Brexit: Plant and Animal Biosecurity

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who put his finger on a spot of enormous importance, which is that the Food Standards Agency has been a success story and this should be borne in mind by the Government.

I should mention a past interest: I represented the constituency of Edinburgh West for more than 20 years, during which time I witnessed the way that an alien and enormously destructive bark beetle was able to ravage the arboreal ecological systems in our country. Scotland’s capital city has lost more than 30,000 elm trees since the late 1960s, when the new, virulent strain of Dutch elm disease was brought to the United Kingdom—on, it is believed, logs from North America. By 1980, 20 million trees throughout the United Kingdom had been destroyed, which gives some picture of the enormity of the task facing the Government and our country.

As for the biosecurity of our animal life, the current threat to our pigs from the spread of African swine fever is very dangerous and every effort is being made to keep it at bay and provide a protective vaccine. The shocking fate of our elm trees and the alarming threat posed by the global advance of the virulent and deadly African swine fever offer a stark reminder and a warning about the importance of having truly effective and fit-for-purpose biosecurity systems in place to protect the United Kingdom from imported threats to the health of our plants, trees and animals.

The sub-committee’s report expresses considerable concern over whether the United Kingdom will be able to replace, and in many cases recreate in time for our exit, all the safeguards, alerts and intelligence-sharing put in place over the years by the European Union and which currently help to protect our plants and animals from dangerous invaders. It urges that we should seek continued participation in EU alerts on animal, plant and pest disease threats. I congratulate the chairman of our committee, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on his wise and far-sighted advice to the Government. On publication of the report, he said:

“The existing arrangements are far from perfect, but significant gaps will be created when the UK leaves them. We rely on the EU for everything from auditing plant nurseries and farms to funding our research laboratories. The UK Government has a huge amount of work to do to replace this system in time for Brexit, and failure to do so could have an economic and environmental impact that would be felt for decades to come”.


I raise with the Minister the vital matter of who will be in place to implement all the new biosecurity checks and inspection procedures that will soon have to be rolled out and put into operation on a UK-only basis. The Chief Veterinary Officer of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Dr Christine Middlemiss, told the committee that,

“within the food chain, a vast majority of vets working are of non-UK origin”.

The British Veterinary Association has said that the majority of these vets are from the EU. The committee also heard from the Equine Disease Coalition and the British Equine Veterinary Association. It was quite clear in what it told us. To quote from paragraph 126:

“A shortage of vets will have an adverse effect on disease surveillance, disease control measures, risk of disease incursions, control of an exotic disease emergency, domestic food safety, loss of high quality reputation for exports and animal disease research. This at a time when the potential loss of harmonised disease controlled trade movements between the EU and the UK will increase the need for veterinary checks and certification to maintain our biosecurity”.


With regard to the public sector in a post-Brexit world, the report acknowledges that there has been recent recruitment of staff in Defra but also urges the department to ensure that enough appropriately trained staff are dedicated to the issue of biosecurity.

The United Kingdom Government are currently engaged in the very important process of devising a new UK immigration policy, so can the Minister guarantee that people such as veterinarians, who are essential to our future biosecurity, will be on what is called the shortage occupation list, which is part of that new policy, and that their profession will be prioritised as part of the new arrangements? I am sure he will agree that no matter how good systems, inspections and regulatory checks are, they are effective only if they are policed by ample numbers of appropriately qualified men and women. I hope the Minister will give this pressing matter of sufficiency of staffing very high priority.

With regard to another aspect of biodiversity, I first thank the Minister for his apparent readiness to support the launching of a global review into the economics of biodiversity which includes biosecurity. In time, such a move might well help save countless lives and perhaps even assist with the removal of plastics from the oceans. Secondly, the initiative to increase the waters designated as marine protection areas is very welcome. The Minister will be well aware of to what extent it affects biosecurity, but it will also greatly increase conservation areas as far west as Ascension Island—conservation of sea life, as well as wildlife, will be very welcome. I wish him every good fortune in the very important task of securing renewed co-operation with other countries’ Governments to enhance environmental purposes and prospects.

REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

I understand that we do not live in a perfect world. We often have to make compromises, but some compromises need to be weighed up very carefully. If this fatal Motion is passed, the UK will be left without any framework within which to operate on this sensitive issue, and businesses and the public will suffer. If we support this SI, which has some significant flaws, the UK will operate under an imperfect regime, the consequences of which have been highlighted this afternoon. There are several phrases to describe this situation: “between a rock and a hard place” or “between the devil and the deep blue sea”. I know that the Minister is listening to the arguments put forward, but I suspect that his hands are tied by those in the other place. However, I look forward to what he has to say and hope that we can find a way forward.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief. This has been a remarkably good debate, and I strongly congratulate the sub-committee Chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the noble Lords, Professor Lord Krebs and Professor Lord Trees, and the noble Viscount, Professor Lord Hanworth, each of whom made extremely relevant and important points. While we were considering this, I was struck by how many are employed in the chemical industry; I understand the figure is far above 50,000. I hope it will be strongly borne in mind that their expertise is absolutely essential for our country, especially when there is the possibility of wide-scale duplication.

The other point I make is that a restriction on the availability of medicines would cause grave concern. I hope that the Minister will exercise a watching brief and that an independent statutory committee will be created, as called for by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. This will take no more than a lot of hard work, understanding and, if I may say so, openness and transparency.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, in this debate noble Lords with considerable experience have made extremely valuable contributions, certainly for me. I also found it immensely valuable having meetings earlier to get abreast of some of the key, essential points that noble Lords have made today.

I reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, when talking about Aston Chemicals. I feel confident mentioning the name, as the noble Baroness mentioned it. So many of these businesses are in the small business sector, and how essential it is. I acknowledge the importance of the chemical industry and its contribution. I think we all agree how essential it is to have a regime—we can discuss what would be the optimum regime—where we can all have confidence in the use of chemicals. There have been strong expressions on matters that I entirely respect and understand, but I have a responsibility to your Lordships to say—and these are not just my riding instructions from the other place—that we need this statutory instrument if we are to have an operable system, which the chemical industry acknowledges.

I have counted and I think I may have had 45 to 50 questions. It would be impossible to indulge your Lordships and answer every one in great detail, but I will endeavour to answer as many as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, opened by asking if Her Majesty’s Government—Defra and other departments—are concerned about these matters. I say emphatically yes, for the two reasons I opened with that noble Lords raised. This is a major commercial interest of this country. We also have the great responsibility of ensuring that our country is safe, and indeed that products from our country are safe for others to use.

On IT, the first thing to say is that I could never have invented any of it—so I can safely say that I would not have been in any positon to say whether this will work—but I am assured that for day-one functionality we are ensuring that industry will be able to register new and imported chemicals and to provide authorities with information required for maintaining the validity of existing registrations. Post day one, we will enable joint registrations for industry and build back-end functions for the HSE. I acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said about IT, but this has been tested with industry and I can only report what I have heard on the success of that testing.

Ivory Bill

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on an excellent speech and it is a pleasure to follow him. When we declare an interest with regard to a particular matter being debated in the House, it is usually a financial or economic one. On this occasion, as we discuss a ban on the buying and selling of ivory with a few limited exceptions, I would like to mention an interest in one relative in particular. I am very happy indeed to have as my cousin Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a renowned zoologist and wildlife conservationist. He and his family are based in Kenya and, 25 years ago, he founded the charity Save the Elephants, which is still going very strong.

Iain said that as a boy he dreamed of flying across the African bush helping to save the continent’s wildlife. Dreams can come true. Indeed, for many years he flew over a number of African countries carrying out elephant counts so that their Governments would know by how much the elephant populations had dwindled. This was an important service for the Governments concerned. Iain became one of the foremost authorities in the world on the African elephant and one of its greatest champions. He wrote in the National Geographic blog:

“The world’s wildlife, both on land and in our waters, is such a precious resource, but it is also a limited one. It cannot be manufactured. And once it’s gone, it cannot be replenished. And those who profit from it illegally are not just undermining our borders and our economies. They are truly stealing from the next generation”.


I believe that lain Douglas-Hamilton was right about the next generation. The natural heritage of many parts of Africa is directly under threat, and what amounts to ecocide could destroy the wildlife and the magnificent animals that attract tourists to Africa from all over the world.

Thanks to Save the Elephants and other estimable wildlife conservation organisations, we have a great deal of knowledge about the situation facing these very intelligent animals, which make such an invaluable contribution to the ecological infrastructure of our precious planet. We also know, sadly, of the man-made perils that currently stalk the elephants. Ivory can command a high price, particularly in the Middle East, and that continues to be a powerful incentive to the networks of brutal poachers and traffickers.

According to the United Nations, up to 100 elephants in Africa are being killed every day, with their tusks hacked off their bodies by ruthless poachers involved in the now illegal international ivory trade. In the last 10 years, the number of elephants in the world has gone down by almost one-third and, as has been said by the noble Lord who has just spoken, we must not forget the threat posed also to rhinos, hippos and walruses, as well as the narwhal, with that extraordinary pointed tusk. It is much to be welcomed that the Government began a consultation earlier this month to see whether the new, tougher ivory trading ban that we are considering today, which will apply regardless of the date of the object, can be extended by secondary legislation to other such creatures.

The trade in ivory has highlighted the situation by pointing out how close to extinction a very special species can be. My noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond made one of the best speeches I have ever heard in this House. He is fundamentally right in saying that we are confronting a moral outrage. I believe that to be entirely the case.

The action taken by the United States, China and France has already been referred to. Being prepared to act is a significant indication of the importance of this subject. The Government have said that the Bill before us will bring into force a ban on ivory sales in the UK which would be,

“the toughest in Europe—and one of the toughest in the world”.

Adequate enforcement of the ban in the UK will obviously be very important, so can the Minister assure us that that will happen and that the narrow exceptions, which the Government say do not make any contribution to poaching, will not be exploited or abused? Are the proposed self-registration and certification processes robust enough for items for which exemption is sought?

The ivory trade of course is not the sole threat to the well-being of elephants in Africa and Asia; they also face the continuing encroachment of human development into their traditional territories. Iain Douglas-Hamilton has put a lifetime of research into the conservation of elephants. He has discovered that farmers do not need to kill elephants that are trampling their crops. Elephants fear bees stinging them in the eyes, so if the boundaries encompassing fields have beehives, the elephants will not invade them. Over and above that are the proposals for safe zones for elephants. These will need to be protected and local populations helped to understand the positive benefits that co-existence with the elephants can bring. One reality identified by Save the Elephants is that elephants travel by night to avoid predators. Despite this evasive action, however, the threat to their survival continues.

Returning to the Bill, the Government are to be strongly commended for listening to the views expressed by more than 70,000 people who took part in a wide-ranging consultation, in which 88% backed a complete ban. The Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, has said that this legislation,

“will reaffirm the UK’s global leadership on this critical issue, demonstrating our belief that the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past”.

That day cannot come too soon.