Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

Q Mr Cross, you have been talking about the livestock information scheme. Is the intention, as you move towards a digital system, also to do away with the ear-tag identification system and move into higher technologies, with chips implanted in animals? And if it is not, are the powers of clause 1 to provide support to the health and welfare of livestock sufficient to enable payments to be made on a productivity basis, to allow livestock farmers to upscale into this digital environment, which will come at some cost?

John Cross: The investment required to change the way animals are identified from the way they are identified now, in fact a system like the livestock information system—in order for it to work, be real-time and achieve what everyone desires—would have to be based on individual electronic identification. So, over a period, we would have to mandate bovine EID. That would mean a small increase in cost in the tagging of cattle, but as scale develops that extra cost diminishes.

We have not yet looked at the technology required for on-farm reading and the rapidity of uptake. It may be that something could be done to enhance training and equipping at farm level. However, we are making sure that in the planning of this system, those farmers who do not wish at the time to invest in reading equipment, or feel that they do not understand it, will have access to collective reading facilities. In other words, that is where the livestock auctioneer sector is so important for smaller producers who do not want to upscale. They can actually get their livestock read, so that they can adhere to the system without having to equip themselves. So we are trying to make it as flexible and as kind as possible, but industry in particular is fairly ambitious about the timescale of change. We must not try to run two systems alongside each other, because the aim is to go from paper to digital, and trying to run both systems would be fraught with problems.

[Mr Dunne]

Q Thank you. I have one question for the Environment Agency. At the moment, you have responsibility for monitoring water quality but not soil quality. As water, soil and air are the three primary tests of environmental benefit, should the Bill give you powers to do that? Or who will have responsibility for soil monitoring?

Professor Fox: We currently have little responsibility for monitoring and reporting on the state of soils. We are aware of the importance of soils to the production and productivity of our whole landscape, and we are worried about the scale of soil loss, particularly that emanating from farming. It has a large cost associated with it, as well—water companies clearing up the soil and the dredging of rivers that is required as a result of soil loss.

So we would strongly support a greater focus on soil if this Bill could provide it, and more opportunities to help and support farmers to maintain that core productivity. It is absolutely in everybody’s interests that we keep soil on the farmland. I think that greater focus on soil would be entirely beneficial.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Q This is for the Environment Agency, really. In your experience, does paying people to change behaviour work, or do you think there are better ways to do that? Also, what happens if payments get stopped by future Governments?

Helen Taylor: In answer to the question whether payments or other mechanisms change behaviour, I believe that we need a variety of mechanisms working together. At the moment, regulations are set to prevent pollution from occurring, for example from the water side of things, and then payment is given to raise that standard and deliver more for the environment and the public goods that we want to achieve. Those things together, or combined, have a better effect than either one or the other.

Alongside that, there are all sorts of mechanisms for providing advice and guidance and showcasing how people could best carry that out. I firmly believe that a combination of mechanisms is needed for the future.

Professor Fox: I support that very strongly. The role of the supply chain and producer organisations in helping to promote and assure good environmental practice is a fantastic adjunct to any enforcement effort, and also helps support and promote the delivery of public goods. It is about that mixture of carrot and stick, if you like, to achieve the right outcomes for society and the industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandy Martin]

Q As you said earlier, the devil is in the detail. There is very little detail in the Bill at all. Most of what will come out of the Bill will be in regulations, and there is very little written into it about consultation. Would you feel more comfortable about having more consultation written into the Bill so that you will know that, when the regulations are coming up, your concerns and those of other people involved in the industry will be taken into account?

Helen Browning: I think it would be helpful because we are in a situation where we do not know so much of what is going to transpire over the next year or two. I think that there will be a huge amount more policy making to do, and this is just the starting point. What we must make sure of, with this Bill, is that it does not close off avenues that we may need open to us, depending on what happens to trade and the Brexit deal itself. It is base camp, and as everything else starts to become a little clearer, I think more consultation, as we start to look at the regulatory framework, would be really helpful.

Jack Ward: From our point of view, I think there is a case for saying that the lack of detail is not a bad thing, given the timescale we are working on and the need for this Bill to be in place before the end of March. The worst thing would be to rush forward with schemes and solutions that had not been properly thought through. We work very closely with DEFRA on the development of schemes, and in our experience it is really important that those who are going to operate them at ground level are part and parcel of the development process, because we have seen just how difficult it is to implement some of the EU schemes. God forbid that we go around the buoy of producing schemes that are inoperable, having designed them ourselves. I think there is an onus on all of us to work together to make sure these things work for the benefit of everybody involved, from taxpayer to grower, through to consumer.

[Mr Dunne]

Q Mr Ward, you have touched on public procurement, and you gave some examples of procurement in other existing EU countries. As we come out of the EU, do you think there is scope for this Bill to make provision for us to be much freer as to public bodies procuring locally? Should that be specified in the Bill?

Jack Ward: Yes, I think public procurement would be really helpful; but we have to recognise that we only produce a percentage of the total requirement. Inevitably, there are periods of the year, or there are crops, where it is not that easy to get locally grown produce, simply because it does not exist. We need to factor that in to our thinking. It is all very well to say, at a design level, “Yes, wouldn’t it be great if you specified that it had to be British?”, but eight out of 10 tomatoes are imported, so, by definition, they will not be local.

[Mr Dunne]

Q Ms Browning, you might want to come back to procurement, but my question relates to your role in the Soil Association. You used the word “biodiversity” earlier. Do you think there is enough in the Bill to allow for R&D and greater understanding of soil composition? My sense is that we have much less understanding of the biology and chemistry of our soil than we do of many other areas of life. Does the Bill facilitate a greater understanding among farmers of what is going on in their land?

Helen Browning: I was surprised that soils were not mentioned explicitly in the list of public goods. As I said earlier, it mentions land but not soil. You are right that, on an R&D front, there is still a lot to learn on the biology side, but there is a lot that is already known that could be implemented quite quickly.

I was surprised because the Minister has been so vocal about soils. I would like to ensure that it is absolutely core within the Bill, that we are specific about that and that we start to set ourselves some targets for reversing the decline in our soil, particularly in the organic matter levels in our soil.

[Craig Tracey]

Q My question follows on nicely from your last point, because, as you say, the Minister has emphasised the importance of soil health. Measures to promote it are covered by the purposes of clause 1(1)(c) —I think it is in the additional provisions. What sort of specific interventions do you think would best deliver improvements in soil health?

Helen Browning: Jack may want to come in on this as well. Generally, it would be about moving into more rotational farming systems, which is usually integrating grassland with growing cover crops. Reducing tillage can sometimes help, although it is not always the way through. Some of the agroforestry opportunities are there too. Rotational farming systems usually improve soil health.

Another is making sure that manures and other inputs are going back on to the soil. One of the things that I have a complete hysteria about is the burning of straw for fuel, when it should be going back to the land—that carbon should be going back to the land. It is about making sure that carbon-based inputs are being recycled into our soils and that we are not damaging those soils by over-heavy machinery, which is a big problem—I am looking forward to the days of little robots running around doing our work for us, rather than all the great machines that are crushing our soils to death—or about leaving soils bare over the winter or even during the summer months.

There is a whole host of well-known factors. A lot of those come together, obviously, within an organic farming system, which is demonstrated to have much higher levels of soil organic matter on average, which is the key indicator that we are looking at in our soil. We know how to do some of those basics.

Moving towards targets for soils at a farm level is difficult, because every soil type is different and will have different capabilities, so we need to be careful about how we use the metrics. We know enough about what husbandry methods we need to be encouraging, however. Good mixed farming is a good place to start.