Agriculture Bill

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

Which is of course the very point we are making. I thought that everyone would welcome the opinions of the Scottish National party and the people of Scotland, because of course in this precious Union surely we are all equals, although I will come to points that directly affect Scotland shortly.

DEFRA admitted to the NAO that it will be unable to handle the increase in export health certificates needed for farmers to carry on exporting their produce to the world’s largest single market because it is currently done on a spreadsheet that only one person can operate at a time. The Department’s long-term ambition is to get up to the same standard of e-certification that other nations use, but the Treasury has not yet seen the business justification document in order to approve it. I will lay odds that the costs of sorting that out will be more than the spare change down the back of the DEFRA sofa.

If anyone thought that animal exports getting done over was enough bad news, they had better not look at animal imports. The UK will lose access to the EU’s TRACES, or trade control and expert system. Data on animal imports will have to be entered manually at border inspection posts, so we can expect higher error rates, delays at borders while manual checks are carried out and an increased biosecurity risk, according to DEFRA’s report card from the NAO. Potentially, we will have high-quality beef sitting on one side of the border waiting for its turn on the spreadsheet to get a health certificate for export, while the supermarket lasagne is sitting on the other side waiting for a border guard to punch its information into the system. In the meantime, farmers will be watching their livelihoods disappear, while every truck in the game is held up at the border.

There are two points, parallel to those issues, that are vital to Scotland’s food production and marketing. The first is the need for seasonal workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will go into our concerns about that at length, but I will quickly add that the pitiful pilot scheme announced recently for seasonal workers would have been laughed at, had we not already seen crops rotting in the fields this year for want of workers to pick them. The other issue is the need for protection in global markets. Those needs are being ignored in Whitehall.

The position on geographical indicators and other protections is similar. The EU currently protects Scottish produce in international markets, including Scotch whisky, Scotch lamb, Scotch beef, the cheeses, Stornoway black pudding, and so on. There are similar products elsewhere—the Melton Mowbray pork pie springs to mind, along with Fenland celery and Yorkshire rhubarb. The Minister of State for Trade Policy gave evidence to a Committee of the Scottish Parliament last month, and said that Scotch whisky would continue to be protected because of the importance of Scotch whisky exports to the UK economy, but that the others were basically up for grabs. He said:

“PGIs present quite serious difficulties in free-trade negotiations because some nations regard them as unfair protection or non-tariff barriers to trade.”

He went on to say that the issue is not straightforward in trade negotiations because we would have to demonstrate market penetration or recognition. In other words, protections in international markets for goods produced here will be negotiating chips on the table in each new trade deal that the UK looks for. Scotland’s farmers, having built a reputation for quality and traceability that helps to sell their products across borders, are about to see their market share threatened, even if they can get through the border posts, because they will be losing easy access to the world’s biggest single marketplace, but also because the protections that the machinery of the EU afford will be stripped away as the UK struggles to learn once again how to negotiate trade deals and negotiates away any protection that our unique products might have had.

It is notable that the briefings on the Bill that I have received from organisations in England are broadly in favour of it, while the briefings from organisations in Scotland are not.

In this, as in so much else, Scotland and England are different, and the differences cannot be easily reconciled. There was a time when Ministers in Whitehall acknowledged and accepted those differences and to an extent celebrated them as part of the diversity of the UK they sought to govern. Acknowledging that diversity and respecting its history could be achieved by respecting the devolved Administrations. There is no need for a power grab. There is no need for the centralisation of responsibility in Smith Square. Indeed, we know, and I am sure the Secretary of State will concede, that the plans being made for agriculture in England and the policies already being implemented would not suit Scotland; they will be harmful to Scottish food producers.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

The hon. Lady speaks about briefings. Does she agree with the National Farmers Union Scotland, which said in its briefing that the Scottish National party Scottish Government should accept the offer from the Westminster Government to include a schedule for Scotland? Why is the SNP refusing to do that?

[Deidre Brock]

I note the selective quote from the hon. Gentleman. The NFUS also said that any such schedule should be one that comes from the Scottish Government. One could ask whether the DEFRA Secretary would be willing to accept Scottish Government amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

Several right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned that this is the first time in over 40 years that our UK Parliament has discussed and debated UK agricultural policy. For us younger Members, it is the first time in our lifetime that this Parliament has been able to discuss such matters, which I welcome greatly. As someone who, from leaving agricultural college to being elected, had not just a job in farming but a passion for farming, this legislation is important to me.

That passion has continued in my time as the Member of Parliament for Moray, which is a rich agricultural community. Farmers from Glenlivet to Garmouth, and from Keith to Kintessack, are extremely positive about several of the Bill’s elements, because there is a great deal to be positive about. However, what we have unfortunately heard from SNP Members throughout the debate has been doom and gloom. We heard from the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for 20 minutes, and I would have liked her to have spoken for longer, because we heard absolutely nothing about a SNP vision for Scottish agriculture—[Interruption.] I will come to their holding up of bits of paper in a moment.

All we got from the hon. Lady was petty political point scoring and absolutely no answers for Scottish farmers, who are looking for Scottish MPs to come down to Westminster to stand up for farming. I believe that they are getting that from Scottish Conservative Members, and I think they got that from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) in his earlier intervention, but from SNP Members they got nothing but criticism. The SNP highlighted the omissions from the Bill and the failures regarding briefings, but there was nothing about what the SNP would do for agriculture in Scotland.

I really do wish that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith had spoken for a bit longer, because that would have given us more than just her holding up documents, saying that the Scottish Government are consulting. In reality, there is a vacuum in policy from this tired SNP Scottish Government. They do not have the answers. Our Scottish farmers and my Moray farmers deserve better.

I urge the SNP Members here—all three of them—to join us and start working together to set things right. Give Scottish farmers the guarantee of inclusion in the Bill while Nicola Sturgeon and her Ministers work on their own long-overdue proposals. The NFUS made it clear in its briefing for the debate that another schedule should be inserted in the Bill. Local farmers in Moray and farmers across Scotland are greatly disappointed that the SNP would rather play party politics than get around the table, work with Ministers and accept the offer that was accepted by the Welsh Government.

It is becoming more and more evident to Scottish farmers and rural Scotland in general that it is the Scottish Conservatives, not the Scottish National party, who are truly standing up for their interests. That has been clear in today’s debate. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith thinks that farming is a matter for her to laugh at. It is a serious matter for our constituents, and that is why so many of us are here today, trying to ensure that this important Bill is passed. I am sure it will be improved as it goes through Parliament. It is unfortunate that, time after time, the SNP simply wants to talk down what we do in Westminster, rather than talking it up and working for our farmers, who deserve more than they are getting from the SNP.