Agriculture Bill

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

I was a party to the 34th report of the Delegated Powers Committee in the last Session, reporting on the previous, abortive Agriculture Bill. The committee viewed that Bill as a major transfer of powers from the EU to the Executive, bypassing Parliament and the devolved legislatures. A skeletal framework means that there is no policy content. That Bill contained some 40 separate regulation-making powers, exercisable for the indefinite future and with no sunset clause. To cap it all, the Minister could create undefined criminal offences with a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment.

As the current committee makes clear in its 13th report, some of those criticisms have been met in the redrafting of the Bill, and we should be grateful for that. One important issue is that Defra has recanted on its desire to send farmers to prison and has reduced the proposed penalties for such criminal offences as it may dream up merely to an unlimited fine. Nevertheless, although there are desirable improvements, this remains a skeleton Bill, as the current Delegated Powers Committee points out and as my noble friend Lord Addington mentioned a moment ago. At some unknown future time, the Minister will slot a package of policies into this frame, as and when he has worked them out. He will introduce a series of unamendable SIs for minimum scrutiny and, save for one issue only, with no consultation.

The Government’s intentions with regard to the future shape of British agriculture as a whole remain obscure. We see it through a glass darkly, not face to face; as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, said, it is vague. Clause 4 requires the Government to place before Parliament a multiannual plan, covering seven years in the first instance and setting out the Government’s strategic priorities—but this is for England. Will the multiannual plan even consider its implications upon Wales and Scotland? What about the relationships generally between Scotland, Wales and England—a point raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose? Three separate agricultural regimes will be developing in Great Britain. How will this internal market operate or co-operate? What will be the rules and how will they be determined? My noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem called for Scottish participation in fashioning these rules, and equally, there must be Welsh.

If in Wales we want to support upland family farms through generous subsidies, does the undercutting of Cumbrian sheep prices cause any problem? If the English Government want to subsidise, say, cheese production in Cheddar or Cheshire, what happens in Caerphilly? How level will the playing field be?

Since the border with the EU has now been firmly placed some 30 sea miles west of Holyhead, I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, in also asking how Northern Ireland agricultural production will be integrated with the rest of the United Kingdom, forms or no forms.

I have to say that these are terrible times for farmers in Wales. They are shortly to be cut off from their European markets, losing direct access for three-quarters of their exports. The pandemic has lost them supplementary income from, for example, restored farm cottages and buildings from which they can extract at least some income, simply from the view. They separately, and desperately, need support and an injection of confidence in the future. This Bill will not assist them.