UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My Department has been flexible, and will continue to be flexible. We will continue to do everything possible in order to facilitate trade, but as my hon. Friend points out, although that border inspection post could be in place by the end of the month—and we hope it will be—it is not in place now.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows, as I do, just how important agriculture is to this country through the jobs that it creates and through all that it adds to biodiversity and the environment. Does he agree with my assessment that no right hon. or hon. Member who purports to understand and support farming in their constituency can support leaving the European Union without a deal?

[Michael Gove]

Obviously there is a diversity of views in this House, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it is in the interests of British farming, and indeed our broader environment, that we do not leave on 29 March without a deal. This is one of the reasons why I am making these arguments at the Dispatch Box now.

There are also political challenges in leaving on 29 March without a deal. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) pointed out, during the referendum campaign we argued that we should leave with a deal. I am also conscious that, while our mandate was clear, it is also the case that with a 52:48 result, we need to take into account the hopes and concerns of those people who did not vote to leave the European Union. The Prime Minister’s deal does that; it does more than that. Many people who voted to remain—including Members of this House in my party and in others—have accepted the result and wish us to leave in order to honour that mandate. However, they do not want us to leave on 29 March without a deal. There would inevitably be political strains and pressures consequent on leaving without a deal on 29 March that no Minister can afford to ignore.

More than that, it is important to stress that there are also significant constitutional challenges. It is the case, as several hon. Members have pointed out, that a majority of voters in Scotland and in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, but we voted as one United Kingdom, and we voted to leave. It is striking that support for the Union in Scotland has risen since the vote—[Hon. Members: “It’s gone down!”] Well, we only need look at the ranks of Scottish Conservative MPs, who turfed out the partitionist part-timers of the SNP, to see which way the tide was flowing—[Interruption.] They don’t like it up ’em.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

In these difficult times for our country, it is as well to remember the iron rule of politics: no situation is so bad that it is not possible for politicians to make it worse. I fear that we are in such a situation now. Not to vote for the deal would be to fall into precisely that trap.

I was a remainer. I campaigned across Cheltenham for remain, from the high street to the promenade. I did not do so because I thought the European Union was perfect. It had allowed itself, in many ways, to become inflexible and too remote from ordinary people. Even if I would not have suggested joining on the terms that were proffered in 2016, it seemed to me that the process of unravelling that 40-year relationship would be so lengthy, so complex, so expensive and so divisive that the game would not be worth the candle.

I made that argument and others, which are being reheated, such as that that process would act as a headwind against growth, and I was proud of the fact that 56% of people in Cheltenham voted to remain. But we did not vote as constituencies; we voted as a country. We voted as one nation, and I am first and foremost a democrat. I stood on a manifesto in 2015 that read:

“We will honour the result of the referendum, whatever the outcome.”

Parliament then voted for such a referendum. On Second Reading of the Bill that became the European Union Referendum Act 2015, the then Foreign Secretary said that the Bill had

“one clear purpose: to deliver on our promise to give the British people the final say on our EU membership in an in/out referendum”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1047.]

That was voted for by parties across the House—the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. During the campaign, the Government distributed to every home in Cheltenham a leaflet stating:

“The referendum…is your chance to decide if we should remain in or leave the European Union…The Government will implement what you decide.”

We all know that was the deal. I remember the words of the late and much-missed Paddy Ashdown on the evening of the referendum. Before the result came in, he said:

“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it is spoken, whether it is a majority of one per cent or 20 per cent. When the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t.”

Some in the House say the margin of victory does not matter. “In a referendum,” they say, “the winner takes all—one more vote is all you need to impose the most ideologically pure version of what you argued for.” I respectfully suggest there are great dangers in assuming that the 2016 referendum result—just 52:48—was a mandate for a tungsten-hard no-deal Brexit, which is now one of the two obvious alternatives to this deal. Those who advocate that would do well to remember that, had the EU negotiators simply offered David Cameron a genuine emergency brake that did not dismantle the freedom of movement principle but provided a sensible derogation, it is likely we would have voted to remain.

This deal is a compromise. That means it has positives and negatives. The positives are these. On goods, the EU has accepted that the UK should have a bespoke trade deal, with no tariffs, fees or charges and no quotas. On services, the EU has accepted the principle of arrangements for financial services, which, importantly, will be based on equivalence. British nationals will be able to travel freely without a visa, EU directives will no longer have direct effect and so on.

Against that backdrop, is it any surprise that the deal has been loudly welcomed by Rolls-Royce, Siemens, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and the chief executive of UKHospitality? The BioIndustry Association supports it—I could go on and on. The chief executive of BAE Systems, which employs many people in Cheltenham, welcomed the transition period, and GE Aviation, a significant employer in Gloucestershire, said:

“Ratification of a withdrawal agreement would provide business with the certainty it needs. In contrast, a disorderly ‘no deal’ exit in March would present considerable challenges for our operations, supply chains and customers.”

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the experts and others he prays in aid, whose views I certainly give great weight to, have been too easily dismissed? People either call them fake news or say, “They would say that,” or, “They don’t know what they’re talking about; we know better.” There is a dangerous anti-business trend in what some people say, and we must resist it.

[Alex Chalk]

And this is the Conservative party, which listens to business and wants to stand on the side of people who create prosperity in our country. By the way, if we want to deliver social mobility, we will do that through jobs and enterprise, and by raising tax revenues so we have the greatest possible public services.

Of course there are negatives to the deal; we have heard about those. Concern is rightly expressed about the Irish backstop, but, as the Secretary of State indicated and the Attorney General has said, it is an instrument of pain for both sides. What is a backstop for us is a back door for them. Northern Ireland would have the advantage of being able to access both the single market of the EU and the single market of the UK. Mainland British businesses would be incentivised to relocate to Northern Ireland to supply their goods into the EU. Meanwhile, the process of negotiating trade deals would become a nightmare for the EU, as it would not be able to clarify the frontiers of its single market and the British taxpayer would not be paying a penny piece.

The fact is that all trade deals require some kind of backstop. Canada-plus and Labour’s suggestion—it wants to be inside the customs union but outside the single market—would require one, too. I have heard much criticism from the Labour party. Some of it is fluent and cogent—we get all that—but, with respect, criticism is easy. As a quote probably misattributed to Teddy Roosevelt goes, complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining. Labour does not want a second referendum, does not want an extension and criticises the Government, saying there is no way they could get meaningful changes to their deal, yet it suggests that it could get a whole new deal by 29 March—a “strong single market deal”, although that is completely lacking in detail and clarity as to what Labour would require. [Interruption.] It is indeed a “unicorn” prospect.

A hard Brexit, I would suggest, is simply not an option. There are concerns about Ireland, and I have real concerns about it. Of course it is necessary to “aim off” with respect to some of the polls, but there is a real risk that if there is a hard Brexit the appetite for a border poll will increase, and there is then a real risk of a united Ireland. There are great risks from a second referendum as well, which I cannot go into now. However, there is an opportunity for us to do something sensible and unlock the wall of investment that is poised over our economy, and I shall be voting for the deal.

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[Simon Hoare]

What the right hon. Member for Don Valley actually asked was whether the shadow Secretary of State and her Front-Bench team would take part in these cross-party discussions, not what the Secretary of State would do. It is a very simple question. The right hon. Member for Don Valley does not need me to speak on her behalf, but will the shadow Secretary of State answer that question?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Perhaps he was missing during the contributions, but numerous Members have outlined the Government’s inability to liaise with Members across the House to develop a consensus. I share the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley on the need to work together across this House to deal with the many issues outlined during these debates and ensure we find a deal that provides a consensus that we can all rally around. Unfortunately, we do not have a Government who have been capable thus far of delivering that. I will move on, because I know we are short of time.

I want to talk briefly about environmental and climate protections. We know that non-regression clauses in relation to environmental protections would not be subject to the arbitration procedures set out in articles 170 to 181. Instead, standards would be enforced at the domestic level and through far weaker state-to-state procedures that are rarely effective in international treaties. The political declaration, meanwhile, contains only hortatory statements regarding climate, energy and the environment that have no legal effect. How can we trust this Government to maintain domestic standards when they have taken quite an active role, shall we say, in opposing EU progress on energy and climate change?

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Here in the UK, we have made huge progress in reducing the use of antibiotics. Poultry in particular has seen a 50% reduction in the use of antibiotics. US agriculture remains quite backward and some years behind in these matters, but we continue to work together to try to raise its game and approach.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend’s good will on this issue is recognised, as is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s, but I re-emphasise the seriousness with which we on the Agriculture Bill Committee dealt with this issue. We cannot rely on good will. We need certainty for our food producers across the country on the face of a Bill—it could be the Trade Bill or the Agriculture Bill—that standards will be maintained and that they will not be priced out of the market.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend made his case powerfully in Committee. He will recall that, as a result, I undertook to give this issue further consideration and have further discussion with colleagues in government in time for Report.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)]

The Government have already set out very clear guidelines as to what needs to be done ahead of no deal. The feedback that we have had already tells us that this is being well received.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

T2. Rural roaming can bring huge benefits to farmers, businesses and our rural communities. We are at a key point in trying to deliver it, so will my right hon. Friend commit to use all his considerable energy to convince the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that it is the right thing to do, is affordable and can be done quickly?

[Michael Gove]

I presume that my hon. Friend means roaming applied to mobile telephones, rather than to wild rovers.

[Simon Hoare]

Yes.

[Michael Gove]

I will absolutely do that. I have had a number of fruitful conversations with DCMS and, indeed, rural roaming is a key plank of the CLA’s campaign to improve connectivity in rural areas, which is vital to improving productivity across the field.

Agriculture Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This simple clause is designed to do what various Members have sought: to stop foie gras being sold in this country. I attended the recent debate initiated by, I think, the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) , who referred to foie gras as

“cruel to produce, unhealthy to eat and expensive to purchase”. —[Official Report, 13 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 1050.]

It is about time that we banned this outdated practice. I am not going to go into how it is produced—the innards, and so on, particularly as the hon. Member for North Dorset has probably had a good lunch and I do not want to spoil that in any way—[Interruption.] I shouldn’t have said that, should I?

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It was a small slice of corned beef, some grated carrot and an apple today, if the hon. Gentleman is interested.

[Dr Drew]

It is always a mistake to lead with your chin, as they say. We will pass on from that very quickly.

The new clause covers something that, as far as I know, most MPs want to do. Hon. Members may say that it is somewhat incongruous to bring this forward with this Bill, but given that Agriculture Bills come round about every 50 years, we will not necessarily be around to see this carried through.

Agriculture Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I rise to speak very much in the spirit with which the hon. Member for Bristol East finished her remarks. She is absolutely right to have identified the cross-party interest in and concern about these issues.

Since the British people made the decision to leave the European Union, I have always said during my meetings with the National Farmers Union and farmers in my constituency that, as important as this Bill will be, the most pressing issue is probably the one raised by the hon. Member for Bristol East in relation to the new clauses. The Bill does important work: it is trying to sculpt and scope a framework of support, and triggers for that support, for UK agriculture. We all want that to be a success, we all understand the importance of the sector to our national economy, and we all want to see it flourish. We therefore understand the importance of the Bill.

We also understand entirely, from remarks made by my hon. Friend the Minister, that in many respects this is a skeleton Bill, or a Christmas tree Bill, upon which certain things will hang and from which future policies and initiatives will flow. I think that we have to be incredibly careful. I hope that we will be able to enter into trade agreements, because they will be good for UK plc, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater in their pursuit. We should not see a lowering of our standards in certain areas, particularly within the food sector. I have always had a concern that, for some in British politics, the pursuit of the “Brexit dividend”—to give it a handy moniker—could most readily manifest itself in the price of foodstuffs.

On several occasions I have heard my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, as the hon. Lady for Bristol East referenced, talk about the lowering of food prices in the shopping basket, and likewise with shoes and clothing, although I appreciate that they are not part of the Bill. He may very well be right. I always point out that we are spending the lowest percentage of our household income on food than at any time in our history, so it is hard to see how food could become very much cheaper in real terms.

However, my concern is about the next step of the scenario. My concern has always resided on this point: if individual trade deals came back to this House to be voted upon in an affirmative way, whether through a statutory instrument or on the Floor of the House, this issue could be part of the checklist to establish whether one would be minded to support it. However, it looks as if trade agreements will not be subject to a vote in the House, so we would be wise to include in the Bill this precautionary principle—this little check—to provide comfort to consumers, who need as much information as possible. I do not believe in the sort of free market in which any old rubbish is put on the supermarket shelves and then people are allowed to make an informed decision. We have to have some standards so that people can have general confidence in the product they are purchasing, irrespective of the price that happens to have been set. There needs to be some underpinning and some general benchmark of standards.

On the “Brexit dividend”, I have always put it to my colleagues in this way: were trade agreements to be entered into that saw, as part of some spirit of reciprocity, new markets opened to what we might call the sexier sides of our economy—finance, IT, insurance, pharmaceutical and the like—the quid pro quo trade-off will be access to our large and growing consumer market, hungry for food, if the Committee will forgive the pun. We would find ourselves swamped with cheap imports, raised to all sorts of standards. Some may be higher than ours, which would be great. Some may be the same, which would be perfect. I think that we would all be keen to resist anything that was lower, for example in relation to chemical applications or animal welfare issues—I see those as equally important.

However, I have often made the point that those cheap imports would remain cheap only while a robust domestic production market formed a competitive market and challenge. I made that point on Second Reading, as did other colleagues. My fear, my hunch and my prediction would be that, as a result of a swamping of overly cheap imports—priced cheaply because the standards are lower and therefore the costs of production are less—that would see a rapid choking off of our domestic production market, either to the point of being barely recognisable, or to be non-existent.

Either of those scenarios could result in a situation whereby those who had distorted our food pricing market would then ride the crest of a non-competitive wave because domestic production would have diminished to a point at which it really only deals with the niche, farmers’ market type of market, but not large-scale domestic production. Having had two or three years of cheap prices, we would suddenly find prices going in an upward trajectory on a very fast escalator. It would be faster plus, because not only would they want to recoup the money for products sold cheaply then, but they would also want desperately to claw back the under-pricing that they had triggered as importers to our country—or exporters, depending which end of the telescope we care to look through—and regain that lost revenue, because they had deliberately distorted the market in order to choke off domestic competition.

I entirely take the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East that the bona fides on this issue of my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are beyond challenge. They have been absolutely and abundantly clear. If I could preserve my right hon. and hon. Friends in some sort of political aspic and presume that they would always be in office—I am not sure whether they would find that an attractive proposition—we could all take a step back and breathe a little more easily. We all know that legislation cannot bind our heirs and successors because it is subject to amendment by future Parliaments, but we should at least be setting some definitive benchmarks now. On something as important as this, it is in the Bill—although not necessarily in the wording of these new clauses—that we need to put down those important markers. Would it not be the most frustrating waste of the Committee’s time to have spent it talking about the importance of a sector and seeking to build a cross-party coalition in its support and furtherance, only to find all our work and good efforts coming to nought as a result of an overly laissez-faire approach to trading issues?

Before my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South has some sort of apoplectic fit, I assure him that, at this stage—because I am very conscious that our hon. Friend the Minister will need to go back and talk to colleagues—if the amendments are pushed to a vote, I will not support them, because further discussion is needed. I give my hon. Friend the Whip that assurance today, but I am afraid that I cannot give the same cast-iron guarantee on Report unless we see some movement on this.

I do not believe that I am alone. I noticed the sharp inhalation of breath by the hon. Member for Bristol West, in a theatrical, pantomime gesture. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench know that I have never rebelled—I have never voted against Her Majesty’s Government—and I hope that I do not have to. However, I think that the hon. Member for Bristol East was absolutely right that there is a broad coalition of interest in this on the Floor of the House. Whether Members come from a public health aspect or a fiercely pro-agricultural aspect, or whether they are concerned about better shaping and sculpting the post-Brexit environment, I am not sure.

[Mr Goodwill]

My hon. Friend makes some very valid points. Does he agree that adequate labelling is also part of this? For example, a lot of processed chicken comes in from Thailand and Brazil, but consumers are often not aware because it comes as part of a product. Does he agree that part of the solution to this problem is better labelling, so that people know what they are buying?

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the appropriate time there needs to be a significant and radical overhaul of the red tractor. There needs to be much clearer labelling and information. However, information itself can be a bit of a blunt instrument. People need to know how to interpret and understand the information put in front of them. I can read a manual on how to wire a plug 17 times but I will still not understand how to do it. However, the information is there. I do not actually know how to rewire a plug. That is why candle consumption in the Hoare household is very high.

[Jenny Chapman]

I remember, during the ’70s, when I was a child, my dad having to put a plug on the end of every electric device we had. However, that is no longer needed, thanks to European Union regulations on the issue.

[Simon Hoare]

I hope I do not insult the hon. Lady by saying this, but I am rather guessing from those remarks that she and I are therefore of a similar vintage. Were those not simpler and happier days? That is where we are.

I do not wish to detain the Committee for any longer than I need to, but this is a pivotal thing that could dramatically affect our agricultural sector. It is not about protection or insulation. It is not about preserving our farming sector in some sort of legislative aspic, to create some sort of bucolic scene of smock-wearing, corn-chewing loveliness where sheep are clean and all the rest of it.

[Dr Drew]

What about the sandals?

[Simon Hoare]

I shall leave the hon. Gentleman to polish his own sandals. I have never been a sandal wearer, apart from at school, I suppose.

However, we need to make sure that the sector is vital. It is not an old-fashioned sector; it is at the cutting edge of production and of using agritech and new sciences to farm and produce in more environmentally sensitive ways and to increase animal welfare and so on. It would be a tragedy if that all came to naught, and the work of the Committee came to naught, and we suddenly found that there was no agricultural sector, or such a small agricultural sector that, in actual fact, all this work was unnecessary.

I think that the hon. Member for Bristol East is right; there is a broad consensus and a growing coalition on these issues in the House. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to convince colleagues across Government of the clear and compelling virtue that motivates both him and our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

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[Jenny Chapman]

I do not believe that the Government have any intention of leading us out without a deal, and if they tried, the vast majority of MPs would get in the way. According to the Government’s technical notices, leaving without a deal would require 51 pieces of legislation, and on day one of that legislation being introduced, an amendment would be tabled that said, “This Government may not lead us out without a deal.” Parliament would use the many opportunities that it would have to prevent it happening, but I do not believe that the Prime Minister has the slightest intention of going down that path. I think she wants a deal, but the argument we are having is whether it is this deal.

[Simon Hoare]

Following the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, I hear what the hon. Lady says—she and I have discussed it—but my right hon. Friend is right that at some point, the hon. Lady’s party will have to vote for a deal produced by the Government and not just hide behind process and everything else. To leave with a deal, we have to get a deal.

[The Chair]

Order. May I suggest that we stop the discussion there before we go down a rabbit hole from which we will never recover?

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

That is a very important point. I can absolutely confirm that existing schemes will be honoured for the lifetime of those projects. I know that we will probably come to this when we consider later amendments, but the grant agreements between the Government and individuals will be honoured even after we leave the European Union. The Bill, together with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, gives us the power to bring across retained EU law and to continue to make payments under it.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Yesterday morning, I met an organic farmer in my constituency. His is quite a small farm, and his question about the stewardship scheme, and others through which he receives payment, was whether size will be important when determining who receives money and how. LEADER+ and other types of support system are important, but there is an anxiety that the small and beautiful smallholding, as it were, is likely to miss out as people look to scale up. Can my hon. Friend assure me that there will be a range of support within the new system that he proposes, irrespective of the size of an operation?

[George Eustice]

Yes, I can. We discussed this when we touched on clause 1, which is about the way in which we will support people. We heard representations from people engaged in small projects, such as agroecology projects, about whether they could have support. They are often not entitled to support under existing schemes, but I absolutely said that clause 1 will enable us to support those. Indeed, this is an area that we are looking at closely. Clause 1(2) gives us the power to award grants to some of those smaller businesses, including new entrants.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

We should deal with the situation in our market. The test we should apply before acting is whether there is a severe market disturbance that affects our agricultural producers. We should not be worrying about what other countries happen to be doing.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

May I explore this point, because the shadow Minister is right that it is incredibly important? If an agricultural commodity was, in effect, being dumped into UK markets—analogous to the steel dumping from China—would that be a severe market disturbance and would it trigger some level of support, on the proviso that it was not possible to do anything about the dumping because a free trade agreement allowed it to take place?

[George Eustice]

In all international trade law, there are provisions on dumping—it is literally referred to as “dumping”—that enable us to restrict imports from other countries where under-priced, under-valued produce was being dumped in our market. That can therefore be dealt with elsewhere.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

That depends on the criteria set. I have heard 120 days mentioned as a possible benchmark.

The problem is not just that the information is not being made available; one of the main reasons I tabled the amendment is that there is quite a lot of misleading marketing that gives consumers the impression that goods are higher welfare when they are not. A pork product from a factory-farmed pig may carry a label that says something like “farm fresh” or “all natural”. Packaging can carry images of green fields or woodlands. I was praising Tesco this morning for its work on food waste and modern slavery, but there was an issue, either earlier this year or last year, where Tesco meat and fresh produce had been labelled with the names of British-sounding farms, such as Boswell Farms beef steaks and Woodside Farms sausages, and it transpired that not only did those farms not exist, but in some cases the produce had been imported. That is certainly misleading the public, and I might use stronger language to describe that behaviour.

[Simon Hoare]

I have concerns about an arbitrary number of days being set. Broadly, farmers bring stock in and out as the weather permits. If there is an arbitrary number of days, it is the target that dictates the welfare, not the requirements of the animal. There is a tendency in the narrative of veganism to focus, perfectly properly, on animal welfare. Would the hon. Lady agree that, in that drive for transparency, many consumers would be very interested to know the health of the soil in which their vegetables were grown and how much insecticide and pesticide was used on them during production?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have no idea why the hon. Gentleman is bringing vegans into the debate, as they do not eat any of this produce and, therefore, I would imagine, are not particularly concerned with where it comes from. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by one of his hon. Friends who is a dairy farmer, recommended twice in 2018

“that the Government introduce mandatory method of production labelling”

to support the existing market for higher welfare products and to encourage more producers to move into that higher value market.

I met various members of the National Farmers Union in Gloucestershire during the mini recess. Most were higher welfare beef and dairy farmers who struggled to get a decent price and to get recognition of the fact that they put more care into producing their products. They are keen to support this proposal, so the idea that it is some sort of vegan crusade is a bit tedious, to be honest, but also wide of the mark.

[Simon Hoare]

I was not intending to be tedious; perhaps my tedium was unintentional. I was trying to tease out the hon. Lady’s answer, which I presume be “yes”, on whether clear and relevant information about the type of food production is of use to consumers. That was the point I was driving at. I was slightly concerned to hear the hon. Lady say that because vegans do not eat meat, they have no interest in the conditions in which animals are raised. I would have thought that would unite everybody in this country, whether they eat those animals or not.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Of course vegans are interested in that, but they are not the consumers who are trying to decide between one pack of sausages and another—unless they are Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages, for example.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to take this whole thing off on a tangent. During the referendum campaign, the Government blamed the European Union for tying their hands, making them unable to move further on production labelling. The Farm Produce (Labelling Requirements) Bill was introduced by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main)—I remember it well. Making progress on production labelling was put forward as one of the reasons why we should leave the European Union, and that Bill was supported by a number of Brexit-supporting Tory MPs.

At the beginning of this year, the Secretary of State announced at the Oxford farming conference that the Government were considering extending mandatory labelling, and when that issue was highlighted in the “Health and Harmony” Command Paper, it received very positive feedback. Respondents to the question, “Should government set further standards to ensure greater consistency and understanding of welfare information at the point of purchase?” were overwhelmingly in favour: 72% either said “Yes” or “Yes, as long as it does not present an unreasonable burden to farmers.” As I said, we need to have a discussion about what producers need to do if they are to be deemed higher welfare, pasture fed, and so on. No matter what sort of scheme we have, some hurdle will have to be met, but setting those rules is obviously a matter for the Government.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

No, I do not. I am aware of that move, but I do not think that people are remotely misled. Nobody is going to buy a vegetarian sausage thinking that it has pork in it. It is the same with soya milk and almond milk—everyone knows perfectly well that they have nothing to do with dairy cows. We are underestimating the intelligence of the British consumer if we think that they are going to be misled by things like that.

[Simon Hoare]

Can I share with the hon. Lady my absolute speechlessness when a set—if that is what you call them—of vegetarian sausages arrived on a lunch plate that I had ordered? The menu only said “Glamorgan sausages”; it did not say that they were vegetarian, so one can be misled through the use of the word “sausage.” I think that the French are on to something here.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Perhaps that says more about the hon. Gentleman’s ability to read a menu.

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[Deidre Brock]

Management is certainly an important aspect, but as the air and road miles of shooting enthusiasts increase, so the environmental benefit of the proper management of shooting estates and grouse moors vanishes and can even turn negative.

I would argue that smaller enterprises providing produce for local consumption start from a more environmentally friendly base, and it makes sense to encourage them rather than larger interests. With respect to the Bill and agriculture in general, we in the Scottish National party see farms and land management as vital to rural communities, as well as being primary producers—that is especially true of crofters. The community cohesion function becomes even more important as communities become more remote. Hon. Members from across some areas of England and Wales will of course have examples to offer, but Scotland is a very different place, particularly when one heads into the Highlands, into the far north, or on to the islands, where farming is by no means an easy living and where there is a different culture and calendar to farming, and markedly different outcomes. Scotland is different and requires a different framework in which to operate.

I quote the evidence given by the National Farmers Union Scotland to the Scottish Affairs Committee recently. It said that

“significant elements of the Agriculture Bill are clearly about policy and policy delivery in England, and they would give us significant cause for concern if they were to be applied in Scotland. Quite simply, Scotland’s agricultural landscape is very different from that of England and much of the rest of the United Kingdom. That is why we must have agricultural policy delivered in a devolved capacity. There is clearly a trajectory within DEFRA England’s policy thinking that it wants to phase out direct support payments over a seven-year period and replace them with a public support for public goods approach, and that is clear within the Bill. Now, if you took that very distinct and very clear ‘first and fast’ approach in Scotland….that would be extremely detrimental, in many senses, to huge tracts of Scottish agriculture.”

[Simon Hoare]

The unique beauty of Scotland is clear for everybody to see and a precious resource within the United Kingdom, but I fail to understand how the hon. Lady can argue that that uniqueness means that Scotland needs bespoke policies and devolution, while, at the same time, her party wishes to adhere to the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy by remaining a part of the European Union, given that there is no opportunity for bespoke policies within the EU.

[Deidre Brock]

All four Administrations of the UK take very different approaches to CAP implementation, and there has been no impact on, say, the internal market as a result. I would have thought the hon. Member would be clear on the SNP’s policy regarding the CFP. It is not our proposal to continue with the CFP as it is. We have long called for its reform. That is on the record and has been the case for years. The damage to Scotland would be immense, because 85% of Scotland’s farmland is less favoured area land. Scotland needs a different framework from England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

That is a perfect point and well illustrates my point, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks.

I have already commented, in my reference to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, on the difficulties with thinking that a schedule to a Westminster Bill will protect devolved interests. The amendment I referred to came not from the Welsh Government or the UK Government, but from three Back-Bench MPs, so relying on a schedule for absolute protection is trusting to luck.

Although the Bill extends to Scotland in great part, it does little that would support Scottish agriculture. I will seek to amend and improve it where I can—much of it so far has been subject to the English votes for English laws process, meaning that I am unable to vote on it—but there is no amendment that will make it completely fit for purpose for Scotland. That will be a running issue in Scottish farming and for all the support mechanisms devolved to Holyrood. The flexibility of the EU support mechanisms gave some room for manoeuvre to allow support for Scotland’s farmers, but that is missing in the Bill, and I expect that Members representing parts of England are also a little concerned about that apparent rigidity. It will not come as any surprise that the Scottish National party would far rather all responsibility and power for managing Scottish agriculture rest in Scotland, but we are here and I will be looking to improve the Bill where I can. We will be back for the rest.

I turn to clause 22 and new clause 5 and amendments 56 to 64. The clause strays into devolved territory and could do with a bit of tidying up, just to save DEFRA Ministers having to deal with Scottish issues down the line, which would be tiresome for them. Amendments 56 to 64 would amend clause 22 to require that applications for recognition of producer organisations be made to the appropriate Administration. In other words, an organisation operating in Scotland would make its pitch to the Scottish Government, rather than leaving DEFRA to deal with it. That would save work for DEFRA officials and Ministers, but also has the virtue of respecting the devolution settlement.

[Simon Hoare]

This is a slightly philosophical point, which I think all members of the Committee, with the exception of the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Ceredigion, will get. It would be a travesty to suggest that Ministers of the Crown or indeed this Westminster Parliament would find dealing with anything in Scotland tiresome or a nuisance. We are unionist parties that believe in the strength of the United Kingdom. The hon. Lady can make her point, but we will not be flippant with her nationalism, and she should not be flippant with our unionism.

[The Chair]

Order. That is a debating point; it has nothing to do with the amendment before us.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We have been in discussion with Co-operatives UK, which raised the issue about eligibility and the fact that the requirements for a corporate body and to have all members from one sector could affect some co-operative working. We listened to that and addressed it.

I do not think that there is a spill-over of that problem—for want of a better term—in schedule 2, because that schedule is essentially all the technical clauses needed to disapply what competition lawyers call “the chapter 1 prohibition”. In essence, schedule 2 determines and sets out in some detail the process by which producer organisations can come together to collaborate and co-operate in a range of areas and co-ordinate their activities in a way that would otherwise be considered a breach of competition law.

In particular, paragraph 9(1A) of schedule 3 to the Competition Act 1998 lists activities such as planning production, optimising production costs, concentrating supply, placing products on the markets and negotiating supply contracts. Schedule 2 gives licence to a recognised producer organisation to do all those things and to disapply those elements of the 1998 Act.

[Simon Hoare]

Would the Minister clarify a concern of mine? He has referred to sub-paragraph (1A), but I refer him to sub-paragraph (1C)(a), which says that condition B is that:

“in the case of a PO, none of the producers concerned are members of any other PO as regards the products covered by the activities”.

If someone had six dairy farms, one of which sold 55% of its produce through Arla, but they wanted to create a more local co-operative and the sixth Arla-related farm wanted to be part of it, would that bring the whole house down or would there be some scope and flexibility, perhaps based on percentages? That absolute restriction may need a bit of refinement.

[George Eustice]

My understanding is that that is effectively an anti-avoidance provision to stop people from being members of several co-operatives and having a genuinely dominant market position that goes above and beyond what is envisaged by producer organisations. Under the current EU scheme, one producer organisation can have a market share of up to 33%, but if there were overlapping producer organisations, it could create market distortion. My understanding is that the provision seeks to address that.

In conclusion, I am a huge supporter of bio groups, co-operative working and collaborative working. We all know that one of the challenges we face in the agricultural industry, as we think about the future, is that it is sometimes a fragmented sector and sometimes does not have the clout it needs in the market or the ability to do joint collective buying to get those costs down. We want to facilitate collaborative working; this part of the Bill and the particular schedule that the shadow Minister has raised go some way to addressing that.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I will not detain the Committee for long. I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby. I note that the hon. Member for Stroud does not intend to press the amendment at this stage, but it is important to reflect on the spirit of what my hon. Friend the Minister said in this morning’s debate when he outlined the Government’s intent in devising the new schemes: they are intended to be less onerous on the recipients of financial support than the schemes that they replace under the CAP.

In the same spirit, I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to enlighten the Committee that this power to create offences is designed primarily not to create a mass of further offences that would allow people to be criminalised if they made inadvertent errors in the receipt of their financial assistance, but to—as I understand it—replicate existing Government powers. Anything he can do to reassure us that there will not be an extension of the kind we have described will be very helpful.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I think there are two things that taxpayers would presume to be inherent to this, and which they would require. First, the hon. Member for Stroud alluded to the need for transparency and to know that moneys being provided by the Exchequer through DEFRA to support any public good or food production scheme are being spent wisely. There must be public confidence in this, and I go back to a point I made in Tuesday’s debates: in the increasingly urbanised country we live in, which is less interested in rural life, it is imperative that the public know that, just as we insist on transparency, fairness and rectitude in, for example, the welfare system or other things.

The balance that I detect, certainly from my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby and my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, and which I echo, is that while we must have these powers to allow public confidence to set in, be fostered and flourish, we must also have proportionality and discretion. It would be frankly bonkers to trot somebody off to the magistrates court, the Crown court or indeed the High Court over somebody’s daughter riding a pony on a bit of set-aside, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby has said, or other such small things.

We need within the Bill—I think it is referred to in other subsections of the clause—the discretion to say, “Right, we have overpaid you for that, or you haven’t done this in-year, so we will roll over,” and so on, which provides the transparency and accountability.

However, we must remember that a lot of our farms and farmers are small businesses, where people do not have time and space to go off and instruct a solicitor, get their defence ready and take those two or three days off to go to court—only to find that the court hearing has been adjourned because the judge is not available or the chief usher has a heavy head cold. In many of our smaller courts, which are also constrained in terms of manpower, there is a huge delay in the delivery of justice.

I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will reflect on what I appreciate are often competing demands, namely for transparency and discretion. The heavy hand can often fall on, “Let’s go really big on the criminal stuff,” and we have a pretty crowded statute book at the moment. I think that is why lawyers are able to charge so much money, because there is a hell of a lot of reading involved even in making a case for a minor or small point.

Let us not overcrowd the statute book with statute law and criminal offences if we do not need to. We should ensure that the robustness is there, as in those other clauses, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister—not today, but either in the other place or on Report—to reflect on the considered and informed remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby and my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, and on my small and amateurish contribution.

[George Eustice]

I confess that when the Bill was drafted that particular bit about creating offences jumped out at me too, and I discussed it at some length with our legal advisers and officials. I can confirm that we seek only to replicate powers that already exist.

The Common Agricultural Policy (Control and Enforcement, Cross-Compliance, Scrutiny of Transactions and Appeals) Regulations 2014 already provide for offences, and there has always been the ability to provide for criminal offences under EU regulation and the enforcement regulations, which are in secondary legislation.

The idea was always that those offences could include such things as intentional obstruction, the deliberate failure to give required assistance or information or knowingly to provide false or misleading information. I reassure the Committee that, during the time we have had those powers, the RPA has never brought criminal sanctions. It has never needed to, because other interventions have been sufficient.

A number of important points have been made, and I listened carefully to those raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby and my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow and for North Dorset. The hon. Member for Ipswich also raised the legitimate point that there is already alternative legislation to deal with fraud. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud, for not pushing the amendment to a Division today.

Given the representations from my hon. Friends behind me and from others, I am certainly willing further to discuss this issue with Government colleagues, and perhaps to come back to Parliament on Report to give it further consideration. We are clearly going into a changing world and a changing situation, and it might not be necessary to bring across all the sanctions available to us under the CAP scheme. It might be that the many other provisions—including being able to disqualify people from entering schemes in the future, penalties, an ability to recover or withhold moneys and so on—alongside existing criminal powers, are sufficient. We will undertake to look at that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. We have heard so much from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud this morning and afternoon: I will now give him a break. Part of the reason for that is that my hon. Friend deals with the pure farming and agriculture issues, while I seem to be doing the really boring “techy” and legalistic stuff. [Interruption.] I will try not to make it boring.

However, when it comes to the text of amendment 76—leave out “negative” and insert “affirmative”—I would forgive Committee members for returning to their online shopping or whatever it is they are doing. Nevertheless, this is quite an important issue. It occurs in several places throughout the Bill. We were concerned about it during the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and we have not stopped being worried about it now.

I notice that the Minister has a series of amendments in the same grouping. I hope that he will confirm that they deal with the concerns that I have raised by tabling amendment 76 and various other amendments to later parts of the Bill; it seems to me that the Government may have taken our point. However, I need to hear the Minister confirm that.

Amendment 76 is to clause 6. As my hon. Friend explained, under clause 6 the Secretary of State would have the power to modify the legislation governing the basic payment scheme. The problem for us is twofold. First, the Secretary of State has that power by regulation. I will expand on these arguments now, because they relate to other parts of the Bill; if I explain them fully this time, that might avert the need to do so on absolutely every occasion when this issue arises. I see that the hon. Member for Gordon is nodding furiously.

The problem is that the Secretary of State is attempting to give himself the power to change the legislation by regulation, but he seeks to do that—as the Bill is currently drafted—through the negative procedure. I will forgive Members for not being entirely au fait with the difference between the negative and the affirmative procedure, although Sir Roger and I served together on the Select Committee on Procedure for about five years. [Interruption.] And the hon. Member for North Dorset serves on it now, so I expect he will know exactly what I am talking about. The Procedure Committee spent a great deal of time bending its head around that matter, but Members can be here for a large number of years and still have no clue what the difference is. In the interest of teaching grannies to suck eggs, I will attempt to explain what the difference is and why it matters.

Members will have heard the power that the Secretary of State wishes to have referred to as “Henry VIII clauses”. That phrase came up a lot during the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: the Opposition were concerned about the extent of the use of Henry VIII powers. Those powers are not unheard of, but it is very concerning when Bills have so many. We are equally concerned that this Bill contains a large number of those powers. A Henry VIII clause enables Ministers to amend or repeal provisions in an Act of Parliament using secondary legislation that is subject to varying degrees of parliamentary scrutiny. We need to pay particular attention to those clauses, because they enable a law to be changed without what most of us would understand as a normal level of scrutiny in this House. A helpful guide about the use of statutory instruments has been produced by the House of Commons Library, if Members are sufficiently interested: it is factsheet L7—“Statutory Instruments”.

The most important thing to understand is the difference between the negative and the affirmative procedure. The negative procedure is what, in this Bill, the Government say they wish the Secretary of State to be able to use when modifying the law. What happens is this:

“The instrument is laid in draft and cannot be made if the draft is disapproved within 40 days (draft instruments subject to the negative resolution are few and far between)…The instrument is laid after making, subject to annulment if a motion to annul (known as a ‘prayer’) is passed within 40 days.”

Unless something happens—it is usually the Opposition who make that prayer, which nowadays often takes the form of an early-day motion—that change to legislation will happen. That is the negative procedure.

Under the affirmative procedure, however, an instrument cannot become law unless it is approved by both Houses. Should the Secretary of State feel that he needs all these powers—although it is regrettable that he feels he needs them, in the absence of being able to put into the Bill the schemes and schedules that we would like to see—it is far better for them to be exercised according to the affirmative procedure. Under that procedure, the instrument is laid after making, but cannot come into force unless and until it is approved, so there is a far stronger role for Parliament.

When a Bill seeks to confer so much power on the Executive, we as parliamentarians have to be very careful about giving that power away. We would be enabling the Secretary of State to make substantial changes to the measures that we are being asked to agree—and this comes up throughout the Bill, not just in this clause. That is not something we can do lightly. Parliament needs to consider the issue carefully, because we are talking about an awful lot of power in the hands of one individual, subject to precious little scrutiny. That is not something that we can be relaxed about.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady is making a point that is incredibly important for us all, as parliamentarians. Does she agree that the nub is not whether it is by the positive or negative procedure that these changes could be made, but to have the discretion of Ministers —I appreciate for some that might be a leap of faith—to opine on the scale of the change? Thus, for big changes the affirmative procedure could be used, and for small, housekeeping, tidying-up exercises, the negative could be used. One would not want to go through the whole of the positive SI procedure to change a word or a letter here or there. Might that be a way of addressing the perfectly legitimate concern that she raises?

[Jenny Chapman]

The hon. Gentleman makes perfect sense. Our concern, though, is that the changes that Ministers seek the power to make are not small or technical—they are quite significant, and go to the heart of what the Bill is about. For that reason, we are not inclined to allow the issue just to go through unchallenged.

At the time of the withdrawal Act, we were assured that the negative procedure would be used only in such circumstances as the hon. Member for North Dorset describes, but many would agree that with all the SIs, and there will be a lot, there is a danger that Ministers—through a desire to get things done, perhaps, or just to get to the next stage of the process—will overuse that negative procedure. I am sure there is no ill intent here and that they are not trying to do things behind Parliament’s back, but we need to be incredibly cautious about the extent of the power being held by the Secretary of State.

[Simon Hoare]

I ask this sincerely, to try to get to the answer: what I do not know, but the hon. Lady might, is whether we are aware of a trigger, either in the committee chaired by, I think, the Leader of the House or in inter-ministerial discussions, where somebody turns around and says, “No, that is an affirmative; no, that is a negative.” Is it the usual channels who say that? Or is it purely at the discretion of the individual Minister of the Crown charged with the powers in a statute? Is there some offline discussion of, or weighing of the balance of, the argument? I do not know the answer.

[Jenny Chapman]

Unfortunately not. In the case we are looking at now, it is laid down in the Bill—well, it is at the moment, but I am optimistic that the Minister will reassure me—that it will be the negative procedure. Most often, when a Minister has these powers, it is specified, alongside where that power lies in the Act, how it should be exercised. I do not know whether that is challengeable later, although I am happy to take advice on that; I am not sure that it is, and I cannot think off the top of my head of any occasions when that has happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

We are excellent, aren’t we? We seem to have a Minister who is willing to accept that there are problems with his Bill, and we do not always get that. I hope that this will be a rather better experience than the one that the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire and I had previously.

In reply to the hon. Gentleman’s point about balancing speed with being thorough, I would say that the Government have had quite a long time to come up with something fuller than this. The Bill is rather empty, and there is lots of detail that could have been included. The Government have had sufficient time to do that, so to turn up and say, “Actually, we just want some powers and we’ll decide what to do with them at a later date,” is not good enough. We will continue to make that point.

Some people get very anxious about the overuse of delegated legislation. I have never been a Minister, and probably never will be, but I understand the attraction of it.

[Simon Hoare]

Cross the Floor!

[Jenny Chapman]

I didn’t catch what the hon. Gentleman said. [Laughter.]

I understand that Ministers will want, as the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire said, the ease to get on with things and not have to bother with troublesome MPs, and subject themselves to hours and hours of process. However, sometimes Parliament needs to say to Ministers, “Sorry, but in the kind of democracy that we have we can’t allow you to proceed in a way that does not allow parliamentary scrutiny.” Some people get very anxious about the overuse of delegated legislation. I used to feel that they were sometimes over-fixating on it, but having looked at the Bill more closely and gone through the withdrawal Act process, I am becoming one of those people who is inclined to worry about the extent to which Ministers are gathering up powers, and how they could be used in future.

This is not just about the current Secretary of State and Minister; it is about the future. I do not think that whether people are urban or not is the point. Governments will have competing priorities in the future, and they will not be the same ones that we have now, but I want to ensure that farming and agriculture are properly supported in a stable way that allows for certainty, long-term planning, greater food security and all the good things that we have discussed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Davies]

None in Shropshire, all in Herefordshire—all in Wales.

[Simon Hoare]

He just owns Wales.

[Chris Davies]

There are many farmers in Herefordshire and Shropshire who will own land 30, 40 or 50 miles into Wales, so does Minister foresee any difficulty with decoupling in cross-border schemes if both devolved areas end up with different schemes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

One of the purposes of consultation that is often overlooked, particularly when dealing with industries or sectors, is to allow input into the process of public policy. Failure to allow that input will often lead to judicial review, particularly if businesses or organisations face a significant loss or disadvantage in the marketplace. The power of the courts is often a stimulus for consultation, which is needed so that any Government can have something to rely on and rest their case on.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am not sure that I completely understand what the hon. Gentleman is getting at, but where there is a statutory duty to consult, the basis for challenge often rests on how well that consultation took place. To assist public bodies in carrying out consultations, the Cabinet Office has issued guidance on when they are appropriate, who ought to be consulted and how it all ought to be done, which is helpful in addressing that challenge.

My amendment is probing, and I do not necessarily seek to get it into the Bill, but we need to understand the Government’s intended approach to involving sector bodies. The Minister clearly intends to rely on the expertise of various sectors as he goes about implementing the measures in the Bill or—perhaps more accurately—deciding which measures he wishes to implement. He has signalled that there will be a role for third sector organisations in particular. I see that as a very good thing, but we need to better understand how, and on what basis, the Government intend to achieve it. These are not passive bystanders, but people who want to be actively engaged and make a difference to the areas that many of them have spent their whole lives championing.

It is important that we get this right. So far this year, the Government have seen fit to consult on some really important things. To read out a few at random, there has been a very broad consultation on the future of food, farming and the environment, as well as consultations on bovine tuberculosis, on banning third-party sales of pets in England, on air quality and on using cleaner fuels for domestic burning. The measures in clause 9, and indeed elsewhere in the Bill, are equally worthy of engagement with a wider range of voices than seems likely at the moment.

I have therefore tabled a consultation amendment to clause 9 and, I think, to one other clause in the Bill. I chose clause 9 in particular because, as the explanatory notes state, it

“empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations which modify the ‘horizontal basic act’”—

which the Minister has helpfully explained to us—

“as incorporated into domestic law carried forward and modified according to the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018…in relation to England…The horizontal regulations…include rules on application procedures, calculation of aid and penalties, payment windows and payment recovery. They include rules on checks to be carried out, including databases used to check compliance, audits and farm checks and administrative checks. They also include rules for the implementation of the farm advisory system, calculating the funds for public intervention purchase and the establishment of a single beneficiary website”.

Those are all things on which the sector would like a say, because it will have opinions about them.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. Clause 1 is in some respects the centrepiece of the Bill, and I imagine that the Committee will spend quite a lot of time on it today, because it will put the Government’s approach into practice.

Let me say at the outset that the Opposition have no difficulty supporting the notion of public money for public goods and ensuring that the environment is central to agriculture. However, we have some problems with the way in which the Bill has been put together. Certain parts of it lack substance, and it certainly lacks a mechanism not just to allow our environment to flourish, but to give us a food supply and safeguard health. As I said on Second Reading, the White Paper was entitled “Health and Harmony”, but health seems to have disappeared from the agenda.

The Opposition will move amendments to bring into the Bill the areas that are not covered. Later today, for example, we will move an amendment on climate change, which is not formally mentioned in the Bill, just as it was not mentioned in the Budget speech yesterday. Given the role that emissions play in agriculture, we think that it is essential that climate change is addressed in the Bill.

We believe that the Bill does not safeguard our food supply or tackle inequalities. Sadly, it follows as a syllogism that bolstering the environment is no good unless we can combine it with protecting food and health. We need to look at food inequality in particular. Amendments 44 and 45 address a point that we will make several times during the passage of the Bill, which is that this is about powers. We believe that the Bill needs some real bite. We might trust the Minister—we believe him to be a very good Minister—but he will be here only for a period of time. It is vital that we put some duties into the Bill so that a future Secretary of State will have to deliver the things that we want.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s remarks closely, and I have huge sympathy for what he says. Does he agree that a possible benefit of changing “may” to “must” is that if a more urbancentric Secretary of State were appointed, that imperative would ensure that he or she supported our agricultural sector, rather than saying, “Perhaps I might, but I don’t choose to”?

[Dr Drew]

That is exactly the point I am making. We are seeking to strengthen the Bill. We come not to wreck it or to make it impracticable; we come to improve it. We believe that one way the Bill would be improved is by the inclusion of duties. As the hon. Gentleman quite rightly said, there may be a future Government who are less partial towards agriculture, and it is vital that we fetter them. That is why we have legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

We should not adopt the amendment. I disagree with the shadow Minister—we have chosen to use the term “may” rather than “must” because that is how we draft all of our legislation when it comes to powers to pay. The approach we have adopted is absolutely consistent with our constitution. I want to give the Committee a few examples. The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, introduced by a Labour Government, contains the following provision:

“The Secretary of State may give or arrange for the giving of financial assistance in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred in any matter related to or connected with a DEFRA function.”

If we go back further, the Science and Technology Act 1965 states:

“The Secretary of State...may defray out of moneys provided by Parliament any expenses which, with the consent of the Treasury—

some things never change—

they may respectively incur”.

The 1965 Act that created powers to make payments uses the term “may”. I know that the hon. Member for Stroud has a romantic attachment to the Agriculture Act 1947, which is a good Act—I have read it. How about this for giving powers to a Minister:

“Where...it appears to the appropriate Minister expedient so to do, or if it appears to him otherwise expedient so to do in the public interest, he may by order fix or vary any such price or other factor as aforesaid notwithstanding that under the enactments regulating the operation of the arrangements in question”?

So “the Minister may” is used throughout the 1947 Act. We are simply being consistent in the approach that we take when it comes to spending powers.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case. May I say gently that times have clearly changed? The hon. Member for Stroud is probably disappointed by this fact, but times have changed since 1947. It was immediately post-war, rationing was still in place, the understanding of the importance of British agriculture was readily understood between all of the parties, and we were a far less urbanised media, culture and political class than we are today. “May” may have sufficed in 1947 when there was a more common agreement on the importance of agriculture. Given the competing philosophical thoughts bouncing around at the moment, particularly in a post-Brexit environment, what harm would “must” do to the Bill?

[George Eustice]

I disagree with my hon. Friend on this point because, as I said, I was not simply citing the 1947 Act. I also cited the Science and Technology Act 1965, which predated our membership of the EU. Even more recently, the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 used “may”, and things have not changed much since then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandy Martin]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson.

The Bill is intended to facilitate the support of agriculture and the countryside after Brexit. The situation at the moment is that all sorts of supports are in place through the European Union, so all sorts of changes, discussions and votes will be needed to change them. The Government have characterised that process as deeply bureaucratic, but it enables farmers and those engaged in agriculture to know what they will receive money for and how much they will receive well in advance, so that they may make decisions about how to carry out their business.

If the Secretary of State ever decided not to give any financial assistance of any sort to agriculture in this country, that would change the entire nature of our society. It would be inconceivable for the Secretary of State to be able to change the decision to award any financial support to agriculture without the consent of Parliament, yet by making this a power rather than a duty, the Bill does exactly that.

We heard about flexibility and the need for it. The Secretary of State, however, has plenty of flexibility even with our amendments. We are not tying the Secretary of State down to any particular way of offering financial assistance; we are only asking that he should have to do it. The flexibility that remains if our amendment is adopted is the flexibility of our Parliament to repeal the resulting Act if ever it decides to do so. Anything else puts the power to support agriculture in this country in the hands of the Secretary of State and not in the hands of Parliament. I do not believe that people were voting for that when they voted to leave the European Union. I believe that we need to tell the Secretary of State that he “must” give financial assistance to agriculture in this country.

[Simon Hoare]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson.

I shall be incredibly brief. I feel that the issue is one that the Minister has addressed in terms of the historical precedent in legislation of using “may” over “must”. In the interests of the speedy progress of the Bill, if the shadow Minister presses his amendment to a vote, I shall be voting for the Government side of the argument—the Whip will be relieved to hear that.

[Dr Drew]

That’s good to know!

[Simon Hoare]

There was an audible exhalation of breath there.

I suggest to the Minister, however, that this issue is likely to come back as an amendment in the other place and that we are likely to debate it on Report. I therefore make this point gently to my hon. Friend: the environment—not in the green sense of the term, but the political environment—and the circumstances in 1947 were very different from now with respect to the understanding of the importance and the appreciation of the need to have a vibrant agricultural sector. One can attribute all sorts of reasons for that, but it happens to be a fairly basic statement of fact.

I hear what the Minister says about the historical precedent, but I am not certain that changing “may” to “must” fundamentally weakens or alters the Bill. I think it would strengthen his elbow. Unfortunately, he will have successors in due course, as will the Secretary of State. He and the Secretary of State both have a very clear commitment to a strong agricultural cycle; I think that is beyond debate.

[Martin Whitfield]

Is there not more certainty in amending “may” to “must” than perhaps we would find in manifestos past, present and possibly future?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me down a path of debate that, without pre-judging your intervention Mr Wilson, I am pretty certain is likely to be ruled out of order. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not venture down the tantalising sylvan glade of a debate about the language used in manifestos.

The point I want to make is that the commitment to UK agriculture of the current DEFRA team is beyond peradventure, but that is not a safeguard that we can bank forever and a day. I do not say this as a party point, because I think Labour Members would agree that currently the Labour party is a more urban party than the Conservative party, but that could easily change. One could easily see a debate turning round, saying, “Hang on a moment—that lot did not give a huge amount of support to coal or steel or any other heavy industry. Why should we, as an urban party, support something that is predominantly rural and possibly Tory-voting?” The amendment would take away the temptation for more urbancentric politicians to turn their face against agriculture.

The amendment also might strengthen future DEFRA teams in debates with the Treasury, because the agricultural sector and population are smaller than the urban ones. They are possibly less powerful in a lobby of the body politic. In a difficult spending round when money is tight, as it will be in future years, to be able to say to the Treasury, “This is not an add-on or a nice-to-have. It is an imperative enshrined in statute law and I, as the Secretary of State, must have policies to deliver the things set out in section 1 of a future Act”, will—at a stroke—shoot the fox of a hawkish future Treasury Minister, who is trying to clamp down on public expenditure.

[George Eustice]

I understand the point my hon. Friend is making, but does he not accept that even if we change the word in the way the Opposition suggest, there will be nothing to prevent a future Government dramatically changing the amount of money they make available? Ultimately, it will always be the job of elected Members of Parliament at that time to hold Her Majesty’s Treasury to account, to ensure that it takes its responsibilities seriously—and to do that whether or not the word is “may” or “must” in this particular Bill.

My hon. Friend will be aware that we have a 25-year environment plan. An environment Bill will come from that, which will set out targets, objectives and commitments to get trends moving in a particular direction. It will give a longer term commitment and buy-in, which successive Governments will work towards.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend the Minister makes an incredibly powerful and telling point, with which I cannot disagree. Inexorably, that may take us on to potential further amendments or a debate in the other place. I know the Treasury is moving away from ring-fencing, but I think there is a sustainable argument that one can deploy: that a certain percentage of the contribution to GDP created by the agriculture and food sectors should be ring- fenced for precisely the purposes set out here. We have it in other areas of protected expenditure, and for good and clear reasons.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that if the Treasury is only giving the Secretary of State £5.50 a year to spend, that will not buy a huge amount of agriculture or environmental support whether this legislation says “must” or “may”. There may be future debates during the progress of the Bill about some form of ring-fencing; I make that point, knowing that the Minister and Front Bench Members are alert and alive to the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

We should produce sugar, but we should put a tax in place to determine the amount of sugar in products. I have a producer of fizzy drinks that has had to go through the whole process of taking the sugar out—it used to do that but then put the sugar back in; it no longer does that. I will not mention it by name, but it has been quite an impingement on the business. It did that because that was what it was told to do. We do not want to be overzealous in how we treat the production of food, but if we do not do something about it, the consequences will be dire. There are consequences at the moment, with so many people suffering from obesity.

[Simon Hoare]

I fear that the shadow Minister is becoming some sort of food Stalinist. I do not know where he is coming from. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire is absolutely right; this is an agriculture Bill. What people who buy products from our farmers then do with those products is subject to all sorts of food standards and regulations, but we cannot put an onus on our farmers—apart from those who are selling direct at the farm gate, farm shop or farmers market—about what people who are adding value to a product do to it. I agree with the hon. Member for Stroud about education, but this is a draconian amendment that he is promoting.

[Dr Drew]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and we can disagree about what is Stalinist. Why did the Government call their White Paper “Health and harmony”? Why did they not just call it “Farming and harmony”? We all did our consultations, maybe more in oral form than in written form in some cases. Why did we all say, “The Government are on to something here, having linked together environment, food and health”? As we have discussed this morning, they already have some difficulties with food, but they have an even bigger difficulty with health, particularly public health.

This is a very minor amendment that would provide an additional sub-clause, supporting agriculture and horticulture businesses to ensure public access to healthy, local food, which we have not stressed. We are very much in favour of local food chains as an alternative to the globalisation of the food market, because we think it is very important that people have access to good, local food that is sustainably produced. That is very minor. It is just adding a sub-clause, which would do things that presumably the Government want to do, given their public health strategy. If they do not want to do it in this part of the Bill, where will the strategy have any bite? We should argue the case that public health is important to an agriculture Bill, and we make no apologies for pushing the issue. I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East has to say about her amendment. We believe this is important and should be in the Bill, and this debate is the start.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely support my hon. Friend and his amendment 51, but my amendment 70 is a bit more detailed. I will talk first about the public health, food-related issues.

As has been said, the White Paper is called “Health and Harmony” yet there is a conspicuous lack of information about what the Government want to do to improve public health. Almost 4 million people in the UK have been diagnosed with diabetes, 90% of those type 2, which is very much associated with diet. That costs the NHS £12 billion a year, which is a good enough argument to try to do something about it.

Childhood obesity has been mentioned. We now have more children classified obese at the age of 11 than in the US, which is definitely cause for alarm. Recent research by Kellogg’s described food deserts in our most deprived areas, where it is really difficult for families to get their hands on affordable fresh fruit and vegetables. I think two of the top five areas are in south Bristol.

I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food and a member of its children’s future food inquiry, which recently published data. Members might know that the Government have an “Eat Well” guide, which is meant to indicate what a healthy diet looks like. It is not used as it should be, in that it does not inform public procurement in the way that it should, but it is out there. The inquiry’s report found that almost 4 million children in the UK live in households that would struggle to meet the official nutritional guidelines. They would not be able to afford to eat in line with what the Government recommend as a healthy diet.

My amendment also mentions the overuse of antibiotics in farming. That is not the use of antibiotics to treat illness; it is usually the result of intensive farming, with the routine over-prescription of antibiotics to compensate for the fact that animal husbandry is not as good as it could be. That is causing a public health crisis. The former Chancellor, now editor of the Evening Standard, went to the States and made a big speech to highlight that this is a public health crisis for anybody who is reliant on antibiotics.

We have seen the rise of superbugs in the NHS. I have a niece with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis patients rely on periodic applications of antibiotics, which are fast becoming ineffective. We need to take serious steps to reduce their routine use in farming. The amendment also refers to reducing the use of chemicals and pesticides on farms, and the associated health risks have been mentioned.

I very much look forward to the Government’s food strategy document. I was originally told that the outline document would come forward just before Christmas, but I have heard rumours that is has been put back further and may even have been shelved. I do not want to rely on reassurances that all this will be dealt with in a food strategy document.

I appreciate the concerns that we cannot necessarily deal with what the finished product would look like, but we could look at measures such as grants for marketing, infrastructure for on-farm processing, creating local farm supply chains and what the Minister mentioned earlier about having food production around cities, so that it would be easier to get healthy food into cities. We could also look at an equivalent to the EU fruit and vegetable aid scheme. Public procurement is incredibly important as well. There is a lot more I could say on the subject. There is a chance in the Bill to ensure that people have healthier diets. It is crisis that we cannot just ignore.

[Simon Hoare]

I oppose the amendment. There is no doubting the correctness of the baseline of the data that the shadow Minister has put forward. We are facing an obesity crisis.

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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?