Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Minister will move an amendment to the programme motion agreed by the Committee on Tuesday.

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

I beg to move,

That on Thursday 25 October, after hearing oral evidence in accordance with the motion agreed to by the Committee on Tuesday 23 October, the Committee shall hear oral evidence from the following until not later than 4.30pm—

(1) Ulster Farmers’ Union;

(2) NFU Scotland;

(3) Scottish Government;

(4) Quality Meat Scotland.

I wish to record my thanks and that of the Committee to the patient Clerks, who have made accommodations following late requests for additional witnesses.

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

On a point of order, Sir Roger. Simply put, we need to hear from the Rural Payments Agency and the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The one thing that came out of our earlier sittings was that no one quite knows how what is in the Bill will work, so we need to know from the extant organisations—they might be replaced, but that is something for the Government to decide—exactly how they think they will operate. I ask for another sitting to hear witnesses from those organisations. They might not be able to come, because of the short notice, but they should be called to account. I hope that would be agreed unanimously.

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[The Chair]

Thank you for joining us. As always, I am afraid we are playing “beat the clock”, but we will do our best to ensure that everybody has a fair hearing. For the record, please introduce yourselves, starting with Professor Fox.

Professor Fox: Good morning. My name is Pete Fox and I am director of water, land and biodiversity at the Environment Agency.

Helen Taylor: Hello, I am Helen Taylor and I also work at the Environment Agency, where I am programme managing our input to future farming.

John Cross: Good morning. I am John Cross. I am a farmer by trade, but I also chair the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs tuberculosis eradication advisory group, and I chair the Traceability Design User Group for the industry and DEFRA.

[George Eustice]

Q 102 I would like to begin with a question for Mr Cross. I know you are involved with the Traceability Design User Group. A key section of the Bill deals with powers that would enable us to gather more data and information from anyone in the supply chain, including farmers. Can you set out what types of information you would like, or in what way you would like Government to use the provisions in the Bill, to support the important work that you are doing?

John Cross: The industry—the whole supply chain—has been mindful for many years that the flow and sharing of data within the supply chain has been virtually non-existent. In the past, the Government have had powers to collect data that they needed for statutory purposes, such as notifiable disease, food chain information and food safety. Those statutory needs were catered for, but for many years the supply chain itself has suffered from the weakness that comes from an absence of data in that supply chain. Data is important for eradicating endemic diseases, which hold back the productivity of the national herds and flocks, and for evidencing the provenance of products for international and domestic markets. Obviously, it is in everyone’s interest to be able to stamp out exotic disease in a hurry, should it flare up. Evidencing provenance in the supply chain is important for international trade opportunities, where international customers’ No. 1 question is always about traceability and the availability of information about the product.

We are not well equipped as a supply chain at the moment at all. In fact, the industry has come to the conclusion, fairly rapidly since the referendum in 2016, that it needs to think very differently about its future. It needs a lot more information to manage its supply chain a lot better. It needs to rid itself of endemic disease. It needs to explore the best possible portfolio of opportunity in the global and domestic market. It needs more information about itself, to enhance those efficiencies, drive out disease and trade with a very good evidence base about its product.

[The Chair]

Thank you. Ms Taylor and Professor Fox, if you wish to add anything, please feel free to do so.

[George Eustice]

Q At the moment, we have something of a hotch-potch of different pieces of legislation and different systems covering all sorts of different species. There is a different system for cattle, pigs, sheep and so on. Could you explain what you think the common characteristics of a new, single, integrated animal ID and traceability system would look like?

John Cross: Yes, indeed. As people may or may not know, for the three production species—cattle, sheep and pigs—at the moment there are three different systems. In the main, except for the pig system, they are almost entirely paper-based, with all the problems of workload and cost that go with that.

For the last 20 months, the industry and Government together have formed a group called the TDUC, which is part of an aspiration for a completely new digital livestock information service, and for 20 months Government have been working alongside industry and all the DEFRA agencies, such as the Food Standards Agency, the Rural Payments Agency and trading standards—everyone who has an interest in livestock welfare, livestock health, livestock movements and traceability, food safety and product authenticity.

Anyone involved in those areas of work is involved in what is a co-creation partnership that, for the last 20 months, has worked to design what we intend to be the new livestock information service, which will be a multi-species, paperless, digital information service that will eventually be real-time and comprehensive. That is where these particular data-collection and data-sharing powers will come in—to be the lifeblood that makes the system work. That will probably be the biggest step change that certainly the ruminant livestock sector in this country has seen in many decades.

The pig industry, which is rather more integrated and further down the road than the ruminant sectors, is part way there, but being part of a single system will add value to it as well. This will certainly be the most enabling action that industry and Government could jointly make to make the ruminant livestock sector fit for purpose for the future. That is certainly a view strongly held by the industry itself.

[George Eustice]

Q A final point: if we got that right and had a single, coherent system, what impact do you think that might have on our market-access efforts in other countries, in terms of giving reassurance to overseas veterinary authorities?

John Cross: Over the years, I have been quite heavily involved in international trade development, and one of the things that struck me in the south-east Asian markets that people talk about, and particularly in China, where there are huge opportunities, is that when you sit in front of Chinese veterinary officials and talk to them about market access, their primary and secondary questions are all about proof of traceability, evidence of traceability, evidence of centrally co-ordinated disease control strategies and data. They talk about product quality and price et cetera at a much lower level later. Any of the big markets we would aspire to balance our whole trade picture with would challenge us on evidencing traceability —that would be their very first question.

Indeed, if we actually look at our proposition, as an English industry out there on the global stage, you cannot get away from the fact that all the other big meat-producing economies and traders have either already done what we are doing or are in the process of doing it now, at pace. I strongly believe that in this country we produce some of the best—if not the best—meat products in the world, but the challenge from future customers and competitors will be to prove it. At the moment, our system creaks and struggles to do that, whereas with the powers that we seek, that would be a real-time service that could be demonstrated digitally anywhere in the world, and that would put us completely on the front foot.

[Dr Drew]

Q Good morning, everyone. A simple question: to make the Bill work, what additional enforcement powers will be needed, and do you think that they should be in the Bill or in subsequent statutory instruments?

John Cross: To completely enable our vision of the livestock information service, your data has to be complete —you cannot function with half or sub-optimal data. If you are eradicating disease, and that is your focus on that particular usage of data, then unless it is complete, you will not achieve your goal. At the moment, DEFRA has powers to collect data for statutory purposes, but it doesn’t actually have the authority to share that data and to allow people within the supply chain to make use of the data.

There are a whole lot of opportunities for farmers themselves. For instance, there is at the moment a desperate need for farmers to make informed purchasing decisions about whether the cattle they are buying have come from a TB high-risk area or an edge area, or whether they are going to a low-risk area. That whole area of risk-based trading—for any disease, not just tuberculosis—needs information. You cannot manage risk without data. You need the ability to collect data in a complete format from everyone, and then you need to be able to share it so that farmers can access it easily and quickly and it is available in the supply chain. That is what is different—the collection of complete data and making it available.

Professor Fox: First, I would like to say that the Bill provides a really good framework for taking the whole agriculture sector forward. It has a lot to commend it, particularly the provision for payment for public goods and the recognition of a need to transition the sector into a new place.

In terms of the things around regulation enforcement that we would like to see, from an environmental perspective, the Bill could provide an opportunity to have a clear and simplified regulatory baseline. At the moment, we have a series of maybe four key pieces of legislation that are applied disparately, and the Bill offers an opportunity to provide farmers with a clarified and simplified view of what is required of them. I believe that will lead to better conversations between farmers, suppliers and ourselves about what is expected.

Within that, it should be recognised that the provision of environmental goods or public goods should be contingent on compliance with that regulatory baseline in order to give the public confidence that their money is invested in farmers and in outcomes that are genuinely provided in a healthy and vibrant countryside.

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[The Chair]

Before I revert to the Minister, are there are any more questions from the Back Benches? No.

[George Eustice]

Q I want to come back to a point that Professor Fox made earlier about regulation. You will be aware that the Government have commissioned Dame Glenys Stacey to do a comprehensive review of the regulatory baseline and the culture in which we carry out enforcement. We envisage that that will be something for future legislation.

On the specifics of the schemes we have now, is not the issue you raise covered by clause 3? It is explicit that, through regulations, the Secretary of State can set eligibility criteria for the new schemes, enforce compliance with the new schemes, make requirements about record keeping, have the power to recover financial assistance and even impose monetary penalties and create offences. That is a pretty comprehensive set of enforcement provisions to sit alongside a new scheme.

I take your point, and the Government accept that we want to review the regulatory baseline and the culture. However, for the purpose of the schemes outlined in the Bill, do you not think the issue is covered by clause 3?

Professor Fox: I agree that clause 3 has an awful lot to commend it, and I believe that is the framework on which the environmental regulations could be hung. Our aim is to ensure that there is clarity for farmers as well as regulators on what we are seeking to achieve together for the future. In that respect, the clause provides the powers and responsibilities—the opportunity for Ministers to make those schemes and those decisions. However, a bit of clarity in the Bill on the direct linkage of compliance with the environmental baseline, being a prerequisite of getting money for public goods, would make a clear statement about the Government’s expectations for the industry. We are contributing fully to the review by Dame Glenys Stacey, as you know, and we look forward to helping the Government to interpret and determine how they want to take any of those forward in any case.

[George Eustice]

Q But is it not your reading here that through this, the Secretary of State has the power to say, for instance, that an eligibility criterion would require you to be compliant with the existing legal baseline?

Professor Fox: I agree that it gives the Ministers the choice of doing that.

[The Chair]

There are no further questions. Thank you Professor Fox, Ms Taylor and Mr Cross for coming to join us and for your evidence, which is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much indeed.

Examination of Witnesses

Jack Ward and Helen Browning OBE gave evidence.