Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

I start by paying tribute to all those who work around the clock to keep the nation fed, whether that is in fields, processing plants, factories, wholesalers or stores, and those who move our goods around. The pandemic has reminded us that domestic food production really matters. Our production-to-supply ratio remains relatively high, judged against historical levels. If we look at the foods we can produce here, it remains healthy at 70%, and that has been stable for the past 20 years or so. We are close to 100% self-sufficient in poultry, eggs, carrots and swedes, for example.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for food security, including household food security, and monitoring it.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Victoria Prentis]

I would be delighted to give way to the hon. Lady. She and I have discussed these issues many times.

[Kerry McCarthy]

We have indeed. Both the current Secretary of State, during the Committee stage of the Agriculture Bill, and the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), when he spoke with me at the Oxford real farming conference, made a pledge to support more county farms and peri-urban farming, so that cities such as Bristol could produce food locally. We were promised funding, but it does not seem to have appeared. Can the Minister tell me what the Department is doing on that front?

[Victoria Prentis]

It is always a real pleasure to talk to the hon. Lady about these matters, because she has really leant into them over the years, and the work of her all-party parliamentary group on the national food strategy has been very helpful. I should be delighted to meet her again to talk about what we can do for county and peri-urban farms. We are putting together a new entrants strategy as part of our environmental land management plans. We have not quite finalised that work, but I think it would be a good idea if I could meet her so that she can feed into the work that we are doing.

[John Redwood]

Does the Minister agree that there is no reason why we should not produce 100% of the temperate food that we need? We lost a huge amount of market share when the common agricultural policy was introduced, and some of us want to get that back now that we are out of the CAP. Is it not better to cut the food miles and rely on local jobs and local production?

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

It is also a pleasure to talk to my right hon. Friend about these matters. I have also spoken to him many times, in this instance about his plan to boost horticulture, particularly fruit and vegetable production, in his constituency and, indeed, across the nation. Fruit production has fallen to 16% of what we consume nationally, and fruit is one of the very few foodstuffs whose price has risen in comparative terms over the last 10 years when the price of most other foodstuffs has fallen.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will just finish this point.

It is very much part of our strategy and our future plans that we should do our best to boost innovation and investment in ways of growing those horticultural products in a way that we can do in this country. My Secretary of State is extremely keen on that.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Victoria Prentis]

If Members do not mind, I will make a little progress now, because otherwise we shall be here all day.

Our Agriculture Act 2020 committed us to reporting to Parliament on food security in the UK at least once every three years. I have with me the excellent report that we published shortly before Christmas, and I commend it to colleagues. It is not a political document; it was compiled by Government statisticians, and it contains information about food security that will be extremely useful to Members in all parts of the House.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Research from the House of Commons Library shows that in my constituency, electricity and gas prices are up by £741 a year, the petrol price is up by 22%, and food costs have risen by £100 a year. Does the Minister really think that this is the time to be hiking national insurance contributions by 1.25%?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will come to that point later, if I may. At this stage, I want to say more about the food security report.

As I was saying, the first of these reports was published in December. It examines past, current and predicted trends. Food prices fluctuate in any given year. They depend on a range of factors, including food import prices, domestic agricultural prices, domestic labour and manufacturing costs, and exchange rates, all of which fluctuate over time. Some of these factors are influenced by our trading arrangements with other countries. Most food sector businesses are accustomed to fluctuations in supply chain costs, and they do not necessarily pass them on to consumers. Negative food inflation rates were recorded for much of late 2020 and early 2021, as we were in the earlier stages of the pandemic. We know now that, sadly, energy costs are rising substantially, and we are of course monitoring the effects of that on prices of products for consumers extremely carefully.

We carry out annual surveys looking at household expenditure on food, and we monitor that closely as well. Spending among the poorest 20% of households has been broadly stable for the last 14 years. Since 2008, between 14% and 17% of the expenditure of the poorest households has been on food and non-alcoholic drinks, while the average household has spent between 10% and 12% of its income on food.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Bearing in mind that we are the sixth richest country on this planet, what explanation would the Minister offer for the fact that a growing number of my constituents in Leeds Central are having to go up to a complete stranger at a food bank and ask them for help to feed their families because they do not have enough money to feed them themselves?

[Victoria Prentis]

I hope that in the course of my remarks I will be able to answer the right hon. Gentleman more fully, but in brief I would like to say that we clearly have increases in the cost of living. The Chancellor came to this House to talk about them in detail last week and I know that there have rightly been many debates on this important subject—

[Hilary Benn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

If I may finish my remarks, I will.

There are many pressures on household budgets, the two top ones being broadly, usually, housing costs and fuel costs. There is very little give normally; there are very few other sources available to help families with those two important pressures. Food, as I am just outlining, is often a smaller part of the household expenditure pot. Because there are sometimes food charities to help with expenditure, it is a part where other help can be sourced. If I may, I will make some progress.

The average household has spent between 10% and 12% on food, so that is relatively low. Compared with EU countries, for example, it is the lowest. There has been a gradual decrease in expenditure as a percentage both for the lowest 20% by income and for all households. Back in the 1950s, the spend on food would have been about a third of income.

Of course, we work hard alongside other Departments in Government—for example, the Department for Work and Pensions, which is responsible for the welfare system and supporting those with particular challenges in their lives at any point. During the pandemic, we put in place a £170 million covid winter grant scheme, with 80% earmarked to provide support with food and bills. I chaired the food to the vulnerable ministerial taskforce, which was set up in spring 2020, and we put in place support for the most vulnerable individuals.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

No, I will make some progress, if I may.

We put in place and then expanded the holiday activities and food programme, which helped to ensure that children are provided with and really learn about healthy food during the holidays. We increased the value of healthy start vouchers to support pregnant women and those with children under four on low incomes, and we put in place £32 million of direct Government giving to food distribution charities, including FareShare.

There have also been some excellent private sector initiatives to help people who are struggling to afford food. Last year, Waitrose announced a trial that supported struggling families through the pandemic by linking farms that supply them with the food distribution charity FareShare. That was the first time a supermarket had covered the basic costs for farmers to divert surplus food directly from their farms to families who need it.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I am going to make some progress.

As we look to our recovery from the pandemic, we are supporting those on lower incomes, including spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age. We know that people are facing pressures with the cost of living, which is why we are taking action to help them, which includes targeting support. Something we learned again and again in the pandemic, not least in my taskforce, is that, if we target support to the most vulnerable and low-income households, we can do the most good. Such targeted support includes the warm homes discount scheme, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments. Vulnerable households across the UK are also able to access the £500 million support fund to help them with essentials, including food.

The Conservative route to fighting poverty is work. Just last week, my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary announced a new jobs mission to get 500,000 more people into work.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

No. We have 1.2 million vacancies to fill, and our message to jobseekers is clear: we will support you to help you into work.

I am really keen to start a national conversation when it comes to food, and I am delighted that we will shortly be publishing our promised food strategy. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I would be delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have discussed these matters previously.

[David Linden]

I wonder what it says about the Government’s global Britain image around the world when they send Ministers away on their £500,000 jets. Do they go abroad to talk to people about the fact that they have all these taskforces? On that point, is the taskforce still meeting? Surely the Minister will understand that, yes, there are pressures in terms of exporting and prices, but the fundamental reality is that people just do not have enough money in their pocket at the moment, and that the pandemic just highlighted pre-existing problems that this Government must get a grip on.

[Victoria Prentis]

The food to the vulnerable ministerial taskforce was set up at a particularly frightening time for our country right at the beginning of the pandemic, when, for the first time, we were dealing with people’s access to food not just in terms of paying for it but in terms of physically going out to buy it. The Government had to deal with a whole range of problems that, frankly, I could never have predicted. I am very proud of the work that we did. We worked closely with the devolved Administrations, who were very much part of that taskforce, and we were able to provide help to the shielding and to people who felt unable or were unable to leave home. We also worked closely with retailers at a time when they were under enormous strain.

[Chris Stephens]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

No, I am going to conclude now.

The food strategy will be published shortly and I am very much looking forward to bringing the White Paper before the House. We are working on the final draft at the moment, and I very much expect it will be here in weeks, rather than months. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a food system that feeds our nation today and protects it for tomorrow. It will build on existing work across Government and identify new opportunities to make the food system healthier, more sustainable, more resilient and more accessible for people across the UK.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Just to give everyone an indication, a lot of people are trying to catch my eye and I anticipate that we will start the wind-up speeches no later than 4.10. There will be 10 minutes then for each Front Bencher, and the switch-over for those wanting to take part in the next debate should be no later than 4.30, but those outside the Chamber should please keep an eye on the monitors, as that could come earlier. There will be a five-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions immediately after Peter Grant.

Glue Traps (Offences) Bill

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

I want to speak briefly to the amendments, as it gives me a chance to thank the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) for all his work on glue traps. He has tabled an early-day motion on these barbaric traps and we share the aim of stopping the cruelty and suffering that, sadly, they cause. I want to reassure him: I have also been contacted by animal welfare charities and believe that clause 1(2) closes the loophole:

“A person who sets a glue trap in England in a manner which gives rise to a risk that a rodent will become caught in the glue trap commits an offence.”

I cannot think of a location where a trap could be set even if someone said they were setting it for parrots or for cats; I cannot think of an occasion when another animal could be in a place that could be guaranteed to be free of rodent access. For that reason I did not think that the amendments were necessary, but I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s efforts.

The other points the right hon. Gentleman raises in the amendments give me the chance again to plead with the Minister to make the licensing enforcement regime watertight. I share the concern that people given licences should have to prove a very high level of competence in the ability to dispatch quickly and humanely any animal stuck on a glue trap. I thank the right hon. Gentleman again for his contributions.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

I hope I will be able to reassure the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), and indeed Muffin, Bobby and Mrs Skittles along the way.

I understand the concern expressed through the amendments on glue traps, as we do want to prevent other small vertebrate animals and indeed birds from falling victim to the traps. The Bill already addresses that in its current wording, however, so the amendments are unnecessary.

The Bill refers specifically to rodents as they are the primary target of glue traps, which are marketed with catching rodents in mind; however, it would not be a defence for a user to claim that a trap had been set to catch a vertebrate that was not a rodent. If a trap is set in a manner which gives rise to a risk that a rodent will become caught, that is an offence regardless of the intent. It does not matter what was the target or intended target of the trap; if a trap is set outdoors to catch another vertebrate animal, that in itself is an offence, so other vertebrate animals at risk from a glue trap would still be protected by this Bill. It is also important to note that it is already an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to set a glue trap in any place where a wild bird could be caught.

Again, I understand the reasoning behind amendments 4 and 5, but the Bill already covers what they seek to address. They might also create difficulties for a future licensing regime. The Bill is drafted to allow a range of licences to be granted in order to ensure that the Secretary of State has the flexibility to grant the most suitable type of licence for the intended use or pest controller. The precise details of the licensing regime will only be worked out following extensive discussions with stakeholders, who will include pest controllers, animal welfare organisations and the licensing body. We do not want to prejudge the outcome of these discussions; however, whatever the form of licence granted, the Bill makes it explicit that licences can only be issued to pest controllers on an exceptional basis.

The Bill sets out clear limits on the Secretary of State’s power to grant licences to ensure that any licence can only be granted once the Secretary of State is satisfied that the licence is necessary to preserve public health or safety and there is no other satisfactory solution available to meet this purpose. It would not be appropriate further to restrict the type of licence that could be granted, as that might need to reflect a number of variables such as their intended use, the pest controller to whom the licence is to be granted, and the measures that can be taken to safeguard the welfare of any rodents or other animals that might be caught in a licensed glue trap.

Finally, I turn to amendment 6. Again, I fully understand what the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside is trying to get at in the amendment, but I think it is unnecessary, as it would not change the effect of clause 2 and his concerns will be addressed through the licensing regime. The amendment seeks to ensure that the definition of pest controller is worded to apply to a business that provides a pest control service. The current wording—

“a person…who, in the course of a business, provides a service which consists of, or involves, pest control”—

amounts to the same thing. I know that he is concerned that a restaurant owner could class themselves as a pest controller. However, we cannot see that a court would agree with that interpretation; indeed, no one would like to think of a restaurant business providing its customers with a service that included pest control.

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[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) for her tremendous work in introducing this Bill and for navigating it to this stage. It has been a real pleasure to work with her.

We have heard some excellent speeches this morning. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) made the valid point that there are still some sectors in which it may be necessary to continue to use glue traps. One he suggested is the aviation sector, and if there is an area where a mouse or a rat is causing trouble—particularly in gnawing through wiring, for example—and the layout of the area means it is impossible to get in another type of trap to catch the animal, a glue trap might be appropriate. That is why we have left the licensing provisions in the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), who normally talks to me a great deal about fish processing, reminded us—I am not sure that we were grateful—how close we are to a rat, probably at this very moment. She also talked about how intelligent they are.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) made valid points about how people are working together in Wolverhampton to make animal welfare better across the sphere. He also made the valid point that litter picking is definitely part of the answer to troublesome rodents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), who was soothed to sleep by rodents as a child, discussed the truly horrific event—I am not surprised it is seared on his memory—of his brother killing a rat. However, he also made some serious points, which I will address. The offence in clause 1(5) covers a situation in which a person fails to remove a trap set by somebody else. It is really aimed at people, for example, in house purchasing, such as the new owner of a property. The concept of reasonable excuse, as he knows very well, is widely used in criminal legislation. It does not seek to impose the burden of proof on the defendant. If the defence of reasonable excuse were raised, it would be for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant did not have a reasonable excuse. Reasonable excuses would certainly include trespass and the tort of interfering with somebody’s property. I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but occasionally I cannot help behaving like a lawyer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) talked seriously about the effects of slow death on animals. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) was also keen to share his experiences of rats, and he was right to draw attention to the large variety of traps available in this very building.

I agree with the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) that I have seen considerably more of her this week than I have of my family. It is, as ever, good to have her support on this Bill.

If I may, I would like to say a little about the rodents for which glue traps are currently marketed. I think it has been accepted across the House that we do need to control rodents, but in our nation of animal lovers, it is important that we do so as humanely as possible. We think the house mouse arrived in Britain in the iron age. Archaeological evidence indicates that they were present in large numbers by Roman times. The Mammal Society suggests that the availability of food and habitat for mice, and in turn their population, will have reduced—and I, for one, think that is good news—since the 1960s owing to changes in housing construction, the way we keep food, such as in sealed containers, and indeed developments in agriculture, including more secure grain storage. It is true to say that mice can breed prodigiously. In man-made environments where there is a good supply of food, litters of between five and eight baby mice can be born at roughly monthly intervals. Although house mice can be found out in the countryside, they are poor competitors with other rodents, particularly wood mice. The house mouse is very happy to live side by side with humans, and its movement patterns and current widespread distribution are really because of its ability to adapt to us.

The brown rat is a very adaptable species. They are mainly nocturnal animals, and being able to climb and swim allows them to exploit a wide range of resources. They prefer habitats with dense cover and, of course, an abundance of food: they will eat just about anything. They are prevalent in rural farm buildings, but also occur in other rural habitats, most notably the river environment as we all know from children’s literature. Densities vary dramatically before and after harvest. Substantial populations, such as the ones we have largely heard about today, also exist in urban areas, where they frequent sewers and other areas where food waste is available. They also live in buildings, and in many coastal habitats, especially salt marshes and grasslands.

It comes as a surprise to many people to learn that brown rats have only been in this country for around 300 years. They seem to have been introduced to the British Isles as a species in around 1720. Their forerunner, the black rat, has a longer history and, rightly or wrongly, is associated with outbreaks of plague. It is not a native mammal to these islands either. The brown rat has subsequently spread throughout the British Isles and indeed much of the world, often carried in ships. Reproduction is observed all year round, females can begin to breed at three to four months old, and they typically have five litters of between six and 11 baby rats a year.

If I may, I will suggest a few alternatives to the use of a baseball bat, which is not recommended by the Government, as a means for trapping house mice and brown rats. They can certainly both be viewed as pests. That has led to humans persecuting rather than conserving them, often through the use of traps. It is likely that people have trapped mice for as long as people have had houses. The word “mousetrap” dates from at least 1475, and reference to “a mousetrap” is made in “Hamlet”. The world’s first produced mousetraps seem to have appeared in the late 19th century. While arguments rage as to who invented it, candidates include a British ironmonger, Mr Atkinson, who in 1897 designed the “little nipper”, which is still the basis of one of the widely used break-back traps today. A wide selection of foodstuffs can be used to catch mice. My husband favours peanut butter, and I am surprised we have not heard more from hon. Members about their preferences for use in break-back traps.

There is a live and wide debate about who was the first to develop the first lethal mousetrap with a spring-loaded cast iron jaw. Various American lay claim to doing so. It is notable that many patents are filed for new mousetraps every year. The Government fully support innovation in this field and the development of more humane means of trapping rodents, which can only be welcomed by us all in this House.

I, too, would like to express my gratitude to animal welfare organisation who have helped with the Bill. Although the scope of the Bill is narrow, it is a vital addition to our animal welfare legislation. We have heard about the suffering the traps can cause and it is therefore right to ban their use in all but the most exceptional circumstances. We look forward to working closely with animal welfare groups and pest control organisations to ensure that the licensing regime is appropriate and effective. I also warmly welcome the positive news that, since the Bill was introduced last year, the Governments in Scotland and Wales have both made announcements of plans to introduce similar legislation. We will wait to see how those develop, but aligning legislation to ensure an effective ban across Britain would seem desirable.

I offer my thanks again to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East for introducing the Bill and to all hon. Members who have contributed today and in previous stages. I am pleased to reiterate the Government’s support for the Bill and wish it well in its progress.

Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 4th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

I wonder whether it might be in order to wish my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) an extremely happy birthday. It is good to see him in his place.

I join everyone in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for his tremendous and attentive work on this excellent Bill, and congratulate him on steering it through the House. As he and other hon. Members have mentioned, this is an occasion when we feel the loss of David Amess very sharply, although of course we also look forward to welcoming the new MP for Southend West following her election last night.

We have heard some excellent speeches this morning. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) spoke about service animals, including Finn, and his personal experience of serving with animals on the frontline. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) mentioned the “sassy little bitch” Karen, and pointed out that the Bill is a way to prevent bad situations from getting worse. That is exactly the purpose of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) pointed out that everybody in the Chamber was smiling as we consider the Bill, as was everyone in the photographs I saw of the Minister’s visit to the guinea pigs in her constituency yesterday.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) made the point that going to court is not always the most effective way to deal with the problem, and my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) made some serious comments about the Bill. I can reassure him that we will go into further detail in secondary legislation and, if necessary, guidance on who will enforce the penalty notices. To give him some idea, we envisage that the Rural Payments Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and local authorities will be the bodies most likely to be charged with doing this. I share his concerns about incentivising the issuing of fixed penalty notices, but I would ask him to look at the Treasury guidelines on that very point. I reassure him that that will always be at the forefront of my mind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) told us about Greyhound Gap and the hedgehog rescue centre, and made an unexpectedly bipartisan speech, which was good to hear. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) meets animals on the campaign trail, but I was also glad to hear about Jerry the cat’s enjoyment of “Match of the Day”. I would not have thought that such activity would be subject to the issuing of a penalty notice. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) made an important speech, although she did sadly refer to her extremely badly behaved animals. I was delighted to visit her constituency last Friday and eat some Cropwell Bishop stilton with her for lunch.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly makes animal welfare a priority of hers, because of the sad record of her constituency in this regard. Recognising that is in many ways the best way of dealing with the problem, and I applaud her for her work in this area. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) understands the value of pets to us all. We are about to hear a great deal more from her, and I would like to add that I enjoyed meeting Cromwell and Bertie on Zoom—they certainly hold their own in her household.

I associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). It was an honour to attend Jack’s funeral earlier this week. Although he was not always bipartisan, he was a model of how cross-party working can take matters forward, so I think he would be pleased with what we are doing today.

This Bill is just one of a series of animal welfare reforms being supported by the Government, building on our action plan for animal welfare. Penalty notices will be an important tool in encouraging animal keepers to follow the rules and to discourage those who break them from committing more serious offences. The Bill was in Committee on 8 December. It introduces a new financial penalty system and gives us tools that we can use against those who commit offences against animals. We will not tolerate threats to the health and welfare of animals, the quality of our animal products or the biosecurity of our nation.

I acknowledge the time and effort given by the animal charities listed earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), is avidly looking forward to continuing the engagement she has had with those charities and to working with them constructively as we put the flesh on the bones of the Bill in secondary legislation. That will ensure that penalty notices meet the needs of animals and help those who enforce them to change the behaviour of people who are not quite doing the right thing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) in an intervention and my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe made some serious points about the appeals process. That point has been raised by the NFU, and I know that my officials have been working with it on this issue. It might help Members if I give a bit of an overview as to what will happen in enforcement terms in the farm animals space. The inspector will visit or identify the fault. He will then identify and discuss with the farmer what sort of fault has occurred. It might well be one of record keeping or lateness in organising a TB test, for example. The farmer will then have two weeks to rectify that fault, and only then would a penalty notice be issued. If the farmer disputes that penalty notice, the best thing to do is simply not to pay it and explain why not. If the authorities continue to wish to enforce that penalty notice, the farmer would be able to have his day in court.

[Greg Smith]

I am delighted that the Government are supporting this Bill and about the commitment my hon. Friend has just made. Can she give me an assurance that within the secondary legislation that the Government intend to bring forward, instead of someone who disputes a penalty charge notice simply not paying it, there will be a channel locked in for them to give the reasons why they are disputing that, so that the inspector can consider those reasons?

[Victoria Prentis]

I am very happy to continue to work with my hon. Friend and the NFU as we take the secondary legislation forward. I would like to reassure him that this process is intended to have discussion built in at its very core. It is there to guide people towards compliance, not penalise them for non-compliance, so we will be able to achieve the outcome that he wants.

I take this opportunity to extend gratitude once again on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds to those who so avidly engaged with the passage of the Bill. Their support is really appreciated, and their expertise has been invaluable to the robust consensus we have built. In this country, we pride ourselves on our high standards of animal welfare, and we have powerful laws to maintain them. I reiterate the Government’s unwavering support for this important Bill. I wish it well under the stewardship of Lord Randall in the other place. I add my thanks to all those mentioned by the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), and I also add my thanks to Claire Ingham, who has managed this Bill so well to date. I hope we are able to see it on the statute book soon.

Bees: Neonicotinoids

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

Sir Roger, it is great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, particularly as I think you would rather have been speaking in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on securing the debate, and I thank Members for taking part in this really important discussion.

I should probably declare my interest. We have two hives of bees at home, and they are an integral part of our orchard management, particularly for my apple and pear crop.

Let me set out the problem. We all eat and enjoy sugar—some of us rather more than we should. It is important to remember that 63% of the sugar that the UK consumes is made from home-grown sugar beet, and we had an interesting debate on food security in this Chamber yesterday. Sugar beet seedlings are very vulnerable to aphid predation. The aphids spread the devastating virus yellows, which can seriously reduce both the quantity and quality of the crop. The disease is more widespread in certain years, particularly after mild winters.

As we have heard, neonics were previously used as a pesticide to tackle the problem. We banned their use outside in 2018, at the same time as the EU, because of a growing body of academic evidence that they could be damaging to bees and other pollinators. That affected my farm in respect of growing oil seed rape. We had grown the crop since 1974, but we no longer do so. In this, we are not alone, and the planted area of oil seed rape is not much more than half the level that it used to be before neonics were last used.

[Dr Johnson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will not, as I have a great deal to get through.

Oil seed rape is significantly different from beet. As we all know, it is a beautiful flowering crop, and its pollen and nectar attract bees. Beet is harvested before flowering, so the crop itself does not pose a direct threat. Protecting bees and other pollinators is a priority for the Government through the pollinator strategy, and this is a way to bring farmers and researchers together in order to improve the status of pollinating insects.

The need to take action to protect sugar beet is not restricted to this country. Twelve beet-producing EU countries have granted emergency authorisations for neonics since 2018. Their authorisation conditions have been less stringent than ours—for example, none has applied a threshold to determine whether the product should be used. There is no doubt that if our crop suffered major damage because of aphid predation and we did not allow the use of a neonic in an emergency, we would have to import beet from countries where these products are used.

We have now had three years to grow the crops without neonics. In 2019, perhaps because of residual levels in the soil, and in 2021, after a cold winter, the virus threat was low. However, 2020 saw severe damage, with about a quarter of the national crop being lost, as we have heard. Some individual growers were even more severely affected. Imports were needed to enable British Sugar to honour its contracts. Partly because of that, a smaller crop was planted in 2021, with some growers understandably reluctant to take the risk.

Taking into account both the scientific evidence and the economic analysis, the decision was taken to grant exceptional temporary use of Cruiser this year. In order to mitigate the risk, conditions of the authorisation include a reduced application rate, as well as a prohibition on any flowering crop being planted in the same field within 32 months of a treated sugar beet crop. Our chief scientific adviser advised us on that mitigation.

There will be an initial threshold for use, meaning that the seed treatment will only be used if the predicted level of virus is above 19% of the national crop. If that threshold is not met, the treatment for the seed will not be used. That is exactly what happened in 2021. It will only be used in an emergency.

I would like to provide what I hope will be some reassurance to Members. The maximum amount of neonics that could be used on English crops, if the threshold is reached, will amount to 6% of what used to be used prior to 2018. In reaching our decision, we were informed by the advice of HSE, and the views of the UK expert committee on pesticides and DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser, who has been involved at every stage of the process. We also considered economic issues and were informed by analysis provided by DEFRA economists.

The scientific advice identified risks to pollinators, and the restrictions we have applied for are designed specifically by our chief scientific adviser to mitigate those risks. Some residual risk remains, but we judge that it is sufficiently low to be outweighed by the benefits to sugar beet production of using the product.

In taking this decision, we wanted to be as transparent as possible and give hon. Members, as well as members of the public, access to the information that informed the decision-making process.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The Minister says the risk is judged to be sufficiently low. Could she say a little more about how that judgment was arrived at?

[Victoria Prentis]

If I have time, I would be delighted to. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the full set of reasons given by the Secretary of State on gov.uk, because that gives the complete decision.

DEFRA agrees with HSE that it is not possible to completely rule out a degree of risk to bees from flowering plants in or near the field in the years after the neonic use. That is the concern. However, our chief scientific adviser suggests that the risks are reduced to a large extent by the 32-month ban on flowering crops.

The materials have been made publicly available. I was very keen to do that and to make sure that the decision was as transparent as possible. We have published several accompanying documents outlining the key elements involved in making the decision. There is nothing sneaky about the decision. The details are all available on gov.uk.

On the suggestion that we have a parliamentary vote on the issue, I am happy to look again at how the system works. We will be outlining our ideas about the new system in the national action plan, which will be published this summer. I politely say that there are at least 10 to 15 applications for emergency authorisations every year for different products. I see the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) sitting over there—I do not know whether the Whips would be thrilled if we had to vote on each of those, nor perhaps would it be a good use of parliamentary time.

There is no doubt that this is an issue in which parliamentarians take an interest. That is right, and I am always happy to discuss these decisions with anybody who wants to. Please come and talk to me about the specifics of the decision or the science at any point.

Looking to the future, it is of course important that industry works hard on the development of alternative sustainable approaches to protect sugar beet from the viruses. Those include the development of new tolerant seed varieties, measures to improve crop hygiene and husbandry, and modern breeding techniques, such as gene editing. British Sugar and NFU Sugar attended a parliamentary event this week. I was able to talk to them about how they could interact better, telling us about the new products and ideas they can put in place to deal with the problem in future.

Ultimately, our food security relies on a healthy environment and thriving pollinators. Sustainable agriculture and supporting nature go hand in hand. In our agricultural transition, we are already incentivising farmers to do the right thing. This year, we are piloting a standard that will help farmers to transition away from the use of pesticides, and incentivise alternative ways to control pests.

This decision was not taken lightly, and is based on a robust scientific assessment. We will continue to work hard to support farmers and to protect and restore our vital pollinator populations.

Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing the debate and on outlining so successfully the problems that face us. In particular, I am pleased that he endorsed many of the positions that Labour Front Benchers took two years ago when the Agriculture Bill was discussed. We very much wanted annual food security reports, and for food to be a key priority. The Minister will remember the lengthy discussions that we had on the Bill.

We genuinely want ELMS to succeed. I was pleased that the Minister offered me the opportunity to go to look at some of the tests and trials, and I thank some of the people who showed me the 23 Burns project in Northumberland—Louis Fell in particular—the Barningham Estate, and Alex Farris, the Exmoor national park conservation officer. From those conversations I learned that there are people who are putting a huge amount of effort into this—they have a passion—but that the scheme is also very complicated and bureaucratic. Most of all, I came away thinking that the scheme is not going to work for everybody. For some people, it will work, but what about everybody else?

There have been lots of reports, including the PAC report and the National Audit Office report. I will not repeat all the criticisms that have been made, which are well known. It is certainly the case that a proper impact assessment for ELMS, as the NFU has called for, should be done soon and quickly.

I have some very specific questions for the Minister that repeat some of those that I raised two years ago. We are now into the scheme. We heard the excellent speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) made about the money that farmers have lost this year. We know how much has been cut, but how much has gone back to the frontline, rather than lost in bureaucracy, in producing reports and all the rest? The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) pointed out, very expertly, as always, that not only is money coming and going; the scheme is costing farmers money. How much is it costing them, at a time when farming margins are so very tight?

Why are we facing those problems with ELMS? There is so much agreement: we want to tackle the environmental crisis, and overwhelmingly people in the sector want to see farming conducted in a more sustainable way. What is the problem? I will explain it. I know that not everyone loves “Countryfile”, but it had a very balanced report on the issue this week. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was there, looking very dapper on his farm. When asked how many farmers would still be in place in 10 years’ time, he could not possibly say.

That took me back to a conversation that I had with a farmer in Cambridgeshire. When he last did the forms, they came back saying that there was a mistake—that he had got the numbers the wrong way round, putting 1692 instead of 1962. He said, “No, it was 1692 when we started here.” The point is that farmers have been there a long time, over many generations. I know that the world moves faster now, but I put that question to the Minister: how many farmers does she expect to be here in 2030? I think that the Secretary of State expects far fewer, and that is why he set up the scheme to help people out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, the Chair of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made exactly the same point: this is an attempt to clear out British farming for market fundamentalist reasons. That is the fundamental difference between Opposition Members and some Government Members. I do not think there is unanimity among the Conservatives. Being a market fundamentalist explains why, when we had the food security report at the end of last year, the Secretary of State was an agnostic. In fact, I do not think I have heard the Secretary of State commit to the NFU’s 60%. Perhaps the Minister will do that today.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

indicated assent.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am glad the hon. Lady is committed to it, but that is not what the Secretary of State indicated. That goes back to a point well made by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), whom I do not normally find myself in agreement with. He was absolutely right about the first iteration of the Agriculture Bill, which did not forget food by accident. It forgot food because those who are driving the agenda do not consider it to be the prime purpose of farming in this country any more. That is a fundamental difference.

Of course, the Government have not only managed to upset a huge part of the farming sector. They are also failing to satisfy the environmental sector. I will not go into the internal dispute in the Conservative party, but let us look at some of the outcomes. I commend the House of Commons Library for its excellent briefing. The fact that it is such a lengthy briefing and many people struggle to get through it tells us something about the nature of these schemes. If we look at the ELM outcomes on page 34—we are finally beginning to see something from the Government on what this might lead to—we see that it mentions 6 megatonnes of CO₂ and just 10% of agricultural emissions. If we are trying to tackle a climate crisis, that is not nearly enough.

If we look at the response from the environmental organisations—we could go all over the place to find these, but page 49 of the Library briefing has a good little selection of responses from the Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust and others—we see that they, too, are disappointed. I am sorry to say to the Minister that she is disappointing both sides.

I do not have much time—I could speak for a long time because I feel passionately about this issue—but I will raise a couple of extra points relating to tenant farmers who seem to have been put in a particularly difficult position. Of course, George Dunn and the Tenant Farmers Association are very powerful advocates. They keep making the same points, and they strongly argue that farm business tenancies should be included in the Agriculture Act 2020 provisions, because they are worried that tier 2 and 3 ELMS tenants will not have an automatic right to be a part of it. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that.

I am conscious of time and I want the Minister to have a full opportunity to respond. On the points about uplands livestock farmers, if we look at the Library briefing and information provided by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, we see that the figures are terrifying. Given the amount of money available—this goes back to the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee—people will not take up these schemes if they find that implementing them costs almost as much as what they would get back from them. On the fine margins—I heard the point about grain barons in the east—many of the farms even in the east of England are also marginal without farm support, so this cuts rights across the country.

In conclusion, there is another way, and that is to be firmly committed to making, buying and selling more in Britain. That is the Labour party’s position, and I suspect it is a position with which large numbers of Members of other parties agree. That is a fundamental difference of view. We are not market fundamentalists. We do not think we can just leave it to the market and that trade deals and food will come from elsewhere. We believe that the other way is sensible for this country, for many of the reasons that we have all rehearsed today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has argued, it is a national security issue as well. We are absolutely committed to that. If we start from that position, we can and will make the schemes work.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, as it always is under the chairmanship of my hon Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). I should declare my farming interests, which are well rehearsed in this House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing the debate. I greatly enjoyed visiting his constituency last week for a challenging and thought-provoking afternoon, when we discussed water and nutrient pollution. I thank all the farmers in the country for producing the food that we enjoy eating—at least three times a day in my case.

Farmers produce food. That is their job, and that will not change as a result of the future farming policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) put it extremely well when she said, “Food, food, food.” I am very much looking forward to encouraging the nation to join a national conversation about food in the White Paper, which is shortly to be published by the Government. There will be much more to say about that in the coming months.

The pandemic has reminded us how important food security is. Under the Agriculture Act 2020, where food definitely features right at the beginning, we have a legal responsibility to review food security every three years. Our first report, which I recommend to those present, was published just before Christmas and highlighted the resilience of our food supply chain. Our production-to-supply ratio remains high when judged against historic levels. We must not forget that the figure was about 30% in the late 19th century and about 40% just before the war. I take the challenge from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) to commit to 60%.

[Neil Parish]

I am delighting in the ancient history lesson, but can we be serious about the fact that we ought to judge production from after the war and from where we were in the 1970s and 1980s? We need to get that production up. While I respect the Minister’s views on ancient history, we need to move forward slightly.

[Victoria Prentis]

Fair enough. This is an important issue, and the clever statisticians are always reluctant for Government to commit to an absolute figure. That is not because of any theological argument, but because we cannot stop people eating, for example, rice or bananas, and nor do we want to. The important measure to look at is food that can be produced here.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will not, because I want to give my hon. Friend time at the end of the debate.

The figure at the moment is about 74% and that seems about right. I am committed to buying local, buying sustainable and promoting buying British wherever possible. It is important that we keep a close eye on our food security and our ratios. As hon. Members know, we are changing the way we support farmers and moving away from area-based payments. It is clear that there are worries about how this will affect food production levels, but many of the sectors where we have the greatest self-sufficiency are those that were not traditionally subsidised. We are close to 100%, for example, in poultry, eggs, carrots and swedes, and for many of those successful sectors, direct payments have never really been part of the business model.

There is no reason why we cannot produce the food we need while accommodating some land use change. We know that there is not a direct correlation between the amount of land farmed and the output. For example, around 60% of our output comes from just 30% of our land, farmed by just 8% of farmers. Delivering our environmental targets will inevitably require some land use change in some places, but we need to look at that in a wider context. We have 9.3 million hectares of farmland in England, so we are looking only at a small proportion being taken out of production. I associate myself with what has been said about carbon capture in permanent grassland and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), who made some important comments about restorative agriculture.

In the last 20 years, the appreciation of the scale of the challenge we face on issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change has grown. Those challenges mean we must act now to establish a new system of rewards. That is why the Government have chosen not to remove the farming budget, but to repurpose it. The amount of money available is the same and I expect the number of farmers to broadly be the same in the future, though some of those farmers may be farming in a different way to the way in which they farm now. We are designing our new schemes in partnership with farmers, and to that end it was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). It is always good to hear strong farming voices in this House.

We want to support the choices that individual farmers make on their own holdings. Farmers will be free to choose which elements of our new policies work for them. Some people may decide to embrace them extensively, but for others the schemes may be a smaller part of their business model.

I have spent the best part of 25 years in different roles in Whitehall, and I have never seen iterative policy making quite like this. We are doing it over a seven-year period, in close conjunction with the industry. Today, we have about 4,000 farmers actively testing things for the new schemes. I accept, and indeed embrace, some of the criticisms made in the PAC report about the beginnings of the policy. We will be responding to that report formally next month.

I agree that regular, annual impact assessments are a useful and positive part of the development of these policies. In many ways, I have enjoyed the cut and thrust of this debate. It is important that these policies are not set in stone. We are developing them in conjunction with farmers, as we make progress.

I know this is a time of huge change for farmers, but it has been good to see how many have embraced that change. The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, wants carrots, and I would gently say that one of the most useful carrots this year has been the extensive take-up of the countryside stewardship scheme. We have seen a 40% increase in applications, including, I should add, from my own farm. We are encouraging farmers to join that scheme as an interim, while we roll out the new scheme.

As a carrot, we have announced a 30% increase in countryside stewardship payment rates, which I hope will act as a bridge to our new schemes. Using the future farming resilience fund, we are supporting farmers through the transition. The fund awards grants to organisations that are trusted in the farming community, to help farmers work through how the policies affect them individually.

Tenant farmers are a vital part of our farming industry. For DEFRA’s agricultural reforms to succeed, tenant farmers must be able to fully engage in these schemes. On Friday, I was pleased to see my Secretary of State announce an independent tenancy working group, chaired by Baroness Rock, who has long been a champion of this sector, and dedicated to looking at ways to ensure our new schemes really work for tenant farmers. In passing, I should say that BPS has not always worked for tenant farmers and may have been one of the reasons why rents have been artificially inflated. We want to ensure these new schemes work.

This is a period of change and it is understandable that there is worry, but there is also great opportunity ahead. One year into a seven-year transition, it is clear that there is much agreement in the House with the principle of the policy. There is also agreement that food and food security are at the heart of everything we do. I look forward to working with Members on both sides of the House and with our 86,000 or so farmers to make sure we get the roll-out of the policy right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure a greater share of the UK-EU catch limits for the UK fleet in 2023.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

We have seen uplifts in quota share across the UK, with an increase of approximately 15% already. It will continue to increase year on year until 2026. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that there have been some particularly significant uplifts for the pelagic sector.

[David Duguid]

I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister to deliver the best future for Scottish fishermen as we move forward outside the common fisheries policy. Could she provide an estimate of how much the Scottish fishing industry has benefited in 2021 from being outside the CFP and particularly from negotiating as an independent coastal state for the first time?

[Victoria Prentis]

My hon. Friend, a great champion for the industry, will know that Scotland has so far been allocated 36,000 of the 60,000 tonnes of additional UK quota. The Scottish industry is also benefiting from additional white fish quota and from the ability to undertake quota swaps.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

More data may help in the negotiations, but data is no justification for the much-loathed catch app that the Government are imposing, which requires fishermen to guess the weight of their fish before they land them. When I was with Essex fishers in the estuary earlier in the week, they told me just how difficult that is.

I am not going to slap a dead fish on the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, because that would not meet with your approval, but I do have a copy of Tuesday’s Hansard, so I wonder whether the Minister can guess its weight. If she is not within 10%, will that make her a criminal? That is what the new rules will do to England’s fishers from the end of next month.

[Victoria Prentis]

The hon. Gentleman knows that as a cook I am quite keen on guessing the weight of things, but I confess myself totally unable to guess the weight of Hansard without touching it.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s serious question, we will continue to work with the fishing industry on the best way to make sure we have the data that we need—as I think he would agree—to assess the future sustainability of stocks.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

10. What plans his Department has to improve the quality of food labelling.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

Now that we have left the EU, we can review food labelling to make sure that consumers have the information that they need to make healthy and sustainable choices. We have already launched a consultation on animal welfare labelling, and we will consider the wider aspects of labelling in the coming months.

[Huw Merriman]

We know that our consumers want to buy British and buy Northern Irish to support higher animal welfare standards and our farming community, but sometimes they find food labelling confusing and misleading as to country of origin. What action have the Government taken to clarify the confusion? What steps will the Minister take, particularly with regard to making the technology even better in future?

[Victoria Prentis]

Country-of-origin labelling must not mislead. If the main ingredient has a different origin—for example if a British pie has French meat inside—the label must say so. I have spoken to my hon. Friend about possible technological solutions to labelling issues, such as using QR codes, which can give consumers much more information about a product. We will continue to work on those solutions.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

The Scottish Government—rather sensibly, I think—are awaiting the outcome of the EU review of genome-edited and genetically modified organism products, but the UK Government are pushing rapidly to introduce the production of genetically engineered crops and foodstuffs in England. Through the back-door route in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, they will enter the rest of the UK even if devolved Governments continue to prohibit them. Will any GE or GMO foods introduced in England be labelled as such so that consumers throughout the UK can make informed decisions about the food that they put in their mouth?

[Victoria Prentis]

As I said, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of labelling; one issue that will be considered is whether a product is produced by GE, which probably will not happen for several years. The hon. Lady will know, although she opposes it, that we have made steps towards bringing in some GE pilots, which I think are going well. I look forward to working with hon. Members across the House on how to label such substances in future.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to support coastal communities.

Annual Fisheries Negotiations

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Written Statements

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

The UK and EU have now reached an agreement on fishing opportunities for the 2022 fishing year. This is the second time the UK has entered into bilateral negotiations with the EU as an independent coastal state, following the signing of the trade and co-operation agreement (TCA) between the UK and EU in 2020.

In its second year negotiating as a coastal state, the UK has also successfully concluded the UK-EU-Norway trilateral negotiations and UK-Norway bilateral negotiations. Both agreements mark the start of new fisheries arrangements in the North sea and a strong willingness from all parties to collaborate closely in the future.

The UK Government have worked closely with Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive, and the outcomes secured by the UK will enable us to improve the sustainable management of our fish stocks in support of the whole of the UK fishing industry in the short and long term.

Collectively from the EU-UK bilateral, EU-UK-Norway trilateral, and coastal states negotiations, the UK has secured agreement on the total allowable catches—TACs—for 86 stocks.

UK-EU Agreement

The agreement we have reached with the EU covers 69 UK-EU TACs, resulting in a total value of fishing opportunities for the UK in 2022 of approximately 140,000 tonnes, worth around £313 million, based on historic landing prices.

Guided by best available scientific advice as part of sustainable fisheries management, the UK and EU agreed reductions across a number of TACs, meaning that overall the UK will have around 12,000 tonnes less quota compared with 2021 from these negotiations. However, even with this reduction, the UK has around 28,000 tonnes more quota from these negotiations than it would have received with its previous shares as an EU member state. This is estimated to be worth around £45 million based on historic landing prices.

As in previous years, the UK negotiated this year’s TACs taking account of sustainability principles. A full assessment of the number of individual TACs set consistent with International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advice on catch opportunities will be published shortly and after the conclusion of all the UK’s annual fisheries negotiations and the setting of consultative TACs.

On exchanges of quota with the EU, the UK and EU agreed to the continuation of the interim exchange mechanism which has operated successfully since July 2021, enabling voluntary exchanges between the UK and member states. This will continue until the Specialised Committee on Fisheries (SCF) can agree a permanent mechanism, as required by the TCA. The UK and EU agreed to hold a final round of exchanges on 21 January 2022 to allow for the wrapping up of this year’s exchanges.

On non-quota stocks (NQS) the UK and EU resolved the outstanding provisional historic baseline tonnage figures, this includes the removal of catches from Crown dependency waters.

The revised baseline figures are 12,365 tonnes for UK vessels in EU waters, and 33,023 tonnes for EU vessels in UK waters. It was also agreed to hold further technical discussions from January 2022 to ensure that future data exchanges on NQS uptake are robust and accurate.

Exceptionally, the UK and EU agreed not to apply the NQS tonnage limits provided for in the TCA for 2022. We will closely monitor uptake data and in the event either party reaches 80% of their total a discussion will be held in the SCF to consider next steps.

The UK and EU also committed to work at pace to develop multi-year strategies for shared NQS as set out under the TCA, with the aim of developing the first of these by 31 July 2022. Both parties confirmed our shared priority to ensure the sustainable management of NQS stocks from 2023 onwards.

The UK and EU agreed to roll forward the previously agreed measures for seabass. In addition, it was agreed that further adjustments would be introduced in 2022. These include an increase in the annual limits for landings of bass from hook and lines and fixed gillnets, as well as an amendment to the commercial trawl/seine flexibility.

Finally, the UK and EU agreed to prioritise and handle NQS, seabass (including the ICES assessment tool), stock without ICES advice, inter-annual quota flexibility and other topics through the Specialised Committee on Fisheries.

UK-EU-Norway Trilateral Negotiations

The UK reached an agreement with Norway and the European Union on catch limits for 2022 for six jointly managed stocks in the North sea. The catch limits agreed for 2022 are worth over £184 million to the UK fishing industry.

The agreement demonstrates the parties’ continued commitment to the sustainable management and long-term viability of cod, haddock, plaice, whiting, herring, and saithe stocks in the North sea. Alongside the total allowable catches—TACs—for 2022, the agreement puts in place a process to review the distribution and management of shared stocks which are important for the whole UK catch sector.

UK-Norway Bilateral Negotiations

The agreement reached with Norway includes reciprocal access to each other’s waters. The UK will gain access to 30,000 tonnes of whitefish stocks such as cod, haddock and hake. There will also be access to fish pelagic stock: the UK industry will be able to fish its full quota of Atlanto-Scandian herring in Norwegian waters, and up to 17,000 tonnes should it swap in additional quota from the EU in 2022. In return, Norway will be able to fish up to 17,000 tonnes of North sea herring in UK waters. This is less than a third of the level of access for North sea herring enjoyed by Norway while the UK was a member of the European Union. We also agreed some quota exchange, estimated to be worth just over £5 million. This includes bringing in stocks such as North sea whiting, hake and anglerfish, and Arctic cod.

The agreement puts in place a process which ensures that the fishing arrangements do not have detrimental consequences for fish stocks and the wider marine environment. The mutual access will also allow respective fleets more flexibility to target the stocks in the best condition throughout the fishing year, supporting a more sustainable and economically viable fishing industry.

In parallel to the conclusion of these negotiations, Norway has allocated to the UK 6,550 tonnes of cod around Svalbard. This means the UK can fish over 7,000 tonnes of cod in the Arctic in 2022, estimated to be worth around £16 million, and 1,500 tonnes more than in 2021.

UK-Faroe Island Negotiations

Bilateral fisheries negotiations between the UK and Faroes are ongoing. Both parties are pursuing a pragmatic and well-balanced agreement. The UK’s overriding priority is to ensure that the deal is in the best interests of the UK industry and protects the marine environment, promoting sustainable stock management.

Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs)

The UK is a contracting party to five RFMOs and played a central role in negotiations in 2021 in securing a number of important new RFMO measures for 2022 and beyond. These include a new rebuilding plan for North Atlantic shortfin mako shark in the International Commission for the Conservation for Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a new management measure for yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), an interim measure for the Greenland salmon fishery in the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO), new “area closures” to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO), and a measure to protect juvenile haddock at the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC). The UK also confirmed its 2022 shares in the four ICCAT stocks negotiated with the EU under the TCA.

The UK will build on these successes in 2022 and beyond, working to achieve rapid progress on our priority objectives for RFMOs both in terms of fishing opportunities where appropriate, and furthering our marine conservation priorities.

Multilateral “Coastal State” Negotiations

On mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring, the UK and other coastal states (the parties responsible for a stock’s management due to it being distributed in their waters) agreed to set the global TACs for 2022 in line with the advice provided by ICES.

We have also agreed to discuss sharing arrangements for each stock in 2022. The UK will chair discussions on mackerel and Atlanto-Scandian herring.

[HCWS521]

UK and Crown Dependencies: Fishing Licences

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Written Statements

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

This statement provides an update on the written ministerial statement made on 3 November 2021.

It sets out the number of fishing licences issued by the UK and the Crown dependencies since the trade and co-operation Agreement (TCA) was signed on 24 December 2020. The information is correct as of 12.30 pm on 15 December 2021.

This statement now includes the number of licences issued for “direct replacement” vessels. Our approach for licensing replacement vessels will be published by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), which is the UK’s single issuing authority, on gov.uk.

Throughout this process, the UK’s approach has been evidence-based and in line with our commitments under the trade and co-operation agreement (TCA). We have licensed vessels where sufficient evidence has been provided that demonstrates that a vessel qualifies for access under the TCA. Where that evidence has not been provided, licences have not been issued.

UK waters

The number of licences that have been issued to EU vessels to fish in UK waters are as follows.

UK overall total

Northern Ireland Protocol: Veterinary Agreement

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

It is lovely to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees.

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing this debate and I echo the words of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner): we have heard a résumé of the discussions that we have had for the last few years about this difficult and sensitive subject. It is always good to hear the first-hand experience of the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), and it is also interesting when those experiences are somewhat different, not least on the issue of Christmas present availability.

Let me explain what the UK Government are seeking in the negotiations. Our Command Paper published in July proposed a new model for GB to NI movements where the product stays within the UK. We agree that additional confidence could be provided by a well-designed SPS agreement. I think we all agree that that would be a helpful step forward. I reassure the House, regardless of what the hon. Member for Cambridge thinks, that that would obviously cover GB to NI agrifood movements and would set out where both UK and EU legislation provides for the same high standards. That absolutely should be taken as read. The Government stand by our manifesto commitment to standards.

As hon. Members know, we are still in the midst of technical discussions with the Commission to try to find satisfactory solutions on the Northern Ireland protocol. There is some precedent, as has been rehearsed, for the EU making such agreements with other countries—one that has been suggested this afternoon is that between the EU and New Zealand, which has been in place for many years—or as part of wider agreements with trading partners such as Canada or Switzerland.

In the trade and co-operation agreement negotiations last year, the UK put forward an SPS model based on equivalence. That would have been very similar to the model agreed between New Zealand and the EU. Sadly, the EU absolutely and repeatedly rejected the possibility of an agreement based on equivalence. Instead, it has pushed for the Swiss-EU style of SPS arrangement, which is based on dynamic alignment. An agreement based on dynamic alignment is not acceptable to us, as it would compromise our sovereignty over our own laws and impact on our ability to strike trade deals or agree trade facilitations with non-EU countries.

[Claire Hanna]

Does the Minister accept that the UK is a sovereign nation and that deciding—for the protection of all its businesses and particularly for the fragile area of Northern Ireland—to make sure there is no divergence between Britain and Northern Ireland and to have an SPS arrangement based on dynamic alignment would be a sovereign decision? That would be a decision of a responsible Government who said, “This is something we should do for all parts of the United Kingdom, for our businesses. This is a decision that we will make ourselves.” Is that not completely compatible with sovereignty? Otherwise, it is very, “I would do anything for Northern Ireland, but I won’t do that.” It is the act of a sovereign Government to act in the interests of all parts of their kingdom.

[Victoria Prentis]

Dynamic alignment is not acceptable to this Government. The difficulty is that we are already starting to see some divergence. The hon. Member for Cambridge and I took part—oh, no, the hon. Gentleman was not there. One of his colleagues took part in an excellent debate earlier this week on getting rid of the VI-1 certification form for wine certification, which is an issue I have discussed with the hon. Gentleman on many occasions in the past.

We are in a position where our laws—not our standards, but our laws—have started to diverge from those of the EU. What we need to achieve, because of that, is an agreement that recognises the equivalence of mutual high standards, facilitates trade, reduces bureaucracy and maintains our regulatory autonomy. The VI-1 certification is just one of a very small number of issues on which we are starting to diverge. We need to start from where we are.

[Tony Lloyd]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I was going to leave time for the hon. Gentleman to respond at the end of the debate, if that is all right. I have a great deal to get through.

[Tony Lloyd]

I would like to intervene at this point.

[Victoria Prentis]

All right, as it is Christmas.

[Tony Lloyd]

My dear deceased friend, Gerald Kaufman, once said, “Never kick a man until he’s down.” I appreciate that it is unfair to be kicking the Prime Minister at the moment of his maximum weakness—the Minister might not want to comment on that. But, seriously, is changing the VI-1 certification worth all the problems that we have heard about today? This is so trivial that I hope the Minister will say, “It isn’t worth it.”

[Victoria Prentis]

Of course all of this is not worth it for VI-1. I merely mentioned the VI-1 certification as one very small example of changes that have been made in recent days. It popped into my head because we have been able to achieve that through a statutory instrument that was passed earlier this week. The point is that we need to achieve an agreement that recognises equivalence of standards. We do intend to diverge from EU regulations in ways that we probably have not even thought of yet.

I can give a few more current examples. There are some more onerous organics regulations that the EU is bringing in early in the new year, which we do not intend to copy. There is a position on gene editing, for example, where we as a nation are extremely keen to forge ahead and look at how that could help with our plant breeding, and the EU is somewhat behind us. There are probably many other examples where we need to achieve an agreement that recognises equivalence of standards, not necessarily complete alignment.

We continue to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol with the EU. We published our proposals in July, as the hon. Gentleman knows. In response, the EU published a series of papers in October. Its suggestions were to do with simplified certification and reduced checks for retail goods, which are designed only for sale to end consumers in Northern Ireland. Our analysis and wide engagement with the industry and consumers in Northern Ireland throws into question the level of actual simplification achieved by the EU Commission’s proposals.

To give certainty and stability to businesses while the discussions continue, the Government have announced that they will maintain the grace periods—the standstill arrangements—and continue to operate the protocol on the current basis. This will include extending the grace periods and easements that are currently in force. The aim is to provide a clear basis on which businesses and citizens can operate while we wait for the discussions to conclude.

We really welcome the EU’s recognition that there are serious problems that cannot be solved simply through the full implementation of the protocol. That was very much a change of position for the EU. We do not, however, think its proposals provide the solution. For example, they do not eliminate even one customs declaration. The 50% reduction in declarations that the EU Commission briefed to the media is actually a 50% reduction in the number of fields in the declaration, with the most burdensome ones still remaining and every movement still requiring an individual declaration.

There are still substantial gaps between our two positions. The proposals do not free up goods movements between GB and NI to the extent necessary for a long-term solution. Nor do they engage with the changes needed in other areas, such as subsidy policy, VAT and governance of the protocol, including the role of the Court of Justice. We still think the gaps can be bridged through further intensive discussions, and those are going on today, probably as we speak. Our preference is still to find a consensual solution that protects the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland.

In order to make progress it is important that the discussions continue with energy and impetus. There are real difficulties, some of which we have heard about today. More than half the food moving from GB to NI currently benefits from easements, as we have also heard. When we started this in January we hoped that it was a temporary solution for GB to NI movements, and it should have opened the door for a more long-term solution. The EU’s paper does not provide for that. Owing to the additional certification required, movements of chilled meats between GB and NI declined by 95% between January and July this year.

As we have heard, there is a complete prohibition on moving seed potatoes from Scotland to Northern Ireland, as well as on some traditional varieties of GB trees, as we heard from the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart). Under the protocol, moving livestock and pets to and from Northern Ireland requires additional, unnecessary and costly certification and border checks. Our Command Paper proposal puts forward a simple and effective solution to all of these. The EU’s paper on SPS sees minimal movement from the full protocol requirements, and we hope that the EU will be able to move. That said, the EU’s proposals show that what had previously been considered impossible by the EU has become possible: the EU has accepted reduced checks and global certification for retail goods, for example. The proposals demonstrate that the EU is able to move beyond a rigid application of single market rules towards bespoke arrangements for Northern Ireland. We welcome this creativity and flexibility, which show that, with ambition and imagination, we will find a solution.

The article 16 safeguards in the protocol are provided to deal with a situation in which the protocol ceases to support the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We must always bear that in mind, but we have, I emphasise, put forward a package that is capable of doing the job. It is ambitious because the problems are significant, but it is a genuine attempt to solve the problems, and we are genuinely, and with real enthusiasm, taking part in the discussions.

Unfortunately, the EU banned the import of seed potatoes from GB at the end of last year. We believe that equivalence is the answer here, but in the committee session in September, the EU reaffirmed its position that dynamic alignment is needed between the UK and the EU for equivalence to be agreed. Given that our regime already aligns substantially with the EU’s, we continue to challenge the Commission to reconsider its position. We are very keen to resolve this.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned cattle movements to shows and sales. The Government have negotiated new rules with the EU that provide for NI livestock to move into GB and return to NI within 15 days if they are not sold at a sale, without needing to serve residency periods. That is significant.

On borders, for agrifood products, the Command Paper proposal would operate through the same internal UK trade scheme proposed for customs. The full SPS requirements of EU law would be applied for goods going to the Republic, and the UK would undertake to enforce them. There would also still be the means to apply risk-based controls on consignments as they move into NI, but there would be no need for numerous certificates and checks for individual items that are intended only for consumption in NI.

Live animals pose a different order of risk and require a specific approach. As has been said, that was recognised in national rules before the UK left the EU: all movements, including internal UK movements, were pre-notified, accompanied by health documentation and subject to checks. We would propose, broadly, to maintain these arrangements in this model. Similarly, recognising the potential biosecurity risk posed by certain plants and plant products, there should be an appropriate regime for these movements that does not obstruct the movement of standard products, such as seeds and plants for garden centres or personal use.

To conclude, technical discussions with the European Commission continue. They have intensified over recent weeks as the reality of what businesses in GB face and the impact of trade diversion on businesses and consumers in NI have been fully realised. Our preferred solution remains, as July’s Command Paper states, to have proposals that work for all parts of the supply chain and all products. If an SPS agreement is required to support the aims of the Command Paper, we are ready to engage with the Commission on this—absolutely.

It has been a delight to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Rees, and I wish all hon. Members who have taken part in this broadly good-humoured debate a very merry Christmas.

Draft Wine (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 General Committees

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Wine (Amendment) Regulations 2021.

The regulations, which were laid before the House on 23 November, remove the requirement for wine imported to Great Britain to be accompanied by a VI-1 certificate. This statutory instrument is very good news; Members who arrived at the Committee early have heard that I am inordinately excited about it. It is part of the bonfire of Brexit red tape. It will help support an industry worth over £1 billion a year, and will help the UK to remain a global hub for the wine trade. If we agree to the SI, it is not only EU wine that will be allowed into the country without a VI-1 certificate; so will wine from the rest of world, including wine from Australia, Chile, New Zealand and the USA. These wines represent about half the wines on our shelves. This is a really positive step forward, and I thank the wine trade and Members of this House for working with us on this.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

The Minister is, in effect, proposing to reduce red tape. Should that not lower the price of wine?

[Victoria Prentis]

I was anticipating that question. That is probably something for the wine trade to think about internally. Although the wine trade will find the change beneficial, I suspect that the price of a bottle of wine will not change all that much—but we live in hope.

The SI will make changes to retained EU law to ensure that wines produced in GB are subject to appropriate supervision, inspection and authentication checks. It also introduces provisions to ensure that the lot code arrangements between GB and the EU for wines continue to operate. Lot codes are an important tool for tracing wine products prepared or packaged under the same conditions.

Finally, the regulations will implement article 5 of annex 15 to the trade and co-operation agreement, concerning transitional arrangements. There will be a two-year grace period from 1 May to allow wine stocks to be run down at producer and wholesale level; stores have until stock runs out to comply.

We have a flourishing wine and viticulture sector in this country. Through this instrument, the Government are making regulatory changes that support wine importers, bottling plants, and exporters across the country, from Accolade Wines in Avonmouth and Kingsland Drinks in Manchester to Greencroft Bottling in County Durham. We are removing a burdensome technical barrier to trade. The Department will continue to work with the industry and across Government to make sure that we have the best possible regulatory regime for wine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

It is a great pleasure to respond to the hon. Member for Newport West, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West, who is co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on wine and spirits, which has been extremely helpful to us in formulating this policy. I share his liking for Welsh whisky; there is also Isle of Man whisky, which is really delicious. I have heard before the point that he raises about fizzy wine. I am not sure that that is entirely in scope of the regulations, and I will, if I may, write to him about that, because there are other Departments involved in that conversation.

The hon. Member for Newport West raised various issues, including the transitional period, which I dealt with earlier. The transitional period will apply until the bottle is sold or drunk, so there is no end to that period in terms of retail sales. The SI does not apply in Northern Ireland and will not result in any changes to certification of GB-produced wine sent to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland will obviously continue to follow the rules for VI-1 certification set out in the protocol. Most movements of GB wine to NI have fallen within the scheme for temporary agri-food movements to Northern Ireland. Movements of GB wine to NI are very small; they may often fall below the 100 litre de minimis requirements for a VI-1 certificate set out in EU law.

I remind Members of the positive changes in the instrument. The regulatory changes that we are introducing enable us to meet our international obligations and implement annex 15 of the TCA. We have listened to the wine trade and Members of this House and removed the requirement for VI-1s for imports from not only the EU, but other nations from across the world that produce excellent wine.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

A number of people may not know what the VI-1 form is. If they put “VI-1 form” into a search engine, fortunately the first result that comes up is the Government site, which is up to date; but the third result, using the search engine that I use, is the Food Standards Agency, which might be encouraged to update its information, because it is a year old and does not take account of these welcome changes.

[Victoria Prentis]

When we have made these changes—we are possibly jumping the gun a little bit—I am sure that we can pass that on. I ask hon. Members to support the SI, and I hope that the wine trade will continue to flow well this Christmas.

Question put and agreed to.