South West Water: Brixham Contamination

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I completely concur with my noble friend that it is critical that we get to the bottom of what has happened to have generated this outbreak of cryptosporidium. It is currently far too early to know the exact cause of the outbreak. South West Water is continuing its investigations to confirm the source of the contamination. The Drinking Water Inspectorate has initiated its investigation into the cause, extent and actions of the company and begun collecting evidence on site. I should point out that it is the Drinking Water Inspectorate which is taking the lead on this investigation.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, is not this instance a failure of the central role of the water companies to deliver clean and healthy water to every household? In the days before privatisation, we used to pride ourselves on our water and decry foreign water. Whether that was true or not, this is a central failure of regulation. There are three regulators of the water industry. We need to have a new start on regulation of water, with a single regulator for it, if we are not to have renationalisation. On the point of renationalisation, I know that my Front Bench, as well as the Government, are not in favour of it, but I note that the largest shareholder in Thames Water wrote down its shareholding to nil. If the rest of the shareholders, which are very guilty in this, did the same then the cost of nationalisation would be pretty small.

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right that the Canadian pension fund’s owners wrote down the value of its shareholding in Thames Water to zero, but that of course does not mean that it is zero. I am not sure that would help him in terms of its privatisation.

Water and Sewage Regulation (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hollick for his cogent introduction, and thank the committee for what is a trenchant, highly critical report with very interesting recommendations and conclusions. This is a complete failure of the system of regulation, post-privatisation. I would also like to thank whoever invented the title of the report because it most succinctly expresses the outrage at the pollution that is caused by these water companies and the affluence with which they have treated their shareholders, investors and those who bankroll them. It is a disgrace, and one which this House and the Government need to face up to.

I have to first make a confession. I was a small cog in the structure of regulation of this industry, for a few months at Ofwat and for several years at the Environment Agency. That was more than 10 years ago. I clearly remember thinking and arguing at that time that the system was inadequate and that we had failed to use the powers that we already had, particularly in Ofwat but occasionally in the Environment Agency as well. In those days, the Environment Agency had more resources for monitoring, but we did not always use our powers to their full extent—and we see the results.

It is possible to argue that, in the early years of privatisation, more resources were brought to much-needed investment, technology and management improvement. But after that first period, this has not been the case. We now need to face up to the fact that the major political parties are not prepared to commit themselves to renationalisation. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I would prefer that solution. If it is not possible, we need to start again on the system of regulation, not only of the areas covered by Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate but of the wider aspects of the water system. These broader aspects include taking account of the growth in population and the pressures from housing and from business, of the fact that water usage in this country is one of the highest in Europe, and of the fact that we completely fail to address water efficiency in appliances for industry, agriculture and domestic households.

We need a new start. In my view, if we are not to go for renationalisation then we need to establish a single and very powerful regulator for the water sector as a whole—one which subsumes all these interests and puts water centrally, as it should be, in the management of the resources of this country. It is not only about the dangers that the sewage overflows and discharges cause to our rivers and fisheries, and their threat to human health; it is also about the complete and utter failure to recognise that, as climate change progresses, water will become scarcer and less predictable, and so we need a much more effective system of management and a much stronger regulator.

We need a regulator if we are to keep the present system of ownership because these are regional monopolies, untroubled by competition. Unlike some privatised industries, there is no competition. They are also untroubled by requirements to review the franchise periodically, as exist in some privatised industries. That means they are almost free to make as much money as they like. If we add to that the complete failure of co-ordination and of clear strategies by the regulators and Defra, then we are heading for catastrophe unless we start again.

I ask the Minister to recognise that the list of failures spelled out by my noble friend and his committee in the report need a new approach. If we are not going for renationalisation, can all parties commit to a much more effective system of regulation and to starting again? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that sanctions need to be placed on these companies. I would hope that those sanctions were effective and would eventually lead to the sector being brought back into public ownership. But in the meantime, we need a much more effective and co-ordinated—and much more environmentally sensitive—system of regulation, which recognises and addresses the problems of this sector, and we need to start now.

European Union: Trade Barriers

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to reduce trade barriers to food imports from the European Union.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Howarth and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the trade and co-operation agreement maintains zero tariffs and zero quotas on the trade in goods between the UK and the EU, and it includes a commitment to avoid unnecessary barriers to trade. The border target operating model will provide a proportionate and streamlined regime to support businesses to trade, while maintaining high levels of biosecurity. The UK and the EU are rolling out electronic certification, which will facilitate trade through reducing delays and business administration.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, but it is largely based on hope. The fact is that food imports from the EU have decreased by over 1% and our exports to the EU have decreased by nearly 6%, so consumers miss out on European products and our farmers miss out because of EU rules, regulations and bureaucracy. My noble friend Lord Howarth and I disagree on the outcome of Brexit, but we agree that the present arrangements are inadequate. When will the Government renegotiate the trade agreement with the EU?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I hate to disagree with the noble Lord but the total value of imports of food, feed and drink from the EU in the three months to April 2023 was £10.6 billion, 11% higher than the three months to April 2022 and 34% higher than the three months to April 2018. Over that period, exports increased from £3.5 billion and were 4% higher than last year and 6% higher than the year before that. We are trying to introduce a system that is fair to importers and exporters and that protects our very important biosecurity.

Air Quality Strategy Consultation

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That question reflects issues relating to politics in London that are particularly complex and the impact of the mayor’s ULEZ on people on low incomes who have to travel to the centre of London. The noble Lord makes the accusation of playing politics, but the Question is about consultation. What we are trying to do nationally is support local authorities, and sometimes what the mayor is trying to do is despite what the local authorities within his mayoralty are trying to achieve. That is a local question for London and not for our national policies.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that not only is it disastrous that there was such a short time for consultation but the substance of the document on which he was consulting is woefully inadequate to attack the problem? I speak as a former president of an independent organisation, Environmental Protection UK, which made a submission to the consultation. Is it time for the Government—and, in view of the electoral cycle, probably the main opposition party—to recognise that we need a new clean air Act and a central direction through a new clean air commission? Until the Government grasp that necessity, this problem will continue to afflict our people and contribute to the long-term sickness that we have just been discussing.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

What I would say to the noble Lord, whom I respect for his experience in this area, is that running campaigns to create new laws sometimes misses the most effective way to deliver. The most effective way in which the Government in England can be responsible for this is to support the local authorities which have to do it. We are doing that with money, and we are doing it with policies that require them to hit certain targets—on PM2.5, on nitrous oxide and others. That is the best way to do it. If the noble Lord wants a piece of legislation that will deliver that, it is the Environment Act.

Imported Beef

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. That is of great assistance to the Government and regulators, as well as to retailers which want to make a virtue of the kinds of products they put on sale. It is also of great help to the consumer for them to make the right choices about the products that they wish to buy.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, not for the first time, I feel sorry for the Minister having to come to the House because I am convinced that, privately, his department must have approached our Trade Ministers saying that this is a bad deal. It is always possible for Defra Ministers to alienate some of their clientele but, today, they alienate farmers, environmentalists, animal welfare people and a big chunk of consumers, all at the same time, for the sake of paltry deals that will have a minimal effect on our standard of living. It seems like a humiliation to me. I hope that, if other deals come up, Defra will be stronger in making its views known.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am always grateful for the noble Lord’s sympathy, but it is unnecessary in these circumstances. We work closely across government; there has been a slightly changed landscape in government, with big new departments appearing. What is really important is that current trade deals, and future ones as they come in, have proper parliamentary scrutiny—there is a process for that—and reflect the high environmental and animal welfare standards that we have achieved in this country, which we want to see continue.

Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

The third salient point is that the benefits of doing so would be very rapid indeed. The CMO’s report suggests that 30% of the reduction in mortality from reducing air pollution occurs in the first year, and 50% in years two to five. Let us think about that. A reduction of between 30% and 50% of up to 38,000 deaths a year would be an extraordinary gain for the people of this country. However, because, unlike the smog in the 1950s, we are dealing with something that is essentially invisible, at the proposed rate of knots primary school playgrounds, GP surgeries, shops and high streets will continue to have killer levels of pollution that will go unattended for years to come. Surely the Government should think again.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have long taken an interest in this subject. When I came into this Chamber I did not intend to speak, but I was utterly shocked by the way the Minister—who in many respects I have some respect for—dismissed the case for a much more ambitious target. My noble friend has set out in great detail how that could be achieved, and why it should be achieved.

I was, until recently, the president of Environmental Protection UK, whose origins were in the National Society for Clean Air, which proposed the Clean Air Act in the 1950s. It was the Minister’s predecessors, in the Conservative Government of Anthony Eden—which does not have a high historic record—who adopted the Clean Air Act when they were told by people, like those who have got at the Minister, “You’re going to try and change people’s habits and they’re not going to stop burning coal”—but they did. I speak as a child bought up in London with asthma in the 1950s. Those five years, in which they cleaned up London, probably mean I am still alive and here in your Lordships’ House today.

It was incredibly dismissive of the Government to condemn those who were advocating tighter regulations. They are based on strong medical evidence; the campaigns that the evidence here dismisses are mainly informed by strong medical evidence that this kills, it deforms and it limits life in all its respects. The Minister needs to take a grip, think again and come back and respond to my noble friend with something better. Otherwise, this Government have something to be seriously ashamed of.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, we all have a growing understanding of the devastating effects of PM2.5 and particulate matter in general on human health, and we welcome efforts to bear down on them. I think I heard the noble Baroness sidestep the question of what an appropriate target was, preferring simply to demand more ambition. Although other noble Lords have made some suggestions, she did not answer my noble friend the Minister’s question of what actions she specifically proposes should be banned or seriously cut back. It is important that the public know what they are.

Future Farming Programme: Small Farms

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to raise this. I speak with some experience, as a regular victim of such crime. Like everyone, I would like to see greater measures brought in. We are working closely with our Home Office colleagues to ensure that proper provision can be brought in to clamp down on this particularly unpleasant crime, and I will keep him informed.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that, while we may broadly support the general direction of agricultural policy, a number of farmers, particularly more elderly ones, do not think that they will be able to cope with the new system and are considering quitting and selling up? In the light of that, rather than allow their land to be bought by big agribusinesses or speculative funds, would it not be sensible for the Government to facilitate counties acquiring that land to establish a new generation of county farms and bring a new generation of farmers into the industry?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The county farm structure is very attractive to me and my fellow Ministers, and there are certainly discussions on trying to expand it. We are also trying to make sure that those who want to exit the industry can do so with dignity and some resource, through the lump sum payment. We are also supporting new entrants: it is absolutely key that we create some mobility in the industry. So a combination of that and a potential increase in county farms is, I think, the right way forward.

Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee Report

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a bit daunting to follow a Bishop and an ex-Archbishop. I wish to congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on the rare achievement of a second maiden speech in this House. I served on the committee too, and I would like to pay tribute to the way the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, conducted the committee and marshalled the views, not only of a heterogeneous committee, but also of a wide range of witnesses. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the staff in producing this report.

Food, from farm to fork, is by far our largest single industry. It has repercussions for difficult areas of public policy on health and diet, the local and global environment, air, water and soil quality, our nature, countryside and biodiversity. It is noticeable that the distribution of the benefits and detriments in the way we deliver food creates severe social inequalities and some serious health dysfunctions. Healthy food is often not affordable, particularly among our poorest communities.

In this report, we have attempted to deal with all aspects, with recommendations that will involve several departments beyond Defra and the Department for International Trade. The same will be true of the report we hope to see shortly from Henry Dimbleby, the second stage of which I hope the Government will treat rather more seriously than their response to this report has yet shown. Our media is unaccountable: for some reason, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, received rather less media attention than Marcus Rashford for his recommendations on school meals and universal credit. The Government did at least respond in part to that.

I wish to focus on a less obvious and more mundane aspect, which is the institutional one. My points relate to the structure of the food system as a whole and the ineffectiveness of the regulatory structure and enforcement we currently have. Our specific recommendations range from more effective local planning controls for retail outlets right through to the creation of an independent body analogous to the Committee on Climate Change. One key proposition is that we should reverse the decision made a decade ago and give the responsibility for nutrition, labelling and reformulation back to the Food Standards Agency.

At present, our regulatory system on food is concentrated on the two ends of the food chain—farmers and their methods, and consumer protection. Underlying the totality of the chain is the domination in the middle of it by major, often multinational, corporate players who largely escape criticism. The regulation on farmers is arguably about to become more complex through the new subsidy system replacing the CAP, which most of us support. The operation of public goods will be extremely complex, and the proposed ELMS and related interventions on agriculture to deliver public goods will inevitably involve a very sophisticated form of regulatory intervention. At the consumer end, both the Government and the report propose more sophisticated systems of labelling and consumer protection for safety and nutritional reasons. Again, those will need to be implemented in a way that improves the consumer experience rather than confuses the consumer. Between those two, regulation is and will be much less.

However, this market is hugely dominated by a limited number of large companies in the middle: the big supermarket retailers—obviously; the big processors and manufacturers; the big wholesalers and importers; and the big catering chains and food service companies. Although there is a market distortion in terms of a tendency to both oligopoly and oligopsony, it is in those fields where the decisions of those large companies determine the nature, quality and standards to which food is produced, the availability of it, and the price, and therefore affordability, to the ultimate consumers. Standards formulation and pricing conditions and, of course, advertising—the primary information that goes to consumers and smaller retail outlets—are dominated by the priorities of those companies.

There have been previous interventions. The relationship between the big supermarkets and farmers and other first-line producers were supposed to be regulated, or at least overseen, by the groceries code. To be fair, some of the standards and contract formulations have significantly improved for small producers, but not only has enforcement been extremely light-touch, but the reality is that the groceries code deals with only a small part of the issue and is largely confined to the large supermarkets dealing directly with primary producers, whereas the reality is that virtually the whole of our largest sector, the food chain as a whole, is a markets and competition issue, with wider repercussions for consumer protection and health and environmental impacts.

Given the externalities we have been concerned about in this debate, on the environment and on health, we need to take further steps. To take two examples, advertising expenditure by the large companies in the food chain is 40 times larger on confectionery than it is on fresh food and vegetables. No wonder our consumer diets are so far from ideal. The balance of market power between processors and primary producers means that, for most farmers, there is no profit without subsidy, and the new agricultural regime will not change that. The office of the Groceries Code Adjudicator is inadequate to the task. We need a much more effective body and, although the report does not spell this out in detail, it points inexorably in that direction.

I have a final point. Trade is a vital part of our food chain and imports provide us with key products, but when most assessments of sustainability in our food system emphasise the desirability of shorter supply chains, the Government’s emphasis is to prioritise a trade deal with Australia—one which potentially undermines our environmental and welfare standards and which appears to be concluded without a view from the safeguarding mechanism we all agreed in the process of delivering the Agriculture Act: the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission. If we go down that road, it will not improve the health and diet of our nation, nor will it improve the environment. It may drive out a few livestock producers, but it will provide no solution to the problem that this report identifies.

Pesticides

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I share the noble and right reverend Lord’s concern for pollinators and particularly honeybees. I was pleased that the impact of the field scale studies on neonicotinoids resulted in the ban in 2018. Concern was raised by many at the temporary allowance of one to be used on the sugar beet crop, but it was never actually used because the threshold for use was so high. It is right to use science as the absolute arbiter in this, but also to be fleet of foot. Where we have to increase the number of sprays on the banned list, we will.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that a number of chemicals used as pesticides, even if used in accordance with the instructions, can damage several species, including humans? Does the Minister recall that during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, this House passed an amendment which would have seriously limited pesticide use in the vicinity of residences and public spaces? It was rejected by the House of Commons, partly on the grounds that it would be more suitable for inclusion in the Environment Bill. Can we therefore look forward to the Minister supporting a similar amendment to the Environment Bill, or indeed, promoting one, and if not, why not?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sure there will be a great many amendments to the Environment Bill, and I look forward to debating them with your Lordships. The question of pesticide use close to population is a very important one. It is very clear in the regulations on pesticide use and the codes of practice that spray operators have to abide by that it is a criminal offence to breach those rules. We have a robust system and we need to be constantly looking to see whether it can be improved. There will be plenty of legislative opportunities for Members of this House to raise these issues, not just in the Environment Bill, but in other forthcoming legislation.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions and Simplifications) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, first, I suppose I should apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for not sitting opposite him at this point. I commend those who come in but I have not yet managed it myself.

I want to intervene briefly. I understand the necessity of the regulations, and I supported the general direction of the Agriculture Act towards the public good, but I want to query aspects of the broader transitional strategy on farm support and its differential impact on different forms and sizes of farm.

The one benefit of the much-derided direct land-based payment was that it applied—theoretically, at least—to the whole of farmed land. If the cross-compliance of environmental and agricultural standards had been properly directed and enforced, there would have been a benefit to the whole environment, the agricultural state of the farm and the income of the farmer. Regrettably, that did not happen. It needs to be rectified in this phase. By the end of the transitional period, we need to ensure that, whatever regulations are there, the various schemes and payments are properly explained, understood and enforced.

This is no criticism of Defra—I know that it has put in an enormous amount of work in getting this far—but the pace and sequence of the rundown of direct payments, and the introduction of ELMS and the other payments provided in the Agriculture Act to support land management, must pay heed to two things. The first is the type of farming and the degree of past dependence on direct payments. The second is the appropriate form of ELMS that would suit the land and history of a particular farm.

It is clear from papers published by the Government before the introduction of the then Agriculture Bill that the most dependent on direct payments—in some cases, up to and over 100% of profits—were LFA hill farmers, then lowland livestock, then mixed farms and dairy farms. Plus, it impacted more on tenant farmers, in general, and some part-tenanted farms. It is also likely that it will be those very farmers who will find multiple, piecemeal ELM offers the most difficult to understand and fulfil, and will need the most concerted effort to develop them.

As I said several times during the passage of the Bill, that underlines the need to concentrate on whole-farm schemes for ELMS and other provisions. It is right to decrease direct payments to those who are the most vulnerable in this sense more slowly, but it is also important to develop whole-farm schemes for such farms more quickly and not simply go slowly in that direction—although these regulations do move a little in that direction. There needs to be differentiation and a full understanding of the impact on what are largely small farms, or at least small businesses even if, in geographical terms, they are relatively large farms in the uplands.

My second point on this issue is rather different. I ask the Minister: is it the objective of policy to shift English farming away from livestock towards horticulture and vegetable production? I do so because, like the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, last year I was a member of the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. One of our conclusions—only one—was that UK diets, particularly those of low-income groups and children, need to move more strongly towards fresh fruit and vegetables. Part of providing that would be having more home-produced fresh vegetables and to otherwise subsidise and incentivise more horticulture in this country.

The problem is that, in many instances, the land now used for livestock is often—though not always—unsuitable for horticulture. Is it the Government’s aim to achieve such a shift in production and diet? Is that part of this transitional period? If so, can they achieve that while avoiding a dangerous escalation in the overly heavy use of fertilisers to make less fertile soil more fertile? That goes for pesticides, too, with the concomitant damage to watercourses, air quality, soil, human and animal health, and biodiversity. Should the approach, particularly in upland areas, be to focus on rewilding some of the land rather than shifting production away from raising livestock and towards producing fruit and vegetables? That is a long-term aim but I would like the Government’s comments on it.