Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture)

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

It is a trade question, but ultimately if we want to trade with our biggest trading partner and our neighbours in the EU, we have to maintain those standards. We would not want to do anything to hobble our world famous potteries industry. I know that he agrees with that sentiment.

A lot has been said about GM food and feed. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) made that the kernel of her remarks. The laws around genetic modification were very high profile, perhaps due to Prince Charles’s interventions, back when I was at school.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Not that long ago.

[Steve Brine]

Quite right. The GM regulations are not about changing the robust controls that we have for GM food and feed; they are about correcting the deficiencies in the authorisations that will exist at the point of EU exit. I want to maintain those robust controls. I am putting in place a UK-centric authorisation process as a result of exit, but the data requirements and the robust scientific studies that are required for application will remain exactly the same. Any assessments made of GM food and feed will be made purely on scientific, evidence-based grounds. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that decisions are not made entirely on those grounds at an EU level at the moment. That is one of the benefits that we will glean from taking back control—I knew I would get it in there somewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) mentioned the Agriculture Bill. These SIs only fix the operability of EU law when it is brought into UK law. It is for the House to discuss and debate any changes required to give effect to policies in the Agriculture Bill, and I know that she will be at the heart of that.

The hon. Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) and for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) are absolutely right, and I have said that whenever I have spoken about SIs. There has been a lot of talk of the withdrawal Act containing Henry VIII powers, but Henry VIII was an awful lot more powerful than the Act. It is a piece of housekeeping legislation that allows us to bridge EU regulations over to UK legislation; it does not allow us to make significant changes either way on standards. That is perfectly reasonable. Once this House resumes the role of a sovereign Parliament, it will be able to make those decisions for our country, and the Scottish Parliament will be able to do the same north of the border.

If I may say so respectfully, many of the arguments that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith made belong back before 2016. The country made a decision to leave the European Union. She argues against a no-deal Brexit, as I do—that is not the Government’s policy. I gently say to her that I keep voting for a safe exit from the European Union; she and her party do not.

My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, whom I am sorry to see on the Back Benches, because he was an excellent farming Minister, is absolutely right that this is about having an operable statute book and transferring functions. I have learned many things about food and feed in the past few months, because we are discussing them in the House of Commons and its Committees. That is very refreshing, and we will be doing so more, because when we introduce changes either way, they will have to be discussed and agreed by this House. He is right that they were previously only discussed by the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I am sure he thoroughly enjoyed that, but they are now discussed on the Floor of the House of Commons. That truly is progress.

My hon. Friend’s thoughts on the FSA’s conception and birth were very interesting. He was right to spot—he gave the paragraph references in three of the four SIs—that Ministers must have regard to FSA advice. He was also dead right to say that how operability will function is not a finished piece of work. That is why we have taken these powers in the first instance. Once we are a third country, we will have to refine and change that, and we will discuss it with the House and its various Committees. On the architecture, his advice about looking at the Health and Safety Executive was very interesting. I and the FSA, I am sure, will be very interested to talk to him in more detail about that.

We have spent a long time talking about housekeeping measures that will ensure that we maintain the food and feed standards that our constituents expect. Notwithstanding the difficulties we have deciphering what 17.5 million people meant when they voted leave, I am sure we all agree that they did not mean lower standards in the food that they eat and give to their children. These regulations play a very important part in ensuring that those standards are maintained when we leave the European Union.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.

Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

Resolved,

That the draft Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.—(Steve Brine).

Exiting the European Union (Food)

Resolved,

That the draft Novel Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.—(Steve Brine).

Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

Resolved,

That the draft Animal Feed (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February 2019, be approved.—(Steve Brine).