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.