Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Report stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

What a number of countries have done—the UK was in the vanguard of this—was to move away from maceration of day-old chicks towards the use of carbon dioxide and argon gas as a means of dispatching them. However, I think we could accelerate the process of identifying the eggs through the use of genetic technology.

Dehorning cattle is another mutilation that we would like to phase out over time. Progress has been made for some breeds on polled cattle—that is, cattle born without horns, so that we do not have to use a hot iron, albeit under anaesthetic, to de-bud them. Again, it is difficult to perfect without precision breeding techniques, but if we had that technology, we could have more polled cattle and reduce the need for conventional dehorning of cattle, or even pave the way for a regulatory change to prevent it.

There is also the prospect of breeding more resistance to diseases. In the dairy herd some selection is already done for natural resistance to bovine tuberculosis. It is limited in its ability, but if we had the technology, we might be able to go further.

At the moment, the Government plan to phase out and remove badger culling is predicated on a lot of confidence that a cattle vaccine will be viable and deployable, but it would be helpful to have additional tools in the box, and resistance to TB could be one of them. Of course, we are about to face another very difficult winter when it comes to avian flu, and this technology might have some application there.

However, my sense when I read amendment 4 was that whoever drafted it had had one sector in particular in mind—the broiler chicken sector. There is a genuine concern that the production speed of broiler chickens, reduced now to around 32 to 33 days, is so fast that they are having all sorts of leg problems, and we might be able to make some changes there. That is a legitimate point, because while we might say it has improved the welfare of a broiler chicken that it is bred to finish within 32 days, we might say it is in its welfare interest to ensure that it does not have leg problems. There is a second question, which is whether it is the ethical and right thing to do to produce a chicken within 32 days rather than, say, 37 days, in which case the welfare problem goes away.

A less obvious and less talked-about situation might be commercial duck production. We know that ducks need and want open water—it is part of their physiology and the way their beaks work. However, many commercial duck producers do not give ducks access to water. I have come across vets who will argue that it is in the interest of ducks not to have access to water, since that can spread disease and that is not in their welfare interest, but that goes to the root of the issue with animal welfare. We can either see animal welfare in the conventional five freedoms sense—freedom from pain, hunger, thirst and so on—or we can see it in the more modern sense of a life worth living.

The amendment does not work, because the more we put into an amendment the more we inadvertently exclude. If we accepted an amendment that proscribed certain things but missed certain things, at a future date a breeder might bring a judicial review and say, “Well, this wasn’t covered by the Bill and everything else was.” Therefore, we would not be future-proofing the importance of animal welfare.

However, that is where guidance could work. After Second Reading of the Bill, I asked our officials to give some thought to the idea of guidance, which might give organisations such as Compassion in World Farming and people such as Peter Stevenson, who is very thoughtful on these matters, the reassurance they need in the absence of a legislative change on the face of the Bill, which is difficult to do. The Minister may find that there is some guidance helpfully drafted—or it may be that it was not drafted, but it is not too late, because the Bill has time in the other House.

Will the Minister consider whether this issue of how the animal welfare body should approach its task and how it should assess the impacts on animal welfare could be dealt with in a non-statutory way through guidance. He and his officials will have to issue terms of reference anyway to the animal welfare body, which is likely to be a sub-committee of the Animal Welfare Committee, and it would not take much to set out some parameters for the things we want it to bear in mind when making assessments.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will not speak for too long, but I want to address a couple of the amendments and some of the issues affecting the Bill overall.

I will start by being extremely critical of the European Commission—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Indeed. Most of us in this House think that science is broadly a good thing, or certainly at least neutral; it is a case of what we do with it. One of the things that has irritated me most about part of the Commission over a 20 or 30-year period is its knee-jerk objection to science in this area and the idea that there can be a moratorium not just on the application of knowledge, which is an issue, but on the very knowledge and research in the first place. That troubles me greatly. We should weigh all issues up and make wise, evidence-based decisions.

On the one hand, I welcome the Bill and I certainly welcome and support science-based approaches to technologies such as genetic modification and what the Government refer to as precision breeding. They have the potential to deliver a major improvement in productivity and on the environmental front, reducing the impact of farming. Genetic modification can have a positive impact by allowing us to address pest and disease pressures on crops and farm animals, and so reduce our reliance on fertilisers and pesticides; that helps more broadly in the fight against climate change. Genetic modification also provides opportunities for us to meet global need, including the food requirements of the global poor. However, there are problems with the Bill, and reasons why I would support the Government being more open to amendments from the other place, and especially to amendments 3 and 4 tonight.

Let me mention some areas in which the Bill is weak. It does not solve the intellectual property and commercial issues surrounding genetic modification technology. If we allowed science to be better used in farming, for the reasons we have set out relating to the environment and the quality and scale of production, but ended up making farmers, particularly tenant farmers, entirely beholden to the commercial interests of large, multinational agribusinesses, that would be an outrage. That is not what farmers in this country want; they want science applied, and they want freedom. They do not want to be pawns in a multinational game. That major area of concern is not addressed in the Bill.

The Bill is also light on the details of the new regulatory requirements for crops and animals. I accept that animals should be in the scope of the Bill, but we are transitioning from a very high regulation system to a relatively low regulation system. The lack of detail on how the new system will work makes it hard to support the Bill.

Amendment 12, tabled by the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), would prevent the Secretary of State from authorising a new product if scientific evidence indicated

“that the precision bred traits are likely to have a direct or indirect adverse effect on the health or welfare of the relevant animal or its qualifying progeny”.

Lack of detail on those kinds of situations makes it hard for us to go into the Aye Lobby and support the Bill this evening. Editing a pig’s genes could, for example, make it resistant to disease—that would obviously be a welcome advantage of this technology—but the Bill must not be a shortcut that allows pigs to be reared in less hygienic, more crowded conditions. Again, that issue is not covered. Animals’ welfare must not only continue to be protected but be continuously improved.

We do not want all the effort that has been put into the high standards in British farming to be wasted as a result of a back-door watering down of standards; but if there was such a watering-down, it would be part of a pattern, I am afraid. It would fit the pattern of the trade deals that are being designed and agreed to. The deals with Australia and New Zealand in particular basically throw away the high standards we have developed. It is not only that it is morally right to have those standards; they make the provenance of our produce important, make it high-quality, and give it high ethical value. What a desperate shame that free trade, which is a good thing, should be done so badly that our farmers are thrown under the bus, have their livelihoods threatened, and cannot take advantage of the benefits that free trade ought to provide. If the Bill is part of a deregulatory framework, or part of an agenda that seeks to unfairly disadvantage British farmers or throws the standards that they have developed under the bus, that is unacceptable. Unamended, the Bill forms part of a pattern of this Government throwing our farmers to the wolves.

Farmers do not benefit from the application of science envisaged in the Bill if they do not survive the transition from the current payment scheme to the new one. Reshuffle upon reshuffle has followed on from great uncertainty, which the Government introduced in September when they indicated that they might be prepared to rip up the environmental land management scheme. There are many problems with that scheme, by the way; the fact that only 1% of eligible farmers have applied for the sustainable farming incentive shows how poorly the Government are rolling out a scheme that most Members agree with in principle. The worst thing the Government could do is rip it all up; the best thing they could do is invest in protecting the £3.5 billion supposedly ringfenced for ELMS and allow the process to take place, so that farmers survive. Farmers will be in no position to protect our environment, produce our food or apply the science that the Government want them to apply if they do not survive.

In short, we strongly support the principle underlying the Bill, but we strongly urge the Government to consider the amendments before us this evening, and those that will undoubtedly be tabled in the other place, to improve regulation, safety and animal welfare, and protect farmers from the damage that could be done to them if they end up being the pawns of multinational global enterprises. I would hate the United Kingdom to end up a mirror image of the European Commission, which regulated to such an extent that applying science was impossible. Alternatively, the Government may deregulate to such an extent that it is hard to defend the science, and that would be a real shame for all of us who genuinely care about the application of science in farming.

Sewage Pollution

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

No surprises there.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—[Interruption.]

[Tim Farron]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; impeccable timing, as always.

Look, it is obvious to everybody watching that we have a colossal problem: 6 million hours of sewage being dumped legally into our seas, lakes and rivers in the last year. These are the specifics of it: in the last 48 hours, a sewage dump on the beach at Seaford in Lewes. In my part of the world, Morecambe bay, 5,000 hours of sewage discharges on to the sands, and 1,000 hours into Windermere. Juxtapose that with £2.8 billion of profits for the water companies, £1 billion in shareholder dividend and the executives giving themselves 20% pay rises, 60% in the form of bonuses. I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I thought bonuses were what you got when you do a good job. And all this is done legally, on the sanction of this Government. When will they make these discharges illegal and ensure that the water companies pump their profits into ensuring that they protect homes and businesses, and our seas and lakes?

[George Eustice]

Our Environment Act addresses all the substantive points that the hon. Gentleman raised. As I said in my statement, Ofwat is currently consulting on an ability to regulate the dividends that companies pay and to link that to their environmental performance.

I would simply repeat that this is the first Government to prioritise this issue. These are long-term challenges. We could argue that the coalition Government, and Governments before them, could have acted on this issue and had a different strategic policy statement. There were Liberal Democrats in that Government. They chose to prioritise other issues, such as the alternative vote and Lords reform.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I will be brief. I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this particular issue in relation to customs.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) [V]]

The reason why Cumbria’s farmers feel betrayed is that the Australian trade deal gives Australian farmers an unfair advantage over British farmers, because their production costs are lower due to significantly worse animal welfare and environmental standards in Australia compared with those in our country. Given that this sets an appalling precedent for all future deals, will the Secretary of State ensure that farmers’ representatives in this House get the final say and a veto before this deal is signed off.

UK Shellfish Exports

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) [V]]

Families in Flookburgh in my constituency have fished on the sands for centuries. In recent generations, they have built a market that means the majority of their catch is sold in France. The Government’s failure to secure export rights for Flookburgh fishermen is a negligent betrayal of my communities. My constituents do not care whose fault it is, and are not impressed with the Secretary of State’s buck passing while their livelihoods are destroyed. Will he be clear about what he will do to compensate my constituents and restore their access to live shellfish markets, as they had been promised?

[George Eustice]

The UK Government, the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and other bivalve mollusc producers around the country were all promised by the European Commission that this trade could continue. We are all greatly disappointed by the about-turn by the European Union, which made the change just last week. I have written to the Commissioner setting out why that approach is wrong in law. We will be progressing those technical discussions, so that this trade can resume, since there is no justification—neither animal health nor plant health—for such a ban to be put in place.

Agricultural Transition Plan

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. When the current incarnation of the common agricultural policy was put in place, NFU Scotland was very clear that area-based payments could not be made to work properly in Scotland. It is difficult therefore to see the justification for maintaining a policy built solely on area-based payments, given the large variance in land types. I agree with him that the Scottish Government should, in line with all other parts of the UK, take this opportunity to do things differently and to do them better.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

British farming genuinely is the best in the world, fundamentally because of the family farming unit upon which it is based. The Government’s plan to deliver environmental goods through the environmental land management scheme is good and laudable, and we support it. However, the transition whereby, in a revolutionary way, people will lose half their income in three years’ time—when the average livestock farmer is reliant on basic payment for 60% of their revenue—will lead to hundreds upon hundreds of those family farms going out of business and therefore not being in a position to deliver those environmental goods by 2028. The landscape of the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales is shaped by centuries of family farming. By accident, the Government could undo all of that in a few short years—even months—so will the Secretary of State think again, not penny pinch, and make sure that the basic payment is rolled over in full until the point at which the environmental land management scheme is available for everyone?

[George Eustice]

The concept of area-based payments has only been around for about 15 years, and it has not always been in the interests of agriculture. The truth is that farmers may be the recipients of the BPS, but they are not the only beneficiaries: the BPS payment has inflated land rents and input costs, prevented people from retiring, and also prevented new entrants from getting on to the land. That is why we believe there is a better way to pay and reward farmers in future.

Support for Hill Farmers

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice]

It is absolutely the case that one key priority of the future scheme and one objective set out in clause 1 of the Bill is about improving water quality. Any measures and interventions that farmers implement that will lead to improved water quality will be exactly the type of project that we would want to support.

I also point out that it seems already to be the case, from some of the work that we have done, that when it comes to sheep farmers in particular, around 30% of them do not actually receive the BPS payment; they are in some kind of contract farm agreement and effectively their landlord takes the BPS payment while they are the ones doing all the work and raising the sheep. It is not at all clear that the current area-based BPS payment is in fact in the interests of the sheep sector.

[Tim Farron]

I want to be very clear that I have agreed with everything that the Minister has said about the area-based payment, its unjustifiable nature and how it is not a basis on which to continue—indeed, I support in principle what we are talking about with the environmental land management scheme. However, my concern is that we have a seven-year transition in which we are about to phase out the current scheme more quickly than we are to phase in the scheme to replace it. That is where we lose the people we need in order to deliver the public goods in the long term.

[George Eustice]

I entirely appreciate that and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I was not going to skip over that point; I have some time left.

The upland areas in particular are well placed to benefit from a system of support based on the delivery of public goods. Some 66% of blanket bog in England is in “triple SI”s—sites of special scientific interest—and is in those upland areas, so projects such as peatland restoration are certainly things that the uplands could do. Some of our rare and endangered bird species are in parts of the uplands so projects to support their recovery also lend themselves well to such areas. I am also thinking of projects that might mitigate the risk of floods by holding water uphill and projects such as the mires project down in the west country, on Exmoor, that can improve water quality by rewetting some of those peatland areas.

All those things mean that the potential for some of the uplands to be rewarded for what they in some cases already do, but may well do even more of in the future, is very high. The reality is that our current system pays the moorland areas, the severely disadvantaged areas, less money than it does the lowlands, even though they are probably doing most of all for our environment. The change in emphasis to payment for delivering public goods means that those severely disadvantaged areas, which historically have been told, “We will give you less subsidy because your land is less productive,” may actually be able to deliver and achieve far more.

I come now to the issue of the transition. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I agree, that getting the sequencing of the transition right will be very important. Although we have not made final decisions in these respects, I will make a number of points to him. First, the Bill provides for us to make available grants and payments to farmers to help them to improve their productivity, invest in equipment and reduce costs, and that will help farmers to get to a position in which they are less reliant on the subsidy payments that they receive now.

The Bill also provides for us to make several years’ payment in one lump sum to help—aid—the retirement of those farmers who decide that now is the time to leave. Linked to that, we know, from all the work that we have done, that if we want to encourage new entrants into the sector, the critical element is freeing up access to land. That is why, if we want new entrants to come in, we have to have projects and ideas to help farmers, who are sometimes in their 70s or 80s and still going, to make the sometimes difficult decision to retire. The measure gives us the option to be able to do that.

The Bill also gives us the power to modify the legacy scheme, to simplify some of the rules around the basic payment scheme, or indeed to simplify and modify the current pillar two countryside stewardship scheme. The integrated administration and control system that is a requirement of EU law is particularly burdensome on some of the current schemes, and we would have the option, should we wish it, to remove that.

Let me deal with some of the hon. Gentleman’s other points. He suggested that the pilot was delayed. The pilot is not delayed: we always intended to go to a full pilot in 2021, and still do, and will. The issue is that we have had trials running. We have 30 trials already up and running—already under way. There has been no delay, and further trials will be added. He suggested that we would not be in a position to roll out the new scheme until 2028. That is not the case. We intend to be rolling out the new scheme to every farmer—a full launch of the scheme—probably around 2024, so we will not be waiting until the end of the transition before we start the new scheme. We envisage that, as the legacy scheme tapers out, we will be opening up versions of the new scheme in advance of that.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that we ought to have an active farmer test. I am reluctant to get into that kind of EU rule making, as it was not particularly successful when the EU tried it. However, he makes a very good point: some of the environmental benefits that we need explicitly require grazing, and grazing by the right type of animal, to be taking place on our upland areas, to keep the bracken down and the sward at the right length so that conditions are made most favourable for invertebrates, which in turn helps farmland birds. It is therefore not the case that we want to take land out of grazing; indeed, grazing has an important part to play. We have amended the Bill so that it recognises native breeds and rare breeds in particular as a public good. We changed that in its latest iteration so that we can reward those hill farmers who are using and encouraging the preservation of some of our important genetic resources.

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to get farmers a fair price for the food that they produce. Although we chose not to extend the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, we have in the Agriculture Bill taken wide-ranging powers to be able to legislate in the field of contracts to ensure that there is fairness in the supply chain and transparency around what farmers are paid as well as on issues such as carcase classification. There are quite wide powers in the Bill dealing with those things.

My final point is that it is not correct to say that we watered down the GCA. There was a delay in the introduction of penalties for breaches, but those were put in place—I think even under the last coalition Government, but possibly after the end of the coalition Government and under the Conservative Government from 2015. But substantial sanctions are in place and available to it.

I hope that I have been able to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we see a vibrant future for hill farming. We believe that hill farmers will be able to benefit from our new system of payment for public goods, and they can look to the future with confidence.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and George Eustice

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill will give certainty and clarity about this year to all farmers who currently make a BPS claim and have done for some years. That will include, of course, dairy farmers and beef farmers. Beef farmers in particular have been through a rather difficult year, in which beef prices have been suppressed, and the knowledge and clarity that there will absolutely be continuity this year, and that payments will be made, will be very welcome to them.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Minister’s own Department’s figures recognise that 85% of livestock farm income comes through basic payments. Of course, this 12-month stay of execution will be welcomed by many of my farmers, but from next January, he is planning to phase out BPS, and the danger is that there will be no certainty about its replacement before 2028. Does he not worry that we will lose many livestock farmers during that seven-year transition, and does he agree that he should therefore delay the phasing out of BPS?

[George Eustice]

It is important to recognise that a significant proportion of sheep farmers in particular do not receive the basic payment scheme area payment, because they are on contract farm agreements and the landlord receives that money. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I think the principle of investing in public goods has support across the House, but we need to strike this new course sensitively and ensure that agriculture remains profitable. We want a vibrant and profitable agriculture industry, which is why the Agriculture Bill also makes provision for payments to improve productivity, and sets a quite long transition period of seven years, so that we can gradually phase out the old legacy scheme. He will be reassured to hear that the Bill before us makes no changes at all for the coming year. Farmers in his constituency can rest assured that once this Bill is passed, the direct payment scheme will operate this year in exactly the same way as it has in previous years.