Brexit: Agriculture and Farm Animal Welfare (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the chairman of the Select Committee of which I am a member for the skilful way in which he chaired our meetings and drew these two reports to powerful and important conclusions.

In my short speech, I want to talk about two questions which lie at the heart of what we have been debating this evening. First: what is the Government’s plan for feeding the nation with affordable, safe and nutritious food after Brexit? We have not had a food policy for decades, but in the light of what we have heard this evening, it seems that there is a case for the Government having a plan. Secondly—a point that we have heard a lot about—what kind of future land use policy and farming industry do the Government want?

First, a few comments about feeding the nation, and particularly about the price of food. We heard conflicting views about this, and it would be nice to have some clarification from the Minister of the Government’s view. The major food retailers and the British Retail Consortium estimate that a no deal Brexit could add about 10% to food prices, and today’s report from the Resolution Foundation echoes that conclusion. Even with a deal, if it was a hard Brexit outside the single market, there could be significant tariff and non-tariff barriers, which would add substantially to the price of food.

To the poorest people in our country, this could be the difference between being able or unable to feed their families. The lowest decile income group already spends more than 17% of its weekly income on food and non-alcoholic beverages, according to the Office for National Statistics, and research at Oxford University for the Trussell Trust has revealed that three quarters of the 1.1 million users of food banks go hungry several times a year. Undernourishment is not just a third world problem; shockingly, it is right here in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world. Therefore, have the Government estimated the impact of Brexit on food prices in a no deal or an outside-the-single-market case and, if so, what is the answer? What, in particular, is the Government’s estimate of the impact of any price changes on the poorest people in this country?

I will not say anything about food standards and safety, other than to ask the Minister what plans there are for replacing the role of EFSA after Brexit? What about the future of farming and land use? As your Lordships have already heard, the Secretary of State for Transport offered the view on Sunday that, in response to a no deal outcome or an outcome in which there are significant tariffs, farmers in the UK would step in to fill the gap by growing more food, a comment that the chair of British Summer Fruits described as, “Tripe that beggars belief”. It is an interesting idea, but I would welcome some clarification from the Minister on his department’s analysis of how any increase in production of food would be achieved. Would it involve more intensification of farming or turning over more land to farming, bearing in mind, as we have already heard, that more than 70% of the land surface in this country is already farmed, and much of the remaining land surface is populated by towns, cities and villages? Can an increase in production by UK farmers be reconciled with protection and enhancement of habitats and endangered species that will enable the Government to fulfil their promise of leaving the environment in a better state than they found it, bearing in mind that the more primary production and the more of the sun’s energy that we take for our own consumption the less there is for the rest of nature? We cannot have it both ways. Perhaps the Minister can also add which particular kinds of food would the farmers in this country grow more of if they were to increase their production?

We heard a lot about the role of non-tariff barriers in relation to animal welfare and I do not propose to repeat that, other than to say that our farmers are in favour of maintaining high standards but, given the upward pressure on food prices that could result from Brexit, there may be a downward pressure for us to import cheaper products from overseas.

As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said in his introductory remarks, and as others including the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, have said, we are in some ways faced with a fork in the road for the future of agriculture and land use. One future is characterised by free trade, low tariff and non-tariff barriers and cheap food, with a race to the bottom on welfare and other standards. In that future, many farmers would be unable to compete and there would be a real opportunity to reclaim the countryside for wildlife and conservation. So, perhaps that is the Government’s plan.

The other future is one in which tariff and non-tariff barriers are maintained to protect standards for consumers as well as to protect our farmers. This, as we have heard from many noble Lords, is likely to be associated with more expensive food. There may, of course, be a third, middle way which I have not thought of, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to share with us his department’s current thinking on these matters.