Draft Animal Welfare (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Drew

Monday 18th March 2019 General Committees

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. As always, I thank the Minister for his remarks.

I will start with the usual caveat. At one level, this is one of those Committees where we are merely nodding through something that may, in due course, become just a series of technical changes. However, this SI includes live exports, the pre-stunning of animals, journey times and other things that—if my postbag is anything to go by—people care passionately about in their own right, so we are nodding through something very important.

The Minister will come back with the usual proviso that the Government are not making any changes to the legislation—I will come on later to people who wish that the Government had made some changes to the legislation, particularly given their commitments to issues such as the banning of live exports—but as the Opposition, we have to do our best to ensure that what is passed is fit for purpose and gives us confidence that the situation will not change for the worse.

We are considering some difficult issues; I will mainly refer to what different groups have said about the regulations. When the Minister responds, it would be helpful for him to put on the record at an early stage where the Government are on their policy of banning live exports. They campaigned on the issue, and many Conservative MPs strongly support it, as stated in the 2017 manifesto, but there has been a rolling-back of the belief that it can be easily done.

We have not really touched on the difficulty that the different territorial Administrations have different views about the issue. For example, the Scottish Government feel that it should not be interfered with, because live exports into England, Northern Ireland and the south of Ireland are important for Scotland. We have to make sure, however, that when we pass the measure, at least the people responsible for undertaking those activities know exactly what the law says, and that the law is being enforced.

We as a Parliament have made many statements about how we want to ensure that journey times are kept to a minimum, and that animals are properly fed and watered—that word “lairage” appears—so they are taken out when appropriate and allowed to stretch their legs. It is the case that we cannot then control what happens in the EU, but we certainly must control what happens in the UK, so it is important that we get the regulations right.

As the Minister rightly said—hon. Members will be pleased to know that I will not say much about it—the statutory instrument refers to the regime for slaughterers’ certificates of competence. It sounds straightforward, but I ask the Minister which body will oversee that in the UK, because it will obviously have to comment on the suitability of other nationalities to do the type of work that they will be doing, which will depend on their qualifications in their own countries. We are losing the commonality of the EU, which was one of its great advantages, and which meant that there was at least some standardisation of qualifications.

As an introductory point, it is also worth noting the issue of third-country health certificates. Unless I am wrong, the draft regulations will permit meat produced in EU member states and in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland to be accepted without a third-country health certificate. I would be interested to know whether such a certificate will be required of those countries with which we intend to sign trade deals, because there needs to be some consistency in what we put in place with countries that we deal with as members of the EU and those with which we would normally expect some form of import and export relationship. If and when such trade deals are passed in due course, depending on what happens on 29 March, will DEFRA have a say over the third-country health certificates?

I will not rehearse the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South about cost, but it would be interesting to know to what extent DEFRA has factored in the additional environmental impact and who will pay for it. Those costs will include collecting data, monitoring the effectiveness of the regulations and reporting regularly. We will lose access to the TRACES—trade control and expert system—database, which presumably we had particular access to in regard to such activities, so it would be interesting to know how far DEFRA has got in finding an alternative, running it and ensuring that it actually works.

No doubt the Minister has considered input from stakeholders, as I have. I make my usual declaration that I am an associate of the British Veterinary Association, which is reasonably happy with the draft regulations, bar the issue of certificates of competence. It is important that it be clearly spelled out how those certificates will operate, because—as I have said on numerous occasions—95% of our vets on the line in abattoirs come from outside the UK, and most of them come from within the EU. Without a vet on the line, it has to shut down. It would be interesting to know how the system will operate, at least in the short run; if we do not get it right in the short run, it will not work in the longer run. It would be useful if the Minister explained exactly how the one thing links into the other.

[Luke Pollard]

I have been reflecting on the Minister’s remarks about the number of people affected. I wonder whether it would be helpful for the Committee to be given the geographical breakdown of those figures, so that we know which regions of our country will be most affected by these changes and whether any of them are in the south-west, which my hon. Friend and I represent. That would help us to understand the impact on our regional economies as a result of the additional regulatory burdens for people continuing to do their job.

[Dr Drew]

That would certainly be very helpful. There are three abattoirs in my constituency; I could not say how many of them are personed by EU vets, but I know that that is common across the terrain, so I imagine that they are.

Compassion in World Farming sees the draft regulations as a missed opportunity. It would like the Government to go much further on tightening up pre-stunning, live exports, movements and other matters that we have discussed. It would be interesting to know by what process we will ensure that if and when we leave the EU, what we do in this country—hopefully we will at least maintain the same standards—will happen in the rest of the EU. One would not want to see any diminution of standards here, but if animals are being exported into the EU, clearly we need to ensure that standards there remain the same. It would be useful to hear from the Minister how we will continue negotiating with our colleagues—or, after March, our former colleagues—to ensure that standards do not decline anywhere. We pride ourselves on our approach to animal welfare; that is one of our arguments for not signing free trade deals with certain parts of the world.

CIWF has also looked quite hard at some of the slaughtering methods. It is not happy with the current methodology for pigs, sheep or broiler chickens, which it felt should have been tightened up. It is not necessarily about just the method of slaughter, but the mechanism behind it. I have the figures here. A recent survey by the Food Standards Agency reports that in England and Wales 86% of pigs are slaughtered with high concentrations of carbon dioxide. CIWF argues that that is incredibly environmentally damaging, and something that should gradually be run down and replaced. It will be interesting to see whether the Government have that as part of their agenda. Likewise, the non-stunning of sheep is a problem that we have never really got into, because of the normal arguments about halal and shechita methods of slaughter—sheep tend to have been left out of that.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is disappointed that this SI does not go further, certainly in terms of managing live exports. It has asked, what happens in terms of additional border inspections posts? I have asked the Minister that on previous occasions. We have to be aware that at the very least, as an independent nation, we will have to have more independent border inspection posts. It will be interesting to see what contingencies the Government put in place to ensure that that is the case. If the exports go through even the existing ports, such as Dover, we will need to do more checking.

The Dogs Trust—interestingly—said that it did not have time to respond, because the consultation period was so short, but it is a pretty important organisation. It is worried about the transport of adult dogs. I had not realised how many dogs get picked up, literally because the method of transport is so poor that they are seized as part of that transit. The Dogs Trust regularly rehouses adult dogs and puppies that are taken in that way. It felt that this was an opportunity to look at the way in which we transport these animals, and to raise awareness about the diseases that animals can acquire. I am told that leishmaniasis and babesiosis are both rife among puppies—something which the Dogs Trust has to deal with when rehoming those animals. What mechanisms are the Government putting in place to try to bear down on disease, when things are clearly not right at the moment?

I think this is a missed opportunity. Although SIs are coming round with such regularity that none of us knows what we are doing, but we do the best we can, there are some reasons why we should set a standard—not necessarily a gold standard—at which we can feel confident that our animal welfare is the best in the world. If we are saying that we will not diminish that, we have to be confident that it is the best in the world, so when and if we sign these wonderful trade deals, we have to set that as the standard. If other countries cannot meet those standards, we cannot sign the deals.

Cattle Compensation (England) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Drew

Wednesday 24th October 2018 General Committees

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Cattle Compensation (England) (Amendment) Order 2018 (S.I. 2018, No. 754).

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I think that the Committee will have an interesting discussion. This is round three of a four-round contest this week—we have the Agriculture Bill again tomorrow—but this is an important issue. Obviously, the Opposition have some issues with the order.

The background to the order is fairly well known. We no doubt disagree about the causes and consequences of bovine tuberculosis, but we are not here to discuss that. We are here to discuss the compensation scheme, which is very important to my local farmers and to those of a number of other hon. Members here.

The operation of the slaughter policy derives from European Council directive 1964/432/EEC, which demands that we slaughter TB-affected animals. The reason why we have prayed against the order is, as much as anything, to get clarity from the Minister about why we are reducing compensation at this difficult time and what the impact is. As I said, we may disagree about the causes and consequences of bovine TB. We will not disagree that this is a dreadful disease that has a huge impact on our farmers, so any reduction in compensation needs to be looked at very carefully.

In 2015-16, 29,000 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered under the scheme. That cost the state about £30 million, so it is a considerable financial imposition on the state, in addition to the terribly bad effect on farmers. This proposal provides for a 50% reduction in compensation where an owner brings an animal into a TB-affected herd and that animal then tests TB-positive while the TB incident is ongoing. Cattle keepers accredited under a scheme based on the standards laid down by Cattle Health Certification Standards will continue to receive 100% compensation for all compulsorily slaughtered cattle, provided that the herd is accredited at the time of the breakdown. My first question to the Minister is therefore a general one: exactly how will that work? Obviously, some will be accredited, but others may have been brought in. We know that cattle passports and so on are not always as accurate as one would want. If a TB-affected cattle carcase has to be condemned because of being so unclean that there is a real risk of bacterial contamination, it, too, qualifies only for a compensatory payment of 50%.

Under the order, owners of TB-affected cattle who choose a slaughterhouse to kill the cattle could face at least a 50% reduction. For some, that is better, because they may have not got any compensation before. Again, I ask the Minister to be clear: who will receive the compensation and at what level? This measure is of course part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs TB eradication strategy.

Let me move on to the comments from others; I also have some questions. The proposal was not well received in the consultation: 76%—a fairly high number—disagreed with the compensation reduction, and although 47% supported reduced compensation for cattle that cannot be processed by a slaughterhouse because they are unclean, I suspect those people were clear that they stood to gain if they did things properly. The proposals have a negative impact on the cattle industry of about £0.7 million—many of these figures are in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. What impact is that likely to have on those people who are already struggling because of bovine TB?

I have a series of questions that I will go through slowly. Some of them are from the National Farmers Union, which has been quite trenchant in its criticism of aspects of the proposals. To look first at what I am concerned about: has DEFRA proved that the reduction is necessary? It is a large sum of money but, in the great scheme of what we pay out in compensation, it is a relatively small sum.

Has DEFRA considered and discussed the legal implications of the reduced compensation with the Animal and Plant Health Agency? There is some dispute over whether it is right and proper and whether it would lead to a legal challenge. If a bought-in animal becomes a reactor after entering a new herd—the timescale is as yet unknown, though the Minister might be able to say—what criteria will be used to state with absolute certainty that the animal contracted the disease from other cattle within the destination herd? At what point will DEFRA decide that an animal is no longer a migrant to the herd? That is quite a complicated issue—these are complicated matters—and that is where the Government might be subject to legal challenge.

How do the reduced levels of compensation provided for by the order compare with those available to cattle keepers in other EU states, particularly Ireland, which has its own problems with bovine TB? What is DEFRA’s assessment of the impact of this reduction on dairy farms that are forced to buy in herd replacement to meet contractual obligations? That is one of the biggest issues; it is not just a question of the loss of the existing cattle. They have to be bought in, and only from TB-affected areas. What impact would this loss of money have on that process?

What is DEFRA’s assessment of the risk to the quality and welfare of cattle that would result from the reduction in compensation, if it leads farmers to seek to buy replacement stock from the open market, or via live exports? Again, I know about the restrictions on from where to restock, but people who are suffering might look to other means to restock. That would not be any good, with the way TB is spread within the cattle stock as well as maybe from other vectors.

What is DEFRA’s assessment of the impact of this reduction in particular on tenant farmers who have no option but to restock before a breakdown has been resolved, or the impact on the stock value and the ability to assess capital for investment? As the Minister will know, that is the problem for tenant farmers who do not have spare capital: they have to borrow if they face a reduction in compensation. It already takes a considerable time to receive that money. In this case, they would not receive it, and there could be further delays.

Will cattle keepers have the option to pay the slaughterhouse to clip retrospectively where an animal is found not to meet the clean livestock requirements to protect the compensation value to the farmer and receipt value to DEFRA?

I have a couple more questions and observations from the National Farmers Union, and then I will finish. How will the decision to reduce compensation be taken in circumstances in which it cannot be determined whether cattle were unclean when they left a farm? That is the reality of abattoirs; one is always reliant on vets getting it right. The Minister will know about the number of clear cattle that go through, as well the number of cattle of uncertain status that are subsequently found to have TB.

What assessment has DEFRA made of the likelihood and cost of legal challenges? On what basis will DEFRA be able to deal with that without penalising a farmer for a third party’s actions?

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the changes will unfairly penalise farmers who may be in proximity to high-risk trading activity, rather than having bovine TB in their own herds because of something that they are in control of? They may receive lower compensation simply because of the proximity and activity of neighbouring farms.

[Dr Drew]

That is a very real point, because we still do not know enough about the transmission mechanism of bovine TB. Farmers may be innocent and the disease may have been brought in. We know from such experiences as that in Cumbria that transmission is associated with buying in stock. That certainly occurred after the foot and mouth episode, where the transmission of bovine TB was almost certainly the result of it being in the stock that was brought into Cumbria. That has happened on a number of occasions.

What consideration was given to other approaches to highlight the importance of clean cattle? What guidance has been given to farmers to try to ensure that we have clean cattle and wildlife clear of this dreadful disease, as we all want?

In the NFU’s consultation response—I will not labour the point, because many of the NFU’s concerns replicate points I have made—it was concerned about how the process will operate with the veterinary risk assessment that will be completed by the APHA. If DEFRA does not have sufficient confidence in the process and relationships with the state veterinary service are not always as good as they might be out on the farm, how can we say definitively that the farmer will not be the main loser? Farmers are losing money, but they are also, dare I say it, losing confidence in the process. DEFRA continually emphases its commitment to industry sustainability, and yet the order could place businesses under severe financial constraint. It would be interesting to know what the Minister intends to do to build confidence in the fairness of the process.

I have two more points from the NFU. It said that DEFRA should allow cattle keepers the option to pay the slaughterhouse in advance to clear the process. I made that point, but the NFU is clear that there needs to be a direct mechanism with slaughterhouses, rather than the current retrospective process. Finally, the NFU said that there is a need to consider that most cattle that go for slaughter because of TB are not at the stage of production or conditioning that is normal for finished animals. They may not have spent any time on dry pasture or bedding to help to clean them. The order will further penalise a cattle keeper who is already losing the production potential of an animal that is taken early.

To conclude, this debate is about technicalities, but it is also about farmers’ feeling that the process with an animal that is taken is somewhat unfair. Having dealt with the Minister, I know he is fair, but the process—in my case, the animal was a pet—is quite brutal. There is a view among farmers that they are always the ones who have to make sacrifices. They are making sacrifices with the cull, and the order creates another slippery slope by reducing yet again the compensation that they have received under successive Governments. Farmers are under huge pressure. I hope that the Minister will be able to allay a lot of those fears and keep the discourse going with the farmers’ organisations, which are not happy.

We need to deal with this dreadful disease, not make it worse. The bottom line is whether people will be tempted to take the law into their own hands if we withdraw compensation. I have always felt that one of the problems is that people under financial burdens are too often tempted to deal with those difficulties in other ways. I am not accusing farmers of any illegality, but these are desperate people who face a desperate disease and have to make very difficult decisions. If they are not compensated for the animals that they have lost, that can only add to their desperation.

Environment and Rural Affairs (Miscellaneous Revocations) Order 2018

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Drew

Monday 22nd October 2018 General Committees

[Dr Drew]

What the right hon. Gentleman says, as a former Immigration Minister, is very interesting. I know that he had to deal with such issues. I am just making the point that we do not have enough labour in rural areas, particularly in farm supply, and that we must address that. Like everything else, that is part of a much bigger debate, which no doubt we will touch on in the Agriculture Bill, but I am just looking at what is happening at the moment, with insufficient labour to pick fruit and veg.

I talk to my farmers, just as the right hon. Gentleman will to his, and trying to get labour to do milking and some of the general work is not easy, and that situation is particularly acute because we are losing migrant labour, for whatever reason. Many of my farms have traditionally employed people from abroad for periods of time, which is why we have been critical of the Government’s attempts to address this in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. That should have been in place a long time ago to encourage people to come to this country for a specified period for specified work. That has not happened, and we will see how the new proposal operates, but it is a bit late and it seriously under-provides for the numbers we need in the current acute crisis.

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

I do not want to prolong the debate further but, reflecting on the number of orders that this order revokes, I wonder whether those have been captured as part of the one in, one out regulatory reform process—whether we have already seen ones in for these ones out. Or is it my hon. Friend’s view that they are being saved up for the 800 Brexit statutory instruments that we are shortly to get?

[Dr Drew]

I do not want to be taken away from what we are debating today. I am sure we will have plenty of other opportunities to talk about Brexit issues. However, given the Government’s emphasis on the number of statutory instruments that will be associated with the Agriculture Bill, we might as well get used to what we are doing because we will be testing a lot of them in the SI process. I would prefer that to be done through primary legislation with our amendments to the Bill, but that is not where we are today.

These orders are largely historic and we do not have any issues with the revocations, other than that we are laying down the ground rules of where we will try to move to in the Bill to get the Agricultural Wages Board back in some form. I accept what the Minister says. The board was not perfect, but it needed reforming, not abolition, and that is our great sadness on the Opposition Benches. I am indebted not only to Unite but to Sustain, which is not a trade organisation per se but tries to encourage different ways of producing our food. It feels very strongly, as do Opposition Members, that that would be better advanced if we had some form of agricultural wages board.

We are open to suggestions. If the Government want to come back with a way in which we can solidify and restructure the setting of agricultural wages and conditions, we are only too willing to be part of that process. Likewise during the Bill, we will not be there to wreck it but to reform, improve and enhance it.

Question put and agreed to.

Shipbuilding Strategy

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Drew

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I agree with him. In fact, our hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) has raised the concern that state aid from the South Korean Government was potentially part of the consideration of the value of the MARS tankers contract, which went to South Korea. That £452 million contract was potentially subsidised by the South Korean Government, who are building skills and employment in Daewoo shipyards in that country. Excluding a little bit of final outfitting in the UK, those jobs have been outsourced and offshored.

Contracts to build ships for the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary should be onshored. The ships should be home grown, British designed and British made, using British steel and British technologies, and preserving Britain’s sovereign defence capabilities to design, build and equip complex and important ships for our own use and for export. The MOD could give its friends in the Treasury the good news that between 34% and 36% of the contract value would be flowing back into its coffers in tax and national insurance—bad news potentially for Kim Dong-yeon, the South Korean Finance Minister, but good news for our Chancellor of the Exchequer, who I am sure is following this debate closely and with avid interest. He is, after all, a big fan of the armed forces.

If UK shipyards build elements of the ships, it could help to fill gaps in the order books of yards right across the UK and contribute to what I believe should sit alongside the shipbuilding strategy: a clear running order of contracts over the next 30 years for the Royal Navy and RFA; a pipeline of work; a reason to invest in world-class design and production facilities, not just on the Clyde, but in reanimated yards such as Appledore in north Devon and those of Harland and Wolff and Cammell Laird. Ipsos MORI research commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy found that 100 shipyard jobs lead to an additional 32 jobs in the manufacturing sector within a 60-km area, so there is a multiplier effect from investment in UK shipbuilding.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that at the other end of the scale, the commercial end, there are also very profitable yards? There are two in Stroud, funny as that may seem, at Sharpness and Saul. It is important that we understand that the whole shipbuilding industry needs support, but also recognise that it is a very integrated industry. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do agree. The great strength of this debate on the national shipbuilding strategy is that we can praise the contribution not only of those yards that might be seen on the 10 o’clock news—the ones with the very large cranes and very large warships—but also all the supply chains to the smallest yards, and all those businesses that supply the kit that goes on the ships. That makes the UK a formidable power when it comes to shipbuilding. I am glad that the shipbuilding strategy hints at that, but perhaps it could go a little further in celebrating it.

That brings me to the second point, and recognising that many hon. Members want to speak, I will be brief. In my maiden speech in the House of Commons in June 2017, I called for more, and more capable, frigates. The Type 31e is not exactly what I had in mind. I am concerned that the shipbuilding strategy embeds the reduction of truly world-class frigates from 13 to eight. The Type 26 is a fine global combat ship, although one of the City class should be named after Plymouth—a campaign started by my Conservative predecessor and continued proudly by me. It is a good ship and a good programme that will serve UK interests well, but there are too few of the ships—to be precise, five too few.

The top-up light frigates have an ill defined military role, a confused capability and a price tag that gives this the potential to be the Snatch Land Rover of the Royal Navy—a comment by the Royal United Services Institute’s director of military sciences. I have a different name for that class: corvettes. I am genuinely concerned that over the next few years this class of ship will be the focus of much critiquing, as it fails to hit established frigate standards and looks less capable than the Type 23 frigates that the ships replace.