Upland Farming
Lord Beith Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I am sure we can hear from the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, but it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Beith
My Lords, as several Peers have acknowledged, upland farmers make a massive contribution to the care of our hill areas. However, the character and community of those areas will depend on upland farmers being more than merely park-keepers. Does the Minister recognise that if Brexit leads to very high tariffs for lamb exports to Europe, and massive imports from new trade deals with New Zealand, it could spell the end of hill livestock farming? That is really dangerous for the hill areas.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, that is precisely why I mentioned food in my Answer. Upland farmers provide excellent food for the nation and for abroad. We clearly want that to continue. We want a trade deal. I am sure that all your Lordships wish us to secure a deal for the nation, but the situation is particularly acute for the upland farmers. I referred to animal health and productivity in my reply. We want to work with the farmers to ensure we conquer many of the diseases that are a travail for them, such as sheep scab. There are all sorts of areas of work that industry, the Government and farmers can work together on.
Common Agricultural Policy and Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Lord Beith Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, far from going round the houses, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, has done us a service by going through the instruments so thoroughly and raising some really important questions—the Minister will have quite a lot to answer. I will say something about these instruments, but I do not want to forget to thank the Minister and his officials for the extremely helpful briefing they gave to opposition parties.
There are five instruments, and their titles are so confusingly similar that the only way to deal with them is the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, did—as first, second, third, fourth and fifth, which is the order in which they appear on the Order Paper. They deal with very important matters related to farming and rural communities, particularly funding issues. They are interrelated, which is why I think it was sensible to take them together.
The instruments are also interrelated with the Agriculture Bill—the elephant that is not in the room, because we do not have it yet—which interacts with these instruments in a number of respects. The Agriculture Bill gives huge and unacceptably wide order-making powers to Ministers. Some of those duplicate some of the powers exercised in these statutory instruments, so it is quite difficult to view them separately. If the Agriculture Bill ever becomes an Act, it will come into force probably in the middle of a period in which these instruments are in force, or while we are still waiting for the instruments to come into force at the end of an implementation period.
We accept that these instruments are a necessary means of ensuring that we have continuity in what would otherwise be an even more difficult situation for the farming community. They are no-deal instruments primarily; the Minister explained that they will still be necessary even if there is an agreement, but that would not be until the end of the implementation period. They would therefore lie dormant during an implementation period, and that would have to be achieved in the withdrawal agreement Bill, which would be necessary in those circumstances. Of course, we do not know when exit day will be—whether it will be next Friday, 30 June, or some other date—or indeed if it will be. By the time we get to it, these instruments will need to be amended because things will have changed, either during the delay, or during the implementation period, or both. It is hard to imagine that the form in which these instruments are now will serve all purposes in perhaps 20 months’ time, as would be the case after an implementation period.
What on earth are farmers supposed to make of all this? It is bad enough when your work is at the mercy of the weather and fluctuating market prices; but, frankly, it has been easier to forecast the weather—and even market prices—than the Government’s management of the Brexit exercise. That adds another huge dimension of uncertainty and these five instruments would at least provide continuity in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
There are a few issues I want to pick up. The Minister mentioned an intriguing point on the first instrument: the red meat levy paid on imported animals slaughtered within two or three months of import would be extended from EU states to the rest of the world. That sounds like a policy change, and a policy change ought to be dealt with differently, or at least drawn to our attention. Its significance diminishes, however, when you discover that—in the words of the Explanatory Memorandum—the amount of the levy currently collected is “probably nil”. That is a rather interesting phrase to use; perhaps the Minister can explain why it is only “probably nil”, as though nobody knows whether it has been collected at all.
The second and fourth instruments puzzled me—and officials when I asked them—for a different reason. Unlike all the others, they do not necessarily come into force on exit day, whereas most EU exit regulations do come into force on exit day—whenever that turns out to be. If the Minister chooses not to lay either the second or the fourth instrument until some later date, they will not come into force until the day after that. Why the difference, and do the Government envisage the orders not being brought into force at the same time as the others?
The third and fourth instruments abandon the mechanism known as the EU crisis reserve. That relies on deductions from the direct payment pot to create a central reserve for times of crisis in EU agriculture. It is another mechanism that has never been used; farmers have received reimbursement for the deductions in the funding scheme. It clearly makes little sense in a UK-only context—I suppose one could have a scheme for the four jurisdictions within the UK, but it makes a great deal less sense. We have to refer to a different statutory instrument, the next one in the group, to see the accountability mechanism for dealing with it.
It is also in the third instrument that we find that euros will remain the currency on which the whole system of agricultural support is calculated and accounted for. However, I understand that provision may be included in the Agriculture Bill for a switch to sterling. We need to clarify that; I was reassured when I received briefing from officials that neither farmers nor the taxpayer would in the long run be placed in a very different position by currency fluctuations because support is decided at a fixed point in the year. However, it would be helpful to have clarified the Government’s intention in relation to a later switch to sterling.
The fifth order is essential to continue the exemption of various agricultural and fisheries projects and funding streams from EU state aid rules. To the extent that state aid rules continue to have effect post exit, such an exemption is necessary. It of course begs the question of how many state aid rules we will have post exit. The Minister could perhaps clarify; there will be rules that extend because they are in the withdrawal agreement—there may be things which we decide to continue and do not remove because we want to restrain undesirable interference with the market by various forms of state aid. It left me slightly puzzled as to the extent of its impact.
The decision about the future of state aid rules is one of the hundreds of policy decisions which we will have to come to later if exit goes ahead. The battle will then be between those who thought that Brexit meant a bonfire of rules and those who see that many issues in the rules have been developed while we have been in Europe and are valuable to us and we do not want to lose them. That again creates more uncertainty for farmers, because they have been told by the ardent Brexiteers, “Oh, we’ll get rid of all those EU rules; you don’t have to worry about them”, whereas in practice, as the Government have indicated on many issues already, a lot of the things we observe in Europe are things that we believe to be right, and that we advocate and intend to do anyway.
We have had a foretaste of the problems and uncertainties with the publication of the tariff regime only two weeks before it was planned to come into force. While the sheep sector, which is so valuable in areas such as that which I come from, has retained its tariff protection but still faces the problem of potentially heavy tariffs on its exports, eggs, cereals, fruit and vegetables will have no tariff protection. Farmers Weekly called it policy devised on the hoof by a Government struggling to cling on to power.
My last point was raised the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, but it looks forward. Can the government machinery cope with the complex transfer of functions provided by these orders? The noble Baroness raised the question in the context of the Rural Payments Agency and delays to payments. The RPA and Natural England have 14,000 historic environmental stewardship payments outstanding. The RPA says that it is concentrating not on the 2018 so-called advance payments—we can hardly call them advance in 2019—but on the 2017 final payments. Its target is still only to complete 95% of them by July. Tenant farmers with rents to pay need those payments to be made in a timely fashion, and they have a big impact in rural communities on suppliers of farm machinery and materials for agriculture. The system cannot cope at present, so a series of quite complex changes gives rise to worry as to how the system will cope.
The complexity of this is illustrated by the Minister’s admission that there is a small error in one of the sets of regulations before us today. That can obviously be corrected, but one has to bear in mind that this extremely complex process is taking place in an industry that faces a great deal of uncertainty and many other complexities. It is pretty worrying.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I want to say just a couple of things. I am married to a farmer and in the evenings I have to try to sort out some of the paperwork, mapping, basic payment systems—
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I can understand that. In signing the EM, Ministers have to declare that we have had due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited under the Equality Act 2010.
I turn to the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Beith and Lord Grantchester, about the red meat levy exemption. In continuing the existing exemption for imports from the EU, we were advised that we need to be in line with WTO rules, as I advised. I also advise that we expect this change to be minimal or nil. We believe that very few animals are imported into the UK live for slaughter. On average over the last five years, fewer than 500 cattle, sheep or bovines have been imported each year from beyond the EU into the UK. Their average values have been relatively high and our understanding is that they are imported mainly for breeding purposes. We believe that few, if any, are slaughtered in England soon after being imported—hence our belief that the impact of this change would be minimal.
The noble Lord, Lord Beith, raised a question relating to three of the instruments and concerning the legal wording coming into force on a date later than exit day. He asked why that is the case. The legislation is worded as it is because it was not clear whether the instruments would be debated, approved and made before exit day. The wording providing for the instruments to come into force on the latter of exit day or the day after making was a prudent contingency to account for this eventuality and to ensure that we did not purport to bring into force an instrument before it was made. I might need to think about that myself, but I wanted to put the position on the record. However, it is an interesting construct.
Lord Beith
It is indeed—that had not occurred to me. Do we conclude from this that the Government have no intention of doing anything other than bringing all five instruments into force on exit day?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Yes; I always have a safety valve. Picking up my noble friend’s point, it is why we thought that these SIs hung together as a package. From all the details that noble Lords have raised, I am relieved that we put them together because they are intricately connected.
The noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Beith, raised the question of funding a crisis without a crisis reserve. The 2018 crisis reserve payments are covered by Her Majesty’s Government’s funding guarantee, so farmers will receive reimbursement for the 2018 crisis reserve payments. After exit, clearly UK participation in the EU crisis reserve will become unworkable. Making the EU’s concept of the crisis reserve operable in the UK would mean taking the UK’s contributory share of the existing reserve—about £39 million—as the basis for a UK-only reserve. This would be likely to be of limited value in response to a crisis, especially when divided between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Removing the crisis reserve could also mean that more money could be paid out to farmers at the start of a payment window.
We are retaining CAP schemes governing the Common Market’s organisation in other retained EU legislation. This legislation will allow the UK to respond to a crisis in the agricultural markets in the same way that the EU currently can. If there is a crisis in the agricultural sector, the Government will consider how to respond, including whether to provide further funding in the usual way.
Lord Beith
This is not a theoretical situation. I do not wish to turn doom-laden, but if the events we are discussing led to a sudden fall and crisis in the sheep sector, then market intervention might be an option that the Government had to consider. I recognise, as the Minister indicated, that we have other ways to do that.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Yes, and I think it has been clear from the department that, like any responsible Government or department, we would act if issues arose. The noble Lord mentioned the sheep sector; in the temporary tariff regime we brought forward, we recognised the sensitivity and potential vulnerability of that sector. He is absolutely right: we need to be alive to, and ready to act on, issues of weather or markets. That point is well made.
The noble Lord raised the issue of the euro. Defra and the DAs have agreed to retain references to the euro in retained EU legislation at the point of exit. This is because, at the point of exit, the CAP will be part-way through making payments under current schemes. To minimise disruption and avoid a difference in sums paid to farmers before and after exit, we will retain the euro until an appropriate time when we can make the change to sterling with minimal disruption. We intend to bring forward regulations to amend euro references to sterling later. These regulations will of course be subject to normal parliamentary scrutiny. In addition, we will work with the devolved Administrations on any changes.
The noble Lord, Lord Beith, asked about retention. On implications for farmers, I reiterate that the Government have guaranteed that the current level of agricultural funding under Pillar 1 will be upheld until 2020 as part of the transition to new domestic arrangements, and that all CAP Pillar 2 agreements signed before 31 December 2020 will be fully funded for their lifetimes. The exchange rate for BPS 2018 is already set for the scheme year, meaning that farmers paid either side of exit day will be subject to an identical exchange rate.
The noble Lord, Lord Beith, asked how many state aid rules there will be after exit. The state aid regime will be rolled over by this statutory instrument, as will the whole architecture through the BEIS statutory instrument. We are not making any changes to the current EU regime beyond those required to make these matters operable.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked whether the SIs will be necessary if the Agriculture Bill gains Royal Assent before the end of the current implementation period. If the current withdrawal agreement is agreed, these SIs will still be needed to ensure that the retained EU CAP legislation is operable in a UK context at the end of the implementation period. This will be the case even once the Agriculture Bill has gained Royal Assent. This is because the horizontal framework regulations, as amended by the SIs, will be required while we continue to operate legacy CAP schemes under retained EU law. Likewise, some CMO regulations will remain after the Agriculture Bill comes into force.
The noble Lord asked about the discontinuity in state aid: will DAs have their own rules and do they take effect at exit day or at the end of the implementation period? This is a reserved policy area, but, as with all the SIs I have had to deal with, there has been a close working relationship with the devolved Administrations. BEIS is working on a memorandum of understanding with the DAs, and my noble friend Lord Henley is working on this. If there is any further information I can bring forward from that, I will let your Lordships have a copy.
In a no-deal scenario—
Ivory Bill
Lord Beith Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cormack is an extremely experienced parliamentarian, but his arguments would be a little more convincing if he avoided describing my noble friend the Minister’s response as obdurate.
One of the complaints that we hear about the House of Lords is that we are far too London-centric. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to the suggestions of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, about the Northumbrian pipes. Perhaps there is something that the Minister could do—some special arrangement. I hope that my noble friend will think about that.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and I thank her for bringing this amendment forward. Throughout most of my adult life I have had much pleasure from hearing the Northumbrian pipes. They are a sweet sounding, relatively quiet instrument—often played indoors—and were the musical instrument of many shepherds and farmworkers in the area that I used to represent. Subsequent generations of pipers have often come from other walks of life—teachers who have been in a variety of professions—but the core of people on whom the musical repertoire of the pipes has depended, and whose tunes are recorded, came from the farming life of Northumberland.
I want the Minister to understand how important this is to us and how strongly we are pleading for him to do something about what is now seen as a threat, particularly to the new pipers—young people and, sometimes, those in retirement—who have to acquire an instrument. We are talking about an instrument of which there are not large numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, mentioned how many thousands of violin and cello bows there are in this country. The sets of Northumbrian pipes are numbered in hundreds—not thousands—and it is quite hard to acquire a set now that there are so few remaining craftsmen who make these instruments. Most of the people who are involved in this activity are not wealthy and if the supply is artificially restricted by the exclusion of so many instruments which were made before 1975 and have ivory content, it would be a very serious threat.
I confess that I have difficulty understanding how the 20% exemption could be applied in the area of Northumbrian pipes, although the Minister gave me a moment of hope when he referred to integral voids, such as the area of an interior of a drawer in a chest of drawers. My mind immediately went to the bag in which the air is pumped in from the bellows, which the piper operates with his or her arm. The bellows could at least be inflated when the judgment is made as to what the integral void is and whether it passes the 20% exemption. Describing that illustrates how worrying it would be if we have to depend on such a concept in order to get a reasonable exemption, which I am sure most people, looking at it rationally, would realise was necessary and was not a coach and horses.
What worries me is that there has been a lot of engagement and discussion with various trades and activities about this Bill. Not all of it has led to the outcomes that some would have desired, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has pointed out. I am not convinced that there has been enough engagement yet with Northumbrian pipers and those who are concerned for their welfare. I want the Minister to give us some assurance that he will try to ensure that that engagement takes place and that, by the time we reach Report, there is some way of dealing with this problem. I know that there is pressure not to amend this Bill so that it sails back to the House of Commons, but we are a revising Chamber and it is our job to discover if there are areas where the Bill does not meet the practical requirements of our society. If it is necessary to make a small amendment to the Bill better to meet the needs of Northumbrian pipers, the Minister must be ready to make that amendment, unless he finds a non-statutory way of achieving it. I have not yet seen that, so I think we will need an amendment at a later stage and I hope the Minister will apply himself to the task of finding a solution.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
My Lords, I apologise for jumping the gun earlier—perhaps I should say for coming in on an upbeat rather than a downbow. I support Amendment 26A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which is very precise. I reiterate that there are several hundred thousand bows in the United Kingdom alone that have either ivory or mammoth faces weighing less than 1 or 2 grams, which is really minuscule. Some of these will be 200 years old and as musicians buy and sell bows regularly, this volume of permits will have to be redone every few years. The resources required for that would surely be much better directed towards the problem itself, towards protecting elephants and prosecuting the criminals who try to make money out of ivory. I say to the Minister that I completely understand and endorse the desire to make the Bill strong and as watertight as possible but surely there has to come a point, when we are talking about such a tiny thing that does not threaten living elephants in the slightest, where we have to apply common sense.
Lastly, I know there was a meeting of some of the ivory team at Defra, and they indicated to a bow maker that they would not be entirely against this. I can give the Minister more information on that if he would like it.
Lord Beith
I am grateful to the Minister for making that suggestion. I put it to him that one of the things that he and his officials might explore when they meet the society is how many instruments, and what proportion of the total stock of instruments in existence, would be affected if the law remained as is currently proposed, and whether that could be affected by any amendment in a helpful way.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The noble Lord and I are on the same page. That is exactly the sort of requirement that I think we should have so that we can understand the points that noble Lords have made.
Some Northumbrian pipes may contain over 20% ivory and therefore may not meet the musical instruments exemption. I obviously cannot commit to this, but having heard what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have said, is it possible that they could be considered under the rarest and most important items exemption, for instance, because of what the pipes mean in the community? I emphasise that the 20% measurement is applied to the whole instrument, including in the case of the pipes, the bag. I asked this question this morning: it does not include the inflated bag, but it does include the bag. I hope that detail is helpful.
I am a great champion of local traditions. This provision would not stop the pipes being played or enjoyed. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has said, the ability to pass on and to donate these instruments so that the next generation can enjoy those that are not under 20% is still available. On that matter, not just because it was raised by the noble Baroness but because I recognise that I want the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society to feel that it has had a proper hearing, I will ask for that meeting to take place.
Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations
Lord Beith Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, one point that has come to light is the importance of contemporary scientific advice. That is why Cefas will be so important. The problem with the common fisheries policy is that so much was predicated on something that may have been appropriate in the 1970s, but is no longer appropriate in the light of climate change and changes in fish stocks. This is a welcome opportunity for us to have more contemporary research and to learn, as my noble friend said, how better technology and science can furnish us with ways in which to care for the ecosystems in our waters, for which we will become responsible.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister realise that the majority of excellent shellfish from the north-east coast goes overnight to European markets and therefore depends on no customs delays at all? How about the Prime Minister serving some Northumberland lobster and crab to the Cabinet on Friday to make them think about the importance of frictionless trade?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I would always actively encourage everyone in Parliament to eat British fish and products—they are the best in the world. I would therefore encourage the consumption of any products from Northumberland, at Chequers or anywhere else. But the point, as I have tried to explain, is that there is a distinction under international law about access. It is in the mutual interest of the United Kingdom and the EU to have free and frictionless trade between our borders. That is in the interest of every part of the European Union and the United Kingdom.