Agriculture Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

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

This measurement deserves a place in our legislation. In a country as rich as ours, no one should go to bed hungry or wake up hungry. We need to know where this is happening, how this is happening, and why this is happening, so that we can stop it. I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept our amendments, because that would show the millions who have gone hungry, the millions who have joined them in recent months and those who, sadly, will continue to join them, that this Government are not beyond contrition and, eventually, are ready to take the growing levels of hunger on their watch seriously.

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

It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in this debate. I draw attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I come from a long family of farmers, have interests in farming and food production, and represent a very successful rural constituency producing some of the finest food in the world, with absolutely top-class farmers and food producers.

I strongly welcome the Bill, and look forward to it going through today. It will free us from the constraints of the common agricultural policy, which held us back for many years—it will let us give freedom to farmers. When I was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, time and again farmers said, “Get out of our hair!” The Bill will allow farmers to concentrate on what they are good at, which is producing food. I entirely echo the comments made by the Minister and others earlier in the debate about the tremendous efforts of farmers and food producers to cope with the extraordinary circumstances of corona.

The first thing I want to say is that there is no conflict between wanting to have freedom for farmers and wanting free trade around the world. I see a great opportunity for farming to benefit from any free trade deals. That is absolutely clear. There is a narrative out there that the sad price of free trade arrangements will be some sort of cost to the farming industry. I just do not buy that.

We have huge export opportunities—the Minister touched on exporting beef to the United States, which must be worth over £60 million over three years. When I was at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs we began to get beef on the bone back into Hong Kong, and there are enormous opportunities. For example, in the lamb industry, China and America are neck and neck as world leaders in lamb consumption. They each consume twice as much as France or Germany, so there are great opportunities for our exporters. Given the constraints we experienced under the common agricultural policy, I really see opportunities with new technologies—CRISPR gene editing and so on—to enable us to catch up.

There are some interesting figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Against a metric of 1 in 1961, the EU is still producing a given amount of food at 0.55; we are at 0.43; the world is 0.29; and the world leader is 0.03. That is the lesson—if we free up agriculture, people can take advantage of the benefits of free trade and technology.

Turning to the new clauses, I take exception to the proposals from my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). We agree on many issues regarding oversight, but I do not agree with this. We already have high standards, and the Minister has made it clear that we are not going to reduce those standards. The new clauses are unenforceable. Let us take the great vexed issue of chlorinated chicken. As my hon. Friend for Tiverton and Honiton said, people do not use very much chlorine—they use pathogen reduction treatments, which have been cleared by the US, the EU authorities and by Codex Alimentarius. When we look at the regulations, we see that stocking densities are similar to those that pertain in Europe. The outcomes on health grounds are better. Americans eat roughly twice as much chicken as Europeans, and their outcomes on campylobacter and salmonella are significantly better.

What would we do if this condition went through? It would completely block any hope of a US free trade deal, with catastrophic consequences for large parts of our economy. Would we go after the individual chicken plant? Would we go after the state? Would we go after the whole US nation, which would come straight back and say, “Sorry guys, our product is healthier.” It would be much better if we resumed our full seat on the Codex Alimentarius Commission on food standards, on the OIE on animal welfare, which is important to many citizens, and on the international plant protection convention on plant health, working with allies and pushing to improve world standards.

When I was at DEFRA I went to New Zealand and was struck by the fact that, freed up, it had reduced massively the number of sheep but increased the volume of meat exporting while conforming to religion protocols for minorities. Everything that it exported to the middle east was stunned before slaughter. We talk about standards a lot. What goes on in many of our slaughterhouses does not bear inspection. I challenge Members to look at videos—or, better, go along—and they will be horrified when they see what many of our livestock go through. Much of this volume of material is not required by minorities—it is absolutely fine to provide it for them—but we could copy New Zealand. We could work with it at a high level, pushing for higher standards. I am afraid I do not support the amendments, but I do support the Bill.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson). First and foremost, I want to put on record my thanks to the local farming community in my constituency and to farming communities up and down the country, as they have been vital in helping to maintain the food supply to communities throughout the land in this crisis. Many farmers are anxious about their health, and are concerned about family members and the welfare of their workers. Too many farmers have unsold produce going to waste, as supply chains—restaurants, hotels, caterers and cafés—have had to close because of the crisis. Dairy farmers in my constituency have been hit particularly hard. I know that Members across the House have lobbied the Government to do whatever it takes to support those farmers, and I certainly welcome the announcement of a hardship fund as a step in the right direction. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that.      

I want to highlight three areas of concern that need to be improved at this stage of the Bill. Importantly, the concerns are highlighted by those at the chalkface of our agricultural economy: the National Farmers Union, the custodians and users of our countryside, and the consumers of our British products. First, the Bill must ensure that specific provisions in future trade deals require agricultural imports to meet our environmental, animal welfare and food standards. I raised the matter with the previous Secretary of State, and I will raise it again with the current Secretary of State. As Members across the House have said today, that needs to be enshrined in law. British produce must be a global gold standard, and a race to the bottom will have serious consequences for our farmers, our health and our global reputation.

Secondly, the current national and international pandemic has shone a bright light on the importance of food security. While I welcome the fact that the Bill requires the Government to report on the state of the nation’s food security, the current timescale of every five years is too long. The National Farmers Union rightly argues that the Bill should be strengthened to include annual reports on food security, and there should be clear requirements relating to the degree of the nation’s food security derived from domestic production and a clear commitment to prevent any further decline in self-sufficiency.

Finally, as somebody who is keen to maximise access to our countryside, I welcome the provisions that would enable funding for farmers who support public access. However, that is by no means a guarantee that the payments will deliver new paths or make existing paths more accessible. What assurances can the Secretary of State give the House and my constituents that that will happen?

River Severn Flooding

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I could not agree more, and I am sure that all of my right hon. and hon. Friends from Shropshire will join him in paying tribute to those people.

The River Severn partnership is a strategic coalition of 18 organisations, including local authorities, local enterprise partnerships, water companies and the Environment Agency. It has an agreed memorandum of understanding aimed at working collaboratively to develop a comprehensive long-term approach to management of the River Severn. Here, we have an established group of all the relevant and appropriate bodies, working together on an innovative and forward-looking holistic solution that could literally be a game-changing approach to flood management.

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

My hon. Friend is to be congratulated on having secured this debate at this timely moment, and it is good to see fellow Members from further down the river present. “Holistic” means the catchment area. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should look at the whole catchment area? The River Vyrnwy runs into the Severn in my patch, and this afternoon Melverley is flooded, protecting Shrewsbury. We need to look at holding water much further back in Wales, possibly paying landowners to hold water back, building new reservoirs and giving farmers the right to catch water. As Mr Bryan Edwards, head of the Melverley internal drainage board, has said, we want to slow it up at the top, hold more back and plant more trees—exactly as the Government are proposing to do—but when that water gets into the river, we want to speed it on down.

We should remember that the river used to be navigable and took a lot more water. We had a meeting in Shrewsbury a few years ago, looking at getting more out of the river, having more capacity, opening up the weirs and locks and generally making more of it, but also getting more water away. Once the water is in the river, we want to get it away, as Members from further down the Severn know. We need to look at a catchment area solution that goes right back to the hills and includes both the Vyrnwy and the Severn.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. That is the flavour of what we are trying to get across to the Minister. Of course, individual flood schemes can help—we have one in Shrewsbury that protects Frankwell, the town council and the area around it—but in reality, although those small schemes protect parts of Shrewsbury, they just push the problem further down the line, which affects my right hon. and hon. Friends down the river.

By the way, the River Severn is the longest river in the United Kingdom at 220 miles. That accolade certainly means that the Government need to look at the river in its entirety and come up with a solution to manage its flow across all our constituencies.

Environment Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). I endorse much of what she said about the horror that plastic presents to the world and the nonsense of exporting it. She might be interested to know that one of my sad failures as Secretary of State was failing to persuade our coalition partners to introduce a price incentive for a genuinely biodegradable plastic bag. Our charge, which came in shortly after I left but which I legislated for, has reduced the number of bags from 8 billion to 1.1 billion, according to the House of Commons Library, but the ideal is to develop a biodegradable plastic that does not cause this horror in the seas and all the terrible issues she raised.

We have heard many very good maiden speeches and I think there are more to come, so I will speak briefly. I see all this enthusiasm in the Chamber, all this youth, all these excited people wanting to take action as Members of Parliament and benefit their constituents, yet a pillar of the Bill, which I strongly support, is the creation of a quango. When I was Secretary of State, my four key priorities were: to grow the rural economy; improve the environment, not just protect it—which is built into the Bill; and save the country from animal disease and plant disease. The Bill is the basis on which to deliver that. It is not all in there—it is partly an enabling Bill—but I strongly support its clearly stated aims.

The only aspect I would really query is that we do not need another quango. We already have Natural England and the Environment Agency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), when he took the Bill through in its early incarnation, said that the staff of the OEP would only number 60 to 120. That dwarfs what we already have in Natural England and the Environment Agency. What we want are strong Ministers. I am delighted by the appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) as a Minister and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who was my junior Minister, as Secretary of State. They are knowledgeable, competent Ministers bringing forward policies that will benefit our farming and marine industries and the environment, both terrestrial and marine.

What we want is a strong mechanism by which Members can question Ministers, ensure that whatever they decide is put into practice and pull them up if it is not. What we do not need is another quango. A quango is not the answer. I have direct experience of that. We had the most terrible floods in Somerset when I was at DEFRA. Why was that? It was because of a very misguided policy. Why was it misguided? It was because the Environment Agency was led by a model quangocrat. Baroness Young of Old Scone had spent seven years as chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, she had been vice-chairman of the BBC for two years, and she was chief executive of the Environment Agency for eight years. I am sure she would score many points among all those speakers on the Opposition Benches—of course, she was also a Labour Whip.

The policy of Baroness Young in the Somerset levels was to put a limpet mine on every pumping station, and when it came to categories, she wanted policy option 6 for the levels, which was to increase flooding. The result was an environmental catastrophe, costing, according to some estimates, more than £100 million. The water died—the water went stagnant—and all aquatic life disappeared. I went down and talked to some experts on the levels who really understood the local environment, and they said that they had never seen so many wild birds disappear until that year.

What we want is local management. North Shropshire looks as it does thanks to generations of private farmers and private landlords taking huge pride in what they do. What we are doing now on public goods in the Agriculture Bill—and there are more measures in this Bill—is giving people the chance to improve their local environment. I should like the Minister to look at the benefits of nature improvement areas, built around catchments, where we could pool the resources from the landowners’ payments for public goods, from public grants and from other moneys, possibly local, for the purpose of long-term targets. We could concentrate on local species which need building up again. That would deliver real environmental outcomes.

Creating at national level a quango with 60 to 120 busy- bodies who are, for some reason, independent of this House is not the way. We have had enough: we have had 40 years of the European Union telling us what to do, and doing it badly. Following directives designed for polluted European rivers, not our own—that is not the way. The answer is to write laws in this House, and regulations in this House, and set targets in this House, and then control them in this House. That is what we were elected to do. Creating a parody of the European Commission—which is what the OEP is—is emphatically not the answer.

I am looking at the clock, but I will very briefly mention a couple of other issues. I mentioned catchment areas earlier. I should like the Minister to look at the issue of abstraction, because we have to balance the need to grow food and provide adequate water with the need to keep food production going. Food production is vital, and it is still the primary function of the countryside. I should also like the Minister to look at the balance between the precautionary principle and the innovation principle. In the European Union there is an insane hostility towards modern technologies, which has caused real environmental damage. What we should be doing is growing more food on less land, and freeing up land for recreation and planting. We have heard a lot of talk about trees, all of which I entirely endorse, especially in view of the floods. We should be growing more trees in the upper parts of the catchment areas. That is the balance: we will only do that with modern technologies.

Lastly, I want to touch on the subject of endangered species, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). I am very proud to be wearing the tie of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust. We now have a wonderful opportunity to legislate for the species in this country which really are endangered. We do not have a problem with crested newts—although they have caused terrible problems for our building industry—but we do have a problem with red squirrels and certain crayfish, and those are what we should be targeting.

The Bill presents us with a great opportunity, and I support it, but will the Minister please make sure that it is Members of Parliament in the driving seat?

Flooding

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have made more progress than any other OECD country in decarbonising our economy to date. We are the first major economy to commit to net zero by 2050 and, later this year, we will, of course, be hosting COP26. This is a Government who take climate change very seriously, and it is the case that extreme weather events such as we have seen are linked to climate change.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his statement. I congratulate him on his new post and on the measured manner in which he has made public statements, and thank his colleagues for triggering the Bellwin scheme. Would he agree with—and hopefully take the advice of—my constituent, Mr Bryan Edwards, who has been chairman of the Melverley drainage board, on the confluence of the Rivers Vyrnwy and the Severn, which has flooded every winter for decades? He said that we should slow it up at the top—by that, he means holding water in the hills, with more reservoirs, more planting, more trees and more adaptation to soil—and speed it up at the bottom, which means taking the example of what we did in Somerset and instructing all the hard-working people in the Environment Agency to dredge the rivers, as well as giving extensive powers to the internal drainage boards to keep ditches, waterways and smaller rivers clear.

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend and I were involved together in the 2014 floods—I remember that well and the incidents we had in Somerset. It is the case that we absolutely want to hold water upstream using nature-based solutions. When it comes to speeding up water downstream, it can sometimes be complicated. Sometimes, it is the right thing to do but, sometimes, if it is a very tidal area, racing water at high speed when there is an incoming tide can cause concerns, and indeed, that was one of the concerns that we had in Gloucester and Tewkesbury last week.

UK Fisheries

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Murray]

If the right hon. Gentleman is patient, I will come to that.

To reiterate, my friend wrote that the Marine Management Organisation has introduced a new licence condition that requires skippers of under-10-metre boats to estimate, or guess within a 10% tolerance, the weight of all fish caught, species by species, before the fish have been landed. He went on to say that, with small quantities of fish, it is almost impossible to estimate that reliably within 10%. If a fisherman gets it wrong, he is liable to criminal prosecution, with a maximum fine of £100,000.

Given the mixed catch in the south-west, my friend continued, that could put an extra hour or two on the end of a long working day for an under-10-metre trawler. That is totally unreasonable and is not safe. There is no de minimis exemption for small catches; every fish has to be counted and its weight estimated. Over-10-metre vessels are exempt from having to log catches of less than 50 kg per species, which obviously reduces the problem of trying to estimate the weight of small quantities.

I have used the app myself, so I have seen some of the problems that fishermen encounter. My friend added that there has been a string of technical and practical problems with the app and the contact centre, which is open only during office hours. According to the app, some harbours and landing places do not exist, and it does not recognise that fishermen catch more than 10 different species. People have had problems getting through to the contact centre. As far as the app is concerned, the threat of criminal prosecution for estimating outside the 10% tolerance should be removed, and there should be a complete rethink about the new system.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on landing this timely debate. I apologise to her—and to you, Sir George—that I cannot stay for the whole debate; unfortunately, I have a clash, which I discovered only this morning.

My hon. Friend touches on all the problems with how to fish in a mixed fishery. Does she agree that one of the real horrors of the CFP is the extraordinary level of discards? The industry has said that the level widely across Europe is beyond 1 million tonnes; the House of Lords says it could be up to 1.7 million tonnes.

Our great advantage now is that we can design a system that is tailored to our fisheries and works with the grain of nature, so we can stop that horrendous waste. The only way to do that, which my hon. Friend touched on—it would be great if the Minister confirmed this—is not to trade the allocation of fish stocks in the upcoming negotiations. We must take back 100% control of our exclusive economic zone and all that is in it, and then negotiate—in a friendly, amicable way, as my hon. Friend said—annual reciprocal deals, so we have complete control of what is in our marine waters. That would bring a huge advantage to our coastal communities and, potentially, a massive improvement to our marine environment.

[Mrs Murray]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great authority. I congratulate him on the Green Paper that he produced. I cannot remember how long ago that was, but I congratulate him on his expertise and on his record as shadow Fisheries Minister. I concur completely with what he just said.

Will the Minister please meet fishermen’s representatives and fish auctioneers to ensure that the app is operated in a way that reassures fishermen? Something that could benefit UK fishermen is being interpreted as a tool to use against them because of the complexity of the app and the worry that it will be used as a tool for prosecution.

There is also an opportunity to introduce a new registration and licensing regime, and to reintroduce the terms of vessel ownership and associated conditions that were first introduced by the Merchant Shipping Act 1988. That Act was introduced to stop other nations from benefiting from UK fish quota by registering their vessels on the UK fishing vessel register. People who did that were commonly described as “quota hoppers”. Although the European Court of Justice ruled that that Act of Parliament was contrary to the treaty, the fact that we are now not members of the European Union provides us with an opportunity to ensure that those so-called quota hoppers comply with UK law.

I acknowledge that some measures have been introduced at EU level to provide that an economic link must be shown, but, as is often the case, those measures are at best weak. By restoring the terms of the Merchant Shipping Act, we could require individual owners, or 75% of the registered owners of a company, to be UK citizens. We could couple that with a requirement to land all catch in UK ports. That would not only bring economic benefits but allow us to enhance the enforcement of UK catch rules on vessels. Will the Minister speak to the Minister with responsibility for shipping to explore that? I have been considering introducing a private Member’s Bill based on the Merchant Shipping Act.

In summary, I thank the Minister both for his Department’s commitment to UK fishermen and for the Prime Minister’s commitment. I am sure I speak for all wives, husbands and partners of fishermen, present and former, when I say that we have seen the price they have paid while operating under the disastrous common fisheries policy. All they were doing was trying to provide an honest living for their families—fishing provided a comfortable living for my family for 25 years—and that is a tribute to those men and women who put to sea to put fish on our table.

Some of us have seen our husbands pay the ultimate price, but we have never lost hope. I look forward to seeing us adopt a strong stance in the forthcoming negotiations, and I urge the Minister and the Government to never surrender to the unacceptable demands of the European Union. We must not allow the pillaging of UK waters to happen ever again.

Agriculture Bill

Owen Paterson 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]

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.

TB in Cattle and Badgers

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on securing this important debate and the measured manner in which she spoke.

I take issue with the idea that there is a battle between badger welfare and culling. I have told numerous people this, and many of them laugh, but I am probably the only person in this Chamber who has had one pet badger, and I am definitely the only person in the Chamber who has had two pet badgers. I am very pro-badger. I am pro-healthy badgers. Ever since I began working on this, when I was the junior shadow agriculture spokesman, I have set in train, I hope, a series of policies to ensure that we have healthy wildlife living alongside healthy cattle.

There is not a single country in the world that I have visited—whether the problem is white-tailed deer in Michigan, wild feral cattle in Australia, the brushtail possum in New Zealand, or, in particular, the badger in the Republic of Ireland—where there is a reservoir of disease in wildlife that has not been tackled at the same time as it has been tackled in cattle. It is so obvious, and it has worked; when we had a bipartisan approach in the 1960s and 1970s, we got the disease down to 0.01%.

It is absolutely tragic that we threw that away, and it has caused great misery. The hon. Lady was right to highlight the hideous cruelty of shooting a pregnant cow, so that the calf suffocates, which is rarely mentioned. The Badger Trust always shows beautiful black-and-white photographs of badgers, like my dear old badgers—never a revolting picture of a diseased badger in the last stages of TB, covered in lesions, driven out of the sett, covered in bites and dying a horrible, long, lingering death.

There is also a human element. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) mentioned the mental trauma of being tested—the sheer trauma for farmers, the tension, the nightmare of waiting to see whether they will fail the test—and the physical danger. I am afraid that one of my constituents was killed while doing a TB test, when a young bull threw his head up and smashed my constituent against the crush.

All that is completely unnecessary if we can get rid of the disease in cattle and in wildlife, but we have to address both together. It is not either/or. We cannot go on with the expense: we are spending £1 billion on a disease that has been eradicated in other countries. The Germans take out 70,000 badgers a year. We can look at what New Zealand has done on the brushtail possum. My question is this: can we please acknowledge that this is working?

I was in charge of introducing the first two trial culls. We had intense saboteur activity, with hunt saboteurs coming from all over the United Kingdom, some of them with convictions for violent offences. I pay tribute to the farmers who, with incredible bravery, got those first culls going in Somerset and Gloucestershire. The Downs report shows a reduction of 66% in the cull area in Gloucestershire, where we had intense activity—we had saboteurs camping out on badger setts—and 36% in Somerset, where I went to a public meeting about 18 months ago to discuss what could be done on floods, and I had people coming up to me almost in tears, saying, “Mr Paterson, I just want to say thank you. We’d been closed up since my grandfather—for 40 years we’d been closed up. We’ve gone clear.”

My last point is to ask whether we can look at the basic reproduction number of this disease. Can we look at the level where the disease peters out, when we get the badger population low enough to have a healthy population? I would like the Minister to look at the basic reproductive ratio, R₀, which represents the number of cases that one case generates on average over the course of its infectious period, in an otherwise uninfected population. Could we make it the target of our policy to get the disease down to a level where it is not sustainable in the wildlife population and end this hideous trauma for wildlife, cattle and our farmers?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

We have a number of approaches. We do some roadkill surveillance in areas to identify where there is disease. Also, whenever we have a breakdown on a farm, an assessment is carried out by APHA vets to try to establish the most likely cause of that breakdown. So there are breakdown epidemiological reports.

The hon. Lady also raised an issue about herd size. In addition to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), the fact of the matter is that it is an epidemiological reality that the more cattle there are in a herd, the more interfaces there are with the environment and the more likely they are to pick up infection. I remember that some years ago our chief scientist in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs got very excited and thought that those with small herds must be doing something right. However, we concluded that it is simply a mathematical fact that a small herd has fewer interfaces with the badger population and therefore has a lower propensity to have a breakdown.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) raised an important issue about slurry. I can tell her that I have had meetings with Dick Sibley and that he has attended roundtable discussions we have had on this issue. However, as long ago as 2015 we launched a biosecurity plan that included slurry management best practice guidance, so this is an issue that we recognise and that we try to improve. The evidence is a little mixed, because the reality is that if we are testing and removing cattle, we would tend to remove them before the disease shows up in slurry, unless the test is ineffective and is missing those cattle. So this is an area that we are keen to look at further and, as I have said, we are in dialogue with Dick Sibley on some of these matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire made a point about diagnostic tests. He is absolutely right—we are now allowing the use of unvalidated tests and, again, Dick Sibley is using one of those tests. We have also dramatically increased our deployment of the more sensitive interferon gamma test.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire made an important point about epidemiology and, crucially, how we get daughter infection below one, so that we can put this disease into permanent retreat. The R₀—the reproductive number that he mentioned—is notoriously difficult to calculate, but we have a track record in our own history of taking this disease from a very high prevalence in the 1930s down to zero in the 1980s. So there is a point whereby, if we keep going, we can put this disease into permanent retreat.

[Mr Paterson]

rose—

[George Eustice]

I will take a brief intervention and then I will conclude.

[Mr Paterson]

I will make a point briefly. Will the Government look at evidence from other countries, particularly Ireland, where the evidence is quite contrary to what the SNP spokesperson—the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock)—said, in that there is no intention of eliminating a species? This process is about getting the population per kilometre down to a level whereby the disease simply cannot reproduce itself, and then we will end up with a completely stable, healthy badger population, and this whole nightmare will go away.

[George Eustice]

We will look at that evidence, but this is a difficult issue. My right hon. Friend is right that our aim, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby pointed out, is to get the badger population down by 70% in the four years of the cull; it is not our intention at all to eradicate the badger population. This is an issue that we will continue to look at because, as we plot how to get from where we are now to being officially TB-free by 2038, it is clearly an important issue.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby also pointed out some of the challenges of vaccinating badgers and the further challenge that we have had with an oral vaccination. However, if we can use such a vaccination, there are also some advantages. It provides herd immunity and there is some evidence that cubs born in badger populations that have been vaccinated have a higher degree of resistance to the disease than other badgers.

Finally, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith asked about Scotland. The approach taken in Scotland is very similar to the approach that we take in a low-risk area elsewhere. Scotland does not have a large badger population and nor does it have a presence of the disease in the badger population, which is in common with the north of England. Therefore, the nature of the challenge in Scotland is very different from that elsewhere.

The badger population has more than doubled in this country over the last 20 or so years. In the cull areas, which we are targeting because the disease is rife there, we simply look to reduce the badger population by 70% for the duration of the cull.

Fisheries Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock)—it is always good news when she finishes. In a competitive field, fishing is a clear winner of the stakes of the area in which the EU has shown maximum incompetence and caused maximum damage. I was made the shadow Fisheries Minister a long time ago, way back in 2004. I travelled all around the coast of the United Kingdom, down to South East Cornwall and up to Whalsay in Orkney and Shetland. I also went right across from east to west, seeing really successful fisheries in Norway, the Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and down the coast of the United States, and I went to the Falklands. My conclusion, which I do not resile from, is that the common fisheries policy is a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster. It is beyond reform, and I do not resile from a single word of my Green Paper, written back in January 2005.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

On the common fisheries policy, just in case the right hon. Gentleman should be tempted to try to rewrite history, I hope that he acknowledges that despite all the bluster that we are hearing from Government Members about the CFP, the Conservative party’s fingerprints are all over it. The Conservative party was compliant in its creation and has been actively implementing the CFP for the past 40 years. Will he acknowledge his party’s role in implementing it for the past four decades?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that this Green Paper was the policy on which we fought the 2005 general election, and his party opposed it. I will have no more humbug from the Scottish National party. We are sick to death of hearing from a party that supports the EU and then tries to weasel around on the CFP. The fishermen listening to this debate will be sick to death of this petty party political bickering. We have seen catastrophic damage to our most remote coastal communities, which could really benefit from a wonderful resource. We are world leaders in this area, yet we have allowed foreign fishermen to come in and take that resource. This resource could be a massive benefit to some of our most remote rural communities. We currently only take £900 million. That could go up to £1.5 billion to £2 billion, and if we processed the fish we could be talking about a £6 billion to £8 billion boost. That is a massively disproportionate benefit considering the remoteness of many of these rural communities.

[Mr John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend has highlighted the role that he played as shadow Fisheries Minister, and he did a great job. I was his predecessor in that job, and throughout the period that he described, the Conservative party was resolutely and entirely convincingly—to most people at least—hostile to the CFP, when parties sitting opposite had not woken up to the problem. The Conservative party has opposed the CFP consistently; other parties have failed to wake up and see the writing on the wall.

[Mr Paterson]

Let us move on to what we proposed in that Green Paper, on which we fought the 2005 election. There are a whole range of points, and looking at the clock, I see that I do not have time to go through them all now, but one is absolutely key.

First, there is the insane hostility of the European Union to modern technology. In Manomet in Massachusetts, I saw really interesting work on selective gear, but when I went back to Kilkeel, I found that that was being stopped by EU regulations. That is something that we really should look at.

The other issue is the insanity of discards. What is wicked is trying to fix a really local activity at a continental level. Someone mentioned that the data on which the European Union makes its annual decisions is guaranteed to be completely inaccurate because of discards and is probably six months to two years out of date. We do not know the level of discards—it is thought to be possibly 25%. It is absolutely disgraceful.

I remember going out on a trawler from Fleetwood and seeing baby plaice being cast back, because the mesh sizes were wrong. I went with the Secretary of State to North Shields not long ago. We saw baskets of whiting—completely healthy fish—that had to be cast back. I remember during the referendum campaign going to Looe with my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who is a witness to the terrible suffering in the fishing industry when people cannot afford enough labour—her husband died because he was alone on a boat. We should not forget that. We saw on the harbour wall a drawing for tourists of lots of different fish, but the one fish that was not there was haddock, and what is the problem off the coast? Her constituents are catching masses of haddock, because the fish have moved, but they have to be cast back. It is absolute insanity to have a bycatch problem and to address the discards without addressing the cause of it, which is the quota system.

I learned a clear lesson in the Faroes. The situation has been modified since, using techniques such a catch composition, but I ask the Minister to promise that we will do some pilots around the coast on catch composition-based effort control, because it means working with the grain of nature. It was mandatory in the Faroes to land everything. The Fisheries Minister there said, “You may not like what you find, but at least you know what’s going on.” Our scientists do not know what is going on because we discard so much. Technology has advanced enormously, as I saw at Succorfish in North Shields, which used modern equipment to track not just the boats, but soak times, catches, and so on. If we did this using modern technology, we could monitor every single fishing boat every hour. Every fishing boat would become a scientific vessel sending back data.

I saw that in Iceland years ago now. Fisheries management there would send out radio signals, and boats around Iceland would be told to move on because there were too many discards. Way back then, the UK was doing it in the Falklands—the same management based on accurate, instant data. I appeal to the Minister. I am not thrilled with clause 23 on discard prevention charging schemes—those will be good, healthy fish that should be sold to consumers. We should work out pilot schemes for mixed fisheries. I admit that Scotland is different—pelagic fisheries probably need a quota system—but I really make that appeal.

Probably the most important issue is whether we really will take back control. That was the promise in the referendum and in our manifesto, in which we made it clear that we would take back control:

“When we leave the European Union and its Common Fisheries Policy, we will be fully responsible for the access and management of the waters where we have historically exercised sovereign control.”

I would like the Minister to address this point. He is being bombarded with a helter-skelter of questions, but I ask that he take careful note of article 56 of the UN convention on the law of the sea, relating to exclusive economic zones—as he knows, those are 200 miles or the median line. Article 56(1) reads:

“In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State has…sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil”.

Can the Minister absolutely guarantee that every decision affecting our marine environment, as well as that which lives in it and that which is extracted from it, will ultimately be decided by sovereign UK politicians who come to this Dispatch Box and answer to this House? Can he think of any circumstances after we have left the CFP—I would like him to tell us exactly when that will be—in which decisions would be imposed on our fishermen that ideally our politicians would like to resist? That is the nub of the CFP.

The most shocking mismanagement has been imposed on this wonderful industry and these incredibly brave people because we have always been outvoted. When I was Secretary of State—we have discussed this in respect of the common agricultural policy, too—my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who has just left his place, bravely did his best, but we were outvoted. I want an absolute guarantee that article 56(1) of UNCLOS will prevail and that the Minister will be able to come back and be answerable to every one of us for fishing decisions. There must be no circumstances in which appalling decisions can be imposed on us once we have left. That cannot happen. If it does, we will have let down the 17.4 million, as well as the 16.3 million who voted for us in the general election, and all those Labour voters—do not forget the 85% who voted in the general election to take back control. Can he please guarantee that?

Agriculture Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). I am glad she has finished. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This is a great day. We can debate the details of an agricultural policy for which we are responsible. We may not agree with the shadow Secretary’s speech, but she made points that now have to be answered in this House. On day one in DEFRA, I was amazed to receive my brief and hear that we were being fined—called “disallowance” in Eurospeak—£630 million because the Commission did not like the cack-handed manner by which the previous Labour Government had gone from historic payments to area payments. That cannot now happen. The people now responsible, I am delighted to say, are sitting on the Government Front Bench. They have brought forward the Bill, which enables us to deliver what I think will be a real future for our farming industry and for our environment.

At DEFRA, I set four priorities: grow the rural economy, improve the environment, protect the country from animal disease and protect the country from plant disease. They can all be fulfilled within the Bill. The common agricultural policy had got itself completely stuck. Originally begun as a heavily subsidised production regime that produced vast amounts of food that could not be sold but had to be dumped on third markets with great export subsidies, it is morphing slowly into an all-encompassing environmental scheme for a continent where, as was pointed out to the Commission during the CAP negotiations, it is minus -45 in northern Sweden and plus -45 in Andalusia. It is impossible to have an all-encompassing regime for the continent. We have ended up with muddles such as the three-crop rule, which is deeply damaging to the mixed variety of farming in this country. We can now design a policy tailored to our own environment for each of our regions, as we touched on just now.

My first criticism is that it would be nice to have in the introduction a mention of food. Food and drink production is huge. It is worth £85 billion a year to the economy, supporting 3.5 million jobs and providing 62% of the food we eat. By the way, that is down from 78%. In 1978, we produced 78% of the food we eat. The CAP has failed even on self-sufficiency. It would be appropriate to have food in the title of the Bill, because that surely is the first role of farming.

What I would like to see—I am delighted no one has touched on it—is our leaving food production to farmers. I cite two countries from which we should take an example. New Zealand and Australia stopped all food subsidies. New Zealand used to have 70 million woolly raggedy things called sheep running around causing appalling environmental damage, including soil erosion and water pollution. In one year, I think 1983, 6 million tonnes of sheep had to be turned into fertiliser—it could not sell them. It now has zero subsidies for production and has improved its technology enormously. Today, there are about 27 million sheep, but it exports more lamb. That is an incredible achievement and that is the lesson for the Secretary of State: we should not subsidise food production. The New Zealanders have created whole new industries—with wine, and with venison. They hardly had any deer, but that industry is now worth a significant sum in exports for New Zealanders—about $100 million New Zealand dollars..

Those are the clear lessons. Where the Government can help, and there are opportunities in the Bill, is on technology. The Secretary of State came with me to Harper Adams University and we saw a prototype machine that will go along a row of strawberries in a polytunnel, leave the brown one because it is rotten, leave the green one for tomorrow and pick the big red one for one supermarket and the little red one for another, and pack it on the machine, avoiding all contact with human hands and swiftly delivering, healthy food to our consumers. The university would like help to get that prototype moving, and that is the sort of area where the Government have a direct opportunity to help.

Secondly on technology, the Secretary of State came with me to Soulton Hall and saw my young constituent Tim Ashton, who has gone for no till. He has managed to reduce costs in wheat production by 60%. In North Shropshire, just outside Wem, he can look Kansas, Australia or Argentina in the eye at world prices. He will make money at world prices. So long as we are not idiotic about glyphosate, with no till, there are the most amazingly beneficial environmental outcomes. Less water is going in the river and there is a huge increase in flora and fauna—so much so that he has stopped counting barn owls because there are just too many. On soil, having seen that, I would flag up to the Secretary of State that clause 1 really ought to list soil improvement as a public benefit to be sought. He has a pretty good list of public goods, but I would add soil and animal welfare, which is very important. I do not think that there is a single person in the House who would not like to see improved animal welfare standards. That is a clear public good that costs. We saw what happened when Lord Deben unilaterally improved our regime on tethers and stalls; there was a huge cost to our own industry and we ended up importing pork products from regimes that are less beneficial. But animal welfare is a public good; we would all support it; and there is room in this Bill to pay for that.

The other country that I would consider would be Switzerland. Do not subsidise food production—leave that to technology, to development and to individual farmers—but consider that livestock farming has an enormous environmental role. Tourism is worth about £30 billion in the rural economy. People will not go to the Derbyshire dales if there are no elders and willows and the stone walls have fallen down. They will not go to the Lake district; they will not go to Scotland; they will not go to north or mid-Wales. They will go there if there is a managed number of livestock maintaining the environment. That is the lesson from Switzerland. Very large numbers of sheep, cattle and calves are taken up to the highest Alps in the summer at vast expense—probably the most ludicrously uneconomic way to produce food in the world, but one with a massive environmental benefit, maintaining the landscape. That is the lesson on public goods, most of which are cited in clause 1.

Let us copy New Zealand and Australia on zero food subsidies and following technology, and copy Switzerland on significant payments—more than we get on the CAP at the moment—for the maintenance of those rural and marginal areas where one cannot survive at world food prices alone. Lastly, and very briefly, we are talking about public goods and if the farm is large and provides lots of public goods, I do not mind if it gets more public money. The Secretary of State is quite right to criticise the old basic payment in which people just got paid for having vast amounts of land and not delivering public goods, but I think it is unfair to penalise large, efficient units if in future they are going to provide lots of public goods.

I congratulate the Secretary of State heartily. We will see a lot of detail in the statutory instruments, but the Bill broadly gives us a very good framework to copy New Zealand and Switzerland. With that, I look forward to voting for it tonight.

Ivory Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Opposition and everyone who worked so hard in Committee to get the Bill this far. We are all under time pressure, as the shadow Minister said; it is vital that this ban is in law by the time we have the conference, so that we can regain the leadership we had on this huge international issue.

I listened carefully to the shadow Minister’s speech, and I am in complete agreement with the intention. In fact, I mentioned the advice we got from the Born Free Foundation when I spoke on Second Reading, pointing out, importantly, the reduction in numbers. The hon. Lady cited the numbers; I have seen the figure of a reduction in hippo numbers of 25%, and she is absolutely right about what would happen if we only limit one type of ivory. Hippos spend a very happy life stationary; they are sitting targets in large pools of water. They have a very nice lazy time, but they would suffer terribly. That is just one species that would be hit, as I have mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) has been vocal in his interventions so far and I congratulate him on all the work he has done in recent years. On the same day as Second Reading, we wrote a joint letter to the Secretary of State, with a number of other Members, pointing out that the definition of ivory in the Bill as it stands is simply too narrow. Clause 35(1) says that

“‘ivory’ means ivory from the tusk or tooth of an elephant.”

We pointed out in our letter that we were worried about other species such as hippopotamus, narwhal, killer whale, sperm whale and walrus as well as extinct species such as mammoth, which are being literally mined in Siberia by unscrupulous dealers. We also recommended, in very much the same sentiments as the hon. Lady has expressed, that we should name these ivory species, and possibly list them on—this was my phrase—the face of the Bill. So we wrote to the Secretary of State, and I am delighted that DEFRA has looked at this. I think that is what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve with her new clause 1.

I am not particularly fussed which of the mechanisms is used, either my idea of this being on the face of the Bill—for which we have not actually tabled an amendment—or the hon. Lady’s new clause 1, the downside of which is that it states:

“Within 12 months of the coming into force…the Secretary of State must lay a draft of an instrument”.

What we heard from the Minister just now is interesting, and I think we will hear from him again shortly. Apparently, it is on the DEFRA website that what is now being proposed is that the consultation could begin immediately we get Royal Assent—it could even be on the same day. What I like about the new Government amendment 3 is that it goes much wider: we are not limited to CITES or a shortlist of species, which is what I was going to propose. Amendment 3 is better, as it is a much wider definition, and, as I understand it, it could go through faster. I have told this House on many occasions over the last 21 years that I am not a lawyer, but, as I understand it, without a formal consultation, this legislation could be prey to a legal challenge, whereas a statutory instrument, properly constituted, and after consultation and going through the human rights requirements, could probably be got through in about 12 weeks if it was pushed through. Therefore, it seems to me that we are all trying to achieve exactly the same aim, which is to seek to protect a number of other species that are not mentioned at the moment. Clause 35(1) is very narrowly drawn and is purely about elephants, and living elephants.

I am impressed by the arguments, therefore, and I hope we are going to hear from the Minister on this. He has had a go at me informally, and I appreciate his ringing me at home about this last weekend. I hope we will hear from him that the DEFRA lawyers have gone through this in some detail and that under his arrangement we will scotch any chance of a legal challenge as it will go through the human rights requirements and the consultation will be absolutely clean. What is good and clever about it is that it is so wide that it encompasses the dead animal, the mammoth, which is a big advantage. So I will be strongly supporting the Government on this. As I said, I am in total agreement with the Opposition’s intentions. I think that what I and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park wrote is probably the least good proposal, and happily it has not been put down as an amendment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a whole list of animals that might be included, and we also had a full discussion about this in Committee. It was only when the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds spoke to me this week that I realised that one species that had not been mentioned was the helmeted hornbill. I had no idea that there was a market in red ivory from the hornbill. Has that species come up in any of his considerations, and does he think that it should be put forward for protection as well? It is protected under CITES.

[Mr Paterson]

I am being told via a sedentary intervention that that is not ivory. This is an interesting issue, but surely the good point about Government amendment 3 is that it is very widely drafted, so that a lot of species and a lot of animals could be included. I think that that is a good thing. What the Opposition new clause is proposing, and what we were originally proposing in our letter, is actually narrower and less effective.

I shall sit down now, because it will be much more interesting for the House to hear what the Minister has to say, but this information is on the DEFRA website, and if we could get a statutory instrument out and get started on consulting on the day of Royal Assent, that would be the most rapid method. I think we all agree that we want to give the widest possible protection to the widest number of species, and that seems to be the right route to take.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I want to thank and pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for having taken this issue from somewhere near the bottom of the agenda four years ago and catapulting it to the top at the first illegal wildlife trade conference in 2014. That was really seismic, and it moved the dial on this issue unlike anything that had gone before. Does he agree that the 2018 conference in October will be an opportunity to go further still, not just by demonstrating our own commitment but by getting other key countries—particularly Asian countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as members of the European Union—to make the same commitment that we are making here in this House today? This needs to be a global challenge, not simply a British one.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. It would be invidious of me not to mention my two other Cabinet colleagues at the time. One is now the right hon. Lord Hague of Richmond, and when I came back from Lewa in Kenya, he was as sharp as a tack and immediately got the point of the problem. DEFRA and the Foreign Office worked extremely closely to put the conference together. I also want to give credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who was really helpful from the DFID point of view. She saw the necessity for long-term sustainable economic activity in these areas, where there is a real danger of the value of wildlife not being appreciated. The advantage that I saw in Lewa, which I touched on at Second Reading, is that having rangers and properly protected wildlife creates a virtuous circle by bringing stability to the cattle industry, where the locals have been poaching each other’s cattle for centuries.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned the conference, and he was right to say that it is vital to get the Bill through in time for that. I went to the FCO a couple of days ago, and I was delighted to see the preparations for the conference. More than 70 countries have been asked so far, which is marvellous. I think we had 42 countries at the previous one. It is really important to get across how much co-operation there is between all sorts of countries that we could not possibly expect to be co-operating so closely. When I was in Moscow, the Minister there stressed how well the programmes with the Chinese Government were going on protecting the snow leopards in the Amur mountains. We got co-operation across the board at the conference, which was a unique event, and I very much hope that this autumn’s conference here will have a similar boost and a similar impact. However, we can only go to it and look people in the eye if we have got this legislation through.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I hope that I am not stating the obvious, but I just wondered whether my right hon. Friend agrees that a good place to start this best practice would be within the Commonwealth.

[Mr Paterson]

Absolutely. Commonwealth members made several helpful contributions at the conference, and they will be invited again. The Commonwealth is a good vehicle for this, because this is about stopping both supply and demand, mainly in Asian countries, and some of our Commonwealth colleagues could be helpful at both ends of the trade.

I really want to hear from the Minister, but, based on what he has told me informally and from what I have seen on the DEFRA website, I will be supporting amendment 3, because it will deliver the fastest route to our aim. I think it would also be sensible for the Opposition, having listened to the debate and been convinced by the arguments, to withdraw their amendments so that we can get on to Third Reading.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is a privilege to speak once again on the Bill, which the Scottish National party welcomes. We also welcome Government amendments 1 and 2 to clause 6, and Government amendments 3 and 4 to clause 35.

We are working towards implementing stringent measures to protect and conserve populations of elephants and other endangered species for future generations. The survival of the species is the most important thing and must be realised, so the Bill must be as strong as possible. I thank members of the Bill Committee who worked together so consensually towards the same aim: protecting ivory-bearing species and populations of elephants. We have the same aims and aspirations; this debate has just been about how we reach the final outcome that we all desire. The general public are absolutely behind the Bill, and we must take our lead from their good common decency and sense. The consultation received 70,000 responses, so we must act decisively in their name.

The SNP also supports new clause 1, which would require the Secretary of State to introduce a statutory instrument within 12 months of the Bill becoming law to extend its scope to include hippos, killer whales, narwhals, sperm whales and walruses. Such action is integral to affirming the UK’s commitment to stopping the trade of all inhumanely obtained ivory.

We heard compelling evidence in Committee about the unscrupulous nature of ivory poachers. They will stop at nothing, leaving no ivory-bearing species safe. They trade in death. They undermine poor and vulnerable communities in developing parts of the world, moving from species to species to make their money. Protecting elephants is critical, but the SNP believes that the Bill does not go far enough due to the possible impact on other species and further knock-on effects. Those other species also require protection from the actions of unscrupulous individuals.

Reports indicate that hippo teeth, which are also ivory, are being auctioned in Tanzania and that demand for ivory also poses a threat to Malawi’s hippos. Hippo teeth represent a cheaper and easier option. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, demand for them increased after the 1989 ban on the international trade of elephant ivory. I recently read that a killer whale that was beached in Vancouver—near where some of my family live—had its teeth removed by unscrupulous ivory thieves. It was an 18-year-old killer whale called J32 that had been nicknamed “Rhapsody”. Such people will go to any lengths.

Turning to narwhals—the sea unicorns—Queen Elizabeth I spent £10,000 on a narwhal tusk, which is the equivalent of around £1.5 million today. The average price today is between £3,000 and £12,000, and narwhals are considered to be near-threatened. It is important that we support new clause 1 to ensure that poachers do not move from species to species.

The SNP also supports new clause 2, which would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before each House within 12 months of the Bill becoming law, detailing the state of international ivory markets and the steps taken by the Department for International Development to reduce demand for ivory. That is extremely important, because we are in a race against time. We will need to know that the Bill is having the desired impact—and quickly—so that we can amend or adjust the processes in place to save the species we desire to save.

The race against time means we must work, via DFID, with the communities that are most affected. We must determine, through a whole-Government approach, to tackle this trade and to ensure that we do our utmost to protect populations. Jobs and livelihoods are integral to populations affected by poaching. There must be alternatives to poaching, because we heard in Committee that people living in poverty in such areas tend to be caught up in poaching activity just to feed their families. If they have no alternative, there will be little for them to do other than to try to continue poaching unabated.

Through DFID, we must look to ensure that we leave no one behind, and that we protect jobs and livelihoods as alternatives for these communities. We must also work with rangers and conservation agents, who have a direct impact on tourism, to ensure that there are opportunities for growth and development in the countries affected.

SNP Members want the strongest Bill possible. We want to work consensually with Members on both sides of the House. We want to ensure there is a whole-Government approach and, most of all, we want to ensure that we proceed in a timely manner. The utmost goal of this legislation is not a conference at the end, but the survival of a species.

It is important that we come together to ensure that this happens for our children and grandchildren. My children visited the elephants two years ago. They still speak today about their experience of seeing baby elephants wandering. We want to ensure that that can continue and that this magnificent species continues to wander across our savannahs.

The 2015 SNP manifesto included a commitment to support further animal welfare measures with a global focus, including action to end the illegal ivory trade, so I commend new clauses 1 and 2 and the Government amendments to the House, to achieve the most stringent legislation possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will speak briefly because time is marching on, and I did not have the privilege of serving on what I believe must have been a fascinating Public Bill Committee. Coming to this quite new, I urge the Opposition to drop their proposal to push new clause 1, which I do not think the Government are supporting. I completely understand where they are coming from, and had the Government not come up with their latest proposal, I would in fact have supported new clause 1. However, I believe the Government’s proposal trumps what the Opposition are suggesting. It is unfortunate, when we are trying to send a unified message to those in the world who are watching these deliberations, that there is or is perceived to be some artificial division between us, when I do not think there really is one. I therefore urge the Opposition to look again at withdrawing new clause 1.

It is important to get the Bill through without the threat of judicial review or—I am not a lawyer—any other kind of legal challenge. We must aim for the wildlife conference in October, and it is absolutely critical that we enable the Bill to be passed before then. At the wildlife conference, which is designed to protect the elephant, I hope, as a former Minister for Asia, that we will cover Indian elephants, because we tend to concentrate more on Africa than elsewhere. I saw a programme the other day about what is happening to elephants because of logging: there is no use for them, and they are therefore abused, killed or whatever. I hope that the wildlife conference, rather than just discussing the issue of elephants being killed for their ivory, also looks more holistically at the role of an elephant in such communities and at how we can better support them.

As I say, I have come to this quite late, but I believe there are still outstanding issues. I am sure those issues will be addressed in tremendous detail in the other place, not least the subject of compensation for some collectors, the measures on antiques and the proposals put forward by the antiques trade, which I think need to be looked at again, as well as the charges to exemption certificates. I am sure such points have been well articulated in Committee, and I have absolutely no doubt that they will be looked at more closely again in the other place; the point of the other place is to look at such issues in great detail.

I believe the principle of what the Government are seeking with the Bill is absolutely right. It is one of those rare occasions when the House is unified on something that will have huge popularity well beyond the Chamber.

[Mr Paterson]

Am I right to say, as a summary of the position of those involved in the antiques trade, that they find that the Bill is tough but fair and that they would not like it tightened up any further? For speed, should we advise those in the other place not to spend too much time changing the Bill? Speed is of the essence in getting it through before the conference.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Yes, I agree with my right hon. Friend. I would say that there are legitimate concerns that still need flushing out, but I do not think anything should be done that will prevent the passage of the Bill in time for the wildlife conference. There are genuine concerns about how tight the legislation is in some respects and about how people may be inadvertently affected. I believe that legislation is only as good as the thought that is given to it, and there is nothing worse than implementing bad legislation. The legislation has to stand the test of time, and I believe the Government are trying to achieve that. I am sure that any serious points raised in the other place will be addressed suitably, but my right hon. Friend is, as usual, absolutely right that we must do nothing to prevent the swift passage of what is, in most respects, an excellent Bill.