Agriculture Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House, whilst recognising that on leaving the EU the UK needs to shift agricultural support from land-based payments to the delivery of environmental and other public benefits, declines to give a Second Reading to the Agriculture Bill because it fails to provide controls on imported agricultural goods, such as chlorinated chicken or hormone treated beef, and does not guarantee the environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards which will apply.

The amendment, which stands in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and others, would deny the Bill a Second Reading because it fails comprehensively to guarantee environmental protections and animal welfare standards in any post-Brexit trade deals. The United Kingdom’s history and identity are connected and integral to our countryside, to our farming and to our connection to the natural world. We are rightly proud of our high farm animal standards and our high standards of animal welfare and food hygiene. Today, I will ask some difficult questions about where the Bill takes us, voice serious concerns about the Bill and set out Labour’s genuine, heartfelt and reasonable concerns about a Bill that is silent on food imports produced to lower standards that risk undercutting the great British farmer.

What kind of country do we want to be? In which direction will Britain face in the future? Will our nation rise to the challenge of the climate emergency? Will we crash out of the transition period without a deal? Will we sell our values short for trade deals, especially with the United States? I have looked in ministerial statements for certainty and found plenty of words, but no answers—at least none that I genuinely believe. The Bill sets out a path to a wholly new system of agricultural support, and Labour backs many of its provisions, but as I will explain, legal protections to guarantee animal welfare, food hygiene rules, agricultural workers’ rights and environmental protections on the food we import are deliberately omitted from the Bill.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman knows I have a lot of sympathy with what he wants to end up with on those issues, but does he not agree that denying this important Bill a Second Reading when farmers want to know the direction of travel and have some certainty would be absolutely the wrong step? Those issues are quite properly addressed in Committee and on Report, and we should get moving forward quickly.

[Luke Pollard]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about giving certainty to our farmers, and I will come to that matter later in my speech, but Labour Members cannot accept a Bill that opens the door to chlorinated chicken being sold in Britain. We simply will not do it.

On the day when people are looking for certainty about where we are going as a country, this Bill does not provide that certainty—the key challenge that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and that I just spoke about. The United Kingdom has exceptionally high environmental and food standards, and an internationally recognised approach to animal welfare, which is a good thing.

[Geraint Davies]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the research in the United States about hormone-impregnated meat—beef in particular—giving rise to premature pubescence in children; premature breast growth and so on? Does he know that there was an attempt to pursue that, but the officials in charge were sacked by Donald Trump when he became the President?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. There are valid questions about some of the farming methods used by some of our key trading partners and the reasons why they are used.

I do not want the legacy of high standards to be ripped apart by the introduction of cheap, low-quality foods following our exit from the European Union. Britain has a brilliant diversity of growers, farmers and producers. Our rural communities define what it is to be British. Our rural landscapes are beautiful, but they are not frozen; they are working environments. Our rural areas are an inheritance that we pass to our children, and that is why the rules that govern our stewardship of farms, fields, rivers and hills and valleys are so important.

Before I embark on my main argument, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I again declare an interest? My little sister is a sheep farmer in Cornwall, and I have been asked by my old man to add that he keeps a few chickens. I overlook the Pollard chicken coop at my peril.

There is much in the Bill that Labour supports. Public money for public goods is a philosophy that Labour backs. I am no fan of the common agricultural policy—it is probably one of the few areas where the Secretary of State and I agree. Incentivising farmers to protect wildlife, enhance biodiversity and restore habitats is a good thing, which my party supports. At what pace and by what mix of payments is still to be determined in detail. How this move will help smaller farmers as well as large producers is still uncertain, but the direction of travel is one that I welcome. Farmers have been looking after the land for generations, and it is not if they should do so but how that matters, especially as we scrutinise the Bill further.

As my hon. Friends the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) have said, the Bill is silent regarding the big promises the Prime Minister has made on standards. Indeed, this very morning, in his speech in Greenwich, the Prime Minister promised the British people that

“we will not accept any diminution in food hygiene or animal welfare standards”,

but the Bill contains no legal guarantee to put those words into law. So many of the Prime Minister’s promises have been broken, words twisted and responsibilities shrugged off. For any of those promises to be believed, they must be enshrined in law. For the British public, for our farmers and for anyone we do trade deals with in the future to see clearly, there must be no regression on standards—no undercutting of British farmers with food grown to poorer standards, poorer animal welfare, more damaging environmental impacts or poorer protections for workers.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is, as always, making a well-informed speech. The concerns he is voicing are not just those of the official Opposition or of other parties in this House. They are shared by organisations such as the NFU and other farmers associations—organisations that naturally support attempts to change agriculture in this country. It is not just us asking these questions. The Government need to listen to the NFU and the Farmers’ Union of Wales, which have genuine concerns and fears about the Government reneging on the commitments they made in their December 2019 manifesto.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree entirely. Sometimes there is a temptation to believe that, just because a dodgy socialist at a Dispatch Box said it, it must be untrue, but apparently there are an awful lot of dodgy socialists out there now.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I do not for one second suggest that the hon. Gentleman is in any way dodgy, but does he not realise that while the points the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) made are valid to him and would be perfectly reasonable to make the subject of amendments, by choosing to oppose Second Reading of the Bill, he would make amendments impossible? Will he withdraw his opposition to the Bill so that he can make the amendments that he purports to want?

[Luke Pollard]

Perhaps the Government’s whipping arrangements are somewhat flawed tonight, but with a majority of 80 the Bill will proceed, unless the hon. Gentleman would like to join me in the Lobby. If he is so worried about the future of the Bill, he is welcome to join me in expressing the serious and heartfelt concerns not just of Opposition Members, but of organisations that work day in, day out with our agricultural communities, which are worried that while they are improving standards in the UK, we will leave the door open to their being undermined. That is not something I can accept.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but does he accept that the farmers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have a commitment to deliver high-quality products that they can sell all over the world, and they have no intention of changing the regulations that ensure that those products continue to be delivered? Does he accept the Secretary of State’s assurance on the need for the devolved Administrations to be part of that? They accept that being part of the regulations is the way forward.

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Gentleman is right. British farmers do not want lower standards; they are proud of the standards they uphold and we are proud of what they grow and how they grow it. What worries us is the risk that, despite those high standards, the door could be opened to lower-cost, poorly produced food imports. That concern is shared by farmers. That is why the importance of putting legal protections in the Bill is so clear. Why is the Secretary of State not proposing legal protections so that chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef will not be on sale in our shops, restaurants and takeaways? Why is she not insisting that our farmers’ best practice is not undercut by US mega-agriculture? Why does she not made upholding Britain’s example on animal welfare her red line that she refuses to cross?

Speaking frankly, few in this House believe that the Secretary of State will last long in her job with the reshuffle coming up, so she had nothing to lose in making the case to support our British farmers to stop them being undercut. If she had done so, she would have been the farmers’ hero—a protector of the environment, an upholder of promises to the electorate, someone we could all be very proud of—but her silence on the issue of leaving out legal guarantees from the Bill points to one inevitable conclusion: the promises made by the Prime Minister to uphold the standards are disposable. They are liable to be rejected and replaced at will to secure a bargain-basement trade deal with Donald Trump and usher in a potential for chlorinated chicken, hormone-treated beef and more besides to be sold. If the Government say that that is not happening, why is it not in the Bill? Why will that point not be put into law?

[Sir John Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about food imports: I want to see less food imports and more of the food that we consume grown here to assure traceability and guarantee food security. To get him off the hook, it would be much better for the Opposition’s credibility if they backed the Bill and made these arguments later. Not to back the Bill is to fail our farmers by not giving them the support that they need as we leave the European Union—surely he must know that.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman: it is important to back British. Indeed, if he had been present, as many of us were, during debates on the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Act 2020, he would have heard my call for us to buy British, buy local, and especially buy food from the south-west, a region that I and the Farming Minister—the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—can be very proud of. Look for the red tractor, because it supports our local businesses and our country.

This issue is fundamental for the future. This is not just a minor amendment that can be put in place; it is fundamental to the direction that we are going in as a country and whether we leave the door open to cheap imported food that undermines our standards. That is why we have tabled this reasoned amendment. That is why it matters and why I am making this case today.

Another fellow west country MP—the recently re-elected Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—put it very succinctly:

“Imports produced to lower standards than ours pose a very real threat to UK agriculture. Without sufficient safeguards we could see British farmers significantly undermined while turning a blind eye to environmental degradation and poor animal welfare standards abroad.”

He proposed a very good amendment in the previous Parliament that won cross-party support, although sadly, not the support of his Front Benchers. He said:

“Our suggested amendment calls for agricultural goods to be imported into the UK only if the standards to which those goods were produced are as high as, or higher than, current UK standards.”

We could all get behind that.

[Ian Paisley]

I want to try to get my head around this: is the Opposition’s opposition to chlorinated chicken about chlorinating all foodstuffs? Every single lettuce grown in the United Kingdom is dipped in chlorine, so do they have a principled objection to using chlorine in foodstuffs, or is it just about Trump-bashing? [Interruption.]

[Luke Pollard]

A Member on the ministerial Bench says, “Tell us about the vegetables.” The important thing is to tell us about the standards and the produce. The hon. Gentleman raises a good point: some people in the House might not be familiar with all the agricultural practices that go into producing our food each day. The issue with chlorine-washed chicken is not the chlorine that washes the chicken—he is right that we chlorine-wash some of our vegetables in the UK that are on sale in supermarkets—but the reason why it needs to be chlorine-washed in the first place. That is because it frequently compensates for poor hygiene standards, such as dirty or crowded abattoirs, cages packed with birds, which would be unlawful in the UK, diseases and infections. The reason why the chicken is chlorine-washed, rather than the chlorine, is what is most concerning.

We cannot wash away poor animal welfare standards with swimming pool water. The realities of how the chicken was reared remain. Refusing to set out legal protections against that in the Bill leaves the door open to allowing such food into our food chains in future trade deals. Here is my challenge to the Secretary of State. She has heard, effectively, from both sides of the House—

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Pollard]

I am only a shadow Minister just yet, but I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman favours my ambition.

[Mr Paterson]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. The Americans use peroxyacetic acid, not chlorine. Will he comment on the fact that Americans eat about twice the volume of chicken as Europeans but have significantly fewer cases of campylobacter and salmonella? He makes the correct case that they have different animal husbandry standards from ours, but what metric would he use? If he goes on the outcomes of the food, based on the medical evidence, American food is safer or as safe as ours. What will the Labour party do in considering food that is produced under a different regime? How will it be judged, what data will be used, and how will he stop this, or propose that it is stopped?

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that acetic acid is used in many cases instead of chlorine. Whether the infection is killed by acetic acid, chlorine, or any other process, the concern is that there is an infection there in the first place through poor animal husbandry. I invite him to look at that and at the work produced by the EFRA Committee under his colleague, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton. It goes into detail to make sure that the standards of any imported food are as least as high as those we have in the UK.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This goes to the heart of why Labour is supporting the reasoned amendment and does not want to allow Second Reading to go through. In the last Parliament, we supported the Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill. I sat on the Bill Committee. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton tabled new clause 4 and I tabled new clause 1 to the Bill. The Government were terrified that they were going to lose, because we had such cross-party consensus on this—from the NFU to environmental groups, to farmers and to greener people—so they suddenly shelved the Bill. We have not seen anything of it since December 2018. We cannot trust the Government this time and allow Second Reading to go through without trying to raise this point now.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very good point. Farmers will be watching this discussion tonight who are unfamiliar with parliamentary process. For them, the idea of letting the Bill pass Second Reading without making a case for this might seem appealing, but unless the Government and the Secretary of State, in particular, will accept an amendment or propose one that sets the promises in law, it is important that we make the case now. I say to all the farmers who do not want their standards undercut, who are genuinely worried about this, that they have an opportunity to ask their Member of Parliament, whichever side of the House they sit on, to make that case, because that challenge about putting this into law is important. Every day that passes when it is not proposed, including in the Bill, we have to ask why.

We do not need to look too far back to find a precedent that would help the Secretary of State. Last week, the Government whipped their MPs to vote for the NHS Funding Bill to set into law their commitment to spend more on the NHS. Why do the Government need a law to implement promises on the NHS but not a law to implement promises on animal welfare and environmental concerns? Let us look at what the Health Secretary said about that Bill:

“The crucial thing in this Bill is the certainty: the Bill provides everyone in the NHS with the certainty to work better together to make long-term decisions, get the best possible value for money”—[Official Report, 27 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 566.]

Indeed, certainty is a good thing. The certainty that British farmers will not be undercut by cheap imported US produce grown at a lower cost with lower standards would help them as well. Why is legal certainty good for one election promise but not for another? We know the reason: one they intend to deliver, and one they do not. That fact has been pointed to by leaks from DEFRA officials that were unearthed by Unearthed. A report published in October said:

“Weakening our SPS regime to accommodate one trade partner could irreparably damage our ability to maintain UK animal, plant and public health, and reduce trust in our exports”.

That is why this matters.

I am proud of British farmers—not just the ones who are in my family, but all of them. Because the Bill fails to uphold animal welfare and environmental standards in law, Labour cannot support it. We need a legal commitment not to allow imports of food produced to lower standards or lower animal welfare standards. We need advice and support to help smaller farms transition to more nature-friendly farming methods that tackle the climate crisis, and we need the Government to set out a clear direction of travel for future agricultural regulation. Food grown to lower standards, some with abusive practices, must never be imported to undercut British farmers.

I have no doubt that Tory MPs will dutifully vote for the Bill tonight, but each and every one of them must know that my argument has merit. They might be wise to ask themselves why the NFU, the RSPCA and Greenpeace are saying the same thing as that Labour chap at the Dispatch Box. Why did the re-elected Chair of the EFRA Committee present a similar argument in the last Parliament? Could it be that collectively we are on to something? If we are—spoiler alert: we are—I encourage Members to make a beeline to the Secretary of State to encourage her to propose an amendment to the Bill as swiftly as possible to set in train the promises made at the general election, not only by the Prime Minister but, I believe, by nearly every Tory MP here.

I and my colleagues on the Opposition Benches will be voting for the reasoned amendment to deny the Bill a Second Reading because it omits the legal protections to prevent our British farmers from being undercut. I hope that the Bill can be improved—and swiftly—because in proposing a greener and better future it will also allow for that future to be undermined by imported food grown more cheaply and to lower standards. Who will eat that food? It will be the poorest in society. Who will be able to afford food grown to higher standards? The better-off. It will lead to deregulatory pressure to ensure that Britain’s farmers can compete with US industrial agriculture, which is the opposite of the spirit of the Bill and of what the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box, and it is the reason we need legal protection to ensure that no food is imported that has been produced to lower standards than we have today. The Secretary of State has the opportunity to do that. Every day that she lets that opportunity slip by is an indication that they intend to renege on their promise.

Agriculture Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Luke Pollard, who is asked to speak for no more than eight minutes.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will speak to the amendments that stand in my name and that of the Leader of the Opposition. Food policy has been overlooked and sidelined in our politics for far too long. Empty shelves, crops underwater in flooded fields, food bank growth and the growing obesity crisis demand that it enjoys more of our focus in the next decade than it had in the last. I want to see a greater focus on the quality and resilience of the food that we eat and the quality of the air that we breathe. Our new focus on food is for life and not just for coronavirus.

I place on record my heartfelt thanks to all the food heroes—the hidden heroes—who have kept the nation fed throughout the coronavirus crisis. From the fishers and the farmers, the distributors and the drivers, the processers and the pickers, to the shelf stackers and the supermarket workers, these people are finally getting the recognition that they deserve as key workers. The pay, conditions, pensions, protections and political focus on them must now follow. In declaring my interest, may I remind the House that my little sister is one of those key workers, as a sheep farmer on her farm in Cornwall?

At the very heart of this debate today is a very simple question, which the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) mentioned in his opening remarks. What kind of country do we want to be—one where farm standards are a pawn in a trade deal with our values traded for market access, or a nation that says Britain is a force for good in the world and upholds our high standards for food grown locally and food imported alike? At a time of climate crisis, we must choose to rebuild a better, greener, more sustainable and fairer Britain than we had before.

The path ahead of us is uncertain, but we must learn the lessons of those who came before us. We must not trade away the values that make us British and make us proud to be British: high environmental standards in food production; decent pay for those who tend our fields—at least, they should be paid well; animal welfare standards that increase, not slide; and a determination that we will never, ever again be held hostage by our inability, by choice or natural cause, to feed ourselves.

The Agriculture Bill is not a trivial matter; nor is food production. The Bill will fundamentally change the system of farm support, so it deserves our attention. However, an Agriculture Bill without a focus on food is an odd beast. It almost entirely omits food, and therefore does not even begin to solve all the problems that the virus has both caused and revealed. I would wager that the Environment Secretary and the farming Minister did not have the whip hand in the timing of this Bill, and that it is down to Downing Street and its free marketeer agenda, seeking to see off a rebellion of Tory MPs rightly unhappy and uneasy about leaving the door open to imports of food produced to lower standards, that we are here today on a contentious piece of legislation in the middle of a national crisis.

The new clauses in the names of the Chairs of the two Select Committees—the hon. Members for North Dorset and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—and those in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and me all seek to do one very simple thing, which is to put Government promises into law. The promise from the Conservative manifesto says:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

These words are meaningless unless they are backed up by law. The amendments today reflect a cross-party concern that the promises of high standards will not be kept unless they appear in black and white in the Bill. The right place to deal with farm standards is a Bill about farming. Indeed, the Leader of the House has just said from the Dispatch Box that he is about delivering on the manifesto and that this is essential. I agree on this point: those standards are essential, and they must be delivered on in law.

I suspect the Minister will shortly say that the subjects of these amendments would best be dealt with in the Trade Bill. I disagree with her on that and, unfortunately, so do her own Government. It seems the Government’s trade team are arguing that the Trade Bill is actually not for setting up trade architecture. They argue that it is a continuity Bill for rolling over existing agreements that Britain is a party to as part of the EU, so we will need another trade Bill that has not been published, written or designed yet to deal with matters such as democratic oversight of trade deals. There is zero chance, as the Minister knows, of such a Bill appearing or passing before the 31 December deadline, so we come to the necessity of this issue being dealt with in this Bill, where it can be discussed and implemented ahead of the 31 December deadline. It must not be parked or lost in the long grass of future Bills that have not yet appeared.

These amendments are being opposed, to my mind, simply because they would make it harder to have a trade deal with nations for which lower food and farm standards are the norm. The inescapable truth of Ministers refusing to put these sensible amendments into law is that allowing British farmers to be undercut by cheap imported food is part of the Government’s plan, and it should not be. Labour has tabled the amendments because we will not allow British farmers to go out of business because they are being undercut by cheap imports that would be illegal if they were grown or produced in the UK.

There is no urban-rural divide on high farm standards or on animal health and welfare, no divide when it comes to wanting high environmental standards preserved and no divide between feeders and eaters when it comes to food safety and food quality. This Bill is, by and large, a reasonable Bill.

DEFRA officials and Ministers have worked hard to get the detail right, but the political handcuffs placed on the Environment Secretary and his Ministers to tie them to oppose these reasonable, sensible, necessary and essential amendments betray the bigger political agenda at play here. Both the Environment Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who has responsibility for farming, have good agricultural pedigree, and I am reassured that those with experience are at the helm of the Department, but if orders are coming from the Department for International Trade, they have my sympathy for being caught in the invidious place of choosing between what is right and what they are told to do.

Agriculture Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am sure that colleagues will be aware that this debate must finish at 9 o’clock and there are still two Front-Bench contributions to come. I will therefore set an immediate limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches, although I fear that may have to go down if we are to have any chance of getting everybody in.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendments 1, 11, 16 and 17, and on amendment 18 I send my best wishes for a speedy recovery. I declare an interest: my little sister is a farmer in Cornwall. I thank all farmers for their work throughout the covid-19 pandemic.

This is a crucial moment for British agriculture. Today, Members on both sides of the Chamber are given a choice about what kind of country we want Britain to be. Do we want to be a nation that shines as a beacon around the world, standing up for our farmers, for the welfare of our animals and for the environment? Or do we want to throw all that away, just for the vague promise of a trade deal, so that poor-quality food is served to our children, standards are undercut and carbon and animal-welfare responsibilities are exported? I do not want to see Britain be the kind of country where our farmers are forced out of business, decimating our proud rural tradition.

I do not think anyone in this House wants lower-quality food on our plates, but unless the Government show some leadership and back British farmers, there is a real risk that that could happen. Labour has been clear that the Bill must include legal guarantees that our high UK food and farming standards will not be undercut in post-Brexit trade deals, whether with the USA, Australia or any other country. That is because Labour backs British farmers. In calling for food standards to be put unequivocally in law, I wish to speak not only for Labour but on behalf of the 1 million people who signed the NFU’s petition on food standards and, of course, on behalf of British farmers from Cornwall, Plymouth and Devon to the east of England, to Wales and to Scotland when I say: put high food and farming standards into law. Do it now—do it today.

It may seem a long time ago, but less than a year ago the Conservatives made a pledge on food standards in their manifesto. This is how it started:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

This is how it is going: our farmers risk being undercut by cheap imports from abroad within months. If the Government are serious about keeping their manifesto promise to safeguard standards, they should put that guarantee into law. If that promise was good enough for the Conservative manifesto, why is it not good enough for the Agriculture Bill, this Government’s flagship piece of legislation on food and farming? I say to the Minister that refusing to put that piece of the manifesto into law raises the question as to whether thar part of the manifesto was truly meant and whether that promise can be believed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Why does the hon. Gentleman think that so few British farmers vote Labour? Is it because they recognise Labour as a metropolitan elite outfit?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it gives me a chance to say that we back our British farmers. Tonight, they will be looking at the votes cast in this place to see whether Members of Parliament that represent farming communities, be they red or blue—these communities are represented on both sides of this House—support British farmers or choose not to do so. That will be a decision for each and every Member, but let me be clear: farmers are watching what happens in this debate tonight and what votes are cast, and their votes are not secured for the next election. Their votes are to be played for. I look forward to that competition.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman is making a great series of points. I am sure he would humbly accept that in the election last December the Conservatives made gains from his party in many urban parts of Britain because of the characterisation that Labour had taken those seats for granted. Is the same thing not here on the table tonight: large swathes of blue in rural Britain that the Conservatives assume will vote for them come what may? Is it not the lesson of tonight that at the next election many Conservative MPs will be in the same position as his colleagues were in December?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The important thing I have taken away from my discussions with farmers in Devon and on visits to farms up and down the country is that their votes are not guaranteed. The votes of rural communities are not guaranteed and are there to be won, but they need to be won through a strong vision and through delivery. Taking votes for granted is not a good electoral strategy anywhere. We need to look at what farmers will benefit from and what will they not benefit from. I worry that leaving a back door to their being undercut in trade deals is neither a good economic strategy for our country, nor a good political strategy for those people advocating it.

I expect the amendment to strengthen the Trade and Agriculture Commission to be redrafted in the Lords, and I hope it will come back to us soon. Amendment 16, on strengthening the trade commission, and amendment 18, on food standards, are a one-two—they are a classic British double act. I do not believe that the temporary and fragile Trade and Agriculture Commission would be able to stop the International Trade Secretary, Dominic Cummings and the Prime Minister signing a trade deal with America that would include imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef. That is why we need that one-two—strengthened scrutiny of trade deals and protection for our farmers—in law.

[Jim Shannon]

The agrifood sector is very important to Northern Ireland. We have built up a regulation and a standard that we have sold the world over. I hope the shadow Secretary of State will press Lords amendment 16 to a vote, because it would ensure that our products retained their standards the world over and that they would not be lost in this deal. Does he share my concern?

[Luke Pollard]

I share concerns about the quality of food that could be imported after a post-Brexit trade deal is done, unless there is a legal lock.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I absolutely support my hon. Friend’s points about the importance of farming and of a long-term vision to support our farmers. I think that tonight’s debate is significant for us and for the farming sector in the future. Does he agree that consumers are very concerned not only about the quality of our food and the risk of things being done by the back door, but about the viability of our farms?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I agree with those concerns. British consumers have spent decades arguing for increased animal welfare in our agriculture production, and putting their faith in those brands, supermarkets and products that have higher levels of animal welfare than others. That concern exists.

I want a trade deal with America, but it is really important that we do not pay for that trade deal with the livelihoods of our farmers. That is why the commission needs to be strengthened, providing extra scrutiny of standards, and we will need an amendment that locks those standards into law. I want the commission, as the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) hinted at in his intervention, to be put on a permanent statutory basis and to produce a report on every trade deal so that this House can vote on it. Our farmers feed the nation. The least they should expect is that their elected representatives have the opportunity to vote on whether to accept a trade deal that could devastate the economy. The Minister is right that a Bill is not required to set that up, but that means that the only thing required is a choice—and that is a choice that the Government have chosen not to make.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is an important point. Increased accountability would actually strengthen the hand of UK negotiators. I remember scrutinising the TTIP deal between the EU and the US in Washington, and one of our last meetings was with members of the food lobby, who told us, “Nothing is going through Congress unless we agree with it.”

[Luke Pollard]

I agree. At least British Ministers will not have to utter the phrase, “It won’t get through Parliament,” because Parliament has, sadly, voted itself out of having a say, making it one of the few Parliaments in the world that will not have a say on any trade deals with Britain.

Let me address briefly some of the reasons the Minister gave for not supporting the amendments, because it is important that we consider the arguments. Last week I heard the International Trade Secretary say that if we have high standards, that would risk having a crippling effect on agricultural exports from developing countries such as Kenya. I know that Members are concerned about that, but the problem is that it is not right. At the moment, thanks to our membership of the EU, the Government have nine trade deals with sub-Saharan African countries, and so far not a single one of them has been rolled over. We risk losing those trade deals with sub-Saharan Africa if we do not renew them by 31 December. If we care about our agricultural exports, that should be the priority. The Minister also knows that the Government should have a better plan for improving the post-Brexit UK version of the EU’s generalised scheme of preferences, which sets lower tariffs for developing countries in exchange for meaningful protection of human rights, labour rights and the environment.

What else is used as an excuse for the Government not putting their promise into law? The Minister mentioned labelling. I have spoken proudly from this Dispatch Box about the need to buy local. I want consumers to look out for the red tractor and other local accreditations when they are making purchasing decisions. But let us be real: an extra label will not stop lower-quality food being sold in Britain. It offers a meagre apology on the packaging, but only where there is packaging. Ministers know that 50% of our agricultural production does not go into retail. It goes into food service—to cafés and restaurants, food processing and the like—where the origin of the ingredients is, at best, hidden. That is precisely where chlorinated chicken would be sold and eaten first. It would go to big caterers and into mass production—places where consumers cannot tell where their food has come from or know the standards it is produced to. It would go into hospital food and into meals for our armed forces and our schools. The Government claim that the amendment is unnecessary because standards are included in the withdrawal Act, as we have just heard. However, the EU’s import restrictions apply only to products banned on the basis of safety and, as was mentioned earlier, they do not deal with animal welfare or environmental protections, which is what this amendment seeks to do.

There is one more excuse, which has not been spoken about so far, that is absolutely key to the Government’s future trade strategy, and it is about taxes. Could not Ministers just tax these products a wee bit more with an extra couple of pence on tariffs and let the market decide? This is something I have heard and read about in Tory-leaning media, but let me be clear with Ministers, because all those in this place know what the Treasury and the Department for International Trade are planning. Charging a few extra pence on lower-standard food import tariffs while public anger is at its highest will give Ministers a convenient soundbite to offer a nation ill at ease with the Government’s policy. They will then be able to drop those tariffs through secondary legislation when the anger dies down. The end result will be that we still have chlorinated chicken and food produced to lower standards on sale, whether it is for a few pence more or a few pence less. That will not stop those products being sold in the United Kingdom. It will authorise and legitimise it, and it will sign the death warrant for farm businesses the nation over. That is why we want these standards put into law.

In the midst of a climate and ecological emergency, it is imperative that we have a clear road map for agriculture to reach net zero. The NFU has done a good job in its work so far, and I want to thank farmers for the efforts they are making to cut carbon emissions, which are a sizeable chunk of UK emissions. That is why we back efforts to have clear, sector-specific plans that farmers can follow, and we also back efforts including the amendment tabled by Lord Whitty in the other place on pesticides. That matters because of the impact not only on the environment but on human health.

I fear that, in seeking to disagree with these amendments tonight, the Government might be trying to hint at the Salisbury convention, which is that the other place should not interfere with manifesto commitments. However, the Lords are doing something different from that: they are doing a reverse Salisbury. They are asking the Government to stick to their manifesto commitments. In such circumstances, the Salisbury principle does not apply, and the Lords should ask the Commons to reconsider these amendments on food safety and on the Trade and Agriculture Commission again—and again, if necessary. Every time this House votes on these amendments, more and more farmers will be looking at the voting list to see which Members support the farmers and which have chosen not to. We cannot take any votes for granted, and I warn Conservative Members against doing so.

Just last week the Leader of the Opposition and I visited the farm of the NFU president, Minette Batters, in Wiltshire. That was our second meeting with the NFU president in a month, but the Prime Minister still refuses to meet her. I would be grateful if the Minister could pull a few strings to get the PM to meet farmers to talk about this issue.

[Victoria Prentis]

I believe that the president of the NFU will be visiting Downing Street later this week.

[Luke Pollard]

Where the Leader of the Opposition leads, the Government follow. I am grateful for that. That visit to Wiltshire was not in vain, I see—[Interruption.]

What kind of country do we want to be? [Interruption.] I do not think that a country whose MPs shout at each other in a debate like this is a country that is good—[Interruption.] I have not heard that from this side and I encourage those on the Conservative side to recognise that as well. There are people watching this debate in farming communities up and down the country. They are tuning into BBC Parliament and parliamentlive.tv for the first ever time, and they should see parliamentarians performing at our best in this debate.

I want Britain to be a nation of quality—[Interruption.] Let me start that again, because the people at home might not have heard me over the chuntering. I want Britain to be a nation of quality, of high standards, of ethical treatment of animals and of stewardship of our landscapes; a custodian of high environmental standards; and a nation that challenges other nations to compete with us fiercely but to do so on a level playing field. I want Britain to be a beacon country with our values proudly on show, not just in soundbites and manifestos, but in our laws, trade deals and behaviours. That is what the amendments on food standards seek to achieve. It is a moral compass that this Agriculture Bill desperately needs.a It is because of that, and because Labour backs our farmers, that we have voted at every opportunity against the Bill, which singularly fails to protect our farmers from being undercut by food produced to lower animal welfare and environmental standards abroad. Our farmers are not afraid of competition but, when we maintain high standards for them but allow potentially food produced at lower standards to be imported, that is unfair. It is not a level playing field. That food would be illegal for British farmers to produce here, but somehow it would be okay to have it through the back door. That cannot be allowed and that is why our food standards must be put into law.

Agriculture Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the spokesman for the Opposition, I warn Members that there will be an immediate limit on Back-Bench speeches of three minutes. We obviously have very little time and many people wish to speak, so the shorter the better. I remind Members that brevity is the soul of wit.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendment 16B. Like the Minister, I declare an interest: my little sister is a sheep farmer in Cornwall. I thank all farmers for their work throughout the covid-19 pandemic and the work they will be undertaking during the second lockdown.

We have been here before, and we may yet be here again. I welcome the Government’s adoption of large parts of Labour policy since the last time we spoke about the Agriculture Bill. I have to say to the Minister that we are not quite there yet, but we are nearly there. The vote on food standards today is being followed by people in all our communities. It is a decision about what type of country we want Britain to be. I want Britain to be a country of high standards that respects the welfare of animals and ensures that environmental protection is baked into our food chain. We therefore continue to press Ministers to put our high food and farming standards into law.

I turn to the Government’s concessions and the amendment in the Minister’s name, which puts them into action. I am glad that, after voting against attempts to strengthen the Trade and Agriculture Commission a short time ago, the Government have changed their mind and listened to farmers, the National Farmers Union and Labour, in particular, on strengthening it. I thank Ministers for their efforts, and in particular the Farming Minister for her personal effort in trying to reach a compromise on that. I am grateful for all the work she has done. In particular, I thank Lord Grantchester, Baroness Jones and the Lords Minister, Lord Gardiner, for what has taken place. It has been a team effort, and it has included the work of the National Farmers Union and Minette Batters.

The Minister was up against a hard deadline to pass this Bill because of the Government’s decision to oppose an extension to the powers in the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Act 2020, which Labour proposed when we discussed this on 21 January. We suggested that Ministers take an extra 12 months of power so that they would not be up against a deadline, and I recall Ministers saying that that would not be necessary. It turns out that a bit of forward planning is a good thing. I encourage Ministers to look at such amendments the next time we introduce them, rather than arguing against them simply because of where they came from. It is important that farmers are paid.

Working side by side with our nation’s farmers, we have helped to secure two key concessions from Ministers. The first is that the Trade and Agriculture Commission should be put on a statutory basis, renewable every three years. That will happen in the form of an amendment to the Trade Bill. That amendment has not yet been published, so we cannot see the words, the meaning and the effect that it will have. When will we see the Government’s Trade Bill amendment on strengthening the Trade and Agriculture Commission so that we can understand how it will work legally with the new clause in this Bill?

We know that the International Trade Secretary and the Environment Secretary have not always agreed on food standards. The truth is that I do not trust the Department for International Trade not to break any promises once this Bill is passed. It is clear that despite having one Government, we sometimes have two competing food agendas. Will the Minister confirm that discussions about the wording of the amendment will take place with the Opposition and will involve DEFRA and DIT Ministers?

Will the Minister also give a commitment on the membership of the Trade and Agriculture Commission? Although it is broad at the moment, we feel it could be strengthened by an enhanced consumer voice, and with trade unions being part of it. I know that there is a proposal for trade unions to sit on a small union sub-committee, but having unions—a voice of the workers in our food sector—as part of that main body would be important.

The second concession that the Minister accepted was to enhance the scrutiny of trade deals, in recognition that the proposals put forward previously were inadequate. Strengthening that is supported on both sides of the House. There is more that can be done here. That is an argument that the shadow International Trade Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and I have been making consistently, but I feel that we can go a wee bit further.

I welcome that the Government will require a report to assess any trade deals against the standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and plant health, but this is extra scrutiny; it is not a vote on this matter. That is what we agreed and I think what should happen. The amendment the Minister has tabled only proposes that the report will be laid before parliamentary Committees and not to the House itself. It will not be subject to an automatic vote; only to a circuitous and fragile route. The House will know that, for a vote to happen, the CRaG process requires that the Government, in their generosity, would award the Opposition an Opposition day to challenge the trade deal if that trade deal falls below the standards we expect, regardless of what the TAC report may say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Luke Pollard]

I will carry on for just one moment, if I may.

The Minister says that a deal can be prayed against, but what we need is a proper system of parliamentary scrutiny, not a reliance on the benevolence of any Government Minister to afford the Opposition an Opposition day. To avoid any further ping-pong, I would be grateful if the Minister could guarantee now, and furthermore say in a published ministerial statement, that the Government will not unreasonably refuse an Opposition day for that purpose, in particular when it comes to a vote on any food standards in any future trade deals.

I want to press the Minister on the wording in Government amendment (a). We have spoken about this and I hope she will be able to give some clarity. The wording “consistent with” is used in relation to our own standards. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out where that has the same legal meaning as “equivalent to”. Many Lords had a similar concern about that and I would be grateful if she could set out the difference around what that means. I also think there is a logic to using production standards as one of the areas. I know the Government can ask the Trade and Agriculture Commission to look at things beyond what is in primary legislation, so I would be grateful if the Minister could look at whether production standards could also be used in relation to that.

Will the plans for parliamentary scrutiny include deciding negotiation objectives, consultation, access to texts during negotiations, and a statutory role for the relevant Select Committees as well as the TAC? The duty in the Government’s new clause is to report to Parliament on to what extent commitments in new free trade agreements relating to agriculture products are consistent with maintaining UK standards. Will the Minister explain if that will allow deals to let in imports of those products, provided that it is merely reported to Parliament, or will that provision enable goods produced to lower standards to be stopped from entering the UK?

[Jim Shannon]

One important factor for us in Northern Ireland, and especially in my constituency, is the milk sector. It is very important that the high standards we have in our products which are sold across the world are maintained. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that under the Bill the high standards we have will be maintained by every other country in the world that will have a chance to bring their products into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening. I think that is a point the Minister should address in her remarks as well. We should be a beacon for high standards. As the Minister herself moved an amendment to the Fisheries Bill on seal protection precisely to enable our trade with the United States, which had higher legislative standards on seal protection—not on other things, perhaps—we need to make sure that that works on both sides of the Atlantic. That is a good principle that I hope the Minister will adopt.

I am mindful of the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so will quickly run through this. We need to put our food and farming standards into law. Farmers have a genuine and widespread concern about that, and I think it is still missing from where the Government have moved to. The movement from the Government is welcome. It showed that the arguments the Government whipped their MPs to support could be further improved, an argument made by Conservative Back Benchers, as well as Labour. I believe there are further concessions that could help to undo the final concerns on this matter. I want to see farmers paid. I want to see the Agriculture Bill put into law. I expect that many of these issues will return to us when the Trade Bill comes back to this House.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to rise to support the Government amendments this evening. I am sure the Whips will be delighted to hear that. I thank the Prime Minister for his involvement in getting us to this solution. I also thank the Secretaries of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for the Department for International Trade, and I thank the farming Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for all her hard work in bringing us all together. I believe that this is a very good day not only for agriculture and food, but for the environment and animal welfare in this country and across the world.