Agriculture Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that acetic acid is used in many cases instead of chlorine. Whether the infection is killed by acetic acid, chlorine, or any other process, the concern is that there is an infection there in the first place through poor animal husbandry. I invite him to look at that and at the work produced by the EFRA Committee under his colleague, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton. It goes into detail to make sure that the standards of any imported food are as least as high as those we have in the UK.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This goes to the heart of why Labour is supporting the reasoned amendment and does not want to allow Second Reading to go through. In the last Parliament, we supported the Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill. I sat on the Bill Committee. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton tabled new clause 4 and I tabled new clause 1 to the Bill. The Government were terrified that they were going to lose, because we had such cross-party consensus on this—from the NFU to environmental groups, to farmers and to greener people—so they suddenly shelved the Bill. We have not seen anything of it since December 2018. We cannot trust the Government this time and allow Second Reading to go through without trying to raise this point now.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very good point. Farmers will be watching this discussion tonight who are unfamiliar with parliamentary process. For them, the idea of letting the Bill pass Second Reading without making a case for this might seem appealing, but unless the Government and the Secretary of State, in particular, will accept an amendment or propose one that sets the promises in law, it is important that we make the case now. I say to all the farmers who do not want their standards undercut, who are genuinely worried about this, that they have an opportunity to ask their Member of Parliament, whichever side of the House they sit on, to make that case, because that challenge about putting this into law is important. Every day that passes when it is not proposed, including in the Bill, we have to ask why.

We do not need to look too far back to find a precedent that would help the Secretary of State. Last week, the Government whipped their MPs to vote for the NHS Funding Bill to set into law their commitment to spend more on the NHS. Why do the Government need a law to implement promises on the NHS but not a law to implement promises on animal welfare and environmental concerns? Let us look at what the Health Secretary said about that Bill:

“The crucial thing in this Bill is the certainty: the Bill provides everyone in the NHS with the certainty to work better together to make long-term decisions, get the best possible value for money”—[Official Report, 27 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 566.]

Indeed, certainty is a good thing. The certainty that British farmers will not be undercut by cheap imported US produce grown at a lower cost with lower standards would help them as well. Why is legal certainty good for one election promise but not for another? We know the reason: one they intend to deliver, and one they do not. That fact has been pointed to by leaks from DEFRA officials that were unearthed by Unearthed. A report published in October said:

“Weakening our SPS regime to accommodate one trade partner could irreparably damage our ability to maintain UK animal, plant and public health, and reduce trust in our exports”.

That is why this matters.

I am proud of British farmers—not just the ones who are in my family, but all of them. Because the Bill fails to uphold animal welfare and environmental standards in law, Labour cannot support it. We need a legal commitment not to allow imports of food produced to lower standards or lower animal welfare standards. We need advice and support to help smaller farms transition to more nature-friendly farming methods that tackle the climate crisis, and we need the Government to set out a clear direction of travel for future agricultural regulation. Food grown to lower standards, some with abusive practices, must never be imported to undercut British farmers.

I have no doubt that Tory MPs will dutifully vote for the Bill tonight, but each and every one of them must know that my argument has merit. They might be wise to ask themselves why the NFU, the RSPCA and Greenpeace are saying the same thing as that Labour chap at the Dispatch Box. Why did the re-elected Chair of the EFRA Committee present a similar argument in the last Parliament? Could it be that collectively we are on to something? If we are—spoiler alert: we are—I encourage Members to make a beeline to the Secretary of State to encourage her to propose an amendment to the Bill as swiftly as possible to set in train the promises made at the general election, not only by the Prime Minister but, I believe, by nearly every Tory MP here.

I and my colleagues on the Opposition Benches will be voting for the reasoned amendment to deny the Bill a Second Reading because it omits the legal protections to prevent our British farmers from being undercut. I hope that the Bill can be improved—and swiftly—because in proposing a greener and better future it will also allow for that future to be undermined by imported food grown more cheaply and to lower standards. Who will eat that food? It will be the poorest in society. Who will be able to afford food grown to higher standards? The better-off. It will lead to deregulatory pressure to ensure that Britain’s farmers can compete with US industrial agriculture, which is the opposite of the spirit of the Bill and of what the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box, and it is the reason we need legal protection to ensure that no food is imported that has been produced to lower standards than we have today. The Secretary of State has the opportunity to do that. Every day that she lets that opportunity slip by is an indication that they intend to renege on their promise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on her maiden speech. Her Welsh pronunciation sounded absolutely fine to me, but what would I know? Perhaps my colleague here, my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), is in a better position to judge.

I do not want to repeat everything that I said on Second Reading or in Committee last time round. I hope to be on the Committee again. I will start on a positive note by saying that an addition to the Bill will now give financial assistance to farmers to share information about agroecology. Those of us in the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology have been involved in this for a long time and we would like to see a little bit more clarity in writing from the Minister about how that will work in practice. We are rather disappointed that there is not more of a commitment to financially rewarding the transition to and practice of whole-farm agroecological systems. There is a concern that we are still looking at small tweaks to a system in which environmental stewardship will be located very much on the margins, rather than being done at farm scale. That is one of the weaknesses of the Bill.

We have talked in the past about county farms, and I know that there was a commitment to support county farms, but it is not in the Bill. I would like to hear more about that if the Minister has time when he winds up.

There is no commitment to net zero by 2040 in the Bill. The NFU supports that, and I would have thought that the Government felt able to commit to putting it in the legislation. That ties in with the whole debate that we need to have about land use, which ranges from the impact of the deforestation of the Amazon and the importation not just of meat but of livestock feed, which has a direct connection with our farming here, to the burning of peatlands—the natural carbon sinks that ought to be protected and preserved, not burned to a cinder because of grouse shooting.

It is widely acknowledged that the common agricultural policy was a failure. It was a blunt instrument that led to the inefficient and unsustainable use of farmland. Landowners and farmers were often rewarded for how much land they had, rather than what they did with it, so I very much support the public money for public goods approach, but there is concern that the future environmental land management scheme could end up failing in the same way if it does not adopt that whole-farm approach to landscape-scale delivery. We also need to build in natural climate solutions to that, and to have far more debate about rewilding, peatlands, the planting of trees, agriforestry and so on. I hope that we will do that in Committee.

The Bill is also silent on the baseline of environmental standards that all farmers should adhere to, whether they are in receipt of financial assistance or not. We discussed that in Committee before, and it is really important that we establish that baseline in law and make it clear not only that farmers will be rewarded for going above those standards but that they will be punished if they go below them. This morning’s report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy highlighted the fact that hedgehogs, birds and mammals could all be at greater risk because of the gaps in domestic regulation as a result of our leaving the EU.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

As a member of the Children’s Future Food Inquiry, which I co-chaired, my hon. Friend will be aware that we made recommendations to the Government to establish an independent children’s food watchdog to implement policies that could improve families’ access to affordable and healthy food. Does she agree that the small nod to food security in the Bill by way of a report to Parliament every five years is just not good enough in this regard? Does she also agree that the Government should look into implementing a food watchdog?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Yes, I think that that is very much the case. As I am fond of saying, the F in DEFRA stands for food, not just farming. Food is quite cheap and there are question marks about who is paying the price. We only have to look at the breaches of human rights and the modern slavery that is prevalent in our food chain, as well as the difficulties involved in trying to find people to work here. Despite food being cheap, many people still cannot afford to feed their family in a healthy, nutritious way and are forced either to go to food banks or to buy food that is barely worthy of the name. It might have calories in it, but it has very little nutritional value. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the brilliant work she has done with the Food Foundation and on school food. She has done so much to make the case that food is intrinsically connected with our health. That is such an important thing, and I hope that we can carry on talking about it.

On trade, I tried to introduce new clause 1 on Report in the previous Parliament, but the Bill mysteriously disappeared as we were gearing up for victory. It is so important to have a black-and-white commitment, because I do not believe that many Back Benchers are prepared to accept the Government’s word. Without such a commitment, we will offshore our nature and climate commitments, exacerbating the crisis we face, we will undercut UK producers, creating a race to the bottom here at home to compete on price, and we will leave consumers unprotected against low-quality imports produced to standards that would be illegal on British soil.

Whenever we question the Secretary of State, junior Ministers, the International Trade Secretary or even the Prime Minister, we must listen carefully, because they tend to say, “No lowering of UK standards,” but that is not good enough. This is about the standard of goods that we allow into this country, so it is completely irrelevant to make promises about UK standards. A leaked DEFRA briefing stated that the Department would come under “significant pressure” from the Department for International Trade to weaken our food and environmental standards to secure trade deals, particularly with the US and Australia. I happened to be in Washington at the same time as the previous International Trade Secretary, who was on television saying that he did not think there was a problem with chlorinated chicken.

Now, with the publication of the leaked US-UK trade talk papers, we can see just how determined the US is to weaken our standards. Taken with the evidence American farming lobbyists provided to the US Trade Policy Committee last year, the US wish list now includes: abandoning the precautionary principle for food and farming; accepting hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed chicken and meat raised with high levels of antibiotics, when we know that there is a crisis in the routine use of antibiotics in farming and its impact on human health; lifting the ban on ractopamine in pork and stopping parasitic tests on pigs; allowing genetically modified foods to be sold with minimal regulation; scrapping mandatory labelling on GMOs and for E number additives and food colourings—if anyone is lost, this is what the US has said its priorities are—ditching rules that protect traditional food and regional specialities, such as pork pies and the salt from Anglesey; removing our safety-first approach to chemicals; and legalising hundreds of pesticides currently banned in the UK under EU law. The latter is a particular cause for concern if we are serious about transitioning to a sustainable food and farming system, because the US currently allows around 1,430 pesticides compared with just 486 in the EU.

That is why those of us who have been engaged in these issues for a while have always been clear that while chlorinated chicken has become totemic, it is just the tip of the iceberg. While the Secretary of State’s commitment on “Countryfile” that we would not import hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken was welcome, it does not cover the million and one other issues that we ought to be equally worried about. There are questions, for example, about how easy it would be to unpick the statutory instruments that underpin that position and, frankly, all SIs that contain transferred EU food safety legislation.

I look forward to serving on the Agriculture Bill Committee, Whips permitting, to bringing back my new clause 1 on Report if the Government do not make any concessions—and to winning this time.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Agriculture Bill (First sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Q Certainly, I do not have any financial interests in the business of farming. Martin, I was interested in your point about the way that, under the direct payments system, the landlord gets the benefit, not the tenant. Is that just your experience, or can you amplify that point and explain more how that works? Are you confident that that will not be replicated under the new regime? Does the Bill give you confidence that the tenants will get the benefits from public money for public goods?

Martin Lines: For many of the tenancies, the price per hectare per area went up, compared with the payment, so they see that as a benefit of owning the land. Many landlords get the payment directly and the farmer has to manage, which disconnects the reward from managing the landscape, so the current system does not benefit the farmer. It challenges cash flow, because as a tenant I am paying rent for six to 12 months before I get it back under the payments system, so there a problem with cash flow, particularly with late payments. There is a big issue with the new system about payment timings. There are huge challenges under the new system.

Under the current system, we know that some landlords are trying to get the stewardship payment, or parts of it, but under the new system, if you are delivering habitat, or pollen and nectar, bits and pieces, you are the farmer doing the work. You should be getting the reward. There will be an increase in capital, and the landlord will be rewarded for capital aspects and other things that are delivered on the landscape.

The Bill should be about encouraging the whole-farm approach of better farm land management and looking at all aspects, not just food production—pollination, flood mitigation, soil health improvement and public access. The farmer’s role is not just about food production; it is about providing goods and services. The definition of a farmer is someone who manages land to deliver goods and services. One of those is food, but many other things can be delivered, and if we move the system, we can be rewarded for those and create a better system.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q Do you think the Bill does enough to encourage the whole-farm approach, or is there a danger that farmers might just pick and choose among the public goods and do some of the things that are easier, but carry on farming as normal on the rest of the farm?

ffinlo Costain: I think you are quite right about the key concern that I and other colleagues I have spoken with have. There has to be a whole-farm approach. If public goods are being delivered, it has to be a combination of public goods and we need baseline assessments supporting that around carbon and biodiversity that are whole-farm. From our perspective, it would be horrible if we go through all this work and have all this ambition but end up with a sparing approach, where we have one bit of land put off for sequestration with Sitka spruce, creating the various challenges that that does, another bit for rewilding, and another bit for ever-more intensive food production. It is critically important that we face the challenges of the whole-farm approach. The best and most efficient way to make progress is for every hectare, as far as possible, to deliver good, nutritious food, climate mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity restoration. A whole-farm approach is absolutely critical, and we would welcome an amendment that crystallises that and makes it clearer in the Bill.

Martin Lines: The only concern is with those who do not engage in the system and choose not to take public goods money. How are they going to be legislated for against the minimum standards?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Do you mean the baseline regulations?

Martin Lines: Under the current system we have cross-compliance. With those who choose not to engage in the system, because they want to push for productivity, how is the system going to legislate for and regulate the basic standards? Who is going to be the policeman for the countryside, to raise standards and make sure they are enforced? We have seen many problems already with soil health degradation and other environmental issues that are not being addressed.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q As I understand it, at the moment, farmers will get the basic payments for just having the land. If you check cross-compliance and they are not meeting the standards, they will be penalised. Are you saying that if you have a public goods approach, and people get rewarded only for the good stuff they do, there is not a way of penalising them or holding them to account if they are not meeting standards?

Martin Lines: We are not sure who is going to be holding them to account or what kind of standards there are. Nor do we know how those who choose not to engage in the system will be held to account, because you cannot withhold a payment if they are not receiving a public goods payment. We need to make sure that that standards system is in place.

Caroline Drummond: I think there are some nuances, in terms of the “mays” and the “musts”—there should be a bit more “must” in some areas. Whole-farm approaches are absolutely critical. I have been an advocate of the whole-farm approach for the last 30 years, and I think it is absolutely key to making sure that soil management, climate change mitigation and biodiversity, and indeed landscape and cluster-type approaches, are driven in. That is where the ELMS projects will be really vital. A lot of their design is based around land management plans, which I imagine will be whole-farm. A lot of the third tier is proposed to be around cluster groups and landscape scale-type approaches. It goes back to this question of farmers choosing not to be engaged at all, how do we account for that? How do we really drive and match the ELMS within the ambition of the Bill?

Jack Ward: While there is a lot of focus on public money for public goods, making sure that UK agriculture is inherently profitable is hugely important, because no amount of public funding is going to supplement an overall lack of profitability. If in five years’ time we have an inherently unprofitable farming industry for whatever reason, I just do not think there is going to be enough public funding available to make good that shortfall. Alongside public money for public goods, we really have to ensure that basic agriculture can wash its face.

[The Chair]

Mr Costain, and then we really must move on.

ffinlo Costain: The issue of eligibility for public funds is really critical. What Wales is planning is interesting. It is planning that there will be a requirement for baseline assessments on carbon and biodiversity before farmers are even eligible for the public goods payment. That will take place annually to continue that eligibility. That is a really positive approach, and it is important. Whole-farm, getting the eligibility, making sure of that baseline and continued monitoring of metrics are critical.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have 15 minutes left and at least five colleagues want to ask questions. I call Kerry McCarthy.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q May I just ask about the climate change angle? The NFU has said that it wants to reach net zero farming by 2040. There is no target in the Bill. My concern is that farmers do not really have a road map for reaching that target—we are relying on individual farmers to perhaps pick up on the public good element that is mentioned. Could the Bill be stronger in terms of the net zero commitment?

ffinlo Costain: The first thing that needs to happen is that the metrics need to be right. At the moment, the Government are still wedded to GWP100—global warming potential over 100 years—which is focused on emissions, rather than warming from emissions. That is critical, because it really changes the role of cattle and sheep.

Oxford Martin brought out science by Professor Myles Allen, who was an author on the IPCC’s 1.5° C report. We now have an accurate metric for accounting for methane, and it changes things. By and large, the warming impact of cattle and sheep farms will be about 75% down in terms of methane. If we focus on emissions, it drives very different actions. If we focus on warming, we see that cattle and sheep on grazing land that is really well managed, ideally in a regenerative way, can contribute to the climate mitigation, climate adaptation and biodiversity that we are all talking about.

Before we start talking about hard targets, we need to make sure that those metrics are there, because at the moment, farmers are being undermined because they do not trust the metrics. That is critical. The Government clearly have ambitions and goals for net zero elsewhere. Farmers are working towards their own goals. We are working with farmers in Northumberland who control most of the national park there. They are committed to net zero by 2030. We can deliver it rapidly when we get the metrics right.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Q It is not a financial interest, but I should declare an interest as a former employee of the National Farmers Union. What does the Bill do for the regulatory environment in the United Kingdom? What is your assessment of how the Bill will affect that? Are you concerned about the risk of any regulatory divergence between the devolved nations?

Martin Lines: Yes, there is a risk. It is not clear how that regulatory authority and the baseline will work, who will police it, and how that will be transferred across the four nations. If you are farming either side of a border, will you have two different standards? How will you compete with those together?

A lot of what is in the Bill is focused on England. We are waiting for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to develop their plans. It is about how we link it together, not race away with just England, because if you are farming both sides of the border, move from one side to the other, or move products from one side to the other, you will have real complications. We do not see that journey of who is going to manage that regulatory authority and baseline.

Jack Ward: If I may chip in on producer organisations, it would be helpful if we could have commonality within producer organisations, and not have one system in Scotland, another in Northern Ireland and another in England.

ffinlo Costain: This touches on non-regression from EU rules, which is really important. I would feel more comfortable if it were stated that there was going to be non-regression on standards.

Regulations are a safety net; they are there so that nobody goes below them. I want farmers to go above them, to tell customers about how they are going above them and delivering, and to brand around that. Theoretically, it should not be an issue, if farmers are going above, stepping beyond, managing to deliver what Kerry was talking about with net zero at an earlier stage, and telling customers about that. The fact that there is a safety net there, and that there may be a bit of divergence between different nations, is less important than the fact that people are going beyond it and they are making money because they are telling customers about it and customers are buying it.

Caroline Drummond: Ultimately, there is the opportunity to create a new governance, in terms of how the Government work with the industry and non-governmental organisations through to farmers and landowners. Some of the reporting that came out of Dame Glenys Stacey’s report demonstrated that there may be new ways for us to make it move forwards effectively.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger]

Q Are we going to have an army of new consultants coming in to help themselves to some of the public money?

Thomas Lancaster: Advice is a really important part of the story. We would like to see more clarity from DEFRA as to what advice will be made available to farmers, particularly during that transition period. We also understand that the evidence base around environmental advice is a really good investment. All the evidence, particularly from work commissioned by DEFRA and Natural England, suggests that providing advice to farmers as to how they can meet environmental outcomes and navigate some of the paperwork necessary to access the public money is well worth the investment in terms of the outcomes. We know that outcomes supported by advice are better than outcomes not supported by advice.

We have done some social science research recently on farmers’ experience of those schemes with farmers that we have been working with in south Devon for 30 years on species recovery projects for the cirl bunting. That social science shows really strongly that advice is the key element, not just in getting that environmental outcome but in ensuring that farmers are bought in to the schemes, that they understand the outcomes that they are seeking to deliver, and that they are able to get past some of the bureaucracy, which is an inevitable element of this.

Although direct payments sound simple in concept, you have the eligibility rules, particularly the land eligibility rules; the land parcel identification system; and the fact that you have to measure things to four decimal places. The fact that it is a very poor use of public money and no one really knows what it is for any more, drives a lot of those eligibility rules, because you have to provide some controls around it.

Our experience of the best agri-environment schemes in England, particularly higher level stewardship, is that, supported by advice, they are much more intuitively understandable for farmers—as to why they are receiving that money—than direct payments. Analysis that we have done of Natural England data, which we have not published but will probably publish in the coming months, suggests that payment rates for small farms, on the first 30 hectares or so of agreements, are higher than for larger farms, which is obviously not the case with direct payments. We know that small farms, again when supported by advice, can profit from public goods schemes, given our understanding of higher level stewardship and similar schemes in the past.

Christopher Price: It is important to recognise just how much farming is going to change. It is not just a matter of changing the subsidy rules; it is a much bigger structural change. Farmers will be producing much more to the market, which means that we will have a different type of farmer. We are already starting to see those people—people who do not necessarily come from a farming background, who have made a bit of money doing something more commercial, who are coming to farming with business and marketing skills, and who are making a go of things in a very different way. You will know some of them—Lynbreck Croft, the Good Life Meat Company, Hilltop Farm.

People are already doing it and they have quite a big presence. They think in a different way. It is not just about who can take the biggest beast to the market every week or month. It is about sweating all your assets, so you will be selling the meat, but you will be selling meat with a good provenance, to high welfare standards and with a low environmental impact. If you are savvy, you will be finding markets for the skins, the wool, the horns. It may not be much money per item, but together it starts to create more produce with more of a brand.

If you start thinking in terms of your public goods as well—many farms are starting to—and working out what has a benefit, what you can do to improve your soil or your water quality, what plants you can grow that have biodiversity or climate benefits, and start ticking off those, you can get there. It does not need to be particularly complex. In many ways, although I hear what Tom says about the importance of advice, the way that most farmers learn is from other farmers. It is about encouraging farmers to go and see what their neighbour is doing, and not thinking of their neighbour as being their competitor, but as someone who can be a source of guidance.

So, I do not think we need be worried about complexity. Conceptually, what is being promised is more straight- forward. Of course there will be compliance requirements, but many of us think that a lot of the previous compliance requirements were more to do with EU standardisation across 28 member states rather than being particularly necessary to ensure the efficient use of public money. So, I think we can be optimistic about what is happening.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q May I return to the regulatory baseline issue I raised with the previous witnesses? The RSPB was involved in the Institute for European Environmental Policy report published this week that suggests that, now we have left the EU, there is a real gap in the regulatory baseline because so many regulations were set at EU level. Is there a need for a firmer regulatory baseline in the Bill so that we know what we reward in terms of farmers going above that baseline, and so on?

Thomas Lancaster: We, the Wildlife Trusts and WWF commissioned the report from IEEP, who are independent consultants, to look at a future regulatory framework. Because the Bill includes provisions to move away from cross-compliance, and in particular to delink payments from land, that potentially opens up gaps in aspects of current environmental regulatory protections that exist only in cross-compliance, particularly around soils and hedgerows—for example, cutting of hedgerows during birds’ breeding season and hedgerow buffer strips. We think there is a gap in the Bill in terms of powers necessary for Ministers to bring forward regulatory protections for soils, hedgerows and other environmental features, and we would like to see the Bill amended to plug that gap.

There is a big opportunity coming off Dame Glenys Stacey’s review. The farm inspection and regulation review the Government commissioned reported in 2018. It called for a more comprehensive regulatory framework that enables a more advice-led approach to enforcement, so that, rather than farmers being penalised but not really understanding the underlying issue and therefore not able to address it, the approach would seek to blend penalties with advice and incentives to ensure that you get better environmental outcomes.

There is an existing model of that in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and its approach. When a breach is detected, there is a visit from an adviser or a member of staff, who says, “You have to address this breach. You can either go and seek advice or invest in infrastructure if necessary.” They come back a second time. If the breach has been addressed, everything is fine; if it is not, they give them a third visit and, if it is still there, then they penalise them. That approach, which Dame Glenys Stacey supported, and we supported at the time, gets better environmental outcomes in a way that farmers also appreciate and can understand, whereas at the moment our regulatory enforcement is very substandard, it is fair to say.

Again, Dame Glenys Stacey found that of 10,600 staff at the Environment Agency, only 40 do farm inspections. As a farmer, you have a one in 200 chance of being inspected by the Environment Agency, and we know that the agency is again cutting back on some of those regulatory compliance visits. There is a huge challenge in the future, not just in how we reward good practice but in how we ensure a level playing field so that the progressive best farmers out there are not undercut by, effectively, cowboys—unfortunately, there are some. The Bill is silent on that, and for us that is one of the biggest gaps and omissions.

John Cross: The only comment I would make—again as a farmer—is that any more regulation would need to be fit for purpose, logical, proportionate and enforceable. Regulation is fine, but unless it is logical so people can understand it, and it is relatively easy to comply with, it is just a source of frustration to everyone. Certainly, the industry is very keen to move towards an outcome-based form of regulation as opposed to constantly arguing about whether a particular margin is six inches too narrow or not. The industry would be interested in seeing a much more outcome-focused approach.

David Bowles: The EU has been moving towards an outcomes approach, but obviously leaving the EU gives us huge opportunities in the animal welfare sectors, such as sheep, beef and dairy, where there are no specific baseline species standards at the moment. There is a real opportunity to introduce those baseline standards, which will help not just the Bill, but in establishing what the baseline is—and then establishing how to move farmers up the scale, through capital inputs or through specific measures, and paying them where the market does not deliver. There are huge opportunities to improve the baseline regulatory standards in those areas where they do not exist now.

[Alicia Kearns]

Q This question is mainly for you, Mr Price. My constituency of Rutland and Melton has quite a few farmers who farm rare breeds. Is there sufficient support for rare breeds in the Bill? Conversely, is that support the right thing to be doing? My farmers who do not farm rare breeds would say that there is a question of fairness in giving too much support to rare breeds.

Christopher Price: I will take the second part first. Should we be supporting rare breeds? Yes, we should. You probably expected me to say that.

Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

Q Does the Bill include the right measures to give tenant farmers certainty over succession, tenancy length and security of tenure?

Nick von Westenholz: As far as they go, we are pleased with the inclusion of the tenancy clauses in the Bill. They are quite technical and we are looking to develop some amendments to strengthen them, which we will be happy to share with members of the Committee. In particular, we want to bring in more of the recommendations of the tenancy reform industry group, which has been up and running and working for some years now, so that those are properly reflected in the Bill. We will suggest some improvements, but we generally welcome the clauses that have been introduced in this Bill that were not in the last one.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q This is probably a question specifically for David Goodwin. What role do you see county farms playing, given that the Government and the Minister have in the past expressed support for reversing the decline in county farms? Is that something your members would be interested in?

David Goodwin: Yes, very much so. County farms have been a shining light for getting younger people into holdings. In the counties where it works well, it works very well. Obviously, there are counties where there are challenges and more pressures on estates. Unfortunately, we see those in the news regularly at the moment. There are some good examples. The number of county estate farms is very small, compared with the number of people who are perhaps looking for opportunities. Some of those individual holdings are very small and do not always offer the stepping stone that is needed. Going on from there, there is still a lack, particularly with tenanted farms, of progressional farms to go on to from a county starter farm.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Q Mr von Westenholz, the suggestion of insisting in the Bill that we only import food produced to the same standards as our farmers produce is absolutely the right principle, and the Government are committed to that in principle, but can you just talk us through the practicalities of what the relevant change to the legislation would be? I am just concerned about what it actually means to insist on equivalent standards. How would that be articulated in the Bill? Is that insistence not more appropriate to the trade negotiations, which will get into the actual detail of different sectors, important exports and so on? How would you frame that piece of legislation in a way that did not just open the door to all sorts of challenges on a concept that is not well defined?

Nick von Westenholz: It is a fair point, because the question of how you compare standards in this country with those in other countries is very complicated. I think there is a way that you can still build requirements into the Bill that address those concerns. Basically, you can provide safeguards to the Government’s stated aim on these issues. I should add that that is one reason that we very strongly called for a commission with the Government, stakeholders and industry to be set up that would examine these very difficult issues and make clear recommendations for precisely how the Government can safeguard our standards in future.

In terms of the Bill, you could require the Government to produce a register, for example, of what our food and farming standards are, or certainly the ones that we are keen to safeguard. We can then put in a requirement that imports should meet those standards or should have to demonstrate that they do, and possibly some sort of reporting mechanism to demonstrate whether imports are meeting those standards. There have been several amendments to this Bill and the last Bill to attempt to address that.

You could introduce amendments that are much more explicit. For example, they could set out the sorts of veterinary medicines—whatever it might be—that are prohibited and would not be allowed to be put on the market, as well as goods treated with those medicines that could not be put on the market in this country. That would be a very clear and straightforward legislative safeguard on standards, but you would be looking at quite a lot of text if you were to go completely across the board. There are a number of options.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Could ELMS incentivise those positive changes?

Jake Fiennes: I think the ELM schemes will do exactly that. If we can demonstrate better land use for our land that is less productive—use for the environment, biodiversity, carbon storage, cleaner water and cleaner air—everyone gets to benefit.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Did you just say that game should be taken out of the Bill altogether because it is a leisure pastime, not an agricultural pastime?

Jake Fiennes: Game is not agriculture. Game has never been part of agriculture. Forestry is agriculture; farming, dairying and beef production are agriculture, but game sort of sits on the sidelines and is not part of agriculture.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q I thought that the whole justification for game shooting was that people eventually eat the birds, even though we know that they could not possibly consume as many as were shot. Perhaps we will agree to disagree on that issue.

Jake Fiennes: It is a technicality, but game has never been—

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q You have farmed game birds that are released into the world to be shot.

Jake Fiennes: But a game farmer is not a farmer. He is not a poultry producer either, strangely. Sorry, but it is a real technical difference.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Well, we probably do not have time to go into that. This is probably a question for Graeme, to start with, but others can chip in if they wish. I have two quick questions. First, still on the management of peatlands issue, game shooting and particularly grouse shooting can be very lucrative for estate owners. Is the mechanism in the Bill about rewarding farmers who re-wet the peatland or manage the moors in a certain way ever likely to be enough to encourage them to do it, or do we need the ban that you are talking about?

My other question is that you mentioned your views about county farms, and I am keen to see what you think should be in the Bill. I think there is general support for the idea that county farms are a good thing, but that does not necessarily mean that they need to go into the Bill. Can you say what you think needs to be in the Bill on that front?

Graeme Willis: On peatland, it interesting how broad that goes in terms of land management. Going back to the Minister’s question, I would imagine that large-scale restoration might well be part of ELM. The public goods statements are quite broadly framed, but they do talk about soil, and the supporting position statement talks about soil and peat.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q And the climate change thing, possibly.

Graeme Willis: Yes, climate change being one of the objectives. It is very important, given we know the level of emissions from upland peat, that the intentions of the Bill should cover those areas and ELM should be able to deliver on that within that wider land restoration component, if that be. I think that will be very important, because where else will the resource come from to do that? The 25-year plan had a £10 million fund. Scotland has committed £250 million for restoration, so we need money to be identified that can go towards that restoration over the longer period. There is an issue about the viability of those peatlands in the long term in a warming climate if they are managed in a different way. That makes things even more contentious.

I am pleased that you mentioned county farms. I am not a specialist on entrants, but I think something on supporting new entrants should be in the Bill through an amendment to that effect. The Minister has spoken about investing in county farms on several occasions and to the EFRA Committee. He welcomed the idea as a very interesting development. The farms could be invested in so that they can produce more peri-urban horticulture, for example, which might be one way to make smaller units viable. As was referred to earlier, there is an economic question around those. An amendment to invest and fund—or to give the Secretary of State powers to invest and fund—county farms to be developed and improved for wider purposes, would be great.

We would also consider asking for a protective lock on county farm estates while they can develop new wider sets of purposes, so that they can be invested in for the future. Wider purposes in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change, supporting connection to the countryside, access to land and landscapes and the realities of farming, would be very welcome.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q Mr Egan, you mentioned that inspection regimes have to be fit for purpose. Which regimes do you think need to be changed under the new legislation? I am also interested to understand from you what success looks like.

Jim Egan: When you are on the receiving end of the inspection regime does not seem proportionate at all at the moment. It is heavy-handed. We all accept that there must be rules and that there has to be an inspection, but you are working on a farm, on a shop floor that has no straight edges. When somebody can come and deduct a payment for being four decimal places out in area, which is what it could go to, it does not feel right. It actually puts an awful lot of people off engaging with agri-environment schemes and measures because of the pure fear of the inspection. The inspectors are great people—they are doing a job—but they do not engage during their inspection process. There is a finality to the inspection process that says, “Mr Egan, you are wrong.” There is an appeals process, but there is no face to face. That is not a very nice place to be.

It would be better if it was done in a much more approachable way. We all accept that a lot of money goes into the industry, but we should be approachable. We should be able to say, “Oh, I didn’t quite get that right.” If it is a minor infringement, it is nothing. There will be something else on the farm that delivers above and beyond what it was intended to, but it is never taken into account.

When I worked at the Allerton project, we had three inspections in seven years. That is in a place where there is a board of trustees, a management team and we all get on. There is a lot of pressure on the people responsible for that. Imagine being on a farm on your own. It is not a good place. It needs to be more human and a better process.

As for success for me, do you mean in terms of the scheme or the inspection regime?

Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Danny Kruger]

That is helpful. Thank you.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q Where to start? Could you say a bit more about the whole-farm systems approach and the concern that the Bill might lead to farmers cherry-picking some of the public goods, but not to a transformation of farming, as would be possible if we were to go for a more holistic approach?

Gareth Morgan: One reason I joined the Soil Association —I was previously working at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—was the sense that you can do quite a lot for particular things, such as bird numbers on farms, without affecting the underlying sustainability of farming operations. I do not think the Bill deliberately plays into that, but it could be an unintentional consequence. There is a whole series of public goods that a farmer could choose to provide, but—particularly if we are going to lose things such as cross-compliance now, which is the basic way to encourage a farmer to look across the whole farm—there is a considerable danger that we will just focus on the easy or obvious bits, such as doing a flower margin or some skylark plots on a farm, and not really think about why the ecological operation of a farm is not satisfactory.

At the moment, there are two distinct dangers. First, some farms might opt into the public goods system while other farms will decide to farm to the market, especially if they are competing with foreign imports produced to lower standards. Secondly, even on individual farms, a farmer might be tempted to look for a particular thing that can be done that will be good for the environment, but neglect what is happening on the rest of the farm, for example the state of the soil across the whole farm. The whole-farm approach should be at the centre of the Agriculture Bill, but it is not at the moment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Meeting net zero is a public good, looking at climate mitigation and adaptation. Do you feel the Bill could be stronger on that? My concern is that while in a sector like transport it is quite easy to make big policy moves that shift us, say, to electric vehicles, because there is only a small number of car companies, in agriculture there are lots of different types of farmers with a large geographical spread. How do you get them all working towards that net zero goal, and could the Bill be a mechanism to do that more effectively? I have not heard much from the National Farmers Union about the road map for getting there.

Gareth Morgan: It is fantastic that the NFU has taken the position of committing to an early net zero target for the agriculture and land use sector. That has shifted the debate enormously. Establishing the route map by which you do that is quite difficult. I am not entirely sure that a net zero clause in the Bill is the right way to go about it.

In several sectors—such as transport and energy generation—we have a clear idea about what that route map needs to be. Land use will be much more complicated. We do not know all the answers yet—for example, in the current argument about red meat, we are veering a different way each month. Setting a clear trajectory in farming to net zero in law could be counter-productive. The easiest way for us to go net zero in terms of land use in the UK is to stop farming and plant trees everywhere and import food off our balance sheet. That would be madness, but it could be an inadvertent consequence if we get the wrong sort of legal fix into law. I think the Bill could be more explicit about net zero and the need to achieve it, but we need to be careful about the way in which we phrase that.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Conversion to organic farming is quite an expensive process, because during that conversion period one cannot sell organic products. Do you think there should be more incentives for farmers to switch to organic production and, if so, how can we ensure that we do not flood the market with organic food and therefore undermine the whole economic basis for organic farming?

Gareth Morgan: That is a well-made point. In food, demand and production need to be balanced. That is true not only of organic produce; it is a general point.

One key point is that it would be helpful if the Bill recognised the specific contribution that organic farming can make against a whole range of public goods. Rather than inventing a complicated system in parallel with organics—for example, saying, “If a farm satisfies the carbon criteria, the biodiversity criteria, the rotations and the rest of it, then we will make a payment”—let us just cut to the chase and say that it makes sense for there to be some kind of organic maintenance payment to recognise additional public goods that are there but cannot be recovered through the market. I think that would in some sense help with the conversion issue, because if farmers are clear that if they move to an organic model they will be rewarded, both by the market and for the public goods that they provide in the longer term, then that will give them that level of certainty.

Regarding conversion, you are right—I think there needs to be caution around doing that, because in the past we have had examples of where there has been over-conversion to organic ahead of the market being ready to be there. So I think the focus on some sort of organic maintenance payment in ELMS is absolutely vital.

There is a role for help with conversion, but it may not be in terms of straightforward payments during that period. It may be through things like the ancillary productivity payments or some of these other issues that are acting as a barrier to conversion. For example, bringing livestock back on to arable farms will be quite a difficult operation, and most people who convert to organic would need to do that if they are an arable farm. So help with the process of establishing those things might be the way that one could assist in that process.

Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Mr Monbiot, you are on record as saying that

“farming is no longer essential to human survival”.

In contradiction to what the Soil Association told us this morning—that we should have more mixed farming and more livestock, allowing soils to be improved by the use of natural manures—you suggest that we should abandon livestock production, particularly on the uplands, and plant trees and rewild large areas of our country. Is that a correct appraisal?

George Monbiot: That is broadly correct. One thing to say is that in the uplands there is almost no mixed farming. In fact, it would be very hard for mixed farming to be established in the uplands, which are very unsuitable on the whole for arable. In the lowlands, if we were to reintroduce mixed farming, at the microlevel that could be a very good thing by comparison to the arable deserts of East Anglia, but we would see a major decline in total yield. There is very little research on what that decline would be, but everyone can more or less accept that we will see that decline.

The global conundrum we are in is that roughly half the global population is dependent on NPK, to put it crudely, and certainly on nitrogen and other artificial fertilisers. If we were to take those out of the system, we would have mass starvation—huge numbers of people would die. However, we are aware that applications of N, P and K and others are causing global disaster: they contribute significantly to climate breakdown, soil loss, downstream pollution, air pollution and a whole load of other issues. We cannot live with it and cannot live without it. We are in an astonishing and very difficult conundrum. If we were to switch—as the Soil Association recommends and as my instincts would tell us to do—to mixed rotation or organic farming, we would not be able to produce enough food. It is as simple as that.

How do we get out of that conundrum? I see some hope in factory-produced food—microbial protein and cultured meat. That could be the only way of reconciling environmental needs of future generations and the rest of life on Earth with the need to feed people alive today and in future. We need to find ways of feeding the planet without devouring it. That could be the way.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q Could we talk about peatlands? You have been very involved in trying to make the case for the restoration of peatlands and their role as a natural climate solution. Do you think more can be done in the Bill to encourage their being left alone?

George Monbiot: I do not know whether this would fit in the remit of the Bill, but I would certainly favour banning driven grouse shooting, which is a major cause of peatland erosion. I would look at the strongest possible measures we could introduce for the restoration of blanket bogs. I would, at the very least, commission new research into the impact of agriculture on peatlands, and whether we are better off without agriculture on peatlands in terms of the carbon budget.

There is a paper in Food Policy by Durk Nijdam that points out the extraordinary levels of carbon opportunity cost on Welsh farms with high organic soils. He talks in some cases of 640 kg of carbon per kilogram of lamb protein, as a result of the lost opportunity to protect those organic soils, which is a result of farming continuing there. It would be far better in carbon terms not to farm soils, if his research is replicable.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Q I am interested in your view that we should be looking at reducing farming land usage. As we leave our present farming relationships due to Brexit, is this not a time of national need when we must preserve our acreage to feed our growing population? I am asking whether you have a political slant that is not directed at feeding the nation and securing the interests of our home farmers and workers. Is it not fanciful to think that we should give up a large amount of our acreage? Do we not need it to save us against the trials and tribulations of the post-Brexit world?

George Monbiot: There are a lot of things we need to save ourselves from at the moment, and the most urgent is climate breakdown and ecological breakdown. Huge tracts of this land are scarcely feeding us at all. There are very large areas of land where you have one sheep per hectare, per 2 hectares or, in some places, per 5 hectares. That is not producing food in any appreciable amount, yet that land could be used to draw down large amounts of carbon, to stop the sixth great extinction in its tracks, for the restoration of wildlife and ecosystems, or to prevent flooding. There is a whole load of ecological goods—public goods—that that land could be delivering, but it is not currently delivering them, because it is producing tiny amounts of food instead. We are probably all against urban sprawl and believe it is a bad thing because it takes up huge amounts of land while delivering not many services for the people who live in a sprawling city. We should be equally concerned about agricultural sprawl, which takes up far more land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

Q Professor Keevil, you make quite a bold statement in your briefing note about the 14.7% of the USA population getting food-borne illnesses every year, compared with only 1.5% in the UK. I want to ask you about your reference for that, because there is not a reference for the source of that information. That brings me on to a general question. It is quite clear that there could be a variety of other reasons for that: it could be bad storage, bad travel or bad food preparation or cooking. How reliable is this sort of statistic in a climate where we are facing going into new agreements with other countries? How reliable is that sort of information?

Professor Keevil: That is a good question, because you will get different metrics if you go to different sources. What we tried to do with those numbers was look at the annual reporting by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. You will find the information on their website. A lot of the agencies say, “Well, these are the numbers of actual reports that we have received,” for example, through people going to hospital, to their GP and so forth, and then they apply a multiplication factor for the numbers who could have been affected but for whom the signs of disease are much less—people who do not report that they have had any disease. A lot of the information is based on those types of numbers—for example, 14% of Americans do not report to a doctor to say they have had food poisoning—but they are extrapolated. As I say, you will get different metrics depending on your source. It could be that the figure in the UK is more than 1.5%, but I do not think it is anywhere near what the Americans have extrapolated.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q We mentioned clause 17 on food security, which is new to this edition of the Bill. Do you think there is scope for an extra provision? It talks about looking at global food availability, supply sources and resilience of the supply chain. In terms of your speciality, there is a lot of concern about endocrine disrupters in food, nitrates in meat, and the overuse of antibiotics, which affects human health, through the food chain. Do you think there should be reports to Parliament on food security? It is not really about food poisoning, but about the wider health concerns about what is getting into our food supply.

Professor Keevil: As I said at the start, the issue is very complex because food security is not just about supply; it is about whether it is nutritious, wholesome and safe. You cannot separate one from the other, so we have to be aware of the microbiological safety of the food that is being produced and consumed. The work that we and others have done shows us that our current methods of assessing safety are not adequate. That has to be recognised. As a scientist, I would always say we need more research done; I sincerely believe we do in this particular case. Knowledge improves standards, and we have to adopt and enforce the highest standards. We need better research and continual reassessment of what we are being challenged with, and perhaps the Bill can reflect that.

[The Chair]

It seems we have no more questions. Professor Keevil, on behalf of the Committee, I thank you for your time and answers this afternoon.

Examination of Witnesses

Diana Holland and Jyoti Fernandes gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Theo Clarke]

Q I am pleased that the Secretary of State now has direct responsibility for the nation’s food security, but I wonder whether it should be a national priority to support domestic agriculture. What is your view on the frequency of reporting? I know at the moment it is being suggested it should be every five years, but we have heard differing views today. What do the panel think about that?

Vicki Hird: I think it is welcome to have that in there. There is a case for making it more frequent, given that we are facing a climate and nature emergency that will threaten our supplies and production here and overseas. We should be building that into the review, in terms of anticipating how that will affect land use both here and overseas. That is currently not in the Bill, and it would be a welcome addition to recognise the sustainability factors that will increasingly come into play before the next five years are up. We already know that flooding is more frequent, and drought is affecting many parts of Africa, which supplies us with a lot of fruit and veg.

There is a case for more frequent reporting; it is a welcome element in the Bill, but as the previous speaker mentioned, we already do much of this food security assessment already, so it is a question of building on that and making it an integral part of the sustainability of our food system. [Applause.] May I congratulate George Eustice, our new Secretary of State? I will end there, on food security.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q I am trying to tease this out, because we have heard previous witnesses say that there is concern about the lack of baseline regulation in the Bill and the fact that we no longer have the cross-compliance checks. There are concerns that people will drop below the minimum standards. How does that work? Clearly, you do not want to use public money for public goods just to reward people for keeping to the standards required of them by law, because there is no additionality to that; they ought to be doing it anyway. We could reward farmers for doing the higher welfare stuff, but at the same time, we really ought to have an ambition to say, “If they can do it, why can’t all farmers treat their animals that way?” Will we end up always having to keep raising what counts as higher welfare for farmers to get money? Do you see what I am saying? You could almost end up not raising standards, because the farmers would not get paid for the higher welfare standards.

Dr Palmer: Yes, I see the problem. As in other areas of public subsidy, we have to start from where we are. Because we have the range of quality that I mentioned in response to the previous question, there are a lot of farmers who would genuinely like to raise their standards, but need assistance in doing so. I accept that there is an element of moral hazard in that, if someone already has superb standards, they may feel a bit irritated that someone else is being given money to come up to them.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Is that how it would work? That is the other thing. It is the same as with planting trees or improving soil health; there is a danger that, in a bid to use public money to encourage other people to do that, the people who were ahead of the curve are penalised.

Dr Palmer: I believe DEFRA envisages, which I think is right, two types of support. One is to assist with specific one-off costs—I gave the farrowing crate as an example—but the other is to reward people who are meeting a higher standard. To my mind, that must be linked to a good labelling scheme, because if we are spending public money to assist farmers to reach a higher standard, we should also be able to tell consumers about it, so that they can respond, in the same way that we have seen with eggs. When there was a choice between free-range and battery eggs, people migrated overwhelmingly to free range, to the point that it is now very difficult to get the lowest standard of egg in supermarkets. You are right that, over time, we will probably develop further ideas on how to give farm animals the best possible life, and that is right—we should not stay at the same level forever—but for the time being there is a lot to be done to reinforce the farmers who are striving to be the best.

[Fay Jones]

Q I have a question about kitemarks found on products, such as Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured. How could future Government policy recognise that?

If I may, Mr Stringer, I have a small supplementary. In Compassion’s written submission, you welcomed the Secretary of State’s ability to make regulations regarding farming method in relation to labelling. Could you elaborate on that, please?

James West: We submitted details to DEFRA a while ago. Essentially it would be different labels indicating the method of production. The range of methods of production would differ according to species, but in effect you would indicate whether it had been produced, say, intensively indoors versus extensively outdoors and everything in between. That would be on the packet, so when you go to the supermarket or shop you can see how the product was produced. As Nick was saying, with eggs that moved the market towards free-range eggs and away from caged egg sales—barn egg sales in the UK are low—to the extent that roughly half the supermarkets have phased out caged egg sales and the other half plan to do so by 2025.

It goes back to the point that you need to support the farmers in the subsidy scheme we introduce, but there also needs to be an outlet for them to show that they are delivering at a level that consumers may want. It does not mean that consumers have to buy it—they can see the stuff produced to a lower standard and still choose that—but at least they are informed. At the moment, it is really hard to find meat or dairy products labelled as to method of production. Possibly the only other one is outdoor-bred and outdoor-reared for pork; other than that, it is essentially free range/organic or you are in the dark. It would cover the whole spectrum.

Dr Palmer: That is also really important when you come to trade, because if we are to sign a free trade agreement with the United States or other countries, we really need to give our negotiators a clear steer on what we collectively are willing to see. If we have an evolving labelling scheme, we have a basis for doing that. As you know, international trade negotiations usually start from the point that each side says what their red lines are and what they cannot move on and the negotiations operate around those to see what is possible. We are keen to see specifications in the Bill on minimum standards for animal welfare—Ministers have said this many times—so that our negotiators can say to their American, Brazilian or other counterparts, “I’d love to help you, but I’m afraid I can’t because it is in the legislation.” That would give farmers and consumers the reassurance that we are absolutely not going to end up with British farming being undercut by what you vulgarly call cheap and nasty imports.

Vicki Hird: I think that goes for other aspects of food standards and production standards. I totally agree with Nick. It is very important that we see something in the Bill around trade—I am sure you have heard this a lot over the last week—so that we have a way to stop agri-food imports produced to lower standards of food, animal welfare and environmental production systems. I would add labour standards as well.

One of our members is supporting the idea of an 100% grass-fed label, because there is some confusion about grass-fed labels and claims being made. There is a very good Pasture-Fed Livestock Association producing animals with really strong environmental, as well as animal welfare, benefits. It is only fair that that should be recognised through a proper labelling scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Is there any reason why people are much more open to these types of advances in medicine, for example, than in food production? It seems that they are happy to go right to the cutting edge of technology, in terms of the treatment of genetic conditions, but somehow this is different.

Sue Davies: All the research shows that it is quite a straightforward risk-benefit analysis. If you are ill, you will take something that you think is more risky but might make you better. If it is about maintaining health, people expect there to be a higher barrier.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Some groups are talking about method of slaughter labelling. Does Which? have a view? Would the consumers you deal with find that useful?

Sue Davies: It is not something that we have carried out any research on, to be honest. It is not something that we have particularly worked on. As I say, when we have asked people about labelling information, most of them feel that we have quite a good level of information. Certainly, the areas that come out most strongly where people would like more clarity are things like making more sustainable choices. Animal welfare issues are important. We did a report in the last issue of Which? that looked at the different assurance schemes that are available to help you make sustainable choices. They all covered different elements of sustainability, so it is difficult for a scheme to help you make a choice. There is a lot more scope in that sort of area to improve labelling. Method of slaughter is not something that we have asked about recently.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q There is some quite misleading packaging. There was the whole issue of Tesco and its fake farms—it had pictures of cows frolicking in meadows, when they had never seen the sunlight. I am not saying that that was simply about Tesco, but the farms that Tesco had on its products did not actually exist.

Sue Davies: I think there are still cases where the way foods are presented does not meet the actual way they are produced. When we ask people about their expectations, though, people are often surprised: they may think that welfare standards are higher than they actually are, and then when you explain, they are often quite surprised about what is the minimum—what is free range, what is organic or whatever. It is certainly an area where people want more information.

We also did a report on chicken welfare in, I think, the November issue of Which? and it was quite interesting to ask the different retailers about their stocking densities for chickens and to see the variation, even within the current legal framework, between individual retailers. That went down very well; I think people found it very useful information.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q Do you think that, in terms of the consumer side of things, that would be more an issue for the food strategy? I think there will be quite a focus in that on—

Sue Davies: It is really good that in the Bill there is, obviously, the potential for financial assistance, and animal welfare is a clear criterion for that. I think that that is right. Whether it is in the Bill or the food strategy, I think there needs to be a mechanism to look at how we improve labelling.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q I suppose the Bill is encouraging more humane production methods and so on, and the food strategy is making sure, at the consumer end of things and the marketing end of things, that farmers can be rewarded through the market as well. They would be rewarded twice: once through public money for public goods, but also through people being prepared to pay a little bit more because they trust that something has genuinely been produced to better standards.

Sue Davies: I suppose that the Bill will also cover the marketing standards that fall under the common agricultural policy, which cover everything from breakfast products like jams to poultry. So there is an element within the Bill where that could be covered. We have had concerns that the marketing standards under the common agricultural policy have been developed very separately from other food standards and very much from a producer-only perspective, rather than by thinking about what the end consumer might want. I think that there is an opportunity, if we are reviewing any of those standards, to make sure that they are meeting consumer needs as well.

[The Chair]

If there are no more questions, let me thank you on behalf of the Committee for the evidence that you have given this afternoon. Thank you very much.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(James Morris.)

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, leave out “may” and insert “must”.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance for the purposes listed in Clause 1.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I welcome everyone to the Committee. I suspect we will have lengthy and interesting discussions, and I am sure we are all very much looking forward to that.

To those who were here some time ago for Committee stage of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament, the amendment will look remarkably similar to the opening amendment then, although of course the world has moved on. This is a big issue, but I would like to preface my detailed “may”/“must” comments with some overarching observations.

I should make it clear from the start, as we did on Second Reading, that the Opposition support many of the principles underlying the Bill. Indeed, as I have pointed out before, one can find similar sentiments about improving the common agricultural policy and making it more environmentally friendly as far back as Labour’s 1998 rural White Paper. We have already said that the shift to incentivising farmers to provide greater support for the environment and deliver public goods, and to providing finance for that, is welcome.

I think there is widespread agreement about that—interestingly, not just in this country. Those who were present at yesterday’s debate on an agriculture statutory instrument will know that I spent some time then explaining how the European Union has sought to green the common agricultural policy, including by promoting measures such as environmental land management schemes. I observed that I find it slightly puzzling that a Government so enamoured with burnishing their green credentials did not fully use flexibilities such as the 15% in pillar 2 that could have been transferred to environmental schemes in England. However, a repentant sinner is always welcome—despite the nagging suspicion that some may not be entirely repentant.

The Opposition seek to work constructively to improve the Bill, but also to tease out what we see as some of the underlying contradictions, not least by pointing out that the Government are proposing a framework system for agriculture that does not see food production as a key part of its role. I quite understand why those fighting for a shift to environmental goods—they have fought the good fight for many years—may be nervous about the risk of business as usual through the back door, but we must be aware that just exporting our environmental damage somewhere else does not help. I must say that the Secretary of State’s continuing refusal to put into law the standards we need to apply to imported food does little to assuage concerns, and his comments at the weekend did little to reassure us. We will return to that at a later stage.

Members do not just have to take my word for that. They might want to look, for instance, at the powerful response to the new immigration system from the British Poultry Council last week. Its chief executive, Richard Griffiths, said the proposals

“have shown a complete disregard for British food production and will have a crippling effect on our national food security”—

a very strong statement from an industry leader. He continued, and this is the salient point for this morning:

“We cannot run the risk of creating a two-tier food system where we import food produced to lower standards and only the affluent can afford high quality British produce”.

That is the danger—some farmers paid via environmental land management schemes to do good things, with a bit of food production on the side, while the food that most people in our country eat is imported to lower standards. That is the risk, and we will not take it.

Our support is qualified on the Government coming clean on the plan. On a day when Sir Michael Marmot has laid out the consequences of the policies of the last 10 years—shameful consequences in my view—it is hardly surprising that people are worried, because the creation of a two-tier country is part of a piece, and the architects of this Bill have also been responsible in other policy areas for where we find ourselves today, in a disunited kingdom. We are not prepared to see this continue. For our purposes today, how much better if we had had the food strategy, and probably the Environment Bill, in place already, but we are where we are.

Having made trenchant criticisms of the Government, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that there have been improvements since the first version of the Bill, and we welcome them. We have noticed that the Government have been responsive to constructive criticism of their proposals and made additions to the Bill from its previous incarnation, following strong interventions by stakeholders. We hope that the Government continue to be receptive to improvements, because we believe there is certainly room for improvement.

It is precisely because changes have been made to the Bill, and because the climate and ecological crisis has become ever more pressing in the year or more since the Bill was last in Committee, that it is so important that we have returned to scrutinise this new version of the legislation. Our amendments are intended to strengthen the Bill—to give it more bite and deliver greater certainty to our farmers, to tackle the health and climate crises, and to fill in some of the gaps and missed opportunities.

I turn to “may”/”must” in amendment 1. Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State the power to provide financial assistance for the public goods purposes listed in the clause. It stipulates that the Secretary of State may do this, but there is no requirement to do so. Our amendment would change that, so that the Secretary of State must provide financial assistance for those clause 1 purposes, which I suspect we will debate at some length.

The simple fact is that the Secretary of State is not bound to do those things; they do not have to do them. The Government have guaranteed the previous annual budget under the common agricultural policy to farmers for every year of this Parliament, but what about after this Parliament? What guarantees do we have that financial assistance will continue to be provided for these public good purposes if that is not a strong requirement in the Bill?

What guarantee can the Minister give that the promised budget will be allocated? We still do not have the long-promised broader policy statement on ELMS. I wondered whether that was what the Prime Minister was working on at Chevening last week—I can imagine him spending his week doing the detailed policy work—but I am told that it is imminent and will be available within minutes. I think it is slightly disrespectful to Parliament to introduce such an important part of the policy process half an hour after Committee proceedings have started—I am sure we will all spend our lunch time poring over it.

I understand that the Secretary of State’s need to avoid the difficulties of his predecessor earlier this year and to have something to talk about when he is at the National Farmers Union—once a pressman, always a pressman. I rather admire that; however, I think we should have seen the statement before today.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I arrived in the office just before nine this morning to discover that these documents had been produced. That makes things very difficult, because we may have missed the opportunity to table amendments to this part of the Bill if anything in those documents raises concerns. As my hon. Friend said, it is wrong that this situation has been dictated by the need for the Secretary of State to make a speech at the NFU this morning. The Committee should take precedence.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are politicians and we know how the world works, but it is a pity. This Government have a strong majority and are at the start of their term; surely they should not be running scared so soon. Frankly, it speaks volumes. I do not blame the Minister—I am sure she is doing what she has been asked to do—but this raises particular difficulties for us. Until we have seen the documents, we will not know whether we should have tabled different amendments. We probably have a fair idea of what is in there, but this is no way to proceed.

Do we know that the money will actually be allocated? This is a change to a new and complicated system. The experience of stewardship schemes in the past is that they have not always been easy. We heard very enthusiastic evidence the week before last from some who say that everything will be wonderful. That is not what I hear from others. The question in my mind is whether budget allocated will be different from budget taken up. My sense is that many farmers think they are going to get the same kind of money, minus the 10%, in the years ahead. They may not. There is no guarantee that they are going to get the same amount for doing something slightly different. The money may be allocated in very different ways, which is part of the concern that people feel.

The shift that we need to see in our agricultural systems towards producing food in a way that is less destructive to the environment and that reduces agriculture’s contribution to climate change is too important to leave to the optional discretion of Secretaries of State. Under the current wording, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position whereby current and future Secretaries of State will be under no actual obligation to provide financial assistance to address agriculture’s contribution to climate change, despite that supposedly being a key driver of the Bill.

If the Government understand just how important the environmental and climate crisis is, it really is not such a tough ask for them to back up their commitments with stronger wording in the Bill. Others had the same discussion about the previous iteration of the Bill, so I am well aware of the current Secretary of State’s arguments against the change—that by keeping this as a power and not a duty, the Government are following a legislative tradition—I am sure the Minister has been given appropriate examples to make that point. I will not re-rehearse the point, but she will note that it was not only the Opposition who expressed that concern last time. She may find that some Members on her side of Committee care and worry about this issue. I would gently point out that the circumstances are really rather different now; in fact, the case has been strengthened since the previous discussion, given the climate emergency that we are facing. We hardly need look very far around the country to see the evidence of that.

Of course, we are also now leaving the European Union and embarking on a journey of considerable financial uncertainty for farmers and the wider rural community. That is why we need strong legislative commitments that guarantee long-term support for the environment and the climate, and financial certainty for our farmers. All that the amendment would do is make it a requirement to provide the financial assistance.

Other measures in the Bill are worded as requirements. Clause 4 makes the preparation of multi-annual financial assistance plans a requirement, while clause 17 obligates the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on UK food security. There are other provisions in the Bill where the power is a duty. The amendment would ensure that clause 1, which is pretty much at the heart of what we are talking about, has equal standing to other clauses. Shifting the power to a duty would rightly open the Secretary of State’s actions up to proper parliamentary scrutiny. If it is the law that the Secretary of State must provide finance for those essential activities, and they do not, they can be held duly accountable.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, at this very exciting time for agriculture. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his broadly kind words this morning and for his acceptance that we have a great deal in common across the House, as we move forward in planning the next stages of food production, farming and other systems that we want to implement to make sure the environment is better protected. We have much in common in this area at the moment.

As a newbie to this Committee, I also welcome those who served before and who, as the hon. Gentleman said, did a great deal to improve the Bill, which appears before us today in a new, streamlined form. Clause 1(4) includes an important mention of the role of food production as part of what we do in our countryside. It makes it clear that encouraging the production of food in an environmentally sustainable way is necessary. That is one of the most important changes made to the Bill, and I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to standards. I am sure we will return to this discussion, probably next week, when we discuss imports and how that issue will be taken forward. I ask him to accept that my predecessor and I—and, indeed, many Government Members who are interested in agriculture—have always been clear that it is important that we are committed to the highest possible standards of food production. We want reasonably priced food, but produced to a standard of high ecological and animal welfare.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Can the Minister clarify whether she is talking about standards in the UK or standards of imports, too?

[Victoria Prentis]

It is a great pleasure to take an intervention from the hon. Lady. She and I have worked together for many years on food waste reduction, so we have had a certain amount to do with each other in that sphere.

The Bill deals with standards in British agriculture that we impose on our farmers. It is inevitable at this exciting time for our nation that we will also stray into discussions on imports. I do not wish to shut those discussions down, however the Bill concentrates on the financial assistance that we give to the people who produce food in our countryside and are engaged in other schemes that, hopefully, will help us to enhance the environment.

I wish to restate the Government’s commitment to giving farmers, stakeholders and the public as much certainty as possible as we move away from the common agricultural policy towards our new policy of public money for public goods. I know that the previous Committee discussed at enormous length whether “may” or “must” should be used. As you may have heard, Mr Stringer, I am a former Government lawyer, and I am aware of the way in which legislation is often framed. When talking about financial assistance—which I politely say is what makes this different from the other clauses that the hon. Member for Cambridge referenced— it is traditional, in this sphere at least, although not in all Government legislation, to use the word “may”. Two examples are the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and the Science and Technology Act 1965, which both use the word “may” when discussing financial assistance. I would suggest that, in this situation, that is not an unusual piece of drafting nor one that in any way lessens our commitment to providing the financial assistance to which we have committed for the remainder of this Government.

We listened to hon. Members’ concerns during the passage of the first version of the Bill and have included new duties relating to financial assistance. The provision of the multi-annual financial assistance plans under clause 4 is a significant change, which sets out our strategic priorities for financial assistance under clause 1, with the first plan starting in 2021 to cover our seven-year transition period. Publishing these plans and other reports required under part 1 will ensure greater transparency and provide necessary certainty about the amount of public funding that has been allocated under clause 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

Mr Stringer, amendment 11 is in this group. Is it in order for me to speak to that amendment now?

[The Chair]

It is in order. We are debating amendments 2, 11 and 3.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Thank you for that clarification.

My amendment 11 is very similar to the Labour Front Benchers’ amendment 2. It would give the Secretary of State the power to provide financial assistance for the purpose of

“establishing, maintaining and expanding agroecological farming systems, including organic farming.”

For a number of years, I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming. We have not yet reconstituted in this Parliament, but the group has gone from strength to strength. It is fair to say that, when I first got involved, it was very niche; we would have meetings with a small handful of people. Now, however, we regularly pack out Committee Rooms—standing room only. As I said, I chaired that group for a number of years, apart from when I was in the shadow Cabinet, when my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge kindly took over.

Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby just said, agroecology is not just about organic production. I entirely refute what he said about organic productivity and so on. Unfortunately, I do not have the figures to hand, but I am sure that the Soil Association will soon be in touch with him and the rest of us to put straight some of the things he said about the ability of the country to feed itself under an organic system.

Agroecological systems include organic, agroforestry, pasture-based livestock systems, integrated pest management—farming in a way that does not require pesticides—low-input mixed farming and biodynamic agriculture. All such things deliver a higher level of benefits and co-benefits across the farm than conventional systems do. Organic farms have 50% more wildlife than conventionally farmed land, and healthier soils with a 44% higher capacity to store long-term soil carbon. Obviously, too, if the soil is more fertile, that increases productivity. The amendment is supported by Sustain, the Landworkers’ Alliance, the Soil Association and many others.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned food deserts. The survey that he mentioned showed that two of the top five food deserts in the country were in south Bristol: the estates of Hartcliffe and Withywood. In the top 100, an area in my constituency is also listed. In a city such as Bristol, that is really surprising. Bristol prides itself on going for gold among the Sustainable Food Cities later this year—I am sure the Minister supports that; we are surrounded by countryside, with an awful lot of urban food growing; and Feeding Bristol does a tremendous amount of work to encourage healthy eating and tackle food poverty. Yet we still have those areas where that is a difficult problem to crack, so I very much hope we will pay particular attention to that in the food strategy that the Government are developing.

On the amendment, as I said, agroecology integrates food production with delivery of environmental and social public goods. That would give farms the support and incentives they need to transition to ecological farming models. I am sure that at some point we will talk about climate change, but land use—the sustainable use of land, which means sustainable agriculture—is absolutely intrinsic to meeting our global climate targets. We will discuss later why there is no commitment to net zero in the Bill, as supported by the NFU. We must take the situation seriously, and it is so frustrating that, year on year, all we talk about is fossil fuel use and industry, with perhaps a little nod to transport and electric vehicles, but we do not talk about this incredibly important angle—locally and in the impact overseas with deforestation and so on, as was mentioned.

The recent Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations modelling report makes it clear that a 10-year transition to agroecological farming, which was also recommended by the RSA’s food, farming and countryside commission, can deliver the food and environmental outcomes needed to feed Europe and to tackle the crisis we face. Were the Minister to look at the example set by France, she would find that there is far greater focus on agroecology and organic farming, and it has been done very successfully.

The Bill only rewards farmers for managing land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment; agroecology would reward them for integrated, whole-farm action. At the moment, a farmer might still farm unsustainably in the middle of the field, so most of the farm would not be sustainable, but could get the public money for public goods for things done around the edge. Farmers will be able to pick and choose—to cherry-pick certain things that they do—and that will not transform farming in the way needed.

If agroecology is specified as a Bill purpose, the Government could also chose to develop schemes that deliver social benefits as part of the farm system, such as community projects for public education about food growing and cooking. That is so important, to change farming from being seen as part of a countryside versus town thing; everyone eats food and benefits from the growing of healthy food.

The Bill fails to support whole-farm systems in delivering public goods in an integrated manner. Agroecological farms, including organic, at the moment may get start-up funding under clause 1(2), and certain agroecological approaches may get funding under clause 1(1), but there is not support for whole-farm systems to deliver public goods on an ongoing basis. That is not explicit anywhere in the Bill; I think it should be.

[The Chair]

May I clarify the answer to the hon. Lady’s initial question? It was completely in order to debate amendment 11. If she wishes to press it to a vote, that will be after the debate on amendment 40. I hope that is clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to go back to the Marmot report. Sadly, not everyone is living to 100—not everyone necessarily wants to live to 110 or 120, of course—and the worry is that the increase in life expectancy appears to have stalled. However, he makes an important point. I am not one of those who thinks that life was so much better in the past. Most of us can recognise plenty to celebrate in the modern world and in the technological advances we have made, but alongside those advances we have learnt some of the downsides and unintended consequences of some of the things that we can now do. Perhaps we are at a point in time—to go back to this being a key moment in developing our policy for the future—to look at the decisions made 40 years ago to tackle scarcity and shortage. Now, we might be tackling a different set of problems. That is why the debate is so important, but the right hon. Gentleman makes an important contribution.

Going back to the potential issues with pesticides, in March 2017 the report of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food highlighted the fact that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides has been associated with several diseases and conditions, including cancer, developmental disorders and sterility, and that those living near crop fields are particularly vulnerable to exposure to those chemicals.

Again, I acknowledge that some of that is contested, but it would be unwise to suggest that there is no potential problem here. If we can find ways of reducing the risk, that is surely something to be sought. It is also the case that, while those who are administering the pesticides should use protective equipment when using agricultural pesticides and there are clear guidelines and rules on that, adjacent rural residents and communities do not necessarily have anything like the same protection—most do not have any protection at all—and there are still no mandatory measures in the UK specifically for the protection of those rural systems.

Alongside that, boosting our supply of fruit and veg is particularly important for public health, as we have just discussed, so that people can have access to fresh, sustainably produced fruit and vegetables closer to home. We know that low intake of fruit and veg is among the most important dietary risk factors for chronic disease, including heart disease and stroke. I am told that, sadly, only 31% of British adults and 8% of children currently achieve the Government’s recommendation of five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

We are using far less of our agricultural land to produce fruit and vegetables than we could—only 1.4% in England, when the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit estimates that we could be using up to 19% of land to cultivate crops of fruit and vegetables. Looking back, we had a very different mix in past times. This is part of the wider discussion about the extent to which we are part of a global trading system and want to import things that we could very well produce here. Again, it is part of the economic trade-offs.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I was pleased to see mention of pulses in amendment 35. People often talk about fruit and veg, but pulses are not only good for the soil, in terms of fixing nitrogen, but an important part of a healthy diet. In certain parts of the country, including East Anglia, which my hon. Friend is very familiar with, they are a booming part of the agricultural sector. For example, for people who cannot handle gluten, there are pea-based pizza bases and things like that. I have spoken to producers about them. Does he agree that we ought to be pushing that as well?

[Daniel Zeichner]

As ever, I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. I am still chastened by one of the hon. Members opposite chiding me about my comments on eastern England at the evidence session, because I am very proud of eastern England, but I do reflect occasionally that the landscape has changed over the decades. We are very efficient food producers, but—there is always a but—there have been some costs to that in terms of environmental degradation. There is an opportunity, through these changes, to move some of that production to the kind that my hon. Friend is suggesting.

My guess, although I do not know for sure, is that many farmers would be quite happy to do that, because we know that farmers tend to operate within the rules that this place sets. That is why we have a responsibility to make that more attractive and to incentivise it, and not necessarily to make it attractive to carry on as we have done in the past. There is a real opportunity there, and I am sure we will talk further about diversification opportunities, but I must say that I worry sometimes about imagining that everyone wants to be diversified. Some people went into farming because that is what they want to do and they do it very well, and we should recognise that.

Going back to fruit and veg, the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit’s written evidence to the Committee estimates that, if there were a gradual increase in land use for fruit and vegetable production to 10% of suitable land, fruit and vegetable intake could increase by around 3.7% and 7.8% respectively. That could prevent or postpone around 3,890 cardiovascular disease deaths between 2021 and 2030. My guess is that the science is not exact, but the drift of the argument is clear. There is an opportunity here, and I very much hope that, as we discuss the environmental land management schemes in more detail, we will be reassured by the possibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

I thank the hon. Lady for drawing attention to this important and pressing topic. We on the Government side are committed to leaving our environment in a better condition than we found it. That includes facing the challenges associated with climate change and with greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we legislated in June 2019 to introduce a net zero target to end the UK’s contribution to the most serious environmental challenge we face: climate change. We are the first major economy in the world to legislate for a carbon net zero target.

We have not made sector-specific targets, so I will not be accepting the hon. Lady’s amendment, although we are pleased with the ambitious target set by the National Farmers Union for its members. We are committed to continuing to work with the agricultural industry to tackle climate change together. One example is the £10 million of Government money given in May 2018 to help restore more than 10,000 football pitches’ worth of England’s iconic peatlands, which she referred to. This year we will establish a lowland agricultural peat task force that will build on the work already begun in this important area.

[Kerry McCarthy]

On the subject of peatlands—I have an amendment on this, to be considered later—it is one thing to talk about restoring peatlands, but if grouse moor owners are being allowed to burn peatlands, a huge amount of damage is being done, by destroying what is a natural carbon sink and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Does she agree with me, and with her ministerial colleague in the House of Lords—he has indicated that he believes this too—that we ought to ban that practice?

[Victoria Prentis]

I do not necessarily agree that all burning should be banned outright. Some low-level burning is not necessarily as harmful to the environment as the hon. Lady suggests. We can agree on the importance of peatland as a place to store carbon, and the importance of working together to ensure that peatland is restored and improved.

I move on to our £90 million industrial strategy challenge fund—the transforming food production initiative. Through this fund, we support industry-driven research and development to move agricultural systems towards net zero emissions. It has some relevance to the point made by the hon. Member for Newport West. It is important for us always to be open-minded and able to look at evidence. Everything we do must be evidence-based in this important area. This investment will support the development and adoption of advanced precision technologies and solutions to boost the efficiency of our agriculture. It will help to ensure that we produce high-value food in a way that maximises productivity and environmental performance.

The original drafting of the clause enabled the Secretary of State to give financial assistance for the purpose of

“managing land, water or livestock in a way that mitigates or adapts to climate change.”

We envisage that these objectives will be delivered by a broad spectrum of activities, and therefore all agricultural or horticultural activities that contribute to this purpose would already be within scope of funding support under clause 1(1)(d), as drafted. I hope that I have demonstrated that we already have the powers in the Bill to cover the proposed content.

[Victoria Prentis]

The Government legislated for net zero emissions, and in doing so we decided not to make sector-specific targets, but we absolutely support the NFU’s ambitions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman watched “Countryfile” at the weekend, but there was an interesting piece on agricultural emissions that mentioned both livestock practices and the keeping of nitrogen within soil. This debate, as he says, is not really partisan; we do not have different passions for this. We need to work carefully together, always looking at all the evidence, with improved support for research and development, which the Bill absolutely provides for. I hope that we will be able to meet the NFU’s exacting targets.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My concern is that other sectors have quite a clear road map for how we get to net zero, and carbon budgets that deal with that. I have never seen that for agriculture. I was quite worried that the previous Secretary of State seemed to think that the answer was all about technological solutions and weird and wonderful things, rather than in how the land is farmed. That is what is missing. Some of us have been talking about this for a very long time, but the Minister talks as if these solutions are new to the table and need to be investigated. There are a lot of good practices out there that would help. Why is there not a clear agenda or line of direction from the Government for achieving that?

Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

Division 5

Ayes: 6

---

Labour: 6

Noes: 10

---

Conservative: 10

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 1, page 2, line 28, after ‘activity’ insert—

‘, provided that such assistance does not contradict or undermine the purposes in section 1(1).’

This could possibly be described as a probing amendment. There is general agreement that the Government’s commitment to the principle of public money for public goods is welcome. This amendment is a safeguard to ensure that the delivery of public goods is not undermined by any financial assistance for improving productivity. There is some concern that it could mean a greater proportion of the money going to the productivity head rather than to public goods. If the new environmental land management scheme is to be successful and provide value for money, all the payments need to contribute to the delivery of public goods.

It is still not clear how the future Budget will be distributed between financial assistance for public goods and productivity, and there is concern that we could end up with a pillar one and pillar two-type system—again, where public goods take second place. I am seeking assurances from the Minister. If I am confident that her assurances are credible, I will not push this to a vote.

[Victoria Prentis]

I thank the hon. Lady for that assurance. I understand that she wants to ensure that we do not provide financial assistance to improve productivity or production in a way that would harm the environment or undermine any of the purposes in clause 1. I hope that is a fair summary of what she said.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is partly about not undermining that, but it is also partly about how the money is divvied up. If a huge proportion of the money goes towards productivity, it is not clear how the budget will be divided. That is what I am seeking clarity on—that there is money for public goods.

[Victoria Prentis]

I cannot give the hon. Lady absolute assurance at the moment as to how the budget will be divided, as that is a matter for the development of the scheme. We will do a great deal of work developing it, including years of pilots and a great deal of consultation, in which, I am sure, she will be involved. I can assure her that it is not our intention to put the productivity wing on a higher level than allowing damage to the public purposes, which are there to protect the environment, or the other purposes is clause 1. That is absolutely not our intention. Our ambition is to leave the environment in a better state than we find it.

We intend to continue to be a world leader in animal welfare and health standards. We will promote engagement, as is clear from clause 1, with our natural heritage and beautiful landscapes. However, a productive, competitive farming sector is also our priority. We think our farmers are among the best in the world, providing healthy and nutritious food for our population. We will support them to become more productive, so that they can provide more home-grown healthy produce.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Just to clarify, it would help if the Minister could give an assurance that all payments need to contribute to the delivery of public goods, whether it is a payment for productivity or directly for public goods. She phrased it to me in the negative—they should not undermine public goods—but the intention of this Bill is that everything should support that public goods agenda.

[Victoria Prentis]

I think the hon. Lady and I are dancing around the same issue, which is that the ambitions do not need to be mutually exclusive. We absolutely believe that producing food and managing a sustainable environment can and should go hand in hand. Improving productivity is normally about improving efficiency by using less energy and fewer pesticides to produce the food that we eat. Greater efficiency can also mean using less land, so that other land can be freed up for other purposes such as tree planting. I share the hon. Lady’s concerns, however I feel that her amendment would restrict our ability to offer financial assistance in the most effective way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I appreciate why trying to get the balance correct is a difficult dilemma, but it is crucial that we do so. We are not satisfied, frankly, that we are getting the clarity that is required. We understand that this is a framework Bill, but much more detail is required to give certainty, so—I may be speaking on behalf of my colleagues here—we would like to push the amendment to the vote.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am afraid I am not satisfied with the Minister’s reassurances and would like to push the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Division 6

Ayes: 6

---

Labour: 6

Noes: 10

---

Conservative: 10

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 1, page 2, line 32, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) In framing any financial assistance scheme, the Secretary of State must have regard to—

(a) the need to encourage the production of food by producers in England and its production by them in an environmentally sustainable way; and

(b) the need to ensure that all farms and horticulture units, including those smaller than five hectares, can access financial assistance.”

The key point in the amendment is paragraph (b), which deals with the need to ensure that all farms and horticultural units—including those smaller than 5 hectares —can access this financial assistance. In 2014, the then Secretary of State ruled that a farm needed to be more than 5 hectares to receive direct payments. The decision to increase the limit from 1 to 5 hectares excluded one in six English farmers during the transition from single to basic payments.

During the oral evidence sessions we heard evidence from Jyoti Fernandes at the Landworkers Alliance that the threshold resulted in smallholders being at a serious disadvantage. In designing any new scheme, the threshold should be scrapped. Every farm, no matter what its size, has the ability to deliver the public goods listed in clause 1. The farms and horticultural units showcased in the latest Landworkers Alliance report, “Agroecology in Action”, illustrate what they can achieve in terms of encouraging biodiversity, building soil health, replacing agrochemicals, mitigating climate change, integrating communities and enhancing economic resilience. Earlier we discussed the need to bring food production closer to communities. Often, it is the smallholdings that do that. They also tend to have higher levels of employment than conventional farms. A 2017 study of agroecological farms smaller than 20 hectares found that they employed 26 times more workers than the UK per hectare average. It would be a huge mistake to exclude them from financial assistance.

It was good to see from DEFRA’s press release today that

“anyone from any farm or land type”

can participate. Will the Minister confirm that “any farm or land type” means farms smaller than 5 hectares?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I echo my hon. Friend’s comments. It is important that small farms are not left out of this legislation. As she said, in the evidence sessions we heard compelling evidence from the Landworkers Alliance that farmers on smaller holdings have been much disadvantaged to date by the current payments system due to the 5 hectare threshold, which cuts those with less than 5 hectares out of the system for getting payments. I was surprised to hear that 85% of its membership had never been able to get support for their work. We know why: back in the previous iteration of discussions, there was concern that small firms would not be subject to cross-compliance. That is my understanding. That was possibly a reasonable position to take, although I suggest that the answer to that is that there should be proper and appropriate checking and verification.

Precisely for the reasons that my hon. Friend has explained, we will support the amendment. We need to include many more people in the system and to make it far more likely that they will be able to benefit from it.

[Victoria Prentis]

It should have been obvious from my previous comments that I am a passionate smallholder, so I listened to what Members had to say with considerable interest. As I have said, I cannot promise exactly how the ELM scheme will work going forward, but I hope I can provide sufficient assurance in the rest of what I say. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to design agricultural, horticultural and forestry schemes in a way that best reflects our circumstances and allows us to deliver the best possible outcomes.

As my predecessor said, we are determined to work with industry to co-design the new schemes and ensure we get them right. In determining whether there should be a minimum size threshold for eligibility, we will need to weigh up the benefits that can be delivered by small land holdings—benefits that I recognise—against the administrative costs associated with managing agreements, as the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned. We need to ensure that the different schemes provided under ELMS provide value for public money.

Detailed eligibility criteria will be established for ELMS as soon as the schemes are developed, working with stakeholders. I can only apologise, because I do not have all the answers at the moment. This will be a very complicated, new set of schemes, which will take many years to develop.

I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Bristol East to clause 1(2), which is reflected in the press release she mentioned. It provides a power for financial assistance to be provided in connection with

“starting, or improving the productivity of, an agricultural, horticultural or forestry activity”.

The power clearly does not put any restrictions on the size of holding for which financial assistance can be provided. We will be designing our future schemes alongside industry in a way that delivers the best possible outcomes. I hope that she will withdraw the amendment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am confused by what the Minister is saying. She is right that there is no mention of any limit in the Bill, but her earlier words, before she mentioned the clause about start-ups, clearly suggested that she thought there could be bureaucratic problems. She was sort of putting objections in the way of extending the scheme to smallholder farmers. Today’s smallholder could be tomorrow’s big food producer.

I do not know whether the Minister wants to intervene to say more, but I do not think she has given any assurance at all. The 5 hectares issue has come up time and time again, including during previous discussions on the Bill. Why has the Department not got to the stage that it can give that assurance to smaller farmers?

[Victoria Prentis]

As I said earlier, the environmental land management systems have not yet been worked out. It is clear from the scoping document that was published today that they will vary enormously in their size and scope. Some will be concerned with just one farm, and others will be concerned with multiple farms or even a whole area, in order to provide the best possible ecological solutions that we are all seeking. I am unable to provide the hon. Lady with an absolute assurance at the moment, but I hear what she has to say about the importance of small agricultural holdings.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Once again, I cannot accept the Minister’s assurances and would like to press the amendment to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank the Minister for her explanation. As a humble farmer, I would not wish to have an argument with a lawyer on a legal matter. Her point makes sense. The land occupied by many of these game species will be subject to support through the Bill, not least because of the wish to restore natural habitats and environment, and preserve some of our fragile natural environments.

What is not in doubt is that when the animals have been shot, prepared and put on the supermarket shelves, they qualify as food. Therefore, it struck me that some points made in the evidence session were not prepared to look at this as a useful source of food. Having heard the Minister’s sensible and legally wise words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to move amendment 13, in clause 1, page 3, line 17, at end insert

““protecting or improving the quality of soil” includes the restoration of blanket bog and other peatland habitats.”

The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, and I served on the previous Bill Committee.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

And me.

[Kerry McCarthy]

And the Whip. That makes four of us; are there any more takers? Those of who went through the Bill then will remember quite a debate on trying to include soil as a public good. That was opposed by the Government and I remember that the right hon. Gentleman spoke vociferously against it. Lo and behold, it has now made it into the new version of the Bill. That shows that it is worth persevering with an argument, even if it seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the first instance. Someone may go away and think about it and come back and think: “She was right after all”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

The hon. Gentleman is definitely getting action. I set out earlier what is being done to preserve peatland at the moment: £10 million of peatland restoration is definitely action, in my book. What I do not want to do is clog up—that is not a technical term; I am trying to find a soil-appropriate word—a definition of “soil” with something that happens in part above the soil, which is why I am resisting this amendment. The Government are committed to the importance of preserving peatland, but we need to ensure that all our soil types are protected by the part of the clause that is concerned with soil.

I hope I have reassured Opposition Members that we recognise the vital role peatlands play in helping to deliver on our agricultural and environmental commitments, and that there is no requirement to single out peatland in the soil provision of the Bill. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for her response, and I take her point about habitat, but peatlands are so important that I still think they could be included in this provision. The Minister has sort of argued both ways, in that she said “soil” did cover blanket bog and peatland and then said that this amendment would widen the definition, but this is so important and we do need action. As I have said, the Minister in the Lords, formerly the MP for Richmond Park, has made it clear that he wants a ban on peat burning. That is not specifically what this provision speaks to, but obviously we are going to give—

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Lady agree that a distinction needs to be drawn between the blanket bogs—such as Saddleworth moor, where the fire got right into the bog—and the drier, heathland type of moor that we have in North Yorkshire? The North York Moors National Park Authority itself supports the traditional management of that moor, particularly for the benefit of sheep but also of grouse.

[Kerry McCarthy]

There is a whole argument to be had about the management of moors for the benefit of grouse, when grouse are imported into this country in their millions just so they can be shot by people on an away-day. I would not have thought that was a priority.

Given peatland’s carbon role, its importance in the area of flood mitigation and all the other environmental benefits I have mentioned, it is important that we spell this out on the face of the Bill. We argued in the last Committee about whether the definition of “soil” needed to be spelled out on the face of the Bill, and I am asking for it to be spelled out in greater detail this time around. As such, I would like to press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend, who as ever makes some very valid points. Animal welfare is important to us all, and I am proud that, broadly speaking, it is also very important to farmers in this country.

Touching briefly on the issue of live exports, as I imagine the hon. Member for Cambridge knows, the Government has a manifesto commitment to end excessively long journeys for animals going for slaughter or fattening. We have said to date that we are actively looking at this important issue, and I understand that a consultation is planned imminently for this spring, so that we can take it further as quickly as possible.

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman very clearly, and not just by nodding, that there is no intention that payments will be issued to farmers for achieving basic welfare standards. The Government are world leaders in animal welfare, and are committed to retaining that status by maintaining and strengthening our standards, as part of a comprehensive series of measures to improve animal welfare. Using the powers in this Bill, we are developing a scheme that aims to improve welfare. As part of that, we are exploring a one-off grant system that will help farmers to improve welfare on farms, and might well include some of the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Cambridge, which we discussed earlier in our consideration of the Bill.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

For clarification, would that grant system be for capital expenditure to change the animals’ accommodation? If so, does the Minister envisage that there will be ongoing revenue-type subsidies to maintain the higher welfare standards, or is it just capital that is being looked at?

[Victoria Prentis]

I envisage the specific grants that I was just talking about as payments to enhance buildings, for example, or for other welfare issues. However, the hon. Member is right to mention other means of paying for welfare, and it is true that the Bill is currently flexible. I expect that we will get into the detail of that sort of issue as we progress with devising the schemes to improve animal welfare. She is right to highlight that issue, and should make whatever points she wants to as we devise the schemes. We are exploring a payment-by-results scheme, under which farmers could receive ongoing payments for delivering specific animal welfare enhancements that are valued by the public but, as the hon. Member for Cambridge said, not yet sufficiently valued by the market. The hon. Member for Bristol East is therefore right to continue to make whatever points she wants to in that space.

The amendment would restrict in primary legislation what will be included in the new scheme before those involved in the industry, as well as the Animal Welfare Committee, have had the opportunity to have their say. What defines enhanced animal welfare must be designed in consultation with those involved, so that the schemes deliver the best possible outcomes for consumers, the industry and, most importantly, the animals themselves. Our understanding of animal welfare today is far ahead of where it was when I was growing up on a farm, or 20 or 30 years ago. It would be short-sighted of us to set out requirements in legislation for payments, as it would restrict our ability to develop or amend schemes, such as the enhanced animal welfare scheme, when more evidence becomes available.

Turning specifically to amendment 42, improving the health of the national livestock, herd or flock, requires widespread co-ordinated action. We intend to launch the first schemes to improve the health of farmed animals from 2022 to 2023, concentrating on endemic diseases. We are co-designing schemes with farmers and vets, prioritising cattle—both dairy and beef—sheep, pigs and poultry, with the intention to widen participation to other species. Previous experience has shown that, without action being taken by the majority of farmers, efforts to control disease and improve health do not achieve very much.

That action does not have to be significantly above the legal standards to be very effective, but it does need to be part of a concerted effort on the part of farmers and others, which can, of course, include central Government. We are worried that the amendment would restrict us to providing financial assistance only, in effect, to better-performing farmers. Actions such as tackling endemic disease are best done when a large proportion of farmers and livestock owners are involved. If we limit the number of those who can benefit from a scheme, we will not be as successful in achieving our goals.

The hon. Member for Cambridge teased out the question of what constitutes a significantly higher standard of animal health. There is no single measure of animal health at the moment, and different actions to improve it will have different levels of public and private benefits. I am sure that we will continue to discuss such matters. At the very least, the amendment would make an important part of the financial clause difficult to work in practice, and could go so far as being counterproductive. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Public Bill Committees

Division 14

Ayes: 6

---

Labour: 6

Noes: 10

---

Conservative: 10

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 17, page 14, line 32, at end insert—

“(f) food insecurity.

(3) For the purposes of this section ‘food insecurity’ means a person’s state in which consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year.

(4) Before laying a report under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must—

(a) consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, the relevant Northern Ireland department, and such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, and

(b) have due regard to international best practice on food insecurity, including but not limited to the United States Household Food Security Survey.

(5) A report under subsection (1) must include—

(a) an assessment of trends in food insecurity, broken down by different parts of the United Kingdom and different regions of England, and

(b) a summary of actions to be taken in areas of high food insecurity by the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive.

(6) The Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the relevant Northern Ireland department before preparing a report under subsection (1).

(7) In this section—

‘parts of the United Kingdom’ means—

(a) England,

(b) Scotland,

(c) Wales, and

(d) Northern Ireland;

‘regions of England’ has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”

Amendment 62 was initially tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck), but it has support from at least three parties. I pay tribute to her and the work she did on the all-party parliamentary group on hunger with the former Member for Birkenhead, which led to the establishment of Feeding Britain and its offshoots, such as Feeding Bristol. I am pleased to have been involved in that.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields introduced a private Member’s Bill a while ago, and as a result of that pressure the Government agreed to measure household food insecurity as part of the family resources survey. The first data will be available in 2021. In a recent press release, she referred to the amendment saying that

“there is no commitment…that the measure will continue for future years, nor that the results of the survey they are conducting will be laid before Parliament for scrutiny.”

The point of amendment 62 is to try to give some certainty. As she says, we have seen

“devastating levels of hunger right across the UK”

and the UK has been

“dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing to measure food insecurity”

but we do need a degree of certainty about it.

As to the Minister’s comments on the welfare system, a Department for Work and Pensions Minister in the House of Lords said yesterday that there is “no doubt” at all that universal credit has driven people towards using food banks. Many people who use food banks are experiencing in-work poverty. We have had examples of people who work for Tesco selling cheap food but who are still not being paid enough, particularly if they are casual workers or on zero-hours contracts, and the welfare system is not flexible enough to adapt to that. Clearly we have a crisis. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields says:

“It is clear urgent action is needed. To keep ignoring this issue is a shameful dereliction of duty.”

We need firm data. Amendment 62 would give the Government the tools they need to identify the key drivers of food bank use in detail, as well as which groups in our society are most likely to request emergency food parcels. It will shine a light on the number of people who, year-on-year, go several days without food, as well as on others who skip meals due to lack of money or parents who sacrifice their own meals to feed their children—not all of them will be food bank users. In the past, the Government have been sceptical of data produced on food bank use by, for example, the Trussell Trust. That is all we have been able to rely on. It has become a proxy measure for hunger and food insecurity, but there will be many families who rely on broader programmes of support. Feeding Bristol had a holiday hunger programme to compensate for the fact that children do not get access to free school meals during the long summer holidays. That would not necessarily be picked up by the food bank data, because food distributed with play schemes and so on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady, and I welcome her to her place. I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East for the amendment, and I recognise the commitment of the hon. Member for South Shields in her important work around food insecurity and in ensuring engagement with the devolved Administrations on the amendment.

We are planning to include a theme on household food security, which is clearly set out in subsection (2)(d). As part of that theme, we will be considering the key indicators that help us take a view on food insecurity and why it happens. I hope that the hon. Member for Bristol East will understand that we do not intend to list in the Bill all the data sources we will use in the report, as it would make the Bill unhelpfully unwieldy.

As I said on a previous amendment, our purpose in producing the report is to set out our analysis of the widest relevant sets of statistics relating to food security in the UK, ranging from global UN data to UK national statistics. Many of those data sets are only published at UK level, so breakdown to the devolved Administration area or regional level will not be available in all instances. We will not commit at this stage to the precise data we will use, but all available relevant data will be considered, including breakdown by devolved Administration area if appropriate.

It is our intention that the report will inform discussion and debate about UK food security, both across Government and with wider stakeholders—that is why we are doing it. I assure the hon. Lady that we will of course consider the themes covered in the report, and the analysis, evidence and trends within it, with all sorts of stakeholders, including the devolved Administrations. We have well-established forums for discussion of that nature. Introducing a more formal requirement for a consultation for Ministers with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before the report is even laid is therefore unnecessary.

I hope that clarifies the intention of the clause and provides the hon. Lady with sufficient assurance. I ask her to withdraw the amendment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The problem with subsection (2)(d) is that it just talks about

“household expenditure on food (including in comparison to expenditure on other items)”.

As we have outlined today, that does not go anywhere near looking at the scale of the problem and the many factors that contribute to food insecurity. I am not prepared to withdraw the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Agriculture Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 5th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I rise to support everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has said on new clause 1. I shall also speak to new clause 4, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), with the support of many of his Conservative colleagues. At the moment, I am the only Labour Member whose name has been added to it, but I am sure that many others would join me on Report.

Some of us sat on the Committee that considered the first draft of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament. I was also on the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, as well as part of as various all-party parliamentary groups, and there were also debates on these matters in the Chamber and at oral questions. Ministers, including the then Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Farming Minister and, at various points, the International Trade Secretary, gave us verbal reassurances.

There was a bit of a trajectory, because in the early days, we could get Ministers to say only that UK standards would be protected. Eventually, after lots of prompting on our part, some of them—although certainly not on the International Trade side—said that that also applied to imported goods. The Minister needs to reflect on why it is very clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said, that those assurances are not believed. The absolute fact of the situation is that everyone, from the NFU to environmental and consumer groups, wants those things enshrined in law, as do the Conservative Members who have signed the new clause.

The Minister has talked about including those assurances in a trade Bill, but when the Trade Bill was introduced to Parliament, we were fobbed off. We tried to get something in there, but were told that it applied only to current trade agreements and not to future ones, although some legal opinion said that it did. When we tried to discuss that during the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and all the discussions about Brexit, we were told that it would pop up somewhere else. That game of musical chairs just does not wash with people. We want to see this measure in the Agriculture Bill because it specifically relates to food standards and animal welfare, as we have heard in detail.

I remember trying to bring the matter up during arguments about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, way before Brexit. The then Member for Streatham, who was our shadow Business Secretary, made great play about the NHS being at risk under TTIP. When I started trying to talk to him about chickens, he looked at me as if to say, “What on earth is she on about now?” Now, the chickens have come home to roost—metaphorical chickens—and everyone knows about the issue, but nobody is convinced that the Government are willing to support preventive measures.

We spoke earlier about articles in the Daily Mail and The Guardian. I will quote a Guardian article from 6 March—hon. Members are probably ready to sneer at it—which said:

“Agriculture in the US remains quite backward in many respects. It retains a position of resisting more information on labels to limit consumer knowledge and engagement.”

The vested interests involved in the US food sector are absolutely immense, with huge lobbying efforts and huge amounts of disinformation and press work. The article continues:

“Its livestock sectors often suffer from poor husbandry, which leads to more prevalence of disease and a greater reliance on antibiotics”,

which we know is an issue.

“Whereas we have a ‘farm to fork’ approach to managing disease and contamination risk throughout the supply chain through good husbandry, the US is more inclined to simply treat contamination of its meat at the end with a chlorine or similar wash.”

The article continues:

“In the US, legislation on animal welfare is woefully deficient.”

That article was penned by the now Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, during the brief hiatus after he left the Government in February 2019. He immediately turned to The Guardian to make known his views on just how worried he was about US animal welfare.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Lady understand that the US actually consumes most of its own beef? Only about 13.5% of its beef is exported, mainly to Japan and the far east. There is not a great stockpile of American beef looking for a market, either in the UK or the EU.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not sure that that is particularly relevant. At the moment there is a ban on hormone-pumped beef entering our markets. The UK is the third biggest market in the world for food imports. It is clear that if the doors were open, there would be a potential market here and the US would be very keen to get into it. Most of the discussion on trade deals so far has not been about the beef sector anyway.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has already said, at about the time that the now Secretary of State wrote that article, he also tabled what are now new clauses 33, 34 and 35 to the then Agriculture Bill. Why would he do that? He had made the arguments in public. He did a sterling job trying to defend the Government’s position during the first sitting of the Agriculture Bill. He came across as reasonably sincere, but the moment he had the freedom to say what he really thought, he went to the press and wrote an article in The Guardian outlining clearly and eloquently what his concerns were. He did not seek verbal reassurances from the Government; he sought legislative reassurances. So if it is good enough for the Secretary of State when he is allowed free rein to say what he feels, I am sure the Minister can understand why many of her colleagues on the Conservative Back Benches and Opposition Members also agree with him.

[Deidre Brock]

I agree with much of what the previous speakers have said. New clauses 1 and 4 are grand in their way and I will support them, but we have to go further. I want to see the standards of the EU maintained, but perhaps that is for a different debate. However, it is possible to write it into domestic law that imports have to match the sanitary and phytosanitary standards of the WTO.

The WTO agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures is clear that science has to underpin the standards to protect human, animal or plant health. The agreement allows states to protect their food supplies and the imports of supporting products to the benefit of citizens. I know the argument will be that Ministers seek to protect citizens, but we do not know that that will always be the case. We should seek to ensure that citizens have the confidence to believe in this measure and in future Governments, and in the commitment to protecting foods and health. Citizens should also have the right to understand how Governments intend to do that and should have the ability to challenge them if necessary.

The SPS agreement allows standards to be set, so we should have them set. That would have allowed Ministers to assure the public that animal welfare and plant health would be maintained, and that imported food would be of a standard that we could rely on for health and the protection of life. As NFU Scotland recently pointed out, assurances around priorities in negotiations work only if the US upholds its side of the bargain. It stated:

“After all, there’s no point having a level playing field if the two sides are playing to different rules.”

I therefore support new clause 7.

[Victoria Prentis]

I thank hon. Members for tabling these new clauses. I genuinely appreciate the opportunity to talk once again about the importance of food standards. The hon. Member for Bristol East will never find me sneering at or questioning the importance of food standards. This is an important debate, and it is right that we have it here, and while considering other Bills, as we move to a new world where we have left the EU and hopefully have free trade agreements with many other countries.

I welcome the opportunity to reiterate the Government’s commitment to not lowering our standards as we negotiate new trade deals. The Prime Minister has consistently stated that we will not compromise our high environmental, food safety or animal welfare standards now that we have left the EU. We made that commitment in our manifesto, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade reaffirmed that commitment to the House earlier this week in respect of a US trade deal.

[Kerry McCarthy]

rose—

[Victoria Prentis]

I will give way, but I have a long speech and a lot to cover.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am sure the Minister does, but the problem is that I suspect I know what she will say. To cut to the chase, given that it would make everybody so much happier if that commitment was in the Bill, what is the reason for its not being?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will set out the Government’s position on that. The hon. Member for Cambridge was kind enough to say that I was an esteemed lawyer. I do not know whether that is true, but I am certainly a very experienced Government lawyer, and I gently say that the purpose of primary legislation is not about making people happy, although the purpose of the policy behind it might well be that. We come at this from the same place: we all like high standards in British agriculture and want to support our farmers. However, I will set out why the Government have come to this conclusion, which will take some time, I am afraid, and I will deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East.

To deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol West, we are retaining existing UK legislation, and at the end of the transition period, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will convert on to the UK statute book all EU food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards. That will ensure that our high standards, including import requirements, continue to apply.

The hon. Member for Cambridge said I was an esteemed lawyer—who knows?—and also that he was waiting for a letter from the Department. I am certainly an experienced enough lawyer not to wish to interfere in that process. If a letter is being drafted, I will make sure to look at it. However, he asked specifically about hormone-treated beef and washed chicken. I will give him the directives and the way they are transposed into British law as I see it. The top line is that all EU law on food safety standards was carried over by the 2018 Act.

EU Council directive 96/22/EC, as amended, which bans the import and production of hormone-treated beef, was transposed into UK law through national legislation. It is found in various regulations, including the Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) (England and Scotland) Regulations 2015; Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) (Wales) Regulations 2019; and the Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016. I will write to the hon. Gentleman on that, because I do not expect him to take a note of all those, or the Secretary of State will write to the shadow Secretary of State. I do not want to interfere in that letter-writing process.

On the washing of poultry, European Union controls on the surface decontamination of poultry—regulation 853 /2004—will be retained through the 2018 Act, and have been made ready to be carried over into UK law immediately after the transition period through the Specific Food Hygiene (Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which will maintain the status quo that no product other than drinking water is currently approved in the EU to decontaminate poultry carcases. That will remain the same in the UK. I will write to the hon. Gentleman properly about that, so that he has the details. It is complicated, as he says.

The regulations I have mentioned include artificial growth hormones for domestic production and imported products, and we would require legislation to change those regulations. Both hormone-treated beef and washing of poultry are covered. The Government have said that any future deals must respect our regulatory autonomy, which means that we will not sign agreements that threaten our ability to set our own high standards, of which we are proud. Our standards are driven by consumer and retailer demand and frequently go above current regulatory standards; most of us would welcome that. The Agriculture Bill will help to ensure that we continue to maintain those high standards in line with the needs of our farmers, retailers and consumers.

Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 5th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 26—Smallholdings estates: land management—

‘(1) A smallholdings authority which immediately before the commencement of Part 1 of this Act holds any land for the purposes of smallholdings shall review the authority’s smallholdings estate and shall, before the end of the period of eighteen months beginning with the commencement of Part 1 of this Act, submit to the Secretary of State proposals with respect to the future management of that estate for the purposes of—

(a) providing opportunities for persons to be farmers on their own account;

(b) providing education or experience in environmental land management practices;

(c) providing opportunities for increasing public access to the natural environment and understanding of sustainable farming;

(d) contributing to a mitigation of climate change, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,

(e) providing support for innovative food production techniques (including techniques which do not involve management of land), and

(f) providing opportunities for innovation in sustainable land management practices.

(2) No land held by a smallholdings authority as a smallholding immediately before commencement of Part 1 of this Act is to be conveyed, transferred, leased or otherwise disposed of otherwise than—

(a) in connection with the purposes listed in subsection (1); and

(b) in accordance with proposals submitted under subsection (1).

(3) For the purposes of this section, “smallholdings authority” has the same meaning as in section 38 of the Agriculture Act 1970.’.

This new clause would limit the disposal of smallholdings (“county farms”) by local authorities and would require local authorities to review their holding and submit proposals for future management to provide opportunities to extend access to farming, education, and innovation.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This revisits something that we discussed when the previous Agriculture Bill Committee met, but there have been some positive moves from the Government in respect of county farms since then. I am pleased that there have been quite a few indications of support, but we could do more, which is why I have tabled the new clause.

County farms are an undervalued national asset, and they could play a significant role in the future of UK farming. I have the support of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Sustain and the Landworkers Alliance for the new clause, which is aimed at rejuvenating the county farms project and improving the information that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs holds on the estate. It would require councils to submit a report to the Secretary of State within 18 months of this Act’s becoming law, saying how they would make best use of their smallholdings to support new entrants to farming. We have heard, and it is generally accepted, that the price of land in particular can act as a real deterrent to new entrants.

The new clause also looks at promoting sustainable land management practices, sharing knowledge of those practices, and increasing public access to the natural environment and farming. The new clause is needed because there has been a steep decline in the county farm estate over the past 40 years, and that sell-off appears to be continuing. Between 2010 and 2018, the size of England’s county farm estate fell by more than 15,000 acres, with 58% of that sold between 2016 and 2018. If we want to reverse that trend, it is clear that we need a fresh approach, rather than business as usual, and I hope that the new clause will kick-start that.

There was a session—I think it was of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, but I get confused sometimes, because we also discussed this at the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming—where Cambridgeshire County Council was spoken of. It does really good work on this front. Its estate generates a substantial income for the council of more than £4 million each year, and since 2009, the 109 new tenants who have joined the estate have an average age of 30, which is half the UK average.

We spoke earlier—I think it was when we were talking about de-linked payments and other things—about the average age of farmers in this country and how we really need to bring a new generation on board. County farms seem to be doing that in Cambridgeshire. The estate is also supporting a pioneering agroforestry farmer, Stephen Briggs.

At the very least, I hope the new clause will encourage councils to look favourably on including enhanced management and environmental obligations as part of the tender process and management. This is about not only allowing access to land through the county farm movement, but encouraging people to farm in a certain way. CPRE’s recent report on county farms highlighted the fact that a number of councils already view their estates as a crucial lever in responding to the climate emergency.

As I said at the beginning, we have had some promising words from the Government, but we have not had action yet, and the Bill is still completely silent on this. The now Secretary of State told us in the Agriculture Bill Committee back in October 2018 that he was considering whether to use funds under the productivity strand of the Bill to refresh the model. In January 2019, I chaired a session at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, interviewing the then Secretary of State on stage. It must be said that all the promises he made then went down very well.

One of those promises was to announce a new package of financial support for county farms in the coming months. He reaffirmed that promise in a letter to the EFRA Committee in March 2019, stating his desire to

“create a financial incentive for local authorities who want to invest in their council farms”.

In September, that promise was repeated, this time in response to a written question that I asked the current Secretary of State.

While I warmly welcome the statement in the “Future for Food, Farming and the Environment” policy statement published last week that the Department

“will offer funding to councils…who want to invest in creating new opportunities for new-entrant farmers”,

when can we expect some firm detail on the timetable of financial assistance that will be offered? In the meantime, based on the language in the policy statement, I see no reason that the new clause, which is designed to encourage new entrants and sustainable farming, would not help the Government to achieve their desired outcome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)]

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East for tabling the new clause and look forward to working with her on how we can support smallholding authorities to invest in, and commit to, their county farms. We want to help them to provide more opportunities for new entrant farmers and to continue to offer the wider environmental and public benefits.

I am concerned that the new clauses would constrain smallholding authorities’ ability to manage their estates effectively and would create an additional administrative burden. Rather than legislating, I would prefer to work collaboratively with smallholding authorities. We want to support them to manage their estates so that they can provide more opportunities for new farmers and existing tenants, as well as for the benefit of the wider public.

I hope that the hon. Lady is assured by the document published last week and that she will continue to talk to me. We will continue to talk to smallholding authorities about how we can take things forward. I therefore ask her to withdraw the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

I have already responded fairly fully to the hon. Member for Bristol East and I feel that the Labour Front-Bench amendment is strikingly similar. I have said all I need to say on this subject.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I hope we can continue the dialogue about county farms and that we can see some concrete action from the Government. Given what the Minister has said, for once I will take her at her word that she has leapt upon this and I will not push the measure to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 6

Quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs

“(1) Subsection (2) applies to any function of the Secretary of State under—

(a) Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs (“the EU Regulation”),

(b) the delegated and implementing Regulations,

(c) any regulations made by the Secretary of State under the EU Regulation, and

(d) any regulations made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 relating to the enforcement of the EU Regulation or the delegated and implementing Regulations.

(2) The Secretary of State may exercise the function only with the consent of the Scottish Ministers.

(3) In subsection (1), the “delegated and implementing Regulations” means—

(a) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 664/2014 supplementing the EU Regulation with regard to the establishment of Union symbols for protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications and traditional specialities guaranteed and with regard to certain rules on sourcing, certain procedural rules and certain additional transitional rules,

(b) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 665/2014 supplementing the EU Regulation with regard to conditions of use of the quality term “mountain product”, and

(c) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 668/2014 laying down rules for the application of the EU Regulation.

(4) The references in subsection (1) to the EU Regulation and the delegated and implementing Regulations are to those instruments—

(a) as they have effect in domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and

(b) as amended from time to time whether by virtue of that Act or otherwise.”—(Deidre Brock.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Deidre Brock]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause is about protected geographical indictors. They are a vital part of the business plan of many of Scotland’s top food producers and many food producers in other nations. They are a guarantee of quality and of the care and skill that goes into their production.

I am sorry to say that I remain to be convinced that a UK system would be any kind of replacement or match for the EU system, but the UK Government still intend to create their own new system instead of sticking with the EU system, as I understand they could have done. It therefore seems sensible to me to make sure that the new scheme properly serves producers who have the full protection under the current scheme, and any new producers wishing to get geared up for it.

To protect Scottish producers, it seems sensible to ensure that there is input from the Scottish Government to the new scheme. The new clause would simply ensure that the views of Scottish Ministers are properly considered in the exercise of functions under the scheme. It reflects and respects the devolution settlement and is measured.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

Yes, the Government are up to dealing with the climate crisis and are determined to do so, and yes, we agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is no more important thing that we should be doing as a Government.

I am really proud that the UK became the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from across the UK economy by 2050. We already have a strong foundation of action and leadership to build from, having cut our emissions by 42% since 1990 while growing the economy by 72%. That does not mean that we are complacent or that we do not recognise that there is a great deal more to do, urgently.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I am going to make some progress.

Climate change is a global challenge, requiring action across the whole economy. We do not have sector-specific targets. That is to ensure that we meet our climate change commitments at the lowest possible net cost to UK taxpayers, consumers and businesses, while maximising the social and economic benefits to the UK of the transition.

We have set out a range of specific commitments, in the 25-year environment plan and under the clean growth strategy, to reduce emissions from agriculture. That includes strengthening biosecurity and control of endemic diseases in livestock, and encouraging use of low-emission fertilisers. However, we know that, to achieve net zero, more is needed from the sector. We are looking to reduce agricultural emissions controlled directly within the farm boundary with a broad range of cost-effective measures, primarily through improvements to on-farm efficiency and land use change.

The new ELM scheme will help us to contribute to our net zero commitment by providing farmers with an opportunity to receive financial reward for delivering a range of public goods. We already report on climate change performance under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the convention on biological diversity. Additional reporting as required by the new clause would place an unnecessary burden on the Government without delivering significant new information to Parliament.

Agriculture Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I wholeheartedly support new clause 1 and the other amendments seeking the same outcome: that there should be no lowering of standards on food safety, the environment and animal welfare as a result of any future trade deals, no undercutting of British farmers and no race to the bottom. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and I had more than a few differences of opinion when we first served on the Agriculture Bill Committee in the last Parliament—unlike him, I was allowed back for the second one too—but on this issue we are utterly on the same page. The same goes for the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on whose Select Committee I served in the last Parliament. I thought that he made a very good speech.

As time is limited, all I will say is this: it has been made abundantly clear that no one—not the farmers, not the environmentalists, not the public, not the consumers and not even Tory MPs—trusts the Government’s verbal assurances on this. It is not enough for the Minister to say that it will not happen; we want it in writing, enshrined in law.

I also support amendments on better labelling, procurement, baseline regulation, and fairness and transparency in supply chains, and the Opposition amendment on food security, which calls for a statement to Parliament every year so that we can end the scandal of food poverty. During the current crisis, organisations such as Feeding Bristol have done a tremendous job in my home city, trying to ensure that everyone in lockdown can get the essential food supplies that they need, and that no one, including children who no longer attend school, goes hungry. The voluntary sector has been brilliant, but our children should not have to rely on charity.

I will focus on amendments 18 and 19, which are tabled in my name. I thank the Landworkers Alliance for its work with the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology, which I chair, and for all that it has done to promote the amendments. I have had many emails from constituents in recent days urging me to back my own amendments, which I am obviously more than happy to do. Agroecology is a cause whose time has come. This pandemic has brought home to many people how dysfunctional our relationship with the natural world has become, with overconsumption, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, a food system that is broken, and birds and wildlife disappearing from our countryside and gardens.

I urge Members to read a recent report, “Feeding the Nation: How Nature Friendly Farmers are Responding to Covid-19”, which includes a quote from a farmer from Northern Ireland. He says:

“The current crisis provides people with time to reflect on the importance of food and farming to all humanity…Our food can only be sustainable and bountiful if it’s produced in harmony with the environment and wildlife.”

The Bill goes some way towards creating a better approach to farm subsidies and rewarding nature-friendly farmers. Despite being an ardent remainer, I will not shed a tear for us leaving the common agricultural policy. I broadly support the public money for public goods approach, but my concern is that it will allow farmers to cherry-pick.

What we need is a whole-farm system approach, so that across the farm, not just on the margins, farmers are using agroecological methods, focusing on getting the best from the whole landscape. Such measures include protecting soil health through no-till farming, which not only boosts food production but helps to sequester carbon; using integrated pest management rather than toxic pesticides; and protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity, so that we see a return of nesting birds, pollinators and beneficial insects to our countryside.

I will finish with another quote from a farmer in that nature-friendly farming report. He says:

“This crisis has made it very clear that we have lost the resilience in our food and farming system, with value being placed on ‘cheap’. This has led to degraded soils, diminishing wildlife and imports of lower food safety and farming standards. We need to shift back to a more sustainable, mixed farming system for resilience across the board.”

That is what my amendments seek to achieve, and I hope that the Government will listen.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) [V]]

While my constituency is primarily known as a former mining area, agriculture has always played an essential role in the local economy of Don Valley and continues to do so. Consequently, as the Government have confirmed that there will be no extension to the transition period, this Bill is more necessary than ever, and its passage today will provide farmers and many other individuals in my constituency with reassurance on several issues.

I appreciate that Members in all parts of the House are concerned about environmental sustainability in food production, as can be seen in the Opposition’s amendment 26. Yet this amendment is wholly unnecessary, as clause 1(4) already outlines that the provision of any financial assistance by the Secretary of State to agricultural businesses would have to take into account whether such assistance would encourage food production in an environmentally sustainable way. I am pleased with the addition of this requirement, as it will ensure that the often wasteful aspects of the common agricultural policy will become a thing of the past.

Furthermore, I am pleased that clause 17 will require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament at least once every five years on food security in the United Kingdom. This is particularly relevant at this moment in time. Like so many of my colleagues across the House, I have had dozens of concerned constituents email me about the lack of food in shops as a result of the panic buying that we unfortunately witnessed last month. Some were even scared that the UK would run out of food. Yet I am concerned that the Opposition’s new clause 4 would add such a large number of requirements to the Secretary of State’s reporting that the original purpose of clause 17 would be lost. I appreciate that the new clause is designed to encourage the consumption of healthy food, but clause 17(2)(e) already states that the data put forward by the Secretary of State will include statistics on

“food safety and consumer confidence in food.”

This would inevitably touch on aspects relating to the nutritional value of food and consumers’ confidence that the food available to them was healthy to consume.

This has been a robust debate and I have appreciated the diverse range of views that have been expressed across the House. I end simply by stating that this Bill has my full support and will ease some of my constituents’ environmental and food security concerns.

Agriculture Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart]

I agree wholeheartedly. As I said at the last stage, flooding our market with cheap imports and cheap produce will have a disastrous impact on our farmers. We cannot claim to back British farming one day and not protect our farmers in law the next. I am conscious that since the Bill was last before the House the Government have made many verbal commitments on this issue, so why not put them into legislation? What is the justification for saying something outside this House if they will not enable it through legislation within the House?

We, as Members of this House, have a duty to act in the best interests of our constituents at all times. To do that, we must ensure that the food that our constituents eat, from the youngest to the oldest, is of the highest standard and that our agricultural industry—the cornerstone of our society—is protected in law. It is extremely disappointing that Lords amendment 18 was ruled out of scope. My colleagues and I would have supported it on the basis that it would allow this House to scrutinise trade Bills, their impact and the standards being allowed with our new trading partners. This House should be accountable for every food product imported into the UK.

Farmers in Northern Ireland, with a farming model largely based on family farms where the work is hard and the margins are by no means guaranteed, look at the Government’s reticence in legislating on standards with suspicion, and I share such suspicion. For the Government to demand the highest standards of their own farmers, at considerable cost, financially, socially and mentally, but refuse to make it law that importers will face those same demands is just bizarre. I urge the Government to think again. We need the Bill to allow our local Department to administer direct payments from 2021, and, as such, we will support it overall, but we do so in protest, and out of our farmers’ need to receive that much needed financial support.

In closing, let me touch on the amendments and the provision in the Bill relating to environmental standards. The farmers I represent and those I spoke to regularly are wholly committed to the highest environmental standards—standards that will far exceed those in many countries with which the Government will seek to do trade deals. However, in return for a focus on sustainable agriculture those farmers need the Government to recognise that they cannot do it alone. They need the Government to support them, and thus far support has fallen far short. That must be addressed. This House has a choice today. I will stand up for British farming and its world-class standards, and I hope that others will join me.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As I think you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you have often been in the Chair, I have been closely involved with the Bill at each stage of its seemingly interminable progress through the House. I spoke on Second Reading on both occasions, and I served on both Bill Committees, in this Parliament and the last. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak once again today to make the case for rewarding good stewardship of our land—I believe that is what the Bill does, for the most part—and for maintaining high standards in food production. Obviously, we are here to discuss why the Bill falls short on that front.