Agriculture Bill

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I should like to speak to Amendment 109 in this group and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, on bringing this point to the attention of the House. This part of the Bill, which concerns the devolved nations, is a particularly grey area as regards how it is to be administered. The noble Baroness and the authors of other amendments in this group have done the House a service by throwing light on these issues. I had hoped to put my name to Amendment 109, but I was not surprised to see how much support the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, has had.

I want to pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s work in this regard. She is a former Member of and was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly and she was a great support to me in the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the other place. Rather unnervingly, she was always in her seat before I took my place, which is a little disconcerting when you are chairing a committee. I am sure that she will play a prominent and active role in the new Select Committee on Common Frameworks Scrutiny, to which she has just been appointed, and I congratulate her on that.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister will have regard to the concerns that have been raised in this group of amendments. He and I have had conversations before on the common frameworks and what progress has been made on them, so I will pay close attention to his response. Once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, for bringing forward her amendment in this group.

[Lord Alderdice (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, along with other noble Lords, in Amendment 109. As usual, she has set out the arguments clearly and in substantial detail, and I do not intend to rehearse what she has already said. However, on 23 July, I made a number of points when we were discussing a similar approach to these things in Committee. I want to repeat some of those and add to them because the situation has changed and developed in a very unhelpful way.