Agriculture Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

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

[Lord Wigley (PC) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. I very much support her points. She can add my name to the list of those she mentioned as supporting her amendment. Again, I declare my registered interests, as I did in earlier Committee debates.

Government Amendment 209, on identification and traceability, which recognises the need to work with the devolved Governments, is of course welcome. I know that this provision was requested by Welsh Ministers. However, this group of amendments goes way beyond identification and traceability. As I indicated in the debate on the very first group of amendments in Committee, I acknowledge that my Amendment 291 sits more comfortably with Amendment 290 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which proposes an agricultural co-ordination council; perhaps we will hear the arguments in favour of that later in this debate.

In fact, that amendment then stood as the lead amendment of a group that lent itself to such a purpose. Tacking Amendments 290 and 291 on to government Amendment 209 makes less sense, but we are where we are. However, I very much add my support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain. The theme has already begun to emerge and it goes way beyond Amendment 290.

None the less, the general setting in which these two amendments arise represents a dimension much broader than the agricultural setting. The issue of a UK single market replacing the European single market goes to the heart of the relationship between the four nations of these islands. If Westminster gets this wrong, it will have far-reaching constitutional implications. However, addressing the issue in an agricultural context is a good starting point.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, emphasised a moment ago, the whole rationale of devolution was to create political structures that can facilitate different policies in different parts of these islands, responding to the different needs and circumstances that exist. That is most certainly the case in the context of agriculture. Because of our mountainous terrain in Wales, the nature of our agriculture is different from that of England, as indeed is much of the farmland of Scotland. Northern Ireland is again different, with its links to the Irish Republic and into the European single market. Our farming in Wales is much more dependent on the livestock sectors—sheep, beef and dairy farming. Unless a free trade agreement can be reached before the cliff edge of 31 December is upon us, our departure from the EU will have absolutely devastating effects on our agriculture, particularly our hill farms, as has been mentioned in several debates in this Committee.

It is totally inconceivable that any Welsh Government of any party or combination of parties would stand by and allow the devastation of our rural life that would ensue. They would be expected to intervene—that would be a political imperative—but, of course, intervening to help Welsh agriculture in such dire circumstances would inevitably have a knock-on effect on agriculture in England and Scotland. Likewise, initiatives by Westminster to help any particular sector in England would have consequences for the other three devolved regimes, so there must be a framework mechanism for the UK single market. On that much we are probably agreed across this Committee.

The problem is to determine the nature of that mechanism; that becomes a political question. The nationalist Benches in the other place are sometimes taunted that we are happy to see our nations conceding power to a European single market but not to a British single market. That gibe ignores the geopolitical reality within the UK compared with that within the EU. If all the rules and priorities within the EU single market were dominated by a single member state—Germany, say—and the German Government had a veto over all other member states, the EU single market would have long since collapsed.

Our fear, shared among many and across parties in the devolved Parliaments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, is that England will insist on determining the policies and priorities of the UK single market at the expense of the ability of the devolved Governments to secure and implement policies needed by their own people—in this case by their own farming communities.

To that extent, Amendment 290 provides a requirement for unanimity between the four Governments in making any changes to the framework; that is welcome. It had been my hope that by the time we were debating these issues in the context of this Bill we would have made progress on the general trading structures alongside which any agricultural provision has to exist. We are not there yet, though there may perhaps be a greater indication of government thinking before we get to Report on the Bill. We may therefore need to come back to it.

In conclusion, I press upon the Government to approach this whole issue from the viewpoint of seeking an agricultural framework compatible with a broader framework of relationships between the four nations of these islands and to accept that, if there is to be a stable ongoing relationship, it has to be based on a partnership of equals. A larger population does not give any nation the right to impose its policies on all others, or we would now be acknowledging that China—by dint of its size—has a right to impose its will on the international order. A framework solution within the UK will inevitably have some form of federal or confederal relationship between the nations of these islands, based on transparent and equitable mechanisms and underpinned by mutual respect, not population size.

I hope that, by the time we come back in September, the Government will have developed their thinking along these lines. If they do not, it bodes very badly not just for co-operation within the agricultural dimension but for the future constitutional outlook of the four nations of these islands.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I will keep my comments very brief. I have already spoken to similar Amendments 147, 148 and 154, highlighting the risk of these potential cost-cutting and corner-cutting clauses—but I welcome the opportunity to prompt the Minister to reassure me, as he so often does.