Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 General Committees

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

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. The Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018 completes the various reforms and actions to simplify and clarify the statute book which have been identified through the red tape challenge initiative. On the point made by the shadow Minister, those reforms are not part of an EU withdrawal programme—as he said, we still have that to look forward to. They are the closing stages of the red tape challenge that took place between 2011 and 2015, which reviewed some 6,000 rules and regulations across Government. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs alone reviewed some 1,200 regulations, involving full public participation and external review. That led to recommendations to improve, simplify, merge or revoke 650 regulations.

The initiative was carried out against a clear objective: to ensure the maintenance of existing environmental and consumer standards. There was also a clear aim to remove needless red tape and bureaucracy and to support enterprise. Some of the reforms that were identified and implemented through the red tape challenge included the removal of outdated or redundant regulations to tidy up the statute book and the removal of overlapping or confusing guidance. Collectively, the reforms that were implemented by DEFRA under the red tape challenge were estimated to reduce business costs by around £300 million a year, as validated by the independent Regulatory Policy Committee.

It was in completing that work under the red tape challenge that the Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018 came into effect. It revoked a total of nine redundant SIs and came into effect on 11 July 2018. Turning to some of the key components that the shadow Minister raised, the order revoked a number of redundant provisions, including the Milk Quota (Calculation of Standard Quota) Order 1986, which was part of a redundant EU scheme that was first introduced in 1984, when EU production far outstripped demand. The quota regime was one of the tools that were introduced to overcome those structural surpluses. Successive reforms of the EU’s common agricultural policy have increased the market orientation of the sector, and in parallel provided a range of other, more targeted instruments to help support producers in vulnerable areas, such as mountain areas where the costs of production are higher.

Schedule 1 to the Agriculture Act 1986 provides for landlords to pay compensation to their tenants for milk quotas that are registered to them in relation to the land that makes up the holding, upon termination of tenancy of land in England and Wales. Those regulations ceased to have effect on 1 April 2015, following the final day of operation of the EU’s milk quota regime. Since the scheme ceased to have effect at that time, we believe that it is right to remove the redundant order, which serves no further purpose.

The Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018 also revokes the Importation of Hay and Straw Order 1979, which prohibited the landing in Great Britain of any hay or straw except under the authority of a licence. As the hon. Member for Stroud pointed out, that order was introduced to protect animal health by requiring all hay and straw to be licensed prior to importation into Great Britain, thereby allowing the Secretary of State to put in place the necessary conditions. Hay and straw are a potential source of the foot and mouth virus.

The Importation of Hay and Straw Order 1979 has long been superseded by EU legislation, which now provides conditions for the importation of hay and straw from third counties. As such, that order is redundant and has been superseded by the definition of hay and straw in the Trade in Animals and Related Products Regulations 2011, which allows England to set conditions for processed hay and straw that may still carry animal health risks. DEFRA takes our obligation to protect against animal disease outbreaks very seriously. As we leave the EU we will ensure that all relevant EU provisions relating to the importation of hay and straw are maintained in our domestic law through the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, thereby ensuring continuity.

The order also revokes the Code of Practice on Environmental Procedure for Flood Defence Operating Authorities (Internal Drainage Boards and Local Authorities) Approval Order 1996. That rather long-titled order, granted approval in accordance with section 61E of the Land Drainage Act 1991, set out a code of conduct. As part of the red tape challenge, DEFRA consulted widely with a number of bodies, including the Association of Drainage Authorities and the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport regarding the revocation of the code of practice. No concerns were raised, since the principles of the code are now fully embedded in good practice in any event.

Finally, and by no means least, since I know that it was the main reason the Opposition chose to bring about today’s proceedings, the order revoked the remnants of the former agricultural wages legislation, which were no longer relevant and no longer in force following the coalition Government’s decision to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board in 2013 via the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.

The Agricultural Wages Committees (Transitional Provisions) Order 1974 simply dissolved the then agricultural wages committees in England and Wales, in order that they could be replaced by new committees in conformity with altered local government boundaries under the Local Government Act 1972. The Agricultural Wages Committees (Areas) Order 1974 then separately established, with effect from 1 April 1974, agricultural wages committees in line with the new altered local government boundaries. That order was repealed, in respect of England, by the 2013 Act, which abolished the Agricultural Wages Board and all the agricultural wages committees that existed at that time.

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that the committees that existed in 2013 to support the Agricultural Wages Board have already been disbanded, and the legislation that established them has been revoked. Today’s order does no more than remove a redundant order from the early ’70s that simply pertained to local government boundary changes and the necessary reconfiguration of advisory committees that took place at that time, which was incidentally about the time that I was born. I hope that I have reassured him that, whatever his views about the need or otherwise for an agricultural wages board, the order we are revoking is neither here nor there, since it has ceased to have any effect since those local government boundary changes in the early 1970s.

I will touch briefly on the wider argument around the Agricultural Wages Board, since I have chosen to focus most of my comments on that particular order. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean pointed out, it is not necessary to regulate to increase wages in that way, when actually we have a very tight labour market, with close to full employment, and the market is driving higher wages.

The Agricultural Wages Board was conceived before the Labour party introduced the national minimum wage, which is now supported by Members on both sides of the House. More importantly, it was the current Government that introduced a new higher national living wage. The reality is that both the national minimum wage and the new national living wage have superseded the need for an old-style agricultural wages board, which had limitations. At best, it simply duplicated what was being done by the new national minimum wage. It also did not recognise the ability to pay certain staff a salary as it related all the time to an hourly rate of pay. That prevented some of the middle-tier management from being established on a proper footing with an annual salary, bonuses and the like. It was a restrictive system in that sense. It was built for a different era and I believe it has no place in the world in which we currently exist.