour, it worries me, because they are clearly intelligent animals and, sometimes, they are stressed.

The cages can lead to higher stress levels, longer farrowing durations and higher stillbirth rates. Again, I understand the arguments from the industry about why it thinks it needs those things to prevent the deaths of piglets by accidental crushing. However, I hear what other Members have said, and when I look at the evidence, it seems that there are other ways of doing it in other places, and I think that we must move on to loose-housing systems.

In passing, I would mention the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and others about the fact that other countries are moving forward on these issues. The EU’s 2027 target may be optimistic, but I think that there is sometimes a danger that Government Members that the world is standing still out there—it is not. The automatic assumption is that we will be in a better place—not necessarily. It would be sensible, I would say, to move at a similar pace, because then some of these problems could be resolved sensibly.

There are also, of course, concerns about calf pens. Although veal crates are banned, young calves can still be kept in solitary caged hutches for the first eight weeks of their lives, as soon as they have been taken away from the mother cow. The logic for that is said to be that young calves are highly susceptible to disease. I was on one of my local farms the other day and witnessed exactly that. However, again, it is pretty clear that cattle are social animals, and there is evidence that calves are more stressed and fearful when caged individually in that way so soon after birth. There is also research that shows that housing calves in pairs leads to a number of positive outcomes without compromising health or production, so there are things that can and should be done.

We have also heard that cages are not only used for animals farmed for food. The issue of the millions of pheasants and partridges that are mass-produced to be shot still raises serious issues and concerns for many of us. Our worry is that they live in so-called raised laying cages that can be left outside, exposed to the elements and to extremes of temperature, with the birds suffering from feather loss, scalping and injuries inflicted by their stressed cage mates.

The regulatory system for that seems not to be up to date. The current code of practice for the welfare of game birds reared for sporting purposes is, I am told, not legally binding, and was due to be reviewed a few years ago, but that did not take place. I am also told that the Minister has indicated, in response to parliamentary questions, that the Government are examining the use of cages for game birds, so I am sure that she will be able to confirm that. As an observation, there seems to be a lot of examining going on in the Department these days; we need action rather than examining. Will the Minister confirm that, as previously stated, DEFRA will be calling for evidence later this year as part of the investigation into the welfare of game birds?

The Opposition watch these developments with some interest. Two years ago, when we were scrutinising through the Agriculture Bill we tabled a number of amendments to increase the maximum stocking density for chickens reared in barns and to end the use of sow-farrowing crates. We did so again in the Committee that scrutinised the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. Sadly, the Government chose not to support those amendments, but I am rather hoping that, over time, they will come round to our way of thinking. The Kept Animals Bill seems to be a little delayed, I think it is fair to say.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

indicated dissent.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Minister is shaking her head. In that case, I am sure that she can give us a good timetable. That will come as a relief to many of us. It has been carried over; let us hope that we see it soon. As has been said by many others, we need action now to bring an end to the cage age.

It is also vital that we ensure that any domestic production of animal products, produced through higher welfare, cage-free standards, is not simply undercut and replaced by imports from countries that still use lower-welfare cage systems. Any conversation with farmers at the moment leads very quickly to their concerns about being undercut in trade deals. I think we may be discussing this issue again later in the week but, to our eyes, the Government’s long-delayed national food strategy failed to include proper protections for imported food. Henry Dimbleby, the author of the Government inquiry that was set up a few years ago, said:

“Yet again the government has ducked the issue of how we don’t just import food that destroys the environment and is cruel to animals—we can’t create a good fair farming system, then export those harms abroad. I thought the government would address this but it didn’t.”

Well, perhaps the Minister can do so today.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making excellent points, which are echoed by the many emails I have had from constituents on this issue. Does he agree that when food is produced much further away from where it is eaten, trying to interrogate animal welfare standards becomes almost impossible for consumers and shops?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady raises a very important question, and one of the challenges of the years and decades ahead will be to try to resolve these conundrums. The Opposition feel strongly that the more we can produce food closer to home, the better off we will be.

Although I appreciate that there are concerns about the impact that increasing animal welfare standards could have on food prices—particularly at the moment, when many households are struggling with sky-high inflation—the fact is that, as set out in Dimbleby’s report, our food system is not working. It fails animals, it fails the environment and often it fails the consumer. In our view, the national food strategy has not addressed those issues. We want to see the Government work with the food sector to ensure that we can improve animal welfare without pushing up the cost for consumers. As I said two years ago, we need rock-solid commitments that ending the use of cages on our farms is a priority for the Government, and we need proper detail on how they plan to do that through a proper farming policy.

The Government have stated on numerous occasions their aspiration for the UK to become the global leader in farm animal welfare, and they really could embrace a cage-free future now. I ask the Minister to explain why this suffering should be allowed to continue, and why the Government have consistently kicked the can down the road when it comes to ending the cage age.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

This Bill comes in a week when food, how we produce it and what it does to us and how food production impacts our planet have been at the forefront of public debate. The Bill was an opportunity to tackle one of the great issues of our time, but instead of rising to that challenge, I am afraid that the Government have flunked it. There was a minimalist response on Monday, when failing to set out a proper food strategy for the future, and a minimalist response today on setting up the right structures to enable innovation to flourish. That is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising. These issues require a long-term view, and an understanding and appreciation of the wider public good. This Government are now reduced to slogans designed to get the Prime Minister to the end of next week. The country deserves better, and many on the Government Benches know that.

Let me set out the position on this side of the House on an issue of significance for the future. Let me start by thanking the many serious people from learned societies and institutions who have done the thinking and spent time briefing me and my team as we grapple with some very big issues. As an example, I wave the weighty report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, “Genome editing and farmed animal breeding”, which runs to many hundreds of pages. I can recommend it to Members—it is actually a very good read. Unlike this Bill, which takes the narrowest possible approach, it stood back and asked the bigger questions about our food system, our treatment of animals, where traditional selective breeding has brought us, how we might approach novel foods, and the great changes that we may see in just a few years. The Royal Society criticises focusing narrowly on just one technology and argues for an outcomes-based approach.

There was a big opportunity, but a weak and disintegrating Government could not take it. I understand that, so I turn to the proposals that we have before us, which are a start. For reasons that I will explain, however, they risk having the opposite effect from those intended. Unless public and investor confidence is maintained, research will stall and opportunities will be squandered. Although we will support the Bill’s progress today, we want to see it significantly strengthened and we will propose an array of amendments in Committee, which I genuinely hope the Government will consider carefully.

The Opposition start from a clear principle: we are pro-science and pro-innovation. We want to find ways to maintain and improve the efficiency, safety and security of our food system while addressing the environmental and health damage that the modern food system has caused. That is the challenge that Henry Dimbleby set out in his national food plan, which the Government were unable to meet in their proposals this week.

With that challenge, there is an opportunity for the UK to create a world-leading regulatory framework that others will follow, but sadly this Bill is a rushed job—too thin on detail. With that lack of detail comes a risk, because the public need assurance that those new technologies are being used for the public good, not just for narrow commercial advantage. We have no doubt about the possible benefits. We understand the pressures that are put on farmers when we rightly say, as has been cited, that they cannot use neonicotinoids because of the harm they cause to pollinators. If gene editing can be used to safely ward off virus yellows in sugar beet, that is a definite good that we want to see proceed as quickly as possible.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the public good and commercial advantage are mutually exclusive?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Surely not, but they are not always the same thing, and that is the point.

We do not want a gene edit to modify an animal to allow it to tolerate more cramped conditions; we want a regulatory system that ensures that those technologies are used for the right purposes. We recognise that there will be people who are not convinced that it is right to intervene in these new ways, and who are not convinced that it is right for them or wider society, but we believe that if the system is regulated in the right way, most people can be reassured.

Let us not forget that Labour is the party of food safety. We established the Food Standards Agency, which will play a vital role in giving confidence to the public. Whatever it says and does, however, different approaches to food production must be respected with proper safeguards for organic production, for example, and for those who do not wish to go down these new routes. Their rights matter too.

We fully understand that laws designed almost 30 years ago for genetically modified products do not reflect advances in understanding and technology. We also see that many countries are recognising that gene editing should be treated differently. While we understand that, we must also recognise the importance of that distinction being drafted clearly and transparently, as has already been touched on.

The public will want to be assured that allowing the editing of genes in one organism does not also allow the introduction of genes from another organism. I hope that the Secretary of State can clearly confirm that today, because it is very important. Our reading of those complicated definitions, and the advice that we are being given, suggests that that subject is not entirely clear. I hope it can be explored in Committee.

We want our scientists to succeed and use their skills for good here in the UK. We know that over the years, traditional crop development and innovation has brought us all significant gains, but as we enter this new territory we need that strong regulatory framework to make sure that we get it right. As it stands, we are not convinced that the Bill provides that. It needs strengthening.

As it stands, far too much is being left to secondary legislation. We understand why that is always attractive to Government; it largely means, “Trust us.” As we all know, what is brought forward is unamendable and, almost without exception, it is always carried. It is a blank cheque, and on an issue that so relies on trust and public acceptance, that is not a good starting point.

We need more detail in the Bill, not least because this Bill covers both plants and animals, which makes this legislation much more complicated and difficult. In the notices accompanying the Bill, the Government have said they will only introduce new measures for animals after those for plants and after extensive consultation on the right regulatory framework for animals had been established. So far as we can see, there is nothing in this Bill to make that happen. Frankly, it is the wrong way around: sort out the preferred regulatory framework first, then put it into law.

As we have already heard, animal welfare organisations are rightly concerned. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says in its brief that it is “incredibly concerned”. Compassion in World Farming has joined 20 other animal welfare organisations, including the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, in raising similarly strong concerns. Their points are powerful, and Labour will require much stronger tests on animal welfare impacts.

As I suggested earlier, to get this legislation right the Government must provide a proper mechanism to balance the risks and manage trade-offs. Just saying that there is no risk is not that mechanism. In this country, we have always been pretty good at regulation. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is a highly regarded model for dealing with some of these very complicated issues, and a model the Government would do well to consider.

The case for having a strong regulatory framework is not just a matter of giving confidence to the public; that public confidence in turn gives scientists and businesses the confidence to invest here in the UK and sets the example for others to follow. That will be important as many of our trading partners go down the same route. How much better to have something worth copying, giving us first-mover advantage, but also settling some of those tricky trade issues if we end up with different rules.

As part of that framework, we need to recognise that the modern consumer wants and expects good information. Research carried out by the Food Standards Agency and others has clearly found that, while consumers support genetically edited foods having a different regulatory system from that for genetically modified foods, they want clear labelling and effective regulation of gene-edited products. Just telling them that they need not worry because there is no difference just does not cut it in the modern world.

Clear labelling is the way to help deal with another potentially difficult issue, which is the legitimately held views of different Administrations within the United Kingdom. I think it is fair to say—I suspect we will be hearing this in a minute—that the devolved Administrations are not happy with the way this has been handled so far, and I suggest that the Government should tread carefully. Clear labelling is a sensible way forward.

In conclusion, we are in no doubt that gene editing could bring real gains in improving environmental sustainability and reducing food insecurity. The world faces huge global challenges, and although much can be done by reforming global food systems, science and technology used for public good can be a huge boon. We need a regulatory framework that prioritises that. At the moment, as ever with this Government, the approach is to leave it to the market, and that risks repeating the mistakes of the past.

These are big and important issues. They will be explored in much greater depth in Committee and the evidence sessions, and the Opposition look forward to working with the Government to improve the legislation and create the strong regulatory framework that is needed, but currently lacking.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Inshore Fishing Fleet

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I could not help noticing, following your instructions before we started, that we have had an entire Westminster Hall debate without an intervention and we are running to time—you have amazing powers, Sir Charles.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing the debate and on his excellent introduction to this very serious set of issues, and thank him for his kindness when I visited his constituency a couple of months ago. It will come as no surprise that my comments will reflect many of the points he and other Members have made, albeit in a different order.

I have been struck by the intense pressure at the moment on people working in the inshore fleet. I was also struck by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) about the NFFO’s Paul Gilson, who has been making his point very strongly, to me and to others, about the effect that things are having on people at the moment. Frankly, people are buckling; one distressing case in the industry that has played out over recent weeks is known to many of us, but it is not an isolated case. Partly, I am afraid, that pressure is due to the boat inspections that are being conducted by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—everywhere I have been, I have heard that issue raised.

An email has been passed to me, written by someone fishing from an under-8 metre boat. A recent inspection found that his freeboard was 20 mm under the limit, and the MCA has insisted that he either block up the scuppers and fit tanks and pumps under the deck, which he considers would be extremely unsafe due to the high likelihood of the pump fouling, or get a full naval architect’s report to say that his boat is safe, which he has been told would cost thousands of pounds. The boat is watertight and well maintained; it has been fishing since 1980 without a single safety incident, and has never even broken down and needed a tow. The author of the email fishes single handed and sells all of his catch directly to the public, with his partner handling the sales. The MCA has banned him from going to sea, so the family has lost its entire income at a stroke. The only permitted solutions are either dangerous or completely unaffordable. He is dyslexic, and has struggled to understand the regulations and the correspondence he has received. He describes himself as “desperate” and

“at the end of my tether”.

That email was forwarded to me on the day that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) had agreed to meet me and a delegation from the NFFO, and I read it to him and his officials. It is, of course, very powerful. We have sent the Minister who is responding to today’s debate a summary of that meeting, in which we raised a series of issues including the roll test stability assessment; the matter of previously certificated vessels requiring alteration to the original design, which makes them potentially less safe in the view of those fishing from them, particularly—as the email said—those relying on pumps; the very high charges being levied for inspections, which to some very marginal operators seemed excessive; and a range of other issues. I am pleased to report that the Minister replied to me yesterday promising more flexibility and reviews of some of those practices, so I hope that the representations that have been made have some impact. We will see. I am slightly sceptical, because I think there is a bigger issue here. This has been a constant complaint from fishermen I have met around the coast. People feel got at. Some, in turn, feel spied upon and tracked. They feel that they are being treated as if they are criminals, and that is really not a good feeling to have.

I pay tribute to Fishing News for its work on the matter. I was not at all surprised to see some of the people I had met at West Mersea raising the problems in its pages. It is a consistent complaint. When I was in Ramsgate, a very experienced boat builder explained the issues around older boats, where changing the original design raises a series of unintended consequences and potential problems, not least the anomaly that different inspectors seemed to be coming to different conclusions about boats built to the same design. What have surprised me are the complaints about overzealous enforcement and suspicion from some of the bigger boats too. Frankly, it seems endemic.

I am sure that the Minister will say, as did her colleague, that it is about safety. No one disputes the need for safety; it is paramount. However, the checks need to be proportionate. Some of the inspections seem to be carried out by people more used to inspecting large vessels, who then apply the same logic to very small boats. A balance has to be found. Yes, safety is the priority, but there is nothing safe about driving people to despair and destroying their livelihood. There needs to be a culture change and I hope the various authorities, not just the MCA, think hard about that.

There are other issues that are putting people under pressure. The Minister and I have had an encounter at the Dispatch Box over the catch app, when she skilfully dodged my invitation to guess the weight of a previous day’s Hansard. There was a serious point being made there: it is hard to guess weights accurately and there is a long history on that. I understand and share the Minister’s quest for accurate data, but it is once again a question of how people are treated and how they feel. The suggestion that there will not be prosecutions if people make mistakes is welcome.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that my late husband was adequately able to estimate his catch. Of course a lay person could not, but fishermen get used to it, so please do not misrepresent them. I know that they could grade their fish within a certain criteria and would know exactly how much they put in their boxes.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hear and respect the hon. Lady’s point, but that is not what others have told me. I can only reflect on what people have told me.

In this case, the suggestion does not feel like a guarantee, and if it were a guarantee, there would not be much point making it an offence in the first place. The risk of prosecution is kept hanging over people, once again adding to the pressure that many are reporting.

Then there is the case of IVMS. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) made those points very well, they have been well rehearsed and I will not repeat them. Again, I appreciate the need for data, but the way in which it is being introduced—adding extra cost for people working on fine margins, having time limits on possible financial support, and then people finding that some of the recommended systems are being withdrawn because of the type approval process—has just added to the stress people are feeling.

The stresses and concerns around very high fuel costs have been mentioned. Other countries have found ways of tackling that. The Government are choosing not to do so but, as we have heard, it makes what were already marginal activities in some cases almost totally uneconomic. That is well documented.

I will briefly raise one or two other issues of concern. The UK seafood fund is currently being considered by the EFRA Committee, and I was struck by the discussion on how difficult it is for small operators to access the fund. With minimum spends of £250,000, it is unlikely to help the many small boats in inshore fleets. Can the Minister say what she might do to address that issue? One of the positive outcomes might be to provide assistance in improving the carbon performance of the fleet, either through electrification or improvements to existing engines. Electrification may well require much onshore investment. Again, can the Minister tell us what is being done?

I listened with interest to the concerns raised by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), and the Minister might also wish to tell us what has been done to protect the shellfish sector against sewage outflow—an issue that has received much public attention recently. It was certainly raised with me as a pressing problem in West Mersea.

Finally, there are spatial pressures as the country moves to make more wind power. There are clearly tensions, and although good efforts are being made to do better in future, there have been too many cases where inshore fishers do not feel that their interests have been taken into account. I would be interested to hear how effective the Minister thinks the current arrangements are. Given their role in marine protected areas, how effective does she consider the IFCAs to be, and what plans does she have for improvement? Again, I listened closely to the comments of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous).

In conclusion, these are difficult times for many in the sector. A more understanding approach from those who regulate it does not have to cost more money, but it does require a change in attitude, and I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to that call.

Draft Import of Animals and Animal Products and Approved Countries (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. You will be pleased to hear that although we have many questions, the official Opposition will not be voting against the draft instrument. Some of the questions mirror the discussions held in the other place to which the Minister referred.

I will start with the context, to explain why this apparently dry legislation matters so much. We are living in a time of heightened risk for the biosecurity of the UK animal population. We are in the midst of an avian influenza epidemic, which has precipitated the biggest crisis the sector has faced in living memory, with new outbreaks being reported in just the past few days, I am afraid. There are also serious concerns about the spread of African swine fever, which in recent years has been disastrous for pig producers in China. Now it is spreading west into Europe, with reports of the disease in Italy, Germany and even Belgium, and a worrying leap in the past few weeks. Historically, there has always been the spectre of foot and mouth disease, which has been so harmful in this country.

The draft regulations may seem like dry legislation, but they really matter, and we would argue that they matter all the more because our ability to deal with major outbreaks has been seriously eroded by the current shortage of vets, which is causing problems in so many parts of our agricultural and food sectors.

Given that the draft instrument acknowledges the importance of robust defences against biosecurity threats, it is somewhat surprising to us that the Government have for the fourth time chosen to delay checks on food products coming from the EU. Not only does that decision yet again put British farmers on the back foot compared with their counterparts in the EU, but it also poses significant biosecurity concerns when considered alongside the loss of UK membership of key EU biosecurity schemes.

We are no longer members of TRACES—the trade control and expert system—which is the main system for controlling biological security in animal and food products, and nor do we have access to the animal diseases information system, which follows and documents the evolution of infectious diseases in animals. Instead, we now rely on informal channels and on the world animal health information database, which I am told takes 24 hours longer than EU systems to provide a notification of the outbreak of a dangerous disease; that 24 hours could be very significant.

Taken together, therefore, the failure to use the opportunity to enforce robust border checks and our reliance on less than optimal warning systems seem to jeopardise our biosecurity. I am sure that the Minister will reassure us, but will she tell us what actions her Department is taking to address such concerns? Given that some products coming to the UK through the EU are now not checked at all, because of the use of transit export health certificates, how can we be confident that we are protected properly?

In recent conversations with industry organisations, the view has been expressed that our lax border checks could be serving as an open invitation to would-be smugglers looking to sell contaminated meat into the UK. Will the Minister tell us what is being done to guard against the dangers posed by transit EHCs and what action she is taking?

[The Chair]

Order. May we stick to the draft regulations?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was just about to turn to the draft instrument in detail, but it was important to set the context, because the regulations make changes to the way in which we are protected. The background is important.

We thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its work on the draft SI. The Opposition acknowledge the ongoing threats to our animal and plant biosecurity, and to human health, and the need to have robust measures in place to act swiftly when new threats arise. We will therefore not vote against the instrument. As is too often the case with SIs brought forward by the Government, however, the proposals will result in the loss of parliamentary oversight. That concern was expressed by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which suggested that the Minister should be asked to give an assurance that the regulations will be used only on the rarest occasions. Will she confirm that that will be the case?

The explanatory memorandum accompanying the draft instrument goes to great pains to note that response times resulting from parliamentary delays could leave us exposed to greater biosecurity and food safety risks. The Minister referred to that, but, if so, the Government have been rather slow to act and bring forward this instrument. I looked back to the predecessor SI—the draft Import of, and Trade in, Animals and Animal Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020—which the Minister and I discussed back in November 2020, when we were given assurances that the system would operate effectively. If there is now an issue, will the Minister explain why nothing has been done in the interim? What assessment has her Department made of the impact of that inaction on traders and consumers?

The use of the powers included in the draft instrument will be made by consensus of the animal disease policy group, to which the Minister referred, which includes experts from across Government. In correspondence with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee about the capacity of the disease policy group, DEFRA said:

“The expertise, capacity and processes required to exercise the powers in this instrument appropriately are well established within government, and have already been used to effectively control a range of SPS...risks since January 2021.”

If those risks can already be controlled effectively, why is there now a need for the Executive to have additional powers? Either they have been needed and there have been delays, or there have not been delays, in which case it is hard to see why they are needed now. The Government cannot have it both ways, so which is it?

Will the Minister please provide some further information on the controls that are already in place, and explain where they are lacking and why there is a need to grant Ministers greater powers now? Will she provide reassurances regarding the independence of the bodies in the disease policy group that will conduct the risk assessments and make recommendations to Ministers?

The new powers granted in the draft instrument not only give Ministers the ability to impose restrictions when there are concerns surrounding biosecurity threats; they allow Ministers to lift existing import restrictions once a country has addressed biosecurity concerns. As my colleague Baroness Jones of Whitchurch argued when the instrument was discussed in the other place, the need to act swiftly is not as urgent with the lifting of restrictions. Will the Minister therefore explain why existing parliamentary oversight cannot be maintained for the lifting of import restrictions?

The explanatory memorandum perhaps offers an answer when it says:

“Timely amendments to import conditions are…necessary to meet trade agreement obligations”

and states that that failure to meet those obligations could result in legal actions

“from trading partners, or retaliatory action against exports from Great Britain.”

The memorandum also says that managing

“import conditions for some countries administratively (and quickly) and for other countries legislatively”—

slowly—

“may leave Great Britain at risk of a challenge at the World Trade Organization”.

The Minister made reference to that—but really? I am afraid I am slightly sceptical.

Will the Minister provide more information on the threats the UK faces from legal actions and retaliation? On what basis did the Government come to the conclusion that we were under threat from such actions? Will the Minister give any specific examples of cases where countries have threatened to act in such a way? We all know that many disputes are raised and that there is lots of posturing at the WTO. Is that really necessary in this situation? Will the Minister provide some more information on the likelihood that we would face a challenge from the WTO? Has it said that it is considering taking any action if we do not amend our import conditions?

My sense is that more and more is being taken out of public sight, and although we will not oppose the draft regulations, because we understand the need for swift action when required, we ask the Government to think carefully about getting the balance right; scrutiny and openness matter as well.

Agriculture Sector: Recruitment Support

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing the debate, and introducing it in such a calm and measured way. We have heard excellent speeches, and the point raised by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), about the failure to introduce a scheme to bring people into farming, having introduced a scheme to get them out, speaks volumes.

The hon. Member for North East Fife was calm, but frankly I think we should be angrier because what is going on is a shambles. The front page of the Farmers Guardian this week says “Exodus”, because of the people leaving. Vegetable growers are planning to switch out of vegetables to go into cereals, which is exactly the opposite of what we would like to see. The Government should hang their heads in shame, although not this Minister, as I think the problem lies mostly with the Home Office, which is a Department that seems always to be capable of making a bad situation worse.

This afternoon, we are electing a new Chair of the EFRA Committee. Before Christmas, the previous Chair was incensed by the performance of one of the Home Office Ministers, who was incoherent on the language requirements. Frankly, some of this is so bad one could not make it up. The Conservatives were once the party of business, but they are now the party driving business out of the UK.

The severity of the crisis has been clear for a long time. In August last year, a group of many major organisations—the NFU, the Food and Drink Federation and so on—commissioned a report from Grant Thornton, which pointed out that there are over half a million vacancies out of 4.1 million jobs in the food and drink sector. That situation is only getting worse. We have heard some of the figures, including a 75% shortage of seasonal workers in parts of the UK. As has been said, the situation has now been exacerbated by the tragedy in Ukraine, as last year 67% of seasonal agricultural visas went to Ukrainians and 11% to Russians and Belarusians, so the situation will get worse.

There is an irony in all this, in a sense, because it looks as if we will have to turn to other parts of the world, which will mean bringing people into the UK from further and further afield. These are not people who are returning to the UK as normal, with the requisite skills, which adds to costs and makes things even more difficult for businesses.

Let me focus on a couple of sectors. We have often talked about the pig sector, which was one of the first to feel the problem. Partly because of the lack of pork butchers, we have ended up with 200,000 pigs backed up on farms and 35,000 healthy pigs culled. That was caused by a mix of factors, but frankly it was because the Government waited too long and were too slow to act, exactly as has been said by other hon. Members.

The horticultural sector is suffering enormously, with some businesses reporting workforce shortages of between 20% and 50%, which is far worse than in the first half of the year. I visited one of our major rose growers in the east of England, which was at pains to point out just how much it depends on a few, key skilled people, whom it cannot get nearly as easily now, because of the difficulties in getting in and out of the country. What will that grower do? It will move production somewhere else—not in this country. That is quite incredible. As we come up to the pinch point for the soft fruit industry this year, I fear that the same will happen again.

We have heard many of the figures. It is extraordinary how slow the Government were to act when they were warned. Looking back at discussions before Christmas, it is extraordinary that some decisions were left right up until the verge of Christmas itself. The number of visas available was much discussed and negotiated, but it was still nowhere near the number that we need.

The Horticultural Trades Association and the EFRA Committee have called for an additional 10,000 visas. The NFU says demand could be as high as 55,000. We are told that another 10,000 visas may be available at some point, but businesses will have to wait until the end of June to learn more. Even when they are allocated, I am told by many in the industry that it takes a long time for issues to be resolved and for people to get here. Unite the Union has told me about the poor treatment experienced by many seasonal workers. Will the Minister comment on what her Department is doing to check on this long-standing problem, which is not getting any better?

We need a better plan for the agricultural labour force; we cannot go on like this. Surely we have to start by having a discussion with employers across sectors in order to know the workforce requirement. I am afraid that we are seeing a failure of workforce planning in so many areas; we see it in the health service, but also in the agricultural sector. We need to take into account the workforce that our businesses need.

Of course we want to encourage the indigenous workforce, but I am afraid that we saw the limitations of the Pick for Britain scheme a couple of years ago. It was mired in rhetorical flourishes, but when push came to shove, it did not work. We have to be realistic about these things. It is no good waxing lyrical and pretending that somehow we will magic up a workforce. The choice will be quite simple: if employers cannot find the workers, as in the hospitality sector, businesses will go elsewhere. We are seeing it with our own eyes, so we need to analyse what is needed, have a proper discussion and ensure that we have the skills the country needs. We will then have a vibrant rural economy. If not, we will be relying on imported food in the future, and that is not a good idea.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I confirm that the debate should finish by 5.43 pm. Of course, the hon. Member in charge of the debate should have some time to wind up at the end.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

Do not worry, Mr Twigg—I will not take that long. As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

It is true to say that much of this debate is possibly for the Immigration Minister— the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—but I undertake to discuss with him the issues that are specifically for him, and to give feedback as and where necessary. I urge hon. Members either to deal with him directly or to use me as a conduit in the agricultural or fishing space, if that is more convenient.

I, too, thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate on an important issue. As I think she knows, I have family links to Pittenweem, so was particularly pleased to hear that the Fife Show in Cupar is up and running again. I hope that she enjoyed that at the weekend, as I am sure many of her constituents did. Her debate has highlighted that there are short-term and long-term challenges to recruitment in the agricultural sector, which was a point ably made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who speaks with such authority on farming issues.

I agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) that we should be grateful to our farmers, but I take issue with his fundamental misconception about our future farming schemes. I agree that we need to keep food production at current levels. Indeed, we have ambitions in DEFRA to increase food production—particularly in areas such as fruit and veg, where we traditionally have low levels—which is why today’s conversation is so important. The new entrant schemes will be set out in great detail next year; some details will come out this year, but it was always planned for that point of the agricultural transition.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and I possibly need to have another meeting. This is not the place to go into great detail on the new farming schemes, but I reiterate that our sustainable farming incentive scheme is open to all farmers this year. There is a soil standard—all his farmers have soil and can apply. The countryside stewardship scheme has been taken up by 52% of farmers, so I am sure that many of his farmers will very much be a part of it too. I know the area well, as my husband comes from just next door to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I hope we will be spending some time there over the next week. The upland farmers in his constituency, and those who farm on marginal land, will need special, bespoke schemes, and tomorrow afternoon I am going to a two-day upland conference to ensure that we make the right choices and put in place the right schemes for them.

The short-term challenges of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have been considerable. Last autumn, which was obviously before the war but after the pandemic, we provided a range of emergency visa schemes and other forms of support to some food sectors. Several hon. Members have spoken about the challenges in the pig sector. As a result, we have provided a package of measures, including temporary work visas, which did not include an English language requirement, for pork butchers and, of course, the private storage aid and slaughter incentive payment schemes, which have assisted in reducing the backlogs of pigs on-farm. We are now undertaking a really serious review of the pork supply chain, the results of which I look forward to sharing with the House.

We heard from several Members that, before the war in Ukraine, about 78% of seasonal workers came from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. We have been working closely with our seasonal worker visa route operators—I have met all of them—and they have proved resilient and innovative in sourcing labour from new sources, such as Kazakhstan and Mongolia. There is no silver bullet for meeting the diverse and seasonal labour needs of agriculture. That requires action on three fronts: migrant labour, domestic labour and automation. We cannot—and I never would—ignore the current importance of migrant labour to bring in the harvest, particularly in the horticultural sectors, which have particularly high seasonal peaks in demand.

Following a review of the seasonal worker visa route to date, the Government have decided to place the route on a more substantive footing. I remind Members that this is the only such route for visa applications, because the Government recognise that the needs of horticulture and those seasonal peaks are special and different. The seasonal worker route will now operate until the end of 2024, with a further assessment of need to be made as we reach that point. The visa route will no longer be defined as a pilot. I know that the seasonal horticultural workforce are particularly important to Scotland, which produces so many of our delicious strawberries and other fruits. Scotland uses about 13% of the seasonal worker route.

I reassure the hon. Member for North East Fife that, despite the significant challenges that the Home Office has had to deal with this year in dealing with Ukrainian people coming to this country, the process for dealing with seasonal worker visas is much further forward than it was at this point last year. We currently have about 13,000 workers on-farm, with 13,000 who have already completed the certificate of sponsorship stage of the visa application route. I will continue to monitor that extremely closely with the Home Office. I reassure hon. Members that I speak regularly to the Home Office Minister who leads on this matter, and my team do so probably on a daily basis. We are extremely aware of where in the process the applications are at any one time.

I understand the pressures that farmers are under and their concerns regarding seasonal workers’ pay, but it is important that we make it clear that these are not low-paid jobs; they are well-paid jobs and it is right that they are rewarded as such.

We have expanded the seasonal workers scheme to include ornamental as well as edible horticultural crops, and have generally worked with the Home Office and the four operators to make the scheme as accessible as possible. As the hon. Member for North East Fife said, 30,000 workers can come to harvest for up to six months, with the potential to increase that by up to 10,000 if there is clear evidence of need. We are currently at the stage, just before the main part of the picking season, of evidencing that need, but I have absolutely no doubt that when we can do so, those 10,000 extra visas will be immediately forthcoming.

I am genuinely reassured by the Home Office figures for this year that it has now dealt with the backlog essentially caused by the outbreak of war, and that it is now processing visas in much more normal time. I accept that there was a delay in the last two months, but I am assured by the Home Office that that is no longer the case and things are broadly getting back to normal.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The 10,000 extra visas would of course be very welcome, but surely that puts extra pressure on the 30,000—the rest. Does the Minister agree?

[Victoria Prentis]

I am not sure that I entirely understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I am sure that if we are able to evidence that need, helped by the agricultural sector, the horticultural sector and hon. Members around the country, the 10,000 visas will be forthcoming. That has been agreed with the Home Office, and I have no doubt that that will be the case.

The Government intend to commission a review of the shortage occupation list by the Migration Advisory Committee later this year. My door is always open to hon. Members who want to feed in to what we have to say about it.

We keep reinvigorating the potential of the domestic workforce—I say that as somebody whose first job was picking plants. We need to improve awareness of and access to the jobs on offer, in both primary production and processing. That includes a greater recognition of the agricultural and processing skills, qualifications and the fabulous careers in our sectors. We have always been clear about the need to shift the UK towards a high-skilled, high-wage economy, and business can and must do more to attract UK workers. I appreciate the challenge, particularly for seasonal work, which by its very nature is short term. That clearly means that it is not attractive to much of our domestic workforce in an extremely tight labour market. I commend the efforts by businesses that have taken steps to recruit more UK workers, and I am glad to see steady increases year on year in this space. Real efforts have been made, and there have been improvements in the numbers.

We are working very closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop and deliver a long-term recruitment strategy. With key trade associations, we have developed a regional recruitment approach, which is pretty much what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) asked for. My colleagues in the DWP and I would be delighted to discuss that with her at greater length if she would like. It uses the DWP’s Jobcentre Plus network to foster strong local links between employers and work coaches, and give jobseekers the skills and knowledge they need to enter the sector.

We need to look at the labour and time-saving potential of automation. In many cases in this sector, that will mean machines for moving pallets around. I have never pretended that automation is a complete answer to horticultural labour needs, but more can be done to complement the need for labour and remove some of the jobs that can be done by machines. DEFRA has led a review of automation in horticulture, which will be published soon. It will provide a better understanding of what is required to accelerate the development and uptake of automation technologies in the edible and ornamental sectors.

We know it will take time to have a wide-scale roll-out of automation, but we should be doing it, and indeed we are. There are a number of initiatives across Government to bring such technologies to market as fast as possible, including some of our grant schemes in DEFRA. Our farming innovation programme and farming investment fund have schemes that are genuinely practical and ground-level for farmers to apply for. Indeed, they have done. We had to more than double the money in the scheme because it received such successful, sensible applications from the farming world.

By taking action across those three fronts, we can deliver the workforce needs of agriculture productively and sustainably for the future. I accept that more still needs to be done, and we must do it.

DRAFT AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE DEVELOPMENT BOARD (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2022

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve once again with you in the Chair, Sir Gary. I thank the Minister for her introduction, which was thorough and fair. She will be delighted to know that we support the measures. Our discussions are also informed by the debate that was held in the Lords yesterday, which I shall refer to later. We very much agree that the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board plays an important role. The statutory change to the way it works is significant because, as an industry-funded body, it is important that confidence is maintained. The changes will play an important part in that.

Anyone watching what is happening in the sector could not have helped but notice 18 months ago that there was a lot of passion around the vote. There were strong views on both sides of the argument in the horticulture and potato sectors, and it is fair to say there was considerable disappointment among those who had always advocated an industry-wide approach when the ballots were lost. Also, there was for a little while some scepticism as to whether the Government would honour the outcome of the vote. Today they have, and we welcome that. It is right that when Governments make agreements, they honour them. As I am sure others find, there is a view, not just in agriculture but in wider society, that those in power do not always listen. Whereas the previous point was perhaps partisan, this one is not. People feel that the world is changing rapidly, but that their views are not always taken into account—I think there was a sense of that in the farming sector. Today it is good that the Government and the AHDB are listening.

Before going into the details of the draft instrument, I want to follow on from the Minister’s comments and say a little bit about the organisation at its heart. It was established under the previous Labour Government and plays—I am sure this is widely agreed—an important role in British agriculture. Although there is a lot of rhetoric about how good we are at investing in research and development, anyone standing back and taking an independent look at our country’s record would have to admit that we are not always quite as good at it as we would like to be.

Looking back at the agricultural and food sector, there have been times in the past when we perhaps did rather better. It is often easy not to think too much about the future and just carry on in any sector doing what we do but, given the pace of change in the modern world, that is not going to work. That is why having a body that can invest in a whole range of things, analyse what is happening in markets and look at new innovations is essential. It is often best done collectively, but that, sadly, is also something that we in the UK do not always do well.

The AHDB has played and continues to play an important role. I pay tribute to Nicholas Saphir, Tim Rycroft and their colleagues as they try to align the organisation more closely with the concerns of those who pay for it, which is not always easy. As politicians, we are sensitive to how difficult that can sometimes be.

Working across a host of agricultural sectors, the AHDB undertakes important research, development and farm-level knowledge transfer, along with working to improve supply chain transparency—that is particularly important at the moment—and stimulating demand to help develop export markets. The fact is that farming is a tough business and most farms do not have the time, resources or capacity to engage in detail in these activities. Of course, some of the bigger organisations are well placed to do it themselves, and some sub-sectors are better placed than others, as the Minister has hinted, but I am afraid there is some concern for smaller producers.

The AHDB plays an important role in pooling the financial resources from farm businesses big and small to invest in improving the sector for everyone. I would argue that the Government continue to come up short in their response to the problems engulfing our supply chains and export markets, but many farmers are reassured that the AHDB is working on their behalf. However—exactly as the Minister said—for potatoes and horticulture, the decision is made.

The first component of the draft instrument is the removal of statutory levies in the horticulture and potato sectors. As I said earlier, that decision comes as a direct result of a ballot held by those sectors, and it should rightly be respected. Both votes saw a turnout of more than 60%, and in both cases, close to 70% of the votes were for the statutory levy to end—that is a strong mandate.

The departure of those sectors will mean that the AHDB’s annual funding of £57 million is reduced by around £13 million. I am told and reassured that, because the board’s finances are already managed on a sector-by-sector basis, the loss of horticulture and potatoes is organisationally manageable, but shared costs inevitably mean that it will have consequences. We should always remember that there are direct consequences for those individuals who lost their jobs during the winding-down process, and there is also the loss of their valuable expertise. Inevitably, there is concern that there may be a move for a similar dismantling in other sectors, but I am reassured that, as the Minister indicated, the results of the AHDB’s first vote on levy payer preferences, about which I will say a little more later, shows strong support for much of the board’s work programme.

I have a couple of concerns regarding the impact of the end of the statutory levy on potato and horticultural producers. I hope that the Minister will address my concerns or pass them on to her ministerial colleague to address at a later point. There is industry concern in the potato sector about the end of the Fight Against Blight service and the yellow water trap aphid monitoring service. I am told that the Scottish Government are currently helping the industry to find a long-term solution, and that the AHDB has facilitated the transfer and delivery of those programmes to the James Hutton Institute so that a stopgap solution can be found.

In horticulture, the AHDB will continue to provide until 2023 the funded service on emergency chemical crop protection authorisations for minor use, while the industry—facilitated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I hope—tries to reach an agreement on how such a service should be funded and organised. However, achieving consensus on which secretariat should administer the process is apparently proving a challenge. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what actions her Department is taking to ensure that the key services provided by the AHDB can continue in some form, following the end of the levy in those sectors.

As the Minister indicated, it is clear—I think the AHDB acknowledges this—that the votes to end the levy in those two sectors were partly a product of the body not listening closely enough to levy payers and changing too slowly. However, the AHDB also believes that the “no” vote resulted from severe financial pressures caused by supply-chain pressure and low profit margins. I am concerned that, because the Government are still failing to get to grips with the various crises that are affecting the industry as a whole, too many producers have been left in a very difficult position. For them, opting out of the levy was one of the very last resorts as they sought to keep their businesses afloat. That may be the better option for individual businesses in the short term, but the harm it could cause the industry as a whole, as evidenced by the various schemes that are now under threat, could be significant.

I am also a little troubled by a potential unintended consequence of allowing producers in the potato and horticultural sectors to purchase services directly from the AHDB. That is clearly a response to the situation we find ourselves in. It is good that producers can continue to have a relationship with the board if they so choose, but there is a danger that it unfairly disadvantages smaller producers. The removal of the pooling effect of the levy, and of the ability to buy services directly from the board, could mean that larger producers will continue to benefit from the work of the AHDB, without sharing those benefits with smaller producers who will be less able to afford direct services. Will the Minister tell us what assessment her Department has made of the impact on smaller producers? If a disparity is found, what steps will be taken to address it?

My colleague Baroness Jones raised in the Lords yesterday a series of questions that I will put to the Minister today. She queried when the Department first became aware of the unhappiness in these sectors that led to the ballot being called, and what was done at that time to address it. She suggested a range of possibilities. Was it the cost of the levy? Did people feel they were not getting value for money? Are we sure that the new ballots to shape priorities will really address those concerns?

Could the Minister also say a little about the relationship with the devolved nations as the AHDB goes forward? On the legacy research and plant protection services referenced in paragraph 7.2 of the explanatory memorandum, could the Minister explain how the value of previous research will be protected and built on?

I was struck by the Lords Minister’s comments in his comprehensive reply to Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:

“It is not appropriate for public funding to replace levy-funded activity”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 May 2022; Vol. 822, c. GC7.]

I appreciate that he was seeking to draw a distinction, but does the Minister agree that there are bound to be overlaps and that we should not rule out filling gaps where it is in the wider public interest that work could be done.

In conclusion, we welcome the decision to enhance levy payers’ voices through a vote at least every five years on the AHDB’s priorities and work programme. I know that the AHDB has already been making efforts to improve levy-payer engagement, including the new requirement for members of sector councils to be ratified by levy payers. The results of the first vote, released this Monday, indicate, I hope, a bright future for AHDB. We want the organisation to succeed and flourish, and trust that the measures will assist in that process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank those who have made an input to this debate. I very much welcome the support of both shadow Ministers—from Scotland and from the Labour Bench—and I agree that it is absolutely right that we respect this democratic vote. The Government said that we would, and we have done so. It is the right way to proceed, as is listening to the views of our farmers. That is critical, and one good thing about this tweak is that the farmers themselves will be much more involved in the research and the requirements they want from the levy, which, after all, they are paying.

I also agree that it is important that we equip our farmers—particularly in such times as we are facing—with the very best research, data and scientific advice. I believe that the AHDB has in the past done a great deal of that, but it will now be even more tailored towards our farmers so that they will get what they need and want to keep them in the globally leading position that they already hold. However, we must work on going forwards.

I recognise that there are concerns regarding the loss of £14 million of the annual levy funding for horticulture research and the need to retain skills and research capabilities in these sectors. We must recognise, however, that the one-size-fits-all approach—that is, the previous mechanism—is not working for the diverse needs of these sectors. That is why it is clear that we must listen, and their view in the ballot was to end the statutory levy contribution.

As I have previously highlighted, new approaches to funding horticultural research and crop protections are being worked on, including voluntary levies, subscription or membership models, and commercial agreements with the AHDB or other suitable organisations capable of co-ordinating and delivering applied research services for the industry. Obviously, many bodies do such work, such as the amazing UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, which I visited just this week. The work it is doing for a wide range of different industries in the farming and environment space is phenomenal, and East Malling and all the other research centres, such as the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, will all have their place.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), raised the issue of whether pooling the money would help the bigger industries, such as the beef and sheep sectors, more. I believe that the new approaches that are being worked on for horticulture and the potato industry will get around that, with smaller groups of individuals, such as those in the horticulture sector, able to get what they need out of the research. Voluntary levies have some advantages over statutory levies, which are classified as public money and are therefore bound by tighter rules and restrictions, as was outlined in the other place yesterday. Funding from voluntary levies can be used in a much more flexible way—for instance, to lever in match funding from other investment. Discussions with industry on those options are ongoing, with the aim of agreeing new industry-led funding models over the coming months.

I recognise the increasing importance of supporting our horticulture sector, particularly as we face the challenges of rising input costs. We are all looking at the opportunities and barriers that the horticulture sector faces in supporting sustainable growth and increasing productivity, especially given that sustainability, food security and so forth play such an important role. That includes looking at innovative ways of doing so, such as vertical farming. I have seen some of that myself; what can potentially be achieved is phenomenal, and we are looking at powering some of that with solar panels. The world seems to be really accelerating, with greater automation and other technologies that can help maximise crop growth and increase productivity, but we are also working hard to tackle the labour supply challenges that the sector faces.

I expected the shadow Minister to mention the seasonal worker visa, but he did not do so. That visa will be extended through to 2024, allowing overseas workers to come to the UK for up to six months to harvest both edible and ornamental crops. Some 30,000 visas will be available this year to cover this harvest period, which will be kept under review.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will, having tempted the shadow Minister.

[The Chair]

As long as we are sticking to the order under discussion.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Only in the sense that I am responding to the Minister’s contribution, Sir Gary. Having just spoken to representatives from the poultry sector, I wonder if the Minister could make representations to the Home Office to try to unlock some of the problems affecting recruitment. She always has a sunny disposition and an optimistic view of the world, but there are a lot of problems out there.

[The Chair]

I am sure she will do that, but we will now go back to the order, if that is okay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I now call the shadow Minister, Daniel Zeichner.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Cost, of course, is incredibly important but so is availability. The UK food system is dependent on two factories for CO_2, one of which has been shut for months and the other has been operating at relatively low levels. Before Christmas, the Government were slow to intervene and coy about the terms of the agreement. Can the Minister tell the House today what that agreement was, how much it cost and what the plan is to ensure that the UK food system is secure in future?

[Jo Churchill]

This is a highly complex area which obviously involves CO₂ and various other things that are important to industries right across the country. We are keeping a very close eye on this, but I say to our farmers that they should have confidence and make sure they put forward their orders so we have sustainable demand, which will of course improve the supply chain.

Food Security

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) on securing this debate.

Food security is a crucial component of national security, but it has received far too little attention from this Government. As Minette Batters, the president of the NFU, rightly said this week, food security should be a national priority, yet here we are on a Thursday afternoon at the end of the Session in a sparse Westminster Hall, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said with such passion. This is par for the course when it comes to food security issues. A lengthy and interesting food security report—I see the Minister has a copy—was sneaked out by the Government on the last day possible before Christmas, with no opportunity for proper scrutiny, and now there have been months of delays in the Government’s response to the national food strategy.

In the meantime, as we all know, the cost of the family food shop is rising week in, week out. The Library’s excellent briefing quotes the Trussell Trust’s latest survey, which found that 17% of people receiving universal credit had to visit a food bank between December 2021 and March 2022. That is extraordinary, because it could mean half a million people visiting a food bank. That report also found that 2 million people went without food on more than one day in the month, which is absolutely shocking. Of course, we have also heard recently about people rejecting food that needs to be cooked because they cannot afford the fuel. I could go on; we are familiar with these issues, and the Minister will probably say that they are welfare issues, not food issues. Yes, the Government’s welfare policies are a disgrace and should be a cause of profound shame in this country, but the impact on food security at a household level is all too clear. It is a real and pressing issue for millions of our people in our country.

Moving on to some of the wider issues, we all know about the disruptive effects on production and trade caused by the dreadful events in Ukraine, but they were hardly unforeseen. While tensions were mounting between Ukraine and Russia in the autumn of last year and analysts were warning about what could come, the Government’s food security report, citing Ukraine as a country with a high market share of global maize supply, said that it did not expect any major changes in world agricultural commodity markets and the top exporting countries of those commodities. Let me put it more precisely: early in December, the US released intelligence of Russian invasion plans, but later in the same month, that report said that

“Real wheat prices are expected to decline in the coming years based on large supplies being produced in the Black Sea region”.

Frankly, that is incredible. Were the Government simply unaware of the potential of the situation to impact our food supply and global wheat prices, or were they just ignoring it? What is the point of a report that is supposed to guide policy choices on food security when the most basic, blatant risks are glossed over?

It is not as if we have not been through these crises before. A similar situation arose at the start of the pandemic, and it is worth going back and reading Henry Dimbleby’s interim report, which talks about that period in its opening pages. To their credit, at that point, the Government did take action. They kept the show on the road, they got unusual levels of co-operation across the food chain, and they kept shadow politicians in the loop. I commend them for that. It was a united national effort, but since those early days, that sense of purpose has fallen away. That is to be regretted, because the situation has become very difficult again, with the carbon dioxide crisis before Christmas—which I will come back to—being one such example.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to reconvene the food resilience industry forum, but it should have been done sooner. In the past month, I have spoken endlessly to representatives across the supply chain who report what seems to them to be a real lack of urgency from the Government, with limited dialogue and communication. On hearing that, I asked the Government why they had yet to reconvene that forum—other countries had already done so, with Ireland’s Agriculture Minister establishing a food security committee three weeks ago in response to the invasion. I got a written answer in which the Government told me they could stand up a food resilience industry forum

“at short notice should the need arise.”

Should the need arise! It arose weeks ago. At last it has happened, and I welcome that, but always slow and always behind the curve.

I also urge the Minister to look at the Food and Drink Federation’s call for a national food security council to ensure this is not just seen as a DEFRA issue, but that there is proper cross-Government co-ordination and a streamlined process for approving substitute ingredients. The supply chain is fragile, and the Government have to help producers and manufacturers adjust. While they may not like it, that will mean working with our near neighbours in the EU, because if they change the rules ahead of the UK, the market moves and our producers risk being disadvantaged.

While we are less directly exposed than other countries on some levels, we cannot be complacent because some of these concerns are international. There is no doubt that many countries that rely heavily on grain from Ukraine will be at serious risk. We know that rising prices lead to hunger and political volatility and that will affect us all, albeit indirectly. It is not just a short-term problem either. The invasion is impacting Ukrainian farmers’ ability to sow and prepare for next year’s harvest. Regardless of direct impacts, the stress on the global system will add a further inflationary pressure to food prices. Of course, it is not just grain; it is fertiliser, fuel costs and labour shortages, which will all have an impact on our producers.

The issue affects everybody. This week’s Fishing News details the impact fleet-by-fleet, with Seafish concluding that the majority of the fleet cannot remain viable as things stand. I understand that Barrie Deas of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has requested an urgent meeting with the Minister. I hope she can confirm today that that meeting will be granted— hopefully much more quickly than the frankly insulting delays we are encountering with her colleagues at the Department for Transport over vessel inspections.

[Luke Pollard]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that Seafish has gotten rid of its “Love Seafood” campaign that promotes British fish—fish caught in Britain, to be eaten in Britain? Does he agree that the scrapping of that scheme seems like a backwards step?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I always agree with my hon. Friend, but he makes an important point. It is not just fishers, of course; farmers, growers and everyone are still relating those additional costs.

I want to talk briefly about fertilisers because they are directly linked to our food security. We may be able to farm differently, and there is an important opportunity here, which I hope we can explore another day. Our ambition should be, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) has argued, to make a sprint for a greener future. Labour’s £28 billion per annum pledge will play an important role. In the short term, the fertiliser shortages are acute, and we know that as the gas prices rise, that creates particular problems. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimated that if current prices continue, the cost of extra fertiliser for British farmers will be £760 million, and the NFU is in no doubt that it will affect yields.

I appreciate that announcements were made yesterday, including the establishment of an industry fertiliser roundtable, which is welcome, but it must be accompanied by action. That includes the two fertiliser plants, which need to be back in action, and I ask the Minister to report on what is being done on that. The Minister will be aware that the European Commission has moved to allow direct intervention to get the Romanian plant going. What are the UK Government doing? While clarifications on the farming rules for water are broadly welcome, it is sorting out a mess of the Government’s own making.

In conclusion, Labour is committed to fixing the food system, ending the growing food bank scandal, ensuring families can access healthy food and improving our food security as a country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said, we want to see more food grown in this country to a good quality, not the dumping of lower standard food imports, which will undermine our farmers. We want to buy, make and sell more in Britain, and make changes to public procurement so that our schools and hospitals are stocked with more locally sourced, healthy food. We would lead by example by putting high-quality food at the heart of our public buying.

At an animal welfare event yesterday—a Conservative-branded event—I was reminded that McDonald’s has higher animal welfare standards in its supply chains than the Government demand in the public sphere. It is a sobering thought, and I am afraid that it speaks volumes about the Government’s record. This country could do better. We can have a more resilient food system that feeds our people better and sustains, nourishes and protects our environment. For that to happen, it needs a Government committed to making food security a national priority. At the moment, I am afraid that there is precious little sign of that.

Badger Culling

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair again, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for bringing this important debate before the House. I do not think this subject has been debated in this Chamber for some time and it is clearly of considerable public interest, as we can see from the numbers who signed the petition, which the hon. Gentleman introduced in a very sensible and balanced way.

We have had some good contributions to the debate. I enjoyed the account from my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury); I am not sure I have ever quite seen Dennis Skinner as fluffy, but I am sure my hon. Friend’s badger is suitably fluffy. The points he made about perturbation were important, and were of course picked up by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin).

I am not surprised that there are differing views on this issue; clearly there are strong views, which are represented in the debates taking place across the country. The one thing we can agree on is that we all want the same outcome, which is for bovine TB to be eradicated and the badger cull to be brought to an end. It is a truly horrible disease, as hon. Members have described, and no one should underestimate the stress, hurt and financial hardship it causes farmers. The accounts from the hon. Members for West Dorset (Chris Loder) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and indeed the account from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire about his favourite bull, were very moving.

There is also a significant cost to all this. DEFRA and the Welsh Government found that the median bovine TB-related cost for cattle farmers was £6,600; for farms with herds of more than 300, it rose to £18,600. It costs farmers in cash and mental anguish, and it costs the taxpayer many millions a year in compensation payments. However, the crux of this afternoon’s debate is, “What is the solution?” The sad truth is that the answer is less than clear, and I do not think it is quite as clear as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire suggested, as I will come to in a moment.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Badger Trust has been calling for significant investment in cattle vaccination for more than 10 years. The trust feels that the delay in vaccination investment is unnecessarily being paid for with badgers’ lives.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come back to that point. As has already been said, it is amazing what can be done quite quickly when scientists really get behind something. I suspect many would agree with the point made by the hon. Lady.

The argument is frequently polarised: those who believe that culling badgers is the answer and those who disagree both believe that they are following the science. The problem is that the science is not entirely clear; statistics that appear to back both sides of the argument can be found and quoted. It is worth putting on the record that the Godfray review, commissioned by the Government back in 2018, set out this issue in its opening statement:

“The deeply held beliefs of people who cannot countenance culling badgers deserve respect, as do the beliefs of people who argue that sacrificing badgers is justified to reduce the burden of this disease on livestock and farmers. The decision whether or not to cull badgers must be informed by evidence which provides important information on likely outcomes. However, final decisions have to take into account the irreconcilable views of different stakeholders and so inevitably require judgements to be made by ministers”—

and different Ministers will make different judgments.

Labour would stop the culling of badgers. Our bovine TB control strategy would be based on vaccination, testing and better biosecurity measures, and we believe we have public support for that position. However, no one should be in any doubt that we are absolutely determined to put an end to the spread of bovine TB.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

If we had a vaccine that allowed us to differentiate between a vaccinated animal and an infected animal, that policy would stand up. However, until we have that vaccine, the only alternative is to continue culling, which has proven successful in getting on top of the disease in areas such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin).

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was very pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman walk in because I expected him to make exactly that intervention; we had a similar discussion during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020. As I am sure he will appreciate, the DIVA test is well advanced. He is right to say that we need to make progress, exactly as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said. Science moves; I am, perhaps, more optimistic about the pace of that movement than others.

The petition has a significant number of signatures. It focuses on the killing of badgers rather than the bovine TB issue, which I shall return to. The view expressed is that the shooting of badgers is poorly monitored and inhumane. Anecdotally, one is certainly told of cases where badgers are not shot cleanly and are left with injuries. According to Natural England’s compliance monitoring report for 2020, badgers were shot at but not retrieved in 11.4% of cases, but only one case of a badger being shot at but wounded and lost was reported; presumably some of the rest may not have been found. As with all such figures, the situation is not clear. I suggest that there is some cause for concern.

Can the Minister say why the number of badgers culled through free shooting rather than cage-trapping has changed so dramatically? According to the figures in the very good briefing prepared by the House of Commons Library, those numbers have increased from rough parity in 2014 to around four in five in 2020, creating a greater risk of inhumane culling. What is the reason for that? It seems that that is directly relevant to the question raised by the petitioners.

The wider question is about the future of shooting badgers in general and the continuance of the cull. I remember when the Government finally responded to the Godfray review while we were sitting on the Agriculture Bill Committee. By complete chance, they responded on the very day that Labour happened to have tabled an amendment addressing this very question—it was one of a number of cases when Government statements appeared miraculously on certain days during the course of the Agriculture Bill’s passage through Parliament. What we took from the Government announcement, the headlines and the spin was that the cull was to end. However, what we have seen since has shown that that was not the whole story.

Despite the points made by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, given that the cull has been going on for 10 years or so, it is worth asking what the Government’s policy on badger culling has done to get this horrible disease under control. One thing we know for sure is that it has killed a lot of badgers—more than 140,000. That is not in doubt. Every year since 2015, the number culled has grown, with more than 38,600 killed in 2020. Last year’s figures are due any time; they are expected to be larger still.

The Badger Trust tells me that in some areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset, badgers are now all but extinct. It also predicts that, by the end of the cull, the number of badgers in England will have been halved. As I reflected on earlier, the sad truth is that some of those badgers will have had unpleasant deaths. There are then the financial costs. Again, the Badger Trust estimates that, between 2013 and 2019, the cost of the cull was around £60 million—although I hear the points made by Government Members.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I was thinking about what the hon. Gentleman said about how half the badgers in the UK will have been lost. If he looks at a map of the country, the western side is where the cattle and badgers live, and that is where the infection is. It is not about losing half the badgers in the infected area, but protecting the other half on the eastern side of the country.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, he will know, full well, that others will disagree that that is what is actually going on. The worry expressed by the petitioners today, and by many others, is that this looks like a massive cull of an iconic species in our country.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the economic boost that comes off the back of cattle no longer being lost? Protections should be taken to ensure that they are not lost. I know the hon. Gentleman has a love of and interest in farming, but there really must be a methodology to protect the cattle, the industry, the sector, and the jobs. Sometimes, that has to mean the culling of badgers.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s points, because I think that the crux of the question is, “Does the culling of badgers achieve the desired result?” That is one of the points at issue. I find it slightly surprising that there are no tests once badgers have been culled, so we do not really know the ratio of infected to healthy badgers being killed. Perhaps the Minister could explain why those are not done.

Staggeringly—to many of us—the current system is set up so that, in some instances, badgers that have been vaccinated will then go on to be culled. A couple of years ago, I visited the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its volunteers to see just how badger vaccination works, and to meet a badger. I am grateful to Debbie Bailey and her colleagues for letting me join them—I must say, very early in the morning—to see how it is done. It is painstaking work, carried out by volunteers, and with financial support from the Government. However, as I say, incredibly, those very same badgers, vaccinated at taxpayer expense, are then sometimes shot as part of the cull. Can the Minister explain how that makes sense?

I warned earlier that the statistics can be read in many different ways, but I would also point out that, during the past decade, the number of cattle slaughtered due to TB has remained fairly consistent, at between 26,000 and 33,000 per year. In 2021, the number of cattle slaughtered decreased by only 1% on the previous 12 months to 27,581, with more cattle slaughtered in 2021 than in 2013, the year that the culls started. Herd incidence was at 8.8% in 2021—down only 0.6% on the previous year—and has also remained fairly static throughout the cull, at between 11% and 8.6%.

As I have been at pains to point out, different people will read those figures in different ways. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire will perhaps see them as a great success, while others will look at them and say that there are many other variables, and that there has not been sufficient progress to justify a Government policy costing millions of pounds and resulting in the deaths of close to 150,000 members of a protected species.

I would appreciate it if the Minister explained what she takes from those figures and whether she considers the cull to be a success so far. To mix my metaphors, I would say that the Government have placed too many of their eggs in one basket—each year, ramping up the killing, licensing more and more cull areas, but to insufficient avail. The science around this has long been contested. I think we have heard accounts of that. It has been looked at on a number of occasions.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, if one looks at New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, where culling the wildlife vector was so effective, we can see how the policy is based on clear science and clear examples, from other countries around the world, of how effective it can be?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I always bow to the right hon. Gentleman’s superior knowledge on this, but my recollection from reading the Godfray review is that other factors were involved as well.

Part of the problem with the whole debate is trying to separate out the different issues with the governance structures, the New Zealand example and so on, so I suspect we are not going to agree on this. But from the evidence I have seen and had explained to me, cow-to-cow infections are far more significant than those from badger to cow. Indeed, the Godfray report described the benefits of the cull to the farming industry as “circumscribed” and raised a range of other potential ways forward.

In 2020, Labour welcomed the Government’s announcement that they were finally planning to phase out culls, with the end date set for 2025. Despite saying that no new licences would be granted after 2022, in late 2021 seven new licensing zones were announced. In answer to a written question, the Minister said the culling of badgers will remain an option

“where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed.”

Can the Minister clarify that the Government do not intend to allow a perpetual culling of badgers by the back door and that the commitment to end the cull by 2025 remains in place?

Our Labour view is that we are more likely to beat bovine TB through better vaccination, better testing and better biosecurity, particularly when it comes to testing pre and post movement of cattle between farms, together, as I have already suggested, with a much bigger push into researching and administering effective TB vaccines for both cattle and badgers.

To conclude, I return to the Godfray review of 2018. Can the Minister say what happened to some of its other proposals? It queried the current governance arrangements, saying that, in its view, too many Government bodies were involved, and it suggested a single bovine TB authority. What is the Government’s view on that? To some extent, the review was looking at the New Zealand example. The review recommended moving to using a more sensitive test in the high risk and edge area. Does the Minister agree with that? It argued that a key problem is the high level of cattle movements in England, and that risky trading should be disincentivised. Again, does she agree? If so, what does she plan to do about it?

The review recommended mandatory post-movement testing and using the most sensitive test; the Minister’s comments on that would be welcome. It describes the number of “no regret” biosecurity options being taken up by farmers as “disappointingly low”. That was back in 2018, so can she tell us if there has been any progress since then?

As always, there are many questions, but there are many ways to tackle bovine TB. The Government and Members on the Government side clearly believe that shooting badgers is the preferred option, but in our view the evidence of efficacy is unclear. On the Opposition side, we would take a different path, as I outlined earlier—but let me clear that we will be absolutely steadfast in our resolve to eliminate bovine TB.