Animal Health and Genetically Modified Organisms (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Monday 7th October 2019 General Committees

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Nobody who was aware of events in this country in the late ’80s is relaxed about the danger of allowing the reappearance of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in this country, so I am sure that the Minister would want to do everything necessary to ensure that it is not introduced from outside. European Council Regulations No. 999/2001 and 1069/2009 and the associated Commission decisions have been vital in dealing not only with BSE but with scrapie in sheep and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. By strictly regulating the import and export of all sorts of animal by-products, the EU has managed to control these diseases. I wonder how we would have fared if the EU had not existed at the time, or if there had been the same attitude to regulations that we see in some quarters now.

We are very worried that any deviation from EU regulations in this area, or reduction in the level of compliance, might lead to increased risk of importing or incubating BSE and other TSEs. Clearly, this SI is an attempt to ensure full alignment with EU regulations, and we are not going to argue with that, but we believe, as I mentioned with the previous SI, that driving this forward under the made affirmative process runs the very real risk that there might be mistakes, or gaps.

[Mr Goodwill]

Is it not the case that the mistakes that were made and the changes in the process that allowed BSE to develop happened while we were members of the European Union and under EU regulations? The idea that leaving the European Union will make that sort of thing more likely seems a rather spurious argument.

[Sandy Martin]

That is one for the historians, but the right hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the European Union managed to contain what was a very nasty and difficult outbreak, and to reverse a situation that might well have been extremely difficult to reverse in the context of international trade in animal products at the time. We have seen other animal diseases that were far more difficult to stamp out, over a much longer period of time, in the past. Clearly, no organisation will be an absolute guarantee against something new occurring, but learning from the problems that occur and ensuring that they do not reoccur must surely be one of the main objects of any organisation, whether a trade organisation or any other co-operative organisation.

As I said, the made affirmative process removes much of the depth of scrutiny that these instruments ought to have before they are made, and that risk is exacerbated by the speed at which some of these regulations are having to be driven through. I would like the Minister to reassure us that there are no plans to move away from adherence to these regulations once we have left the EU.

Will we be able to use the European trade control and expert system to ensure that the regulations are being complied with, if we leave the EU without a deal? Are there genuine plans to replace the TRACES system with a home-grown one for use in this country, and if so, why? It seems to me that a system that is used by every country in Europe is far more likely to be effective than one cobbled together in a single country, which then may or may not fit with what its trade partners are doing.

As for the amendments in regulation 5, dealing with genetically modified organisms, it may be the case that this SI does not make any changes in policy, but how likely is it that, once we are no longer members of the EU, this Government will maintain the same stance towards GMOs that the EU currently does? Will the Government maintain equivalent regulations to the EU on GMOs? If not, how will that affect our ability to export agricultural products to the EU, not to mention the possible effects on the environment? Whatever the limited scope of these SIs may be, the very fact that we are having to introduce them demonstrates the extent and complexity of the protections for our health and the health of our agriculture, which are being put at risk by the threat of a no-deal Brexit.

Early Parliamentary General Election

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

I am absolutely desperate to have a general election. I want to see a Government who will halt the privatisation of the national health service, who will properly fund our public services, who will stop the wealth of this country being squirreled away in tax havens in the Caribbean and who will care about the majority of people in this country and not just about the very wealthy, but that is not why the Prime Minister is calling for a general election. The Prime Minister is not calling for a general election so that we can have a Labour Government. The Prime Minister is calling for a general election so that, when and if we were to vote for it, he would be in sole control of what happened in this country, and there would be no Parliament here to hold him to account when we leave with a no-deal Brexit.

In my constituency of Ipswich, more than 50% of the people who voted in the referendum voted to leave. It was not much more than 50%, but it was more than 50%. I would not vote for a straight vote to revoke article 50, because that would be wrong. After there has been a referendum and people have voted to leave the European Union—albeit by a narrow margin—it would be entirely wrong for this House simply to go against those wishes.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

rose—

[Sandy Martin]

I am sorry, I will not give way.

I want to see this Parliament agree on a viable deal that will not destroy the economy of this country. When we have a second vote—a people’s vote, a second referendum or whatever you want to call it—which I think we should have if we are to bring the country back together, I want there to be a viable choice. I do not believe that a no-deal Brexit is a viable choice. A no-deal Brexit is a suicide note. If anybody on the Government Benches thinks that, as passengers in a car speeding towards a cliff edge, we will take the option of jumping out just before we reach that cliff edge, they have another think coming. Yes, we will have a general election. This Government will not survive for very much longer, because they do not have an overall majority, but we will not have that general election while there is the danger of a no-deal Brexit.

Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I will briefly wind up and answer one or two points that have been raised. I agree with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) about the quality of Northern Ireland’s food. Indeed, I believe the Ulster fry is the pinnacle of Ulster cuisine in the ingenious way in which it manages to incorporate both potatoes and lard. I always look forward to an Ulster fry when I visit Northern Ireland.

A number of points made by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) are not specifically relevant to what is before us today, which is about the quality of produce produced in Northern Ireland. Matters relating to chlorinated chicken or other issues as regards future international trade deals are important, but they are not specifically before us today. He raised a couple of technical issues where we may or may not have made errors. I would be pleased for us to look at those again and correct any errors we may have made. As I said in relation to an earlier statutory instrument, the quantity of legislation we have had to go through means it is almost certain that we would have made some mistakes, and if they are brought to our attention—or if we notice them first—we will make sure they are put right.

I repeat that this statutory instrument is a “business as usual” SI. It does not make changes; it allows a continuity of the situation should we fall into a no-deal Brexit. If, as I seem to gather from what the hon. Gentleman was saying, he is concerned that we may leave the EU without a deal, the matter is simple: he should, together with his colleagues in the Labour party, vote for the deal to ensure an orderly departure from the EU and to ensure that we move into the implementation period, when many of these sorts of issues can be dealt with in the fullness in time and be properly dealt with. I am disappointed that, particularly in the north of England, where so many constituencies that elected Labour MPs actually voted to leave the EU, some MPs are not listening to their constituents.

[Sandy Martin]

Does the Minister accept that, if we were to have a permanent customs union and to move in the direction that the Labour party has been calling for, the Government would not need to have a backstop and they might get the support of the party on this side of the House as well?

[Mr Goodwill]

Staying in the customs union is not what the people in Scarborough and Whitby voted for when they voted—62% was the figure—to leave the EU. In any case, I ask that this measure be approved.

Question put and agreed to.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said from the Opposition Front Bench. Some farmers and others involved in the management of land have been a little worried that there may be new offences for which very large penalties would be incurred through the money not being made available for support. Having said that, I understand that elsewhere in the European Union over the years, we have had some egregious criminal offences, and the system has been milked by those with criminal intent. We need to be sure that we are not talking about that here in the UK.

For example, in Spain and across a number of southern European countries, the EU ruled that any olive trees planted after 1998 were not eligible for support. The subsidy was based on the amount of olives delivered to the mills, but there was no way of testing those olives to know when trees were planted. That resulted in 40 million new olive trees being planted in 2001 alone, and the widespread criminalisation of the system. Between 1985 and 1998, only 6% of the money that had been unfairly claimed was recovered. That example shows how, when a system is out of control, it can be open to widespread fraud.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that where such widespread criminal activity takes place, it would be appropriate for it to be dealt with through existing criminal law or for new criminal law to be created? It would not be appropriate for it to be adjudicated by the Secretary of State in the same way that the Minister said that regulations should be done through existing law.

[Mr Goodwill]

That is precisely the point I was coming to. The European Union instructed OLAF, its own anti-fraud body, to look at that sort of thing. Even this year, in Slovakia, journalist Ján Kuciak was murdered along with his fiancée after he exposed widespread fraud involving the Italian mafia, Slovak business and politicians in Slovakia. That resulted in the fall of that Government, so widespread was that fraud. We have seen similar problems in Bulgaria, where, rather surprisingly, a farmer wanting to get agricultural support must first register to pay health and pension insurance, so the very smallest farmers, who we would want to help in this country, do not get help in that country.

If we have that type of fraud in this country, even though there has been no evidence and no cases of widespread manipulation and fraud in the system, there is already criminal and environmental law under which farmers could be prosecuted. The worry among many farmers—I hope the Minister will reassure us and perhaps even clarify this on Report—is that this could be an opportunity to create lots of new criminal offences and punitive financial penalties for farmers who are trying their best. The Minister mentioned the farmer who accidently ploughed an extra 20 cm on his headland margin. Indeed, when I spoke to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I was told that if my daughter rode her pony on the field margin strip, that would be against the rules and, therefore, that we could have been penalised.

We have no similar cases of widespread fraud in the UK. This type of offence is already covered by existing anti-fraud or environmental legislation. There is some worry that trivial offences or mistakes could be penalised and that farmers could be unnecessarily criminalised. I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance that that is not the intention of clause 3(2)(h), and that he will give further clarification to ensure that some future Government could not use the clause in a way that was not intended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandy Martin]

I totally agree. Whether or not we can see what will go around the scaffolding might be annoying to us, or it might feed our fears that an awful lot of work will be done without any democratic control or oversight, but it is far more important for those involved in farming to know what will be put on that scaffolding, because they might well be making decisions without knowing.

Subsection (7) is like an offer that those farmers cannot refuse—not because they know that the consequences of refusal will be dire, but because they do not know and will therefore just go for the easy option. We do not want large numbers of smaller farmers to face going out of business or choosing to take payments under subsection (7), leaving the field clear for those with more money and resources and a better understanding of the complicated regime that the Government are thinking of introducing.

[Mr Goodwill]

I want to raise one point with the Minister, which I hope he will be able to cover. We have heard already that about a third of the farm land in this country is farmed through tenancies. Indeed, a tenancy is probably the only way that many new applicants can get into the industry, other than marrying into money or winning the lottery. However, there may be situations where taking these payments is attractive to the tenant, but where the landlord is unwilling for that to happen, particularly as the basic payments underwrote the rent in many cases, as we heard in evidence. Indeed, we heard that in many cases the rent was basically dictated by the basic payments.

My question for the Minister is, will the consent of the landlord be required before a tenant can take one of these multi-annual exit schemes? If not, might we then have the landlord looking at the small print of the tenancy agreement and going into the whole dilapidations situation? Many people leaving a tenancy can find clauses requiring the guttering to be painted or the gateposts to be straightened. Often, tenants find that they cannot leave because of the dilapidations. Where the landlord wants a tenant to leave, he will waive the dilapidations, so a lot of these payments might get mopped up by angry landlords demanding dilapidations at the end of tenancies.

Agriculture Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sandy Martin]

We welcome a method of incentivising farmers to do the right thing—I would argue that that is the thrust of the Bill—but it is entirely proper to include conditions for the receipt of any financial support. Otherwise, how can that incentive be effective?

Amendment 85 on waste food fits very well with our amendment 50 on greenhouse gas emissions, which was rejected on Tuesday. Methane is 23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO₂ and is the biggest contributor to climate change after CO₂. By ensuring that we deal with the issue of food waste, the amendment would help to ensure that we meet our climate change goals. There is no sense in targets that do not include methane.

Every part of the food production, consumption and waste stream needs to be part of any effective solution. If we do not include production in our food waste reduction strategy, it will not be effective. A strategy that includes targets and regulations to ensure that the incentives—the carrots—go to the right people at the right time is one that the hon. Member for Gordon will appreciate.

The reduction of food waste will help people to think more carefully about the food that they eat and therefore to move towards foods of higher quality and nutritional value. Indeed, in the Which? survey, 71% of people said that they preferred higher-quality food to price reductions. Reducing food waste will help food production in this country because it will produce greater profitability for better-quality foods in the long run. The totality of the funds available for buying food will go towards the production of food that people actually consume, rather than food that is wasted along the way.

[Mr Goodwill]

The shadow Minister rather let the cat out of the bag when he said that this issue was somewhat tangential to the Bill. We all subscribe to the idea of reducing food waste and ensuring that the scarce resource and the high-quality food that we have in this country is consumed, rather than being thrown in the bin and contributing to methane production on landfill sites or to the expense of incineration.

I suggest that farmers are probably the people most angry that the food they produce ends up in the bin and not in somebody’s stomach, but the decision whether food is wasted is out of their hands; it is in the hands of the consumers, the supermarkets and the catering industry. How much food in fridges is thrown away because it goes past its sell-by date? How many pensioners in the supermarket will be tempted by a “buy one, get one free” offer, only to find that it gives them more than they can manage to eat?

We probably need to look at the catering and food service industry more closely, but it is not within the scope of the Bill. For example, I was in a hotel in Belfast last week where a marvellous breakfast buffet was laid out; I was there at the beginning of service, but the full range of food would have needed to be available until the end, so a lot of it would have had to be thrown away. Indeed, on Friday I was at a meeting of farmers in my constituency. Some of them had had a pub meal before I arrived, and even they could not eat the large amounts of chips that were put on their plates, so no doubt the leftovers went into the waste stream. Historically, a lot of waste used to go into the animal food chain, but because of mad cow disease, that is now much more controlled. Pig swill is not something that can be used in that way because of disease problems.

While I understand the feelings and the motivation behind the amendment, it should not be in this part of the Bill. Perhaps supermarkets could do more than they have so far with respect to what they call “ugly vegetables”. How often has a strangely shaped carrot been thrown away rather than put on the shelves because it is not of the right specifications? Indeed, we could go to the EU and talk about straight bananas and cucumbers, which was something that was often covered in the media during the referendum campaigns.

We also need to consider what waste actually is. A lot of the so-called agricultural waste—stock feed potatoes or stock feed carrots—can actually be used as a viable feed, so reducing waste per se is not always the way to go. I hope that the Opposition will understand that, while everybody agrees with what they want to achieve, this amendment is not the way to do it.

A part of the Bill that does not need amending relates to grants that could be made available to farmers for improving their storage. Farmers get very annoyed about the deterioration of crops in storage—particularly potatoes—over winter. The very best storage conditions mean that more of a crop can be marketed the following year. The Bill already includes provisions for capital grants for farmers to improve that situation. I hope that the hon. Member for Stroud understands that, although we can get behind what he says, this is not the right place to do it.

Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

Q How self-sufficient are we in organic foodstuffs? I know there are some things we cannot produce in the UK.

Helen Browning: We are really struggling in some areas in particular. Arable crops and protein crops for feed, in particular, are in very short supply in the UK. We could triple or quadruple the amount we produce—probably more than that—and still not meet the market demand here; so there is a big opportunity.

It does require some structural changes for those big arable farms that are currently probably not thinking about it. They need to be thinking about reintroducing, probably, livestock to their farms. It would be a jolly good thing in a lot of those farms in the east of England. So there are some structural issues, but I think a real focus on encouraging more farmers in, where there is a clear market, would be really helpful. You have got to make sure it is market-led, clearly, but in some areas the market is massively under-supplied. There are great export opportunities too. I think it would be a key part of a vibrant future for the countryside if we were to get behind organic farming more thoroughly —and agroforestry, as I mentioned earlier.

[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.

Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sandy Martin]

Q Sorry; I meant consultation on the regulations that will give effect, rather than on the Bill itself. Clearly, consultation on a Bill that does not specify exactly what will happen is one thing. Consultation on the regulations that will specify what will happen is surely something that you might welcome.

Huw Thomas: The Welsh Government have said that they will publish a White Paper early next year that will flesh out what they are consulting on at the moment, which will derive from this. In effect, there will be a consultation around that. Certainly, there would need to be further consultation before Ministers took some of the powers forward and utilised them, because they are so broadly drafted in the primary legislation that they could allow such a range of actions to be taken under their provisions. There has to be consultation with industry and stakeholders following that.

Dr Fenwick: I agree. It is part of a transparent, democratic system to consult. I do not mean on every occasion, on every tinkering, but when it comes to things that have an impact on jobs, people’s lives and so on, those should be consulted on.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Farmers in other European Union countries have perhaps been more successful than farmers in the UK at attracting the capital funding that the Minister described in schedule 3. Given that those farmers have some very well organised and very large farmer-owned co-operatives that can not only get funding for processing, marketing and grain storage, but are big enough to square up to the supermarkets and other customers, how well organised are co-operatives in Wales, where you have lots of small farmers so co-operatives work very well? Do you see the capital funding going to the industry that the Bill would allow being a good thing for farmers, and would you see them as a preferred bidder to commercial companies that would be doing the same sort of thing?

Dr Fenwick: I agree. My first job this morning, before I got on the train, was to go down to our farmers’ co-op. It has branches all over the west side of Wales, from north to south, and employs large numbers of people. My grandfather has been a member of that co-operative since 1947, and it is one of a number across Wales. We sometimes forget that they are even co-operatives, but they do exist, and there are plenty of them in Wales, across England, and into Scotland.

I would guess that some of the funding made available to European co-operatives comes from rural development funding. We have an incredibly low historical allocation of rural development funding from the EU, as a result of our having handed it over as part of the CAP negotiations in the first part of this decade. We gave up what we were entitled to, effectively, when there was an equalisation process, which was obviously disappointing, and for that reason we have high modulation rates, particularly in Wales. As I am sure Mr Davies is aware, that is a big bone of contention, and it is to fill a gap that we have in our funding. It should not be forgotten that European businesses and farmers have access to far more funds when it comes to direct investment and support, because they make more use of a larger rural development programme budget.

John Davies: You are absolutely right in identifying the balance of power in the marketplace. We have been successful in terms of supply-side co-operatives in Wales, but we have not been as successful as the likes of Müller, Kerrygold and other co-operatives in other parts of the EU. We have to look at how this could work, and help and support that in the Bill, because there are opportunities to focus more on new product development. Having travelled to New Zealand and seen how a real focus of the farmer-controlled meat operations has been new product development and accessing new markets, over and above shareholder return, there are lessons to be learned from other parts of the world. You are absolutely right to identify those opportunities in the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Sandy Martin

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

The provision of 30 hours of free childcare is already working across the country. A recently published independent evaluation of the early roll-out programme shows that more than 80% of providers are willing and able to offer the extended hours. The Department will be investing an additional £1 billion per year by 2019-20 into the free entitlement, including more than £300 million per year to increase the national average funding rates paid to local authorities.

[Sandy Martin]

Given that 38% of nurseries have told the Pre-School Learning Alliance that they are unlikely to be financially viable in a year’s time, what urgent action is the Minister taking to help these providers?

[Mr Goodwill]

As I have pointed out, we carried out a pilot to show that this could work. We also got a review of childcare costs done that was described as “thorough” and “wide-ranging” by the National Audit Office. We have increased the minimum funding rate to £4.30 per hour, which means that £4.41 is paid for three and four-year-olds in Ipswich and £5.20 for two-year-olds.