Agriculture Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak also to Motions C, C1, F and F1. At this juncture, I should declare my farming interests, as set out in the register.

I start by once again acknowledging the work of your Lordships in the scrutiny of the Bill. These debates have provided a valuable opportunity to clarify the Government’s agenda of reform for agriculture in this country.

Turning to Amendment 1, I agree wholeheartedly with the intent behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The strategic priorities of multi-annual financial assistance plans drawn up under Clause 4 will most definitely consider those objectives and those of future environmental improvement plans.

I turn to Amendment 11, and Amendment 11B proposed in lieu by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in Motion C1. The exacting process of scientific assessment applied to all pesticides specifically addresses the situation of those living near to where pesticides are applied. The Health and Safety Executive is the regulator covering the safety of chemicals, including pesticides. Staff working on pesticide assessments are scientists who specialise either in one part of the risk assessment, such as the fate and behaviour of pesticides in the environment, or in interpreting the specialist findings to reach conclusions on a product’s safety. No pesticide is allowed on to the market unless these scientists are satisfied that it poses no threat to the health of those living near farmland where it might be applied. This assessment process applies to all new pesticides, and the safety of existing pesticides is regularly reviewed.

Some noble Lords are concerned that the Government could face a gap in powers at the end of the transition period. I want to reassure your Lordships that that is not the case. We have the powers needed in this area. Section 16 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 allows the Government to make regulations that prohibit the use of pesticides in certain specified areas. Section 17 of the same Act allows the Government to make codes of practice providing practical guidance on pesticide use. Other powers include Article 6 of Regulation 1107/2009, which allows the designation of areas where the use of plant protection products containing a particular active substance may not be authorised.

A wide range of monitoring activities takes place to ensure compliance with legal requirements, and intelligence- led enforcement action is taken where problems are identified. The Official Controls (Plant Protection Products) Regulations 2020 provide additional powers to enable the responsible bodies to operate proactive controls, targeting enforcement where it is most needed.

I turn to Amendments 17 and 17B, and Motion F1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The Paris Agreement was ratified by the United Kingdom in 2016 as a sign of its continued commitment to climate action and reductions of CO₂ emissions across the world. The Government are bound by it as an international environmental law treaty. The Climate Change Act 2008 set targets in domestic law, which were strengthened to include an obligation for the Government to ensure that the net UK carbon account is 100% lower than the 1990 baseline by 2050.

In previous debates, the Pensions Bill has been given as a precedent for the inclusion of a reference to climate change on the face of a Bill. I looked into this, and the duty is placed on trustees or managers of occupational pension schemes, not the Secretary of State, who is already bound by these obligations. On Thursday 15 October, the Government published their response to the Committee on Climate Change’s Reducing UK Emissions: 2020 Progress Report to Parliament.

Amendment 16B requires the Secretary of State to lay a strategy outlining policies that will be taken towards net zero. I am therefore very pleased to confirm that our response to the Committee on Climate Change includes a new commitment to publish a comprehensive net-zero strategy ahead of COP 26, which will be a wide-reaching and cross-departmental document, making the most of new growth and employment opportunities across the United Kingdom. This will raise ambition as we outline our path to hit our 2050 target. I beg to move.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I oppose the Commons deletion and commend Amendment 11B, which proposes a revised version of what was Clause 38 in the Bill as it left this House.

I thank the Minister for his explanation, and for his courtesy, throughout this discussion and when meeting me yesterday, but I am afraid that he has not yet convinced me. I appreciate that many in this House do not regard this issue as important enough to be dealt with at this late stage in the Bill’s passage, but the Bill will define the future practice of agriculture in this country. We are dealing with agriculture’s relationship with nature, the environment, the food trade and so on, but it also must be about its relationship with those human beings who live and work in our countryside alongside that agriculture. Too many of those rural inhabitants have had health effects from exposure to pesticides, which have been and remain a serious threat to their physical quality of life. They deserve at least the limited and straightforward protection which my amendment provides by requiring the Government to regulate the distance between them and pesticide operations.

There have essentially been only three arguments from the Government against this principle. The first is what the Minister has just said: that the EU authorisation process nowadays ensures that even repeated exposure to the application of legally authorised pesticides cannot lead to serious health effects. I regret to say that medical reports and evidence from rural residents, some of which noble Lords will have seen, suggest substantially otherwise. Noble Lords will also recall the powerful speech on Report by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on the medical issues that residents and others affected by pesticide poisoning have suffered.

I accept that there have been significant changes in EU pesticide authorisation, but they are not sufficient. One of the easiest and most obvious ways to prevent such exposure from causing health effects is to ensure that the exposure to crop spraying is at a prescribed minimum distance from where people are most likely to be: in their own homes, their children’s schools, and so on.

The principle of my original amendment continues to be supported by many in this House, if not all, including my original co-sponsors the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, of the Liberal Democrats, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, of the Conservatives, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb for the Greens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. However, perhaps it was phrased a little loosely. The main objection in the other place by the Defra Minister, Victoria Prentis—she used slightly overstated terms—was that it would close every field to pesticide application. That was never the intention, so we have deleted the wording which gave rise to that objection and taken out what was originally subsection (1)(b). The only open spaces referred to now are those that are part of education or healthcare facilities. That should deal with the substantive objections that were made from the Government Benches in the Commons.

The other objection, repeated by the Minister just now and in the wording of the Commons reasons, is that Ministers already have these powers. I have two comments on this. There is a key word in my amendment —“must”. If Ministers did have these powers, they have not used them. This amendment would require them to produce draft regulations and to submit them to the usual consultations, and then to both Houses. At the last stage, and in correspondence, Ministers argued that they had possessed these powers since the EU directive in 2009 and the transposition of that in 2012. The Minister has just said that they have actually had these powers since the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. There is no specific reference there to distance or to residential property—there is a brief reference to healthcare facilities—but even if Ministers are right, and they do in general terms have the right to prescribe distance, why have they not done so in the eight years since the transposition of the EU regulation, and in particular since that 1985 Act? If they are claiming that they already have those powers, they must explain to the House why they have not used them. If we do not pass my amendment indicating that they must introduce such regulations, we may have to wait another 35 years for rural residents to be protected.

I give notice—I should have done so at the beginning —that, unless I hear something different from the Minister, I intend to press this amendment to a Division at the end of this debate.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 17B, which would create a new clause for a strategy to reduce emissions from agriculture, having regard to our national and international obligations, and requiring an interim strategy for 2030 commensurate with meeting our 2050 net-zero target.

This is a clearer and simpler version of Amendment 100, which we passed by a 49-vote majority on Report. I have since had a further opportunity to reflect on the Minister’s detailed response to my amendment, and I am also grateful for the meetings that he has arranged before today, and the promise of a future meeting. I have also read with interest what the Minister in the other place, Victoria Prentis, had to say about our amendments.

At the heart of our disagreement is whether individual government departments should be required to spell out how they are going to meet their share of the obligation to deliver net zero by 2050. In the debate on the Bill last week, the Commons Minister said:

“If we are to achieve the UK’s net zero target, emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors. Not setting sector-specific targets allows us to meet our climate change commitments in the best and speediest way.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/10/74; col. 74.]


Of course I agree that emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors, but I fail to see how this can be achieved unless you precisely set sector-specific metrics and outcomes. If not, you end up with precisely the criticisms levelled by the Committee on Climate Change, which said that the voluntary approach in agriculture has not worked, and that there is no coherent approach to emissions reductions in agriculture at present. The result, as noble Lords will know, is that our agricultural emissions have stayed static, at about 10% of the total, when we should be playing our part in driving emissions down. Given that the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008—12 years ago—we have quite some catching up to do. This is why our amendment introduces the concept of a strategy to be published for staged progress to be delivered by 2030. Given that we seem to have made little progress in agriculture in the first 12 years, this interim strategy seems all too necessary, otherwise we risk getting close to 2050 and realising it is too late to take deliverable measures to meet our target.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

At end insert “but do propose amendment 11B in lieu—

11B: Insert the following new Clause—
“Application of pesticides: limitations on use to protect human health
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prohibiting the application of pesticides for the purposes of agriculture or horticulture near—
(a) buildings used for human habitation; and
(b) public or private buildings and associated open spaces where members of the public may be present, including but not limited to—
(i) education and childcare nurseries; and
(ii) hospitals and health care facilities.
(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must specify a minimum distance from any of the locations listed under subsection (1)(a) and (b) to be maintained during the application of pesticides.
(3) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.””

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House.