Agriculture Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I meant to declare my interest as a landowner and arable farmer in my earlier contribution. I support Amendment 59, as I did in Committee. It is very important to have the power to extend financial assistance to events caused by natural phenomena, as well as the economic problems already covered by the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, stated, the amendment moves beyond global market changes to other triggers, such as extreme weather and disease. Like him, I do not believe that the extension should be used as an excuse for farmers to claim that they have been victims of circumstance, particularly if caused by their own inefficiency or incompetence. Like he does, I believe that it is very important that once a natural phenomenon event has been identified, intervention should be implemented without delay.

As other noble Lords have stated, the Minister said in Committee that this situation is already covered by current legislation, but I bear in mind the recent comments of my noble friend Lady McIntosh about the situation in North Yorkshire. I also ask the same question. I believe the amendment should be in the Bill.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on this amendment. It is encouraging that in the briefing note the Minister gave all of us there is a paragraph on the Government’s agriculture bounce-back plan, arising out of the impact of Covid-19. I am conscious that the Government are onside, but the question is whether this should be in the Bill, as the noble Lord described.

I share that I am closely involved with Sri Lanka, as many noble Lords will know. I remember seeing the devastation there on Boxing Day 2004. My wife and I went out there a few days later to help. If you happened to be in the spice trade, it was totally wiped out by two waves. These things do happen.

I also declare an interest in the Cayman Islands. I have family there. Those islands were almost wiped out some 20-odd years ago. In the last season Hurricane Irma did horrendous damage. These are part climate change, part other events.

I add to that list that I worked in India, in Calcutta, for the Reckitt & Colman group when the Indians invaded the tea estates. That hit the tea market something rotten that year—from memory it was 1962. These strange events do happen.

We are used to financial crashes and I think that seed health and other sorts of areas are covered. Nevertheless, today, in the world we are in now, I believe we need to have something in the Bill. It does not proscribe the Government too much. It is just a very sensible precaution relating to climate change and all the other challenges we face.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests, which I declared on previous occasions. I will make one small flanking point to those made already.

As I explained to the House on Tuesday, you can see from farming accounts that the vast bulk of a farm business’s income is from traditional agriculture. They are businesses that have a relatively high turnover and low margins. Against that background, we have been talking a lot about various environmental changes that we want to see in the country, which in turn will be paid for by the public money for public goods formula.

However, against the whole-farm income of the vast majority of farms in this country, that amount of money will still almost certainly be relatively small. If a farm business faces a complete crash in its market—I speak as someone who has an animal livestock business that was wiped out in the foot and mouth outbreak—it faces an existential threat. When faced with an existential threat, you simply do everything you can to save that business. In reality, that means that, whatever the rules about how public money is paid for carrying out environment changes of one sort or another, it will simply be stopped and it will have to be sorted out later.

Rather the same problem faces Lake District farmers, where I am chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, with the Covid outbreak, which has killed off much of the tourist trade, although it is picking up now. It had a pretty devastating effect on farm incomes in a form of agriculture where the margins from traditional husbandry are very low and the farm business’s survival depends on generating tourist revenues.

I argue that the effect of market disruption, quite apart from the impact it might have on any particular farm business, poses a very serious threat to a lot of the entirely good propositions for environmental change and improvement inherent in the debate we are having on the Bill. Therefore, the environmental aspects of what we are discussing are a genuine potential candidate for collateral damage from market collapse. As such, for the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and others have given, it is appropriate that these provisions should be in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

I am happy to support the amendment of the noble Baroness. I am just unhappy that it has to be done in such disruptive circumstances.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, as a number of Members have said, this debate is in the context of exceptional market conditions. I had the privilege in 1979 of being a PPS in the Northern Ireland Office and spending many happy hours in Northern Ireland, where it really comes home to one that agriculture is absolutely vital to that part of the United Kingdom.

I shall make the simple point that, as one who was responsible for a fair amount of drafting in another role in the other place, it seems that officials would much prefer to have an automatic reference in a Bill than an implied one, particularly when it is in sensitive areas. For instance, we are likely to see changes because of climate change. To take an example that I used earlier, who would have thought 20 years ago that Sussex and Kent would be competing in the viniculture market, with enormous opportunities to export? There may well be other developments because of climate change that happen in just a section of England and, unless they are automatically referred to the other three devolved Parliaments, we may find that they too have micro-industries in their particular part of the UK.

That just seems sensible in Amendment 60. I am not going to be tempted to go to Amendment 109 and I actually think Amendment 92 is wrong.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Lords who tabled or supported the amendments in this group, which raise various issues relating to devolved competence. Amendment 60 makes what seems a very sensible suggestion of consulting the devolved Administrations before laying regulations under Clause 20. Given that certain modifications to retained EU legislation are likely to impact on the devolved nations, perhaps on some more than others, it seems perfectly right that there should be a formal consultation requirement. However, I note that even formal consultations on many important matters have not been taking place as regularly or as needed in other matters, and I urge the Government to work much more proactively in this manner.

For the past 20 years, we have had three other legislatures in the UK, and none of the new laws resulting from our withdrawal from Europe should be an opportunity for a power grab of devolved responsibilities back to Westminster. I am therefore glad to see that Amendment 92 proposes a requirement for the devolved Administrations to consent to any regulations being made under Clause 35 on standards relating to the marketing of agri-food products. While we would certainly welcome a mechanism for meaningful consultation, we recognise that a requirement for consent could, in certain cases, delay the implementation of important changes to marketing standards.

Amendment 109 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, my noble friend Lord Hain and others proposes a sunset on the Northern Ireland provisions contained in Clause 45 and Schedule 6. As the noble Baroness noted earlier, Northern Ireland has an economy based largely on agriculture and needs a long-term future policy framework without further delay. The case has been strongly made for that amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s response in relation to it.