Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Legislative Functions) and Veterinary Surgeons (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Monday 7th October 2019 General Committees

[George Eustice]

I shall try to deal with as many of the points that have been raised as possible. Starting in reverse order with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor, it is indeed the case that these powers, having been brought across, give the UK Government the power and the ability to change the list should, for instance, the European Union have a more lax state of affairs than us. Should it take unnecessary risks with food safety or public health, we would have the option to change the list to have a more stringent approach should it be necessary.

The purpose of amending the regulations now is, in the initial instance, to give the European Union the reassurance that we have all of the powers that we need dynamically to align our regulations on some of these SPS issues with the EU so that it can be reassured that we are not going to depart during that transitional period from the inspection regime that it currently has.

The hon. Member for Ipswich, the shadow Minister, raised the issue of goods from third countries. He is concerned that they may not be checked or inspected at all, but that is not the case. Currently, goods that come into the European Union will be checked in accordance with European standards. Goods that come into the UK on the day after we leave the European Union will also be checked, as they are now, on behalf of the European Union, in exactly the same way that they are now. Where we have transit goods—goods that are landed in another EU country but are destined for the UK market—they will be checked in exactly the same way as they are now when they come into the UK.

So it is already the case that goods in transit are inspected in the UK when they arrive, not at the port of entry. In so far as they are not coming through as goods in transit, but are simply landed in another EU port and then re-exported to the UK, they would undergo the same checks as they do today through the EU’s own system.

The other point I want to make is about rapid alert systems. The EU system is called RASFF: ports in member states can alert one another to problems that they have encountered at the border. The UK contributes the vast majority of the data to that, far more than any of the other countries. I think that for some items, as much as 75% of the intelligence on the system comes from the UK. We have to understand that the EU does not have its own inspection taskforce; it relies on member states. Currently, this task is performed at border inspection posts by the Animal and Plant Health Agency on our behalf, which does a very thorough job. That is where the expertise comes from; it does not come specifically from the European Union.

It may be the case that more goods have to go through the transit route to get to the UK. We anticipate an increase in the number of transit goods, which could mean up to around 8,000 extra checks at UK border inspection posts compared with now. However, we believe that we already have the resources to manage what is a small increase, based on the number of checks that we already do.

The hon. Member for Ipswich asked why we need to use the urgent procedure for this regulation. A European Union SCoPAFF meeting is taking place on 11 October, a few days away; that is not long. It has been a rather moving date: at one point it was going to be earlier in October, then at another point it was going to be 18 October, and it now seems to be moving again to 11 October. Given the importance of getting that third-country listing, we believed it was important to ensure we had done everything possible to provide the EU with the reassurance it wanted to be able to expedite that listing. That is why we made this regulation under the urgent procedure.

The hon. Gentleman ventured into a number of other areas, including the so-called Benn Act—the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. However, when challenged on some of those points, he also pointed out that they were outside the scope of what we are discussing today, so I will not be drawn into those issues save to say that this Government are working very hard and energetically to get an agreement, and have come forward with a sensible proposal to replace the so-called Irish backstop.

[Sandy Martin]

Why is it necessary to bring this SI forward now if there is no chance of our leaving without a deal on 31 October, and if there is a chance of our leaving without a deal on 31 October, how does that square with the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act? That was the point I was making about that Act.

[George Eustice]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act does not say there cannot be a no-deal Brexit. It requires the Prime Minister to send a certain letter on a certain date. We do not yet know whether the European Union would agree to extend; we do not know what terms it would demand or extract; and we do not know whether those terms, and any counter-offer it made, would be acceptable to the Government, Parliament or anybody else. There are still many uncertainties here, and we are clear that we will leave, with or without a deal, at the end of October. That remains the Government’s position, and it is therefore prudent to prepare for all eventualities, which is why this SI is necessary.

Finally, I will deal with a point made by the hon. Member for Falkirk about vets and veterinary capacity. This particular regulation is more about the inspections that APHA would conduct on behalf of the Government on imports from third countries, and less about the export health certificate. No veterinary capacity is really relevant to those inspections, other than the APHA port inspections that we already carry out. As I said, I believe we have sufficient capacity to manage that small increase in load.

However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a point about export health certificates, where goods going the other way would need some veterinary attestation to say that the goods are what they said they were. We have been offering free training for official vets to sign EHCs. Some 736 have registered with APHA, and 564 are already enrolled on that course. I am told that 152 have qualified, and the number of official veterinarians who can sign EHCs for food products has increased by 200 since 8 February, to 835. We are also looking at additional approaches, such as having certification support officers so that this work can be done by people other than fully qualified vets. We are conscious that there will be an increase in burden when it comes to export health certificates, and we have been working to build capacity in that area.

I hope that I have managed to address most of the issues that have been raised, and therefore commend the regulation to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I rise to support these two statutory instruments. I will be brief because, although I intended to serve on the original Committee, I appreciate that I have not had a chance to give you a great deal of notice of my intention to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to our civil service and the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who, on these regulations and many others, have done a sterling job in making sure that retained EU law is operable should we leave without an agreement at the end of this month. Over the past six months, I have seen at first hand the huge amount of work put in by DEFRA officials, working late at night, to ensure that we have such statutory instruments in place so that retained EU law is operable when we leave.

We often read media reports that we are not ready for a no-deal exit and that we could not possibly leave without an agreement, and on that basis Parliament decided last week to vote to say that we should not leave without a withdrawal agreement. My experience in the Department until quite recently is that a huge amount of work has been put in, and the civil service has made sure it is an option for us to leave without an agreement, should that be necessary and should Parliament have the courage to do so. Obviously, we will find out in the next couple of weeks whether, indeed, that is still necessary.

Both sets of regulations, in common with all statutory instruments tabled under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, make very minor changes simply to make existing retained EU law operable.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my fear that people working extremely hard very late at night to get through vast quantities of regulations might make some mistakes?

[George Eustice]

No, I do not. Having worked in DEFRA for five and a half years, I have tremendous admiration and respect for all those people. Although they work very hard through the night, somebody will mark and check their work the next day. That is how our civil service works, and it has made a sterling effort to make sure we have all these regulations in order.

As a general rule, almost every regulation of these two statutory instruments substitutes “Secretary of State” for “European Commission”. These regulations are not complicated but rather straightforward. We often hear a lot about so-called Henry VIII powers in such debates, and there is a suspicion that, through the use of statutory instruments, we might be making changes to primary legislation that should not be made.

In truth, the most pernicious use of a Henry VIII power in modern times has been section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which has run rampant through whole pieces of primary legislation, even important flagship Acts that predate our membership of the European Union. We are in a rather odd situation in debating on the Floor of the House whether it is okay to change “European Commission” to “Secretary of State”, as the original powers implied by these statutory instruments were imposed by the European Union without any debate in this House, typically through either an implementing Act or a delegated Act, and therefore with little or no scrutiny by the European Parliament and often with little or no scrutiny by the European Council. The role of this Parliament, if it was lucky, was to receive an explanatory memorandum but, by and large, only ever to receive letters to the European Scrutiny Committee advising on what the European Union had done to us.

Nevertheless, this is what taking back control means. It means that our Parliament, for once, is starting to take an interest in these matters, rather than leaving them to the European Union.

Draft Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment Etc.) Regulations 2019

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Thursday 21st February 2019 General Committees

[George Eustice]

These are two of a number of affirmative statutory instruments to be considered as the UK leaves the European Union, as provided for by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. They ensure that pesticide regulations remain operable after 29 March when we leave the European Union.

Plant protection products, commonly called pesticides, are currently regulated by means of EU regulation 1107/2009 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market, and associated regulation 396/2005 on maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin. Those two regulatory regimes are closely related and currently rely on centralised EU processes and mechanisms, although much of the business of the regimes is already conducted at national level. Decisions at EU level are taken on the basis of evaluations and assessments undertaken by member states, such as those undertaken by our Health and Safety Executive.

In future, those evaluations will inform a national decision rather than informing UK input to an EU decision. That means that much of the infrastructure and expertise we need is already in place in the UK, which will provide a good degree of continuity when we implement the UK-wide regime. The Chemicals Regulation Directorate, which sits within the HSE, already has around 150 staff working on pesticides, which is a considerable resource. We are known as probably the most advanced and developed country in Europe in terms of technical expertise.

Under the current system, a chemicals company that seeks an authorisation for a new active substance will go to a member state to have its technical information and scientific data evaluated. Those technical evaluations are currently conducted in the UK by the Chemicals Regulation Directorate. UK authorities already do around 30% of all the assessments of new products that take place in the European Union—we are known to be very efficient at doing that work and chemicals companies often choose to come to the UK.

The CRD then produces a draft assessment report, which contains a technical evaluation, looking at issues such as eco-toxicity, human health impacts, the fate of the chemicals in the environment and their efficacy. That draft assessment report is then submitted to the European Food Safety Authority which, in some cases but not all, runs a simple peer review process using a committee of experts. Following that process, EFSA reaches a final conclusion and makes a recommendation to the Commission. That recommendation is ultimately approved as a decision by one of the European Union’s standing committees—in this case the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed.

In future, we will still run all that information. Instead of having an EU peer review process, we will use the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides, and rather than the EU running a public consultation, there will be a requirement on the HSE to run the public consultation.

The regulations are designed to achieve a number of things. First, all decision-making functions and powers are repatriated from the EU to national level in the way that I have explained. That includes approval of all active substances and a number of related functions, such as the precise nature and format of the documents required and some of the renewals processes that are currently provided for in EU law.

Secondly, a mechanism is established to give effect to national decisions by listing approved active substances on a new statutory register in the form of a publicly available online database. This replaces the current EU mechanism for giving effect to decisions through a large volume of tertiary legislation that establishes the register.

Thirdly, other EU tertiary legislative powers will be repatriated. These are the powers to set out the principles and decisions and the thresholds and end points that should inform decisions. The powers will be exercised in future through statutory instruments rather than through tertiary legislation from the EU. A few very minor things, such as the precise format of dossiers and of assessment reports, can be dealt with administratively.

As I have explained, EU processes set out in the regulations are replaced with new national processes. The functions are retained where they remain relevant in a national context. Examples are consideration of specific technical issues specified in the regulations, public consultation on active substance applications, provision for consultation with independent specialists where appropriate, and final decision making.

National arrangements for independent scientific advice and assurance are in place. We already have advisory committees of experts and academics—the Expert Committee on Pesticides and the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food. They are preparing to meet the challenge of any additional advice that they will need to give. They are already looking at the forward pipeline of potential renewals and new product applications that they would need to consider, and reviewing whether they have the right skills balance in their existing committee structures and seeking to recruit additional ones where they deem that necessary.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Under the current regime, the EU produces in the order of 50 additional regulations per year. Once the powers have been repatriated to this country, will there be very close alignment of this country with the new regulations being produced in the EU? If not, how will we be able to maintain our ability to trade with the EU given our need to demonstrate that our pesticide standards are at least as good as the EU’s?

[George Eustice]

It is obviously open to us as an independent country to choose independently to adopt processes and have things similar to those in the EU if we want to. There is nothing to prevent us from doing that, but I believe that, when it comes to pesticides, it is very important to base our decisions on the correct scientific and technical interpretation of the risk to the environment and to health. We have instances where European countries have sometimes done the calculations wrong and authorised products that they should not have authorised. We would not want to follow them if they had made errors in their analysis. The important thing is that, as I have said, the CRD has the best scientific experts on pesticides in the EU definitely and possibly in the world. It is very important that we rely on that to protect the rigour of the process and do not simply slavishly follow decisions that come from elsewhere.

The EU regime’s power to establish a rolling active substance renewals programme will be replaced with a power to establish a national renewals programme to ensure that we are able to take renewal decisions as necessary from day one of exit.

Some elements of the current regime that rely on EU membership will no longer be able to operate. For example, the mutual recognition provisions for fast-tracking product approvals between member states in the same zone will no longer be relevant. However, as I said earlier, the UK will be able to take account of relevant assessments by other countries’ regulators in our own national assessments. Similarly, parallel trade permits for products rely on the sharing of information between member states and will no longer be relevant. Current parallel trade permits at the point of exit will remain valid for a transitional period of two years after exit or until the extant expiry day—whichever comes sooner. Transitional measures have been put in place, ensuring that changeover to the national regime is smooth. For example, we have measures to ensure that all current approvals and authorisations remain valid after the point of exit and measures to make provision for the handling of applications in train at the point of exit.

We are also taking forward a separate instrument, as I mentioned at the start, that was laid on 12 February. The Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 make some further minor changes relating to plant protection products and maximum residue levels. Those regulations are being made under the negative procedure. It is essentially a wash-up revocation and miscellaneous amendments SI to deal with changes that have come late in the day from the European Union. As Members will understand, there is a constant torrent of regulation in this space, so it is important that we make any necessary updates at the end of the process.

Those separate regulations also reinstate the original wording of article 46 of regulation 1107/2009 in place of the replacement article 46, which was to be substituted by regulation 5(24) of the draft Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which we are debating. That reinstatement is because the correction of article 46 made by the original drafting inadvertently altered the grace periods permitted under the article as it operates currently. In the new regulation, we have reverted to the original text.

The main changes in the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are very similar to those in the first instrument. First, the regulations repatriate all decision-making functions and powers, such as the setting of maximum residue levels, from the EU to the national level. Secondly, a mechanism is established to give effect to national maximum residue limit decisions by listing them on a new statutory register in the form of a publicly available online database.

EU processes set out in the regulations are replaced with new national processes. The functions are retained where they remain relevant in a national context, such as the valuation functions specified in the regulations. National arrangements for independent scientific advice and assurance are in place with our two highly respected expert committees. The requirement for reviews of EU maximum residue levels to ensure that they are set appropriately has been replaced by a provision for reviews at the national level. That has been necessary to ensure that it is practical and realistic for the UK to deliver acting alone. More realistic timelines to undertake reviews in a national context have therefore been set. They better match the real time that this work takes in practice in the EU at the moment.

The power to establish an EU residue monitoring programme has been replaced by an equivalent national power to put in place a national monitoring programme. The current EU programme looks three years ahead, so the UK’s obligations under the programme for the next three years are retained. That will ensure that the same standards of protection are maintained after exit. Transitional measures have been put in place to ensure that changeover to the national regime is smooth. For example, all MRLs in place at the point of exit will be carried over.

I make one final point clear to the Committee. There is a constant flow of EU tertiary regulations, typically with several each month giving effect to decisions on active substances and maximum residue levels. Two minor transitional provisions in the regulation on maximum residue levels, which were laid before Christmas and relate to regulation 396/2005, and which convert EU MRLs into our new statutory register, have already become redundant due to amendments made to that regulation by the EU in January. As I mentioned earlier, last week we introduced the draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Among other amendments, it will revoke the two transitional provisions that have been overtaken by events in the EU. Both SIs will be made together once the draft instrument laid last week has passed through the necessary parliamentary processes, which will ensure that our regulations link correctly to retained EU law as it is on exit day.

I want to make one final point. I appreciate that the SIs are very lengthy—they are longer than many of the other exit SIs. Hon. Members will note that there are large schedules at the back of the regulations that contain a long list of revocations of EU regulations that we no longer need, since those pieces of tertiary legislation were essentially the vehicle that delivered a message that will be recorded on our statutory register in the future. The vehicle itself is no longer needed and is redundant, which is why there are so many revocations at the back of these statutory instruments.

I hope I have explained the process to hon. Members and reassure them that we have a very high degree of technical expertise. Although we operate under an EU regime, in practice most of the technical work is done by our national authorities, which are well equipped to continue to do this task after we leave the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

It is very much the case that I would be open to saying that, as part of any future partnership, we should still have wider European technical working groups, so that the European Union can continue to benefit from British expertise but, at the moment, we are obviously not at the point of being able to advance discussions at that level of detail—as things stand, we are struggling to get a withdrawal agreement agreed by both sides at all.

[Sandy Martin]

Is there not a danger, Minister, that the people with the expertise will find that there is a more ready market for their expertise in the rest of the European Union, and that they will take their expertise back to the European Union rather than remaining in this country?

[George Eustice]

I do not think so because we will still need to comply with the regulations in the UK. The opportunities offered by Brexit to all DEFRA agencies add up to an exciting time. Rather than slavishly following EU law as we have had to do for decades, we have the opportunity to think through from first principles what good policy looks like, and to shape it independently.

Let me give hon. Members a sense of the scale of the renewal programme. Each year, usually around seven new active substances come on to the market, so the workload involved in assessing those is relatively modest, but dozens of active substances need to be reviewed every year. As the shadow Minister pointed out, currently under EU law the maximum residue limits are supposed to be reviewed within a 12-month period, which never happens. The European Union routinely breaks its own rules and typically takes up to three years to do that job.

We have to ask ourselves an important question. Is it better to rush things through in a hurry to hit some 12-month deadline, and to do things in a rather slipshod fashion, or is it better to take the time it takes to do the job thoroughly so that we have an absolutely proper understanding of any changes in the science on MRLs, and ensure that we have available all the necessary data on which to base a decision, and then be realistic about that timescale? The position we have taken, having discussed that with the HSE, is, “If you are going to do the job, do it properly; and if you are going to do it properly, be realistic about the time it takes to gather the raw data.” The HSE believes that a three-year window makes more sense than 12 months, and that in practice the EU works to that deadline anyway regardless of its own rules. We think it is better to have rules that we can abide by and that make sense than to have rules, as the EU does, that are routinely broken.

On peer review of the scientific advice, as I pointed out, we have the Expert Committee on Pesticides. Just as the EU currently puts together a peer review panel to look at the technical assessments done by the CRD, we envisage that the Expert Committee on Pesticides and the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food will be able to carry out a peer review process on the work done by our CRD officials.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of accountability. It is important to recognise that, under the current system, there really is no political accountability. As I said, the blizzard of tertiary regulations that come from the European Union go to a standing committee, where things are decided. After that, there is no parliamentary process in the European Parliament. As far as our Parliament is concerned, those regulations do not even warrant an explanatory memorandum to tell hon. Members what has been done. This is the simplest of all delegated Acts, of which there is zero political scrutiny at present.

In the future, there will be a maintained register, a national consultation run by the HSE and a peer review process run by the ECP, with its minutes published in the same way they are now for product authorisations. We will have a very open and transparent process that people with technical expertise will be able to probe and challenge, and people who seek to understand why a particular product is on the statutory register will readily be able to find the information they require.

In conclusion, I believe we have the expertise in place to run both regimes effectively. We have also taken on a scoping exercise to recruit additional staff and provide additional resources to the CRD. We have the expertise. The statutory instruments will ensure that we have an operable set of regulations that change nothing and bring across the EU regime. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

Draft Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Resolved,

That the Committee had considered the draft Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.—(George Eustice.)

Exiting the European Union (Aquaculture)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that confirmation. There was indeed consultation, but it was led by DAERA. It is important to recognise that we are doing this on DAERA’s behalf and at its request. DAERA has co-operated and consulted widely with stakeholders in Northern Ireland, and I understand that the regulations have their support. In conclusion—

[Sandy Martin]

The Minister has not fully answered my question about the way in which directive 2006/88 is being replaced by regulation 2016/249. He mentioned something about an automatic carry-over, but I do not really understand how that works. The statutory instrument says:

“After regulation 21(6), insert—

‘(7) For the purposes of paragraph (1), regulations 19(3)(c) and 21(1) and paragraphs (1)(c)(iii) and 4(d) of Schedule 1A, Part A of Annex 3 to Directive 2006/88’”

and so on. It is almost impossible for anybody to work out what is actually happening. Will the Minister describe how we are going to take on regulation 2016 rather than directive 2006, as a result of this statutory instrument?

[George Eustice]

The point that hon. Gentleman describes in some detail is a point that I explained in my opening speech when I talked about cross-references. If the retained EU law retained a reference to an EU directive, that would no longer be operable, because EU directives would no longer apply in the UK. The only way to make such provisions operable is to have a reference point in UK law. The 2006 regulations will become retained EU law on a UK legal basis. All we are saying is that we will change references to the original directive that gave rise to the regulation and make them references contained within the regulations themselves, so that they will remain operable. It is quite complicated, but essentially it boils down to this: EU directives will cease to have effect in the UK after we leave, but retained EU law will continue to have effect, so if there are provisions in directives that we wish to retain, we must bring them over in the retained EU law. In this case, we do that with the regulation concerned.

We have explored some of the key areas of this statutory instrument. I hope I have been able to reassure Members not only that this instrument is essential to ensure that we have an operable rulebook in this area on day one of exit, but that we are not creating any policy changes or new policy through this statutory instrument. We are simply ensuring that the arrangements that pertain today can continue. I therefore commend the motion to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Agriculture Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

I did not know that my right hon. Friend was in Oklahoma, but he is no longer the Secretary of State, and I have not had time to go to Oklahoma personally.

Smaller countries such as New Zealand and Australia have less parliamentary scrutiny—it is predominantly a prerogative for the Cabinet—but even Australia has a process whereby the final trade deal must be laid before Parliament for a period of 15 days. For us, this is an area led by the Department for International Trade. The hon. Member for Stroud said there were a number of amendments to the Trade Bill, which I know were debated. DIT has taken a position somewhere between the two. It envisages a 14-week consultation to run ahead of any new negotiation. There would then be a strategic trade advisory group, created to advise Ministers. As negotiations progressed there would be regular updates and statements with the International Trade Committee, so there would be a committee of MPs scrutinising the progress of negotiations. Finally, at the end of the negotiation, the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 would kick in. That would require the Government to lay the trade deal and the treaty that established it before Parliament. There would then be a period of 21 days during which Parliament could pray against that trade Bill and vote to refuse its ratification.

If that happened, the Government would have to go away and think again about what to do. If that process continued a number of times, it would obviously be possible to bring a motion before Parliament that would effectively veto the treaty. There would be lots of scrutiny during the development of the trade deals and then a parliamentary right to veto at the end.

[Sandy Martin]

Does the Minister accept that most trade deals involve various sectors? There is something unique about the agriculture sector and, in particular, the agriculture sector that will be created if this Bill is enacted. Farmers will be supported to do things other than the production of the substance that is the subject of trade. When we have a trade arrangement on agricultural products, we have a very different scenario from that we would have with a trade deal on products from producers who are not being supported to do other things. It is the support to do other things that needs the special protection in trade deals to do with agriculture.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but it is broader than that. Agriculture is unique. There is a reason why most trade deals that fail founder over arguments around agriculture. Controversy around deals such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or any others, for that matter, always concern issues about food standards, food quality and animal welfare, and rightly so. The truth is that consumers care about those issues deeply and passionately. They are less interested in chapters on digital or financial services.

[Sandy Martin]

So does the Minister accept there is a very good reason for having a special trade clause in the Bill?

[George Eustice]

There is a very good reason for having the thorough process outlined by the Department for International Trade that I am describing to the hon. Gentleman.

Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Thursday 15th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sandy Martin]

Will that report make clear the effect the Bill will have on the ability to meet our commitments under the convention on biological diversity?

[George Eustice]

The report will not have commenced by December. Obviously the report will cover December. Absolutely, there are obligations under the CBD and where policies we have in this document help us to deliver some of our objectives under some of these international conventions—there are many different ones that are not listed here, such as the Bern convention and others—we would be able to reflect it.

Under the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which is also cited in subsection (1)(e), the UK is obliged to report every five years on how the rights outlined in ICESCR are being implemented. The next report to the UN is expected in 2021.

Under the UN sustainable development goals, progress is demonstrated via the single departmental plan process. There are departmental annual reports and accounts, and data that is reported by the Office for National Statistics.

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

I understand that point, but there is obviously a limit to what we can deliver internationally. We have international forums through which we argue for such issues to be addressed.

Coming back to this particular clause, which links to another point that the hon. Lady raised about unfair trading practices in the EU dossier currently under discussion, the purpose of this part of the Bill around collection and sharing of data, and this requirement in clause 14 for people to provide information, is linked to unfair trading practices. The purpose of subsection (4)(b) is to promote transparency and fairness around the price of goods, and it is about the terms and conditions that individual purchasers or processors might have for farmers. The purpose is to improve fairness for producers, so that they have better transparency and can make more informed choices about who they sell their goods to.

[Sandy Martin]

Clause 14(3) states:

“Each purpose specified must be in, or covered by, the list of purposes in subsection 4.”

If these amendments are not passed, is there not a danger that various players within the supply chain might wish to use the fact that these were not specified in subsection (4) to say that they would not give information to the Secretary of State in the pursuit of the purposes for which the Bill stands?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

In the precise design we have, clauses 12 and 13—particularly clause 12—create quite a big power for the Secretary of State to require people to provide information. Therefore, we need clause 14 to place boundaries and scope on that. We have had criticism from Committees in the House of Lords and from hon. Members on this Committee, saying that there is too much free power for a Secretary of State—it is not defined or constrained enough. In clause 14, we are placing clear parameters on the purposes for which we will require data to be provided. That is right and proper, and what we are trying to achieve with clause 14. We do not want it to be an open-ended power.

[Sandy Martin]

Surely, you have reinforced what I am trying to say. You are placing parameters.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

In all international trade law, there are provisions on dumping—it is literally referred to as “dumping”—that enable us to restrict imports from other countries where under-priced, under-valued produce was being dumped in our market. That can therefore be dealt with elsewhere.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Would the Minister characterise all exports from a country that subsidises its agricultural production as “dumping”?

[George Eustice]

No, because we export and have some subsidies for our farmers. We have a range of different approaches that we can take to—[Interruption.] We are moving away from subsidies. We will support farmers in a different and better way. We will reward them for what they do for the environment.

I return to clause 17, not clause 1, which we debated earlier. Amendment 122 would broaden the scope of this exceptional market conditions power to enable the Secretary of State also to consider the costs incurred in production. This is neither necessary nor wise. We want this power to be aimed at markets, as it is now, and applied where there is a market disturbance, not necessarily where there is an increase in the cost of production.

The point about agricultural input costs is that there is a strong link between the main input costs, and the cost of oil, movements in exchange rates and weather events, and that also has an impact on output values. Typically, if the cost of animal feed rises, the value of the animal also rises, either because exchange rates, the price of oil or a weather event has driven it in that direction. That linkage is a natural hedge against the cost of inputs.

[Sandy Martin]

Will the Minister accept that the costs of labour and the costs associated with the exchange rate may well become much heavier for British farmers, especially those in horticulture or fruit and vegetables, than in the EU as a result of Brexit and that therefore our fruit and vegetable production might well be undermined by changes resulting from our leaving the EU?

[George Eustice]

I do not accept that. We learned from the exchange rate mechanism crisis in this country that floating exchange rates work, and work for our economy. The ERM caused a deep recession in this country, and it was only by leaving it and allowing our currency to float and find its correct value that we saw that boom. We know that the existence of the single currency eurozone is throttling growth in countries such as Italy and Greece and causing massive unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. We know, too, that, since the referendum result, sterling has eased back against the euro, which has led to the biggest boost in farm incomes for more than a decade. In the two years since the referendum decision, farmers have benefited from the pound’s slightly softer rate against the euro.

On the amendments, I believe that the issues have already been addressed or that they seek to constrain or fetter the discretion in the power, so I hope that the Opposition spokespersons will not press them.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I shall begin by touching on amendment 48. Since the shadow Minister has not sought to remake an argument we have had many times, I will refrain from quoting from the Agriculture Act 1947 on this occasion.

I turn to the more substantive collection of amendments—93, 94 and 95—which seek to broaden the measure and to remove the requirement for it to apply to the first purchaser of agricultural produce. I understand the shadow Minister’s point, but I want to explain why we have adopted this approach. As he is aware, the Groceries Code Adjudicator enforces the groceries code for the 10 largest supermarkets—those with the largest turnover—and is funded by a levy on those retailers. It has been successful because it is focused on the key task of improving the relationship between the very sizeable retailers and their suppliers, which are often far smaller.

However, for a couple of years now people have raised concerns about the fact that some farmers do not directly supply the supermarkets. Indeed, although in sectors such as fruit and veg it is quite common for an individual farmer or grower to supply a supermarket, in other sectors—notably beef, lamb and dairy—farmers supply processors and abattoirs instead; they do not supply their produce directly to the supermarket. The point has been made that they do not benefit from the protection of the groceries code and the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

Anecdotally, there are sometimes problems with processors finding it easier to pass costs and breaches of the code on to the farmers than to have a difficult conversation with the retailer and tell it that it is in breach of the code, or to report it to the Groceries Code Adjudicator. For that reason, we said, “Let’s also address the problem at the other end of the scale.” The problem we are trying to address in the Agriculture Bill is that primary producers—farmers—are price takers and are often not sure what they will be paid until their animal has gone through the slaughter line. They can then end up with all sorts of costs that they did not expect and penalties that they could not have predicted. We therefore tried to address that unfairness by keeping the focus of these provisions on the first purchasers.

[Sandy Martin]

Does the Minister accept that large companies are extremely good at creating wholly-owned subsidiaries, often for fairly spurious purposes, such as avoiding taxes or legislation? If this measure is restricted to first purchasers, it is entirely possible that completely new and unnecessary organisations will be created to be the first purchaser simply to avoid the regulations that would otherwise apply to everybody along the food chain.

[George Eustice]

The only way that a processor could do that would be if they literally became a farmer. Setting up a sham subsidiary company that buys from the farmer and sells to a middle man would still be caught by these provisions, because the vehicle company would still be required to abide by the terms that are set out through these regulations. We thought about this hard and our conclusion was that if the challenge is the fact that farmers are too often price takers, are too fragmented and do not have sufficient clout in the supply chain, let us have a very targeted, focused approach to ensuring that we address that unfairness.

The problem with broadening the provision to anyone in the supply chain, so it could be a haulage company transporting lettuces or someone who has bought something and sold it on, is that it is broadened to many more relationships. Then it becomes difficult to justify all the requirements and purposes set out, because they are very much designed for farm businesses.

Agriculture Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is a complex issue around sprayer MOTs, as he knows, because there is a voluntary industry scheme underpinned by Red Tractor. The vast majority of farmers are required to do that as a condition of their Red Tractor membership.

I have come across examples. For instance, we have a cross-compliance rule that there needs to be a 2-metre buffer strip around fields. I have come across examples where in one small corner of the field the person doing the rotavating or operating the plough drifted slightly in, so that the width went to 1.80 metres instead of 2 metres. A farmer in that particular case received a fine of £10,000. That is clearly disproportionate to the scale of the offence and it is the kind of nonsense that we now have an opportunity to sweep away.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Clearly, we need sensible regulations and sensible compliance arrangements. However, is it not part of the problem here that if we have a regulatory regime that relies solely on inspectors rather than on incentivising farmers through the financial payment system, there will never be enough inspectors? Regulation is not as effective as affirmative action and that is what the whole support system is meant to be; it is meant to be affirmative action. In which case, surely we should expect people to meet the regulations, to gain the benefit of the affirmative action.

[The Chair]

Order. Just before we proceed, I must say that I am rather hoping to be home for Christmas. I would really like interventions to be interventions and not speeches.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Absolutely. I am a huge supporter of the work of the wildlife trusts; we have one in Cornwall that does some good work. They often have local knowledge and very good working relationships with farmers because they are less of a campaigning organisation and more on the ground. There could well be a role for them. The purpose of clause 2(5) is to make provision for us to be able to engage some of those third sector organisations, and even independent agronomists farmers trust, so that we can design tailored local schemes.

Although the amendment is not pertinent here, I will briefly touch on clause 2(4) because it is a linked issue. It gives us the power to give financial assistance to an organisation that would administer a scheme directly. To be clear about the type of thing we have in mind, because it is a similar provision, the national parks have said that they would quite like to run a scheme for their members and administer the financing of that by delegating it down. There are some good examples, such as the Dartmoor hill project, where we have that kind of landscape-scale working around organisations such as national parks.

Local enterprise partnerships have expressed an interest in being involved in the administration of productivity grants. We want to have the option to subcontract some of that work, where it is appropriate, to bodies such as local enterprise partnerships or national parks. Again, that could assist in ensuring that these schemes run smoothly.

[Sandy Martin]

Can the Minister rule out management consultants, accountancy firms or generalist companies such as Carillion from administering any such scheme?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I will come in at the end.

[Sandy Martin]

We welcome a method of incentivising farmers to do the right thing—I would argue that that is the thrust of the Bill—but it is entirely proper to include conditions for the receipt of any financial support. Otherwise, how can that incentive be effective?

Amendment 85 on waste food fits very well with our amendment 50 on greenhouse gas emissions, which was rejected on Tuesday. Methane is 23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO₂ and is the biggest contributor to climate change after CO₂. By ensuring that we deal with the issue of food waste, the amendment would help to ensure that we meet our climate change goals. There is no sense in targets that do not include methane.

Every part of the food production, consumption and waste stream needs to be part of any effective solution. If we do not include production in our food waste reduction strategy, it will not be effective. A strategy that includes targets and regulations to ensure that the incentives—the carrots—go to the right people at the right time is one that the hon. Member for Gordon will appreciate.

The reduction of food waste will help people to think more carefully about the food that they eat and therefore to move towards foods of higher quality and nutritional value. Indeed, in the Which? survey, 71% of people said that they preferred higher-quality food to price reductions. Reducing food waste will help food production in this country because it will produce greater profitability for better-quality foods in the long run. The totality of the funds available for buying food will go towards the production of food that people actually consume, rather than food that is wasted along the way.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

Ultimately, reassurance is given to people in the farming industry, and others with an interest in the farmed landscape, through manifesto commitments and Government commitments. We have a commitment to keep the agricultural budget at the current level until at least 2022. We also have a manifesto commitment to roll out a new scheme to replace the current basic payment scheme, and the Bill sets out a transition period that implies an ongoing budget well into the future. That is what gives farmers the reassurance that they need, not sophistry about whether we should have the word “must” or “may”. I respectfully suggest that we should pursue the approach to drafting that we have always had, that has stood the test of time and that worked wonderfully well in the 1947 Act and in other Labour Acts since, and accept that “may” is the correct terminology to use, as a point of legal drafting.

I will touch briefly on amendment 45, which is linked, and which the hon. Member for Stroud also addressed. The amendment creates a requirement through changing the word “may” to “must”, converting a power to make provisions for enforcement on issues such as eligibility into a requirement. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think it is necessary. We have in this country well established procedures that put enormous scrutiny on the spending of public money. We have the National Audit Office, and codes of governance within the civil service and the Cabinet Office. We have very detailed procedures in place to ensure that we check eligibility and look after public money.

Say we were to introduce a scheme and have no type of enforcement or eligibility checking whatever—literally handing out money. As all hon. Members know, it would not be long before we had National Audit Office reports, Public Accounts Committee hearings and accounting officer issues from within the civil service. The reality is that converting the power into a requirement is unnecessary in the context of all the other requirements that we already make on Government. What we seek in this power and in the Bill—what we need in the Bill—is simply a power to be able to introduce those checks.

I hope that I have been able to give the hon. Member for Stroud reassurance. I hope he will accept the approach taken by previous Labour Governments in such areas and also that the existing drafting—using “may”—is entirely consistent with the past. I hope that he will withdraw both amendments.

[Sandy Martin]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson.

The Bill is intended to facilitate the support of agriculture and the countryside after Brexit. The situation at the moment is that all sorts of supports are in place through the European Union, so all sorts of changes, discussions and votes will be needed to change them. The Government have characterised that process as deeply bureaucratic, but it enables farmers and those engaged in agriculture to know what they will receive money for and how much they will receive well in advance, so that they may make decisions about how to carry out their business.

If the Secretary of State ever decided not to give any financial assistance of any sort to agriculture in this country, that would change the entire nature of our society. It would be inconceivable for the Secretary of State to be able to change the decision to award any financial support to agriculture without the consent of Parliament, yet by making this a power rather than a duty, the Bill does exactly that.

We heard about flexibility and the need for it. The Secretary of State, however, has plenty of flexibility even with our amendments. We are not tying the Secretary of State down to any particular way of offering financial assistance; we are only asking that he should have to do it. The flexibility that remains if our amendment is adopted is the flexibility of our Parliament to repeal the resulting Act if ever it decides to do so. Anything else puts the power to support agriculture in this country in the hands of the Secretary of State and not in the hands of Parliament. I do not believe that people were voting for that when they voted to leave the European Union. I believe that we need to tell the Secretary of State that he “must” give financial assistance to agriculture in this country.

Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

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

I want to take the amendments from this group in turn, starting with amendment 51. Elements of the policy and the purposes that we have spelled out will often lead to incidental improvements in and contributions to public health, which I will come to describe.

A number of hon. Members have pointed out that this is predominantly a consumer choice issue. The Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England do a lot of work to promote healthy eating.

[Sandy Martin]

I said on Second Reading that certain horticultural products, such as broad beans, are not easily found in the shops. We may well have a situation where, because of a change in demand and education in this country, people want to move to different foodstuffs, but it is not easy for farmers to change over. Does the Minister accept that there may need to be investment in farms to enable them to change over to other foodstuffs? Where does he see that investment coming in this Bill, if not in this amendment?

[George Eustice]

I was going to say that that could be provided for under clause 1(2), which enables us to support businesses to improve their productivity if that were necessary. Broad beans, as a leguminous crop, often need less or no fertiliser at all, so that can be an environmental benefit. The current EU scheme enables broad beans and other leguminous crops to be used as one of the contributory factors to the environmental focus area. That is already recognised in the existing scheme, and there would be nothing to prevent us from recognising that in a future scheme.

Under subsection (2), a lot of things can be done to support the delivery of the local sustainably produced food objective. In the last 20 years, there has been exponential growth in consumer interest in food provenance, large growth and expansion of farm shops, and growth in box schemes and farmers markets—I know the hon. Member for Stroud has a well known farmers market in his constituency. There has been huge growth in consumer interest in this area. Under subsection (2), it would be possible for the Government to design a grant scheme to support farmers to open farm shops and to develop their own marketing and box schemes.

Subsection (1) is on the purposes for the delivery of environmental goods. We can pursue a lot of policies under those purposes and objectives that would deliver increased health outcomes. For instance, under subsection (1)(f) on animal health, we could support schemes that lead to a reduction in the use of antibiotics, which would have an impact on public health and safeguard some of our critical antibiotics for the medical sphere.

Under subsection (1)(a), as I described earlier, it would be absolutely possible for us to support an integrated pest management approach, leading to a reduction in the use of pesticides where they were seen to be of concern. Under subsection (1)(a) we could also support a pasture-based livestock system; there is some evidence, although mixed, that livestock such as sheep and cattle raised on pasture and grass have higher levels of omega-3 oils, which are good for public health. There are a number of areas where the purposes we have set out under clause 1(1) also reinforce public health measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

One Bill at a time. When legislation is introduced on the future shared prosperity fund—I understand that there will be a consultation later this year—everyone will then have an opportunity to participate in that debate, but it is a debate for another time. We have enough issues on our hands at the moment.

Amendment 88, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, is similar to amendment 52, with the exception that he has added a paragraph (d) that would effectively require us to have regard for self-sufficiency. I note that he has borrowed the language in paragraph (d) from section 1 of the Agriculture Act 1947. Obviously it was a very different time—1947 was immediately after the second world war. We still had rationing books; we did not end rationing in this country until 1954. Our levels of self-sufficiency in the run-up to the second world war had been woefully low.

To put that in context, self-sufficiency today is very high by historical standards. In the late 19th century, and up until the second world war, our level of self-sufficiency hovered between 30% and 40%—far lower than it is today. It was a series of interventions, including the 1947 Act and others, that meant that it peaked at somewhere close to 70% in the late ’80s. As a number of hon. Members pointed out, there was a cost to self-sufficiency at that level: appalling levels of intervention, perfectly good food being destroyed, and production subsidies to produce food for which there was no market. The old-style production subsidy regime that used to pertain to the common agricultural policy was totally dysfunctional and severely discredited, and was therefore dismantled some time ago.

It is important to recognise a distinction between self-sufficiency and food security. Sometimes people conflate those terms. Food security depends on far more than self-sufficiency. We know that to deliver genuine food security both nationally and internationally, vibrant and successful domestic production and open markets are necessary. Just look at this summer, when we had an horrendous drought and crop failures across the board. That happens. It is the nature of farming, and it is therefore important, in order to protect food security, that we have open markets and trade. That has always been the case.

The other reality is that in a modern context the greatest threat to food security is probably a global one. We have a rapidly growing population, set to reach 9 billion by 2050, and we have the countervailing force of climate change and a lack of water resources, which means that in parts of the world where we are currently producing food it may be more difficult to do so in 10 or 15 years’ time. Scarcity of water could be a global challenge. The issue of food security is less about national self-sufficiency in case there is another world war—our negotiations with the EU are challenging but we do not envisage it getting to the state of our requiring something like the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. The challenge on food security, insofar as it exists, is ensuring that we can feed the world.

Another question is how best to deliver food security and a successful farming industry. Is it best to do so through direct payments—subsidy payments based on how much land farmers have? Direct payments were decoupled from production some 15 years ago, so those who suggest that direct payments are somehow a guarantor of food security are wrong. Many hundreds, or possibly thousands, of people own a bit of land, have a job in the City where they earn their income, mow the grass a couple of times a year and keep a few pet sheep on the land, but nevertheless hit the collect button on their single farm payment. That cannot be a viable, long-term approach.

The question therefore is how do we best support a vibrant and successful farming industry? Our view is that we should not do it through subsidies of the old style, but by supporting farms to become more profitable, to reduce costs, and to produce and sell more around the world. That is why the approach that we have taken to deliver food security, such as it is, is included in subsection (2), which covers the power to give grants to help farmers to invest, and the power to support research and development so that we can see the next leap forward in plant breeding or in animal genetics. There are powers later in the Bill that we will debate at a future date to allow producer organisations to be formed so that farmers have more clout in the marketplace and get a fairer price. There are powers to improve fairness and transparency in the supply chain. Where we want to end up is with a successful, vibrant, profitable farming industry that is able to produce more food.

[Sandy Martin]

I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying, but subsection (2) does not mention food. It mentions some of the activities that may be invested in in the production of different foods, but there are all sorts of people who would want to produce very good, sustainably produced, healthy food, who would not be able to get any support whatsoever from the Government under subsection (2).

[George Eustice]

I do not agree. Subsection (2) is very clear. It gives us the power to

“give financial assistance for or in connection with the purpose of starting, or improving the productivity of, an agricultural, horticultural...activity.”

It could not be clearer. It gives us the power to invest in the way that I have described.