Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is just like old times—we are back considering SIs, and it is good to see the Minister back in his place. I see Ministers rather like basketball players: they come and go, and they keep substituting for one another. On the Opposition Benches, there is a bit more consistency, and we tend to stick it out.

It is important that we have this opportunity to revisit the legislation. I do not know whether this is the amendment of the amendment, or the amendment of the amendment of the amendment—we have had so many of these SIs, and we have amended them and debated them thoroughly. It would be interesting to know where and when these mistakes arose, who found them and why we did not get it right earlier; perhaps the Minister will be able to say a few things about that.

It would also be interesting to know whether this SI is part of the process of evolution we warned there would be. Clearly, the EU does not stand still; some of these changes are inevitable, because the EU has made policy developments and we need to amend our legislative framework so that, when and if we drop out, we have clarity about the basis on which our law will be taken forward. Although this is secondary legislation, it matters, because this sector will be the most affected by no deal and, more particularly, whatever happens as a result of what goes on at the end of this month.

I have some specific questions for the Minister, but first let me say in passing that it would be nice if we were spending this time on the Agriculture Bill, which disappeared in November 2018. We have now spent nearly a year waiting for it to come back. I see these debates as like sticking the tent poles up in a gale when someone has forgotten the canvas. It would be nice to know where the canvas is, because we are going to get rather wet without it, given what has been happening outside with our weather and so on. It is important that we know where that Bill has got to.

I was impressed by some of the amendments tabled to that Bill by the Minister, along with the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). We thought they were excellent. Sadly, they seem to have disappeared. It would be nice to know whether the Minister still believes in those amendments. Certainly, if he and his colleague do not want to move them, we will, because they would provide actual protections. That is highly relevant to this SI, which is the most straightforward—dare I say it; we have some more difficult ones to come. We have rather a lot of time to spend on it, so we might as well spend it creatively and appropriately.

I am not sure in which debate I said this, because we have taken part in so many and we conflated a number of SIs, to the benefit of the Government. We did not have to do that, but clearly, with 500 Brexit-related SIs, of which more than 120 were DEFRA related, we had to do something to address the time restraints we faced and to do the job as well as we could. We warned that mistakes would be made because of the hurried way in which we went through this process—and mistakes were made. It is not without concern that farmers still face a great deal of uncertainty.

Clearly, this is the least contentious of the four SIs we will consider this afternoon. The other three are fairly straightforward, but we nevertheless have some concerns about them. This one is less of a concern, although I raised some worries about it previously and I will raise them again, because I am not sure we got the answers we would have liked to hear.

It is interesting to know that the regulations correct minor details, although the Minister rightly mentioned the impact on both the meat trade and vegetables. With that specifically in mind, a lot of the changes are about giving the Secretary of State all responsibility. It is important that we understand that. It is deliberately aligned, with the Government and the Minister being directly responsible. However, I do not understand why some of the references have been changed in the way that they have been. The Minister may want to explain that. Clearly, if the changes are purely to correct drafting errors, I will accept that, but some seem to change the responsibility even more, so that the Minister, and the Minister alone, is the responsible agency.

I have one very specific question, which I hope the Minister is able to answer. I am interested in why the olive oil and table olives sector, and likewise the silkworm sector, and interbranch organisations in the olive oil and table olives sector and the tobacco sector, were removed from this piece of secondary legislation. I do not understand why they were in the first or second draft—I think we are now on to the third draft.

On funding, although this is all about pillar 1, it has an impact on pillar 2. We had those debates; I just wonder where the Government are in terms of their philosophy on direct payments, which they want to remove. We do not yet have an agriculture Act in place to do that, so no doubt we will have to fall back on the current funding arrangements, presumably for the whole period of the transitional arrangements, which the Minister says could be up to two years. Unless the Government have sufficient resources, that will impact pillar 2. I always worry that money is filched from pillar 2. It would be good to know that the Government are clear that they will maintain enough payments in pillar 2. I know that is more pertinent to the second SI we will debate, upon which rural development regulations are contingent. It would be interesting to know whether the Government will put on the record that they intend to protect pillar 2 payments as a priority.

The other issue I want to raise is about monitoring and evaluation. The relatively new Secretary of State—everyone is relatively new, because we have had such a change in personnel—when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) about the office for environmental protection, which of course would be in place if we got the environment Bill enacted, acknowledged that there will be a gap in provision and that that will lead to some difficulties. I am not at all sure who is going to do the monitoring and evaluation. We talked about maintaining standards of imports from EU countries, but who will maintain the standards of our current produce? Unless there is an authority that is able to do that, we will have a significant problem identifying whether our standards, let alone the standards of what might come in from abroad, are maintained.

The Opposition, at least, have always argued that there is a shortage of people to do those jobs, because they have gone into Europe and may not have come back—I do not know what the current employment situation is. I know we have all these additional civil servants, but there is no guarantee that they have the right skills to do this sort of work. Sadly, there has been a decline in agricultural science under this Government. Clearly, the people who are going to do this sort of work will need scientific training, because it is about trying to maintain the quality of the products we are discussing.

There is a lot in the draft regulations, even though, as I say, this is the most straightforward of the SIs we will deal with this afternoon. I hope the Minister is able to say a few things about it before we get on to our slightly more detailed scrutiny of the other three SIs.