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.

Draft Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022 Draft Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 Draft Agriculture (Lump Sum Payment) (England) Regulations 2022

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I am slightly in awe of the weight of experience on both sets of Benches, given the presence of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, and of my right hon. Friend the Members for East Ham, and my hon. Friend for Wallasey. I will do my best.

The Committee will be relieved to hear that the Opposition do not intend to oppose the SIs, although it is a close call on the lump sum payment regulations. I will explain why in a moment. The draft Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations are familiar ground, because we discussed an almost identically named SI almost a year ago. The Minister will be delighted to know that I have her speech from a year ago before me, so I can quote from it.

[Victoria Prentis]

Good.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Absolutely. At the time, I predicted that we might be back here a year later, doing this again.

[Victoria Prentis]

Yes, and next year, too.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Who knows how many years we will be doing this for? That is probably for others to judge.

The matter is not particularly complicated, but there are some points from last year that I want to raise again. First, there is the question of why this is being done year by year, when the Government have laid out a clear plan well into the future. I just wonder whether the Government lack confidence in their future timetable. I must also ask again where the money is actually going. Last year, the Minister told us:

“All funding released from the reductions will be reinvested in new schemes in this Parliament.”—[Official Report, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 18 March 2021; c. 3.]

I think she echoed that in her opening comments today. When and how will we be able to see whether that is actually happening? We are now some way through year one. When can we see figures on how much has been released and how much has gone into schemes so far? If there is gap, where might that money reside?

Of course, this year, the reductions are much more significant—20%, not 5%. That will be really painful for some people. What form will the promised impact assessments take? I will also get my customary gripes in early. The Minister referred to some of the pressures that we are seeing as a consequence of world events. Input prices are frankly eye-watering, and every cost is going up—feed, fertiliser, fuel and gas. The hon. Lady referred to that but did not really tell us whether there are any plans to offer direct assistance. Could she say a little bit more about that?

On the level of detail, the reference to direct payments in paragraph 7.2 of the explanatory memorandum was the source of a complaint from me last year. The Minister referenced the possible impacts in her speech today. Paragraph 7.2 states:

“Direct Payments are untargeted, can inflate land rent prices and can stand in the way of new entrants to the farming industry.”

All possibly true, but that is conjecture, because they also can provide stability and keep many people afloat. They may even have contributed to Cambridge United’s six-nil defeat of Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend— I do not know. There should not be conjecture in an explanatory memorandum; there should be clear statements of fact. I hope that paragraph 7.2 is deleted. In fact, that conjecture has been copied across to the explanatory memorandums accompanying a number of SIs.

The terms of the Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations are slightly more intriguing. It seems to be tightening up some financial assistance schemes, and widening the investigatory powers so that they apply to employees or agents of an applicant or agreement holder. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what prompted those changes. Perhaps there were oversights in last year’s SI. She described it then as a “flexible and proportionate framework”. Well, perhaps it was too flexible. Have problems been encountered already? We should know.

How many problems have arisen with the four schemes that were launched in 2021? How many suspected offences are there? I am also slightly puzzled by paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory memorandum to the financial assistance SI, which says that the instrument brings DEFRA’s investigative powers

“closer to those…previously created under Common Agricultural Policy…rules”.

In that sense, the powers are not new; but the paragraph goes on to say that the SI gives DEFRA flexibility in a more proportionate way. So it is like the CAP, but not like it. Perhaps the Minister can explain that.

The meat of today’s debate relates to the lump sum payment regulations, the principle of which we discussed at length in Committee on the Agriculture Act almost two years ago. We will not revisit the principle today, although I must say that the amendment I moved in Committee remains relevant. We argued then that the scheme posed a range of risks, and I am afraid I see little in the detailed regulations to reassure us about that. I am grateful to organisations such as Sustain and the Land Workers Alliance for their briefing on this. They made points very similar to those we made two year ago, and which I repeat today, not least the point that encouraging farmers to exit does not automatically lead to new entrants coming through, much as we all hope that it will. They also fear, as do I, that the scheme is wide open to abuse. I am astonished that more safeguards are not in place. I would not be at all surprised if, in a few years’ time, we found that there had been significant problems with the scheme.

I need hardly remind the Minister about the difficulties that her Government have had with fraud. One of her colleagues memorably resigned from the Dispatch Box in exasperation at the failures. There was £4.3 billion written off; we do not want that added to. I am sure that the Minister will want to reassure me, and the wider public, that I am wrong on this, and I will listen with interest, but it is hard to see the necessary safeguards. Sustain warns that a landowner using the exit scheme could rent their land on a five-year farm business fixed tenancy and regain full control at the end of that time. Can the Minister confirm that? The definition of “connected person” in paragraph 7 of the regulations seems to suggest that the land could be simply gifted to a brother, sister or family member—indeed, anyone other than a spouse or civil partner—and get up to £100,000. Is that really correct? Two brothers farming adjacently—hardly uncommon—could basically do a swap. What is to stop it?

As I argued two years ago, the linkage to new entrants is tenuous. We do not yet have details of the new entrant support scheme. According to paragraph 4, applications have to be in by 30 September, which is just six months away. Does the Minister expect the scheme to be in place by then? As the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked, what will the link be? Does the Minister have any clue what the new scheme will look like? Will it take on any of the recommendations in David Fursdon’s 2013 “Future Of Farming Review Report”, which I am grateful to George Dunn of the Tenant Farmers Association for pointing me to? Getting new people into farming is complicated, and the report contained many excellent recommendations, which I hope have come up in some of the Minister’s discussions.

It is not just Sustain raising such concerns. The discussions of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in June last year are illuminating and bear rewatching. A series of expert witnesses suggested a range of potential problems, including the problem of how DEFRA could be sure that the right farmers were taking advantage of the scheme. That rather prompts the question: who would be the right people? Does the Minister have a view? Frankly, it depends on what one sees as the purpose of the scheme, which remains less than clear.

Presumably the Minister can give us a projection of how many people the Government expect to take up the scheme. At an early stage in the discussions, it was suggested that it would be so popular that it would be limited by the available funds, but I think many people are now less convinced that take-up will be that high. Is the scheme cash-limited? If so, what is the limit? How many are expected to take it up? How many new entrants are expected to benefit? I suspect that the Minister may not have all the answers, so perhaps she could write to me.

In the absence of explanations, the Minister will hear us express again the concerns that we have long raised, including concern that the real plan is to get rid of inconvenient family farms and either intensify, to the detriment of the environment, or rewild and import food produced to lower standards. That is the only rational conclusion that can be drawn when the Government persist in failing to set out a proper vision for farming. Perhaps when we get a response to Henry Dimbleby’s review, we will get a clearer idea. Will the Minister hint at when that will finally happen?

There are one or two other minor concerns and loopholes. Paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory memorandum to the lump sum payment regulations says that the Government wish to help

“those farmers who wish to leave the sector”,

but that is not what the regulations do. So far as I can see, there is nothing to stop someone taking the exit payment, using the money to rent or buy land elsewhere, and then applying either to the environmental land management scheme or for countryside stewardship—a rather attractive double-earner. The Minister is shaking her head, so perhaps she can explain how that will be avoided.

It is two years since we discussed these issues during the passage of the Agriculture Bill, and despite a public consultation exercise, the level of detail we are being given about how the schemes are supposed to work remains disappointing; there are many more questions than answers. The Opposition want a revitalised food and farming sector, in which new entrants are encouraged and helped, so that there is innovation and new vigour, and so that the enthusiasm that so many have for our countryside can help our food production systems to flourish. However, we have real doubts that the schemes will achieve those objectives. We will not vote against the regulations today, but I hope the warnings are noted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

I cannot comment on the abilities of Cambridge United—I stick to supporting Banbury United—but I am absolutely convinced that the basic payments scheme is fundamentally unjust at the moment. The top 10% of recipients receive half of the total budget, while the bottom 20% get 2%. That is not a system that I want to defend. We are applying the reductions to direct payments fairly, with higher reductions being applied to those receiving higher payments. About 80% of farmers will see a reduction of 20% this year.

I would like to reassure the hon. Member for Wallasey that the Rural Payments Agency, which traditionally many of us in the farming industry were possibly less than polite about, has now got a superb delivery record, and paid 98% of farmers immediately the payment was due last year. I am genuinely reassured, and I would be delighted to talk to her offline about that or any other aspect of future farming policy. I am genuinely reassured that farmers will be able to deliver these schemes as we roll them out. They are an integral part of our planning for the new schemes, and they are at all the meetings. The roll-out of the scheme is very much about the delivery—testing and checking that the money can reach the farmer on time. If it does not do that, it does not work, so we need to make sure that that happens.

I should also like to reassure Members that we have committed to maintaining the farming budget for the duration of this Parliament. The money freed up by these reductions will be repurposed, as I said, into our improved countryside stewardship scheme—still slightly more complicated, and I say this as a farmer who filled in the form shortly before Christmas, than I would hope, and very much more complicated than the application forms for the new schemes. That is very much part of our transition to the new schemes. The reductions will also fund the beginnings of the new environmental land management schemes and the many grant schemes that are on offer.

All moneys that are saved by those reductions will be invested in farming and farming businesses. I should like to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, to whom I often speak on these matters—he represents some crackingly good farmland, as well as many pig farmers, who are having a difficult time at the moment, and many poultry farmers, who have had a very difficult time with avian influenza this year—that the £3.7 billion budget will stay the same for the duration of this Parliament. That is very much an undertaking that the Government have given and to which his neighbour, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is committed.

Direct payments are not strongly correlated with food production levels. They parted company with headage payments about 15 years ago, and many of the sectors in which we have the greatest self-sufficiency are those that we have not traditionally subsidised very much or at all. We are close to 100% self-sufficient in poultry, eggs, carrots and swedes, and direct payments have never been part of the business model of many of these really successful sectors. Food security is important, and very much part of departmental planning, as we seek to roll out these new schemes. Indeed, one of the advantages of the productivity grants is that sectors that have not been supported by Government finance in the past will now be able to make real innovations as a result of the money that we can put in.

Many Members are particularly concerned about the impact of removing direct payments on small farms, but farm business profitability is not, in fact, closely dependent on farm size. Many smaller farmers are no more reliant on direct payments than larger farmers, and they will initially receive smaller reductions in their payments. The Government published an evidence paper that was updated in September 2019 and which set out the impacts of removing direct payments, including sector-by-sector analysis, location and type of land tenure. Detailed and updated impact assessments will be published later this month, and it is important that we continue to do that as we roll out this genuinely iterative policy.

The Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 will ensure that our new financial assistance schemes are regulated in the right way and are subject to the same requirements as the schemes launched last year, but they are tailored to the schemes that we have launched since then, and that is where the differences arise. The measures have grown as the schemes have grown. I was interested in the point made by the hon. Member for Wallasey about fraud. We are absolutely committed to making sure that these schemes are not subjected to fraud. We are a small industry—85,000 farmers —and our land is well mapped. A great deal is known in the Department and in Government generally about the businesses that we support, but it is important that we remain vigilant.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hear what the Minister says, but I do not see anything in the regulations to prevent some of those things from happening. In some ways, it will not be fraud; it will just be people using the system.

[Victoria Prentis]

If the hon. Gentleman could hold on for just a moment, I will come to the specific points that he made about the lump sum exit scheme.

The regulations made good on our commitment to offer farmers a lump sum exit scheme this year. We believe that the calculation of the lump sum payment amount is fair. For most farmers, the lump sum will be approximately equivalent to the amount that they might otherwise receive in direct payments for the years 2022—this year and next year—to 2027, as they are phased out over the remaining years of the planned transition.

The difference, which the hon. Member for Cambridge has perhaps not had fully explained to him before, is that if farmers leave farming, they will not be eligible to enter into new agreements for certain land management schemes. The sustainable farming incentive, agricultural options in countryside stewardship, and agricultural options in local nature recovery will not be open to them. The lump sum is very much aimed at those leaving farming, and will require a bespoke agreement—we are in the process of creating bespoke quotes for farmers at the moment. It will not be appropriate or possible for them to take a lump sum and then enter new schemes or take options within schemes that are based primarily on owning agricultural land.

The lump sum exit scheme sits alongside extra support to help new entrants into the industry. As I said earlier, the new entrants schemes will be detailed and rolled out in 2023.

On the other points made by the hon. Member for Cambridge about Henry Dimbleby and the Government’s food White Paper, I have written to him, but the letter has obviously not reached him yet. I was very much hoping, as I think he knows, to publish the Government’s food strategy White Paper this week or last, but the decision has been taken not to do that at the moment because of the war in Ukraine. I reassure the hon. Gentleman, however, that the work that would have flowed from that White Paper will commence immediately, as if it had been published. I very much hope that global events will enable us to publish it as soon as we can.

To conclude, it is important that we continue with the agricultural transition as planned. Applying reductions to direct payments frees up money that we can use to pay farmers to encourage environmental protection and enhancement, public access to the countryside and the safeguarding of livestock and plants.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022.

Draft Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.—(Victoria Prentis.)

Draft Agriculture (Lump Sum Payment) (England) Regulations 2022

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Agriculture (Lump Sum Payment) (England) Regulations 2022.—(Victoria Prentis.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis]

I wish—and I am sure that some of the hon. Gentlemen’s farmers wish—that the Scottish Government were going with the real benefits that we are able to make as a result of Brexit in the agricultural space. In England, we will be able to move towards a system of paying people for producing public goods. In Scotland, that option is not yet available to farmers. I will be meeting NFU Scotland later today to discuss further issues to do with Scottish farming.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I note that the Minister did not address the question about the pig crisis. Pig farmers have been in crisis month after month after month, and, frankly, the Government’s response has always been too little and too late. As was said, more than 40,000 pigs already culled on farms have been completely wasted. It is becoming apparent that one problem is the failure of the processors to honour the contracts to farmers. How much more suffering has to be endured before the Minister does as she has hinted that she might do and passes this to the Competition and Markets Authority, so that we can find out what has been going wrong in what increasingly looks like a broken market?

[Victoria Prentis]

Only time constraints prevented me from setting out in full what we are doing with the pig industry. We have been careful to work with the pig industry in lockstep at all stages and have brought into play actual schemes that are helping them today. I agree that the supply chain in pigs is in trouble. I have said that frequently, and I have started a review of that supply chain—a serious and systematic review—which may well result in regulatory change. In the collection of the evidence, we will certainly refer matters to the Competition and Markets Authority at the appropriate time, when we have the right evidence. In the interim, I would be most grateful if any pig farmer or producer sent me a copy of a contract, which has been very, very hard to find, as I would very much like to see that.

Draft Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Gary, and I am grateful to the Minister, not just for her helpful introductory remarks but for the pre-meeting discussion we had a few days ago. She has set out clearly the Government’s view on this important piece of legislation. I will make Labour’s position very clear from the outset. We are not going to oppose this SI, but we are not satisfied that the Government have yet set out the clear and strong regulatory framework that is needed to provide the certainty that investors need, the reassurance that the public need, or the protection that the environment needs. All those things are important, but they are also interrelated, because investor confidence does not come without public confidence.

Labour is pro-science and pro-innovation. We want our scientists to succeed and use their skills for good here in the UK, and we know that crop development and innovation has brought us all huge gains. As Henry Dimbleby observed in the opening comments to the national food strategy—to which, of course, we still await a Government response—

“The food system we have today is both a miracle and a disaster”

providing

“enough calories (albeit unevenly distributed) to feed 7.8 billion of us…But the food we eat—and the way we produce it—is doing terrible damage to our planet and to our health.”

We agree, and it shows that we need to find ways to maintain and improve that efficiency, but also address the environmental and health damage that the modern food system has caused.

Some will say that more innovation just brings more problems, risks and dangers. We do not take that view, but we strongly believe that it is right to be careful, because this is about balancing risks, knowing that alongside the benefits—which absolutely should include significant environmental gains, such as reduced use of pesticides—there may be the danger that either mistakes are made, or there are things we simply do not know. That cannot paralyse us from action, because every intervention has risks attached, but we need a system that allows us to manage those trade-offs and those risks, and I am afraid that this SI does not do any of those things.

I am sure the Minister would say that it is not trying to do them: that this is a small step and, as she has indicated, that more will follow. That may be the case, and we agree that this is a relatively small step. It is important to be clear that this SI is about research, not products that reach consumers. However, I am afraid that the failure to provide the necessary structures and reassurances could turn a small step into a much bigger mistake if it fails to provide the necessary public reassurance.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is fantastic to hear the hon. Member for Cambridge speaking enthusiastically in favour of one of the benefits of Brexit. Does he agree that the EU got this wrong and that, with the right provisions in place—I note that he is not opposing this SI—this is a journey to a better place, and one that the EU turned its face against?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to point out that this has nothing to do with Brexit, because of course the EU has embarked on much the same kind of path. It is already consulting on where it is likely to get to, and it is quite likely that we are going to get to a similar place at a similar time, as I will come on to later in my speech.

It is not just the Opposition who have concerns. The Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has made a series of strong criticisms that Ministers should take seriously, and that I hope Committee members have had the opportunity to consider. Committees in the other place often have comments about statutory instruments, but these are much more substantial than normal. The issue made it into the national print media, and on to national radio. When that level of public interest is generated by a report on the inner workings of this place, it should give the Government pause for thought. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee says in its report, the regulations

“are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.”

I will briefly outline its concerns.

The Committee quotes the Government’s impact assessment, which makes interesting reading itself, and which I have looked at closely. The Committee cites the view widely held in the industry that the 2018 European Court of Justice judgment has held back research in the UK and the EU. The Committee says—this mirrors comments made elsewhere in the Government’s documentation—that

“the Government now intend to change the law…to allow GM plants that could have occurred naturally or through traditional breeding methods for release for non-marketing purposes. This is to enable the bioscience sector to test the benefits and safety of relevant new products ‘without the burden of unnecessary regulatory processes’.”

That is what this statutory instrument sets out to do, but the act of deregulation does not always lead to innovation; frankly, that is an ideological assertion. Page 1 of the impact assessment says that there is “some evidence” for the Government’s claim, but it does not say what that evidence is. The Minister may have it, and may be prepared to offer it, but others, myself included, would argue that in general it is good regulation, not a lack of regulation, that spurs innovation.

The Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee says:

“Regrettably, the EM”—

the explanatory memorandum—

“does not provide any further information on the Government’s plans for wider reform.”

The Minister said in her opening comments, which I welcome, that primary legislation will be forthcoming, and I think she has confirmed that. Perhaps she can tell us a little more, because she mentioned that in our meeting earlier this week. The crucial question is what that primary legislation is designed to do—whether it will deregulate further, as I suspect it will, or whether it will set up, as I would much rather it did, a proper, fit-for-purpose regulatory system. Perhaps she can clarify that.

I am sure that the Minister has read the submission from the Royal Society of Biology to the consultation run by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is lengthy, substantial and raises a number of interesting suggestions—it is in my pile of papers. It includes ways in which short-term improvements could have been made under existing legislation. Will the Minister tell us whether those suggestions were considered? It also sets out ideas for a future regulatory framework. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister commented on those.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also highlighted points made strongly by organisations such as Beyond GM and GM Freeze about the introduction of the term, “qualifying higher plant”, which is introduced in the SI. The Organic Farmers & Growers group described it as a term it does not “recognise in any way”. This is clearly a thorny issue, as a number of the submissions to the consultation confirm—as far as we can find out, I should say. I do not think that the Government chose to publish the submissions; I am not sure why. Most of the ones I have were found by going back to the organisations that submitted them. Let me give some examples. The Roslin Institute says:

“it is exceptionally challenging to define which changes to the genome could have been produced by ‘traditional’ breeding.”

The Royal Society says:

“this question is problematic as there is a difference between what could be produced by traditional breeding in theory and in practice”.

The Royal Society of Biology says:

“No clear criteria can be described that would determine whether an organism produced by genome editing or other genetic technologies could have been produced by traditional breeding. This means no clarity can be achieved using this principle, and it is not appropriate as the basis of regulation.”

That is a strong statement from experts in the field. I will read out that last sentence again:

“it is not appropriate as the basis of regulation”,

but that is how the Government are proceeding.

DEFRA’s response when pressed by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was that the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment

“is in the process of developing guidance”

that

“will be available shortly.”

What is “shortly”? The response from the Lords was:

“We regret that the guidance has not yet been published, especially as the Department would have been aware of the concerns which were raised during consultation. The House may wish to press the Minister for an explanation why the guidance has not been made available in time for it to be taken into account by Parliament in its consideration of these draft Regulations. We urge the Department to ensure that the guidance is published in good time before the new rules come into effect and that this guidance is communicated effectively, in order to provide clarity to researchers and those who have concerns about the new policy.”

Well, quite. The guidance should have been ready when the draft SI was laid. Why was it not, and when will it be?

ACRE might be struggling to do something that the Royal Society of Biology and others say is simply not possible. Given that much of this is about retaining public confidence, I took a look at ACRE, on whose advice so much of the draft SI depends. They are seven very eminent and experienced people, and I am sure they do an excellent job, but in the declaration of interests, six of the seven record very direct links with companies that might well benefit from the technology—no fewer than three of them quote Syngenta. I simply say to the Minister: if or when the public look at this, I suspect we know what they are likely to think. Is there sufficient balance and independence? Is she sure that the regulatory framework is right?

The Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s next concern follows from that uncertainty about the definition of qualifying higher plants, in that GMO developers in effect self-declare whether their product is in that category. Question 5 in the Committee’s list of questions to DEFRA queries that. The answer is that the advice from ACRE is that the risk from genetic technologies is no greater than traditional breeding—well, frankly, they would say that, and that is the nub of the argument. Will the Minister explain why she believes the public will have confidence in that approach, given that there is no way of anyone knowing or being able to find out whether something is being developed with the technology unless those developers choose to declare it? Frankly, with this draft SI, it is just down to trust.

Organic farmers are particularly concerned, given that the new notification measures do not include location, scale or details of containment measures. The DEFRA answer puts the onus on researchers, again relying on trust, which is not enough to reassure organic growers who risk loss of certification. When asked about who would be liable if something went wrong, DEFRA’s answer is, in essence, that it does not believe that that will happen.

Once again, I find myself with the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on this. Its sensible conclusion was that

“the Department should consider conducting and publishing an evaluation of…new rules and of any environmental or economic damage, to inform the wider reforms that the Government intend to take forward in this area.”

Will the Minister agree to do that, and if not, why not? I appreciate that she may not have an immediate answer to hand on all or many of my questions, but if she committed to writing to me, that would be helpful.

The Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also points out the devolution issues: the draft SI applies to England, as the Minister said, while the Scottish and Welsh Governments have expressed concerns and are not pursuing equivalent changes. That may not be an issue now but, given the discussion about the UK internal market rules—some of us will remember them from some months ago—it is worth noting that there may well be challenges ahead as different parts of the UK take different approaches.

Finally—you will be pleased to hear, Sir Gary—from the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee came the bigger constitutional question of whether this is the right way to proceed on an issue of considerable public interest. The Committee makes a strong case that this should have been done through primary rather than secondary legislation, not least because there is no opportunity for amendment. Within this SI alone, it is clear that there are provisions ripe for amendment and debate, which cannot be done in Committee today.

Let me conclude by returning to the wider argument. The Government’s case, as I understand it, is that the existing safeguards mean that GE research is going elsewhere, not just from the UK but from the EU. As I said, the EU takes the same view and is consulting on similar changes. I suspect it will get to a similar place, but possibly—this is a risk for us—with a better overall regulatory structure. We need to be mindful of that.

If the aim is to allow small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups to compete against much better-funded bigger players—and that is to be welcomed—they would be making a judgment about which regulatory regime will give them the best future. The Royal Society of Biology makes that point in its submission. That is why we need the right regulation; not only is no or limited regulation dangerous in itself, but it will not be attractive to those who want to take their research further, with regulatory approval from a much larger entity that serves a much bigger market. We want to know if and when that broader regulatory architecture will be available. When is the primary legislation going to be laid? How advanced is the thinking on it? What does the Minister have in mind? These are all reasonable questions that should have been answered before, not after, this initial step.

Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the guidance to be published clearly lays out how the current architecture works and explains precisely who does what and what the roles of ACRE, the Genetic Modification Inspectorate—which is, as the Minister said, a part of the Animal and Plant Health Agency—and the Food Standards Agency are? It is not obvious to many people how those fit together so it would be helpful to have it clearly laid out.

This relatively short SI raises many complicated, important and substantial questions, which will no doubt be returned to when we have primary legislation. As I said at the outset, Labour wants this technology to work. We want our scientists to be at the forefront, but that will happen only if everyone has confidence in the regulatory framework in which they operate. That is the way to get ahead—for consumers, producers and the environment. Get the framework right and we are on to a winner.

[The Chair]

Thank you for such a comprehensive response; I learned a lot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for the vast experience he brings as a former Trade Minister. Having recently been on a trip to the Dubai Expo, where I talked about some of our agri-innovation opportunities and we looked at how different societies around the world can beat some of the challenges of ensuring food security, I could not agree with him more.

I wish to reassure the hon. Member for Cambridge, who took some time to articulate how he was not satisfied with the framework in respect of both guidance and investors. The rest of the GMO framework remains unchanged and will do so until we consult in the future, as I set out.

Let me turn to the scientific criterion for the “higher plant” equivalent to plants that could have been produced by traditional breeding methods. The composition of genetic material in individual plants of the same species is subject to high levels of natural variation and selection, which plant breeders have exploited for centuries. Our understanding of plant genomes and the accompanying advances in technology have increased significantly since the previous legislation and enabled scientists to utilise variation more efficiently by making precise changes to the plant’s DNA. Such changes are equivalent to those that could have been achieved by traditional breeding methods. That is what we mean by the classification of a “higher plant” in the provision.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hear what the Minister says, but the submissions from a range of learned organisations suggested that it is rather a difficult distinction to make. That is the nub of the argument, which is why the ACRE guidance is so important. Will she address that?

[Jo Churchill]

Yes, I will indeed. The guidance will help those who conduct the field trials. ACRE is currently in the process of developing the guidance that will help developers who use genetic technologies such as gene editing to make the plants that they want to grow and test in the field for research purposes.

I can provide a summary of the guidance, if that will help. Developers will need to know whether their plants are exempt from GMO restrictions on the basis that they meet the criteria for qualifying higher plants, as defined in the SI. The guidance makes it clear that notification is required in all cases, so I push back at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that it is not required. The guidance demonstrates which type of genetic changes can result in higher qualifying plants and highlights examples to illustrate how key criteria on natural processes and traditional methods and selection might be applied. The guidance provides further detail for cases that do not fit into that precise description. We make it clear that developers can always seek a view from DEFRA if they are unsure. As the hon. Gentleman said, if the EU is not currently consulting, it will be shortly, and will move along a similar trajectory.

I think I have covered investment, other than to say that the legislation will unlock private investment because we have some of the greatest scientists and they have been leading some of this work. It is important that we do not hamstring them. Argentina began to regulate GE more proportionately to risk in 2015 and approved 22 new products for research and development purposes—we are only talking about research and development—between 2016 and 2019. We have had only three come forward since 2017. This SI is all about enabling our developers and scientists to move forward.

The hon. Gentleman asked about protection against cross-pollination and the potential impacts on the organic sector. I refer him to the fact that we have 30 years of experience of genetically modified field trials and thus far there has been no evidence that pollen, seed or other plant materials capable of reproduction from GM field trials have affected businesses in the UK organic sector. When researchers notify DEFRA of a field trial, they have to confirm that they will put in place measures to minimise the possibility of reproductive material from the qualifying higher plant that they are to trial affecting commercial crops. The scientists involved are keen to ensure that they are looking only at the results of that trial. Arguably, it is as important to them as to those who surround them that the trial is done in a competent scientific way so that they can rely on the data it gives them.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I quite accept the point that the Minister is making, but of course the difference is that for the past 30 years people have known where those things have been happening, there have been containment measures and they could make necessary adjustments. The key difference now is that they will not know.

[Jo Churchill]

There will still have to be a notification of where the trials are ongoing. Arguably, we are talking about looking at traditional breeding methods. We go back to what I know the hon. Gentleman and I will disagree on; however, this is about proportionate risk, and the fact is that we have been doing this for some 30 years. That adds to the bank of knowledge to reassure us that we are safe in the knowledge of moving forward with this very proportionate small step to ensure that we can optimise in the marketplace what we are trying to do, which is to support the plant-breeding sector. As I said, it spends 20% of annual turnover on R&D activities, and it is incumbent on all of us, given the positives that can come out of this, to support it.

In the past three years, we have approved through DEFRA three field trials involving GM or GE crops: camelina plants to produce omega-3 oil; a brassica to lower the level of sulphur-containing compounds, which although beneficial, at higher levels can cause adverse effects in livestock, such as reduced feeding and growth; and a wheat that, when used in food production, results in lower acrylamide, which has been found to be carcinogenic.

Development of GE products can take up to 10 years. In my opening speech, I laid out that we are progressing at a measured and proportionate pace in order to get this right. My intention is to get this right. That is why I can assure the hon. Member for Cambridge that, as we move forward, the consultations into the broader GMO framework will take place. We propose to come forward with primary legislation; that will give him and others the ability to challenge, as we do in this place, to ensure scrutiny.

Moving forward with the broader approach to the regulation of technologies such as gene editing, we recognise the strong public interest to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, but we also recognise that there are gains to be made. He mentioned many of the submissions but he did not mention the one from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, which alluded to the benefits. Many others also highlighted the benefits. We will be taking this step by step. Our approach to regulatory reform will be measured. We want a proportionate, science-based regulation that protects people, animals and the environment.

The UK agriculture sector now faces a situation in which it must do more with less. We must provide nutritionally high-quality food while reducing our use of water and energy, all in the context of a changing climate that makes food production through existing methods more difficult. As I outlined, the changes introduced by the statutory instrument will help researchers and scientists to harness the benefits of genetic technologies with greater ease. I therefore commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022.

Food and Farming: Devon and Cornwall

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. What an interesting debate it has been. It was not exactly as I expected, and it started in Ukraine. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) on his barnstorming performance and critique of the Government, which I almost entirely endorse. I would like to hear more of it, not least because of some of the important points that were made in general—not just about Devon and Cornwall. He made the point about the lack of impact assessment for the environmental land management scheme, for which we have been calling for a long time. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) pointed out, many of his points have been prosecuted by the Labour party right the way back to the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020. My hon. Friend also raised important points about pigs, which, as a Member from the east of the country, I am very aware of. I thought some of the comments from the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), were very perceptive, and I associate myself with them. This is a complicated issue, but I am afraid the Government have not covered themselves in glory on it.

The debate is timely because it is happening during the NFU conference, which some of us were fortunate enough to enjoy yesterday, not least the opening address from Minette Batters, who I think would join the case for the prosecution. She said that the Government have shown a

“total lack of understanding of how food production works”,

introduced “completely contradictory policies” on farming, and risk “repeatedly running into crises” through the lack of a post-Brexit plan for UK farming. That is a pretty damning indictment of this Government’s policies and position.

That is also what I hear from people in Devon and Cornwall. As I said, I am from the east, but I am delighted to have trips to that part of the country to hear from people. One of those trips—to see some of the ELMS pilots—was at the invitation of the Minister herself. Those pilots, as I have said before, were very interesting. I contacted one of the farmers whom I had been to see—Holly Purdey at Horner farm, which is an example of a small enterprise, just over the border from Devon—and she told me:

“Our dream is just to show that it is possible to create a positive integrated model of farming that means we can tackle the climate and the biodiversity crisis while producing nutrient dense food for our community”—

mixed farming. That is what this is about: a change back to a different form of production. Holly is able to do that, to some extent, through ELM, but many are finding it much, much tougher.

I suspect that many people here will know Robin Milton, the chair of the Exmoor National Park, who has hosted me twice—I am very grateful to him. Members who know him know that he has strong views and is not shy in coming forward with them. He is pretty appalled, frankly, about the effect that the transition to a different support system is having on the upland areas. He was quoted in Farmers Guardian last week as saying that the lack of suitable uplands support package was “reprehensible”. I suspect that that was reflected in some of the comments that we heard from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). The Government will say that more is coming down the line and that there is more to do, but frankly, people are making decisions now. They have to live their lives, and they have to have some idea of what the next few months and years will bring. This is just not working for them.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale echoed in their points, I have also heard that tier 3 ELM in particular looks all too likely to become a scheme that rewards very rich landowners for carbon capture and storage. In the wider sense of the term, that is a perfectly attractive and good thing to do, but look at the cost in damage to food production and to some of our best agricultural land. The Secretary of State tried heroically to defend the position at the NFU conference yesterday, under tough prosecution from Minette Batters. I have to say that I am not sure that the audience was convinced, but the Minister has the opportunity to put on the record where the idea to split ELM into a third/a third/a third came from. The widely accepted view is certainly that that is what is going to happen, but it is clearly not what most people want. Will the Minister tell us whether the split will be 60/20/20 if that is what it ends up having to be?

The Secretary of State also had to deal yesterday with the extraordinary muddle that the Government seem to have created over some of the labour issues. I will not go into those in detail, but it seems that last week, the Home Office wrote to labour providers to say that they would have to pay a whole lot more—more than £12 an hour in general. As a Labour politician, I quite like higher wages in general, but that has to be done in a way that works and is viable for employers, as the Labour party’s record shows. Many Cornish growers I have spoken to would really struggle to meet those kinds of rates. They had a tough enough struggle last year with much of the daffodil crop not picked and consequently not grown this year. Can we have it on the record from the Minister that, as the Secretary of State said last week, it was a mistake? Will the Home Office clarify that? After listening to the speeches this morning, I have to ask whether the Home Office is part of the same Government. The Conservatives seem to manage different parts of the Government as if they are not part of an overall whole. Well, they clearly are not. They work in completely contradictory directions. That is a strong message that I also get from farmers in Cornwall and Devon, because it appears that different Departments are doing completely contradictory things. That makes no sense to people out there. They do not care which Department it is—it is the Government. The Minister is looking pained, and I understand her pain, but they need to get a grip.

Reference has been made to the interpretation of the farming rules for water by the Environment Agency—another example of muddle and contradiction. In his opening comments, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon seemed to suggest he was surprised that, after the escape from Brussels, this was happening. Had he never noticed that the British civil service has consistently gold-plated EU regulations over the years? There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problems facing our country, and now we see the consequences. We need to get a grip of the way our own systems work, and I see no sign that the Government are capable of doing that.

Fishing was mentioned, so I will draw the Minister’s attention to two of the current problems around our coastlines, including Devon and Cornwall’s. There is huge upset around the Marine and Coastguard Agency boat checks. Those are important for safety, but driving people out of business is not the way to do it. In the last couple of weeks, there have been problems with the inshore vessel monitoring systems, where type approval has suddenly been withdrawn on one system. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what is going on.

Finally, I will turn to important points made about tenants and commoners. I am grateful to Jo Joseph and the 3F Group in the south-west for highlighting the concerns of commoners, who feel let down by the Government’s not resolving some of the issues facing them. The points about tenancies are absolutely crucial. It is clear that in a complicated network of systems and negotiations, things are not working at the moment. A point was made strongly to me by a key producer that, in the end, people might be able to manage without a subsidy, but they cannot manage without land. If we lose access to land, we lose the food production.

The Labour party’s approach would be very, very different. We would make, buy and sell more British food, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport laid out a few minutes ago. We would also adopt a much more planned approach to land use to deal with the emerging range of problems so that we can maintain the rich and varied collection of family farms in Devon and Cornwall, which are so important in terms of not just food production, but quality of life, cultural heritage and tourism. They are the key to what makes those places so special, and they are too precious to lose.

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

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox), from whom I learnt so much in my days as his Parliamentary Private Secretary, on securing this really important and wide-ranging debate. I cannot pretend to be a Devon or Cornwall farmer, but I should declare my farming interests, which included, until 15 years ago—for the whole of my life before that—a very fine herd of pedigree South Devon cattle, of which we are inordinately proud in our house, so I feel I have at least some skin in this debate.

Too many points have been raised for me to cover them adequately here. I have ripped up the speech that I prepared and will do my best to address the points raised. I encourage Members from across the House to bring groups of farmers—by Zoom or in real life—to meet me or representatives of the RPA to talk through their concerns more fully. This is a period of change in agriculture, and change is difficult. We have to keep the lines of communication open. I will do my best to allay concerns now, but I am very keen to do that on a one-to-one basis at any point.

As the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) put it, producing food environmentally is at the heart of what we do as farmers. Many Members mentioned the importance of food security; the Government completely shares that concern. We have not previously had the opportunity to have this discussion in the context of what is happening in Ukraine, but I reassure Members that the food strategy White Paper will be published next month. Food and its production in the UK will be at the heart of that. I was gratified to hear what my hon. Friends the Members for East Devon (Simon Jupp) and for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) said about eating local, sustainable food. We can all do that as a small way of supporting British farming—so optimism, yes, but definitely not blind.

The impact assessments will be published in March. The pot of money available to farmers is the same. It will, however, be more targeted and used to support public goods. We have ambitious environmental goals, which are generally supported across the House. Farmers and fishermen want to help us to achieve those and we want to reward them for doing so. The sustainable farming incentive is piloted this year. We have seen the soil standard; that is going down quite well on the ground—ha, ha—with farmers.

The schemes are designed to be stacked, so the moorland standard is merely an assessment tool at the moment and it will be stacked with other schemes to ensure that farmers are adequately rewarded. That is part of a seven-year agricultural transition. We are one year in. This is new iterative policy making. Genuinely, things will change, and it is right that they do. We are working with about 4,000 farmers at the moment, who are testing our new policies in real life on real farms to see if they work. Where they do not work, we will change them.

I completely understand the angst expressed by Members from all part of the House, in greater or lesser measure, this morning. Farmers are dealing with this period of change and transition by voting with their application forms: 52% of farmers, including myself recently, are now in a countryside stewardship scheme. In those schemes, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon said, we have uplifted the payments significantly, by about 30%. They are well-rewarded, and the aim is that that group of farmers, who will probably be joined by many more this year, will go straight into the mid-tier of our new policies. That is not a complete solution but the interim solution while we get these policies absolutely right.

On tenant farmers, I hope the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) will be pleased to know that about a month ago we started a six-month working group—which is working hard already under the chairmanship of Baroness Rock, a well-known and vociferous tenant farmer—to make sure the policies work for them. We have been able to ensure that the SFI works well with three-year tenancies, which are the average, but we need to do further work to ensure that the higher-tier schemes are accessible and attractive to tenant farmers. I hope that Members across the House will take heart from what the Secretary of State said yesterday about how tier 3, the upper tier, may be particularly suitable for upland and moorland farmers.

It is a very difficult time for the pig industry. There is a complex problem, which I will not have time to go through, but I will talk about some of the solutions that we came up with at the pigs summit that we held the week before last. We had farmers, processors and retailers in one room. At times, the conversation was difficult, but it was frank and productive. What we as consumers can do is to interrogate continually where the pork we are eating comes from. Some 40% of the pork consumed in this country, much of it out of home, is not British; so please, I ask that when people go and have their pork pie for lunch, they ask where it comes from. We have a long-term problem with the pig supply chain. I have asked for that work to be done and regulatory changes to be worked up if necessary. If necessary, we will refer the whole issue to the Competition and Markets Authority. That careful fact-gathering work is going on at the moment.

We also need to work hard on the immediate problem in the pig sector. We have issued 800 butchers visas, for which there is no English language requirement. We are also encouraging producers very hard to use the skilled butcher route, which has been open to them since January 2021. I am pleased to say that in recent weeks 250 applications have been made by Cranswick and 100 by Karro under that route.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I had better make progress; I am so sorry.

Real progress has been made in that space. The slaughter incentive payment and private storage aid schemes, which we put in place at the end of last year at the request of the industry, have been improved, also at the request of the industry, with whom we work closely—I am leaving after this debate to talk to a big pig farmer.

Those schemes are now much more flexible, allowing the removal of the expensive parts of the pig—the bits that make the farmer money—with the rest of the carcase either frozen or destroyed. That is really helpful. We are doing granular work to clear the backlog. I met agri-banking leads this week, and we are trying to help where we can, including with farmers’ mental health, as this is a very stressful situation. On farming rules for water, we are working with the Environment Agency, the NFU, tenant farmers and the Country Land and Business Association. We will issue statutory guidance to the EA in March, when there should also be news on urea.

There is cause for optimism. We have been able in recent weeks to talk about three new, exciting schemes open to farmers. The animal health and welfare pathway was set out yesterday by the Secretary of State at the NFU conference. The farming resilience fund has already seen 1,000 farmers in Devon and Cornwall having one-to-one conversations over the kitchen table about how their businesses can adapt. The farming investment fund has received 695 applications from Devon and Cornwall. We listened and increased the fund from £17 million to £48 million, because farmers wanted to apply. Farmers are voting with their application forms; they want to be part of these new policies.

Many Members raised visas. We have had a seasonal agricultural workers scheme since the second world war. Last December we gave the sector clarity with an extension of that seasonal workers route: 30,000 visas available this year, with a potential 10,000 extra if we need them. Crucially, for some of the constituencies represented here, we were able to extend that to ornamental horticulture. Members will be pleased to know that 85% of DEFRA staff work outside London.

We should be lining up to buy British at home and abroad, and we are doing that with agrifood attachés and the new export council. I am thrilled that there will be pitchforks behind us as we make this agricultural transition, backing us all the way. I encourage hon. Members to enjoy Cornish pasties, clotted cream, Cornish Yarg, west country beef, Tarquin’s gin and turkey from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon, and to get with the programme.