Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for introducing this group of amendments. I particularly associate myself with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for the simple reason that having confidence in our food is essential to the food and farming sector.

I spent five years in the other place chairing the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and perhaps one of the most difficult inquiries we had was that into the horsemeat scenario. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said in speaking to the amendments before us, Amendments 30, 39 and 146 in particular, it could so easily have been not just a fraud and a scare but another food scandal. Humans could have been infected. I suppose it was a blessing that it was just one type of meat being passed off for a much more expensive type of meat.

I pay tribute to the work the Government did at that time in setting up the independent inquiry led by Professor Chris Elliott and its work to review Britain’s food system. Amendment 30 goes to the heart of the matter. I am not entirely convinced that the food checks we agreed to in the TCA are in place. We were told they are going to be introduced and I have discussed this with the Food Standards Agency; they are meant to be introduced completely this year.

Also this year, we are introducing unitary government in North Yorkshire so are merging the two key departments that look at this—environmental health and another department, the name of which will come back to me. I think the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was right about the few local authorities that are actually conducting tests into the safety of our food, and whether the food is what it says on the label and is not a fraud.

Amendment 39, while it perhaps does not cover every single scenario as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, goes some way to expressing why it is vital that the European regulations provide the food safety and hygiene to which we have signed up.

In summing up this debate, I hope my noble friend puts our minds at rest as to what that procedure is going to be and gives us an assurance that the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Krebs, have sought in this small group of amendments that those tests, which have stood the test of time, will continue to be place.

One of the recommendations—I do not know if it was implemented—from the report that looked into the horsemeat fraud in 2013 was that major retailers, and I think my noble friend did work for Tesco for a time, should conduct their own tests on a mandatory basis, not just the voluntary basis as it apparently is at the moment. I hope my noble friend updates us on the Government’s thinking in that regard.

My preference would be that phytosanitary checks take place at our borders. That is what we signed up to, and the food industry hopes that the Government can show that imported food meets the same tests and is as safe to eat as domestic food produced under our very high standards. In addition to them, regular checks should obviously be conducted. I do not know whether my noble friend has an update in response to the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on how many local authorities are actually doing checks that we require of them at this time. Is my noble friend convinced that they have the manpower and funding resources to ensure that this remains a priority? With those few remarks I lend my support to, in particular, Amendments 30, 39 and 146.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I sat through the entirety of the Second Reading debate—I missed only one speaker—and I have sat through today’s Committee, just missing, alas, about five minutes at the beginning of the session after lunch. I have been in receipt, as I am sure most noble Lords have been, of very strong criticism from those outside the House. For example, I had a briefing from Prospect which is central to the matters of this Bill because it covers inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive. It describes this Bill as “reckless, unworkable and undemocratic”. Without reading the reports, there has been severe criticism from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

This has sorrowed me. I am sorry for the Government and am particularly sorry for the two Ministers who have been to the Dispatch Box. Indeed, if there is a third Minister to go to the Dispatch Box—she nods her head—I am sure that I will have sympathy for her. Look at the number of interruptions that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, received when he was at the Dispatch Box, and it was the same for the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. Look at the blasts that came from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson. The Ministers are safe from that at the moment because those noble Lords are no longer in their places, but there are further days in Committee, and I am sure they will come back and that the same blasts will be sent again to our Ministers.

I am sorry for the Government because they have just made a very simple mistake. They have sought to deal with European law the wrong way round. The right way round, as will be advocated later by my noble friend Lord Whitty, is to retain it. This is what happened in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act: it retained all EU law so that, when provisions of certain EU laws need adjustment, then adjust them, change them, scrap them; do what you like with them. That is the right way round. I have already expressed my reasons for being sympathetic to the three Ministers who are sitting on the Government Front Bench.

The sensible thing, having produced a Bill that is simply the wrong way round, is for the Government to withdraw it in a dignified way. I am sure all your Lordships would welcome that and would not seek to affront the Government in their modesty when withdrawing the Bill. It has happened before in my experience. In 1995, the then Conservative Government produced an arbitration Bill, which happened to be in my area of expertise. It was shown to members of the arbitral community, who told the Government that they had got it all wrong and that it was an atrocious Bill. The Government politely withdrew it. Then, under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, a new Bill was brought—not disposing of the Bill, just starting again. The noble and learned Lord produced a report and a draft Bill that was perfect, and the Arbitration Act 1996 has been in operation ever since, to the great benefit of the arbitral community, which is now a very big community.

That is the simple thing to do. If the Government simply and politely withdraw the Bill, we will politely applaud them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and I entirely agree with his conclusion, even if I might have expressed it in slightly stronger terms. I rise to make the first Green group contribution to Committee. I will speak particularly to Amendment 38 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Krebs, to which I have attached my name, although all the amendments in this group are closely related to food and farming, so to a large extent I will cover all of them. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and others who signed Amendment 2: I also signed it, but unfortunately other business in the House forced me into the other Chamber.

It is interesting to draw parallels between the first two groups, which covered employment law and employment rights, and this group. When we were talking about employment rights, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, along with many others, focused on their having been achieved over decades as a result of public campaigning and effort. We often talk about democracy as meaning things that happen here in this Chamber, and in elections and votes, but democracy at its heart is people campaigning. That is how we have delivered many employment rights and food protection rights, including in respect of pesticides, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, clearly described. Those protections were not arrived at by people sitting in a chamber; they have come through huge outside campaigns.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I have listened to nearly all the debate thus far. We heard, particularly in the early stages, the Minister say, “Trust the intentions of this Government”. I have to contrast that with what we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who talked about departments thinking boldly and unnecessary regulatory burdens being removed. If that is the message being sent to departments, that would seem to indicate the Government’s intentions. Those intentions have been mentioned by all sides of your Lordships’ House, notably, and with horror, by Cross-Benchers. They cannot be accused of playing party politics and thinking about elections; they are simply horrified by the undemocratic—a word that has been used many times—and reckless, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, approach of this Bill.

The reason I chose to sign Amendment 38, when I could have signed any amendment in this group covering toy, cosmetic and food safety, is the issue of farm antibiotic use, which nobody has focused on yet. There is an interesting parallel to be drawn between antibiotic use and, as many people have referred to, the fact that financial controls have explicitly been excluded from the Bill because “This is all being dealt with elsewhere until we start going forward.” We are now coming towards the end of a crucial—and, I will acknowledge, the Government’s world-leading—antibiotics strategy, which is now going to be reviewed. So, why not exclude antibiotics, if nothing else? If we are looking to exclude the financial sector, why not exclude antibiotics, given that a review process is built into the system that is going to look at antibiotics?