Draft Livestock (Records, Identification and Movement) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Debate between David Rutley and Thangam Debbonaire(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Livestock (Records, Identification and Movement) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
Mr Howarth, it is, as always, a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 enables the Government to provide continuity and legal certainty by bringing EU legislation into UK law as retained EU law and to fix any legal deficiencies in the retained texts that exist as a consequence of EU exit.
The statutory instrument makes operability amendments to retained EU legislation on the identification and traceability of livestock, especially for cattle—all bovines—sheep and goats, so that it continues to function correctly on our statute book after the UK exits the European Union. Pigs are not mentioned in the SI, because EU legislation on pig identification and traceability has been fully transposed into UK law, as it originated in a European Community directive.
EU legislation in this area consists of an EU Council regulation for bovines, and one for sheep and goats. Underneath them sit Commission regulations or decisions that set out more technical details. In summary, the Council regulations prescribe regimes to help to control disease outbreaks by ensuring that the movements of farmed bovines, sheep and goats can be traced. To do that, they say how and when animals are identified, what records their keepers shall maintain and when they must report movements to a competent authority. The Commission regulations that sit below them address such details as criteria for selecting farms for compliance inspections, rules on ear-tagging and passports for bovines, and technical standards for electronic ID tags used for sheep.
I should make it clear that the changes being made to the retained law are technical operability changes. They include such matters as changing references to “Member States” to “the appropriate Minister” or to “the United Kingdom”, “Community rules” to
“rules set out in retained EU direct legislation”
and so on.
The EU legislation to be retained is directly applicable in each member state. As animal health policy and its delivery are a devolved competence, each territory of the UK enforces them via its own separate existing SIs, and will continue to do so with the retained law. The devolved Administrations were fully involved in the preparation of the instrument, and their Assemblies have consented to its being made.
I should also emphasise that the SI does not introduce new policies. The current rules that livestock keepers or businesses must comply with will be unchanged by the SI. The UK Administrations have plans to modernise our respective livestock traceability systems and rules over the coming years—for example, to make them more digital. That work is not affected by the content of the SI, which is about maintaining the status quo.
I will now address points made about the SI by the Committees that sifted it as a negative procedure SI in December: the Commons European Statutory Instruments Committee and the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Both Committees considered that it met the requirements to be changed to an affirmative SI, because they saw it as conferring significant new legislative functions on Ministers and allowing Ministers to charge for certain controls.
On the first point, the Committees considered amendments made by the SI as conferring new legislative functions on Ministers in the UK, in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or in the UK devolved Administrations. In practice, animal health policy is a devolved competence in the UK. How that function is exercised is therefore already a matter for devolved Ministers. The changes made by the SI simply clarify that the delivery of livestock ID and movement functions will, as now, be for the appropriate Ministers in the UK: the Secretary of State at DEFRA, Welsh and Scottish Ministers, or Ministers in the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland.
The transfer of legislation-making functions—the ability to make policy changes in the future—from the Commission to appropriate Ministers in the area of retained animal health law is effected by a different affirmative SI, which some of us may remember, that was approved by this House on 27 February: the Animals (Legislative Functions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
David Rutley
The hon. Member for Bristol West shows how assiduous she is in her duties by remembering that SI. Excellent! That is particularly good at such an early hour in the morning in Parliament.
On the second point, both Committees noted that the draft SI contains a charging power, with the Commons sifting Committee noting that Regulation 4(12) has the effect of allowing Ministers to charge to cattle farmers the costs of systems set up to identify and register cattle and trace their movements. I simply note that although that possibility is set out in article 9 of the retained Council regulation on the identification and registration of bovines, charging for those controls is not the policy of present and past UK Administrations. There are no plans to make it so.
The power to make EU exit SIs exists to fix deficiencies in retained law that there would otherwise be as a consequence of EU exit. The existence of the charging power is not such a deficiency. The change that article 4(12) of the draft SI makes to that provision is to change the term “Member States” to “appropriate Minister”. The SI has also been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which has made no observations on it.
Key stakeholders, including farming unions and sector bodies, were informed in the early stages that this instrument was being prepared. None has commented on drafts of the instrument during its preparation. Given that it is concerned simply with ensuring that the retained EU legislation is operable, and as the changes it makes entail no changes to the day-to-day rules that keepers comply with or to the systems they use to record and report movements, that is understandable. The stakeholders have been much more focused on, and involved with, our plans to develop our livestock movement tracing systems over the next few years but, again, they are not part of the SI. An impact assessment has not been produced for the draft instrument, as it will have no impact on the livestock or other sectors.
The SI will ensure that the law on livestock identification and traceability, as retained, will continue to function correctly after we leave the EU. For the reasons that I have set out, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Draft Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Debate between David Rutley and Thangam Debbonaire(5 years, 8 months ago)
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David Rutley
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stroud for his characteristically thoughtful contribution. I mentioned that the SI is purely technical and operability correction oriented, and it is important to recognise that. Although he raised concerns about bundling, I think he appreciates the sheer weight of SIs we need to get through. Certainly, both Opposition and Government Members have very kindly helped to facilitate that. The good news is that we are making good progress.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
The Minister says we have to get through these SIs. We had some time to get through them. They were all utterly predictable, but the Government have left them all until the very last minute. We are trying to get through 27 in the next 14 days, which in my view is utterly reprehensible.
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for setting out her views so clearly. I just wish she would speak a bit more clearly so we could understand her views completely. Her concerns are understood, but we are in challenging circumstances. All I can do is commend, as I have before, the incredibly hard work of officials in the devolved Administrations and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I know she does not suggest this is not the case, but they have been working at pace. I have been working with them—sometimes trying to encourage greater speed and sometimes trying to keep up with them. The good news is that we are definitely through the vast majority of the SIs. There are several more to do, as she says, over the next few weeks, but when you are having this much fun, you just want to carry on, surely?
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Lady for her point. I understand we are covering a lot today, but—perhaps I need to do better at communicating this; I will try once more—the draft regulations are about transferring powers. There is a clear theme. The regulations are about technical operations, and I hope that has come through at least to some degree in the comments that have been made.
With the Committee’s permission, I will move on to some of the more detailed points that the hon. Member for Stroud raised. On animal imports in relation to the effect of leaving the EU on the animal trade and pet travel more generally, I want to reassure him that DEFRA has carried out extensive engagement on imports of animals and animal products. Even where consultation has not been required, there has been extensive engagement: the Department has engaged with over 300 stakeholders to date, with 50 events on this, so there has been close co-operation.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about impact assessments. As he knows, because we have been through this many times before—I am getting a glare from the hon. Member for Bristol West—
David Rutley
No, it was a glare. Yesterday we had an SI Committee and were able to set out clearly what the costs were—very minimal, in that situation—regarding veterinary medicines. In this situation, these changes are minimal.
On food labelling, there will be changes, but through representation and our engagement with the food and drink sector it was clear that we needed to find a sensible transition to the new arrangements, where there would be at least 21 months and, with GI, three years to transition. As a result, the costs involved are very minor.
Based on guidelines, there was no need to conduct a formal impact assessments, but once again I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there was maximum engagement with those bodies. Indeed, I meet the Food and Drink Federation, the British Retail Consortium, UKHospitality and the National Farmers Union every week to ensure that I am fully aware of their concerns about issues such as this and many others.