Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing amendment 70, in clause 1, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

“(h) supporting the delivery of improved public health outcomes.

(1A) Support under subsection (1)(h) may include, but is not limited to, measures to:

(a) increase the availability, affordability, diversity, quality and marketing of fruit and vegetables and pulses,

(b) reduce farm antibiotic and related veterinary product use, and antimicrobial resistance in harmful micro-organisms, through improved animal health and improved animal welfare,

(c) provide support for farmers to diversify out of domestic production of foods where there may be reduced demand due to health concerns,

(d) reduce harm from use of chemicals on farms, and

(e) reduce pesticide residues in food.”.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I was going to share with the shadow Minister what I have just consumed for lunch, which I think will make my point. In the Members’ Tea Room, I had a bowl of delicious vegetable and pearl barley broth, which I am sure would be categorised as a good thing to have. I had two Ryvita, which I believe are also quite good for one; they certainly look like they do the trick, whatever the trick might be. I had a plum, which I was assured by Gladys was a Worcestershire plum, which will please my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire. It is all going well so far. I had a cube of delicious west country cheddar. Despite what the wretched “Eatwell Guide” says, we know that dairy products are very good for our diet and that we need dairy, so that was quite healthy.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am just checking that the hon. Gentleman knows that his contribution will be on the record. I, too, had a lovely, delicious lunch in the Tea Room, but I am mindful that at our workplace we have high quality, nutritious food that is—people forget this—subsidised.

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[Simon Hoare]

Of course; one is always on the record. I then spoiled my lunch by having some blackcurrant and English apple cake. The point I make, by sharing my lunch menu with the Committee and, as the hon. Lady reminds me, the whole world, as people tune in agog from every time zone to watch the Committee— [Interruption.]

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Gripped!

[Simon Hoare]

“Gripped”, says the hon. Lady. The point I make is serious: we cannot put an onus on our food producers for what consumers choose to consume or what the processors decide to process.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

I will not give way. There have to be Food Standards Agency regulations and all the rest of it, but to put the onus of responsibility for foodstuffs on the food producers who produce but do not sell themselves is either Stalinist or draconian. The shadow Minister has a great knowledge of the vagaries of left-wing thinking, and I may be entirely wrong to call him a Stalinist—he may be a Maoist, a Leninist or a Trotskyist. I am not quite sure.

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

I do not intend to disclose what I had for lunch. However, on the point made by the hon. Member for Darlington, I should say that Members have access to a wide-ranging diet and the money to buy healthy food. Why, then, is the body mass index of Members on the green Benches so representative of the country as a whole?

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point; I say that with some smugness, having lost three stone since the start of the year. I have another two to go, and the cake did not help.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like Tom Watson.

[Simon Hoare]

I am unleashing my inner Tom Watson, which is a scary prospect. However, this is a serious point. We as policy makers should focus our attention on the educators. People need more education. We are entirely wrong to knock our supermarkets, which are the principal food retailers in this country. They provide food on the shelves at all price points and of ranging quality, allowing people access to the fullest and widest range of foodstuffs ever available to food consumers in our history.

[Sandy Martin]

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

I will not give way. I am also told by my local branch of the National Farmers Union that at no time has a lower percentage of domestic income been spent on food than today. I take that as a rather good piece of news.

We have to ensure that people have education and a range of choices on the shelves. That is why it is important to have a diverse agricultural sector and food production industry in this country. To put the onus on those producers would be entirely inappropriate. If the hon. Member for Stroud pushes his amendment to a vote, I will oppose it.

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She is talking about future trade and the way that we may relax our standards to achieve that trade. If anyone thinks there will not be pressure on future Governments to do that, they are significantly mistaken.

[Simon Hoare]

That is an incredibly important point and I think farmers are right to pay as much, if not more, attention to those issues than even to the Bill. However, does the hon. Lady accept, as I do, the statement made in incredibly good faith the other week by the Secretary of State for International Trade that the fear and anxiety she is talking about will not be part of this—that we will not be lowering our food hygiene or animal welfare standards as a way of trying to get trade deals signed? I thought that was very clear. It has been echoed by the Prime Minister and I think we should take them at their word.

[Jenny Chapman]

It is welcome, but I think that Members have to understand that that is not sufficient. Welcome though it is, it is not enough to reassure us, because the Secretary of State is not accountable for that. There is no way of holding a Member to a statement like that, unfortunately.

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[Jenny Chapman]

I do, to an extent, but the fact is that we have had that provision up to now and we want to keep it in the future. It is the right thing to do and it provides some protection. How we implement it as part of our UK law is entirely up to us—I think that was the point of the exercise for some Conservative Members, was it not? I look forward to hearing from hon. Members about how they would seek to make the best use of the opportunity.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the RSPCA is the oldest animal welfare charity in the world. Although I take her point that the European Union has been incredibly helpful, does she not share my confidence that we in the UK—the Government, the Opposition and the populace at large—are fully alert to those important issues and will do what is right? As somebody who voted remain, I do not think that we need another group of people to tell us how important the issue is or to set our standards. We can do that ourselves, and we will get it right.

[Jenny Chapman]

Why the reluctance to have this provision in the Bill, if we are all so clear, certain and confident about it? I do not see the problem. It is important because, in a sense, it would act as an instruction to future Governments when they create legislation. It has previously been, and ought to be, the basis of law-making on animal welfare. I accept that there has been a lot of noise and confusion around the debate, and I hope that we do not get sucked into that kind of confusion as we discuss this topic.

Just as an example, one Tory MP—I hope it was not the hon. Member for North Dorset—said:

“This government, and in fact all governments, are deeply committed to continuing to protect animals as sentient beings. That law is already written into our own law.”

But it is not written into our own law—that is the point—and it would be so much better if it were. The reason we are bothering with this Committee is to make the Bill better. I do not think any Minister who has served on a Committee has ever said, “My Bill is perfect. Don’t bother discussing it; let’s all go home.” The idea is that we improve the Bill as we go forward, and I notice that the Government already have many amendments, so they are obviously open to improving the Bill. This amendment would be one way to make the Bill better.

How people feel about this topic, I suppose, depends on whether they think it is important that animal sentience should be specifically recognised, or that the law as it stands goes far enough. There might be differing views on that, but the Opposition think that animal sentience needs to be recognised in law. If the Government wanted to bring forward their own wording on this—I expect the Minister will tell me why mine is deficient any minute now—we would be interested in working with them on it, because this issue matters to so many people around the country that we need to be constructive about it. Should the Government want to do the right thing, we will work with them. I will leave it there for now, and listen to what the Minister has to say before I speak further.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

I have visited quite a few farms. The hon. Gentleman is completely missing the point. Anyone could take me to a farm with happy cows or happy sheep, by his definition, but that does not mean that there are not places where abuse occurs—where animals are not kept in the best possible conditions or treated well. That is exactly the point I have just made. I accept that we have high animal welfare standards generally, but I am also saying that we should not be complacent. As for the vegan thing, I have been a vegan for 27 years, so the hon. Gentleman would have to do a lot more to change my mind than simply show me his cows.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Member for North Dorset wants to interrupt. He said earlier that we need dairy to be healthy. I do not know quite how I have managed to stay on my feet for this long; clearly, I ought to be wilting away, languishing and looking pale and anaemic.

[Simon Hoare]

I will leave that question as being rhetorical. I do not think it is complacent to say that we have the highest standards. It would be erroneous and complacent to say there were no breaches of those standards, but it is a statement of fact that we have the highest standards. We all appreciate that not everybody adheres to them, and there are responsible penalties for those who are identified as breaching those standards. However, it is not complacency to say we have the highest standards in the world; it is a statement of fact.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think it is complacent to just respond, whenever questions about animal welfare are raised, that we have the highest standards, because that means that we are not engaging with the problem being brought to our attention, namely the breaches. If I raise the conditions on a mega-farm where there has been an undercover investigation showing all sorts of horrendous conditions—and in some instances even cases of cannibalism, which I have seen footage of recently—I do not want the response to be: “We have the highest animal welfare standards.” To any problem across the piece that we ever bring to the Government’s attention, we could say, “Well, we’re doing really well 90% of the time.” That is not what we are here to do. We are here to highlight where the system has gone wrong and to try to encourage people to do better.

I notice that the hon. Gentleman did not come back about whether I am healthy or not. Perhaps we should challenge each other to something—

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady radiates health from every pore. I suggest that she would radiate still further were she to have dairy in her diet, but her hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) does not radiate anything.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West is now vegan as well—in fact, three of the four Bristol MPs are vegan. She is completely vegan and a model of good health.

The second condition for receiving funding should be membership of a comprehensive assurance scheme. The RSPCA assured scheme covers all aspects of welfare and has genuinely high standards and rigorous monitoring arrangements. I am not so sure about other assurance schemes, which have been criticised. We need to clarify what the criteria would be.

I want to finish by talking about a few things that Compassion in World Farming has mentioned as additional standards and perhaps the sorts of things that farmers should get additional funding for. On pigs, it says:

“Funding should be available for farmers who achieve intact tails”—

that is, neither docked nor bitten tails. It continues:

“Getting pigs to slaughter with intact tails is recognised by the Farm Animal Welfare Council and others as a reliable outcome based indicator of good welfare.”

In Lower Saxony, I am told, farmers are paid €16.5 per undocked pig under its curled tail bonus scheme. Is that the sort of thing that we could look at rewarding farmers for here?