Draft Organics (Equivalence and Control Bodies Listing) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, may I remind Members that the current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission is that Members wear masks when they are not speaking? Please may I also ask you to give Members and staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Organics (Equivalence and Control Bodies Listing) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.

It is great pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

The statutory instrument was made to streamline the process of listing and accessing the third countries and third-country control bodies that we recognise as compliant and equivalent for the purposes of our organic regulations. The amendments made by the SI do not constitute policy change.

As established in the Northern Ireland protocol, EU organics regulations will continue to apply to Northern Ireland as they do in the EU. As such, Northern Ireland will continue to use the list of recognised third countries and third-country control bodies in EU law, and the SI will have no effect in Northern Ireland although it will in the other three nations of the UK.

For organic products imported from another country to be legally sold as organic in Great Britain they must be certified as organic by a third country or third-country control body that we recognise as having equivalent or compliant standards. The lists are currently contained within regulation EC No 1235/2008. Annex III lists third countries recognised as equivalent, giving the names and websites of the competent authority for each country, along with a list of the control bodies operating in that country, their control body codes, and websites. Annex IV lists third-country control bodies recognised as equivalent, providing for each the name, address, website, code numbers, applicable countries and product categories listed.

As the law stands, it would be necessary to pass a new SI to confirm recognition of a new country or control body, or for changes to existing recognition, for example if the name, website address or approved goods categories changed. With hundreds of organisations listed, that information can change frequently. When we were in the EU, a committee met, not Parliament, several times a year to agree minor changes related to addresses and so forth. Because it met only several times a year, the current retained regulations are not absolutely up to date. Given the administrative nature of the changes, we believe that making numerous new statutory instruments to reflect them would not be an appropriate use of parliamentary time, or, indeed, any of our time. We also worry that the time taken to pass such SIs would have a negative impact on trade in organics.

Details held in these lists are necessary and important for port health authorities, local authorities, and other relevant parties to ensure that the goods in question have been certified in a recognised third country, or by a recognised third-country control body. The delay between the changes taking place and being reflected in legislation would result in discrepancies between the documents and legislation. That could well cause disruption, as even minor discrepancies might delay goods being checked at ports, for example.

The SI will not alter the criteria according to which third countries and third-country control bodies are recognised. At the moment, we recognise 13 countries, plus the EU, and about 55 control bodies. Before we recognise a country or control body we do an extensive technical comparison of standards. The SI just seeks to move the lists currently referenced in legislation to the gov.uk website, where they can be updated directly by officials. In listing any new country, we will continue to uphold the high standards that our consumers and businesses expect.

That change will also improve accessibility of the lists for stakeholders by providing all the relevant information in a single location. We expect the change to be warmly welcomed by stakeholders as they have complained about the current system in the past. The proposed lists on gov.uk will be updated to reflect the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and extend EU organic equivalence until the end of December 2023 as agreed in the TCA, without the need to pass any more SIs on the subject.

The UK has committed to updating the lists of recognised third countries and third- country control bodies to reflect the changes that occurred before the end of the transition period. We will add, remove and amend some of the control bodies in both Annex III and Annex IV. Until the SI comes into effect, goods certified by those control bodies risk rejection at the border.

The changes contained in the SI have been discussed with port health authorities; UK organic control bodies, through the UK Organic Certifiers Group; and the Devolved Administrations at the UK Organics Four Nations Working Group. All of them have warmly welcomed the changes and I therefore commend the SI to the Committee.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve once again with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place—elevated no less—and also surrounded by lots of hon. Friends. It is wonderful to see so many people here. I also understand that an additional Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister has been added to the team. I take it that that is no doubt a response to the ferocious onslaught from the Opposition Benches over many years. Although it may not be clear who is doing what yet, I hope that the Minister retains her responsibility for cats—I am sure that she will—and organics.

We have discussed this issue many times, and at first sight the proposed SI is thoroughly innocuous. I should start by reassuring everyone that, looking at the numbers present, the Opposition will not press the motion to a Division—[Interruption.] Well, we are not used to winning. At first sight, the proposals are reasonable, and the desire to streamline the UK’s organic regulatory framework is clearly laudable, but I want to raise some issues, not least those raised by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It does excellent work, and its in-depth examination of the instrument is exemplary. There has been some to-ing and fro-ing between the Committee and the Department as the Committee wrote seeking answers—those answers were quite hard to find hidden as they were in appendix 1—and those questions are worth putting on the record today.

The Lords Scrutiny Committee made the strong point that the SI will result in the loss of parliamentary oversight. Perhaps that is a minor issue for some, but I think it is rather important. As the Minister has outlined, in the explanatory memorandum DEFRA justified the decision to change the process to an administrative one by arguing that the current process can be very time-consuming and take up to a year. That rather prompts the question why it has to take that time to get an SI through. The Scrutiny Committee certainly did not find that a particularly convincing argument. It does not have to take a year to do things—in the last week or two we have noticed how legislation can be rammed through Parliament very quickly when the will is there. It should not take us a year to consider SIs, and nor is that a good enough reason to withdraw parliamentary oversight from this process.

The Lords Scrutiny Committee was also not convinced by the Department’s argument that changes to recognition were uncontroversial administrative amendments that do not require scrutiny. The Committee argued that such changes are exactly the sort of things that should be considered. I may be old-fashioned, but I think that parliamentary scrutiny matters: they are important big changes in our trading relationships with the rest of the world. The Committee argued that SIs are frequently used to make much less significant changes, such as updates to lists of recognised countries or bodies, and it argued that parliamentary oversight is desirable.

In the exchange of questions and answers with DEFRA, the department said that there would be sufficient transparency because the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament. We have all heard that argument and we know how well that works in practice. Frankly, we need something better than that. The Committee did not find DEFRA’s response wholly convincing, and it is right. It said that that response was simply a statement of the constitutional norm and was not a suitable replacement for parliamentary oversight of individual decisions in a specific policy area. It also raised the ongoing questions about the impact on Northern Ireland. That is hardly a surprise, given that that continues to be an unresolved issue that the Government bat away as unfortunate collateral damage.

In its response to the Scrutiny Committee, DEFRA stated that EU law will continue to apply directly in Northern Ireland under the protocol, and any changes in recognition by the EU in relation to organic standards will be made by the European Commission via legislative amendments. As a result, in cases of divergence of recognition between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, organic goods that are imported to Great Britain from a third country that does not have mutual recognition with the EU for organic goods could not be moved to Northern Ireland. That is a familiar argument that we seem to keep on replaying, and one might well conclude that it is absurd that the Government are proposing a system in which certain organic foods imported into Great Britain could be barred from another part of our country, namely Northern Ireland.

Does the Minister have any comments on the concerns raised by the Lords Scrutiny Committee? Despite all that and the deficiencies identified, it is important to recognise the views of the stakeholders involved. She has rightly said that they are concerned about the length of time it takes to make changes, particularly when we are dealing with many new situations with many third countries as a result of fragmentation.

I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the organic certifiers. They have asked me to point out that that there is a need for scrutiny, but they would like that to be conducted by an independent group made up of organic interest groups, enforcement bodies, representatives from the devolved nations and organic control bodies to provide oversight of the proposed changes and to the organic regulatory framework more generally. They argue that the such a body would help to provide the necessary safeguards and give guidance to Ministers to help them to engage with the detailed provisions of UK and third-party organic regulations while upholding the principles underlying those standards and serving the interests of the general public and stakeholders in the organic sector. Again, I would welcome the Minister’s views on that suggestion. There seems to be a plethora of potential committees that could established in this field. I am told that DEFRA has previously promised that it would establish an expert group similar to the EU’s expert group for technical production, but the organic sector has heard nothing further on the plans for its establishment. Again, I would seek the Ministers views on that.

In the annex to the TCA, there is also reference to a “Working Group on Organic Products”, which has yet to be formally established. Despite indications that the first meeting would be held in the summer, I am told that DEFRA has taken the decision to postpone the meeting until November at the earliest. When will the Minister’s Department finally come good on its promises and set up all those groups?

In summary, can the Minister guarantee that the SI is not just another example of the Government trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny? When the Minister replies, could she say a little about the future of organics in the UK? The EU has set a bold course—25% by 2030. Where will we be in 2030 on organics? I have to say that unless there is a significant change of course, my fear is that we will be way behind. We need to do better. The SI fiddles with the lists, but we need some ambition and some action, and I am afraid that that is too sorely lacking.

[Victoria Prentis]

I spent many happy years serving Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and—

[The Chair]

Minister, I missed Mr Doogan. If hon. Members wish to speak, they should stand. That is why I missed the hon. Member.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

I am so sorry; I did not notice.

[The Chair]

No, it is my fault. I call Mr Doogan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

If I may, I will deal with the last question first. There is a long-standing disagreement about whether this is a devolved matter or not. In this instance, we took the approach of getting the changes we have suggested approved with the devolved Administrations at the Organics Four Nations Working Group. We dealt with it in that way. When I say “our”, I mean the UK, normally.

As I started to say, I spent many years on the JCSI and I therefore have enormous respect for Lords scrutiny of secondary legislation. I have corresponded with the Lords Committee Chair on this issue, and I was pleased that the Committee appeared to accept our assurance on the Northern Ireland issue. If I may, I will not go into that in any great detail as I dealt with it in my opening remarks.

I completely agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge that parliamentary oversight is never a minor issue. I gently remind him that while we were in the EU this was not overseen by Parliament, but dealt with by a committee at EU level that met several times a year. On scrutiny, the important issue is not the addresses and the websites, but whether we recognise a third country or a third-country control body as equivalent. I reassure the Committee that the recognition will be subject to extensive technical checks and we will make sure that the enforcement mechanisms work. The final decision will of course be overseen by the Secretary of State, as is normal, and if recognition is agreed, the third country must meet continuing obligations, including, for example, the provision of annual reports, notifications of infringements and changes to its standards and controls.

Organic trade between the UK and any third country, which is recognised in the future, will of course be subject to the provisions of any free trade agreement or treaty, and Parliament will have oversight of that.

I think that the future of organic farming is bright. I know that the hon. Member for Cambridge has had a long interest in it, as do I, and I believe that organic farmers are well placed to benefit from our future farming schemes, due to the very high standards to which they operate. I suspect that many of them will go directly to the higher level schemes, truthfully, and I reassure the Committee that the environmental land management schemes group has members from the two control bodies serving on it, and they have made very sure that there is a loud voice for organics in the development of the schemes’s process.

It is true that we are still working on setting up an organics working group. Unfortunately, the EU has delayed a number of meetings, but we continue to press to set up that group as soon as possible. The UK Organics Four Nations Working Group continues to operate well. With that in mind, I commend the SI to the Committee.

Question put and agreed.