Agriculture Bill

Lord Carrington Excerpts
Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 141-I Marshalled list of Motions for Consideration of Commons Reasons - (16 Oct 2020)
Earl of Caithness Portrait The Earl of Caithness (Con)
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My Lords, In the other place, my honourable friend the Minister, Victoria Prentis, criticised some of our amendments because they were badly drafted. That shows a huge weakness in the Government’s argument. Our amendments are not necessarily badly drafted; we produce them, they are agreed by the House and, if the Government accept the principle of them, they get redrafted properly. That is the function of this House; it is not our function to be lawyers. However, the Government are being unnecessarily obstructive and intransigent on this Bill, and that is a huge sadness because they are alienating a lot of farmers and those who live in the country who see them as unnecessarily reluctant to accept any improvements to the Bill.

The Minister thanked us for our work, but our work has counted for nothing—despite the many hours we spent on this Bill, there has been just one small movement by the Minister. It seems to me that our work is not appreciated, or, if it is appreciated, it is certainly not acted upon.

My noble friend waxed lyrical about our scientists and their control of pesticides. How we miss the Countess of Mar. Many times, I listened to an Agriculture Minister on the Front Bench in this House, telling her that the scientists had said that sheep dip was safe, when clearly it was not. The Countess finally won her battle on this. So, I say to my noble friend, it is not surprising if one is a little sceptical of what the Defra scientists are saying.

As rightly mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, some pesticides, fungicides and insecticides, applied wrongly by farmers, are a hazard to health. The briefing that I have received says that the Government do not wish to accept the amendment because they have an integrated pest-management policy which will be a critical part of a future farming policy, giving farmers new tools to protect their crops. There is absolutely nothing in there about the health of human beings. I have talked to a lot of farmers who spray fields; they are not all in the same category as those on the farm of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. He made excellent points at an earlier stage, but there are those who spray in the wrong conditions, who are rushing to get a job done and not carrying out the work as they should. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is absolutely right. If the Government have these powers, why have they not been used? That is a critical question, which my noble friend has to answer.

I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on climate change. It is not blaming the farmers. Farmers have a hugely important role to play. In fact, the Scottish Government entered into consultation today with Scottish farmers and crofters to tackle this precise issue of climate change. There are huge opportunities in the way that one can feed stock, for instance, that would reduce methane emissions. This is not having a go at farmers but wanting to work closely with them. I rather like what the noble Baroness said, asking the Government to “turn good intentions into policy”. That is all this amendment is asking; I hope it succeeds.

Lord Carrington Portrait Lord Carrington (CB)
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My Lords, I declare my agricultural interests as set out in the register, together with my membership of the National Farmers’ Union. I want to speak against Amendment 11B on pesticides, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. This is a very broad and vaguely drafted amendment. It would be extraordinarily damaging to agriculture in this country and would add nothing of value to the existing regulatory regime; I urge its rejection.

As we have already heard, and according to some 100 experts at the HSE and the Expert Committee on Pesticides, the UK operates one of the strictest regulatory regimes in the world and pesticides are licensed only after extensive research. There is already a strict code of practice and incidents of harm and non-compliance are investigated. If there is a complaint, it is investigated. Operators must have the appropriate qualifications, and equipment is regularly tested under various protocols and assurance schemes.

Banning or limiting the use of pesticides would have devastating implications for food and crop plants, massively reducing the volume and quality of UK food, making large parts of farming economically unviable and thereby encouraging imports of food grown by overseas producers using the same pesticides that we are trying to ban or limit.

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Earl of Caithness Portrait The Earl of Caithness (Con)
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My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Empey, I would very much like my noble friend Lord Gardiner to be the Secretary of State, but I have to disagree with him that it would make any difference. I think the die is cast; the Department for International Trade is against these amendments, as is No. 10. They do not get farming in this country, and it would not matter if my noble friend was Secretary of State. I think we are batting our heads against a brick wall. But let us continue to bat our heads against the brick wall, and we might finally get a crack in the brick wall.

Amendments 16B and 18B seek to increase the resilience and sustainability of UK food and farming, and that is to be welcomed. On the sustainability of UK farming, I would like to go on a quick tangent, because, as my noble friend the Minister knows, I am concerned about the sustainability of farming, and I think a lot of English farms, as a result of this legislation, will be turned into theme parks. My fear of that was heightened when I listened to “Farming Today” last week. I do not know whether my noble friend listens to “Farming Today”, but it was an interview about what was going to happen as a result of ELMS coming in. It took place with a Defra representative in Cumbria, and she said a farmer could take his sheep to a show, and he would be able to get a grant for that because that is engagement; it is under the heading of “heritage, beauty and engagement”. This is not farming; this is taking it to the extreme. So I ask my noble friend: if a farmer is going to be able to get an ELM grant for taking his sheep to the show—and good luck to my noble friend Lord Inglewood—would the farmer be able to claim the same engagement by taking his produce to the harvest festival service? There, in the church, everybody would be able to see his grain, his potatoes, his leeks; that is engagement of the highest kind, so surely the theme park managers will be able to benefit from that.

Let me return to the amendment. Again, in the committee I sat on, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, it was quite clear that the hospitality industry is keen to buy the cheapest food at the cheapest price and sell it at the cheapest price, regardless of where it comes from and what the quality is, let alone the animal welfare standards. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester—and I am happy to support him once again on his amendment—told us how much of the food we consume in this country comes from the hospitality side. That is a major concern. I have already described how difficult it was to get evidence from some of these people, but what evidence we did get did not fill me with any confidence for the future of farming and animal welfare standards in this country.

My noble friend the Minister, when opening, said that these amendments were disproportionate. If they are disproportionate, it means that the current system is adequate, and the current system is clearly not adequate, because we have heard of the bolt-ons that are going to be necessary and which are taking place. Surely, much the cleanest and best thing to do is to persuade the Department for International Trade and No. 10 that Amendments 16B and 18B should be included in the Bill.

It is absolutely right that there should be independent oversight of these trade deals, and that that body should report to Parliament through the Secretary of State. I have been in the Minister’s position and, after a cross-party defeat—and, so far, the Minister has no supporters, and the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Curry, have six each—I went to see Viscount Whitelaw, who was Leader of the House, and apologised for getting heavily defeated by a cross-party amendment. He looked at me and said, “Malcolm, perhaps they were right.” I wonder whether my noble friend could take that back to his Secretary of State.

Lord Carrington Portrait Lord Carrington (CB)
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My Lords, I declare once again my farming interests, as set out in the register. I am extremely pleased to be able to support Amendment 18B, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Curry. As we all know, the amendment has widespread support in this House and nationally, and, as it has returned in a slightly different format, it can be discussed accordingly.

I will make two very short points. I understand why the Government do not want to see their hands tied by a specific standards clause, as it would be wrong for trade deals to fail if one sector alone, accounting for a small proportion of GDP, has an implied veto. This amendment is a very sensible compromise, in that it enables a committee of experts to report to Parliament before a deal is signed, and then the pros and cons can be decided.

Secondly, other countries, notably the United States of America, have independent trade commissions that report to their assemblies, so no precedent is being set.

Lord Lansley Portrait Lord Lansley (Con)
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My Lords, first, I apologise for intervening on our consideration of the Agriculture Bill at this stage, having played no part whatever in any previous consideration of it. But I intervene today because I have played a part in the consideration at every stage of the Trade Bill—and, indeed, the previous Trade Bill, in the last Session. So I come as an emissary from the Trade Bill discussions.

Before I come to Amendment 16B, I will just say to my noble friend the Duke of Wellington that I have sat in a Reasons Committee in the House of Commons, and when such a committee is presented with a Lords amendment that breaches financial privilege, custom and the Standing Orders effectively require that it presents just that one reason. So he should attach no weight to the fact that no other reasons were presented. That is the form of how it is done.

On Amendment 16B, I start from the same place as my noble friend. We have a manifesto that commits us to the highest standards of environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. However, I do not agree with her that we require Amendment 16B in order for this to happen.

I am a member of the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee of your Lordships’ House. We are looking at the trade agreements as they come through. At the moment we have only the Japan agreement to look at as a new, as opposed to a rollover, agreement. Of course, these issues have not arisen with the rollover agreements. The Japan agreement would be covered by this amendment, because it relates to agriculture and food—there are provisions relating to tariff changes and so on. Are we really suggesting, as a consequence of this amendment, that the British Government will now not enter into a trade deal with Japan on the grounds that the Japanese Government will not—I am sure that they will not—accept that UK standards should be applied in Japan? Their view may well be that their standards are equivalent, but they will not sign an agreement that says that they are committed to that.