Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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George Eustice
Q
Professor Millstone: It is not just about stabilising farm incomes, but about ensuring adequate supplies for consumers. Futures markets, insurance and so on can create what is conceived of as virtual stocks, but you cannot eat virtual stocks—you can only eat real food. Therefore, you have to have mechanisms to ensure that there is an adequate supply of real food available, and not just financial instruments.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Vicki Hird: We have suggested two additions to clause 1 to deliver a truly sustainable farming Act, which is what we want. We want to bring public health and agro-ecological whole farm systems, such as organic, to the fore.
One of the fundamental things that we think the Committee and MPs need to drive—I feel slightly emotional being here because you have such an incredible opportunity and a responsibility in your hands—is to make the Bill far more robust in terms of duties. One of its weaknesses is enabling; we all said it would be an enabling Bill and the Government do not want their hands tied. As a result, we are extremely concerned that after a few years when there are pressures on the Treasury, there will not be the money to do the kinds of things that we have identified externally as absolutely essential but that the Government have not.
These are things that we know need to happen: we know we need to tackle climate change, soil erosion, animal health and welfare, antibiotic use and obesity. They are all big crises that we need to deliver on, but there is no obligation in the Bill to tackle those things. Ministers want to, but it could all fall apart. It would be adding duties and the responsibility to do those things and the ability to draw down a budget against assessment of needs from all those things, so that the Bill delivers the truly sustainable, healthy, nature-friendly farming that we know we can deliver—a lot of farmers are doing it. The Bill could be truly great if it had those duties, rather than lots of enabling.
We would also like clause 25 on fair dealing to be strengthened. We are really pleased to see it there but we have some specific amendments to it, which we can provide the Committee, on ensuring that it provides the confidentiality for people who need to complain about bad treatment and that it covers all sectors. Again, the duty of the Secretary of State to deliver the new fair dealing measure is crucial, for the reasons that Mr Eustice described, to ensure that farmers can have confidence in the market.
Professor Marsden: To add another issue, on the question of how to improve the Bill, there is nothing in it about rural development, which is important. This is an opportunity to link multifunctional farming, which seems to be where we are heading, with rural development. I am suggesting not the development of a second pillar necessarily but, for example, for the recipients of financing and whatever funding there is not to be restricted to farmers alone. It could go to partnerships, place-based partnerships—some good pilots of which are going on in England and in Wales—and consortiums of landowners and stakeholders in rural areas to work together.
That is the other shift we need—in the mentality of funding for public goods. Rural development forms a gap in that. One might argue that that could be left to whatever comes out of the shared prosperity fund. I am, though, concerned about that, because it might lead to concentrated dollops of funding—to cities mainly—and we really need much more distributed, bottom-up and facilitative funding for things like a post-Brexit LEADER programme.
David Baldock: First, to follow up on that and to amplify what Vicki said about duties as well as powers, I noticed that the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee pointed out that 36 clauses in the Bill confer 26 powers on Ministers, but include hardly any duties. At the moment there is a duty on the Government to introduce and operate agri-environment schemes, but even that duty is going. We are actually moving backwards on duties.
Secondly, on the budget issue, I understand that the Treasury does not like to have its hands tied and so forth, but we are in a position here that there is no guarantee whatever of multi-annual funding for agriculture. Lots of sectors have special pleading here, but the fact is that farmers do not work on a CSR—corporate social responsibility—cycle; they are not investing on that timescale. Therefore, either in the Bill or through some parallel commitment, it is important—there is a lot of sectoral join-up here on the environment and farming sides—to have some kind of forward-looking structure. That is not just a five or 10-year agreement for an individual farmer, but some sense of where things are going for the industry and infrastructure, and how we are going to meet future Government objectives.
Thirdly—a point that has not come up yet—at the moment the Bill contains nothing about the regulatory baseline, the environmental baseline, for agriculture in future. I understand that that might come forward in separate legislation, such as the environment Bill, but it might not—that Bill might not happen. There is the possibility, which is slightly more than theoretical, that farmers take up the de-linking option, the payment option, under the scheme, therefore finding themselves outside cross-compliance and outside good agricultural environment condition, which means that the baseline in those circumstances—without having a position in law—will be weakened. In fact, we could go back from where we are now. Good agricultural environment condition is a very important part of cross-compliance. It was our major means of protecting soil, so it is the only means of protecting soil through the public sector at the moment. I want to emphasise—although we all know this—that it is a key area that should not be forgotten.
The Chair
Professor Millstone, do you want add anything to that?
Professor Millstone: I agree with my colleagues.
Colin Clark
Q
Professor Marsden: One suggestion in my amendment was that, right at the start, you have interlinked and interlocking objectives: promoting farming and food systems for ecologically restoring and protecting the environment, delivering resilient forms of food production and supply, which enhances food security, and improving quality food access, consumer choice and public health benefits. If you put those three things together, rather than in separate subsections, what that conveys is that any financing would have to pass those integrated tests. On the ground, that would effectively mean that it would be re-linking production in many respects. No public financing would be given unless sustainable production was leading to environmental gain or environmental restoration. It is not either/or; it is both together. A lot of research shows that we have spent 20 or 30 years developing very complicated environmental initiatives and processes, but they have been separated from agricultural practice. This is the opportunity to say, “No, we want agricultural practice to be central to delivering on environmental gains.” That is a message that needs to be put right at the start of the Bill.
Dr Drew
Q
Professor Marsden: Clearly, that is an institutional question. There are a lot of institutional questions that this implies that may not eventually need to go into the Bill, but it does obviously have institutional implications.
In my view, all of this is leading to more place-based systems of integrated management of land and the biosphere. One way or another, with bottom-up partnerships or with some level of regional sensitivity, we have to manage regional diversity in the land base of the UK. That means the landholders and stakeholders being fostered to come together in different ways, not necessarily through a top-down, dirigiste infrastructure, but to develop whole tracts of land—not just a farm, but whole regions—such that we have catchments and regions that are much more sustainable and that are delivering the big goals on climate change as well as individual farm landscape. There is a big institutional challenge here to get local diversity and regional diversity at the heart of these sorts of policies.
David Baldock: As you said, the Bill does not spell out how the policy would work. We are all wondering how that might operate, and there have been some indications in a separate paper. This is clearly a source of uncertainty at the moment; you have powers with less specificity about how they are used. In principle, the public goods frame provides a good framework for delivering the right outcomes in the uplands or elsewhere, but it would be helpful to spell out how that will be met and how the local dynamics, which Terry talked about, can be matched with national objectives as well. If we look at the implications of the 1.5 degree target for the UK and for the world, we find that agriculture will have to make pretty significant changes over the next 20 years to the way soil carbon is managed and to the way energy is used in agriculture. That means that you need some strategic vision of where agriculture and land management are going, and you need to spell that out in a series of objectives a bit more clearly so that we do not have a slightly random selection of public goods that are produced according to local whims. I very much support the bottom-up approach, but that must be balanced by some quite clear strategic goals—we know we have them, but they have not been incorporated in a way we can see yet.
Vicki Hird: To add something on your question on institutions, David, we do not currently have the capacity to do that—the capacity is quite atomised. There is a lot of really good stuff on agri-environment, nature and conservation that is not doing the job adequately, because it has not got the capacity. We need to build that up, and it would have to fit with the vision, as David said.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Q
Professor Marsden: In a sense, it is fair for them to make that assumption at the moment. The message to get across to farmers’ interests is that it needs to be in there, but it needs to be there in a different way. We need to encourage a transition in the UK towards much more sustainable types of farming and towards the production of food of a healthier sort, which creates health benefits for consumers. It is not business as usual here—the point is that it cannot be business as usual for agriculture post Brexit—but neither is it simply an environmental agenda. That is why I say we need agriculture plus environment at the centre of this.
Dr Drew
Q
Diana Holland: We see it as a fantastic opportunity, but at the moment it is a big missed opportunity. We have been calling for a strategy for agriculture that looks at the whole food supply chain for a long time. What is missing from the Bill is any recognition of the agriculture workforce. A whole lot of things have happened to agricultural workers in recent times. There are ways in which they are protected internationally, because they are recognised as a particularly vulnerable workforce. If you look at the most recent report by the director of labour market enforcement, he includes agriculture among high-risk sectors. While a number of bodies are dealing with the most extreme ends, it is really important that the workforce are included in a strategy for agriculture going forward. We are very supportive of the need to look for a positive way forward, but we have proposals and suggestions for how that could include the workforce.
Ed Hamer: I echo those comments. Our members certainly find the proposal on the table progressive. We have a couple of concerns. We would like the Bill to be more supportive of the actual production of food—particularly healthy, affordable food for local and regional markets. We also have genuine concerns, which were echoed by some MPs on Second Reading, that nature-friendly farming could displace active farmers who produce high-quality food. Although we understand that food itself cannot be listed as a public good, we strongly believe that access to healthy and affordable locally produced food can and should be recognised as a public good in the Bill.
Dr Drew
Q
Diana Holland: We think a clause should be added that specifically recognises the need to protect standards for agricultural workers. Sustain is supporting an amendment, which we would be happy to be attached to, on the kind of protections that the former Agricultural Wages Board provided. We recognise that this is a framework Bill and there are different ways of expressing things, but in the absence of anything at all we would want something very specific to be added that would recognise that matter. This is meant to be dealing with Brexit, and the treaty of Rome specifically says in article 39 that there should be a fair standard of living for workers in agriculture.
We have seen with the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board in England a deterioration in pay. You would expect us to say that; we are trade union representatives. We have collected evidence from our membership that in the year after the abolition, 56% of those surveyed had not had a pay rise. Of those who had had a pay rise, 82% had had it imposed, and of those who had not had a pay rise, one third had gone to their employer to ask for a pay rise and been refused. A series of people formerly covered by the Agricultural Wages Board in England have had their pay completely frozen until the national minimum wage catches up with it, whereas in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland that is not the case.
In fact, just this month, the estate agent and land management advisers Strutt & Parker said in Farmers Weekly:
“It is difficult to justify suggesting that English employers should pay their employees less than they would receive if working in Wales—particularly given the shortages in skilled labour the sector is facing.”
They have recommended pay rises of 2.5% to 3.5% to deal with what is happening in England. That is a very specific example, but the unintended consequence—or perhaps, given the estimates made at the time, a recognised consequence—of the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board is that conditions on not just pay but sickness, holidays and all the other things that were protected are deteriorating. We are extremely concerned, and there is an opportunity in this Bill to look at what is happening. If we are going to deliver decent agricultural production for the future, we need workers who are recognised and remunerated effectively. Without that, we are in serious danger of not being able to deliver in the way we should.
Ed Hamer: We see a clear opportunity for improvement in clause 1(1), and we have tabled an amendment on agri-ecology. At the moment, the Bill replaces direct payments with environmental land management payments, which in their current form do not guarantee food production in addition to the delivery of public goods.
By contrast, the agri-ecology amendment would focus on holistic farming systems as opposed to set-aside or marginal conservation measures. To give you an example, the payment identified under ELM would pay farmers for income forgone on the field boundaries, whereas in the middle of the field they could continue to spray pesticides or cease farming altogether. With the agri-ecology amendment, the integration of whole farm agriculture and agri-ecological principles would incentivise farmers to produce food on the field in addition to introducing ecological focus areas or diversity around field edges. Under the agri-ecological amendment, it is the farming system itself that delivers the public good.
George Eustice
Agri-ecology and other whole-system disciplines such as agroforestry would be covered and empowered under clause 1. We are considering that, but I would be interested in your views on the key barriers to your members’ setting up and what type of support would be most useful.
Ed Hamer: The majority of our members are farming on smaller acreages, typically anywhere between 1 and 20 hectares. At the moment our biggest challenge is access to markets. Over the last 20 years or so there has been significant under-investment in the infrastructure needed to support small-scale enterprises such as ours; I am thinking of local abattoirs, local creameries, food processing infrastructure, seed networks and things like that. What would really help us is targeted support for local food funding, to recognise the networks and infrastructure required to get the food from the farm to the market.
To give you my example, I farm a community-supported agriculture scheme in Devon, which we started in 2010 without any money. We got a grant from the Big Lottery Fund and were able to invest in polytunnels and the infrastructure required to get our operation up and running, including the machinery that we needed and a delivery vehicle. With that small grant, we managed to build a business over a relatively short amount of time. We are now independent of grant funding.
Our experience teaches us that our members have had similar challenges, but not all have been fortunate enough to secure an initial capital grant. For local food grant funding, seed funding for SME agricultural start-ups would be a fantastic way of getting small enterprises up and running, to the point where they can be financially independent.
The Chair
Q
Wesley Aston: As far as we are concerned, the key issue in relation to this specific question is the ability to take our own decisions at a local level, and given the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive at the present time, we felt it was important to include that legislative power within the Bill. Going forward, as our colleagues from NFU Scotland have already said, there has to be scope within an overarching UK framework for the regions to tailor, within limits, the support to their individual circumstances—as we do under the CAP at the minute. That is critical going forward, and it is an opportunity for us all to try to address the three broad pillars of where we see support being essential.
From our point of view, that means sustainability and competitiveness, and particularly the whole issue of resilience. That goes back to my president’s point about having some sort of area-type payment as a resilience measure, but equally, the issue of the environment and how we take that forward. The Bill gives us more scope to do that, and we welcome the opportunity that it provides.
Dr Drew
Q
Ivor Ferguson: It is essential that we have different structures and devolved powers to handle our different farming systems. You have to bear in mind that farming in Northern Ireland is so much different from farming in England. As I said, there are very small family farms that are very intensive, with large numbers of livestock. From that point of view, we would certainly need the opportunity to tailor a scheme to suit our Northern Ireland farmers.
Wesley Aston: If I can follow up on that, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs came out at the beginning of this week with a report into Brexit and agriculture in Northern Ireland, and specifically recognised the point that Northern Ireland agriculture had to be treated differently. The Committee came up with various ideas, and that report is a very good one. We largely concur with a lot of the recommendations and conclusions that emerged from it.
The Chair
Q
Alan Clarke: We are a non-departmental public body in Scotland, responsible for promoting and protecting the red meat industry, and a lot of our activities are to promote some of the best brands around the world, including Scotch beef PGI—protected geographical indication—and Scotch lamb PGI. That is a difficult one for us, because we work within the structure that we have. We are not a lobby organisation like the NFU and so on, and we work very closely with Government. Really, we want to see a clear framework that our levy payers can effectively work within.
Jonnie Hall: May I respond to the question? Today, there are four settlements of the CAP within the United Kingdom, and it is absolutely vital that that continues to be the case going forward. A one-size-fits-all approach across the United Kingdom would be seriously difficult to manage and implement, and it could be seriously damaging to certain areas, particularly in Scotland. Remember that Scotland is predominantly about livestock. Given the nature of our terrain, the agricultural profile of Scotland is very much in that “less-favoured areas” category. It has very extensive agricultural systems. Something that may look right in terms of delivering the right policy outcomes for Cambridgeshire would not look right in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland. We have very different farming structures and very different farming needs, so the support has to be tailored, as it is today, at the devolved level.
The question is really about what vehicle that should be delivered through. There was an earlier point about whether to deliver it as part of a UK Agriculture Bill and having a schedule in there for each of the devolved Administrations, or whether Scotland should do something separately, through the Scottish Parliament, and run its own Scottish agricultural policy. It is vital that Scotland has the latitude to implement the right measures, appropriate to its needs.
However, we also have to respect and protect the internal UK market, so that there is not a huge disparity in how farmers are supported, which could distort trade within the UK. We are not in that game. We recognise the importance of preserving the integrity of the UK internal market, which is vital. We currently operate under the CAP, but we have four different settlements for it. We are looking in the future to operate under commonly agreed regulatory frameworks, so that we all play by the same rules but are not necessarily on a level playing field in terms of how support is delivered. That is the case today.
The Chair
Dr Drew, I know you have to leave, but if you have any further questions, please ask them.
Dr Drew
Q
Ivor Ferguson: I think it can. We fully understand that south of the border they will retain the CAP area payment system. I have been saying that we should not necessarily go along with that. We think that, if the payment structure was of low-level payments on an area basis, it would give us the opportunity to ward farmers on to an activity—producing goods, whether beef, milk or whatever.
The most important thing is that farmers who are actively farming and doing a good job should perhaps receive greater payments, and also related to their productivity and their looking after the environment. At the end of a long day, so long as the system rewards farmers for doing a good job, it does not matter in what way it is developed, because at least the farmers would be rewarded in a similar way or with similar amounts of money. We do not have to deliver it in the same way, so long as we get to the same point in the end.
Wesley Aston: In terms of the importance of the Bill to Northern Ireland, we support the idea of being able to regionalise and have that flexibility going forward. One overarching principle, at a UK level, is budgetary cycles, which are UK-wide, and also things such as standards, which are UK-wide. Those are the areas in the Bill that are important to us. In terms of the support measures, if you like, the ability to regionalise is critical, but at the UK level we have to have certainty around those other issues for all parts of the UK.
Ivor Ferguson: I would like to add on standards that it is so important for us to maintain the standards and to make sure that no food of a lower standard is imported. In Northern Ireland we export at least 80% of our products into the mainland GB market, so any lowering of standards would have a devastating effect on Northern Ireland.
Colin Clark
Q
Jonnie Hall: No; if the schedule was written in the right way it would be about enabling and it would provide Scottish Ministers with the powers to develop, deliver and implement a Scottish agricultural policy, as is effectively the case under the CAP. That is essentially what we are looking for. It is a choice of which vehicle the Scottish Government choose to use and whether they want the vehicle that currently has its engine running and is sitting in this particular Westminster process, or something that might be brought forward through the Scottish Parliament.
Cattle Compensation (England) (Amendment) Order 2018
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Cattle Compensation (England) (Amendment) Order 2018 (S.I. 2018, No. 754).
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I think that the Committee will have an interesting discussion. This is round three of a four-round contest this week—we have the Agriculture Bill again tomorrow—but this is an important issue. Obviously, the Opposition have some issues with the order.
The background to the order is fairly well known. We no doubt disagree about the causes and consequences of bovine tuberculosis, but we are not here to discuss that. We are here to discuss the compensation scheme, which is very important to my local farmers and to those of a number of other hon. Members here.
The operation of the slaughter policy derives from European Council directive 1964/432/EEC, which demands that we slaughter TB-affected animals. The reason why we have prayed against the order is, as much as anything, to get clarity from the Minister about why we are reducing compensation at this difficult time and what the impact is. As I said, we may disagree about the causes and consequences of bovine TB. We will not disagree that this is a dreadful disease that has a huge impact on our farmers, so any reduction in compensation needs to be looked at very carefully.
In 2015-16, 29,000 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered under the scheme. That cost the state about £30 million, so it is a considerable financial imposition on the state, in addition to the terribly bad effect on farmers. This proposal provides for a 50% reduction in compensation where an owner brings an animal into a TB-affected herd and that animal then tests TB-positive while the TB incident is ongoing. Cattle keepers accredited under a scheme based on the standards laid down by Cattle Health Certification Standards will continue to receive 100% compensation for all compulsorily slaughtered cattle, provided that the herd is accredited at the time of the breakdown. My first question to the Minister is therefore a general one: exactly how will that work? Obviously, some will be accredited, but others may have been brought in. We know that cattle passports and so on are not always as accurate as one would want. If a TB-affected cattle carcase has to be condemned because of being so unclean that there is a real risk of bacterial contamination, it, too, qualifies only for a compensatory payment of 50%.
Under the order, owners of TB-affected cattle who choose a slaughterhouse to kill the cattle could face at least a 50% reduction. For some, that is better, because they may have not got any compensation before. Again, I ask the Minister to be clear: who will receive the compensation and at what level? This measure is of course part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs TB eradication strategy.
Let me move on to the comments from others; I also have some questions. The proposal was not well received in the consultation: 76%—a fairly high number—disagreed with the compensation reduction, and although 47% supported reduced compensation for cattle that cannot be processed by a slaughterhouse because they are unclean, I suspect those people were clear that they stood to gain if they did things properly. The proposals have a negative impact on the cattle industry of about £0.7 million—many of these figures are in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. What impact is that likely to have on those people who are already struggling because of bovine TB?
I have a series of questions that I will go through slowly. Some of them are from the National Farmers Union, which has been quite trenchant in its criticism of aspects of the proposals. To look first at what I am concerned about: has DEFRA proved that the reduction is necessary? It is a large sum of money but, in the great scheme of what we pay out in compensation, it is a relatively small sum.
Has DEFRA considered and discussed the legal implications of the reduced compensation with the Animal and Plant Health Agency? There is some dispute over whether it is right and proper and whether it would lead to a legal challenge. If a bought-in animal becomes a reactor after entering a new herd—the timescale is as yet unknown, though the Minister might be able to say—what criteria will be used to state with absolute certainty that the animal contracted the disease from other cattle within the destination herd? At what point will DEFRA decide that an animal is no longer a migrant to the herd? That is quite a complicated issue—these are complicated matters—and that is where the Government might be subject to legal challenge.
How do the reduced levels of compensation provided for by the order compare with those available to cattle keepers in other EU states, particularly Ireland, which has its own problems with bovine TB? What is DEFRA’s assessment of the impact of this reduction on dairy farms that are forced to buy in herd replacement to meet contractual obligations? That is one of the biggest issues; it is not just a question of the loss of the existing cattle. They have to be bought in, and only from TB-affected areas. What impact would this loss of money have on that process?
What is DEFRA’s assessment of the risk to the quality and welfare of cattle that would result from the reduction in compensation, if it leads farmers to seek to buy replacement stock from the open market, or via live exports? Again, I know about the restrictions on from where to restock, but people who are suffering might look to other means to restock. That would not be any good, with the way TB is spread within the cattle stock as well as maybe from other vectors.
What is DEFRA’s assessment of the impact of this reduction in particular on tenant farmers who have no option but to restock before a breakdown has been resolved, or the impact on the stock value and the ability to assess capital for investment? As the Minister will know, that is the problem for tenant farmers who do not have spare capital: they have to borrow if they face a reduction in compensation. It already takes a considerable time to receive that money. In this case, they would not receive it, and there could be further delays.
Will cattle keepers have the option to pay the slaughterhouse to clip retrospectively where an animal is found not to meet the clean livestock requirements to protect the compensation value to the farmer and receipt value to DEFRA?
I have a couple more questions and observations from the National Farmers Union, and then I will finish. How will the decision to reduce compensation be taken in circumstances in which it cannot be determined whether cattle were unclean when they left a farm? That is the reality of abattoirs; one is always reliant on vets getting it right. The Minister will know about the number of clear cattle that go through, as well the number of cattle of uncertain status that are subsequently found to have TB.
What assessment has DEFRA made of the likelihood and cost of legal challenges? On what basis will DEFRA be able to deal with that without penalising a farmer for a third party’s actions?
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the changes will unfairly penalise farmers who may be in proximity to high-risk trading activity, rather than having bovine TB in their own herds because of something that they are in control of? They may receive lower compensation simply because of the proximity and activity of neighbouring farms.
Dr Drew
That is a very real point, because we still do not know enough about the transmission mechanism of bovine TB. Farmers may be innocent and the disease may have been brought in. We know from such experiences as that in Cumbria that transmission is associated with buying in stock. That certainly occurred after the foot and mouth episode, where the transmission of bovine TB was almost certainly the result of it being in the stock that was brought into Cumbria. That has happened on a number of occasions.
What consideration was given to other approaches to highlight the importance of clean cattle? What guidance has been given to farmers to try to ensure that we have clean cattle and wildlife clear of this dreadful disease, as we all want?
In the NFU’s consultation response—I will not labour the point, because many of the NFU’s concerns replicate points I have made—it was concerned about how the process will operate with the veterinary risk assessment that will be completed by the APHA. If DEFRA does not have sufficient confidence in the process and relationships with the state veterinary service are not always as good as they might be out on the farm, how can we say definitively that the farmer will not be the main loser? Farmers are losing money, but they are also, dare I say it, losing confidence in the process. DEFRA continually emphases its commitment to industry sustainability, and yet the order could place businesses under severe financial constraint. It would be interesting to know what the Minister intends to do to build confidence in the fairness of the process.
I have two more points from the NFU. It said that DEFRA should allow cattle keepers the option to pay the slaughterhouse in advance to clear the process. I made that point, but the NFU is clear that there needs to be a direct mechanism with slaughterhouses, rather than the current retrospective process. Finally, the NFU said that there is a need to consider that most cattle that go for slaughter because of TB are not at the stage of production or conditioning that is normal for finished animals. They may not have spent any time on dry pasture or bedding to help to clean them. The order will further penalise a cattle keeper who is already losing the production potential of an animal that is taken early.
To conclude, this debate is about technicalities, but it is also about farmers’ feeling that the process with an animal that is taken is somewhat unfair. Having dealt with the Minister, I know he is fair, but the process—in my case, the animal was a pet—is quite brutal. There is a view among farmers that they are always the ones who have to make sacrifices. They are making sacrifices with the cull, and the order creates another slippery slope by reducing yet again the compensation that they have received under successive Governments. Farmers are under huge pressure. I hope that the Minister will be able to allay a lot of those fears and keep the discourse going with the farmers’ organisations, which are not happy.
We need to deal with this dreadful disease, not make it worse. The bottom line is whether people will be tempted to take the law into their own hands if we withdraw compensation. I have always felt that one of the problems is that people under financial burdens are too often tempted to deal with those difficulties in other ways. I am not accusing farmers of any illegality, but these are desperate people who face a desperate disease and have to make very difficult decisions. If they are not compensated for the animals that they have lost, that can only add to their desperation.
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
It is great to have the opportunity to debate this order and to set out the Government’s position on these matters. I will turn later to some specific points made by the shadow Minister and by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire.
Bovine TB is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK today. Over the last 12 months, more than 33,000 TB-affected cattle have been slaughtered in England, which is an appalling waste. The disease is damaging our rural businesses and causing much distress for farmers and rural communities. The cost of controlling the disease is about £100 million a year and a big burden on the taxpayer. To protect industry and to reduce costs for the taxpayer, it is right that the Government should continue to take strong action to ensure that we have a successful and resilient cattle farming industry as the UK enters a new trading relationship with the world.
Our comprehensive strategy to eradicate TB includes commitments to strengthen cattle testing and movement controls; to cull badgers in areas where they are an important factor in spreading the disease to cattle; to support badger vaccination in the edge area of the high-risk TB area; and to improve biosecurity on farms and in trading. Adapting the way that compensation funding is used to incentivise the take-up of good biosecurity practices is an important element of the Government’s long-term TB eradication strategy. That is why we are amending the Cattle Compensation (England) Order 2012 to introduce small but important changes to the compensation regime in England. These changes will encourage more herd owners to take sensible and proportionate steps to improve their biosecurity, thereby reducing the disease threat to their own and neighbouring herds.
I recognise that, for business sustainability reasons, some TB-affected cattle farmers must be able to bring in new stock to replace the animals that they have lost, and there are no plans to stop this. However, paying full compensation for cattle brought into a herd with a known and ongoing disease problem could be a disincentive for some to take action to reduce their disease risks. That is why we have decided first to follow the example set by the Welsh Government in 2016 by paying reduced compensation for any individual animals that are brought into a herd under TB restrictions and that subsequently pick up the infection and are removed while the herd is still restricted. Cattle farmers who register their herds under the CHeCS TB accreditation scheme commit explicitly to take steps to reduce their TB risks. For that reason, I decided that we will continue to pay full compensation to farmers for herds that are accredited in that way, since they have demonstrated that they are already taking action to protect themselves and to improve their biosecurity.
Secondly, herd owners have the option of sending their TB-affected cattle to their choice of slaughterhouse and taking a payment from the slaughterhouse operator in place of DEFRA compensation, but currently they are sometimes reluctant to do so. Many tell me they would like to use their local abattoir because it is closer and it reduces the stress on the animal, but this option has been taken up rarely. Under the existing rules, the keeper suffers a financial loss if the animal’s carcase is condemned at the slaughterhouse, since they receive no compensation and no payment from the slaughterhouse. Incentivising keepers to take this option will enable some to negotiate better prices for their cattle with an abattoir that they know and reduce the cost to the Government of compensation. The order includes a new financial safety net provision so that those who opt to organise the slaughter of their TB-affected cattle locally receive compensation at the same rate as other keepers of TB-affected cattle if the animal’s carcase is condemned. We are therefore removing the risk that farmers currently face when they send their cattle to a local slaughterhouse. This measure has been welcomed by the industry.
Dr Drew
I very much welcome what the Minister has to say about that aspect of the order, but who makes that decision? Is it the vets in the abattoir, or does the farmer who brings in the animal have to put that to the abattoir as a compensation arrangement? I am a bit unclear about that.
George Eustice
The decision about whether a carcase is fully condemned because the disease is rampant and the animal has too many lesions will be made by the official veterinarian at the abattoir. Currently, a farmer who chooses to slaughter privately with a local abattoir will receive no compensation and no payment for the carcase. In the vast majority of cases, the disease is caught at an early enough stage that the number of lesions is very small, so the abattoirs are able to get salvage value from the carcase—they are able to salvage most of the meat and turn it into value. A number of farmers have told me that they would like to take that option with a local abattoir, but at the moment, the risk that they might get no payment at all is a barrier to their doing so. The decision about whether the animal is totally condemned is one for the official veterinarian. If it is totally condemned, the farmer will receive the full compensation payment.
The third and final change that the Government propose is to reduce compensation for TB-affected cattle that are so unclean that the slaughterhouse operator is unable to process them. The UK has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, and the Government are committed to raising them further. I believe that there is no excuse for sending unclean cattle to slaughter. Reducing compensation for cattle that cannot be processed for human consumption will send a clear message that the cleanliness of slaughter cattle, including TB-affected animals, is an important animal welfare consideration. Thankfully, the number of TB-affected cattle that have been rejected because they are too unclean to process is very low—we are talking in the region of about 20 per year.
The order targets bad practice. For example, when an animal is condemned, the farmer might not take care of it sufficiently in the 10 days or so that it might take for the lorry to pick it up and take it to slaughter. He might judge that there is no longer any interest or value to him in that animal and he will get compensation anyway. I want to discourage that sort of behaviour. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire is a breeder of Hereford cattle; my family are breeders of South Devon cattle. I, too, know what it is like to suffer TB breakdowns, and I know the trauma and distress that that causes. I can say this much: if animals are condemned, my brother takes care of them and ensures they have plenty of bedding in the week or so that it typically takes for the lorry to arrive. If the animals that arrive at an abattoir are so unclean that they cannot even be processed—if they are in the bracket of the 20 per year—it is likely that they have not been sufficiently cared for, and that other animal welfare issues pertain to that situation.
Dr Drew
The time that it takes to get cattle picked up is one of farmers’ biggest frustrations. I do not regularly get rung up about it, but when I do get rung up about a herd breakdown, the one thing I am always asked is, “Can you get these animals taken sooner rather than later?” That is the worry about this. I am not saying that neglect is in any way acceptable, but if someone has had a massive breakdown and they are told that their cattle may be taken some time over the next week to 10 days, that is not much of an incentive. Those people are really at their wit’s end. If there is one thing the Minister should take away from this, it is that we should speed up the process by which animals are taken—certainly, once they have a whole herd breakdown.
George Eustice
All I can say is that APHA does run certain programmes for that and picks up the animals as soon as it can. It usually happens within days; sometimes it can take a week.
I return to my initial point: typically, once an animal has become a reactor and tested positive to the disease, the farmer will keep it in isolation in a shed somewhere. Is it really too much to ask that farmers ensure there is full straw bedding in that shed for the week or so that it takes for the animal to be collected? My view is that it is not.
George Eustice
The approach will be exactly as it is now. The official veterinarian makes the decision about whether to condemn an animal for being too unclean to process. We have just passed legislation to have CCTV in slaughterhouses, and the official veterinarian collects photographic evidence to demonstrate that an animal was unclean. The OVs have processes to manage this. Ultimately, the FSA is independent and the OVs on the ground will make the decision, as they do on many other such issues.
The shadow Minister asked why we are making these changes. My approach to changes to compensation is clear: I have always rejected such changes simply for the purpose of saving money. In my view, we should change compensation arrangements if that will change behaviour. He also asked about the legal implications. I point out that we are doing exactly what the Labour Administration in Wales did in 2016. We are simply bringing England into line with the approach that has already been adopted in Wales, which has been successful and has not led to legal challenges.
The shadow Minister asked how we would determine whether a breakdown was due to a disease that an animal contracted before it entered the herd or when it entered the herd. We do not intend to make that distinction, since we are trying to incentivise caution among farmers about the animals they buy in. We want to make clear that if farmers are trying to go clear, they should not buy in animals that are at high risk of having TB. If it is possible for farmers to delay re-stocking and be more cautious about the way they do that, they may choose to do that.
I was very clear—we changed the order from its original draft to reflect this—that I want to ensure that any farmer who signs up to the CHeCS-accredited scheme to demonstrate that they are taking biosecurity seriously and taking proactive action to reduce the exposure of their herd will still qualify for 100% compensation. Any farmer who might be affected by this 50% reduction by bringing animals into the herd when they have an ongoing breakdown can mitigate that immediately simply by signing up to the CHeCS accreditation scheme. Anyone can join CHeCS; they have that option.
The second option, which should be seen in the context of earlier points, is that if a farmer has a breakdown or an animal is brought on, he would now have the option to go for private slaughter and get the salvage value under one of the other provisions that we are introducing. Even if a farmer said, for entirely ideological reasons, “I refuse to do biosecurity because I believe badgers are to blame, and I am not going to do biosecurity; I won't sign up to checks,” he still has the option to get a salvage value by sending that animal to a local abattoir of his choosing.
My final point is on scale. About 1% of cattle herds bring animals on to their herds when they are under a restriction. They tend to be predominantly dairy herds. We suspect that around 250 herds might be potentially affected by this measure, but every single one has the option to join the CHeCS scheme and to immediately mitigate that risk. That would be a positive step forward.
George Eustice
The CHeCS scheme is a United Kingdom Accreditation Service-accredited scheme that certifies that farmers are adopting proactive measures to improve their biosecurity. That could include, where necessary, putting additional fencing and protection on yards to stop badgers getting into contact with animals. It can involve adopting a particular risk-based approach to the way they trade. It can also involve investment in special drinking troughs so that badgers cannot get access to them, and so on and so forth.
I often hear from the hon. Gentleman and the Labour party that we should not be doing a badger cull and that we should be doing biosecurity, vaccination and other things. My answer is that we need to do all of those things. In the two areas where we first started the badger cull, we have seen a 50% reduction in the incidence of the disease, but that is not enough on its own. We also have to improve biosecurity and we have to continually refine our cattle movement controls. If the Opposition are serious about this, they must recognise that we must take biosecurity seriously too. That is what we are seeking to do.
Dr Drew
We will not push the question to a vote, because we are largely satisfied, but I hope the Minister will keep this under review. Cattle-to-cattle transmission is still, according to all the scientists, about 75% of the causation of TB. I do not want to get into badgers and all that. Anything to bear down on biosecurity is very important. Counterintuitively, my argument is that farmers under pressure would do the very opposite to that which the Minister is asking them to do. It may only be 20 cows, but the danger is that there are other things going on out there that we know should not be going on out there, and the Minister needs to keep reviewing this if we are ever to get on top of this dreadful disease.
On the basis of that understanding, we will not push this to a vote, but we will look very carefully at how these things are going to operate. Farmers need to have confidence in the scheme. If they do not have confidence in the scheme, it will not work.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the Cattle Compensation (England) (Amendment) Order 2018 (S.I. 2018, No. 754).
Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
George Eustice
Q
Andrew Clark: That is a good question. One of the things we would like to see is a simplification of the approach. The objective of simplifying and improving is laudable. One of the concerns about the transition relates to untangling the bureaucracy we find currently with greening—the detail of measurement and that type of thing. In terms of outcomes, however, some of those greening measures potentially have good benefits for farm businesses and the sustainable management of land and soils, and we would be disappointed if the existing benefits from agriculture production were lost during the transition period.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Andrew Clark: There are a number of worries. The Bill is fairly silent on three crucial areas that we think need to be addressed. Ministers have rightly made a lot of points about farmers’ proud record on caring for the environment and, in particular, animal welfare and health. It seems to us that the Bill should give greater provision to protecting and retaining farming standards, environmental standards and animal health and welfare standards, in the face of the new trading environment. We would like to see some measures, and perhaps some amendment, relating to that.
As the Minister has pointed out, the long-term commitment is for farming to continue to deliver a contract around environmental and land management. That is a multi-annual commitment, and we believe that there should be a multi-annual budget to go along with that, rather than just a year-to-year budget. We would like to see something that reflects the long-term nature of the farming community’s expectations in the Bill.
The final thing is that we feel that there is not quite enough agriculture in the Agriculture Bill. Although it sets out clearly what types of things can be done—perhaps not how they will be done—it does not say who will benefit from those payments. We think it is important that it is the active land manager, the farmer and the food producer. It should be seen through the prism of food production and the active management of land.
Dr Drew
Q
Andrew Clark: The economic modelling that has been done suggests that it is the livestock sector—particularly beef and sheep, and especially in the lowlands. A lot of focus is given to upland farming—I have great interest in that myself, having worked on conservation and environmental schemes for most of my career at the NFU—but lowland livestock farms in marginal situations in the west of the country have few choices other than grazing land. They are particularly vulnerable communities. Very often, they are communities; they are not just isolated farms. They form a network and the backbone of both the landscape and the farming community.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Q
As we go forward, how can we manage to have a system that works for the farmers who have intensified their farms and are going to green them up while not being unfair to the ones who are already very green? How do we reward progress and, at the same time, reward the people who have always been doing the right thing?
Andrew Clark: This is one thing I wanted to pick up in evidence to the Committee. The legislation that we are looking at is only half of the formula that needs to be delivered in order for farms to be profitable, sustainable and productive in future. It is the policy that goes alongside that legislation that is important. That policy needs to be one of opportunity, that creates opportunities for farms to follow the approach, whether it is public good provision, or becoming more productive or, hopefully, doing both those things together.
Looking at that policy and the measures that are available, it is important that the Agriculture Bill ensures, in fact, almost places a duty on Ministers, to deliver schemes that help farms to be both more productive and more sustainable in future. Those two themes would apply both to the farmer in the west country and the farmer in East Anglia. There are great opportunities for both of them to manage soils better or protect waters and thereby manage their farms in a more profitable and productive way in future—for instance, by nutrient management and introducing some of the approaches in terms of minimum till agriculture. That would apply to both farming situations.
Dr Drew
Q
George Dunn: The important thing is to see that this Bill is a scaffold, not a building, so until we see the shape that the Government decides upon for building the building around the scaffold, then it is difficult to tell exactly what will happen. But we are certainly encouraged by the facility within the general framework to have both de-linking and consolidation of payments, which we believe could speed up retirement and restructuring within the sector, to make holdings available to new entrants.
Many of our tenants who let land under farm business tenancies, unlike those who let under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 with secure tenancies, would say to us that the basic payment scheme is a cost on their business, because they have to pay that in rent to the owners of the land, whom they want to take the land from. So long as we have a strong arm on the productivity side of this Bill, which focuses on the new entrants and the progression point, we think there is great hope.
Christopher Price: I would agree with a lot of that. Inevitably, if we shift away from basic payments to a more market-facing world, it will create some churn within the sector. Older farmers are likely to decide to move on. That is why it is so important that there is sufficient investment in productivity, so that those who want to start on the farming ladder can get the necessary skills, not just farming skills, but business and marketing skills, which are so important in this sector now.
Dr Drew
Q
Christopher Price: I think that rents will go down in the short term. I suspect that, as the productivity improves, and farmers become more efficient and earn more themselves, with the passage of time rents will start to increase a little.
George Dunn: It is interesting which rents you are talking about, Dr Drew. The average level of rent paid on a farm business tenancy for arable land, quoted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is currently £98 per acre. If you look at rents tendered in the marketplace for land which becomes available in a very lumpy and haphazard way, we could have double those rents being tendered in the marketplace. I suspect that we will see a lot of those very high rents coming down as people readjust to the new world. I think that an average of £98 to £100 per acre for arable land is about sensible.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Q
George Dunn: I disagree with the premise of your question. I apologise that I am a white, middle-aged male. There is nothing I can do about that. I am here as I am. Regarding the statistics, the average age of a farmer has been 58 or 59 for as long as I can remember, which tells me that we are in somewhat of an equilibrium—that the people joining the industry equate with those who are leaving the industry— because the age is not increasing over time.
I would also say that those who are filling out the forms do not tend to be the ones who are doing the active farming. In the memberships that we both have, we see quite a lot that the younger members of the family do more of the farm work and the older members do the form filling.
We are inundated on show stands and events around the country with people who want to get a start in agriculture. Frankly, we will not be able to give everyone the opportunity to come in to be a principal in their own right. We are quite keen to encourage people to see farming as an employment opportunity, not just a business opportunity, and I think there is more work that we can do on that front.
The Chair
Mr Feeney, let us ring the changes and ask the Front-Bench spokesman for the Opposition if he would like to set the ball rolling.
Dr Drew
Q
Jason Feeney: It is not a Bill that strays into our remit significantly. We have not been closely involved in its formulation, but clearly there are areas, for example, such as capturing some of the information at slaughter houses, which we would need to be aware of and we will be working alongside.
Dr Drew
Should you be more involved in it? If we are going to improve British farming, it is all going to be about quality. You measure quality in the abattoirs and in some of the other things you do. You are there as the guardians of the public duty. Should you have been more involved as an agency in this Bill?
Jason Feeney: We focus our attention not so much on the quality argument but on the hygiene and safety perspective. If we take the example that you mentioned about slaughterhouses and abattoirs, our primary purpose through the work of the meat hygiene inspectors and the official veterinarians is two-fold. One is the hygiene and safety of the production and the welfare of animals up to and including the point of slaughter. The quality focus tends to be more of a business arrangement, in that example, between the slaughterhouses and the customers that they are supplying.
Dr Drew
Q
Dr Fenwick: First, I apologise for the fact that I have not spent days reading the Bill. We have our own pertinent issues going on in Wales, so we are very much catching up with the Bill. There are obvious areas where there are differences such as WTO, which might give rise to some concerns. It is certainly a concern for Scotland, and an understandable one. When it comes to what is going on in Wales at the moment, one of our key concerns relates to the similarities between the area in relation to farm support and the transition to public goods payments, which is effectively a cut-and-paste of what is in the same relevant English section. That cut-and-paste from the Bill has happened while Wales is still in the middle of a consultation process about the future of our own payments system, and yet it has been published in the Bill with the approval of the Welsh Government. I apologise for not being completely fluent as far as the detailed parts of the Bill are concerned.
John Davies: There are some key changes and key differences in the English part of the Bill. We are part of a supply chain that employs nearly 20% of people in Wales. Food and farming is a £7 billion industry. It is absolutely vital that those supply chains are efficient and work well, so we support this part and are pleased to have it. Far be it from me to try to influence or advise you on English policy, but we are pleased to see this part in the Welsh part.
Huw Thomas: Dr Drew asked how the Welsh Government achieved this. We have been told that they worked closely with DEFRA throughout the summer on the provisions with respect to Wales. I think the differences between England and Wales are fairly modest. The biggest or perhaps the most apparent is the one on page 30 of the Bill, which gives Welsh Ministers financial assistance in connection with some designated purposes such as supporting businesses or communities in rural areas. That is one that some of my colleagues in England have looked at with a little envy, perhaps, but the differences are fairly modest. Because the powers are broadly drafted, it will fall to how the Welsh Government choose to utilise those powers following the consultation that is currently taking place.
Dr Drew
Q
Dr Fenwick: It certainly appears to be the case that there will be great similarities in what happens in England and Wales under current proposals. They will stand in stark contrast to what is going on regarding our main competitors in other countries and Scotland.
Dr Drew
Q
Dr Fenwick: Hugely. They are untried, untested and un-modelled. We have not had an impact assessment. From a legal point of view, I have grave concerns that they may contravene WTO rules. It was concerning to hear our own Cabinet Secretary—last week, I believe—read her response to a written question from the shadow agricultural spokesman for the Conservatives, Andrew R. T. Davies, in which she said that it was not appropriate to inquire whether what was being proposed is legal or not for the World Trade Organisation. That is a grave concern and we are well aware of the sort of problems that can crop up when it comes to the WTO. It is going on with regards to the USA, China and Europe at the moment, including with regard to agricultural goods.
George Eustice
Q
I want to probe this point about the WTO. What is it in particular that concerns you? We obviously have an amber box allocation in which we could do market-distorting support if we wanted to, and it is largely accepted that the proposals would be green box. Just explain your concern about the WTO.
Dr Fenwick: Specifically, annex 2 of the agreement on agriculture sets out strict rules in relation to “Payments under environmental programmes”, which prohibit payments that are over and above costs incurred and income forgone. That is an explicit disallowance of such payments, superficially at least. I am not a barrister or a lawyer, but it certainly seems fairly black and white. That is a grave concern given that we have asked for clarification and have not received it as explicitly as we might have liked.
I do not want to imply that it is not legal, but there is an ambiguity around it— payment for public goods is effectively environmental payments, which is what annex 2, paragraph 12 of the agreement on agriculture deals with. It raises concerns that, even if it was legal, it could be used as a vehicle for other countries spuriously to raise barriers to trade and so on. That could trigger a lengthy dispute that goes on for years and has adverse impacts on us. We know from experience that countries tend to use such tools where they become available.
John Davies: A major part of the support for public goods is dependent on moving in that direction in terms of the boxes. That has never been done by any other country before and we are obviously concerned. We need to see some proof that that has been properly researched and is achievable.
Huw Thomas: I do not have anything to add to that.
Dr Drew
Q
Huw Thomas: I do not think that those problems have to be insurmountably difficult. We have different regimes for TB cattle controls, which can sometimes cause problems. There are cross-border holdings, but the England-Wales border is pretty well integrated in terms of farms, especially compared with the Scotland-England border. We have had different arrangements, which does cause problems from time to time—farmers on the border often face a delay in receiving their payments—but if the Governments of England and Wales work together more closely, I think a solution can be found. It does not have to be a problem; it just requires the political will to work closely together.
Dr Fenwick: As Huw pointed out, we already have different systems—very different, in many respects. That has been the case since 2005. What we see as the prime problem is not the difference between the systems, but—I am afraid to say—the implementation of the system on the English side. Our members who have land in England invariably face delayed payments because of delays in the Rural Payments Agency sending data to the Welsh payment agency.
Deidre Brock
Q
John Davies: Obviously, we need a long-term, multi-annual framework to deliver support, because farming is not a short-term business. For instance, sheep that are going to the tup now will be sold in a post-Brexit marketplace. That is very short-term. We plan in generations, not years, so the longer it can be and the more robust model we can have to allow that would be useful. We are not entirely clear on any solution, because we recognise that future Governments are not bound by the previous Government, but that is a real issue for farm support going forward, because it is a long-term business.
Dr Fenwick: I agree. We have been dealing with multi-annual EU budgets for a very long time and they tally far better with farming calendars. The risks that having fluctuations on an annual basis would bring would be huge.
Agriculture Bill (First sitting)
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before I call the first Member to ask a question, I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. We have until 10.55 am for this session.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
The Chair
I ask the witnesses to speak up, because the acoustics are not the best.
Patrick Begg: There is a lot to like in the Bill. There is a clear sense of purpose and a clear list of the kind of public goods that public money will pay for. There is plenty of intent and powers, but it is perhaps slightly light on duties—we might come back to that—such as the kind of things that we might want to see to nail some of the intent for the longer term. There is clear support for productivity during a transition, which farmers will need in spades as we make the adjustment to the new world of payment for public goods.
Generally, there is also a sense that we have a clear idea about what UK plc is contracting with our farming industry to provide for the long term, which is something that we have not had since about 1947 and the last Act. It feels like a positive step from my point of view.
Thomas Lancaster: I agree with a lot of that. We particularly welcome the intent to move towards a system of public money for public goods, for which we and others have been asking for a long time and which is integral in terms of meeting a lot of the challenges that we face—not just the environmental challenges, but the challenge of resilience in the face of environmental change, which will be essential for our long-term food security.
We also welcome a lot of the other clauses in the Bill, particularly around the powers to improve transparency in the supply chain. Better regulation of the supply chain and more transparency are essential to enable farmers to get a better return for the food that they produce. That is as important to this reform as the public money for the things that the market does not produce.
Similarly, we welcome the clear time-limited and defined transition. Again, that is really important in sending a signal to farmers about the change coming down the track so they have time to adapt to that. We would not want to see any extension to that transition because that would create further confusion as to what the future will hold.
Martin Lines: The overall direction of the Bill is very positive—public money for public goods is a great approach. Environmental goals and food production are not mutually exclusive but go hand in hand, and making farmers connect with the landscape and their food production joins the two together. We need a strong and transparent marketplace to reward us for the goods that we can produce, and we want strong direction from the Government and society about how they want to support farming and the landscape they want to deliver.
We have concerns about the details of the aspirations and how they will be delivered, and how we can ensure that farmers are rewarded for the environmental benefits and the practices that many have already been doing on their land and in their landscape. It is about setting the direction, with public support, of how that goes forward.
It is also about delivering basic environmental standards, and not just for those who want to receive what will possibly become the environmental land management schemes. How do we keep all farmland in good heart? That will deliver food security for the nation in the long term, so it is about having all our assets—our landscape—in good heart. Having higher environmental levels will give us food security for generations to come.
Gilles Deprez: I am not as knowledgeable as the other people here, but it is interesting to look at the focus on soil in the Bill. I am passionate about that, and it is crucial for us as farmers. I would not call myself a daffodil farmer; I would call myself an energy farmer who tries to capture as much energy from around us as possible and store it in the soil. The soil is a type of battery for us, so I very much encourage and like the focus on soil in the Bill.
What is also important for us—I am talking from my own experience as a farmer, which is limited compared with a lot of people—is that farming is a competitive industry. It is important to highlight that we are in a highly competitive industry. We are competing with a lot of people—not only in Britain, but in the rest of the world. There are very thin margins, and it is very important that we look at that.
One of the other things that I also saw in the Bill is innovation, which is maybe not highlighted enough. Innovation is crucial for the future: without it, we cannot go further. I have always been told at home that the knowledge that we have today is a culmination of experience from the past, but we need to look at what we will have tomorrow. We need to work on innovation in all different areas: in understanding the biology and chemistry of the soil—I am not an organic farmer, but chemistry is very important—and in automation, mechanisation and other things. IT is also crucial for farmers. Innovation is very important.
We also need to ask how the Bill will work. It is very difficult for me to understand the Bill—it is the first time that I have done this—and the detail of it is not clear. I assume that that is normal for a Bill. In the Netherlands, we have certain systems where Government, research institutions and the industry are working together to find creative solutions, which is very interesting. If you look at the system where a small farmer or small holding company needs to make money to survive at the end of the day, it is very difficult to apply for certain schemes or to access all those things.
I think a way of working together with research centres, universities, Government and industry is quite interesting for the farmer. There are a lot of promising things about what the future could bring for trying to protect and regenerate our soils and building our natural capital. Without our soils, farming cannot flourish.
Dr Drew
Q
Thomas Lancaster: The Bill does not necessarily set out clearly how it works in practice as a framework Bill. We would like to see, for example, a clause that sets out much more clearly how public money will be provided for public goods in the long term. We think that the Bill needs to provide much more certainty about the funding cycle, how the quantum is arrived at, and how the funding is allocated between the four countries of the UK—that is a key area where we will look to improve the Bill.
In terms of how a public goods scheme could operate, we have in the UK 30 years’ experience with agri-environment schemes. The first schemes were developed in Norfolk and then rolled out throughout Europe through the common agricultural policy. We are world leaders at developing agri-environment schemes, which are the blueprint for the public goods scheme that the Bill proposes. There is a huge amount of debate to be had over the next two or three years about how best to design the scheme in a way that works for farmers, the environment and the taxpayer.
Martin Lines: We understand it to be a framework Bill: much of the detail about how it will be delivered to farmers will come later. We in entry level stewardship and higher level stewardship know that we can deliver great stewardship. Some of the reward for that is not great. There are a whole load of assets on our landscape that many farmers can actually get better rewarded for—it is not just about how we manage the food production side, but how we manage our landscapes. Some farmers can get rewarded more for the landscape side and then get the food production from that, because they have limited capacity within that landscape to get financial rewards. It is about having a joined-up approach.
Patrick Begg: Tom makes a good point about the mechanisms that need to underpin this, which are around multi-annual payments. It is about being able to see something that goes beyond the political cycle. That is one thing that the common agricultural policy has actually delivered—some certainty and confidence in the farming industry in what they need to invest in. That is one of the things that we really need.
If we think about duties rather than powers, duties to create those multi-annual systems seem to me critical. There is also another obvious question, because a lot of this does come back to money, in terms of the quantum. We have done research that has demonstrated that just to deliver the kind of public goods that we have listed here would take at least £3 billion a year across the UK, and that was just updating what the Land Use Policy Group did about 10 years ago. There is a strong evidence base for the quantum, so it would be very useful if the Bill gave a duty to produce an independently assessed sense of resources needed, and if those were linked into multi-annual contracts.
There is also something about targets. It is a truism across loads of corporates, and non-governmental organisations—anyone—that you manage what you measure. If we can see some way in which these can be quantified, and some really stretching targets that could tie resources to those, that would be incredibly helpful. That sends a very strong signal to farmers about the confidence that Governments have in the things that we are asking them to do. It is all about setting that sense of confidence and clarity about purpose.
Gilles Deprez: For me, the Bill and the law are not very clear, so my honest answer to your question is probably, no, I don’t know how it will work. I also do not have enough experience of the previous way of working with the common agricultural policy. What I do see from my limited experience is that we have different types of environment in the UK. For example, in west Cornwall, where I am, my average field site is about four acres. If I need to put, for example, buffer strips in my field around my hedges, I will not have any productive land left.
You cannot compare, for example, Cornwall with Lincolnshire or Scotland. It is very difficult to understand how it will work in practice. You are asking a lot more from a system than what it is used to in a certain way, to become more targeted and specific, so I think it will be a very big challenge to see how it will work in practice. That is my honest opinion.
George Eustice
Q
I would like to know your views on whether you believe that is deliverable, if we rewarded the environmental outcomes properly to ensure that we had a viable model. What would that look like? What is your view on natural capital principles, in terms of pricing those options? Are there other things that you would like to do? Or do you believe that income forgone should be the basis on which we operate payments in future?
Martin Lines: It is a positive move forward. We know most farms have been doing some kind of stewardship and have had frustrations with the system, and that puts a lot of people off. What we have got to think about with this scheme is can we deliver it in nine or 10 years’ time, when it is fully rolled out, and add the focus of what we want in 10 years’ time, and how we have got time to adjust to it.
Payments at the moment are attached to land. As someone who rents land, I give payments straight to my landlord; it is included on top of my rent, so it stresses my business. I often pay it out 12 months before I receive it from Government, so giving it to the farmer for the work he does, such as my stewardship work, rewards the farmer for his best practice, and keeps it within the farming industry, which can then use it in local communities, with contractors and various other parts. It cycles it round the local community in a better way.
Patrick Begg: I am definitely a fan of moving it towards a more outcomes-based system. In fact, we have been working for a couple of years with a group of our farm tenants in Wharfedale in Yorkshire to understand exactly how we might establish an outcomes-type measure. It comes with a bit more risk, because some things are lag rather than lead, so it takes a while to mature your outcomes. We have to relax into that and understand that if people are doing the right thing, good things will flow at the end of it. That requires us to have a really good system of land management planning locally, but the critical thing we learned from our outcomes project in Wharfedale was about the quality of conversations and the sense of shared endeavour. If you set a destination, allow a farmer really to have agency over the route for getting there, and give them flexibility to do things differently, try things, and work with the skills and rhythms of their farming business, you get a much better sense of engagement.
It takes time and requires individuals who have trusted adviser status. For example, if ecologists talk to farmers, they learn about each other’s world and then they come up with a good answer, which makes a massive difference. That relationship has a huge gearing effect on the quality of the stuff you get at the end of it.
There are technical, mechanistic things that we have learned about what kind of measures work for pollinators, soil, etc. It is now perfectly possible to measure them and account for them. The trick, without this becoming massively bureaucratic, is for the people managing the land to have a sense of delegated agency. We use the farm tenants as our eyes, ears and monitors, and get them to report back. It really turns them on. We have had enthusiasm and a sense of joy creating the kind of things that we as a conservation organisation were looking for. It really worked within the framework of their developing businesses with extensive livestock in some quite sensitive upland areas. I am a great fan. I think it is perfectly possible, and we have got lots of evidence about how it can be done.
Thomas Lancaster: On the point about income forgone and payments, we regard income forgone and costs as a good starting point, but it is flawed in that it does not adequately incentivise the most profitable businesses, and it does not adequately reward the least profitable businesses, particularly in terms of farmers farming in places such as the uplands, which are inherently economically marginal. We encourage Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to start there, then look at where we need to go in terms of building in that reward—that adequate incentive or fair return, which is how some officials talk about it.
On Wharfedale, the uplands and the public goods that those non-economic farming systems can provide, rather than just look at the cost of an individual intervention, such as managing a hay meadow or some other species-rich grassland, do you look at the whole- farm system as a cost? Rationally speaking, it is a loss-making business, and it would not necessarily be rational to run it without some form of public support. If we want to keep that sort of marginal farming going to secure outcomes for curlew, black grouse and other species that depend on it, we will need to look beyond income forgone, in terms of building an adequate and fair return for those environmental outcomes.
Like Patrick, we are big supporters of results-based and outcomes-based payment schemes where they can be shown to work and be proportionate. We think there is scope for continuing action-based payment schemes, where you pay based on the action. Similarly, we are big supporters of natural capital, particularly in assessing the benefits that a future policy based on public goods can provide. We know from previous economic studies—one looked at sites of special scientific interest—that for every pound spend on investing in SSSIs, you get £8.56 back. There is huge benefit to investing in the natural environment not just for society but for farmers, in the benefits you can get from pollinators, crop pest predators, arable systems and more resilient grassland management in lowland and wet grasslands. The places that were managed more extensively in Somerset after the floods recovered much more quickly than other more intensive systems. We are really evangelical about the benefits of a public goods approach, not just for society but for farmers, and a payment system that builds in a fair return will be a key part of that.
Gilles Deprez: The practicality will not be easy. It will be a long journey. It will depend on the people; every farmer, or land manager, has a different mentality on implementing it. To give an example of one of the things that we are trying to work on as an operation, because we are also a tenant, we are fortunate to have the Tregothnan estate, where we are working, as one of our landlords. One of the questions was, do you think that you should value natural capital? We are working on that. We are working on a tenant agreement, which is in place at the moment, where natural capital has a financial value.
It is a bit difficult to define it, because what is natural capital? You need to take a very holistic approach. At the same time, it needs to be very simple. We brought it back to soil, because it all starts with soil. We tried to value the difference between good and bad soil. We are still working on the exact parameters of what it means, but the moment that something has a financial value, people respect it. That was the idea that we had. We are still in a very early stage, but it is quite promising to see what is possible.
If something has a financial value you can create an asset with it. At the same time, you can create a liability for whoever is doing it. The whole principle is that the landowner has the asset of the land, but everything that we are trying to do in terms of increasing the natural capital on that farm is our property, because I, as the farmer, did it—I tried to increase it, or decreased it. It is a very difficult concept because of the competitiveness of farming. We need to ensure that that model is not breaking farmers, because farming is very competitive. You have to find a fine balance. With the Tregothnan estate, we tried to develop it further, but in a very down-to-earth way, so that we are not breaking the idea or the system. It is probably too early to implement it today, but there is potential.
It will require a lot of effort, and many farmers will need to be part of that transition. It is not something that you do overnight. If you take on a farm that is depleted, or where the soil has gone, it takes years, and a massive amount of capital, to rebuild it. That is very hard in a very competitive environment where you need to have a good crop again next year, and a margin to reinvest in your farming operation. It needs to be built over a longer period, and you need to have that long-term strategy as a farmer to do that, which is not always easy—far from it.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Farmwel, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the British Veterinary Association. The Committee is most grateful to you all, particularly the BVA, which has agreed to offer a witness at very short notice. For this session we have until 11.25 am. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
Simon Doherty: Good morning, I am Simon Doherty, president of the British Veterinary Association. For clarity, I will declare that I have just completed three years’ consultancy as the animal health and agriculture specialist of the Department for International Trade.
David Bowles: Hi! I am David Bowles, assistant director at the RSPCA, and I have been working on CAP and WTO issues for about 20 years.
ffinlo Costain: Hello there. My name is ffinlo Costain and I run Farmwel. We work very closely with FAI Farms, which is a sustainability consultancy working with big retailers at national and global level.
Dr Drew
Q
David Bowles: It is a very good start. You have to put it in context. The CAP has allowed payments for animal welfare since 2003, so we have had two seven-year cycles. If you look at how many schemes there have been in the UK for animal welfare during that time, there has been one, in Scotland. That is not due to lack of enthusiasm from the devolved Administrations; that is due to lack of money, because pillar 2 has not given that money to open up those particular financial streams.
The RSPCA was delighted when the Bill came forward and acknowledged that animal welfare is a public good. Of course, we would like to see, as the previous presenters said, more clarity that there are duties to give money to animal welfare, because animal welfare has been squeezed out in the last 15 years under CAP and we do not want to see it squeezed out in future.
Yes, it is a good start. We would like to see some ring-fenced funding. We also crucially welcome the fact that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has linked in animal health and animal welfare. Those two are crucial. If you are looking at things such as lameness and mastitis, if you are trying to improve one, you are improving the other. I think there is a huge opportunity for win-wins here on animal health and animal welfare.
ffinlo Costain: I agree entirely with what David just said but I think there is a real challenge. We would like to see a whole-farm approach to environmental land management schemes, so that you do not have progress on one public good on one part of the farm, but degradation of that same public good on a different part of the farm. Part of the challenge is around understanding the role that farm animal welfare plays, not only in and of itself to improve the lives of animals, but as an indicator of progress on environmental improvements as well. From that perspective—sorry, I am not sure what the second thing was that I was going to say, but that will do for now.
Simon Doherty: By way of an opening remark, I fully concur with what David and ffinlo have just said by way of introduction. Certainly, the BVA position would be that we feel that this is a really good start. It is a nice piece of legislation. There are sufficient powers contained within it, we feel, to give the Secretary of State the ability to make appropriate changes where necessary within the realm of animal health and animal welfare.
Our overall position is that health and welfare are inextricably linked, but although we feel that there is a lot to be gained by maintaining that link, there are times when we need to separate welfare and look at particular aspects that relate to welfare outcomes—good welfare on the farm is not just absence of disease. There are times when we appreciate that there is a very close link between health and welfare, but there are also times when we need to be able to measure each separately. For both to be public goods, there need to be appropriate measures across the board.
ffinlo Costain: I have remembered my final point. Our view is that climate change and biodiversity must be addressed together. You can get some quite perverse outcomes, particularly on farm animal welfare, if you simply focus hard on greenhouse gas emissions; you displace some of the environmental impact of the feed production, nitrous oxide production and carbon dioxide production that is associated with those more intensive systems. It is really important that farmers should not deliver some public goods at the expense of other public goods that are part of that. Improvements in climate change and biodiversity must be delivered together, and farm animal welfare is a great indicator of progress in both those areas.
George Eustice
Q
Simon Doherty: It is probably all of the above—it is the whole piece across the board. In measuring the outcomes, it is important that we do not just reward farmers for doing the minimum legal standard. It is actually about going above and beyond. The overall purpose has to be to raise the bar right across the board. It should not just be about rewarding the farmers who choose to do things above and beyond; it should be about bringing people who are a little bit behind the game on welfare to a point where they improve their end game. That will not just be through a purely financial reward—quite a bit of thought needs to be put into the individual schemes to make sure that we are bringing everybody along. It certainly needs to be right across the board.
David Bowles: I mentioned at the beginning that the UK has only ever had one animal welfare scheme, but in the EU there have been 50 different rural development programmes on animal welfare over the last two cycles since 2007. They provide a huge amount of rich experience that shows that you can get good welfare outcomes from inputs from financial incentives. The RSPCA would like to see a two-tier system that has both the incentives that the Minister mentioned. For instance, you would have capital costs for rewarding people who build larger lunging spaces for dairy cattle. You would have outcome-based measures—for instance, the number of tails on pigs going through abattoirs that show a lack of mutilation. As Simon said, you should aim for people to go to a higher welfare scheme, such as RSPCA Assured. We believe that if you do so, you will get the incentive to improve animal welfare and animal health, and you will get farmers using a much better farming system than they use at the moment. This gives us a real opportunity to break the mould on animal welfare and get much better animal welfare farming happening in the next 10 years or so.
ffinlo Costain: I agree with both the previous comments. It is essential to increase standards across the board. We should not only improve those standards as and when we leave the EU, but put in place a mechanism—and metrics are a really important part of this—to enable us to continually review the standards, based on what is being achieved by farmers, not just in the UK but around the world, to ensure that our standards continue improving. I think that at the moment, DEFRA want to provide financial assistance for farmers who are genuinely trying to improve their systems. We support that, and we think that sometimes, that assistance may need to be quite substantial. I think that DEFRA also want to reward particular excellence, and again, metrics are critical to measuring that progress. The best way for Government to achieve this is to work with existing—and possibly new-entrant—higher welfare schemes, schemes like RSPCA Assured, Soil Association and others, and then provide rewards based on particular metrics that the Government agree are critical.
In terms of metrics, we should not just be focusing on inputs. There is often a lot of focus on the inputs—the type of housing, the space allowance, the genetics of the animals, and that sort of thing—but we should also be looking at the outcomes: what is achieved. The inputs give us the key determinants in our ability to deliver improved farm animal welfare, but the outcomes tell us whether that improvement in welfare has been delivered. We need to see on-farm metrics that help farmers improve their day-to-day efficiency, the productivity of their businesses, and their ability to deliver better welfare and better sustainability in the round. There is also a huge opportunity across the nation at the moment that is underplayed, which is in the area of slaughter. That is where most livestock end up. There is potential to gather an enormous amount of helpful data that will help farmers, policy makers, and retailers’ assurance schemes deliver better welfare, and have a much more forensic understanding of where welfare sits across the board and whether attempts to improve welfare are being successful.
Simon Doherty: Minister, there is also a real opportunity to engage new technologies that are being validated to measure some of these objective welfare outcomes. A huge amount of work is going on, and the UK is very much ahead of the game on this. We have some fantastic research centres across all four regions of the UK that are doing brilliant work on things like thermography, video imaging, wearable devices and so on, which are helping to measure health outcomes, but are also being validated to measure welfare outcomes. We do not necessarily need to cover all of our farms in that technology, but incentivising the uptake of some of these new technologies that can be used to benchmark animal welfare will be increasingly important as we go forward.
We have had a huge amount of engagement recently. BVA produces an infographic on welfare related to farm quality assurance schemes, and there has been a huge amount of uptake right across the board on that, including—as was previously mentioned—RSPCA and Soil Association schemes. As I say, that is going to be really important to building public engagement about this being a public good.
Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018 (S.I., 2018, No. 739).
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. The Opposition believe that the order, which is dated 19 June 2018 and a copy of which was laid before the House on 20 June, should be revoked; in other words, we wish to revoke the revocations order. We know how many such statutory instruments we may face, so we do not necessarily wish to keep the Government for long tonight, but we have a few important points to make.
I make no apology for the fact that most of my speech will be about the Agricultural Wages Board, although no doubt we will have plenty of time to revisit the matter in our debates on the Agriculture Bill, which has been discussed in Parliament today. However, I will begin with a few general questions to the Minister. It is interesting that the Government are still trying to revoke orders on the milk quota. I am somewhat surprised that something that ended in 2015 is still being dealt with in 2018. It would be helpful if the Minister explained that.
As someone who supports the way in which land drainage works at a local level, I am surprised that we seem to be revoking orders on flood defence operating authorities. The question is really what we are putting in their place, because they are important to areas such as mine that are affected by flooding. Land drainage committees are essential to allow our areas to function without the threat of flooding.
On the issue of hay and straw, I would be interested to know why we are revoking something that seems to be standard practice. Given how difficult this year has been for many of our farmers as a result of rising hay and straw prices, where does that fit in? The explanatory memorandum from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs states that it is to do with the threat of foot and mouth. It would be interesting to know why and how we are controlling that, and why the existing legislation is being revoked.
The order is a bit of a curate’s egg; the orders that it revokes do not seem to have much in common. However, no doubt the Minister will be able to explain why we are doing what we are doing. I make no apology for speaking mainly about agricultural wages. It is sad to see what is left of the protections for workers in agricultural areas disappear completely. As a manifesto commitment, our party would reinstate the Agricultural Wages Board, but the agricultural committees, which were separate from it, are also worth trying to protect.
There is a labour crisis in rural areas. The supply of people working in the industry has been affected by the migrant issue. We have talked a lot about the seasonal agricultural workers scheme and whether the Government’s current attempt will make much difference, but unless we can provide more domestic labour, where will the labour come from? Farmers tell me that they cannot get labour, partly because we have no structure for payment any more. People are receiving lower incomes, which is not good either for them or for the way in which rural areas operate.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that post Brexit, the resourcing of labour in rural areas is paramount if those local economies are to flourish, and that the Agricultural Wages Board should be reinstated?
Dr Drew
I agree with my hon. Friend; it is important that we make that point. We differ from the Government on the issue and will continue to do so when we debate the Agriculture Bill, so I am not going to rehearse those arguments in detail now. There was quite a debate on Second Reading in relation to some of the proposals in the Bill about how poorly England has done. Scotland and Northern Ireland still have parts of the Agricultural Wages Board and, of course, Wales has its own code. In England, we have nothing. I gather that about 60% of farmers—this is not necessarily the view of the National Farmers Union, with which we will agree to disagree—said in their submissions that at the time of the Government’s decision to get rid of the Agricultural Wages Board, they were worried about how negotiations would take place. All the evidence suggests that wage levels have fallen in the agricultural sector, so it is difficult to recruit the people we desperately need, whether to pick fruit and vegetables, look after our dairy cows or do more general work. There is a crisis, which we all know about, and one way to put that crisis behind us is to ensure that we fund those workers properly—sadly, that is not currently the case.
I have touched on the inequality between the different territories in the United Kingdom, and I ask the Minister what research the Government have done on the impact of the removal of the Agricultural Wages Board to see if that is at least partly responsible for some of the crisis.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—his constituency is just across the fantastic River Severn from mine. I was listening carefully to what he was saying. Why does he think that agriculture businesses cannot do what all other businesses do? If they are having trouble recruiting labour, that is a market signal that they should perhaps pay people a little bit more. We do not have a supermarkets wages board, or a wages board for every other industry. Why does he think farmers are incapable of understanding the market signals that every employer must understand?
Dr Drew
Tesco, for example, has a union agreement with USDAW and negotiates centrally, but also has some discretion to negotiate locally. Farm workers have no mechanism now, which is as much of a problem for farmers as it is for the farm workers. Our argument has always been that there is no structure at all, which has not helped the industry. We have made that point and will not labour it because we will table an amendment to the Agriculture Bill. That is a division between us, but one that we could resolve if there were some structure in place. The revocation of the Agricultural Wages Board has had an impact in lost wages, lost annual leave, and loss of sick pay—it was not just a wage-setting structure but one that gave the industry some stability. All this is made very clear by Unite, which is the union that represents farm workers. It has carried out regular surveys showing how difficult the position is for farm workers.
Given the crisis in recruitment, we hope that the Government will find a way to bring back that arrangement. It was not put in place by a Labour Government; Lloyd George brought it about with the trade bodies that he introduced and Winston Churchill—then a Liberal MP—took measures to put it in place, so it is surprising that a Conservative Government does not see its benefits. With the revocation, the remaining figment is being removed. Locally, agricultural communities played a part, and fed into the Agricultural Wages Board. If the revocation goes through, those committees will be completely removed. I hope the Government will listen to our proper and thoughtful contributions on the Agriculture Bill Committee, but we are giving them an early opportunity to think about what might replace the Agricultural Wages Board. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Dr Drew
As I said, we will have this debate again when we consider the Agriculture Bill. I do not necessarily agree with what the Minister said. I am interested to know whether he will be able to introduce research on the impact of the loss of the Agricultural Wages Board when we consider the Bill, given the acute problems with migration. We may disagree on the cause of that, but we would agree on the consequences, which are not good.
I welcome the Minister’s points on the other issues. The order is one of those strange things that has been put together to try to deal with a number of different features, and I understand now exactly why it has been done as it has. We have not really got to Brexit—that is for another day.
Mr Harper
Can I just clarify what the hon. Gentleman is saying? He threw it in, but I did not quite follow it. On migration, was he suggesting that unlimited access to a very large labour market helps to keep wages down at the lower end? If that is the case, perhaps our exit from the European Union is an opportunity for us to decide who we want to come to this country and for those at the lower end of the labour market to see an increase in their wages, which I think would be welcomed on both sides of the House.
Dr Drew
What the right hon. Gentleman says, as a former Immigration Minister, is very interesting. I know that he had to deal with such issues. I am just making the point that we do not have enough labour in rural areas, particularly in farm supply, and that we must address that. Like everything else, that is part of a much bigger debate, which no doubt we will touch on in the Agriculture Bill, but I am just looking at what is happening at the moment, with insufficient labour to pick fruit and veg.
I talk to my farmers, just as the right hon. Gentleman will to his, and trying to get labour to do milking and some of the general work is not easy, and that situation is particularly acute because we are losing migrant labour, for whatever reason. Many of my farms have traditionally employed people from abroad for periods of time, which is why we have been critical of the Government’s attempts to address this in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. That should have been in place a long time ago to encourage people to come to this country for a specified period for specified work. That has not happened, and we will see how the new proposal operates, but it is a bit late and it seriously under-provides for the numbers we need in the current acute crisis.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not want to prolong the debate further but, reflecting on the number of orders that this order revokes, I wonder whether those have been captured as part of the one in, one out regulatory reform process—whether we have already seen ones in for these ones out. Or is it my hon. Friend’s view that they are being saved up for the 800 Brexit statutory instruments that we are shortly to get?
Dr Drew
I do not want to be taken away from what we are debating today. I am sure we will have plenty of other opportunities to talk about Brexit issues. However, given the Government’s emphasis on the number of statutory instruments that will be associated with the Agriculture Bill, we might as well get used to what we are doing because we will be testing a lot of them in the SI process. I would prefer that to be done through primary legislation with our amendments to the Bill, but that is not where we are today.
These orders are largely historic and we do not have any issues with the revocations, other than that we are laying down the ground rules of where we will try to move to in the Bill to get the Agricultural Wages Board back in some form. I accept what the Minister says. The board was not perfect, but it needed reforming, not abolition, and that is our great sadness on the Opposition Benches. I am indebted not only to Unite but to Sustain, which is not a trade organisation per se but tries to encourage different ways of producing our food. It feels very strongly, as do Opposition Members, that that would be better advanced if we had some form of agricultural wages board.
We are open to suggestions. If the Government want to come back with a way in which we can solidify and restructure the setting of agricultural wages and conditions, we are only too willing to be part of that process. Likewise during the Bill, we will not be there to wreck it but to reform, improve and enhance it.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I thank my hon. Friend and other Scottish Conservative Members who pressed for this review and collaborated to make sure its terms of reference were right. As a result, they have guaranteed a brighter future for Scottish farmers with a level of funding in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that is higher than that in England absolutely guaranteed in the future. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Scottish Government and their Minister, Fergus Ewing, who is a great man in many ways, have, sadly, missed the opportunity to put forward an amendment to our Agriculture Bill in order to ensure that Scottish farmers have certainty in the future. Welsh Labour has collaborated and its statesmanship is to be commended; what a pity that once again the Scottish Government are letting down rural Scotland.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
When did the Minister receive the Godfray review on the Government’s bovine TB strategy? When will he publish it, and will he commit to publishing it in full?
Dame Caroline Spelman
Whatever one’s views on marriage, everyone should be equal before the law and, of course, I would argue, equal in God’s sight. The Church of England agrees that no one should suffer discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the grounds of age, race, gender, sexuality or any other personal characteristic. I think that it is striking that the Supreme Court found that there was no discrimination in this case, but instead found that the key issue was the right to freedom of expression.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
What additional measures does the Church intend to try to put in place to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to visit a place of worship on their preferred day?
Dame Caroline Spelman
It may be of interest to the hon. Gentleman to know that yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury made a speech in the House of Lords about religious tolerance. The Church has consistently made the case that people should be able to worship unimpeded in this country according to their faith. The Archbishop said something very telling; he said that society needs to learn how to disagree well and that we need a society where rich beliefs and traditions can rub up against each other and against secular ideology in mutual challenge and respect.
Agriculture Bill
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to sum up on behalf of the Opposition. I have eight minutes, so I hope Members will not mind if I do not take interventions. I have sat through every minute of this Second Reading debate, so I am well aware of the many opinions on both sides of the House. We have had contributions from 31 Conservative Back Benchers, seven Labour Members and another six Members. It has been a commendable debate.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see why Labour states in its reasoned amendment that there should have been some element of prelegislative scrutiny. There are all sorts of reasons why the Bill will need to be improved, and we will make no apologies for playing our part constructively in the Public Bill Committee and subsequently to ensure that the Bill is worthy of the 1947 Act. That Act was the third great reforming bit of legislation after the NHS and the welfare state, which we are very proud of. For 50 years, the Act set what happened to British agriculture. It was all about security of supply and how we would have a system of tribunals and a Land Commission, but it was also about tenant farming. The one thing that has not really been talked about in enough detail is why British farming is different. It is different because we have a strong tradition of tenant farming, and Labour will maintain that. In fact, we would like to go further.
We would like to see embedded in the Bill the Tenancy Reform Industry Group reforms, about which the Minister spent a lot of time talking to various farming organisations. Like him, I support county farm estates. We would like to see younger farmers have the opportunity to be able to farm, and county farms were one way, if not the main way, in which they could do that.
In many respects, this Bill is about a funny stage, in the sense that the money—we always say “Follow the money”—is only guaranteed until 2022, or whenever this Parliament may fall. Given that the transition period starts in 2021 and will go on for seven years, it is very important that we get cross-party support, and Labour will offer its support. We will also look at the territorial issues, which are crucial. We cannot have four different systems of agriculture. That is a worry. We will do that through our links with the Welsh Government, but obviously the SNP must do what it does in Scotland, and Northern Ireland must do what it does in its own way. We must have some coherence in the way we bring forward our agriculture.
The key point, as has been said, is that the Bill is very strong on style. The Secretary of State is very strong on style, in his own way, but not so much on substance. We will table amendments to give the Bill the substance it needs.
Much has been said about the environment, but less has been said about food. We will seek to amend the Bill, with the Government’s support we hope, to make food central to the Bill. This is also about health. Despite the fact that the White Paper was entitled “Health and Harmony”, health seems to have disappeared from the agenda. We must ensure that health is brought back in, for all the reasons my hon. Friends and others have set out. “Multifunctionality” is a term that people were very keen on in the noughties, but it is crucial to the way British agriculture must now develop. We make no apology for making the link between the environment, food and the health of our nation.
We are concerned about a number of other areas. The Bill sets out many powers but very few duties. We will therefore seek to tie the Secretary of State’s hands, and the hands of subsequent Secretaries of State, so that they will have a duty to deliver an effective agricultural policy. We will look at all the details—for example, in relation to organic production. We cannot ignore Brexit, because obviously half the EU’s budget goes on the CAP, so it is a crucial part of how we consider the post-Brexit situation. We want the role of science and technology to be hardened up in the Bill, to ensure that there is a commitment to see how the future generation of agriculture can be developed.
Finally, the crucial test will be what trade deals, if any, we sign up to. The Opposition will not agree to anything that dilutes welfare standards, environmental protection or labour standards. We will be looking to see whether we can put back the Agricultural Wages Board—the Government might not agree to that—because we want to protect the quality of labour. The Secretary of State has said that he has got a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme, but it is very weak and we want to strengthen it. We want to see how we can have cross-fertilisation of labour, to ensure that we have the right people in the right places so that British agriculture can flourish. That is what we wanted in 1947 and what we achieved, heralding a whole new era of strength in British farming. We would like to work with the Government, but we also want to improve the Bill and we make no apology for saying so.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a delight to see the DEFRA team still in their place, but may I offer a special welcome to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who we have missed? We hope that she enjoys her time back as part of the team.
Will the Government tell us exactly who they can sign a free trade deal with, apart from the EU, whereby we do not degrade either environmental protection or animal welfare standards?
Dame Caroline Spelman
There are no barriers to women becoming ordinands in the Church of England. As I have just explained, there has been a sharp increase in the number of women coming into ministry, and the overall number of ordinands entering training has increased by 14% over the past two years. The number of women under the age of 32 entering training has actually increased by 27%, which shows that it is an increasingly attractive vocation for younger women who look forward to a career in the Church as a female priest.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I hear what the right hon. Lady says, but will she also consider the impact of the number of churches that new ordinands have to look after? It is a real worry, given the pressure we are putting on these poor people, particularly if they are not full time, in order to carry out their ministry.
Dame Caroline Spelman
It is obviously a pressure for male and female priests, who might find themselves in charge of eight or 10 very small, rural ministries. The Church has looked at how sustainable that is, and the status of some churches has been changed to that of festival churches, which are open only on the high days and holy days of Christmas and Easter, to try to ensure that the workload is sustainable. It is something the Church Commissioners have very much in mind, alongside training more ordinands.
Leaving the EU: Upland Farming
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. We have had a very interesting debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on introducing it. It is vital that we tease out where we are going on these important matters. We have had contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), and the hon. Members for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), as well as from the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).
I will keep my remarks very short, so that the Minister has plenty of time to respond. We have heard about the contribution that the uplands make to agriculture through lamb and beef, so I will not repeat those points. I want to look at some of the environmental issues, and I am indebted to the National Farmers Union, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Trust, the Countryside Alliance, and Compassion in World Farming, which have all written to me about the debate.
If we look at the figures about the contribution that the uplands make to the environment, approximately one quarter of the total area of English and Welsh woodlands is in the uplands. The largest remaining tracts of semi-natural habitats in England and Wales are found in the uplands. The uplands are home to 53% of England’s and 40% of Wales’ sites of special scientific interest. The uplands are home to many rare animals and birds, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland made clear. They are the source of 70% of our drinking water. Last but not least, they are a store of 40% of England’s and 80% of Wales’ soil carbon. I could go on about the importance of the national parks, and how they put something in the order of £1.78 billion into England and about £205 million into Wales.
Given that contribution, which has shaped our natural environment, I ask the Minister what else we could ask from the farmers who look after the uplands. How could they work any harder to provide that public benefit and earn the money that they deserve? What could they do that they are not already doing?
In response to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), the idea that we will renegotiate the devolution settlement is somewhat ambitious and dangerous, because we have a clear relationship. This is a devolved responsibility. One of my Welsh colleagues could respond to the debate, because this is about Wales and Scotland, as well as England. These are devolved matters.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister to respond to those two points. What else could we expect these people to do? They already start at a huge deficit. Some argue it is £14,000, and some that it is as much as £16,000 or £17,000. What else could they do to earn more money? The second question is: how does this impact on the devolution settlement?
Brexit: Trade in Food
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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James Gray (in the Chair)
We start the afternoon in this great Chamber, Westminster Hall, with a debate on the recent report by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs entitled “Brexit: Trade in Food”. It is normal on these occasions for the Minister to be present at the beginning of the debate, although that is not required under Standing Orders. I suspect he may be approaching the Chamber quite quickly. There being no further intelligence on where the Minister might be, I know the Parliamentary Private Secretary will take a keen interest.
James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. I know the PPS will take a keen interest in how the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee approaches the motion.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I am very pleased that, yet again, we are in this place debating food and farming. I am even more pleased that the Minister is here, because otherwise I would not have been able to ask him the questions I want to ask him. I am sure he will try to answer them.
The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), raised a number of issues that I wish to take up. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who has had to leave, and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan). They are very strong members of the Select Committee, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), who has not had a chance to say anything yet, but if he wishes to intervene and put something on the record, I am more than happy to let him do so.
I am a former member of the Select Committee, and I am grateful that it is in good hands. I was lucky to be chaired by David Curry and Michael Jack, and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton has carried on in the same good order. He has shown how the Committee is making a difference. The quality of its work is in the preciseness of its arguments. Why write a long report when a short one can do the job?
The hon. Gentleman’s speech ranged far and wide, so I make no apology that I will refer to the later report, which may also be discussed in this place in due course. It is, however, contingent on the report before us. I will refer to a number of things in the Government’s Command Paper, and how the Select Committee has investigated them.
Let me start with where we are with this whole exercise. Although farming is a relatively small part of the British jigsaw, it is a very important part of European functionality, because half the EU budget is spent on farming. My first question to the Minister—I have asked this previously—is, when will we get into serious negotiations about farming, and particularly food? Although farming is not a huge constituent part of the British economy, food and food exports are. As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, that sector is responsible for about £110 billion-worth of business, and employs one in eight people. It is an important part of the UK economy, so we have got to get this right whatever the post-Brexit situation is.
I echo the hon. Gentleman’s request to see the sectorial reports. Like lots of hon. Members, I went to look at the original sectorial reports. I have to say that a good A-level student would probably feel reasonably pleased with them, but I do not think their quality was much better than that. We need definitive evidence, because these sectors are very different and will require different negotiations. It would be good to know when some of those negotiations will take place, and that there will be ministerial—not just civil service—input, because they will be complicated.
I am not sure—I know the Minister is sure and can allay my fears—when we will start talking to the WTO. We are a signatory to the WTO, but through our membership of the EU. At what stage will we start to talk to the WTO about how we will exercise our independence? The one thing that I know from all my time on the Select Committee, and since, is that when we start to get into the different boxes—amber, red, blue and green—and the aggregate measure of support, we get into enormous complexity, which will not be sorted out in a few weeks. That will take a long time.
Neil Parish
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and certainly for his comments about the Select Committee. When it comes to tariffs and the European relationship with agriculture, the problem with the WTO is that if we were under WTO rules rather than in a free trade arrangement with Europe, French and Irish beef would have to have the same tariff as Brazilian beef. Imagine having to compete with Brazilian and Argentinian beef—we produce very high-quality beef in this country, but it would be difficult to produce it at the same prices as Brazil and Argentina.
Dr Drew
Again, I am not an expert on the farming industry per se, as the hon. Gentleman is, but having talked to those who know about it, I know that the lamb market—Welsh lamb, in particular—is very vulnerable. I made the point that New Zealand would no doubt be keen to expand its exports to this country, but I was proven wrong in the sense that New Zealand can already export 200,000 tonnes of lamb. The big threat is actually from Australia, which has a more limited quota arrangement and will no doubt wish to have a free trade agreement—any agreement—so that it can export more to us. Again, that is a question I ask. I genuinely do not know where outside the EU—where 60% of our food exports go to—we can form all these free trade agreements.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is not only where our exports will go or where our imports will come from, but that the laudable environmental and health and safety constraints that we place on agriculture in this country will not necessarily be replicated in countries in other parts of the world that may wish to export to us? We shall see a race to the bottom on environmental and health and safety concerns.
Dr Drew
That is, of course, a real threat. I refer to the Government’s response to the Committee’s report. At paragraph 6, on “Regulations and Standards”, the Government cited the Prime Minister in her Mansion House speech, saying that
“the UK will need to make a strong commitment that its regulatory standards will remain as high as the EU’s.”
I should damn well hope so—excuse the proverbial—because if we do not, we will not be able to export to the EU. It is important to maintain the existing standards, and we would want to drive them up—the Minister has said that—but that will be in some jeopardy if we form free trade agreements with countries with lower standards, because those would preclude the higher-standard export markets that we have now.
Looking ahead to the Select Committee’s “The future for food” report—to laud the Committee again—its value is that it has all the right headings. The keynote is uncertainty: we need to allay the element of doubt that is creeping into what is now a tight timescale. Looking at the report, the questions will obviously be about budget—I am pressing the Labour party to ensure sufficient funding. We have already guaranteed the same money until 2022, but to be honest with the Minister, we want to go further, because we do not think that the transitionary period is long enough. That has come through in both reports.
There is not enough money to make the transition work. Whatever form of payment system we come up with, it will be a pretty traumatic change. For some farmers, it will be the most traumatic change they have ever had in their lives. We would therefore like more money to be allocated and for things to be done properly. We are not against public using moneys for public goods, but we have to handle the situation with extreme sensitivity. Otherwise, we will lose a lot of good farmers who cannot make the transition easily.
To go back to today’s report, I have some questions arising from the Government response. How will they deal not only with tariffs, but with non-tariff issues? In my constituency, some of the manufacturing companies say that the problem is never with free trade, or setting up free trade agreements, because they are set up all the time. The problem is when other parts of the world take non-tariff action, which is a real danger in the food sector. It would be good to know how far the Government have got and in what ways they are at least investigating how to deal with the threat of non-tariff barriers.
On the potential for increased paperwork, the Government are setting great store by a new computer system—as did my Government, to our cost, when we introduced the Rural Payments Agency, and I dealt with Accenture at that time. We were told then how everything was going to be wonderful because the computer would do it all for us. It would be good to know how far we have got with the new computer system and what it will do—there is the idea of “e-certs”, but whatever name it has, it is just a computer system. If we do not have the right brief to start with, we will not get the right outcomes. Therefore, how far have the Government got towards introducing that computer system in such a way as to cope with all the different pressures, whether of trade or of the standards and so on?
There is also the human dimension. The spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins)—to whom I should have paid due regard earlier, but I do so now—spoke about the need for seasonal workers. Another element, which was picked up on by the Select Committee, is the additional need for veterinary support. At the very least, we do not have enough vets in this country to do the work that is needed, which is why we recruit foreign vets.
That work will only increase, despite restrictions on immigration and on what is called mutual recognition of professional qualifications—a very good thing that ensures we get in people with equivalent qualifications to ours. Dealing with that takes time. We will need additional vets in the short run to deal with some of the new processes. Again, will the Government give us an update on their important discussions with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the British Veterinary Association and so on?
That leads on to the issue of customs and how those arrangements are being looked at. I must say that some of the Government’s answers are fairly sketchy. The response is a fairly brief piece of work—I laud the Select Committee again because although its work was brief, it was precise, but the Government did not necessarily tell us everything. Perhaps the Minister will fill in some of the detail, such as how much store is set by the IT system, how he will deal with border inspection post capacity and what is happening with some of the trade agreements with non-EU countries. All that will require a very different approach. I hope that we will not have a hard Brexit, but even under a soft Brexit those will be very complicated issues that are difficult to work through in the short term.
Another issue is country-of-origin labelling, which Members across the House would all support. Customers need assurance to know where something has come from and whether it is of the standard that they expect. Again, the Government have made lots of commitments, but it would be good to know how they will deliver on those commitments—what they said in paragraph 13 of their response was very good in aspiration, but not detailed in how they would action it.
In conclusion, there are many points of detail. That matters, because we should be entering a period of discussion where agriculture, hopefully, will be in the footlights. That is rare, because normally agriculture is somewhat in the shadows, but it is crucial at this stage because of what happens to our food chain. We must make sure we get this right to support the industry and the people who work in it. That may not be easy in the short run, but we must be clear where the strategy is taking us.
If there is any regulatory divergence from the EU, those of us who fear that things could get worse in the short run need the Government to be clear on what they are trying to do. What mechanisms will they employ and who will employ them? The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has taken on a huge number of new people—perhaps it should not have got rid of as many as it did when it was not at the frontline of these changes. It would be good to know how those people could be as effective as they should be, in a short period. Their knowledge alongside the ministerial team will be crucial. I sympathise with Ministers; I know how much pressure they are under, because this issue puts the Opposition under a lot of pressure due to the number of ways in which we have to respond.
I hope the Government have got the message that they need to be very clear on how they are moving forward. Otherwise, we will be back here week after week with debates, trying to ascertain what the detailed considerations really mean and how we will take British agriculture and the British food chain forward into the next decade, whatever our status with the EU. More particularly, they must make sure that British food is of as good a standard as it can and should be, and that it can be traded successfully with the rest of the world.
George Eustice
I am interested in history, but I am not necessarily interested in implementing all historical policies. To extend the history lesson, there was also a view in the 1960s that we should not have subsidies but we should have tariffs. Obviously, we have moved some way since then.
Dr Drew
I always love a bit of history, but to bring us up to date, in all those previous reorganisations and structural changes, there was time to make changes partly because the British Government were deciding things for British farmers. Will the Minister assure us that the transition period must respect the importance of these changes, and that there must be support for those who will suffer if we get this wrong in the short run?
George Eustice
Yes. I was going to return to that point. The Select Committee report states that we have to take care during the transition. We absolutely recognise that. Indeed, in our recent consultation, we described what we have as an agricultural transition, where any changes we make to the support regime will be done gradually over a number of years to take account of the fact that we do not want to deliver unsustainable shocks to the industry that it would not be able to cope with.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton mentioned the importance of Northern Ireland. I absolutely understand that a huge amount of trade takes place across that land border. That is why, unsurprisingly, the way we should approach that issue dominates much of the discussion about our future arrangements with the European Union. He will understand that that is a much broader discussion, which is being handled by people in the Government more senior than me.
Let me pick up on some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), such as customs, which is being looked at. We have a cross-Government working group, which has brought on board lots of Departments, including Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Treasury, to look at customs, as well as DEFRA and our Animal and Plant Health Agency to look at border inspection posts. DEFRA’s focus is ensuring that we have the right capacity at any border inspection posts, and we will seek to agree our approach to that. Generally speaking, customs is regarded as an easier and more administrative thing to do, rather than necessarily requiring lots of checks and infrastructure at borders. Technology really has moved on in that area.
I simply make the point that one of our biggest successes in food and drink—perhaps the biggest, and certainly the biggest in Scotland—is Scotch whisky. We have zero tariffs on Scotch whisky, but that sector competes globally and has a recognised international brand. It is also very used to dealing with national markets, even within the European Union, because there are different alcohol duty rates so there must be bonded supplies for each country. There are sectors that have got very good at managing borders. Several hon. Members made the point in yesterday’s debate that we have borders even within the single market for things such as customs duties.
Probably the second biggest food export from Scotland is Scottish salmon, which again is renowned around the world. Scotland’s biggest competitor in that sector is Norway, which is outside the European Union and outside the single market for the purposes of fish products, because, as the hon. Gentleman will know, the European economic area does not cover fisheries products. So there are sectors, including fisheries and Scotch whisky, that have developed quite sophisticated ways to address some of these challenges. This is not an insurmountable problem.
The hon. Gentleman also raised seasonal labour. We recognise that that issue is important, which is why the Home Office commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to look at what our labour needs will be after we leave the European Union. The MAC is already doing that piece of work. It published an initial summary of the responses it received, and it is now looking in earnest at what arrangements we will need after we leave, and in particular after the end of any transition period.
However, in some ways we already have the necessary structures in place under our existing migration system, through things such as tier 3. That is currently set at zero because we have free movement of people, but we could make some allowance for work permits in less skilled sectors if we wanted to and deemed that we needed to. We have been clear that we are looking at the idea of a seasonal agricultural workers scheme. We had one, which ran successfully from 1945 until 2013, and we have been clear that we are looking at that issue. I worked in the soft fruit industry for 10 years, so I am fully aware of some of the challenges. Those are issues that we will have the power to deal with as an independent country—they will not need to be negotiated with others.
George Eustice
Look, on your first point—sorry, Mr Gray, it is a contagious problem. On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, there are degrees of independence. As things stand, as an EU member we do not have an independent farming policy, an independent fisheries policy or an independent policy on migration. When we leave and become not an EU member, we will have independence in those areas.
On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, there will be some challenges, but we have been working on this area. One scenario we have been planning for right from the referendum result is a no-deal scenario where we come out without an agreement, even in March next year. There are contingency plans and work has been done to prepare for such scenarios. While there will be challenges, we are aware of them and have been addressing them.
Dr Drew
The problem is that those who might have come here in the future will not do so and we are now into the second year in which they would have been making such arrangements. What inducement is there for someone to come here, when effectively they have been told for two successive years they are not wanted, rather than go to other parts of Europe, as they are now?
George Eustice
There are anecdotal reports that more have come back this year because of recent changes in the exchange rate. Some daffodil producers in the west country say that it was easier to get labour this winter than last. It is quite common for seasonal agricultural workers to return for a number of years, and indeed levels of returning are one of the yardsticks used to assess the availability of labour.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) posed a question in an intervention about rules of origin. The Government are looking at that area. Obviously, not every nation state in the world is a member of the European Union. Lots of countries are not, and they have quite established procedures on rules of origin. While we have not reached a final position on those issues, there is, for instance, the pan-Euro-Mediterranean regional convention, which is a rules of origin system covering countries both in and not in the European Union. Other parts of the world have therefore addressed such issues.
I turn to points raised by the shadow Minister, who asked about how we are approaching the WTO. We have been clear that our schedule of tariff rate quotas on agricultural products should be divided between the EU and the UK based on an historical reference period. We regard that as a matter of technical rectification rather than reopening everything for renegotiation, and that is the approach we are taking on existing TRQs.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned New Zealand lamb and pointed out that we have a TRQ of just short of 250,000 tonnes for lamb from New Zealand coming into the UK. It is also important to recognise that, in recent years, New Zealand has only ever used about 70% of its quota. That demonstrates that long before the ceiling of that tariff rate quota is hit, they find themselves unable to compete with UK producers. I am more optimistic than some about British sheep producers’ ability to compete with New Zealand and Australia. Many do so already. As a country, we should not get spooked by some kind of New Zealand haka on lamb production. We need to get on the pitch and play, and I think we will find that we can beat them.
We have been clear that in any future trade agreements we will maintain our standards. We will not reduce our standards in pursuit of a trade deal. That is a common feature. It is quite possible for us, through doing trade deals with third countries, to require that those who wish to supply us under such agreements must meet our standards.
Just this morning, I visited the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board and talked to officials who were involved in our negotiations with the United States on reopening its market for British beef, which we have worked on for a number of years. There are opportunities for British beef exports to the United States, but there are also one or two technical areas where the United States wants us to change our rules for those supplying them to meet their standards. For instance, they have a slightly different approach to monitoring things such as E. coli and to the methodology that a vet should use when visually inspecting animals as they arrive in the pen.
We could go in and say, “This is no good. You’ve got to change your rules to be like the British rules,” but we do not. Actually, we say, “Fair enough. Those suppliers who want to supply that market should do that. We should respect their rules, and they should respect ours.” Equally, if US producers want to supply the British market, it is absolutely open to us to say that that must be done on British standards. We are a free-trading country, and we will be open to doing trade deals, but we are clear that we have standards and values that we will not abandon.