Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

As a Government, we have set out our approach and what we intend to do with these powers. We have already published some policy papers alongside this Bill, which address many of those issues. The Secretary of State has talked about public access to the countryside and the role of farms in educating children, so we have set out clearly in the policy documents that accompany the Bill what we intend to do with these powers. Come the next election, I am sure that the Opposition will have manifesto commitments that will set out their approach and what they intend to do with the powers.

Another issue was raised by a number of hon. Members: that, fundamentally, the decisions about public health and healthy eating are very much around consumer understanding, consumer knowledge and consumer choice. That is why Public Health England has the “Eatwell” plate that it promotes. We have obviously already implemented the first chapter of the childhood obesity plan. We have introduced a levy on sugary soft drinks. We are currently working on the sort of second chapter of the childhood obesity plan.

We take the issue very seriously. Work on it is led by the Department of Health; it is very high up on that Department’s agenda. It is for the Department of Health to lead on and for us to support, and it goes outside the scope of this particular Bill, which is very much about schemes to support farming, the farmed landscape and our environment.

I will give a final example about sugar, which was raised by some Members. When quotas on sugar beet production were removed, some people said, “Shouldn’t we keep sugar beet quotas? That would be a way of restricting the growing of things that we think are bad for public health.” However, the reality is that the most powerful thing was the introduction of a levy on soft drinks; the value of the sugar that goes into a soft drink is actually tiny, and messing around with the price of sugar is not what delivers the outcome. What delivers the outcome is a levy on sugary drinks that drives policies of reformulation, and that is why the levy has been a success.

We know that some of these measures to try to mess with the supply side of the chain are actually blunt instruments when it comes to delivering public health outcomes.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I mentioned in the few moments that I had earlier the recent research into food deserts. Particularly in urban areas, there are vast estates where it is very difficult for people to get access to healthy food. As I suggested, we could use this Bill to address that. It is not about the growing of the food; it is perhaps about setting up shorter supply chains, so that the food can get to these places. Maybe it could be about setting up farmers markets in local areas that do not normally have access to them. That would also help local farmers who produce the goods to find a market that would probably pay them a bit more than the supermarkets might.

[George Eustice]

There will be a place for those sorts of enterprises, although not for all. However, as I said earlier, we are looking at what we could do alongside, for instance, a county farms offer to support some of those peri-urban schemes. Sometimes they are box schemes, but they are community-led schemes in particular areas, quite often in our cities. I made it clear earlier that we believe we would be able to support those farms, under both subsections (1) and (2). That option exists, so it is there already if we should want to support it. We have been clear that we are exploring this idea and considering it. It will not be for everyone. There will always still be a place for larger-scale productions supplying the supermarket multiples where most people will get their food and where there is already quite a wide choice. However, it will be an option for some and we have kept the door open to supporting it.

To conclude, these are unnecessary amendments and many of the health benefits we have alluded to in our White Paper are dealt with through the existing measures in clause 1.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister does not seem to have mentioned the food policy or food strategy or whatever it is called. I heard on the grapevine that it has been kicked into the long grass. Will he confirm that that is not the case and that work is still being done?

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[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Member for Darlington has made some well-argued remarks, and I am confident that the Minister will be able to reassure her on a number of the points that she made. We are all on the same page.

I will briefly concentrate on one aspect. Who could argue with the four principles in amendment 75? My slight problem is that, having served on the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety for five years—and being partly to blame for much of this legislation, no doubt—the precautionary principle looks, on the face of it, like a good principle. In practice, sadly, it is often misused. My experience was that increasingly, it was being used as a fall-back to ban some activity or substance for which there was not any scientific evidence to justify a ban, or insufficient scientific evidence. For example, if I were to use the precautionary principle when I decide whether to cycle home on my bicycle tonight, I would almost certainly decide not to do so, because I could not prove beyond any reasonable doubt that I would not be knocked off or fall off, and end up in St Thomas’s hospital or worse. Sadly, that type of approach is used all too often.

I can give you an example from my time in the European Parliament, to do with the group of chemicals known as phthalates. They are used to soften PVC—the sort of plastic that is used in babies’ dummies, feeding bottle teats, and many medical devices. Phthalates are chemicals that have effects on human health; they are endocrine disrupters that affect how hormones in the body work. Some sought to ban the use of phthalates as a PVC softener in such products, but the problem was that the medical industry said, “If we cannot use those plastics, the devices that we will have to use will not be as good for operations”—those devices include complex catheters that are inserted during more complex operations. That was an area in which we needed to look at the risks and benefits in the round, rather than issuing a ban based on some risk that might have been unquantifiable, and certainly was not scientifically proven.

The most recent case that shows us why, when we move forward with our own legislation, we need something better than the precautionary principle—something that is much more scientifically based and that can, if necessary, be taken to judicial review and proved one way or another—is the prevention of the introduction of genetically modified crops across the European Union. Many farmers and enlightened environmentalists would have liked such crops to be introduced, to reduce our reliance on pesticides and fertilisers and to make food more nutritious and safer. That is how those crops are used around the world, but we cannot do so in the UK. The precautionary principle has been used to block such technologies, and that was a bad use of that principle.

Rather than accepting amendment 75, we need—now that we can, as we have heard, make our own legislation—something that does the same thing as the precautionary principle but in a more effective way, based on science and not, as is sadly often the case, on prejudice and misinformation.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will confine my remarks mostly to amendment 71, although I will say that it is really frustrating that the animal sentience Bill disappeared into the ether after the agreement that it would be split from the sentencing Bill. We have not heard anything about it since then. It is not enough to get assurances from the Minister; we need to see that legislation if we are to be convinced that it will really happen.

My amendment is about higher animal welfare. I have seen a timeline from DEFRA that says that a definition of higher animal welfare standards will be set by 2020. I would like to know why it cannot be set sooner, because it rather complicates things if we do not know the parameters that we are dealing with. The key point of my amendment is to ensure that we are not rewarding farmers who just do what is required of them by law.

We are a little too self-congratulatory and complacent about animal welfare standards in this country. There have been numerous exposés of even some of the higher assurance schemes where the letter of the law was clearly not being followed and standards were being breached. We should always be vigilant about that, particularly as we know that future trade deals might result in a race to the bottom, with food that has been produced to lower animal welfare standards, food safety standards and environmental standards flooding into the country. There will be a temptation to cut corners. I know Ministers have said that they will not allow British standards to fall, but I cannot get them to say that they will not allow into the country, for example, US food that is produced to lower standards. Once what I would call substandard produce is allowed into the country, the pressure will clearly be on to compete by, as I say, cutting corners.

At the heart of the amendment is the fact that the Bill does not have a regulatory baseline, and we will lose cross-compliance as we leave the common agricultural policy. I am not quite sure how we will monitor whether farmers are meeting the regulatory baseline. Because we cannot do that, how will we reward them for meeting higher standards? At the moment, I think farmers get their payments withheld if they do not meet certain standards. The current wording of the Bill would make it possible for a farmer to break the law when transporting calves, for example, but still to receive payments for higher animal welfare. Are they going to be judged in the round, or just by particular things that they have cherry-picked?

I want to ensure that financial assistance under clause 1 will be given only to farmers whose welfare standards are higher than those required by law. The definition of higher animal welfare will be very important to that, and it should take into account the desirability of both preventing negative experiences and promoting opportunities to give animals a positive quality of life; those are two slightly different things. Scientists are increasingly recognising the importance for animals’ physical and mental wellbeing of their ability to engage in exploration, investigation, problem-solving and play. That is recognised by the Farm Animal Welfare Committee as well.

A second condition for receiving funding should be that the farmer is a member of a comprehensive assurance scheme.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. It was interesting that she brought up the question of single farm payment. As I have declared, I am a recipient of that and I am aware of the cross compliance rules. Does she not take some comfort from the fact that we recognisably have the highest welfare standards, not just in Europe but probably in the world? That gives us some encouragement that our culture is not just about working towards respecting legislation, and we need a carrot as much as a stick. In many ways, I agree with her, but does she recognise that we have the highest standards?

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman has plenty of carrots, although I do not know about sticks. For those who do not know, he is in the carrot business. I have already said that I get a bit fed up with the constant refrain that we have the highest animal welfare standards in the world, because I think it suggests a slight degree of complacency and we should constantly aim higher. The Minister is probably sick to death of the number of written questions that I table about slaughterhouses and conditions on farms, but we have seen from undercover investigations some of the conditions under which the more intensive farms operate. I am by no means tarring all farmers with the same brush, and it is good that we take animal welfare so seriously in this country. However, there are a lot of examples of when we do not, and we should not be too complacent about it.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I should declare that I am a livestock farmer and am in receipt of single farm payment. I understand that she may not have had much experience of visiting livestock farms, though she might have done so as a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She would be welcome to come and see the livestock on my farm—both cattle and sheep—and how they are looked after. That might encourage her to consider whether she wants to continue to be a vegan.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have visited quite a few farms. The hon. Gentleman is completely missing the point. Anyone could take me to a farm with happy cows or happy sheep, by his definition, but that does not mean that there are not places where abuse occurs—where animals are not kept in the best possible conditions or treated well. That is exactly the point I have just made. I accept that we have high animal welfare standards generally, but I am also saying that we should not be complacent. As for the vegan thing, I have been a vegan for 27 years, so the hon. Gentleman would have to do a lot more to change my mind than simply show me his cows.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

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[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Member for North Dorset wants to interrupt. He said earlier that we need dairy to be healthy. I do not know quite how I have managed to stay on my feet for this long; clearly, I ought to be wilting away, languishing and looking pale and anaemic.

[Simon Hoare]

I will leave that question as being rhetorical. I do not think it is complacent to say that we have the highest standards. It would be erroneous and complacent to say there were no breaches of those standards, but it is a statement of fact that we have the highest standards. We all appreciate that not everybody adheres to them, and there are responsible penalties for those who are identified as breaching those standards. However, it is not complacency to say we have the highest standards in the world; it is a statement of fact.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think it is complacent to just respond, whenever questions about animal welfare are raised, that we have the highest standards, because that means that we are not engaging with the problem being brought to our attention, namely the breaches. If I raise the conditions on a mega-farm where there has been an undercover investigation showing all sorts of horrendous conditions—and in some instances even cases of cannibalism, which I have seen footage of recently—I do not want the response to be: “We have the highest animal welfare standards.” To any problem across the piece that we ever bring to the Government’s attention, we could say, “Well, we’re doing really well 90% of the time.” That is not what we are here to do. We are here to highlight where the system has gone wrong and to try to encourage people to do better.

I notice that the hon. Gentleman did not come back about whether I am healthy or not. Perhaps we should challenge each other to something—

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady radiates health from every pore. I suggest that she would radiate still further were she to have dairy in her diet, but her hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) does not radiate anything.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West is now vegan as well—in fact, three of the four Bristol MPs are vegan. She is completely vegan and a model of good health.

The second condition for receiving funding should be membership of a comprehensive assurance scheme. The RSPCA assured scheme covers all aspects of welfare and has genuinely high standards and rigorous monitoring arrangements. I am not so sure about other assurance schemes, which have been criticised. We need to clarify what the criteria would be.

I want to finish by talking about a few things that Compassion in World Farming has mentioned as additional standards and perhaps the sorts of things that farmers should get additional funding for. On pigs, it says:

“Funding should be available for farmers who achieve intact tails”—

that is, neither docked nor bitten tails. It continues:

“Getting pigs to slaughter with intact tails is recognised by the Farm Animal Welfare Council and others as a reliable outcome based indicator of good welfare.”

In Lower Saxony, I am told, farmers are paid €16.5 per undocked pig under its curled tail bonus scheme. Is that the sort of thing that we could look at rewarding farmers for here?

[Mr Goodwill]

A local pig farmer told us the other day that he had 235,000 pigs. I am sure he would be very interested in a scheme like that.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I went to a higher-welfare pig farm when I was shadow Secretary of State and was appalled to learn that while it could make money selling the pigs to local butchers, any pigs that it could not sell to local butchers or restaurants for local consumption had to be sold to the supermarket, at a loss of £80 per pig. Something is clearly very wrong with a farming system where higher-welfare farmers cannot be funded that way. I also went to a higher-welfare chicken farm that was making 2p profit per chicken, which I thought said an awful lot about the broken market model. Perhaps the pig farmer who the right hon. Gentleman met would like to be paid per intact pig tail—perhaps he could raise that with him.

One of the problems with the pig sector is that it is quite easy to move into or increase numbers, therefore the market fluctuates. If farmers get a good price, people start moving in, and before we know it, too many pigs are on the market and the price dips again—we could spend a lot of time on the economics of farming.

Funding could be available for farmers in the dairy sector who keep their cows on pasture during the grass-growing season. That is a requirement of the pasture promise scheme, which is being developed by a group of farmers. There is a wide range in the welfare quality of laying hens provided for by free-range farms. We know that ordinary free-range systems are supported by the market and are very successful—once eggs started to be marked as free range, the public responded. However, some free-range systems have much lower stocking density, a low flock size, and trees and bushes around, so there are welfare differences among different free-range providers.

At the moment, only 1.2% of UK broilers are produced to RSPCA assured standards. There is an argument for saying that we should provide support only to broiler farmers who are members of the RSPCA assured scheme, so as to encourage others to move away from the lower standard of broiler production. I am not saying that the ones outside the RSPCA assured scheme necessarily have poor animal welfare standards, but clearly there is a higher benchmark to which people could aspire, and we ought to be encouraging them to do that.

Will the Minister say how cross-compliance will work and how we will monitor basic animal welfare standards? How is he going to come up with the higher animal welfare definition, what sort of things will it include, and will he promise to bring it forward a little sooner?

[Sandy Martin]

I want to add briefly to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said about amendment 71. I worked in a British-built chicken broiler plant in Israel. It was some time ago, and no doubt improvements have been made since, but it was sufficient to make me a vegetarian, although I have not yet gone as far as to become a vegan. Ipswich is rather a long way from Bristol, but if I was a bit closer, maybe I would be a vegan by now.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

Thursday is World Vegan Day, and I think there will be people outside between Committee sittings giving out free vegan pizza. If my hon. Friend wants to join our hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West and me to get a slice, he would be welcome. In fact, all Members can come.

[Sandy Martin]

I would very much welcome a slice of free pizza, whether it had cheese on it or not.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is vegan cheese.

[Sandy Martin]

Or whether it was vegan cheese or cheese made from milk.

I want to focus mainly on amendments 74 and 75. On amendment 74, as Members may know, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee had extensive evidence and debate on the Secretary of State’s proposed Bill covering animal cruelty sentencing and incorporating animal sentience into UK law. The Committee took the very sensible view that it was important to stiffen the sentences for cruelty without further delay. We therefore advised the Secretary of State that it would be sensible to separate the sentence on sentience from the section on sentencing. However, we felt that the whole issue of animal sentience needed to be taken seriously, and that a way should be found to take on board the significance of the issue and incorporate it into UK law once we had left the European Union. I believe that the proposed new subsection in amendment 74 covers just one of the vital areas where an adherence to the concept of animal sentience would have a material effect on agricultural practice in this country and ensure that the default support for animal welfare implied by the concept of sentience is not lost when we have left the EU.

It is not just me who believes that, but the Secretary of State as well; otherwise why did he want to pass a Bill that supported the concept of animal sentience? If he did wish to pass such a Bill—and he clearly did, because otherwise he would not have put it forward—why would he not want it to have a real effect on actual animals and their welfare? Amendment 74 is a way of ensuring that the concept of animal sentience actually has some effect, and I cannot really understand why the Government are not happy to accept it.

I am sure that the hon. Member for North Dorset made some of the comments that he has with the best of intentions, but the overall feeling appears to be, “We intend to do the right thing, so leave it to us.” That is not the way that law works; it is not the way that Bills are meant to work. The whole point of having Bills, Acts, debate, amendments and so on is to make sure that things are written down in such a way that people know what will happen and do not just have to rely on the good will of the Secretary of State.

We need to look at what amendment 75 says. Clause 1(1)(e) refers to

“preventing, reducing or protecting from environmental hazards”,

which should be good things, but only so long as they actually meet up with the protection of the environment, as we provide for in amendment 75. I will give a good example of supposed prevention, reduction or protection from environmental hazards that clearly does not meet up with the proposals in our amendment: the flood defences in Ipswich, where serious amounts of concrete and large sheets of metal were shoved in on either side of the river to prevent flooding. Clearly, I do not want Ipswich to be flooded, and I am very glad that we have flood defences. In fact, Ipswich was seriously flooded before the war, before those defences went in. However, they are not in the slightest bit environmentally friendly, and I am quite sure that flood defences in other parts of the country are seriously damaging to the environment too.

There are far better ways of doing these things now, and there are all sorts of other activities that people might want to undertake that would be damaging to the environment, even though they protected us from environmental hazards. All that we are asking for is that work done to offer protection from environmental hazards is not done in an environmentally damaging way. Again, I cannot really understand why the Government are not willing to support that amendment.

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Division 4

Ayes: 6

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Labour: 6

Noes: 9

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Conservative: 9

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to move amendment 73, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, at end insert “, provided that such financial assistance also furthers and does not undermine the purposes in subsection (1) above.”

This amendment would ensure that future funding allocated to improve productivity does not support activities which would damage the natural environment/objectives set out in clause 1(1).

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 53, in clause 1, page 2, line 18, at end insert—

‘(5) The Secretary of State must hold a public consultation on—

(a) how “productivity” should be defined for the purposes of giving financial assistance under subsection (2); and

(b) the definition of “improving productivity” in subsection (4).

(6) In the consultation under subsection (5), the Secretary of State must consult—

(a) persons, or bodies representing persons, who are in any part of an agri-food supply chain, within the meaning of section 13(3);

(b) persons, or bodies representing persons, who are—

(i) engaged in horticulture;

(ii) consumers of horticultural products; or

(iii) in the supply chain between persons described in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii).

(c) persons, or bodies representing persons, who are—

(i) engaged in forestry;

(ii) consumers of forestry products; or

(iii) in the supply chain between persons described in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii);

(d) persons, or bodies representing persons, who are not engaged in agriculture, horticulture or forestry but who advocate particular methods of managing land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment,

and may consult any other person or body the Secretary of State thinks fit.

(7) No financial assistance may be given under subsection (2) until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out—

(a) in summary form, the views expressed in the consultation held under subsection (5); and

(b) the definitions of “productivity” and “improving productivity” which the Secretary of State proposes to adopt for the purposes of giving financial assistance under subsection (2), with his or her reasons for doing so.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult on the definition of “productivity” and “improving productivity” and report on that consultation before giving any financial assistance for that purpose under Clause 1(2).

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister will be delighted to know that I am going to be very brief on this one. There is concern that it is not very clear in the Bill whether the public goods that are identified in clause 1(1) will be the primary focus for any payments, as we have already said that there is a limited pot of funding available. The Bill needs to reflect the fact that the Government have made a commitment that future policies will be underpinned by payment of public money for the provision of public goods.

The public goods are listed in the Bill, but it does not actually indicate whether they will be a funding priority—it just says that these are things that money can be spent on. It does not specify that any payments for productivity should contribute to the delivery of public goods. The two things could be entirely separate.

We have already discussed the fact that the Bill contains powers and not very much on duties, which means that it is vulnerable to change or being dropped entirely by a future Secretary of State. As I understand the Bill, there would be nothing to stop him or her from implementing payments for productivity only, without any reference to the public good. There is no indication as to how the pot of money would be divided up between the two, so there is concern, and Greener UK and the pesky environmentalists that people have talked about have been working on the amendment. They just want some assurance that a future scheme would not be weighted in favour of productivity payments, with no requirement to reduce environmental impact, and to make sure that the delivery of the public goods listed in clause 1 would not be undermined by the productivity clause.

[Dr Drew]

I have very little to add to what my hon. Friend has said. Basically, the amendment seeks to clarify what is meant by “productivity”. We believe the Government have quite a narrow definition of productivity that undermines the environmental sustainability that the Bill is based upon. We hope the Minister will say how he would interpret productivity and that he will take a wider view since we are looking at different aspects of productivity besides the purely agricultural and limiting definition that could be implied. For us, the issue is about improving quality and efficiency, but also about how we go about doing that. Again, that is the weakness of the Bill. It says a lot about what it might want to do, but not much about how it will do it, so we want that clearly defined. Reducing dependence on pesticides, weedkiller and fertilisers is implied in the way in which the Bill is being promoted, but exactly how that will be attained is not in the measure.

Sustainability, a primary feature of the Bill, needs to be spelt out more clearly in terms of how the legislation is entailed, otherwise there will be a misuse of public money. For example, we are not really spelling out how we want to minimise the carbon impact of agriculture. We know that agriculture could achieve carbon sequestration much more fully than it currently does.

On climate change, we are looking at issues to do with restocking levels and how they would impact on emissions levels, and at the antibiotic issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East identified. Amendment 53 would require a proper consultation on the meaning of “productivity” and a much broader understanding of sustainable productivity.

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[Dr Drew]

I hear the assurance from the Minister and provided we get some clarity at a later stage about what is really meant by productivity, I am happy not to push my amendment to a Division.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 7—Environmental land management contracts—

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, make provision for environmental land management contracts.

(2) A person who manages land may enter into an environmental land management contract with the Secretary of State to deliver one or more benefits under section 1(1).

(3) A person who manages land and who seeks to enter into an environmental land management contract with the Secretary of State must first submit a land management plan.

(4) The Secretary of State must approve a land management plan submitted by a person who manages land before entering into an environmental land management contract with that person.

(5) Regulations under this section may provide for—

(a) one or more persons or bodies to act on behalf of the Secretary of State for the purposes of entering into an environmental land management contract, and

(b) requirements which a land management plan must meet if it is to be approved by the Secretary of State under subsection (5).

(6) Regulations under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.’

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make provision for environmental land management contracts.

Given that the Committee has thoroughly debated the amendments to clause 1, I hope that comments in the clause 1 stand part debate will be brief, and will not rework arguments that we have already heard today.