Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

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

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have no interests to declare but for years I shadowed Agriculture Ministers Gummer and Hogg—now the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—and represented a predominantly farming constituency through the BSE and foot and mouth crises.

This is an enabling Bill but is really a legislative pig in a poke. Perhaps inevitably, but with dire consequences, it is entirely dependent on its context. From Clause 1, in which the Secretary of State is given a permissive funding role, the only certainty is uncertainty. That uncertainty combines the forthcoming recession following Covid-19 with the potential failure to achieve a satisfactory Brexit deal in just 28 weeks’ time, creating unprecedented chaos for the UK’s food supplies. That recession, as we already know, will be harder-hitting than anything the country has experienced in our lifetime. Anyone who believes the Government will be willing and able to invest on the scale necessary to make the Bill work is surely living in a fool’s paradise. In the worst possible economic environment, the Government are determined to ditch the tried-and-tested partnership with our neighbours in favour of surrender at the feet of Mr “American farmers first” Trump.

We have all seen the Secretary of States’ letter but frankly, they did not support the Parish amendment, and on the rebound from Brexit, how can they really stand up to Trump? In the words of the NFU president, this could result in us

“opening our ports, shelves and fridges to food which would be illegal to produce here”

and

“would be the work of the insane.”

Now, Trump’s negotiators want us to give up origin labelling—so much for consumer choice.

In the unanimous briefing I have received, I especially welcomed the personal evidence from Juliet Cleave, a livestock farmer in my old constituency. In my four minutes, I obviously cannot do justice to her passionate defence of British agriculture. However, one sentence stands out:

“Unfair competition in the marketplace not only undermines the rural economy but will lead to further consumer confusion.”


In that context, Ministers seem to have failed to secure reciprocal protection for traditional food products such as Cornish pasties, Melton Mowbray pies and Scotch whisky, which are all currently subject to the excellent EU GI scheme. I was assured last year that this would be guaranteed, but that looks like another broken Brexit promise.

With a few weeks to go, the Government are charging hell for leather towards failure to secure a satisfactory deal—or indeed any deal at all. Farmers, consumers and the environment could all be the first victims. The Bill is a totally inadequate corrective. In any circumstances, this would surely be folly. Whether Covid-19 will be still fully with us or will have begun to fade by December, to charge over the cliff without even extending the transition would be ludicrous lunacy.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, when opening the debate, observed that Clause 1 gives Ministers powers, not duties, so the financial assistance objectives of the Bill are only permissive and thus inevitably subject to the economic context in which it all becomes operational. It is all very well trying to allocate the most appropriate slices of the financial cake, as all amendments in this group do, but the overall size of that cake is the more critical issue for 2021 and beyond. Every single one of the bids for inclusion is at risk if the cake is drastically shrunken.

I said at Second Reading that I have no interests to declare, but in addition to substantial constituency and Commons responsibilities, until last year I had a small shareholding in a large farming company, and over the years, that enterprise had dairy and substantial arable interests, as well as renewable energy projects. I hope I can claim, therefore, to take an informed interest in the economic health of agriculture and rural areas.

The Bill is a legislative pig in a poke. Perhaps inevitably, but with dire consequences, it is entirely dependent on its context, and in the last week, since Second Reading, the likely context has deteriorated still further. First, the Government, for absurdly obstinate and dogmatic doctrinal reasons, refused to even consider giving the Brexit negotiators more room for manoeuvre by extending the transition. Secondly, Mr Frost then failed again to make any progress in the current discussions. Growers of fruit, vegetables and flowers are all too familiar with substantial frost damage. However, this frost damage is on an incalculable scale. We seem destined to charge towards a really bad deal for British agriculture, or, even worse, no deal at all. In his otherwise very comprehensive letter to us all on 29 June, the Minister completely failed to acknowledge this unprecedented uncertainty. He could make no concrete commitments. How could he, with the Covid-19 recession heading towards us at breakneck speed?

There are global trends to which our industry is especially vulnerable; for example, the failure of Trump’s attempt to build a market for US crops in China has left powerful American agribusinesses desperate to dump into the UK. On top of those major challenges, the combination of the Covid-19 recession and the Brexit failures is producing a uniquely unfavourable financial combination for UK farmers and growers, and the longer the crisis lasts, the nastier the results will be. For example, farmers will start to produce less. We are already experiencing the impact of having few of the 90,000 pickers we usually have from Europe. There will be resultant harvest losses. Then there is scarce credit. As operations slow down, loan terms are extended, cash is trapped and lenders are reluctant to finance commodities and are wary of volatile currencies. Governments everywhere will get scared. Export controls or attempted bans will cause price rises and shortages, with deprived communities hit disproportionately hard.

This all adds up to all the sectors of UK agriculture and horticulture finding it impossible to plan or invest in a climate of unprecedented uncertainty, just as the Government will be grappling with the worst economic crisis since the Second World War, and here, I thought the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, were very relevant. In these circumstances, Ministers can hardly be blamed for being so vague about the multiannual financial assistance plan specified in Clause 4. I am willing to bet that this appears only much later in the year, long after the Bill has reached the statute book.

In his letter, the Minister wrote:

“The Government intends to provide more detail about the early years of the transition, including Direct Payments and future schemes, in the autumn.”


I warn farmers and growers not to expect a cheerful Christmas present. With all the other competing claims—the NHS, the care sector, schools, reviving our already hard-pressed manufacturing sector and trying to stabilise service industries that are forced out of Europe—the Treasury is never going to be very generous to farmers.

Clearly, No. 10 plans to bury Brexit under the Covid-19 recession, but it risks burying large numbers of farmers and growers in the process, with calamitous consequences for consumers and for the nation’s food security. These amendments are crucial. They require the Government to be realistic and frank, because empty promises are literally worthless.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be back in the Chamber after nearly 15 weeks, and to reflect on what the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and others have said about the need to accommodate more Members and get back to normal as quickly as possible. I have a personal interest in that I have discovered that I am very poor at reading a speech into a computer microphone, or even improvising, and whatever skills I have in oratory, humour and irony are absolutely wasted when online—not that I intend to draw on all three of those this afternoon.

I want to reinforce points made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and to comment on the speech by my old—not in age but in longevity of friendship—friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. For those who do not know, the city of Sheffield incorporates in its boundaries a substantial part of the Peak District; in fact, a third of the landmass of Sheffield is in the Peak park. For the benefit of the noble Baroness, I can say that it is not, like some other cities, tatty—I think that was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—land on the edge of the city. It is an essential part of the Peak park, as well as a breathing space, as it always has been, for the city itself.

The reason I mention it is that, as lockdown diminished—this was not one of those forays to discover whether I could drive a car safely—I went out into the area, still in Sheffield, around the Redmires Reservoir, and heard a curlew, one of the greatest sounds you can imagine. As the speeches this afternoon have emphasised, I simply want to say that in conserving as well as developing our agriculture, we should nurture the natural environment. I am all in favour of growing trees—they have to be the right trees—but we need our moorlands. On a point about water-gathering and conservation, we need to understand the essential nature of upland wet areas, particularly the peat bogs, which 13 years ago dried out to the point where, at around this time, in late June or early July, we had the most enormous flooding. At that time, civil servants told the Secretary of State, who happened—and continues —to be a friend of mine, that we were exaggerating when we said we had a problem. When the RAF lifted people by helicopter off the Meadowhall shopping centre, and when a 14-tonne piece of equipment was lifted out of its moorings and swept 100 yards from the Forgemasters factory in the lower Don Valley, I think they may have changed their minds. We need to be aware of what we do, how it affects our environment and why the Environment Bill that is to be brought forward and this legislation should go hand in hand.

I want to comment briefly on land management. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right to indicate that small farmers—tenant farmers, herdsmen—have a job surviving; they use their skills to try to make a sufficient living from keeping the countryside working. But I say to the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that there are large landlords who, like the Duke of Devonshire—no relation —have been struggling to manage the watercourse. They have been working to defend the river running through the land around Chatsworth House from the scourge of American crayfish—which is not one of the breeds that I hope we will be protecting so Amendment 27 is, perhaps, not appropriate after all. They have been trying to do this by persuading Defra to give them a licence so that, having dealt with these crayfish under proper regulations so that nobody thinks of farming them, they can dispose of the fish in a way that allows them to cover the enormous costs involved. I am talking about 20,000 crayfish per year from a stretch of water of just two miles, which destroy the embankments, undermine the area around and are incredibly dangerous in relation to flooding.

All these things go hand in hand. My plea this afternoon is that, as we go through this Bill in Committee and on Report, we reserve for amendments those things that are in synergy with each other, to ensure that the Bill comes out not as a Christmas tree but as a good English pine.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, all Members have emphasised just how significant and timely this group of amendments is. I particularly support Amendments 272 and 274. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, referred to last night’s shock report from the Met Office-led investigation into the effect of manmade carbon emissions in the Arctic and the effect, therefore, on UK weather. That should be a very loud alarm call. I think we are all very conscious of the problems that have arisen from the sequential scrutiny of this Bill and the forthcoming Environment Bill. Very clever co-ordination is obviously essential. In agricultural circles I think we would refer to it as cross-compliance.

I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues believe that the thrust of these two amendments is essential. Indeed, it is difficult at this stage to decide between them: we may want to find ways in which they could be brought together at Report, depending on the Minister’s response. We are very proud of the role that our colleague, Ed Davey, played as the Cabinet member who prepared the UK for the Paris climate change conference in 2015. For that reason, to some extent, I have a slight preference for Amendments 272, since it seems to be firmly rooted in the Paris agreement and the developments, policy and commitments in the process since then. The link to the Climate Change Act 2008 in both amendments is, of course, entirely right in UK legislative terms. However, we respect and wish to encourage recognition of the way in which British Ministers have taken a leading role in the EU, in a real partnership, to maintain momentum since Paris in 2015. That is specifically acknowledged in Amendment 272 at subsection (1)(b).

The detailed rules, procedures and guidelines adopted at the follow-up UN conference in December 2018 are critical in this context and, of course, they are binding on the UK, as any other treaty obligation. This country will be obliged to report on success in meeting emission reduction targets in agriculture in a transparent, complete, comparable and consistent format. Should that not be spelled out in the Bill? It would be very helpful to do that as we look forward to Glasgow next year.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in the sentiments behind these two amendments. To consider Amendment 140 first, we are in the dark a little. My understanding—and I hope my noble friend the Minister will explain this in winding up—is that public good and natural capital will be explained further in the Environment Bill, which we have not yet had sight of here. I share the noble Lord’s concern as to what we understand by “public good”.

I was heartened yesterday by an Answer from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith that nature lies at the heart of the Government’s biodiversity strategy. I argue that looking after nature, which farmers do so well, is a form of public good. I am wedded to the idea of natural flood defences as well. I like to think that active farming underlies this. Will my noble friend confirm that we will have a better understanding of what public funds for public goods are—this is the whole difficulty with the Bill—because it is set out in the Environment Bill, which is not before us now? That would be very helpful.

I also support the idea of providing the means to resolve a dispute in the cases set out in Amendment 141. I took a great interest in one of the vexed schemes, because there were 16 to 20 graziers in a project, who had the right in perpetuity to graze on common land that had a different landowner from where they were tenants. It was a very complex situation. I hope that my noble friend and Defra come up with a scheme where the natural capital or public good is provided by the landowner and a tenant benefits from the scheme. I would like to know what the Government have in mind to resolve disputes such as this. There are similar instances that I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will discuss as part of his Amendment 159A, but he has raised issues that are worthy of debate today.

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we are all anxious to make progress, so I shall be brief.

These two amendments from my noble friend Lord Greaves, which I strongly support, are deceptively modest but very significant in the context of this Bill. As has been said, the concept of public goods has been a persistent and welcome thread through the early sections of the Bill. Some Members may think that it should have been more rigorously defined on the face of the Bill. I do not accept the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that we can wait for the Environment Bill. Frankly, by the time we get there, too much of the present Bill will have been decided.

With Amendment 140, my noble friend rightly seeks to achieve a full parliamentary examination of this essential element of the post-CAP package. I lost count of the number of Members in the previous debate who were referring to public goods, and of course Ministers have, throughout all stages of this Bill in both Houses, referred to public goods. Therefore, I hope that the affirmative resolution procedure, which would ensure that we have a proper parliamentary discussion of this important definition, can happen. My previous service on the DPRRC persuades me that this is the proper procedure here.

Turning to Amendment 141, which deals with large-scale tier-3 schemes, my experience of Dartmoor, where I used to chair meetings of the national park committee, and my experience of Bodmin Moor, which adjoined my home in my then constituency, made me especially aware of the sensitivity of moorland restoration schemes. These can have a challenging effect on all those who are interested in them, and on farms in LFAs, which have also been a common theme this afternoon.

Whatever their respective merits, nobody can deny that they inevitably impact on several landowners and land managers, and a variety of other users. Since the UK has responsibility for the stewardship of no less than three quarters of the world’s heather moorlands, this should be very high in our awareness of potentially clashing interests. I was interested in what the noble Baroness said. Like me, she will be well aware of how difficult decisions can be in deciding between different interests in that context.

It may well be true of other projects with overall beneficial environmental objectives, but the likely economic or other impacts on individuals or groups in those circumstances can be very important. I have had experience of uncomfortable impacts—admittedly relatively short-term ones—from major schemes such as coastal marsh creation schemes. My noble friend suggests that we should have the affirmative procedure to look at the details when then Minister comes forward with these. I hope he accepts that this too offers a practical solution.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend’s two amendments are very interesting. Starting with Amendment 140, I thought that I knew what the public good was, having produced amendments which I thought were centred around it, such as public access and how you support that access and make it more readily available to those with disabilities and so on. However, when I read this amendment, I thought, “Ah, someone else put that at a priority level; that makes it a public good.” It is in the Bill, but is it as high a public good as something else? What happens if it starts to compete, which it will, with other activities? For instance, if you want to encourage a certain animal or plant somewhere and a path goes through it, which changes? On that fundamental level, getting some idea about how the assessments are made is important.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mallalieu [V]]

My Lords, I share some of the concerns that the noble Baroness has just raised, but I take a different view about the need for mandatory labelling of animal products. I shall speak just to Amendment 258, in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Trees and Lord De Mauley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who will speak shortly.

On 29 June, Peers received an open letter from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, which said:

“The Government has committed to a rapid review and consultation on the role of labelling to promote high standards and animal welfare, and remains committed to delivering informative food and drink labelling and marketing standards to protect consumer interests, ensuring that consumers can have confidence in the food and drink they buy.”


I welcome that, and I thank the noble Lord, but I would like the Minister to tell us, first, what the word “rapid” means to Defra. Will he give us the proposed timetable for the initial consultation and the review, and then for publishing the proposals that follow, and for making the necessary regulations? My amendment suggests six months from the passing of this Act—which I hope will mean March 2021—for the earlier steps, and 12 months for the regulations to come into force, in about September 2021. I hope that he will agree with that.

The regulations on labelling are urgent because, as a result of the new trade deals we are, we hope, about to receive—they are being negotiated—we shall shortly see new products coming on to our markets from overseas. People will, as the letter says, need to have

“confidence in the food and drink they buy.”

That means they need to be confident that those meet the high standards that we were promised, but which the Government would not, apparently, put into the Bill.

The Government say that they are concerned about tackling obesity, encouraging healthy food choices, making more use of local produce, reducing food miles, limiting carbon outputs and improving animal welfare—and I am sure they are. But if consumers are not given the information on the packet, how are they to know where it comes from, how it was produced or whether it complies with any of those objectives?

I am also afraid that if you do not give sufficient information then, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has just suggested, consumers will simply select on price—some will do that anyway—and highest animal welfare standards considerations will simply not feature. The result will be that producers who meet high standards, which are usually more expensive, will simply go to the wall.

Consumers surely need to know the country of origin, particularly in these times. Amendment 254 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, makes that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, with great force in our debates on Tuesday. That does not mean simply where the chicken was processed, but where it was reared. They need to know the method of production. We already do it for eggs; we have free-range, barn-reared, organic and so on, but we do not do it routinely for milk, meat or egg products. We should. The consumer needs to know whether his meat comes from a feedlot, was intensively reared or was pasture-fed. Some people will not care—they will just go for the cheapest—but more and more people do care and are looking. They could be told simply in words or, with enough publicity as to what they mean, through symbols.

The method of slaughter matters too, and to some members of the public it matters a great deal. I accept that this Bill is not the place to argue for the abolition of non-stun slaughter, which I very much want to see. However, it is the place to argue that consumer choice matters. Whether you require meat slaughtered in accordance with the requirements of your religion or meat which has been pre-stunned before slaughter because you have animal welfare concerns, you want to know, one way or the other, from the label of the joint you pick up at the supermarket. You want “confidence”, to use the Minister’s word, that you have picked the one you want and are getting the type of meat you selected. Will the Minister share his timetable and plans for doing what Amendment 258 suggests?

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I confine my remarks to Amendment 263 in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace, my noble friend Lord Bruce and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes.

This new clause seeks to secure exactly equal protection for traditional speciality food and drink products, for which the UK is famous and which have such economic benefits for particular areas, as is currently enjoyed under the EU geographical indications scheme. I am sure that there is shared enthusiasm in every part of the Committee for the success of this excellent scheme, not least since it was extended as a result of the initiative of British Ministers during the coalition Government.

I know that the Minister will be able to assure us that the protection of these products can continue within the UK. However, that is not the issue in question. I asked the then Minister for International Trade during Committee stage of the Trade Bill on 23 January 2019 for an explicit assurance that the GI protection would continue on exactly the same terms—that is, outside the UK—and was told that an amendment was unnecessary because this would be secured. In view of the vagueness of that promise, I repeated an amendment on Report on 6 March 2019 and withdrew it only when a firmer assurance was given.

Now it would seem that there may be another broken Brexit promise. According to newspaper reports:

“Cornish pasties could soon be made in France and still be called ‘Cornish’ after British Brexit negotiators failed to secure the same guarantees for British products in the EU … British officials argue that the Withdrawal Agreement calls for the current arrangement for existing GIs to be superseded by a free trade agreement.”


This threat becomes ever more alarming if, as the latest news of failing negotiations makes all too likely, we end up with the disaster of a no-deal outcome in just five months’ time. The dogmatic insistence of No. 10 to row back on even their very limited withdrawal agreement puts yet another obstacle in the path of British food and drink producers. The failure of the UK negotiators could result in a ludicrous situation in which proper Cornish pasties cannot be marketed from Cardiff, Cumbernauld or Cambridge but can be sold as Cornish by manufacturers in Cologne or Calais. Indeed, without any protection from the EU scheme and with no involvement in EU trade agreements in future, they could be passed off as Cornish in Canberra, Calgary or Cambridge, Massachusetts or in Truro in that same state.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who, as ever, spoke so entertainingly.

I shall speak to Amendment 92A, and I echo many of the sentiments expressed by its authors. This is a very vexed area. I recall only too well that when I was MP for what was then the Vale of York, Shepherds Purse Cheeses produced feta cheese that was clearly produced not in “feta land”—Greece—but in North Yorkshire. I think the case went as far as the European Court of Justice, and the upshot was that the company had no protection and had to abide by the EU rules. Imaginatively, the company changed the name of the cheese to Yorkshire fettle, which is a best seller and has won a number of awards. I am delighted that it continues to have success.

The serious point here is that, according to figures from the Food and Drink Federation, the three greatest exports from the UK are Scotch whisky, then Scottish salmon and, lower down the list, chocolates. So this is immensely important to Scotland, but also to North Yorkshire and the whole Yorkshire region. I pay tribute to the marketing facility that was originally Yorkshire Pantry but has been renamed Deliciously Yorkshire. Because of the food cluster in and around North Yorkshire—in fact, in the whole Yorkshire region—the protected geographical indication scheme is extremely important to them. I hope my noble friend will pull something out of the hat to make sure that if we are to have a UK geographical indication scheme, it will be recognised across the EU and the EEA at the very least.

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, whose expertise in oenology is certainly far more tasteful than mine. I am devoted to the excellent products of the Camel Valley Vineyard in my erstwhile constituency, although when it comes to imports, my family are more broadminded. He has raised an extremely important point that does not just apply to these particular products and operators. What he described as “paper-based protectionism” has huge implications for a great many exporters and importers, and his point was very well made. I thought that at the end of the Committee debate on 23 July, the Minister had given him an undertaking that he would look at the issue of the VI-1 forms, and I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has not received a satisfactory solution to the problems he has identified.

I also find absolutely formidable the logic of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. The regulations will be of huge practical significance to many British companies operating in this field, so an extensive and effective consultation is surely essential. I recall from my time on the DPRR Committee how often we were faced by the Government saying that something was urgent and expediency would be used as a short cut to prevent effective scrutiny. In this case, it could be used to prevent effective consultation. Again, the noble Baroness made an extremely important point that goes far beyond the powers being taken in this Bill.

However, my primary concern is to speak in support of proposed new clause proposed in Amendment 92A in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness. This is the fourth time that I have supported attempts to obtain a clear, unequivocal and totally realistic ministerial statement from the Government on the future protection of the 88 UK specialist food and drink products which are currently covered by the excellent EU Geographical Indications Scheme. This new clause seeks to secure equal protection for the traditional speciality food and drink products for which the UK is famous and which bring such economic benefits to particular areas.

Members in every part of the House have previously expressed admiration for the scheme, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, did just now, especially since it was extended as the result of an initiative by British Ministers during the coalition Government. A succession of Ministers has kept assuring us that the protection of these products can continue within the UK, but as my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness has emphasised, that is the not the principal issue in question at the moment.

During the Committee stage of the Trade Bill on 23 January last year, I asked the then Minister for trade for an explicit assurance that GI protection would continue on exactly the same terms—that is, outside the UK. I was told that an amendment was unnecessary because it would be secured. But in view of the vagueness of that promise, on 6 March 2019 I tabled an amendment to that Bill on Report and withdrew it only when a slightly firmer assurance was given. However, as my noble and learned friend has reminded your Lordships, during the Committee stage of this Bill and again today, there has been a series of apparently well-informed newspaper reports indicating an admission that the current failing negotiations are putting that future protection at risk. It appears that there is no guarantee that, in the words of our new clause, all of these products

“currently protected under the EU Geographical Indications Scheme are covered by exact equivalent international protection after 31 December 2020.”

Given the No. 10 briefing that a no-deal outcome is both likely and perfectly acceptable, and given, too, the current question marks that hover over the whole withdrawal agreement signed by the Prime Minister on 19 October 2019, what confidence can we have in Article 54.2, which purports to give some legitimacy to the continued cover for GI products? I am, of course, especially exercised by the threat to genuine Cornish pasties, clotted cream and sparkling wine, but my noble and learned friend and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, are rightly exercised by the effect on world-famous Scottish products. To add insult to injury, we are told that a Trump trade deal, which may now be elusive as a result of the threat to the Northern Ireland protocol, would require abandoning origin labelling, as referred to in a previous debate. From the point of view of consumers, that will make matters worse. This echoes the previous debate on standards that meet UK public expectations. We want to take back control.

At the conclusion of the debate in Committee on 23 July, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, could only assure us that

“the Government are determined to work in support of all the 88 geographical indications from the UK, which will remain protected after the end of the transition period”.—[Official Report, 23/7/20; col. 2465.]

What does the determination amount to if, as seems so very likely now, the UK Brexit negotiators fail to get a deal in the precious few weeks now remaining? What if the EU, understandably bruised by the bad faith of the retreat from the withdrawal agreement, simply removes the relevant entries after we have taken our leave and have no further say in the matter? This was implied as being quite possible in the Government’s response to the GI consultation paper, to which my noble and learned friend referred. Where does this leave these British products, hitherto protected by the EU scheme, when it comes to current and future EU trade treaties with third countries?

In Committee, the Minister claimed he had been very clear. Sadly, and very unusually for him, there is no such clarity. Much as we would all prefer a firm assurance, it would be better to hear an honest assessment from the noble Baroness this evening that the Government cannot now be absolutely sure that long-term, precise and exact equivalence is guaranteed. Then, all concerned would know exactly where they stand.