European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Owen Paterson and Angus Brendan MacNeil

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

With great prescience, my hon. Friend makes exactly the point I was about to make. Here we are, 15 years later, and, moved by the Government, the “notwithstanding” clause is going into law, subject to the other place being sensible. I pay tribute to him. He has been mocked, traduced and insulted, but he has stood for the simple democratic principle that members of the public, every few years, are given the opportunity to vote for individual human beings to come to this place and make laws. If those laws are satisfactory, they will get re-elected; if not, they will get booted out. They will be sent here to raise money by extracting it compulsorily, by law, from people’s bank accounts—that is what taxation is—and if that money is well spent, they will be re-elected; if it is not, they will be kicked out. It is an incredibly simple, basic idea. I find it staggering that we are still today listening to miseries from the Opposition Benches cavilling about this simple principle.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I will give the right hon. Gentleman something joyous to think about: 57% of the people of the United Kingdom did not vote for him or his Government, yet because of our dodgy system, as the 43% and people across the world can see, the Conservative party is in charge—winner takes all.

[Mr Paterson]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not mention that 56% of the votes in the recent general election were for parties that wanted to keep Scotland inside the United Kingdom.

I have made this point many times, so I will be very brief. How many more times do the people have to be listened to? We had the Cameron referendum promise, which granted a very clear in/out referendum. We had the referendum itself. [Interruption.] It’s no good the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) shaking his head. Four times the people have spoken. The result of the referendum was clear: 17.4 million people voted to leave. We then had the 2017 election, when the Labour party and the Conservative party stood on a platform of honouring the referendum result, and 80% of the votes went to parties who promised that. Still the people did not get what they wanted.

With the complexities of the last Parliament, we had the creation of the Brexit party. Incredibly, that party, from nowhere, came top in the European elections. The Conservative party managed to come fifth behind the Greens, which was a remarkable achievement. Then we had the recent election. Yet again, people were bombarded with propaganda, and told they were racist and stupid, and again they voted in huge numbers for the very simple principle that they should send Members of Parliament here to make their laws and that if they cannot make satisfactory laws, they can be removed.

Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Debate between Owen Paterson and Angus Brendan MacNeil

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.

UK Fishing Industry

Debate between Owen Paterson and Angus Brendan MacNeil

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.

--- 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—

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Horsemeat

Debate between Owen Paterson and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to note that I jotted down his constituency and was going to mention his point later in my speech, but I will do so now. He raises a pertinent point. It is vital that we get to the bottom of this matter as fast as possible, because we have very strict traceability in this country, very rigorous production systems and very high quality, and we do not want any slur to be cast on that or any attempt to export our excellent products to be slowed down by incidents that so far appear to be the result of criminal acts carried out abroad.

[Mr MacNeil]

Many farmers, crofters and primary producers have an onerous burden of responsibility and bureaucracy. I seek assurances that this matter will not be used as an excuse for a cloak-and-dagger increase in that already onerous burden. The traceability should retain the vote of confidence and we should not add to the burdens.

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we must make absolutely sure that we do not create further regulatory burdens. What we need to do is to make the checks more relevant to the products. I will come to that point in a moment.