Agriculture Bill

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I do not namecheck everyone who has spoken. I think that, with the exception of a few notable contributions, we were all in agreement that food production linked to human health should be at the centre of the Bill. I have previously cautioned against adding a whole lot of new features to Clause 1, but I make an exception for this issue. This is a fundamental lack in the Bill as it stands, and I will explain why in a moment.

We have tabled Amendments 36 and 92 in this group, and I thank noble Lords who have put their names to them and who have commented favourably on them. Amendment 36 adds an extra purpose to Clause 1. It would make it clear that producing healthy food, including through horticulture, in an environmentally sustainable way should be a key purpose for which financial assistance can be given. Amendment 92 goes on to give a clear definition of “environmentally sustainable way”, in particular emphasising the need to measure the long-term impact on natural resources.

We believe that this approach should be a fundamental objective of our future farming policy, so I want to talk about that overriding principle rather than the individual amendments. As I said, our amendments echo the theme of a number of other amendments this evening that highlight the production of healthy food as a necessity to tackle food insecurity, food poverty and poor nutrition. We believe that the farming community lies at the heart of that.

The Government’s White Paper, Health and Harmony: The Future for Food, Farming and the Environment in a Green Brexit, highlighted the key links between our farming and food supply systems. However, incentives to produce healthy food seem to be missing from this Bill. The Minister the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, made clear at Second Reading that financial assistance should not be given for producing food, as this was a commercial decision. He said:

“in our view food is a private good; it is bought and sold. This is the key distinction of the philosophy of the legislation, because its value is rewarded in the market. These new financial assistance powers are intended to reward farmers and land managers for those outcomes that the market does not currently recognise.”—[Official Report, 10/6/20; col. 1830.]


This is a profound philosophical distinction and we profoundly disagree. The danger with this philosophy is that maintaining UK food production is no longer a priority: we increasingly rely on imports and have to fight for enough quality food to feed our nation in the global markets. This is a seriously risky strategy, particularly as we leave the EU and no longer have the right of access to a large, stable food supply market. As we have discovered in the Covid-19 pandemic, these international food supply chains can be precarious, so we argue that feeding our nation is a public good.

However, we cannot simply rely on the food production systems of old. The public health consequences are too stark. As noble Lords pointed out, our nation’s dietary habits are fuelling obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. It is characterised by a low intake of fibre, fruit and vegetables, while we overconsume energy, saturated fats and sugars.

Last year, the Social Market Foundation calculated that more than 1 million people in the UK live in food deserts. These are neighbourhoods where poverty, poor transport and the lack of shops seriously limit access to affordable fresh fruit and vegetables. On the one hand, therefore, we have growing obesity, and on the other hand we have growing food poverty. The recent pandemic illustrated all too shockingly that millions of people relied on food banks and food parcels. The school meal voucher chaos illustrated that tens of thousands of children who relied on schools to provide the one substantial meal of the day were left to skip meals when that provision was taken away.

These are huge public health issues for the Government, but they are also matters where a change in farming practice could fuel better eating habits and lead to a healthier nation. We will not achieve this by intensifying conventional farming methods, which would strip out the natural nutrients in the soil and weaken natural defences to pests and diseases, leading to more artificial crop protection interventions. This is why—and this has been a theme throughout our debate—a whole-farm ecological development has to go hand in hand with generating healthy food. We address the issues of food security and the need for a national food plan in later amendments. In the meantime, I commend these amendments to the House.

I say to the Minister, however, that of all the issues we have debated so far, this is the one where I think the Government have got it badly wrong. I hope that he will reflect on this and come back with a more positive response on report. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an absorbing debate once again. I thank my noble friend for her Amendment 35. I shall address Amendments 75, 56, 60, 69, 71, 36 and 92, all of which relate to food production. I declare my farming interests as set out in the register.

This debate has thrown up quite a number of questions, and those that I am not in a position to answer—very often because they require some detail—I shall, of course, answer in writing in a letter that I am proposing to compose when we conclude Committee stage. Because a lot of things are coming up that are repeated quite often, it would be best if we try to co-ordinate with a sensible government response. I hope that is acceptable to your Lordships.

Growing healthy, nutritious food is, of course, the primary role of farmers. It is something that farmers in the United Kingdom do exceptionally well. Through the purposes in Clause 1, the Government want to support goods that benefit society but are not currently provided for by the market. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, is absolutely right: I said it at Second Reading and I say it again. The point about food, in contrast, is that it can be bought and traded: it is rewarded in the market and, indeed, those of us who farm receive income from our production. That is why, in the construction of the Bill, new Clause 1(4)—I say “new Clause”, because I think this is a very important addition and one I strongly support—places a duty on the Secretary of State, when framing any financial assistance scheme, to consider the importance of food production and its production in an environmentally sustainable way. This was a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and my noble friend Lord Northbrook.

I absolutely agree with the analysis of my noble friends Lord Inglewood and Lord Cormack of what this country and much of the world has gone through in previous times, and why food production is so important. It is important for this country, but also for giving us opportunities to help feed the world through our exports. That is essential too, and it is why I say to my noble friend Lord Marlesford that food production and environmental sustainability not only can but must —I underline “must”—go hand in hand. We should be champions of great British food and drink and I place on record that farmers have, all too often, been maligned. I am reminded of what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said on an earlier Committee day about all the things that farmers do on our behalf.

The duty requires the Secretary of State to have “regard to the need” to encourage sustainable production, rather than simply “to encourage” sustainable production, when designing financial assistance schemes. This is because all schemes must be looked at in the round; each scheme will have different aims and will operate in different ways. While the Government’s future farming schemes as a whole will be designed to encourage sustainable food production, it is not necessarily the case that every scheme is directly aiming to do so. I have one example—the tree health pilot which will start next year—but the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke of another aspect of a scheme which clearly does not directly relate to food production.

The duty, as drafted, gives Ministers the flexibility to design individual schemes in a way which best meets their objectives, while ensuring that there is a clear obligation to encourage sustainable food production overall. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, among many others, spoke of health and well-being. I was very struck by his words. Indeed, the important report that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised, Hungry for Change, is very important, because this will involve multiple departments. I am therefore very pleased to say that I will make sure that Defra will play a key part in that multi-departmental response.

The Government believe that the best place to encourage healthy eating is later on in the supply chain, a point that my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Blencathra were referring to: after all, fruit and vegetables can still be used in products that are unhealthy if not taken in moderation. I know that it may be unsatisfactory to noble Lords who see this as an opportunity to attach to the Bill something that we think is best placed in other work, but it is the intention that the national food strategy should address these major challenges, including food security and health. The strategy will build on the Bill to help ensure that our food system delivers healthy and affordable food for all, built on a resilient and sustainable agriculture sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the Minister and thank him for the sympathetic way in which he is dealing with this Bill. Like all of us, he will have clocked in at 4 pm for a delayed start at 4.40 pm and has sat through all these extensive debates. He deserves not just a medal but a whole chestful of medals for the way he is dealing with it, but he has not dealt with one intervention: the one from the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. He complained —I think he moaned a little—about the fact that on the third day we were still on Clause 1. He called for caution and self-restraint.

During his speech I was checking up. In fact, in this debate more than twice as many Tories as Labour Members—to take a random example—have contributed. We have enjoyed some of the speeches, including the wartime reminiscences. When we eventually get to the next group, we have 12 Tories and only two Labour Members. If the Minister agrees with the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs—I do not, by the way; I think we should scrutinise the Bill carefully both in Committee and on Report—I suggest to him that the person he needs to talk to is the Tory Chief Whip and no one else.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, it is very nice to hear the noble Lord; I enjoy having this dialogue. I am advised that your Lordships will have three times the amount of time, with the six days or more, to consider this Bill in Committee. We should use it wisely; we need to get through a lot of groups. The whole point calls for a bit of good old-fashioned common sense.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his usual detailed responses, but I would like to probe him a little more on whether food security is a public good. He is quite correct in saying that there is a market for food. If that is the definition, clearly production of food is not a public good. However, many times in the past the market has not adequately rewarded me for the food I have produced as a farmer. If we want a nation fed on healthy, wholesome food and schoolchildren need healthy meals, one could argue that the need to intervene could occur at some stage in the future. We do not know what the market will be like when we leave the European Union.

The Minister is quite correct that we will discuss Clause 17. This is important and I very much welcome it, but it does not state what the Government will do if there is a food security crisis. I suggest to the Minister that it may be appropriate to reconsider whether food security should be included as a public good, should the Government need to intervene at some stage in future.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Obviously I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Curry. The construction of the Bill, as I said, ensures that we are rewarding farmers for those matters that we have hitherto not rewarded them for. We will get to that in Chapter 2, which deals with

“Fair dealing obligations of business purchasers of agricultural products”.


We want to address that, which is why it is in the Bill. Clearly, the farmer has not always had a fair deal with agricultural producers and others in the supply chain—and of course in Chapter 3 we will look at producer organisations.

As I said, the construct of the Bill is designed to provide new financial assistance powers within the prism of productivity grants. As subsection (1) states:

“In framing any financial assistance schemes, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to encourage the production of food”,


and this production must be undertaken

“in an environmentally sustainable way.”

We all want a healthy diet. We all want food security. That is why the Government have been working with industry and will continue to work with industry, as we always have. Industry is often the best at finding sources all around the world so that we have resilience in our food supply.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Like the noble Lord, Lord Curry, I wanted to probe very quickly on what basis the production of healthy food would ever be classified as a public good. The Minister has reiterated his view that it is a private good. But does he not accept that in some circumstances it would be a public good and therefore entitled to some of the funding that is set out in the Bill?

The problem with referring noble Lords to the later clauses that deal with food security and the national food strategy is that that area does not necessarily have any money attached to it, whereas the financial assistance and the public good element is the one that we are really interested in, so the onus is on that. Are there any circumstances in which the Minister would see it as a public good?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, but the only way that I can reply to that is to repeat that the whole construct of this is to ensure that farming with food production and enhancing the environment go hand in hand. There is obviously a limited sum of money. The noble Baroness and other noble Lords have said that we must be careful that we do not make this Bill a Christmas tree affair by adding everything on—so we need to be pragmatic.

The area where we have not hitherto rewarded farmers is in relation to the purposes set out in Clause 1(1)(a) to (j). They are considerable projects that will, in the end, help us to produce even better food. If one were to start rewarding food production, it would drive a coach and horses through the construct of the Bill, which is that produce is created by the farmer, for which they receive money. They do not often receive money for the projects in paragraphs (a) to (j). We think, looking at the British taxpayer, that this is the best way of reflecting that we need food production for which the farmer receives payment, and in Chapter 2 we recognise that we need to address fairer arrangements for the farmer. But this is better than, in effect, having a direct payment for the food you produce when you are already being paid whatever you sell your wheat or your milk for. We can have a discussion about that price, but in terms of the taxpayer rewarding and acknowledging farmers, we think that subsections (1)(a) to (j) and (2)(a) and (b) are the right way forward.

[Lord Northbrook]

I thank the Minister for his detailed response to the group. I think he has answered my question. Is what he has just said the reason why he does not approve of Amendment 60—because it does not directly support domestic production financially?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I will have to look again at Amendment 60. The construct is about where, following the Health and Harmony consultation we undertook, it was decided that we should recognise support for farmers in a post-CAP world. It was recognised that we needed to put food production and food security in the Bill, and we have put them in. This is the difficulty when you have improvements in iterations. They were valuable new iterations, but the point about rewarding food production is that, with better fair dealing, the farmer gets a reward from the market. They do not as yet for the purposes in Clause 1(1)(a) to (j), and we think that is where the reward should be.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to all who have contributed to this group of amendments. There were almost 40 contributors, including the Minister and me. It has been a vigorous debate and almost all noble Lords were united.

I am grateful for the response from the Minister. My remaining concern, as has been reflected in the questions, including those following his speech and his response to them, is that food production should be considered a public good. I am not quite sure that we have established that yet. Also, I remain deeply concerned —as, I believe, do other noble Lords—about the future of food security. We have not had and will not have sight of the Dimbleby report on food strategy, in which a lot of this will be dealt with, according to my noble friend said. That is regrettable. But the hour is late. For the moment, I will withdraw this amendment, but I reserve the right to return to it later. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 35.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this has been very helpful debate. I am grateful to my noble friend for Amendments 58, 119 and 135, and to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for Amendment 122.

The Government agree that effective advice and guidance will play an essential role in ensuring that agreement conditions are met and that the outcomes we are looking to achieve through future agricultural policy are delivered. “In connection with” in Clause 1(1) includes advice and guidance given to recipients so that they can better understand how to deliver the purposes for which they are in receipt of assistance. The same is true of the two purposes in Clause 1(2).

My noble friend Lord Northbrook spoke of the environmental land management policy discussion document. My notes state that it is currently live, and my noble friend endorsed that by remarking about it. The Government make it clear that access to an adviser will be a crucial component of the success of ELM. I do not want to go into too many of the tiers at this stage, but tier 3 will be where we provide financial assistance on a much broader, landscape level. I can think of catchment areas and greater expanses of land where a number of land managers and farmers would be involved. Tier 1 would be for the farmer, but tiers 2 and 3 would most likely involve a wider number of farmers and land managers. Those policy documents set out a range of models for the provision of advice, including one-to-one advice, group training, telephone and online support, and facilitation of peer-to-peer learning.

I agree with what was said by my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Caithness and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. The ELM tests and trials team has established an advice and guidance thematic working group—that sounds pretty awful, but I am sure that it is a very good working group. This will gather evidence on how different types of expert advice could help farmers and land managers plan, and record, the public goods they choose to deliver across their land. There are currently 34 tests and trials on advice and guidance. I not only take but endorse the point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas on tone and what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said about the manner in which all these things are done.

In the policy and progress update published in February, the Government confirmed their intention to offer advice to applicants for productivity grants. This advice could help applicants decide how to target investments to achieve the greatest improvements in business performance. Advice and guidance are also an integral part of the Government’s future animal health schemes, with vets in particular having been identified as a key source of advice for farmers who wish to take pragmatic steps to improve animal health.

In the policy update, the Government also committed to a future system of agricultural regulation which, among other things, understands and implements better ways to provide advice and guidance to the sector. The Government will work closely with industry to consider the best way to deliver such advice. It is, however, imperative that that advice and guidance are delivered by the right people, in the right places, at the right time and—I emphasise—in the right way. A wealth of knowledge and expertise already exists across our farming and land management communities. However, it is also a priority for the Government to ensure that the farming industry is adequately supported by advice and guidance.

My noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord De Mauley spoke about agricultural shows. As a former president of the Bucks County Show and a current vice-president of the Buckinghamshire and Suffolk Agricultural Associations, and having made many visits to agricultural shows across the kingdom, I know that they are an extraordinary example of the great part of rural life and farming at its backbone. All of us obviously regret not having been able to go to our local county shows. The current advice on meeting people outside your household is available online and allows that events of more than 30 people can take place as long as they are planned by an organisation in compliance with the Covid-19-secure guidance, Working Safely During Coronavirus: the Visitor Economy. So I say to my noble friends and all noble Lords that planning for next year, which I know all of them are doing, will clearly depend on where we are in the containment of the virus. There is also industry-led guidance on keeping workers and audiences safe during Covid-19, which applies to those working in outdoor events.

I am well aware that many of these show societies are charities, and of the use of the furlough scheme. I will reflect on what noble Lords have said. Agricultural shows are an important part of the rural calendar and are a way for urban and rural schools to get involved and understand why agriculture and rural life are so important. They are a key part of showing the country what the countryside provides.

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his comprehensive and optimistic reply. I urge on him again the importance of allowing failure; allowing people to get things wrong; to try things for the best reason and find the disaster and then have to put things right. We are going to find the right way to do some of these things only if we are adventurous and stick our necks out. That is the sort of support that I hope this Government will feel able to give. I am comforted by what my noble friend said and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.