Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am trying to get at where the policies of the supermarkets and the buyers lead to food waste on farms. We are talking about when food is produced and supermarkets reject the produce—sometimes on spurious cosmetic grounds, but usually because of poor predictions of when they will need it. Perhaps it is a bad summer and the supermarkets are not selling as many salads or other summertime foods as they otherwise would. That is what we are trying to get to the bottom of.

This is not about farmers choosing to do certain things with their produce; it is about trying to get to the bottom of the unfair relationship. We have the Groceries Code Adjudicator, but although there are measures in the Bill to strengthen that role, they still do not go anywhere near far enough. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has said that she does not believe she needs any more powers, whereas I know that farmers and a significant number of people throughout the supply chain are crying out for that relationship to be made fairer and be more firmly enforced.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that the data is not with the farmers, but with the supermarkets through the buyers’ decisions on what they take and what they reject? Surely we cannot expect the farmers to differentiate the uses made of their crops?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Yes, that is entirely the case. This is about the food supply chain. If we are only to look at our food system in relation to farming and treat that as something segregated, we cannot help farmers in the way they need to be helped.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Subsection (4)(f) provides for a purpose to collect data on food waste. That purpose is covered, but the other purposes the hon. Gentleman mentions are not covered. I will turn to animal welfare in a moment, but in terms of wages and conditions, as I pointed out, that is rightly picked up by regulations in other parts of our legislation, already enforced by the GLAA and HMRC to ensure that we adhere to those. On matters such as terms and conditions and pay, the object is to have the right regulation, which applies equally to everyone. It is not necessarily about just requiring people to publish the regulation and leaving them to their own devices. As I said, the purpose of subsection (4)(b) is to promote transparency in the supply chain.

I turn now to amendment 116 relating to animal welfare. I completely agree with the hon. Member for Stroud about the importance of animal welfare. I was very clear that it should be listed in clause 1 as a purpose for financial assistance. He says it should be recognised as a public good; it is. It is declared as a public good in the very first clause of the Bill. It is not appropriate, however, to have it in this particular clause for reasons that I will explain. If we want to deliver animal welfare outcomes, we can use a number of tools to approach that. We can raise the baseline of regulation and if we do so, we would do so using provisions such as those under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, as we did with CCTV in slaughterhouses. That should be legislation that applies equally to everyone.

The second approach that we can take is to introduce financial incentives to support farmers for adopting an approach to livestock husbandry that is better for the welfare of the animal. We make explicit provision for that in clause 1. It gives us the power to give grants to farmers to invest in new livestock housing that enables more enrichment of the sort the hon. Gentleman describes. It gives us the power to award financial incentives to farmers who sign up to holistic animal welfare accreditation schemes, such as RSPCA Assured or others. It also gives us other powers to help support objectives around animal health and welfare.

The third option is to improve labelling, which I know a number of hon. Members have raised in the past. Things such as method of production labelling or method of slaughter labelling can be introduced, and there are often debates on these issues. Those are the three key areas. They are not necessary in this particular part of the Bill. We can—and do—deliver our animal welfare objectives in many other parts of the Bill. We do not need a requirement here for information on animal welfare to be disclosed, because it should be either a regulation that is enforced uniformly or an incentive scheme. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to clause 3, which links to any payments made to incentivise high animal welfare. Clause 3(2)(e) gives us the power to require people to keep records and subsection (2)(a) has the power to make provisions around information. In the context of the financial incentives that we intend to offer, we can already require the disclosure of information to support the enforcement of those schemes.

[Martin Whitfield]

On that point, does the Minister envisage that the regulation will facilitate the Secretary of State’s collecting the information, or is he hoping it will just be volunteered, because it is being retained by the farmer?

[George Eustice]

In the context of any financial grant or incentive awarded to a farmer under the powers in clause 1, the regulations provided for in clause 3 could stipulate a legal requirement to provide certain information. If farmers enter such incentive schemes, there are already powers in clause 3 to require that information. As for animal welfare in the wider context, that is a regulatory issue that should apply equally to all.

I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Member for Stroud about the importance I place on animal welfare, but we pick up those policy objectives elsewhere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

Nice try, but whatever the deal is, let us see it and judge it according to its merits. One of the tests that we will apply is the effect that it will have on manufacturers, food producers, communities and the devolved Administrations, and whether it respects the nations of our country and keeps our Union together. Those are the things that we will be thinking about, and we think that having a customs union is essential. We could have referred to a single market deal or any number of things, but we have chosen to be specific in the amendment. We want to understand what the Government expect to happen should we leave without a deal and without being part of a customs union with our nearest neighbours at the end of March next year. We are deeply worried about that.

[Martin Whitfield]

Is it not the case that, because of the circumstances surrounding the Bill on the question of no deal or deal, and because the Bill represents scaffolding, a lot of people are seeing what they want to see in it, when there is actually very little to see? The sort of certainty that is proposed in these amendments would go a long way towards giving our farmers and rural communities confidence about what is expected and intended.

[Jenny Chapman]

That is a really important point. If I was a farmer, I would be incredibly worried by the Bill in general, but my anxiety would be heightened by this clause and by what I might anticipate happening, given the reports we are reading in the press. I do not think that any hon. Members present have any certainty about whether a deal will be reached, what a deal will look like if it is reached, whether it will be approved by Parliament, or whether it will be approved by the Cabinet, so to blithely assert that there will be a deal and that everything will be fine is not good enough.

We have one opportunity to get the Bill right. This clause could be the lifeboat for many people in the industry. It is important that we understand what the Government intend and what they would do, under the powers given to them through the clause, should we leave without a deal and without being in a customs union.

The National Audit Office report states that the Government are generally underprepared for a no-deal outcome. To be fair, DEFRA has done more than many Departments, but that is because it has had to, because so much of its activity is affected by Brexit. Because the Government are underprepared, there is now panic. A year ago, we anticipated having a deal in October, then it was last week, this week and probably next week. Where is the deal? The anxiety in Parliament is palpable, and it is starting to be felt in the country too. There is an emerging sense of panic, whether about transferring staff from valuable wildlife protection work in Natural England or about the need to stockpile food. We know that the industry has already rented out virtually all the available food storage in the country, and people are incredibly worried about that. Given the lack of clarity and information, their concern is understandable and valid.

The Government have a duty to ensure that there will be food in the shops in April. I know I will be accused of “Project Fear” mark II, mark III or whatever—I understand that, and I am being careful not to enter into that kind of thing—but we must be honest. I do not know whether hon. Members had a chance to read the Government’s technical notices, which were published this summer, but they make pretty grim reading. The Government now acknowledge and anticipate many of the concerns that were deemed to be part of “Project Fear”.