Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

I beg to move,

That on Thursday 25 October, after hearing oral evidence in accordance with the motion agreed to by the Committee on Tuesday 23 October, the Committee shall hear oral evidence from the following until not later than 4.30pm—

(1) Ulster Farmers’ Union;

(2) NFU Scotland;

(3) Scottish Government;

(4) Quality Meat Scotland.

I wish to record my thanks and that of the Committee to the patient Clerks, who have made accommodations following late requests for additional witnesses.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. Simply put, we need to hear from the Rural Payments Agency and the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The one thing that came out of our earlier sittings was that no one quite knows how what is in the Bill will work, so we need to know from the extant organisations—they might be replaced, but that is something for the Government to decide—exactly how they think they will operate. I ask for another sitting to hear witnesses from those organisations. They might not be able to come, because of the short notice, but they should be called to account. I hope that would be agreed unanimously.

[The Chair]

In answer to the point of order, my understanding is that the organisations to which you refer were invited to participate but to date have failed to say that they want to attend. I am not sure, but I suppose we have similar powers to a Select Committee to compel them, but the fact is that they have not responded.

Furthermore, those organisations have the right to submit written evidence if they wish to do so at any time. I strongly advise and encourage those with an interest in the Bill—I of course am strictly impartial—to do so, if that is what the Committee wishes. I, however, have no power to alter an agreed programme, so I must now proceed.

I shall add one caveat: if by consensus—it has to be by consensus—the Committee decides to take further evidence later, my understanding is that that is probably practicably possible, but the Programming Sub-Committee would have to reconvene. I suggest that the most practical way forward, given that we are where we are and that those organisations have not responded, is that they are encouraged to provide written evidence, which will of course be made available to all the Committee. It goes without saying that, outside this Committee Room, neither the Chair nor anyone else has any power to restrict conversations between any Member and any organisation, so if Members wish to seek input and advice, they are at liberty to do so, as always.

Question put and agreed to.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Q A final point: if we got that right and had a single, coherent system, what impact do you think that might have on our market-access efforts in other countries, in terms of giving reassurance to overseas veterinary authorities?

John Cross: Over the years, I have been quite heavily involved in international trade development, and one of the things that struck me in the south-east Asian markets that people talk about, and particularly in China, where there are huge opportunities, is that when you sit in front of Chinese veterinary officials and talk to them about market access, their primary and secondary questions are all about proof of traceability, evidence of traceability, evidence of centrally co-ordinated disease control strategies and data. They talk about product quality and price et cetera at a much lower level later. Any of the big markets we would aspire to balance our whole trade picture with would challenge us on evidencing traceability —that would be their very first question.

Indeed, if we actually look at our proposition, as an English industry out there on the global stage, you cannot get away from the fact that all the other big meat-producing economies and traders have either already done what we are doing or are in the process of doing it now, at pace. I strongly believe that in this country we produce some of the best—if not the best—meat products in the world, but the challenge from future customers and competitors will be to prove it. At the moment, our system creaks and struggles to do that, whereas with the powers that we seek, that would be a real-time service that could be demonstrated digitally anywhere in the world, and that would put us completely on the front foot.

[Dr Drew]

Q Good morning, everyone. A simple question: to make the Bill work, what additional enforcement powers will be needed, and do you think that they should be in the Bill or in subsequent statutory instruments?

John Cross: To completely enable our vision of the livestock information service, your data has to be complete —you cannot function with half or sub-optimal data. If you are eradicating disease, and that is your focus on that particular usage of data, then unless it is complete, you will not achieve your goal. At the moment, DEFRA has powers to collect data for statutory purposes, but it doesn’t actually have the authority to share that data and to allow people within the supply chain to make use of the data.

There are a whole lot of opportunities for farmers themselves. For instance, there is at the moment a desperate need for farmers to make informed purchasing decisions about whether the cattle they are buying have come from a TB high-risk area or an edge area, or whether they are going to a low-risk area. That whole area of risk-based trading—for any disease, not just tuberculosis—needs information. You cannot manage risk without data. You need the ability to collect data in a complete format from everyone, and then you need to be able to share it so that farmers can access it easily and quickly and it is available in the supply chain. That is what is different—the collection of complete data and making it available.

Professor Fox: First, I would like to say that the Bill provides a really good framework for taking the whole agriculture sector forward. It has a lot to commend it, particularly the provision for payment for public goods and the recognition of a need to transition the sector into a new place.

In terms of the things around regulation enforcement that we would like to see, from an environmental perspective, the Bill could provide an opportunity to have a clear and simplified regulatory baseline. At the moment, we have a series of maybe four key pieces of legislation that are applied disparately, and the Bill offers an opportunity to provide farmers with a clarified and simplified view of what is required of them. I believe that will lead to better conversations between farmers, suppliers and ourselves about what is expected.

Within that, it should be recognised that the provision of environmental goods or public goods should be contingent on compliance with that regulatory baseline in order to give the public confidence that their money is invested in farmers and in outcomes that are genuinely provided in a healthy and vibrant countryside.

[Dr Drew]

Q In terms of what the Environment Agency does at the moment, will that just move across into this new regime, or will you need a complete reskilling of your enforcement people to make this operate properly?

Professor Fox: The issues in farming, and the impacts that farming has on the environment, will be consistent, whatever regulatory or legislative framework is in place. Our skilled workforce is there to advise farmers and to work with them, but then to enforce regulation if necessary—we will be consistent. Unless the Bill or the Secretary of State determines that other regulations will apply, the current framework will roll forward, and we will work on that basis.

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

Q On Tuesday we took evidence on public goods, and we primarily looked at environmental enhancements or public access. One possible public good, of course, would be to encourage farmers to participate in flood alleviation or protection schemes. How far—this may be specifically for the Environment Agency—do you think the Bill could be used to improve flood protection and to encourage farmers to participate in that type of scheme?

Professor Fox: Part 1 of the Bill provides the Secretary of State with powers to make grants to farmers for various public goods, including the management of water—within that, the management of flooding would clearly be a potential beneficiary. The opportunity to manage floods better through landscape-scale work with farmers is already widely recognised. There are a number of schemes around the country where farmers provide attenuation ponds to reduce flood flows, and in so doing provide important community benefits. This scheme of paying for public goods may well support and augment that, and that can only be welcomed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. Ringing the changes, would you like to kick off this time, Dr Drew?

[Dr Drew]

Q Welcome to you both. If this Bill is introduced in its current form, take me ahead 20 years. What will British growing, and in particular organic growing, look like?

Jack Ward: There is terrific potential for us to increase our market share. At the moment, we are about 50% of fresh produce, but that is enormously variable. On tomatoes, we only do about 20% of production; on pears, it is about 27%. There is a terrific opportunity. There is an appetite to buy British and an appetite from the retailers to buy British. We have the technology and the skills. There is an opportunity to increase our consumption, so from a fresh produce point of view we just see opportunity ahead. It is just a question of capitalising on that opportunity.

Helen Browning: The Bill is the only bit of the jigsaw that we currently have and we are pinning a lot of our hopes and fears on what it contains. The other more detailed policy that will come through will largely determine whether the powers given in the Bill are used in the right way and will lead us into a great future or not. We are also waiting for a food plan, which will be very important in terms of the market and the market pull. We do not know what the trade environment will be.

The Bill gives some new powers, which is helpful, but it does not set out anything other than the skeleton of what might come. There is a huge amount of devil in the detail that needs to follow, and we need to join all of those things up before I can properly answer your question. I can say what I would like to see in 20 years’ time, but I think the Bill gives us the “may”s, not the “will”s, and a lot more detail needs to follow.

[Dr Drew]

Q What specific improvements to the Bill would both of you like to see?

Helen Browning: The areas where I am still unclear in terms of the public good section is whether we are really focusing enough on soil. We talk about land; we do not talk about soil. We talk about natural culture or natural heritage; we do not talk about wildlife and biodiversity. We need to be a little more specific about some of those areas. Given that we do not yet have any sense of what might happen in other places around a food plan, I would like to see public health mentioned within the Bill as a public good. That would be very helpful.

There is an interesting split: there are some provisions for the support of public goods, and those are very welcome, although they need to be expanded. We then also have a lot around productivity, which could be helpful, but again the devil is in the detail in terms of how we are lining up and looking at those productivity measures.

Are we looking at the environmental and social impacts of what we are doing when we talk about productivity? How do we define that? We need to make sure that we are not setting up some new great initiatives in one place, maybe on the fringes of the field, but not thinking about the overall industry and how it will operate, and how we are going to green the whole of farming and the food system over the next 20 years.

There are still some improvements that need to be made, but, as I say, it is the way this will be interpreted, particularly the definition of what we mean by productivity, that we need to look at hard.

Jack Ward: The first thing to say is that the fresh produce of industry is largely operated outside of the common agricultural policy; it has had very little support over the past 40 years. Some of the things in the Bill are definitely positives. We welcome the continuation of the producer organisation scheme, and we look forward to conversations with DEFRA and the industry to see how we can improve the operability of that scheme. We all recognise that it has its shortcomings, but, going forward, it is a real opportunity.

The productivity piece is interesting. Within fresh produce we are always interested in how you reduce the risk of growing some crops and how you increase and improve the quality of those crops. The other interesting piece is around supply chain fairness. I know that is still to come, but obviously when you deal with multiple retailers and 85% of everything we produce goes through the hands of 10 people—possibly soon to become nine—how you address that imbalance between a large number of relatively small businesses and some enormous businesses is a constant source of tension.