Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I do not think it is broken down by national area at the moment, but it is something we can go away and look at.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Farmers and family businesses are deeply alarmed, because an important principle on which they have relied for decades has been breached. It is obvious from the Red Book that the Chancellor will have to raise tax again in the future. Is this the end, or can farmers and small businesses expect yet more demands on death?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman says decades. I think it was in 1991 or 1992 when the current rules were introduced. I can absolutely assure him that we are now on track for a stable future. That will allow farmers in his constituency and across England to flourish.

Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I should make a declaration of interest: I own land on which livestock is kept.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal on doing an enormous service for livestock farming and those engaged in it not only through this valuable Bill but during her service as Secretary of State. Throughout her time in office, she took valuable steps towards enhancing the livelihoods of those whom I represent in my constituency. Her work is being carried on by the current Secretary of State.

I shall address just one or two elements of the Bill not in a critical spirit but in, I hope, a constructive one. I hope we can give some subsequent attention to my first concern about the Bill—the Minister may be able to help me by answering some of my questions or by reflecting on changes that could be introduced in subsequent stages—which is that at the moment several pieces of legislation could apply to the mischief at which this Bill is aimed. We have the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, which this measure amends, but we also have the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Section 3 of the 1991 Act makes it an offence to be the owner of a dog that is dangerously out of control, and the guidelines that the Crown Prosecution Service published on that offence suggest that a dog that is causing serious injury to other animals, including livestock, is potentially evincing evidence of being dangerously out of control.

We have, then, the offence in section 3 and the offences under the 1953 Act. What we do not have is coherence in the guidelines for prosecution and enforcement between when the Dangerous Dogs Act can be used and when the offence is of attacks on, or worrying, livestock. Having served as a Law Officer, I think there may well be a case for the re-publication of new guidelines on enforcement and prosecution, but the reason why I draw attention to the matter is that, even with the changes that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal is introducing to the penalty provisions, it seems to me that they are extraordinarily light for the top end of this type of offending. An offence with a £1,000 maximum fine will generally be visited not with the maximum by a magistrates court but by a fine potentially of just a few hundred pounds—in other words, the cost of perhaps a few parking tickets—yet the impact, suffering and mischief that attacks by dogs on livestock cause to farmers and farming families are severe, and wholly out of proportion to a fine of a few hundred pounds.

My right hon. Friend will know—because I have discussed it with her—that just a few weeks ago the Dawe family, who are neighbours and constituents of mine, were subjected to an extraordinary overnight attack in which no fewer than 27 lambing ewes and lambs were killed—their faces ripped off and their bellies torn open. Many of them had to be put down when, in the morning light, that appalling scene of carnage was discovered. The irresponsibility of an owner who allows their dogs to roam free and to cause damage of that appalling character is not reflected by a fine of a few hundred pounds. Now, you may say to me, Mrs Latham, that perhaps in those circumstances an offence under section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act should be considered, and I would agree, but what we need is a coherent set of guidelines that sets out when the various offences in the hierarchy that exists should be considered by both police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The second point that I wish to make is an allied point. It is astonishing that neither the Dangerous Dogs Act nor, certainly, the 1953 Act permits the court to disqualify an owner from owning a dog. I strongly submit to the Minister, for future consideration, perhaps in this Bill, that this offence ought to be added to section 34 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which lists the offences that gives to a court the power to disqualify a person from dog ownership. It may be that there is a lacuna, and under the Dangerous Dogs Act the normal remedy in those circumstances would be the destruction of the animal, but if the court decides that the animal should not be destroyed, surely some attention should be given to whether an owner with a dog so dangerously out of control—or even a dog that worries livestock, whether once or repeatedly—should not be allowed to own a dog until further order.

The two points that I recommend to the Minister, then—it may be that those assisting him can say that my fairly preliminary inspection of the laws in this field is wrong, and I can be reassured—are twofold. First, we need coherent guidance as to the way police investigate and prosecution prosecute, as to the balance to be struck and the considerations to be thought through, and as to the application of either a section 3 Dangerous Dogs Act offence or an offence of worrying sheep or attacking livestock, of the kind my right hon. Friend is dealing with. Secondly, we need to consider whether the offences, even those she is amending, are sufficient for this purpose. A repeat offender will be fined under level 5. That is an unlimited fine and that is good, but the repeated worrying of sheep or worrying of any livestock is not, many would say, sufficiently visited with adequate punishment by a fine alone. I commend that approach to the Minister, and if I am wrong about that or the policy of the Government is not to adopt it, we need at least to consider when section 3 should be used.

Finally, we need to consider the question of disqualification and whether or not this offence should be added to the list of offences under the Animal Welfare Act that make an owner eligible for disqualification. The court, of course, would have discretion; all the usual balancing factors that are relevant under that Act would apply. Where there is a fairly minor case of worrying, one would not expect a disqualification, but in a really grave case—such as that of the Dawe family, whom I have the privilege of representing—a court may take a thoroughly different view.

With that—I say again that this is meant not in a critical spirit but in a constructive one—I congratulate my right hon. Friend again. This is an extraordinarily valuable set of provisions that has been widely welcomed and I hope that we can consider tightening them further in the Bill’s journey through the House.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon, I am pleased to appear under your wise guidance, Mrs Latham, as we look at this vital and important legislation. I represent 200 square miles of rolling Hampshire downland, much of it dotted with sheep. Like my right hon. and learned Friend, we have seen our share of horrible incidents over the past few years; the legislation is therefore extremely welcome for me and my constituents—and I declare an interest as a dog owner.

I, too, have some small matters of detail that I want to raise for possible consideration on Report, in the spirit of trying constructively to improve the Bill. I will go through them, if I may. The first is about territorial extent. I am not as legally proficient as my right hon. and learned Friend, but I want to ensure that areas of Crown land are covered, not least royal parks, which often have their own legislation to cover what happens within them. Members will remember the famous case of Fenton chasing deer across Richmond Park—happily, in that case there was a prosecution and a conditional discharge for six months. We need to look at that. In particular, we need to think about the foreshore. There are parts of this country where sheep graze the foreshore, eating seaweed and whatever. It produces delightful slightly salty and sweet lamb, but the foreshore is a part of our landmass that has its own legal status and largely, I think I am right in saying, belongs to the Crown. It would be interesting to see how we can make sure that the legislation applies there.

The second issue that I want to raise is the retention of dogs by the police. When I was at City Hall, in a previous life, I started a campaign to drive out the plethora of dangerous dogs in London and improve the legislation. We got amendments then, but one thing that deterred the police from detaining dangerous dogs was the cost of holding them. Often, a dog would be detained, the trial would be awaited, the dog would be held—sometimes for months—the owner would not show up to the trial and the dog would be destroyed, but the police would be left with the cost. I understand that in this case there is a seven-day limit and I wonder whether we could consider that for amendment on Report.

In my honest opinion, owners will partially pay. They will get to seven days, plead that they cannot afford it and partially pay some of the costs to try to avoid their dog being put down. A game will be played. There needs to be firmer provision: either that, at seven days, partial payment is not good enough and the constable may dispose of the dog, or that an owner can agree immediately upon seizure of the dog that the dog may be disposed of. At the moment I cannot see in the Bill the possibility that, if my dog kills 27 sheep and is seized, I can say to the police there and then, “I don’t want the dog back. Do what you will with it,” at no cost to me.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

Work is ongoing on avian influenza. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have suffered two years of catastrophic effects of that disease. Animal and Plant Health Agency vets are working round the clock with primary producers to protect their flocks. I do not want to jinx myself, but at the moment we are making good progress. We will continue to work hard with the sector to protect it and ourselves from that terrible disease.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State knows, my constituency is chalk stream central, with the headwaters of the celebrated River Test, the Bourne rivulet and the River Anton, which runs through Andover. What can the Government tell me to reassure my constituents that the unique ecology of chalk streams is uppermost in their mind as they work to enhance our rivers across the country?

[Dr Coffey]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I know that area well. I used to live in Whitchurch, which has the River Test flowing through it. We are making progress with our chalk stream action plan, but he will also be aware of the amendment that the Government agreed to work with Viscount Trenchard on and which is now part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which I hope will become an Act very soon.

Oil Spill: Poole Harbour

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

Unlike the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who stuck to the subject of this important urgent question, the hon. Gentleman asks a question that is somewhat irrelevant. Well over 70% of our bathing water is excellent, and more than 90% is rated good or excellent.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As a number of Members have said, not least my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), the Dorset coast forms part of an incredibly fragile ecosystem across much of the south coast. Part of its fragility and uniqueness is because it is fed by a network of chalk streams—80% of the world’s chalk streams are in our part of the world. In January, the River Anton, which flows through my constituency, saw a not dissimilar spill of 30,000 litres of oil. I commend the Environment Agency for its swift response: it tells me that it has recovered about 17,000 litres and that work is under way to recover the rest. Although there will be an investigation into the cause of the spill and any culpability, which may have consequences, where does accountability and transparency lie in the Environment Agency for the conduct of the investigation? Police and crime commissioners are accountable to police and crime panels for the work of the police, but the system for the Environment Agency is more opaque. How can my constituents have confidence that any investigation is conducted with alacrity and that culpability is apportioned appropriately?

[Rebecca Pow]

An investigation is important for gathering the correct information. We also need to be careful about spreading fear about what exactly a pollutant might be. That is why there must be an investigation, and why the exact make-up of a pollutant needs to be fully known. The EA will, of course, investigate if there is enough evidence to suggest that a crime has potentially been committed. Where a crime has been committed, and after the due process is followed, fines are possible.

Draft Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2023 Draft Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 General Committees

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to appear under your wise guidance, Mr Hollobone. I have a few questions and challenges for the Minister. Before I get to them, I would just say that I broadly support the thrust of the Government’s policy, and I am already seeing the impact in my constituency. I represent 220 square miles of Hampshire chalk downland, which had not been ploughed in previous centuries, but much of which was then brought under the plough and was able to be productive with the application of chemicals. We are seeing more and more of that land now returned to its historical function, which is essentially as grassland for the cultivation of protein, in the form of sheep and cows. That is of great benefit to our landscape and our ecology.

I have a couple of issues. On the SI on reductions to direct payments, I feel—a bit like the hon. Member for Cambridge—slightly jammed into a decision today. As the Minister will know, there is a calculator online where farmers can work out what their reductions will be, and the rates were advertised beforehand. If we parliamentarians made some amendment to the SI today to change the rate of reductions either way, it would throw a spanner in the works for many farming businesses, including in my constituency. So I am not really being given a choice in terms of the vote on this, given the impact on farmers if we changed the regulations. I question whether that is the proper function of parliamentary scrutiny—we are making a decision, but we are not really making a decision.

Another issue I want to raise on this SI is about notice. As the Minister said, it is welcome that the Department published six new standards in January to go along with the existing three. However, reducing direct payments as farmers decide, singly or collectively—they can now operate in groups—which of those standards to pursue, whether that is hedgerows, pest management or whatever it might be, means that farmers will start to see reductions in their direct payments before they can demonstrate the benefits of those standards or claim under them. The Minister is a farmer, and he will know better than me whether somebody can put in place and comply with the hedgerow standard in time to fill the gap in cash flow caused by these reductions—whether they can procure hedgerow, plant it and make sure it is up to standard and is thriving, and not just go through the motions.

The Minister says there will be a reduction in bureaucracy, but I assume we will unleash an army of people in high-vis with clipboards across the countryside to ensure that all these standards are being complied with. That might be a one-off exercise, but nevertheless I presume there will be some confirmation of compliance in exchange for public money. If that is the case, timing becomes critical, because if compliance is about result rather than input, we obviously have a bit of an issue.

Another point is about the nature of the payments. I wrote to the Minister recently, as he may know, about the pest management standard. As I understand it—he may correct me—if I decide I am going for the pest management standard, I avoid the use of pesticides. If I avoid the use of pesticides for the season, I get my payment at the end of the season. However, if my crop is devastated by some pest halfway through the season, and I have no choice but to use a pesticide, I will lose my payment, at the same time as I lose my direct payment. There is no partial payment; we cannot say, “For six months, you didn’t use a pesticide; we will give you half the money.” Farmers face an all-or-nothing cliff edge. They will have to make a financial calculation about whether the crop price merits the use of the pesticide or merits them allowing the crop to be destroyed and taking the subsidy. That injects an element of jeopardy into the system at a point at which there are these final, significant reductions in direct payments, which may not be helpful. I, too, would be interested to know what is going to happen to the underspend. I wrote to the Minister about that recently as well, and I would be grateful for elucidation today.

I turn now to the financial assistance regulations. I am slightly concerned—perhaps the Minister can enlighten us—about the immense power the legislation gives him to create, close and amend schemes when that has previously required parliamentary consent. Paragraph 7.6 of the explanatory memorandum states:

“This will help future-proof the 2021 Regulations against changes to the name or design of specific schemes, and avoid the need for an increasing list of financial assistance schemes in the regulations. The instrument also omits the previous definition of the “farming investment fund”…the fund can be used more flexibly for any of the statutory purposes in section 1.”

Does that mean that, without parliamentary consent, the Minister can start or close a new scheme or quietly do away with things that are not working? Where will the accountability be for the expenditure of public money on new things? If the Minister says we are going to have a trampoline standard, does that mean that we will pay someone who starts a trampoline park on their farm and that if it does not quite work out, it will be quietly closed and nobody will be any the wiser? There is a transparency issue there that concerns me.

I understand the Minister’s desire in the financial assistance regulations to have the power not to publish in circumstances where disease or other matters might affect somebody’s business. However, in a world of social media and in a community that talks—and farmers do talk—I question how realistic that is. If there is an outbreak of disease in an area and we are attempting to control it, not publishing might protect one business, but it might also damage lots of neighbouring businesses, which will be unable to take the measures they need to to protect themselves from that disease. If the Minister is saying that that will be his judgment, that is fine, but the SI does not say that he will have regard to the overall surrounding businesses; it just talks about having regard to that particular business and to whether it will be damaged.

As the Minister would expect, I will vote for the regulations, but I seek reassurance on that point. To give an example, my constituency home is in the middle of an avian flu control zone. A captive hawk was taken to the vet because it was a bit poorly, and it turned out it had the flu. As a result, we are in the middle of a 3 km exclusion zone, where everybody has to keep their chickens in. Has publication damaged that person’s business? I do not know. Presumably, the hawk’s illness has damaged their business. However, I hope the Minister understands my point—that there is a wider responsibility, other than to just the business itself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

I was just coming to that, because it is a really important point to land, so I am grateful for the two interventions that have given me opportunity to do that. We want to move in a direction that is much less about enforcement and catching people out and more about supporting and encouraging people to do the right thing. Instead of inspectors, we will have assistants and people going on to farms to advise and support. People will not be turning up with a tape measure and saying, “Aha! You’re 50 cm short on that margin.” Rather, they will be saying, “This is what you need to do, and this is how it needs to work.” We want to help and support people to move in the right direction.

There is another side to that. With modern technology it is possible to monitor things via satellite. We can see cropping and improvements to hedgerows via satellites. If individuals take the mickey, do not do the right thing and try to commit fraud, we will of course go after them and prosecute them for defrauding the taxpayer. We aim to support the people who want to do the right thing, while penalising the very small number of people who want to take the mickey.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire made a point about pest management and the use of pesticides on a crop. The purpose of pest management buffer strips is to encourage the production and growth of natural insecticides—in other words ladybirds, lacewings and predators that will go and eat aphids, which are the pests we want to get rid of. We are encouraging people not to use insecticides. They can still use herbicides and fungicides, but they cannot use insecticides, which are the chemicals that will kill those ladybirds and lacewings. I accept that there may be a time where a farmer, having committed to not using insecticide, has to backtrack on that agreement because of a huge aphid infestation. They would have to make a commercial decision as to whether they wanted to stick to receiving taxpayers’ money for not using insecticides or wanted to backtrack on that, use insecticide and not receive payment for that crop.

[Kit Malthouse]

There is a third element to the decision that should surely be of interest, which is whether we want the food. For example, there are certain crops that are particularly prone to aphids—for example, beans. If someone grows beans, the risk is much higher, because that crop is much more likely to get aphids. As the Minister will know, there can be a massive infestation, and the farmer will have no choice—either they lose their crop or they spray it. If they spray it, they lose their subsidy. Quite a lot of farmers will say, “You know what? Beans are too much trouble. I am not going to grow beans. I will grow something else, because I know what is going to happen with beans. They are going to get aphids, because that is what they do.” We may see a migration away from the farming of some crops, because of that risk.

From the Government’s point of view, it is perfectly possible for the inspector in a high-vis jacket with a clipboard to come along and say, “Do you know what? On balance, we would rather have the beans, so we will give you a bit of flex on the pesticide. We recognise that you have a huge infestation that needs to be dealt with, and if we do not deal with it, we are not going to have any beans.” That is the conundrum that a lot of farmers with those particularly pest-prone crops are juggling.

[Mark Spencer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. We are getting very much into the detail of the personal management decisions farmers will have to make. Farmers may be thinking that they need to use a chemical to kill those aphids, but there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that if they have put in insect buffer strips and give the lacewings and ladybirds three or four more days, those lacewings and ladybirds will go and do the job for them.

If you will allow me to digress, Mr Hollobone, I spoke to a gentleman called Martin Lyons—I am sure he will not mind me giving his name—who farms in Cambridgeshire. He had such an event in a field of beans. He went to inspect the field, but on arriving he saw that the beans were swarming with aphids. When he got back to the yard, the sprayer—the machine he was going to use to apply the chemical—was broken. By the time he got the part, four or five days later, he thought he had probably lost the crop, but when he went to look at it before applying the chemical, he found literally tens of thousands of ladybirds all over the beans, and they had removed the aphids. He was able to return the chemical to the company that had supplied him and save the money.

We have become a little bit too dependent—I say this as a farmer myself—on chemical solutions, when nature often finds the solutions for us. We need to do more of that and to get back to some of the practices we saw in the ’30s and ’40s, working with nature rather than against it. That is what many of the changes we are bringing in will deliver.

To turn to the second part of today’s proceedings, there are two schemes to which the financial assistance regulations are applicable—he says, looking for inspiration from his officials to his left. It is really important that we understand that we want to motivate people to do the right thing. My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire referred to avian influenza, which is slightly different, in that it is a notifiable disease. There may be other examples, such as bovine viral diarrhoea in cattle. If people become aware that that disease is in a herd, they will not want to trade with it. Where farmers want to be part of the scheme and engage in data recovery, we do not want those who are being supported, who do not have BVD, to be penalised because people think their being on the list of those who have received support to prevent the spread of the disease means they have the disease in their herd—we do not want them to be blacklisted. Anecdotal evidence shows that if people are allowed to keep the matter private, they are much more likely to come forward and report any issue they have, rather than hide it.

Plant Health and Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 General Committees

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I have a couple of points of procedure and then some questions, if I may. First, the legislation obviously refers to the amendment of EU regulations, but I have not, I am afraid, been able to get hold of those regulations, so it is quite hard for me to understand the amendments being made. Normally, one would expect such regulations to be available in the room.

Secondly, I do not know whether this is usual, but from reading the legislation over the past couple of days, I see that a section of it is understandably in Welsh. Although it may be appropriate for the legislation to be in that language, I am at a loss to know what it says. Section 6, which is in Welsh, may be a faithful reproduction of section 5, which is in English, but I cannot tell whether that is the case. There may be a Member present who is able to translate it quickly and tell us, but I do not know whether it is usual to vote on legislation that is in a language I do not understand; I have not done that before, as far as I am aware.

Those questions are for you as Chair, Mrs Cummins—

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

By all means.

[Alun Cairns]

Diolch yn fawr—[Laughter.] I can reassure my right hon. Friend that section 6 is a duplication of the English version.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for that reassurance. We are fortunate on the Committee in having a native speaker of that fine, although for me incomprehensible, language. If my right hon. Friend had not been here, Members may have found themselves in some difficulty with the legislation.

I have some questions for the Minister. I understand that the intention of these imposed regulations is for Ministers to be able to demarcate an area to allow for disease control. At the moment, in my constituency, I am living in the middle of one of those areas, which is to deal with avian flu—although the demarcation seems to be some road signs and not much else. Owners of chickens have been told to keep them indoors, and that type of thing. What I am unclear about is, while Ministers have the power to introduce those zones, how would they actually give effect to them? Is it a purely ministerial discretion? Is there a bar of disease and infection that needs to be reached? Is it on advice from some body? Similarly, on removal, where is the judgment made and by who? Obviously, it is quite a draconian power in certain circumstances. Having some kind of understanding of how it might be executed would be helpful. I could not find anything in the legislation or the guidance notes that told me that.

I also want to explore the issue about Lebanese potatoes, which seems to be of particular interest. I understand that verticillium wilt is prevalent in the Bekaa valley and is of some concern. But my reading of the legislation is that there is essentially an absolute bar on the import of potatoes from that country, which is currently struggling and for which the agricultural sector is a huge earner.

I had some difficulty understanding that—it may just be me being thick. Could the Minister explain to me what the impact of that is on the seed potato industry from those two regions of Lebanon, or whether it is a general Lebanese exclusion? Other than those points, I am broadly content to support the regulations.

[The Chair]

Thank you for those questions. I can give assurances that the specific regulation is in the Committee Room, but the Clerk is checking. I hope to have an absolute assurance by the time the Minister has finished his concluding remarks.

[Mark Spencer]

That sounded like a challenge to speak quickly, Ms Cummins. I thank colleagues for their interest in this SI, and for taking the trouble to read it and engage. My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire raised the question about how those decisions are made. We are blessed in the UK with some of the best scientists in the world, who are able to make an analysis of what the risks are and what the response should be. Of course, Ministers will ultimately decide on the response, but on the back of the advice they receive from those experts.

Action would be something along the lines of stopping the trade in the material that was at risk of spreading the disease. For example, the Opposition asked about the actual disease that has highlighted this challenge; it is actually called phytophthora pluvialis. In English—I think that might be Welsh—it is a fungus that affects trees, mostly pines and Douglas firs. What we would do in those circumstances, and what we have done, is prevent the movement of timber of that nature. We would put restrictions on nurseries and wholesale plant areas, but also on physical timber that was being moved from woodland in a certain area to another. We would prevent the movement of that to stop the disease spreading, so that fungus spores were not allowed to be transported anywhere else.

The hon. Member for Cambridge also made reference to the challenges of ensuring that our borders are safe in the future. That is something that the Government are very much alive to. I spend a lot of time, for example, worrying about the possibility of African swine fever spreading across Europe and reaching our borders. We have protocols in place to try to stop that from happening, which is actually one of the benefits of Brexit. It allows us to put more controls at our borders to try to prevent that from happening and to ensure that Border Force is aware of the challenges that we face. But, of course, we try to balance that with ensuring that trade is as free as possible. Working with our colleagues in Europe, we are able to strike that balance, but it is one that we take seriously.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I take his point. Obviously, there has been a phytosanitary boundary around the whole of the island of Ireland for some time now, which has protected it from diseases coming from the continent of Europe, the wider world and indeed the rest of the UK. However, my constituency, for example, is being devastated by ash dieback. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ash trees that are struggling and will be gone from the landscape quite soon.

While I understand the scientific advice that will be given, that is the same scientific advice, presumably, that resulted in the awful foot and mouth disaster that hit farming a couple of decades ago, which people remember well. Mounds of carcases were burnt on farms. Whether that was the right approach has been debated, even to this day.

Is the Minister able to give an example of a plant or animal disease being controlled by the imposition of one of these zones in the past, and therefore being eradicated from the UK? It strikes me that what we are learning—whether from Dutch elm disease, ash dieback, avian flu, or even tuberculosis, which we are obviously trying to control—is that these techniques are actually not that effective from a disease control point of view. As the Minister said, our most effective defence is at the border, by stopping the stuff coming in in the first place.

[Mark Spencer]

The best example that I can think of within two or three generations would be anthrax. We were able to eradicate that completely from the United Kingdom. However, of course, it is about not just eradication but mitigation, in terms of stopping that spread.

My right hon. Friend mentioned avian influenza. Of course, had we taken no measures and just allowed the disease to run its course, that would have led to the total devastation of the UK poultry sector and enormous damage to the wild bird population. While it sometimes appears that we are not having the positive effect that we would like to deliver, taking no action would lead to catastrophe. I think there are examples of where stepping in, and intervening at that moment does assist and does lead to better outcomes, although it may not feel like that at the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

That is a fantastic, positive story, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In conclusion—

[Kit Malthouse]

Lebanese potatoes?

[Mark Spencer]

Lebanese potatoes, of course. We take such things case by case, and will continue to take that approach. There are some challenges in the seed potato market, not least to the ability of Scottish growers to export to the EU. We will continue to push that agenda as well, to ensure that the Scots can export seed potatoes. Decisions on whether we allow the import of seed potatoes will have to be taken on a case-by-case basis and with a risk analysis of the risk to UK growers. Decisions will be taken by those with the expertise, but we recognise the importance of trade links with Lebanon.

In conclusion, this is an important piece of legislation and it is important that we agree the draft regulations today. They will help to fight disease and to prevent disasters in future. I am grateful for the Committee’s support.

Protection of Ancient Woodland and Trees

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to appear before a fellow member of the Hampshire caucus, Mr Turner.

“Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world. When she was 12 years old, the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of a wood.”

“When Little Red Riding Hood entered the woods, a wolf came up to her; she did not know what a wicked animal he was and was not afraid of him.”

“At last, the Queen said to the huntsman, ‘Take Snow White out into the woods, so that I might set eyes on her no more. You must put her to death and bring me her heart as a token.’”

Those stories are universal. They evoke in us a sense of mystery and a shiver. It is no coincidence that they are all set in the subject of today’s debate: ancient woods, dark and forbidding. To the brothers Grimm, those old forests set the boundaries of human control. The world has changed, but while the whirlwind of human life has careered on, the same ancient woodlands have stood, silently watching. We feel smaller next to them and humbled by their age—feelings not often associated with our modern times. Untouched by us, ancient woodlands are the perfect antithesis of our technologically advanced, man-made world.

Today, science says that everything is explicable, and it may well be right. We are not entirely built that way, however. Somehow, we are healthier when nature is visible and in our lives. Our ancient woodlands will always hold wonder for us, and they are a reminder that no matter how far our knowledge and understanding progress, there is always the chance of getting lost and not knowing the way. We should do our best to preserve that sense, for it is part of what makes us human.

Many Members have focused, and no doubt others will focus, on the biological and environmental value of woodlands, and they are right to do so. Those environments are complex and unspoiled, and they provide habitats for wildlife and rare species. As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) has said, they cannot be recreated if they are destroyed. If I may, however, I will leave that aspect to others and focus on the role that ancient woodlands play in our national psyche and our relationship to our history, and on the effect on our psychology of our ever-growing command of the natural world, even if we only rarely notice it or get the chance to experience it.

As the fairy tales that I quoted illustrate, it cannot be denied that those ancient woodlands stir something deep within us—something that we would be foolish to lose. But we are already losing it. As others have said, the Woodland Trust is already ringing alarm bells. It states that we have lost some 1,000 hectares of ancient woodland in the last decade, and that some 500 sites are threatened by planned development. We will lose it all if we do not take measures now, when there is urgency in our building for various reasons, to ensure that we meet our housing and infrastructure needs responsibly. Do we really want to see those living links to our history destroyed to make way for golf courses and paintballing? In my constituency, 60% of which is in an area of outstanding natural beauty, we certainly do not.

No one really planned how we got here. We barrelled forward, not knowing what lay ahead, and never stopped along the way to take account of what we had left behind. Many prophesied—rightly or wrongly, for good or ill—what would happen, but life went on. Jobs have become more specialised and technology has improved. Our population has grown; the demand for land has grown with it and continues to grow. It has brought us to this. As grassy hills and wooded glens become rarer and suburbs sprawl, we risk losing sight of what we actually value. Few would say that the ancient woodlands, the protection of which we discuss today, are not important, but it is far too easy to get caught up in the processes that put them in danger.

The crux of the matter is that failure to protect this ancient treasure will turn us into the kind of country that we do not want to be. It will not have escaped hon. Members that the quotes with which I began my speech came from the brothers Grimm, and that they spoke of forests in Germany; just as in our legends, the forests have deep value in German culture. However, the Germans recognise that value by having the most protected woods in Europe. It has never been more pressing for us to follow their example.

Our forests have borne witness to our island’s history. They have seen war and peace, the sparks of invention, the birth of our democracy and the scores of generations who made them happen and made Britain what it is today. The very youngest of those woodlands were born in a Britain that would—apart from the Misbourne valley—be unrecognisable today. They remind us that we come and go, but there are countless generations behind us and countless more ahead of us.

We know that we have a debt to past generations and a duty to those in the future. Natural treasures such as our ancient woodland are evidence of that connection and contract. If we lose them, life will be less rich, our experience of the world a little bit more desolate and our society more disconnected from itself. If we become the kind of country that takes no notice of such things, or that shrugs and says that we can merely offset the loss by planting more somewhere else, no summer’s bloom will lie ahead of us. To do so would be to accept a Britain where we had broken cleanly with our past and our heritage. The mystery would have gone, and we would be diminished.