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.

British Flora: Protection from Imported Diseases

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry, and a great honour to follow my ex-Minister of State in Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). We worked very closely together. He made a fine speech, and I congratulate him on bringing this important issue before us. I put on the record that I am delighted that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will answer the debate. He also served under me, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who was a junior Minister while I was at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am among friends.

When I came to DEFRA, I set the Department four simple priorities over a kaleidoscopic variety of responsibilities. The first was to grow the rural economy. The second was to improve the environment—not protect it, but improve it. The third was to protect the country from animal disease. The fourth, which is relevant to the debate, was to protect the country from plant disease. Little did I know when I came to DEFRA what I was about to walk into.

Back in 1992, Chalara fraxinea had been found in Poland and was decimating ash trees there. It later struck me— my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury made a pertinent observation on this—how extraordinary it was that our embassies and consulates were not reading horticultural magazines and reporting back. If we had known then what was about to come to us, we could possibly have done more about it.

However, this terrible disease, which will ravage the 80 million-odd ash trees in this country, came west, probably not helped by the foolish practice of sending seedlings to Holland and then bringing them back as whips and saplings to grow into full trees here. Shortly before I went to DEFRA, the disease was found in a nursery in Buckinghamshire during a routine inspection by the Food and Environment Research Agency, and by the autumn, shortly after I took over, we were in a full-blooded crisis, in which we were trying to handle the issue.

We saw immediately that the disease had clearly followed the Schmallenberg virus, which had blown in, according to the maps, to the eastern tip of Kent and of East Anglia. However—this was unprecedented for DEFRA—we then had a most extraordinary exercise in which, over a week, we mapped the whole country, with amazing co-operation from the public and voluntary organisations and the devolved Administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I also very much pay tribute to the Republic of Ireland, which played a part in this. We established spots of Chalara infection where trees had quite clearly been unwisely brought in from the continent. That immediately set in train the need to set about doing something.

It seemed crazy to me that we had a chief vet, but did not really have anyone in charge of tree and plant health, so I commissioned Professor Chris Gilligan, professor of mathematical biology and head of the school of biological sciences at the University of Cambridge, to chair the tree health and plant biosecurity expert taskforce, which we set up—all helped by Professor Boyd, the chief scientist at DEFRA. The taskforce produced a really good report.

My speech will be quite brief, because I would really like the Minister to reply—I tipped him off about this yesterday—on how many of the report’s key points have been implemented. The taskforce’s final report came out in May 2013, and DEFRA produced a plant biosecurity strategy in April 2014 that adopted nearly all the key recommendations, the first of which was to set up a UK risk register.

Are there still monthly meetings at DEFRA? I chaired meetings with my chief vet and the newly appointed chief plant health officer at which we monitored all diseases coming towards this country, and those that were already here, which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon has rightly mentioned. Those were really valuable meetings.

The other key recommendation, which we adopted very early on after receiving the taskforce’s interim report, was to appoint a chief plant health officer; as I said, we had a chief vet but not an equivalent in plant health. We rapidly appointed Professor Nicola Spence. She had been a visiting professor at Harper Adams University, which is near my constituency, and is very distinguished. We put her in post, and I remember our benefiting very quickly: as soon as she was appointed, there was a case of a shipment of, I think, heavy electrical plant cables from Turkey. The dunnage—the wooden packing—was infested with some form of insect that was very unwelcome in this country. Professor Spence asked what to do, and I told her to send it back. We sent it back, which I said would send a striking lesson to the whole industry that, now that she had been appointed, I would back her all the way.

That is why the monthly meetings were really important. We would discuss these individual cases, and sightings of diseases—both plant and animal—in distant countries and here. I would like reassurances that those meetings are going on.

We also talked about getting much better intelligence. That was one of the key recommendations. On that front, I went to Russia, primarily to promote exports at a big Russian food exhibition. I visited the really interesting and top-class Russian institute for plant health, which had amazing, state-of-the-art facilities. We agreed with the Minister that we would have regular meetings of scientists and, once a year, a ministerial meeting. Many of these diseases have come from east to west, Chalara being the most obvious one. It would be nice to know that we have kept up those meetings.

While we were in Moscow, Martin Ward, who was chief plant officer at DEFRA, was elected chairman of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation, on which there are 50 countries; it goes well beyond the EU. I would like to know what our contacts are with that organisation, because I thought that was a thoroughly worthwhile body to be part of and keep beefed-up. Martin Ward was a key man when he was in DEFRA and did a great job. I hoped that we would pick up a lot more intelligence there about where the diseases were coming from. We were going to look at procedures for preparedness. For instance, we planted 250,000 saplings to stake out and see where there might be resistance to Chalara; we found that that was in a tiny percentage of trees. The tragedy of all that was that we could have done so much work, if we had known back in 1992 that this disease was out there. I would like to know what other programmes DEFRA has embarked on.

There was going to be much tighter protection of borders. Around the same time, I went to Australia and New Zealand. I was absolutely stunned by the incredibly vigorous measures taken there. I remember seeing second-hand JCBs being stripped down and steam-cleaned at Sydney port before being allowed entry. No mud or dust was allowed in. In New Zealand, I saw intelligence-based monitoring of every single passenger at the airport. Everyone was monitored. There were sniffer dogs and x-ray machines. There were amnesty bins with warnings for anyone who had a sandwich or an apple. It was made absolutely clear on the aeroplane that we were not allowed to bring plant or animal products into either of those two countries.

I noted that Heathrow had virtually no notices and no alerts on the plane. Changing that would not have been an expensive exercise, and we set that in train when I was at DEFRA. I would like to know how we are getting on there. We agreed to give passengers far more early warning that they should not bring these products in, and to print leaflets in various languages, with an easily communicable message, for passengers coming in. I would like to know what we are doing at borders, because there is so much we could learn from countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

With Brexit, we will have a wonderful opportunity. Everybody talks about human movement at the borders; what about the movement of plants, both healthy and unhealthy? The European Union assumes that all plants are healthy, but sadly they are not. I have had meetings with Matt Shardlow of Buglife, which does splendid work on this. He reckons that invasive, non-native species are costing the UK economy £1.7 billion every year, which is shocking. There is a particularly disgusting invader called the Obama flatworm, an invasive flatworm from Brazil. It is already a threat in France, and one has been found in a pot plant in a garden centre in Oxfordshire. It was originally imported from the Netherlands.

As you know, Sir Henry, you will not find anyone in the House of Commons more in favour of free trade than me, but we need free trade in healthy products. Interestingly, in its latest publication, Buglife goes so far as to say that we should ban all pot plant imports, which would be a very strong measure. In DEFRA, we were looking at much more vigorous quarantining. Some of these imports are mad; for example, bringing from south-east Asia a reasonably mature tree with half a tonne of earth on it is just inviting trouble. Even the smallest pot plants can include a few eggs. We were going to look at longer quarantine periods, so that the bugs could incubate, and then have much more vigorous measures for sending them back. We will be able to do that after Brexit. We will be able to run and control our own borders.

I hope that the UK will become a haven for healthy plant products. I want to say the British Isles, because we worked extremely closely with the Government of the Republic of Ireland. They were really co-operative, and they have a massive interest: think of the tragedy of the decimation of ash populations across northern Europe. I had hoped we could begin to develop healthy plants and repopulate. We could be a reservoir of healthy plants that could be used to repopulate parts of Europe that had been blighted.

Other Members want to speak, and we very much want to hear from the Minister. I would like a résumé of where we are up to. Lastly, we promised we would increase skills and get more people interested in this area, and in training in plant diseases; we were going to put more money into that. I heartily congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon on this debate on a really worthwhile subject.

Ivory Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), who has stated the Opposition’s support for the Bill. My hearty congratulations go to the real Secretary of State for introducing it.

We lose an elephant every 25 minutes, which is 20,000 elephants a year—we should all remember that incredibly simple fact. During this debate we have already lost two elephants. It is estimated that 100 years ago there was an elephant population of about 10 million, and the decline has accelerated. The great elephant census, published in August 2016, found that only 352,000 savanna elephants were left across the 18 countries surveyed—a 70% crash in numbers since 1979, when the total population stood at 1.3 million.

Encouraged by my then junior Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), and Charlie Mayhew, the chief executive of Tusk, I went to Lewa when I was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Lewa is a brilliant example of how local landowners have created conservancies where the management of wildlife is jointly organised by local communities. The rangers, whom the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned, are all working together, and the local community sees real value in the wildlife. As a result, poaching has been reduced in Kenya in the past couple of years. Lewa is a brilliant example of how, if a local community can see the value of wildlife, it will participate in its long-term regeneration.

A couple of years ago I went to the Kruger national park in South Africa. Whereas in Kenya there was a chronic lack of equipment, in South Africa there was a major general with 35 years’ experience in the South African army who had aeroplanes, helicopters and 700 brilliantly equipped rangers, but they lost four rhinos the weekend I was there. The poachers in the Kruger will move on to the wonderful, huge elephants once they have gone through the rhinos, and the reason is money. Northern Mozambique is miserably poor, and if a person can get one rhino horn out of the Kruger it will keep their community going and they will be a folk hero in their little town.

I have seen two contrasting sides to this issue. There is a big demand for this product, mainly from the far east, and the obvious answer is to grow more. I have thought about this, and that answer is simply not practical. We will never produce enough elephants or rhinos to satisfy the colossal demand. The only answer is to do what this Bill does, which is to sever the demand.

I returned from my trips and met the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend Lord Hague of Richmond, and we sat down and organised what became the largest world wildlife conference anywhere. We had great help from my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the then Secretary of State for International Development, who has sadly left the Chamber. She completely got my point about conservancies and bringing in the local communities.

Over 40 countries participated at the conference. Sadly I could not participate because I had an emergency eye operation, but the conclusion of the conference was exactly what we wanted: recognition that the illegal wildlife trade and the poaching that feeds it have, in some places, reached unprecedented levels. In response to the crisis, the London conference

“aimed to reverse recent trends of increasing illegal wildlife trade through measures to eradicate the market…ensure effective legal frameworks and deterrents, strengthen enforcement, and support sustainable livelihoods and economic development.”

Also from the conference came the Elephant Protection Initiative, set up by five African countries, and only today I got an email with the latest update—that 18 African countries have now participated in the initiative.

That was all good, and we were world leaders at the time. Other countries then got ahead of us. President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China announced that they would introduce complete bans, and America did so in June 2016, with pretty tough exemptions. China, I think remarkably—this is a real credit to the Chinese Government—took decisions that have closed down whole factories. At the time, a Chinese Minister told me that 34 designated factories would shut and that China intended to shut down its whole ivory trade and manufacturing process by the end of 2017. In 2016 the French also brought in a near complete ban, with tight provisions on trade. We made the right announcements, but we did not actually take action. Meanwhile, those bans have had a significant impact on the value of ivory. It was about $2,000 a kilogram, and it is now about $700 a kilogram.

Our party promised a complete ban in our 2010 manifesto and, in effect, a ban in our 2015 manifesto. Lord Hague and I had not given up at that point, and we worked with non-governmental organisations such as Stop Ivory, Tusk and the Born Free Foundation. I also held meetings with representatives of the antiques trade; the chairman of the British Art Market Federation, Anthony Browne; the chief executive officer of the Association of Art & Antiques dealers, Rebecca Davies; and the secretary-general of the British Antique Dealers’ Association, Mark Dodgson. We came up with a text that they would have been happy to put in our manifesto, which reads as follows:

“As hosts of the 2014 London Conference and the upcoming 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, we will continue to lead the world in stopping the trade in illegal wildlife products, which is responsible for the poaching that kills thousands of elephants, rhinos, tigers and other species, negatively impacting livelihoods and security. In response to overwhelming international opinion, expressed at both the CITES and IUCN meetings held in 2016, we will proceed with our commitment to introduce tighter legislation to close the domestic ivory market with appropriate exemptions covering objects of artistic, cultural and historical significance. We will further commit to support the range states of species impacted by illegal wildlife trade, in particular for elephants, rhinos and tigers and will continue to oppose any call for resumption in trade of products from these species.”

When we see the number of people who have signed the petition and who have reacted, we see that had that been in our manifesto, the result of the election a year ago might have been different. It is a great pity that that was omitted from our manifesto. I really believe that what the Secretary of State has brought forward today does honour that jointly agreed statement, and it should encourage a speedy passage for this Bill.

Let me give a crude summary of where I think the antiques trade is at the moment. I think it admits that the Bill, as drafted, is tighter than it would like, but it can live with it. Anthony Browne has written to me, saying:

“Our primary concern now is that the Government’s exemptions should not be made more restrictive by amendment during the bill’s passage through Parliament.”

That is a very helpful statement from the antiques trade. As was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who has sadly now left his seat, the Two Million Tusks report discovered that only 1.49% of lots for sale in auction houses contained ivory. Given that the total antiques market is worth about £9.2 billion, we see that we are talking about a round of drinks and the trade can probably manage without that business, although this should not be tightened up further.

I am fully aware that other Members are keen to speak, but I wish briefly to mention a few amendments that the Secretary of State might like to consider in Committee. It is obvious that exports, especially those to the world’s largest illegal ivory markets, are our most direct contribution to the global trade in poached ivory. An approximate analysis of the impact of the ban as proposed in the Bill is that about 25% of currently traded ivory items will fall under the exemptions. The UK exported about 35,000 ivory items to Asia from 2010 to 2015, which means that even with the exemptions in place, exports would still have totalled more than 8,000 items. That would mean the UK would still have been among the highest exporters of antique ivory in the world, even on the basis of the proposed ban.

The overriding concern is that the sale of such important items to markets in Asia fuels ivory’s desirability in the minds of consumers. Most people will of course not be able to afford to buy the rarest and most important items that this exemption is to cover, but seeing those pieces being acquired by people in their country will reinforce ivory as a luxury commodity that people wish to own, fuelling desire for items that are affordable, many of which are likely to be fakes from newly poached ivory. The exemptions in the Bill must therefore be incredibly rigorously defined and enforced.

As a start, I wonder whether the Secretary of State would consider having an annual register of how many items exemptions have been issued for under the historical, artistic and cultural definition each year, with a full description and pictures of each item. Such an annual register would be publicly available, and it would demonstrate the commitment that this exemption is for the rarest and most important items only and would allow public scrutiny.

Let me make a few brief suggestions as to how to improve the Bill. Clause 3(1) would be greatly improved if it were to specify documentary evidence to support the application and establish the legality of the ivory item, including age and provenance, as well as proof of identity and the owner’s address. Documentation will not always be available, but the lack of documentation would be a factor in the assessment. This applies in particular to online sales and exports. I would be very grateful if the Minister could provide a little more detail on how he thinks these regulations will apply to online sales, where we know flagrant cheating takes place. The declaration provided for in clause 3(1)(d) should include confirmation that the dealing complies with the convention on international trade in endangered species, or CITES, and the Control of Trade in Endangered Species Regulations, or COTES.

The exemption certificate specified in clause 4(1) should also include the name of the owner, given the reference to an exemption certificate being issued to a “different person”. In general, a new owner of an item subject to an exemption certificate should be required to register their ownership, whether on a prohibited dealing or not, so that a record of ownership is maintained. That will help the register. On clause 4(5), more safeguards are needed on issuing replacement certificates. An item could have several replacement certificates, which could be used to sell items illegally. Under clause 4(5)(b), how could someone legally acquire an item but not obtain the certificate? Careful attention to the numbering system might resolve that issue. On clause 6, we need a clarification of what a “portrait miniature” is—we need a definition.

Importantly, on clause 9(5), the exemption does not apply to items that consist “only of unworked ivory” and therefore excludes tusks. I understand that that is the opposite of what was intended. This is the only reference in the Bill to unworked ivory, and specifying it in this provision calls into question what is meant in the rest of the Bill. Those words should therefore be removed.

The defence of ignorance in clause 12 is a real concern, particularly as it is well known that that the illegal trade is fuelled by unscrupulous traders marketing ivory as a bone or as ivory sourced from other species, such as a mammoth. There should therefore be a basic sanction based on strict liability.

The Secretary of State should also be able to include other ivory-bearing species not listed in the CITES appendices in clause 35(3). As the Born Free Foundation has indicated, there has been an increase in the purchasing of hippo and other non-elephant ivory in the UK to replace elephant ivory in the internal trade. The BFF infers that the legal and illegal trades are targeting these other species, as the Government’s focus is on elephant ivory. Given that the total number of hippo in Africa is only about 25% of the figure for the elephant population, a ban must be careful to ensure that it does not unintentionally place these species under yet more pressure. It would therefore be sensible to specify hippos in the Bill now, rather than to have the delay of putting through a statutory instrument later.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about extending this provision to other species. Subspecies of hippo, warthogs, walruses and whales are all in the CITES appendix of endangered species, so the approach being taken does not seem to make sense. We know that this will be the only time we have an Ivory Bill before this House for many years to come, so if we are going to try to protect those species, it makes sense for us to do it now, in this Bill.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support and I totally agree: if we have the option to put this in, which the clause gives us, we should just get it in the Bill. We know that there will quickly be a diversion to hippos if we do not provide for that.

I am fully aware that others want to speak, so I come to my last point, which is about enforcement. I had interesting negotiations with our current Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary about funding the national wildlife crime unit, and I am pleased to say that that funding is to run until 2020. We would like a strong, firm reassurance from the Minister that this legislation will need enforcing and will need the right level of expertise. The wildlife unit is absolutely brilliant; it is located just south of the river, in a strange suburb where there is a large, redundant Russian tank. For those who cannot find it, I should say that it is painted in party colours. I recommend going to see the NWCU, however, as it does fine work. We need clarity that it will be beefed up and properly resourced for the future. On the same grounds, the CITES Border Force team at Heathrow needs sufficient levels of manpower and resources, as they will be our frontine of defence against illegal imports and organised criminal activity coming into the UK.

The London illegal wildlife trade conference is back on 10 and 11 October. With this Bill, we have a wonderful opportunity to regain our leadership on this issue. How quickly can the Secretary of State get this Bill, which we all support, through its parliamentary process and on the statute book? I will support the Bill this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

That is an important point. I am sure that the Secretary of State has been looking at it over recent months, and I will be happy to raise it as well and to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it more fully.

[Mr Paterson]

The Minister touched on the conference in October. As there is tremendous, overwhelming and, I think, unanimous support for the Bill, how quickly does he think he and his colleagues can get it through the Commons, through the other place, and on to the statute book?

[David Rutley]

That is a vital question. I have looked at my boss, the Secretary of State, and his look said it all: it will be at pace. I am sure that there will be the same commitment when we work with Members from across the House. This activity needs to be stopped, and it needs to be stopped very speedily. We will be playing our part in Parliament to make sure that that happens.

The hon. Member for Workington asked what actions are being taken to lobby other countries. Clearly, the IWT conference will be a chance to take that work forward. The Secretary of State and the Foreign Secretary are working very hard to make sure that this work is taken forward with other states around the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West confirmed his passion for protecting elephants, but it is also important to note that he confirmed that he is a national treasure himself—one that should definitely be preserved.

It has been a real honour to have been able to participate in this debate and to help to take forward this vital legislation on behalf of the Government, but also on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal. We do wish her a very speedy return to this House.

We want these proposals to be passed through the House speedily, but also to be implemented speedily to tackle the heinous crime of poaching. I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House for the support that they have shown for this Bill. I urge them to continue to demonstrate their support as the Bill makes progress through Parliament—hopefully very speedy progress, because that is what it definitely deserves. I know that through the media others will be watching what we are doing in this House. With the illegal wildlife trade conference in October, global leaders will be arriving in London. They will be able to look at what we are doing, and we will be able to demonstrate to others that we mean what we say on ending the trade in ivory. We hope that other nations will follow our lead by helping to close down their own domestic markets, and that this Bill will inspire them to do so. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Ivory Bill (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Ivory Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 21 June 2018.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and up to and including Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Question agreed to.

Ivory Bill (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Ivory Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State under or by virtue of the Act.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Question agreed to.

Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing this debate. As he said, it is very timely. I congratulate him also on his work on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

I begin by pointing out to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) a couple of macro facts. There was a vote of 17.4 million last year to leave. I know his party do not like it, but we are going to leave. One of the issues was taking back control of our borders. The figures are pretty startling. Last week, our population hit a record number of 65.5 million. The Department for Communities and Local Government reckons that we need to provide housing for 243,000 new households every year for the next 22 years, which means building a new home every five minutes, night and day, to cope with the increase in population. That is one macro fact that Members have to recognise.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Paterson]

I will just finish making the point, because I think it is relevant.

The other fact is that, far from banging on about Brexit, it is great pleasure to state that the economies in eastern Europe are really flying. Hungary is growing at about 4% and there has been a huge increase in wages. They have risen by 15% this year, and by 25% for skilled workers, and there has been a 20% rise in the Hungarian forint. Quite soon, there will not be wage differentials between Hungarian workers and western European workers.

There are similar major strategic changes in Poland. The economy there is flying, at 4% a year. Significantly, a 250,000 annual drop in the working-age population is putting pressure on Poland, which is already opening up visa schemes for 1.3 million temporary workers from Ukraine. We have to recognise that. It is great news that in Romania, which is very relevant to our discussions, economic growth is running at 5%. Civil servants have had a 25% pay rise. Their wages are increasing and their jobless rate is not far below Scandinavian levels. Those macro elements are completely out of the discussion on Brexit.

Where I would agree with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire is that the situation is a real problem. I saw it coming when I worked in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and it has only got worse. The hon. Gentleman cited a survey from British Summer Fruits. It sees prices rising 35% to 50% because of labour shortages. The BBC did a survey that said that 78% of growers believed that recruitment has been harder. We are all hearing this, and it is not just in the fruit and veg industry; we are hearing it from those who work in abattoirs and those who work in tourism. Many rural industries are being affected.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about “taking back control”. He must have sympathy with the point I raised earlier: in Scotland we do not have control, because we have a system that is very centralised in London, deciding what we need and do not need, particularly if we want to take people from the Philippines. Switzerland, for example, can run a scheme where the 26 cantons control half the visas and the other half are controlled centrally. Is it not time that the UK changed its approach so that places such as Scotland can control their own destiny?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman’s party lost the argument when it lost the referendum. Scotland is a firm part of the UK. I think the control of borders is a policy area that should be in the hands of the nation state.

To get back to my not being surprised, the most angry people I met when I was the Secretary of State at DEFRA were the fruit farmers in Herefordshire, Somerset or Kent. I remember clearly going on a trip with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) to her constituency in Essex, where there is a wonderful, world-famous fruit packing, picking and jam-making company called Tiptree, which we probably all see on virtually every plane we fly on. That company was having real problems at that time with getting really skilled people to pick fruit. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, the picking has to be done at the right moment. There is a critical moment when fruit and veg has to be picked, or it is lost.

At that time, SAWS had already been stopped. From memory, before they had open access, the scheme brought in 21,250 Romanians and Bulgarians, who came to targeted destinations, with proper accommodation, good catering facilities, proper medical facilities and so on. They also had the requirement to go home at the end of the season. I remember that Tiptree was really struggling. I talked to various representatives of the industries at that time and we looked at all sorts of alternatives, some of which have been completely misrepresented in the press. There was talk of reviving the old tradition of urban citizens taking working holidays in the countryside, and seeing whether pensioners could do it. We looked at students. I worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions. None of those options was really practical. We looked at them, but they were not really going anywhere.

The only real long-term solution, if we are to use domestic labour—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire made the right point when he said we all represent rural constituencies with very low rates of unemployment—is automation. Happily, near me, we have the University of Harper Adams, which is doing fantastic work on automated machinery. It will produce a crop in a field this year where a human being will not have entered that field from the moment that it was first touched. However, that is down the line. For the moment, I think we all agree that we have a real problem with our fruit and veg industry, and increasingly with our tourism industry, in finding labour.

We have the opportunity, and I look forward to it, once we get control back of our borders, to look well outside Europe for labour—we will have to. We are going to find—I have just cited the figures—that the Romanians and the Poles are probably going to stay at home. We had better wake up to that. It is absolutely vital that the Minister is working hard at DEFRA on a replacement seasonal agricultural workers scheme.

I would ask him not to do a straight replacement. I will cite one example, New Zealand, which has been running a recognised seasonal employers scheme since 2007. The World Bank has described it as a model for best practice. It has really worked; it has eased labour shortages in the horticulture sector, and the viticulture sector, which is growing very fast of course in New Zealand, while minimising the risks of overstaying and undercutting or displacement of local labour by immigrant labour.

There is a really strong focus in New Zealand on “New Zealand first” in the labour market. Our old seasonal agricultural workers scheme did not incorporate a resident labour market test, unlike the RSE, nor did it include measures of the type included in the RSE to prevent illegal overstaying. That is a really important difference. The number has increased from 8,000 to 10,800 Pacific islanders this year. They are provided places to work during the agricultural season, and mainly come from islands such as Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, for seven to 11 months.

The conditions are pretty strict. An employer must first register as a recognised seasonal employer. That is stronger than what we had: under our old legislation, SAWS, registration with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was optional for sole operators and compulsory only for multiple operators, depending on their recruitment arrangements.

New Zealand employers are required to take a number of reasonable steps to recruit New Zealanders to available positions. The language is pretty fierce. The main document given to employers says that they are required to take

“all reasonable steps to recruit and train New Zealanders for available positions before seeking to recruit non-New Zealand citizen or resident workers”,

and that they must

“not use a recruitment agent who seeks a commission from workers in exchange for securing an employment agreement, to recruit non-New Zealand citizen or resident workers”.

That is much more strict and puts more pressure on the employer than what we had.

The other really important thing is that employers are required to pay the market rate for work so there is no competition with domestic labour. “New Zealand first” really does help. Under the SAWS arrangements, SAWS operators were subject to inspection by the GLA and what was then the UK Border Agency. That included their pay systems. In New Zealand, farms are inspected, mainly by the operator, to ensure appropriate standards of health and safety, which is the main focus. Very importantly, employers must pay half the worker’s return air fare between New Zealand and their country of origin. Under SAWS, there was no requirement to pay any portion of the worker’s return air fare.

In New Zealand, employers must bear the cost of repatriating workers if they become illegal. Again, that was not the case under SAWS, although fines were eventually introduced. Importantly, workers under RSE are allowed to be re-employed in subsequent years, and there is a very strong record of their coming back, which I think is a real advantage for the disadvantaged economies from which they come. Although seasonal agricultural schemes around the world seem to use either a resident labour market test as a form of flow control, or a quota, New Zealand uses both. The policy has contributed very much to its development objectives with its Pacific neighbours.

I recommend that the Minister read the report by Professor Alan Winters, professor of economics at the University of Sussex, on New Zealand’s recognised seasonal employers scheme. Let me pick a key quote from a 2010 survey by the New Zealand Department of Labour, which is pretty festive about this. It said:

“Overall, the RSE Policy has achieved what it set out to do. The policy has provided employers in the horticulture and viticulture industries with access to a reliable and stable seasonal workforce. The labour supply crises of previous years have been avoided and employers can now plan and manage their businesses with confidence. As the policy enters its third year”—

this was back in 2010—

“there are indications many employers are now also benefiting from skilled labour as workers return for subsequent seasons. Significant productivity gains were reported in the second season, together with improvements in harvest quality.”

As I just said,

“Alongside the employer ‘wins’, Pacific workers and three Pacific states have benefited financially from participating in the RSE Policy.”

A World Bank report said:

“We find per capita incomes of households participating in the RSE to have increased by over 30% relative to the comparison groups in both countries.”

Another report found that 50% of workers returned in the next season, and that most—86.9%—returned to the same employer.

Australia’s seasonal worker programme, which I strongly recommend the Minister check out, is a similar scheme. It brings in 12,000 workers from Pacific islands. Workers come to Australia for between 14 weeks and six months. Employers must be approved by the Government; provide the Government with evidence of labour market testing; organise flights, transport and accommodation for workers; ensure a minimum of 30 hours of labour a week; and ensure that workers depart on the expiration of their visa.

It is vital that we look at introducing a replacement for SAWS. It should be tapered and temporary, and should ensure that British workers are not displaced or undercut by migrant workers while we wait for technology to catch up—that is the real future for domestic workers. Any replacement of SAWS must include a resident labour market test and be accompanied by robust safeguards against illegal overstaying. We need to start planning that now because, given that prosperity is improving in eastern Europe, as Members have said, workers are not going to come from there. We will happily have the whole world to choose from. Hopefully, people will come here and pick our wonderful soft fruit and vegetables.

Domestic Ivory Market

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on landing the debate, and all those who signed the very significant petition, which has well over 100,000 signatures.

In five seconds’ time, we will have lost our fifth elephant while we have been speaking today. That is the horror of what is going on, and the House must get a grip of the enormity of what has happened. One hundred years ago, there were 10 million elephants. In 1979, the number was down to 1.3 million and, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, today we are down to 415,000. We lose 20,000 a year—that is one every 15 minutes. That was brought home to me dramatically when, as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I went to Lewa, a conservancy in north Kenya, in the autumn of 2013.

Picking up on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), there was the most brilliant example in Lewa of co-operation between the local landowners—the Craigs, who have been established in Kenya for a long time—and cattle farmers. Together, by establishing a conservancy where cattle raising and the protection of wildlife is encouraged, they have set up a virtuous circle. It is horrendous to go in a helicopter and smell a carcass from 200 feet and then get closer, turn off the engines and hear this weird, bubbling, buzzing sound of the boiling entrails, the stench and horror of the death of a young animal, which is completely pointless because the rangers have got there and taken the ivory. That brought home to me, however, that there was, potentially, a virtuous circle: local people can be got to value wildlife and prosper as cattle farmers. The most immediate impact of having proper rangers and a proper conservancy was that rangers were around and there was law and order. The centuries-long habit of cattle rustling and stealing therefore stopped. There was active talk of building an abattoir in the locality to encourage a long-term beef business. It can be done.

Two years ago, I went to the Kruger, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire mentioned, mainly to look at rhinoceroses. It was completely horrendous. I saw four carcasses in one weekend. There are the most enormous elephants there—that should be encouraging for my hon. Friend. Since it is so easy for poachers to come through the fence—the old security fence has lots of holes in it—it is much easier to take a rhinoceros horn, stick it in a backpack and get back over the border to Mozambique than it is to approach the elephants. We are losing a rhino every nine hours. We will run out of rhinos in what is their biggest population in the world. The poachers will then turn on the wonderful elephants, and we will run out of elephants.

I admire the fortitude of my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Victoria Borwick) for coming here today, given the terrible operation she has just had, but I am afraid that I wholeheartedly disagree with her. She said that the value of an elephant is immeasurable. Of course it is. This is an absolutely iconic species. Lots of Members have talked about their children and grandchildren. We cannot compare a bit of ancient jewellery, which is not going to be destroyed, with a living animal that is. One every 15 minutes is killed. We will run out. Can everyone just get that into their heads?

I came back from that trip and met the then Foreign Secretary, now Lord Hague of Richmond, who immediately took on board the significance. I also enlisted the support of the then Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), and we all sat down together, led by officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I pay tribute to Mr Jeremy Eppel, who has sadly left the Department. He led the negotiations with other Departments. He also led the huge task of putting together the biggest global wildlife conference that has ever been organised. Sadly I missed the conference because I was having an eye operation, but 42 countries turned up.

Before that, I had been in Moscow talking to the Russian Minister. Great things were being done there with the Chinese about the snow leopards on the border. The Minister gave me invaluable advice on how to work with the Chinese. I also talked to the Chinese Minister, who was keen to come to the conference to explain what China was doing on its elephant population and on conservation in its jungles. The conference was an extraordinary and hugely successful event and we had three generations of our royal family playing a critical role.

The conference came up with three absolutely key targets. One is the reduction of demand. The conference summary was absolutely clear. It said:

“The economic, social, and environmental impacts of the illegal wildlife trade can only be effectively tackled if we eradicate both the demand and supply sides for illegal products wherever in the world this occurs.

To this end, we commit ourselves and call upon the international community to take the following action…Support, and where appropriate undertake, effectively targeted actions to eradicate demand and supply for illegal wildlife products”.

That does not just mean the Chinese and the Vietnamese tackling ivory and rhino horn; that means us. We made a commitment to that in our manifesto, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). Our manifesto stated:

“As hosts of the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, we helped secure the adoption of the London Declaration on Illegal Wildlife Trade and will continue to lead the world in stopping the poaching that kills thousands of rhinos, elephants and tigers each year. We will…press for a total ban on ivory sales, and support the Indian Government”.

We are clearly committed to the issue.

We were world leaders. We had the world here. All our extraordinary historical links, including our links to the Commonwealth, our good relations with China through Hong Kong and our good relations with the United States, were enormously valuable. What has happened since then? We should think carefully about that. We had that commitment in our manifesto. We were elected, and we got a majority. What has happened? Sadly, I fear that we are losing our leadership. We did not send anyone to the International Union for Conservation of Nature conference in Honolulu. We certainly did not send a Minister. We then had the CITES conference. On the day, the Secretary of State made a welcome announcement that she intended to bring in a ban on post-1947 ivory. I did not understand why the consultation did not start immediately. It was promised early this year. It is now the evening of 6 February, and the consultation has not yet started.

I hear that there might be complications about a fast track. I am very glad that it is not a slow track, because we have not started. I would like the Minister to respond on this, because it is a fundamental point. According to the document I have pulled off, a fast-track consultation can happen where the measure is low cost, which means that the gross cost to business in-year is less than £1 million. The planned consultation on a post-1947 ban may count as fast track. If it is not fast track, or if the ban is extended to earlier years, how much longer will it take, because 23 September was 19 weeks ago last Friday? In that time, we have lost 12,768 elephants. I would like a specific answer to that. If we do not have a fast track, and go for an all-encompassing, near-comprehensive ban, how long will that take? That is fundamental. In public with Lord Hague, I welcomed as a first step the Secretary of State’s announcement of the post-1947 ban. We have written letters, and we have a hundred different conservationists and other people behind us, and what worries me is that we are losing ground.

Several Members have mentioned China. China recently introduced a ban. It is going to stop the use of ivory. I heard late this afternoon from China, verbally, that large companies will be closed in China in the earlier phase before 31 March 2017. That will include state-owned factories and possibly some others. The briefing states:

“According to SFA Notice No.9 2015, there are 34 designated factories and 130 retail outlets in China that are permitted to legally operate in the manufacture and trade of ivory; representing 89 discreet enterprises in total.”

It looks as if the Chinese plan is that they will be closed, because the notice states, in its first point:

“All the processing and sale of ivory and ivory products will be stopped by December 31, 2017.”

What is fascinating is that the African countries are now looking to China as an example, not us, who held the greatest wildlife conference in 2014. Only two days ago, the Shanghai Daily said:

“The European Union (EU) member states should take a cue from China and ban domestic and overseas trade in ivory products, members of the African Elephant Coalition (AEC) said.

We welcome China’s decisive action to close its ivory market. It is a major breakthrough in the battle to save elephants,’ AEC chairman Patrick Omondi said.

But we need other countries with legal domestic markets to follow suit and are calling on the EU to take advantage of the momentum created by China and shut down their trade in ivory once and for all’”.

What is happening in other parts of the world? Hong Kong has recently announced plans to implement a ban within five years. America has a very tight ban. In some states, such as California, the ban is even tighter, yet we have still not begun our consultation.

The hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington made comments about the antiques trade. I was fascinated, as the hon. Member for South Antrim said, to find that the antiques trade was worth £13 billion. I got a note from the British Art Market Federation that total sales in the whole arts and antiques market reached £9 billion in 2014. The ivory trade is a round of drinks. Do not tell me that we are going to bring the antiques trade to its knees if we limit the trade in items containing ivory in a measured and sensible manner. Why do we not go to America and talk to the Americans and the Californians and see how they have done it? They have de minimis specifications. They have a limit of 200 grams, so an ancient piano can be sold and does not have to be destroyed. In many ways, that is what is awful; these wonderful creatures died a tragic death, but at least they live on in piano keys. I would like to see such items allowed to be traded, but under very strict conditions.

Happily for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris), I have got the figures for what carbon dating costs. In September 2016, there was a case in Carlisle Crown court, and the judge sensibly directed that the objects, which were described as “cow bone carvings”, should be carbon dated. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman how many objects there were, but the total cost was £1,134. I have also picked up that the University of Oxford does a cheap deal on a single item for £500. He rightly keeps mentioning that issue, and I think there is merit in it.

I am looking at a near-comprehensive ban. With respect to my near office neighbour, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, a total ban would not work. A near- comprehensive ban, learning lessons from the States and other countries—it is amazing, but we might be learning lessons from China—is the way forward. It is simply not possible to stop the ivory trade, and it is not possible to maintain the high moral ground and tell other countries what they should be doing if we have not set an example. It is absolutely incredible that we have fallen behind.

[Rob Marris]

First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for actually producing some evidence with that £500 figure. He will not be surprised to hear me say this, but it looks like having a certification system at £500 a pop for pre-1947 ivory is the way forward to balance things. He has spoken passionately, and I hope he gets on to this matter. I asked the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) for some evidence that a total ban on the domestic ivory market, which is what the debate is about, will stop or lessen considerably—hopefully to zero—the poaching of elephants. I am not getting a causal connection there, because I am not hearing the evidence.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my not-so-distant neighbour for his kind compliments. First, it is easy to cheat, and people in the trade will cheat. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall may not be an expert. He is a BBC journalist, and he did a pretty simple test. He bought nine items. Six that were masquerading as pre-1947 were dated as post-1947. We must not underestimate the fact that there is massive cheating.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington quoted TRAFFIC. It did a survey in September 2016 of the whole of London’s antique sector. It found ivory items widespread across the city’s antiques markets. The report found that

“the UK plays a role in illegal ivory trade, at both import and re-export, but in particular as a transit country, with ivory seizures reported by the UK having increased in recent years.”

It also pointed out how cheating can go on. It mentioned a fascinating case. As a country, we reported exports of only 17 raw tusks, but importers’ records showed 109 tusks originating from the UK. There is no doubt whatever that an illegal trade is going on and that people are cheating. They give cover to other activities in other markets. We simply cannot take the high ground and ask other countries to ban activities, as the Chinese have done, if we have not set an example. Our proposed ban on post-1947 ivory is sadly now inadequate and is being overtaken by countries such as China and India, which have introduced bans.

[Rob Marris]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for producing evidence, but he has left me more confused. When I looked at it, I found that the August 2016 report by TRAFFIC, “A Rapid Survey of UK Ivory Markets”, stated that links between the antiques trade and

“the current elephant poaching crisis appear tenuous at best.”

Of more than 3,000 objects sampled, no new or unworked ivory was found. Only one item from the 1960s came after the 1947 cut-off date for antique ivory. Are we reading different reports?

[Mrs Anne Main in the Chair.]

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman has cited evidence of cheating. The point is that the UK is by far the largest exporter of ivory items among EU members. According to CITES, the EU had a huge export volume of about 1,874 ivory transactions from 2006 to 2015, but we were easily the largest with 25,351. That is 54% of the EU total, and we know cheating goes on. Bluntly, we have to learn lessons. In China, it has always been an iconic key feature of great family occasions—a wedding, a banquet or a state occasion—to eat shark fin soup. It has come down from on high in recent years and the party establishment in China has said, “We have got to stop this because of the damage to shark populations,” and they have. Habits have changed.

The immediate reaction to ivory is, “Great. There’s world demand. It is marvellous that there is now prosperity in China and people are not dying of starvation as they were when I grew up. Let us let them prosper. Let them buy ivory and let us grow more of the item.” The problem is that we simply cannot farm elephants and rhinoceroses and meet the demand. If there is any legal activity, it gives cover to the illegal activity. That is a tragedy. I would love to be a Hayekian on this. I would love to say, “Let us open up savannahs and grow masses of elephants.”

We cannot cope with 600 million new middle-class people with middle-class aspirations in China, where ivory has great value and is seen to be an investment. That is the worst thing. Some are buying ivory knowing that the supply will dwindle and ultimately disappear when elephants are exterminated, and their product will go up. The answer is to follow what they did on shark fins. Let us simply make this a non-U item. It should simply not be acceptable.

We have stopped drink-driving. It is no longer acceptable in this country. It is very simple. I am afraid I totally disagree with the hon. Member for South Antrim and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington. It is completely ludicrous to put things on the same level.

[Danny Kinahan]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that we are all on the same page? I want the near ban to protect the animals as much as he and anyone else does. This is a question of semantics. We have got to find an urgent way of protecting the elephants. We do not have to damage the antiques trade. We can do things together, but let us do it quickly. Let us learn from the Chinese and the Americans. We are all on the same page.

[Mr Paterson]

In that spirit of co-operation, perhaps we could agree among ourselves that we need to close down the majority of the trade in products from live animals, otherwise we will lose the elephant. Perhaps we could have a near-comprehensive ban, which is not quite what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw wanted.

I ask the Minister whether we could extend the consultation, which still has not started yet. I had a good meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and Lord Hague last week, along with DEFRA and Foreign Office officials. As I understand it, there is a possibility that, because the post-1947 consultation has not yet started, we could extend it deeper. We could look at a complete ban or a rolling 100-year ban, as the United States has done, but sadly, I am convinced that a post-1947 ban is worthless. If it falls down on the so-called fast-track rule—we have already been faffing around for 19 weeks—let us go for a full-blooded consultation on a really meaningful ban that is near-comprehensive and look at what the States has done on 200 grams and de minimis. We will not be destroying ancient bagpipes and pianos and absolutely not destroying wonderful ancient painted panels. We would be stopping the trade, which can be disguised and which allows illegal activity to carry on elsewhere. If we do not do that, we will lag behind and the Chinese will be well ahead of us.

We will be hosting the conference, which I am delighted to say is coming back to London, having been to Botswana and Hanoi, where the Secretary of State made a splendid and resounding statement that she wanted to introduce a ban, but we will still be limping along behind. We have lost the leadership.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and commend him on everything he has done to get the Government to take the matter more seriously. Does he agree that, apart from discussing how we get round the antiquities problem, we need to do a great deal more on the ground using DFID to put funding in to help fight this wicked trade? A lot more could be done immediately to support the fight against the illegal trade in ivory if we used our power as a nation and if we used DFID money to achieve some of that.

[Mr Paterson]

I agree with my hon. Friend. If we had more time, I would talk about the lessons from the wildlife conference, where there was clearly a DFID angle. The three big aims are to reduce demand, improve enforcement—in fairness, lessons from the wildlife conference had a direct impact on operations in northern Kenya the year after—and long-term sustainable economic development. He is absolutely right about that.

To go back to my visit to Kruger, it is near a pretty miserable and poor part of northern Mozambique. It is very easy to spot the rhino horn poaching leaders because they live in smart houses and have smart cars. There is not much economic activity there. When one of these guys gets back over the border with a rhino horn, there is a big celebration. It is absolutely fundamental that we work with Mozambique to bring in sanctions in that country, along with better law enforcement and better judicial arrangements so that there are penalties, which has been done in other countries. We also need to teach them about the value of the animals so that their children and grandchildren will benefit in the long term. The game tourism industry in South Africa and Kenya is advanced and brings in significant income. There is none of that in northern Mozambique, but that is the sort of thing we should be doing.

[Rebecca Pow]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful and impassioned speech. I want to speak up for a project in Samburu in Kenya where they are doing exactly as he describes. We could target more funds that work for the communities to save the habitats and the elephants. We could also focus on carbon dating. If we know products are coming out of those areas, we can isolate them and target the poaching areas that we know are a problem.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention—I totally agree—which brings me on to the London conference. At the London conference in 2018, we should definitely look at involving DFID and we should look at long-term conservation measures and the development of long-term economic prosperity. We should look at attaching value to the animals and at co-operating with the farming activity. The Minister might have ideas on this. We discussed technology last week with her colleague at the Foreign Office. If the poachers get hold of drones and new technology, it would be catastrophic. We need the very latest technology brought to bear.

Sadly, the lesson from the Kruger was that we had a South African major-general—the head of South African Special Forces was his No. 2. He had been involved in what the South Africans politely call 28 incidents. They had three aeroplanes, two helicopters and 700 well-armed rangers, and they still lost four rhinos the weekend I was there. There is no doubt that better surveillance and better intervention is necessary and should be discussed at the London conference.

Another problem is corruption and money laundering. We have great expertise in this country and a proud record under our previous Chancellor of bearing down on corruption in our own country. There are lessons we can export to other countries when we go to the conference.

Another area of real value is sentencing guidelines. We had better start at home. I would be interested if the Minister talked about that, because Justice Ministers are not keen to lean on our officials who apply sentencing guidelines. In 2015, there was a case involving a tiger parts trader, who was found guilty and got only 12 months’ community service. She was not fined or given the appropriate penalty. I hope the Minister will comment on that. We can take action now and set examples of better law enforcement for other countries. We should use the maximum penalties. That should also be discussed in the London conference. Will the Minister talk about that, given that the consultation has not started?

Sadly, the post-1947 ban has been overtaken by action in other countries, so we have to go for a near-comprehensive ban. It sounds like there could be an agreement that would satisfy the hon. Member for South Antrim and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, possibly using carbon dating, which will thrill my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, and a de minimis rule. Let us be practical. We do not want to destroy ancient pianos, so let us go for 200 grams and look at how the Americans and others have done it sanely. Do not forget that other countries will be watching us. This is the key thing: we cannot go to the 2018 conference unless we have the high ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I understand the argument that people have made about any market at all, and many of the examples cited today still allow a market in ivory. It will be important, in the call for evidence, for people to come forward and demonstrate that point, for the reasons I hope to set out.

Last September, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced plans for a ban on the sale of worked ivory that is less than 70 years old—from 1947 onwards. That demarcation is used across Europe and was chosen because it was 50 years before the EU wildlife trade regulations came into force to regulate trade and protect endangered wildlife. By using that date for their proposed ban on the sale of ivory, the Government are on solid legal ground to bring a near-total ban into effect quickly. For control and enforcement, there are advantages in working with a date already used by the trade and the rest of the EU to draw a dividing line.

I recognise that many people want the UK to take an even stronger stance on the ivory trade and, as the petitioners demand, that there be no trade at all in ivory. Let me reassure the House that the Government are open to views on the matter. That is why the consultation will include an open question on this, with a call for views and evidence. I am regularly informed, and have been in this debate, that other nations have banned trade, so why have we not yet done so? I think that it would be helpful to set out to the House what is happening around the world.

The US has introduced what has been described as a near-total ban. The US Government can act only at federal level, and their ban covers trade internationally and between states, although it does not affect trade within states. The ban prohibits trade in ivory items that are under 100 years old and continues to allow the trade in pieces older than 100 years, as that is the US’s legal definition of an antique. The federal ban also provides for a range of exemptions, including musical instruments and items that contain a small amount of ivory. Four states have so far chosen to apply similar controls within their state. Those restrictions do not seem to apply to establishments for educational or scientific research purposes, which includes museums. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) referred to action by California, but he will recognise that trade continues.

[Mr Owen Paterson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I am really sorry, but my right hon. Friend spoke for nearly half an hour and I have limited time to reply.

Last year, France made the bold announcement that it would permit trade in pre-1975 ivory only on a case-by-case basis, but since then it has consulted on the scope of its ban and is now considering exemptions for pre-1947 items and musical instruments. We look forward to hearing the final outcome of its consultation.

We welcome the announcement by the Chinese Government of their intention to close China’s domestic ivory market by the end of 2017. Again, we look forward to hearing more details of their intentions for the ban, including what the exemption allowing the auction of ivory “relics” will cover. However, the welcome closure of the carving factories this year will be a huge step in stopping the creation of new worked ivory artefacts.

Hong Kong was mentioned. The Hong Kong Government announced plans to phase out the domestic ivory trade, but it is my understanding that, again, there will be an exemption for antiques, which has still to be defined. Domestic sale will be allowed with a licence.

I have met groups on all sides of the debate, from conservation experts to antiques sector representatives, and will continue to do so. It matters that when considering the final outcome of the consultation, including the calls to go further, we know that there is a strong likelihood of legal challenge and so we would require further understanding of the impact on individuals, businesses and cultural institutions that own these items and the interaction with the conservation of elephants today. As has been pointed out, ivory is found in works from the art deco period and in musical instruments, often forming a small proportion of the item. The kind of assessment that we would have to consider would include how prohibiting the sale of a 17th-century ivory carving of the flagellation of Christ prevented the poaching of elephants today.

I note what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said on a total ban, as indeed have other hon. Members, and what he said on museums. I am not sure whether he would go further and seek the destruction of ivory pieces, including the throne given to Queen Victoria—I am not sure whether he wants to go that far. However, I stand by the comments that I made previously about display, and I was referring particularly to the display of raw tusks, which still happens.

UK Fishing Industry

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in the debate, and to follow the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). I wholeheartedly endorse his opening comments, in which he paid tribute to the bravery of the crews and of their families who wait behind in terrible weather, wondering whether they are going to see those brave fishermen come back.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to her predecessor, who was a great stalwart of the industry but who drew a completely different conclusion from hers on these matters. Frankly, I think he was right.

Brexit offers the most wonderful opportunity for our marine environment and for those who work in it. We should not underestimate that. We said that we would leave, which will mean leaving the common fisheries policy and re-establishing our control right back to 200 miles and the full exclusive economic zone. I was the shadow spokesman on these matters 11 and 12 years ago, opposite the right hon. Member for Exeter.

[Mr MacNeil]

As a supporter of the UK remaining in the single market, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will spell out the importance of tariff-free access for shellfish and other goods from Scotland, the UK and elsewhere going into the European market, and into France and Spain in particular.

[Mr Paterson]

I am not recommending staying in the single market because, as the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said, a couple of weeks ago 20 countries were accelerating their sales into the single market from outside faster than we were doing from within. However, I am fully in favour of zero tariffs.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Paterson]

I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I am going to carry on.

Eleven years ago, I spent a fascinating two years going all round the British Isles. I went to wonderful places such as Whalsay in the far north, Northern Ireland and right round the coast of Britain. I saw tragically damaged communities and marine environments. I also went to Norway, the Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, the east coast of the United States and the Falklands. I saw improving marine environments and prosperous fishing communities in those areas. I saw wealth being grown there. I drew conclusions from this, and I wrote a consultation paper, which I published.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. The common feature of all the jurisdictions he mentions is that their fisheries management systems have the fishermen at their heart. This is not a question of where control is exercised; it is a question of what we do with it. Whitehall is just as capable as Brussels of excluding fishermen from fisheries management.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. I draw his attention to the paper that I launched in Scotland in 2005, on which we fought the 2005 election. It advocated the establishment of national and local control, which is exactly what he is talking about. He is absolutely right. In that paper, I concluded:

“The Common Fisheries Policy is a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster; it is beyond reform. It is a system that forces fishermen to throw back more fish dead into the sea than they land; it has caused substantial degradation of the marine environment; it has destroyed much of the fishing industry, with compulsory scrapping of modern vessels and has devastated fishing communities.”

I am absolutely clear that leaving the CFP would give us the chance to change all that.

The first thing we would change is the craziness of the quotas. At the moment, we throw back more fish dead into the sea than we land. A Scottish fisherman told me this morning that he estimates that a 50% discard equates to 1 million tonnes of healthy fish being thrown back each year, worth £1.6 billion annually and the equivalent of 2 billion fish suppers. That is criminal insanity. We are across the gulf stream, and we have deep waters with a strong supply of food. The industry could have a tremendous revival if we revive our marine environment.

We must replace the current quotas and turn them into the equivalent of days at sea. I saw this happening with great clarity in the Faroes, where it is mandatory to land everything. The Minister in the Faroes told me, “We might not like what we find, but we know exactly what is going on.” Let us compare that with the problem that the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), will have when he goes to the Council next week. The EU fisheries policy is based on information that is guaranteed to be at a minimum 50% inaccurate and probably six months out of date.

Let us compare that with the Falklands, where—I saw this when I was there—the figures are transmitted to senior scientists in London overnight, and if a vessel collecting hake is taking too much bycatch, it is told to steam on.

Let us compare that with Iceland, where—I have been there, too—at an hour’s notice, vessels are told to steam on if they are catching too much of a certain species. That is proper control and, to go back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it is the sort of power we could give back to our local fisherman and those with an interest in the local marine environment.

I am absolutely clear that we have to switch from the current quota system. If we have any quotas, it is inevitable that we will have discards. During the referendum campaign, I gave a speech in Looe and, on the harbour-master’s wall, there was a helpful tin sign with pictures of all the fish. I say all the fish, but, hang on, there was no picture of a haddock. What is the biggest thing fishermen are catching off Looe at the moment? It is haddock. They have not even got a quota, so they are chucking them all back. It is absolutely crazy. We should land everything, and everything with commercial value should then be sold. That is the only solution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) bravely got the discard ban through, but, unfortunately, it cannot work while we have quotas. As long as we have quotas, we will have a discard problem. We should move to controls based on days at sea, we should land everything, we should have accurate data—and no cheating—and it would be immensely cheaper and easier to administer. That would provide very accurate data for our local scientists, local fishermen, local recreational interests and local environmentalists to use in deciding how to handle the fishing.

I am looking at the clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will mention a few other points that were in my paper. Before I do so, will the Minister—if he will take a note—get a derogation and do a trial on the basis of days at sea? The Dutch have done a trial on electric pulse beaming, starting off with six boats in the first year and going up to 100 boats after six years. I would like the Minister to choose a mixed fishery area—possibly the south-west, where he comes from—for an immediate trial converting existing quotas into days at sea to see whether we can replicate the huge success of the Faroes in improving the marine environment, growing stocks and bringing back prosperity.

As part of our administration of fisheries, it is very important that we plan temporary closures. For boats taking too much bycatch, absolutely hourly management can, with radio, be given to local scientists and fishermen if we create the right framework. In my paper, I proposed having fisheries management authorities, which would be a combination of all the parties I have mentioned. I would have inshore authorities for out to 12 miles—in the channel, it would go a little further—and a smaller number of them for out to 200 miles. They would work on the basis of local knowledge, with local scientists, and adapt techniques to their area.

There is one issue that I find extraordinary. When I went to New England, I saw selective gear being developed at Manomet, but when I came back to the UK I found out it was banned. The hostility of the EU to modern technology is bizarre. I would like to have a regime in which we actively promoted selective gear so that we could take out certain species surgically when fishing. On that, the ability to control the system has been enormously helped since I wrote the paper, because there has been a great improvement in GPS tracking, satellite observation and communications. We can put cameras on nets and on boats, so it is now very hard to cheat.

One of the Labour Members mentioned improved supervision, and we will have to put more money back into this to ensure that people do not cheat. However, we will be in an enormously better position if we take back control, give power to local interests—not just the fishing industry, but scientists, councils and recreational fishermen—to decide what is good for their area, to adapt selective gear to that area and to agree permanent closed zones for spawning if necessary or temporary closed zones if there is too much fishing. If we do that, we will see an immediate improvement in the marine environment, and the jobs and prosperity will then come back. Leave means leave, which means going out to 200 miles and establishing local and national control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

Without actually knowing what “this document” is, I am not sure; I am afraid that my eyesight is no longer good enough to be able to read the title from here. Wittingly or otherwise, the hon. Gentleman has hit on a very important point, which is that although we always get excited about the December Fisheries Council meeting, the real deal is the one done with the EU-Norway talks. That is where the shape of the fishing entitlement of the fishermen in my constituency is determined, and we look forward to hearing from the Minister exactly how we will interact with those talks in the future. A trilateral discussion surely seems sensible, but we will wait to hear what he intends in that regard.

[Mr Paterson]

rose—

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sorry, but I want to keep within the time limit if I can.

The landing obligation also continues to be a source of concern, as a result of the so-called “choke species”. This year, stock levels of cod, haddock and whiting in the North sea are particularly healthy—they are there in abundance—but there is a real danger that they could be excluded as a result of having these choke species. Again, that is an example of why it is so important that when the science is used to inform the decision-making process and quota it is accurate and up-to-date. It would be utterly perverse if Shetland’s white-fish fishermen were to be punished for fishing in waters where the stocks were healthiest.

Other Members have also spoken about the position on non-EU crew members, which has been particularly acute in my constituency. The basic problem is not just the indifference of the Home Office; the way these rules operate, if they are allowed to operate, means that they are pushing fishermen into fishing where the immigration rules allow them, rather than where is safe or where the fish are to be found. Surely the Minister should be speaking to the Home Office about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whiteford]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. That point has been raised by Members from many parts of the UK.

A significant proportion of the fish caught by Scottish boats is already landed in ports overseas, notably in Norway. If we were to lose any processing capacity in Scotland because of labour shortages, we would lose part of the high-value end of our supply chain. We would lose exports and revenue and, critically, we would jeopardise hundreds of local jobs that the free movement of labour has anchored in our geographically peripheral coastal communities.

I am desperately disappointed that the UK Government have chosen to use the status of EU nationals living and working in the UK as a bargaining chip in their Brexit negotiations. That has not just set a poor tone for what lies ahead, but created uncertainty for businesses and for ordinary, hard-working folk who have made their homes in our communities and do not deserve to become pawns in this unedifying game.

In or out of the EU, it is overwhelmingly in the interests of our fish processors and exporters to stay in the single market. Whatever our eventual constitutional destination, even the most ardent Brexiteers recognise that we will still have to negotiate with neighbouring coastal states over shared stocks and reciprocal access to our waters. It would be absolutely daft to get ourselves into a position where we can finally ditch the problems with the CFP and recover access to the fish in our own waters, but be unable to get that fish to market. In that regard, I was surprised to hear the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) say that he was in favour of leaving the single market, because I was looking the other day at a video clip of him on the “Murnaghan” programme saying

“only a madman would actually leave the market.”

I do not know what has prompted this turn of insanity, but I think the right hon. Gentleman should clarify.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me a chance to clarify. Perhaps she should have watched the Andrew Neil programme a little later, on which that ridiculous video was completely shredded. A number of us—about four or five—who campaigned to leave were absolutely and totally misrepresented—[Interruption.] I went on to say, if the hon. Lady will just restrain herself for a moment, that there are about two countries in the world—I think it is Somalia and North Korea—that do not sell into the single market. We want to sell into it.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am very confident that I have quoted the right hon. Gentleman correctly from the clip I saw. I think it is exactly that kind of two-faced language that discredits politicians and makes people doubt our integrity on issues that we are concerned about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it parliamentary to talk about “two-faced language” when I have just explained that I was wholly misrepresented by that ridiculous video?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

I would have jumped up anyway if the right hon. Gentleman had not. I think that the hon. Lady should withdraw “two-faced”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

This has been a good and lively debate. Perhaps the one complaint is that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) said that there were too many interventions from the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—that is a scurrilous allegation!

First, I wish to put on the record my own pleas, just as many other Members have done. I represent a coastal community; indeed, it is one of the few constituencies—perhaps the only one—that reaches the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Our current pleas are about tuna, dogfish and herring. We would like to have some tuna quota, as tuna are passing regularly through the Hebrides—about 200 miles west of the Hebrides, within the Hebrides to St Kilda area—as Angus Campbell of Kilda Cruises sees frequently when he goes out there. That call is backed by the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association secretary Duncan MacInnes, with that organisation of course being the biggest fishermen’s association in Scotland.

The second area where we need support and help is on dogfish. We need a bycatch allocation, because friends I went to school with have been in the unfortunate situation of having to dump perfectly good dogfish. I worked as a fisherman on two separate occasions, and on one of those, more than 20 years ago, we were specifically targeting dogfish. That was of course ended because of the unsustainability of that fishery, but again dogfish are coming back and it is a shame to catch these fish, which are later marketed as rock salmon, only to dump them over the side and not use them. Of course we also need to do something about herring, my third point, because herring are appearing on the west coast in great numbers and are being caught as bycatch, but there is no quota allocation and so again they are being dumped. I hope that the Minister was listening to those three points.

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman has given three very good examples of why quotas do not work, and why we should move to a days-at-sea scheme. Does the Scottish National party support that?

[Mr MacNeil]

A days-at-sea scheme has its own problems. It puts pressure on fishermen. Sometimes they might get only hours at sea. There is merit in looking at a lot of changes in the fisheries policy, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has his own thoughts on that. [Interruption.] He has a record of changing his mind over the period of a month—I might refer to that again as I go on in my speech.

On a happier note—

[Mr Paterson]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

When I mention the right hon. Gentleman again, perhaps I will take his intervention then. Time is of the essence now.

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman accused me of changing my mind. I have proved the point to him quite clearly. If he looks at the full length of the video, he will see that I did not change my mind. He has a second chance now: yes or no to days at sea?

[Mr MacNeil]

Let me look at the right hon. Gentleman’s words again. He said that

“only a madman would leave the market.”

Has he changed his mind on that?

[Mr Paterson]

Will the hon. Gentleman please quote the rest of the clip? If he had watched the Andrew Neil show he would realise that those clips were very, very carefully chosen, and were then disproved by the rest of the sentences that followed. I will give him another chance: yes or no on days at sea?

[Mr MacNeil]

I would rather pursue this point. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean when he said that only a madman would leave the market? Let us put that in context with what others in his camp have said. Here is Daniel Hannan:

“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.”

Nigel Farage said, “Like Norway.” What did the right hon. Gentleman mean when he said that only a madman would leave the single market?

[Mr Paterson]

I am delighted to carry on with this exchange. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the rest of the sentences, he will realise that I, Dan Hannan and others—[Interruption.] The video was put up by a Liberal press spokesman, who was then completely shredded and harpooned by Andrew Neil live. It was proved that those were very selective short sentences from a longer clip. The hon. Gentleman is still ducking the question on days at sea. Does he agree that having days at sea would mean that we would not have discards? That would then get around the problem of not being able to land fish, which is very grievous for his constituents, and which he mentioned in his opening comments.

[Mr MacNeil]

I have already said that I am happy for anything to enter into the mix of discussions and negotiations post-Brexit. The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question, so I will leave it be. People watching can make up their own minds about what he meant when he said that only a madman would leave the market. I am quite clear what he meant.

The debate today was hosted tremendously well by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), who follows an illustrious predecessor, the much liked Austin Mitchell. She was absolutely right in saying that this debate should be not in Westminster Hall, but on the Floor of the House of Commons. She mentioned the Brexit promises. Certainly, whatever the promises were, they are changing over time. She made a good point about the number of people involved in fisheries. Indeed, Iceland has seen that number fall quite a lot.

A number of Members intervened on the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, particularly on the issues that affect me and Members from Northern Ireland, especially the lack of fishermen and the effects on fishing boats. Ultimately, of course, there is the effect on the Exchequer. If the boats are not going to sea, they are not earning money and not paying taxes, and that has a bad effect on the UK’s balance of payments, which, as we know, is not great at the best of times.

The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) made a thoughtful speech. He pointed out the dangers of the occupation, and thanked the RNLI in particular for the work that is done to keep people safe. I know that myself, after the loss of the Louisa in April this year. I was one of the last people to see the boat as she went down the west side of Barra at one in the morning. The following people were lost: Martin Johnston, aged 29, from Halkirk in Caithness; Chris Morrison from Harris; and the skipper, Paul Alliston. Happily there was a survivor, Lachlan Armstrong. That is the cost of fishing. The skipper of one of the boats that I worked on years ago lost his crewman and a friend of mine, Gerry Gillies, just over a year ago. That is the price of fishing.

The hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) mentioned the fisheries in King’s Lynn and the Wash. It is interesting to hear his frustration with the marine protected areas. He will know that it is not just in Norfolk and the Wash that these conservation zones are bringing frustration to fishermen. They are doing so across the country.

The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) made an excellent and very thoughtful speech about what being in and out of the EU might mean, whether fisheries would lose on the way out as they lost on the way in, and what exactly tariffs would mean for those selling into the European single market. At present that gives us an advantage in some places. However, many in the fishing community who voted for Brexit might have voted in frustration with the common fisheries policy, not to lose access to the single market.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made the point that CFP interaction would continue. He spoke about the cod recovery plan and the pain that that involved, combined with decommissioning. He mentioned that 47% of stocks were still overfished, such are the pressures on fisheries.

The right hon. Gentleman and another Member spoke about the success of the Faroese in managing to gather 33,000 tonnes of mackerel in Scottish waters. As time goes on, we might see what successful and experienced international trade negotiators can achieve. The Faroe Islands have a population of 50,000 and, when they go toe to toe with the European Union of 500 million, we see that their more experienced trade negotiators are more wily trade negotiators, especially when they know the importance of something close to them, as fisheries are. Perhaps when the UK draws up its own international trade deals, we will be doing so with inexperienced trade negotiators. We should study the success of the Faroe Islands and watch that we do not get mugged in the course of those negotiations.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) made a speech heavy on facts about what fisheries were contributing to Scotland—£500 million-worth of farmed salmon that goes out, compared with £438 million-worth of fish caught by fishing boats, showing that farmed fish has a bigger export value, which I found surprising.

The debate should be remembered for the many points that were made, the information given to the Minister, and the expectations of the Minister in time to come. I noted from the comments of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that de Gaulle was probably the original Brexiteer, in that he refused to allow the UK access to the European Economic Community.

I see your eyes, Madam Deputy Speaker, looking at the clock; you are hinting gently to me to get on with it. I hope the Minister will remember my three points, and the heartfelt plea from the west of Scotland and from Northern Ireland. For goodness’ sake, let our boats go to sea and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, stop the overzealous activities of the border agencies that are working against the economic interests of the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Agriculture and Fisheries Council

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The next Agriculture and Fisheries Council will be on 14 July in Brussels. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), will represent the UK.

There are both agriculture and fisheries items on this month’s agenda.

The Italian presidency will outline its work programme for the next six months.

On agriculture, there will be a policy debate on organic farming and further discussion of Council conclusions on the future of the dairy sector, which may be adopted.

On fisheries, there will be a presentation by the Commission on a consultation on fishing opportunities for 2015 followed by an exchange of views.

There are currently two any other business items:

Fisheries protocols with Morocco and Mauritania

Food control and food fraud.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

5. What steps he plans to take to ensure that the monitoring of the pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire is independently scientifically evaluated.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

DEFRA is currently working closely with Natural England and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency to develop the detail of how the monitoring will be implemented, including auditing and evaluation procedures. The results and outcome of the monitoring of this year’s culls will be made publicly available after they have been completed.

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that reply. Will he ensure that, in addition to that scientific examination, he also meets with the Welsh Assembly Minister who is dealing with this matter in Wales—not too far from his own constituency—where an alternative method, vaccination, is being undertaken? Will the Secretary of State agree to evaluate that as part of the process as well?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We have regular discussions with our counterparts across the border. We take information from them and they take information from us, so we are observing with interest the vaccination trial that is taking place over 1.5% of the surface area of Wales.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

We learned late last year that the Government would not allow scientific evaluation of the extensions of the pilot culls. Then the independent experts reported that DEFRA had failed to meet its main test for humaneness and now we learn that Ministers have no plans to scientifically evaluate the second phase of the pilot culls, which are due to take place later this year. Is there any valid reason why scientific evaluation of the culls has been abandoned—or is the Secretary of State just allergic to scientific advice?

[Mr Paterson]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post and congratulate her on her new position. I would like to reassure her that it was always our intention, stated right back in 2011, that an independent panel would assess the first year of the pilot culls. We have had some helpful recommendations from the panel, which we are taking on board, but I think she is unfair and underestimates the professionalism of the skilled staff we have in Natural England and the AHVLA, who will continue to monitor the culls this year.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

6. What his priorities are for further CAP reform.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I wanted to see the last round of CAP reform continue on the trajectory set by MacSharry and Fischler, so frankly, the end result was disappointing. Future reform should be driven by my departmental priorities of growing the rural economy and improving the environment, while providing value for money for taxpayers.

[Mr Brown]

Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to Sir Ben Gill, the former president of the National Farmers Union, who led the industry through very turbulent times some 13 years ago and also played a significant role in a previous CAP reform round? In doing so, can he say whether Britain will meet the Commission’s deadline of 1 August for submitting our greening proposals arising from the latest CAP round, and whether cash crops will be included in the UK submission?

[Mr Paterson]

I very much join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Sir Ben Gill, who only a few months ago came to see me to promote the British apple industry and was still playing a most constructive part. I also pay tribute to the role the right hon. Gentleman played when he was the senior Minister in charge at the end of the MacSharry period, when some serious reforms, from which we are currently benefiting, were pushed through. It is disappointing that that trajectory has not been continued. It is absolutely our intention to report to the Commission on time, on 1 August. I made a written statement earlier this week and I made further announcements on greening at the cereals conference yesterday.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to Sir Ben Gill, a former constituent and a very good friend to the farming industry. Mindful of my historic interest in this field, which is on the register, does the Secretary of State share my disappointment that the Commons Act 2006 register is woefully inaccurate and out of date, which means that those eligible for claims will be unable to make them, and that we will not have the paperless claims the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was promised when taking evidence?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for her question. She is right to raise some of the technical issues that have been thrown up. It is very much our intention that the reform should be introduced in a manner that makes it as easy as possible for applicants to understand, and as easy as possible for the Rural Payments Agency to pay out, and we are pleased to see a significant number of applications by the digital method.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the disappointment, certainly in environmental quarters, that the full 15% modulation was not taken up by the Government for England—although the record for Scotland and Northern Ireland is as open to criticism in that respect. When it comes to any future reform, does he accept that taxpayers cannot accept large amounts of their money going to subsidise wealthy farmers? That needs to be changed, so will he give that commitment today?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I remind him that we have agreed to go for a 12% modulation, and then review the position, having established what type of schemes are relevant, and possibly go on to 15%. We will spend £3.5 billion on improving the environment through our pillar 2 schemes. I am completely clear that I would like to continue the trajectory set in train by MacSharry and Fischler, whereby decisions pertaining to what crops are grown and what animals are raised should be left to the market, but there is a very real role for taxpayers’ money to be spent compensating landowners and farmers for the environmental work in respect of which there is no obvious market mechanism.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I would like to pay tribute to Sir Ben Gill and to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does the Secretary of State agree that any further CAP reform has to focus on the simple issue of using farm land to produce food because we have to tackle the important issue of food security, which is looming more and more and is ever-present in our society?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is spot on. There are 1 billion people hungry in today’s world and we are heading for a further increase in population of 2 billion. We should be aware that there is no unlimited cheap, safe food beyond our shores—it was the position of the last Government that there was—so we as a Government absolutely want to see domestic food production increase. We already have a huge task: 30% of the food eaten in this country is imported, but could be produced here.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the allocation of direct payments through pillar 1 of the CAP on common land.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

We published our assessment of the financial impact of changes to pillar 1 in chapter 7 of our response to the CAP reform consultation. We have held discussions with stakeholders about the future allocation of direct payments in respect of common land. The approach for the new CAP schemes, which begin in 2015, will take account of fairness, the need to minimise administrative burdens and the need to comply with the relevant European legislation.

[Mr Robertson]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. He will have gazed out on many occasions towards Cleeve common in my constituency. People are concerned that if there is a future prevention of claims for dual use, the funding will not be available to manage the common for purposes of wildlife conservation and indeed businesses. Will my right hon. Friend bear that in mind when he comes to take decisions on these matters?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. We are aware of the problem of dual use, but it is absolutely our intention that those who have common land should be eligible for new environmental land management schemes, which we shall publish shortly.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Many are concerned at the Government’s stance in the CAP negotiations—opposition to proposals to cap the amount a single farmer can receive in subsidies, for example. In the interests of transparency, does the Secretary of State agree that it is time for all Members to register any CAP-related payments they receive on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

[Mr Paterson]

I think that that question is one for the House authorities—perhaps the Leader of the House can deal with it later at business questions. I am not frightened of large businesses producing food efficiently. I refer back to what my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) said. We should wake up to the fact that there is not unlimited safe food beyond these shores. There is a huge increase in world demand for food, and we should concentrate on having good, efficient farming that produces food for our population and enhances the environment.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Nevertheless, the Government have established the principle in the benefits system of placing what I think is a reasonable cap on taxpayer-funded handouts. Does the Secretary of State agree that if that principle is okay for welfare recipients, it is also right to place a reasonable cap on taxpayer-funded handouts to people who do not actually need them?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. First, it should be put on the record that we agreed to a degressivity of 5% of £150,000, so there is a reduction, but I do not think we should be frightened of having large, successful farming businesses in order to feed this country.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the dispute in Northern Ireland over the allocation of the moneys resulting from the CAP reform. Will he do all that he can to ensure that there will be no party-political or partisan allocations of those moneys, and will he conduct an assessment to encourage the Department to allocate them fairly?

[Mr Paterson]

One of the major changes in this round, which we did negotiate, was absolute freedom for the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom to reach their own arrangements in regard to CAP reform and the way in which it is implemented. All four regulations are a matter for local politicians in Northern Ireland to resolve.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

8. What recent estimate he has made of levels of UK fish stocks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The priorities of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are growing the rural economy, improving the environment, safeguarding animal health and safeguarding plant health. This week we have announced, as part of the common agricultural policy, the criteria for the implementation of the EU’s rules on greening. While the latest round of CAP reform is disappointing, we remain determined to give our farmers sufficient flexibility to be free to do what they do best—producing food—while at the same time ensuring that we do not make the same mistakes as the last Government—designing a payments system that was so complicated that we saw £600 million being taken out of the rural economy in disallowance. Over the course of the next CAP, more than £3 billion will be spent on improving the environment.

[Julie Elliott]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In March of this year in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), stated that the Elliott report would be published in the spring, but we are now into June. Will the Secretary of State enlighten us as to when we might expect the report and a statement in this House so we can discuss the issue of the protection of consumers from food fraud, as was exposed by the horsemeat incident last year?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Professor Elliott produced a very interesting interim report, and I am pleased to say that some of its proposals have been acted on. I met him very recently and it is absolutely our intention that the report will be published soon.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T5. The national seed collection at Kew and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are considered by many of us to be a national treasure. What are the Government doing to ensure the continuing vitality and viability of Kew Gardens?

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

DEFRA has just published “Making the most of our evidence”—I have a copy here—which makes the ludicrous claim that the Department is in favour of science-based policy making. I note that the foreword is by the Under-Secretary in the other place, Lord de Mauley, not by the Secretary of State, so will the Secretary of State confirm whether he has read it?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I read documents pertaining to my job as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

[Maria Eagle]

That is an interesting reply. Which of the unscientific policies insisted on by the Secretary of State makes the most of our evidence? Is it his denial of climate change? Is it his ineffective and inhumane badger culls? Is it his fantasy biodegradable plastic bags? Or is it his national air quality strategy, which would make air pollution worse? Does this not illustrate that in practice the Secretary of State, who appears to be allergic to science, routinely ignores evidence in favour of his own eccentric, ideological views?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Lady has had months and months to work out that splendid rhetorical blast—I get on with the day job. I was at the cereals show yesterday talking to real farmers who are producing food, and welcoming the first investment in this country by Bayer—following our agri-tech policy—bringing in wheat testing and leading on to the breeding of wheat. That is what an active Department does. [Laughter.]

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T7. Have Ministers been able to complete an assessment of the Environment Agency’s proposals to strengthen flood defences to protect the port of Immingham and the villages of New Holland and Barrow Haven, on the south bank of the Humber, following the December tidal surge? When will they be able to make an announcement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. If the Secretary of State is so assiduous and so passionate, how come he got nothing in the Queen’s Speech on the environment—the only thing mentioned is shale gas and fracking? Has he heard the “Farming Today” programme recently, which described the common agricultural policy deal as a “greenwash” which will do nothing for wildlife in this country?

[Mr Paterson]

I listened to “Farming Today” yesterday and today, and I made it very clear that this is a disappointing CAP reform. The hon. Gentleman might wish to reflect on the fact that his previous leader, Mr Tony Blair, gave away a huge slug of our national rebate in return for CAP reform and totally failed to deliver. We are going to deliver £3.5 billion through our pillar 2 schemes for environmental work which he will approve of.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T8. Since May 2010, the Environment Agency has spent about £11.7 million in defending Crawley through improved flood defences, but during this wettest winter on record the area of Ifield Green was still affected. May I have assurances from the Department that it will press Crawley borough council to co-operate fully on further flood defence schemes?

Agriculture and Fisheries Council

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

The next Agriculture and Fisheries Council will be on 16 and 17 June in Luxembourg. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), will represent the UK. Richard Lochhead MSP and Alun Davies AM will also attend.

There are both fisheries and agriculture items on this month’s agenda.

On agriculture the Commission may present its progress reports on proposals for a regulation combining and reinforcing existing school fruit and milk schemes, and a regulation fixing certain aids and refunds related to the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products. Draft Council conclusions on the Commission’s reports on the implementation of the provisions concerning producer organisations, operational funds and operational programmes in the fruit and vegetables sector since the 2007 reform and an optional quality term “product of island farming” will be adopted. The Commission will present its report on the development of the market situation in the milk and milk products sector. A Council decision authorising the opening of negotiations on agreements between the European Union and third countries on trade in organic products may be adopted. There will also be an exchange of views on the implementation of CAP reform at national level.

The Minister will join informal talks with US Secretary of Agriculture Mr Tom Vilsack during a working lunch hosted by the presidency and Commission.

On fisheries there will be a state of play item to endorse a draft omnibus (landing obligation) regulation. The presidency is expected to present a state of play paper on the implementation of the common fisheries policy discard plans in all regions followed by an exchange of views. Denmark has requested a discussion on setting the capelin total allowable catch (TAC) for 2014.

There are currently four any other business items:

Animal and plant health control package

Plant reproductive material

Country of origin labelling for meat

Conference in Athens “Scientific support to agriculture: Competitiveness, quality and sustainability”

Common Agricultural Policy in England

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

Growing the rural economy and improving the environment remain two of my absolute priorities. On 19 December, Official Report, column 125WS, I announced an initial range of decisions about how we will distribute £15 billion of funds in England over the next CAP period from 2015. Today, I am announcing some further decisions about how we will implement two key aspects of last year’s CAP reforms: greening and cross-compliance.

One of the three components of the new greening measure under the CAP requires farmers with more than 15 hectares of arable land to maintain 5% of that arable land as “ecological focus area” (EFA).

The European regulations provide a range of options which member states can choose to offer their farmers for the purpose of meeting the 5% EFA requirement. The more EFA options we offer, the more complex and difficult it will be to deliver and control those options in accordance with the EU rules.

While I would like to give our farmers the widest choice of EFA options, I have assessed that the complexity of introducing all the necessary controls to manage them in accordance with the EU regulations would place a high risk on the Rural Payments Agency to the extent that it would jeopardise our ability to make all CAP basic payments to farmers on time.

I am therefore announcing today that the options that we will make available for farmers to choose from in order to meet their EFA obligations in 2015 will be as follows:

land lying fallow

buffer strips

catch and cover crops

nitrogen fixing crops

hedges

I fully acknowledge that some farmers may be disappointed that we are not able to offer a wider list of EFA options. This is not a decision I have taken lightly. The EFA rules are the most complex single aspect of the new CAP given the associated verification, control and mapping requirements.

We must learn from the lessons from the past. We know from previous experience about the difficulties which can arise from introducing new CAP measures and systems, particularly those reliant upon mapping. I do not want to jeopardise the successful delivery of the basic payment scheme for all our farmers.

I am pressing the European Commission hard to clarify what flexibility exists for adding additional EFA options to this list in future years. If the Commission can confirm that such phasing-in is possible, then we will look to add further options to our EFA offer once they have been mapped and digitised on our new system. So I am urging the Commission to look closely at the greening rules to ensure they operate as pragmatically and flexibly as possible in a way that suits our needs in England.

Allowing hedges to count towards the EFA requirement will have implications for those claimants who wish to take up this option. This may include work by people having to map their hedges. Farmers taking this option will be encouraged to submit claims earlier and may expect payments towards the end of the payment window.

I have decided that we will make maximum use of the weightings and coefficients provided for in the EU regulation for the EFA options we are offering in England. This will make it easier for our farmers to comply with the regulatory requirements. I have decided that we will not take up the option within the regulations to make additional designations of environmentally sensitive grasslands in England where a no-plough rule would operate. I have also decided that within the nitrogen fixing crops option in EFA we will allow the broadest range of qualifying crops and will not impose any additional restrictions on the cultivation of these crops.

We have been mindful of the assurances given at the start of the CAP reform negotiations that those farmers in existing agri-environment agreements should not be disadvantaged by greening. I can also announce that only a small proportion of ELS agreements—including uplands and organic variants—which started on or after 1 January 2012 will have to have their payments reduced to account for double funding with greening. Affected agreement holders will have the choice to make good the shortfall through an amendment or exit the scheme without penalty.

I am also announcing my intentions for how we will implement the cross-compliance requirements of the new CAP from 2015. Last year’s reform package resulted in limited changes to existing EU regulation on cross-compliance, so our flexibility to move from our current approach is constrained. However, I am determined to ease the burden of regulation on farm business while maintaining environmental protection and we will be streamlining the implementation of cross-compliance.

Overall, the number of requirements placed on farmers to keep their land in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAECs) will reduce by a third from 17 to 11. I am also ensuring that our new rules reflect existing legal requirements so that we avoid adding complexity for farmers by implementing new or alternative rules. The deletion of some statutory management requirement rules will lead to a reduction in burden on farmers compared to the current situation.

I am removing the requirement for farmers to keep a soil protection review and to focus inspections on outcomes rather than paperwork. This is a key ask of farming organisations and was a recommendation in the MacDonald farming regulation task force.

I am retaining and rationalising existing GAECs on water, boundaries, public rights of way, trees, sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and scheduled monuments.

I am extending the hedge trimming ban by one month—to end August—in order to provide protection throughout the bird breeding and rearing season as required by the EU legislation. There will also be extra protection for earth and stone banks.

I have also asked my officials to review the implementation of the penalty system for cross-compliance with a view to making it more proportionate.

Today, I can also announce that we will now be submitting our draft new rural development programme to the European Commission for approval. Under our plans, we will be investing at least £3.5 billion in rural development schemes from 2014 to 2020. This money will improve the environment, grow the rural economy and create jobs.

Throughout the EU negotiations on CAP reform, the UK has argued for simplicity and flexibility. It is clear that some aspects of CAP implementation will be difficult and complex to deliver. The announcements I am making today build upon those already made and will deliver better value for taxpayers, fairness to English farmers, and support the Government’s continued commitment to improving our natural environment.