Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this important debate and I declare my interests as listed in the register.

As the second-largest net contributor to the European Union, for many years we have complained vociferously about the common agricultural policy, which still accounts for around 40% of the EU’s budget. The Government have undertaken to maintain the level of financial support received by farmers during the current Parliament, although the basis for the payments will change. Farmers need to plan for the future and they need to know how the Government’s new land management scheme will work. Can the Minister tell the House how farming businesses will be able to replace their lost income for the three years from 2021? I also ask him to resist the misguided calls being made by some noble Lords to introduce into the Bill measures that would bind this country into retaining full dynamic alignment with EU rules, including its controversial SPS regime. I am not advocating in any way that the UK should lower its food standards, but standards are not two-dimensional: higher or lower. The EU applies some unreasonably strict rules that do not make standards higher, but they do make them more expensive and cumbersome to comply with.

In some areas, the rules are protectionist in their effect, which means that EU consumers have to pay higher prices than they should. For many years, the EU has put too much weight on the precautionary principle. I cannot understand why we have become obsessed with chlorinated chicken as being symbolic of poor standards in animal welfare. Aside from the fact that US poultry farmers tend to use peracetic acid nowadays, the evidence shows that the incidence of campylobacter infection in the UK is nearly five times the level in the US, as already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Ridley. Further, the level of salmonella infections is significantly higher in the EU than in the US. If there was any doubt about the safety of using chlorine to wash vegetables for sale in supermarkets or to keep drinking water and swimming pools safe, it would obviously be banned.

I do not have time to mention the large number of myths which have been put about with regard to US animal welfare standards, but actually, permitted poultry stocking densities in the US and the UK are roughly comparable. As for beef, the UK Veterinary Products Committee concluded that it was unable to support the opinion of the European Commission that the risks from the consumption of meat from hormone-treated cattle may be greater than previously thought.

The UK, as an advocate for free trade and for proportionate regulation at the WTO, should ensure that its own SPS rules, unlike those of the EU, are compliant with the WTO’s SPS regime. This allows countries to maintain standards that are stricter than international ones, but only if those standards are justified by science or by a non-discriminatory lower level of acceptable risk that does not selectively target imports. The UK buys chicken from Brazil, Thailand, and Poland, which is an EU member state. Noble Lords who disagree with me should perhaps investigate stocking densities in any of those countries.

Our new free trade policy, including agreements with the US and Japan, will provide new opportunities for farmers to export their high-quality food products, especially those including lamb, to new markets where they will rightly find strong demand.

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

Lord Judd. No? Lord Naseby.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be back in the Chamber after nearly 15 weeks, and to reflect on what the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and others have said about the need to accommodate more Members and get back to normal as quickly as possible. I have a personal interest in that I have discovered that I am very poor at reading a speech into a computer microphone, or even improvising, and whatever skills I have in oratory, humour and irony are absolutely wasted when online—not that I intend to draw on all three of those this afternoon.

I want to reinforce points made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and to comment on the speech by my old—not in age but in longevity of friendship—friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. For those who do not know, the city of Sheffield incorporates in its boundaries a substantial part of the Peak District; in fact, a third of the landmass of Sheffield is in the Peak park. For the benefit of the noble Baroness, I can say that it is not, like some other cities, tatty—I think that was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—land on the edge of the city. It is an essential part of the Peak park, as well as a breathing space, as it always has been, for the city itself.

The reason I mention it is that, as lockdown diminished—this was not one of those forays to discover whether I could drive a car safely—I went out into the area, still in Sheffield, around the Redmires Reservoir, and heard a curlew, one of the greatest sounds you can imagine. As the speeches this afternoon have emphasised, I simply want to say that in conserving as well as developing our agriculture, we should nurture the natural environment. I am all in favour of growing trees—they have to be the right trees—but we need our moorlands. On a point about water-gathering and conservation, we need to understand the essential nature of upland wet areas, particularly the peat bogs, which 13 years ago dried out to the point where, at around this time, in late June or early July, we had the most enormous flooding. At that time, civil servants told the Secretary of State, who happened—and continues —to be a friend of mine, that we were exaggerating when we said we had a problem. When the RAF lifted people by helicopter off the Meadowhall shopping centre, and when a 14-tonne piece of equipment was lifted out of its moorings and swept 100 yards from the Forgemasters factory in the lower Don Valley, I think they may have changed their minds. We need to be aware of what we do, how it affects our environment and why the Environment Bill that is to be brought forward and this legislation should go hand in hand.

I want to comment briefly on land management. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right to indicate that small farmers—tenant farmers, herdsmen—have a job surviving; they use their skills to try to make a sufficient living from keeping the countryside working. But I say to the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that there are large landlords who, like the Duke of Devonshire—no relation —have been struggling to manage the watercourse. They have been working to defend the river running through the land around Chatsworth House from the scourge of American crayfish—which is not one of the breeds that I hope we will be protecting so Amendment 27 is, perhaps, not appropriate after all. They have been trying to do this by persuading Defra to give them a licence so that, having dealt with these crayfish under proper regulations so that nobody thinks of farming them, they can dispose of the fish in a way that allows them to cover the enormous costs involved. I am talking about 20,000 crayfish per year from a stretch of water of just two miles, which destroy the embankments, undermine the area around and are incredibly dangerous in relation to flooding.

All these things go hand in hand. My plea this afternoon is that, as we go through this Bill in Committee and on Report, we reserve for amendments those things that are in synergy with each other, to ensure that the Bill comes out not as a Christmas tree but as a good English pine.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and strongly endorse his remarks with respect to the need to get back to this House properly, as soon as possible. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, as listed in the register. I have read and considered all 36 of the amendments in this group and believe that the majority are unnecessary, even if they are well intentioned.

My noble friend Lord Lucas likes to use the verb “conserve” and attributes to it a meaning wider than words such as “protect” and “improve”. I sympathise with his intention to broaden the scope of the purposes for which the Secretary of State may provide financial assistance, but I am not sure that his suggestion to use “conserve” actually clarifies approved purposes, except in the cases of species of animals and plants.

My noble friend Lord Dundee and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seek in Amendment 1 to clarify whether the Secretary of State really will provide financial assistance for the activities listed in Clause 1. I should have thought that this was obvious, but I welcome this amendment if it will encourage my noble friend the Minister to be much more specific in informing your Lordships of how much financial assistance will be made available under the ELMS scheme, and whether it will completely compensate for the loss of direct support payments, which will hit farming businesses hard in 2021.

It may be true that the larger estates are better able to survive the withdrawal of direct payments, but it is also true that the larger farming businesses employ a large majority of agricultural workers, and the prospects for those currently furloughed to return to the payroll will be enhanced if the Government can give a lot more clarity on how businesses can mitigate the loss of direct payments. Indeed, it should be made possible for those who are particularly innovative and active in introducing new, environmentally friendly practices to receive more than they have been receiving under the present system.

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[Lord Marlesford [V]]

I want to follow on closely from what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was saying. I believe that the Bill has to be changed somewhat. First, the emphasis should be more on the rural economy, of which farming is of course a key element. I believe that the way forward is to consolidate and formalise the diversification approach that many farmers have already moved on to. We should do so through the concept of the rural business unit, or RBU, as originally set out in 1992 in the Bunbury report of the CLA. At that time it was not adopted by the Government, but the CLA, of which I am a member, has developed the idea and recently presented it to the Treasury.

Historically, farmers have been among the earliest entrepreneurs, always open to new ideas of how to make the best use of areas of land, large or small. Equally, they have always seen themselves as being custodians of the land. That custodianship must continue to be buttressed by a strong and sensible planning system. The planning system that we have in this country is, together with the NHS, one of the two great inheritances from the post-war Attlee Government, and I have been rather concerned at stories that the Government are in some ways aiming to try to dismantle part of it. I say right away that they will have no support from me if they weaken the planning system.

The sort of activities that should be encouraged through the rural business unit include, obviously, tourism in its many forms; the protection and enhancement of the landscape; conservation and encouragement of our diversity of flora and fauna; forestry, as has been referred to, especially hardwoods; the provision of additional housing, especially through the sensitive conversion of redundant farm buildings into dwellings; the development of premises for small businesses to use, whether for homeworking, offices or manufacturing; the provision of additional access, with facilities for walkers and riders; sporting facilities, including shooting and fishing; and, certainly not least, the adding of value by processing the products of agriculture or forestry, whether arable, vegetable or animal. All this may involve changes to the tax rules to offer the same advantages of accounting integration that have long been encouraged for other industry and commerce. I hope that the Minister might look favourably on this approach.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I am a bit puzzled as to the intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, with Amendment 2. I should have thought that, by engaging in activities to support any of the purposes listed in Clauses 1(1) or 1(2), someone must by definition be involved in one of the four activities mentioned in the amendment. Therefore, I feel the amendment is unnecessary.

We have already discussed Amendment 4, proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and perhaps his Amendment 3 would have been better grouped with that. However, I cannot support his intention to exclude managers of land other than managers of agricultural land, which would exclude forestry, horticulture and other landholdings.

The noble Earl rightly challenges the drafting of Clause 1(1)(b), on “supporting public access”. It has always struck me as interesting that public access in Scotland is much more freely available under the right to roam legislation. However, most of Scotland has very much lower population density than England, and I believe the Government should tread carefully here. Many birds and animals may benefit from less intensive agriculture but will surely suffer as a result of greater disturbance caused by increased numbers of walkers and perhaps a more intrusive network of public footpaths.

As for Amendment 10 in the name of the noble Earl, I agree that the word “enjoyment” in relation to the countryside, farmland or woodland seems a little strange. I would support the inclusion of “health and wellbeing benefits”. Perhaps the term “natural capital” is a better and wider term than “environment”, and I think “awareness” is better than “understanding”, which may be too subjective.

In Amendment 64, the noble Earl seeks to restrict those who may be entitled to financial assistance, but I am not sure that his amendment is necessary. There are many farmers whose businesses have diversified into other activities, but it is clear that their ability to receive financial assistance relates only to the purposes set out.

As I thought about the noble Earl’s amendments, it occurred to me that “financial assistance” is not quite right as a term to describe the Government’s intentions. It sounds as though farmers are being helped because they are in need. Some may be in need, but others are not. Surely, what is proposed is that farmers should be appropriately rewarded for the value they add to the land they own or occupy. I do not think that a company provides “financial assistance” to its employees for doing their work in a diligent manner. Perhaps “support” or “compensation” would be better.

In Amendment 106, my noble friend Lady McIntosh seeks to ensure that financial assistance is targeted at active farmers and land managers. However, what about an estate owned by a person or persons not in day-to-day management control of their land because they are busy in other businesses and have appointed agents or managers to run the businesses? They retain ultimate control through their ownership of the land or farming business. It is not clear whether the amendment might disqualify some estates from the scheme.

I caution against adopting Amendment 108, proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas. We have heard a great deal about following the science, but we know that science is based on different scientists’ different interpretations of the facts: it is not absolute and is very subjective. I agree with his intention on soil management contained in Amendment 110, but I am not sure why he thinks it necessary to spell that out here, when it is arguably covered in Clause 1.

I briefly mention Amendments 114 and 116, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I think he is right both to seek assurance that the design and purpose of schemes is not delegated to non-governmental, non-accountable bodies and organisations and to strictly limit the publication of information relating to the recipients of financial assistance.

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[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 6, 9, 98 and 111 in this group. For many people, Covid-19 has provided an opportunity —or perhaps a necessity—to go on and discover local walks in their own immediate neighbourhood, to get exercise and fresh air and not spend the whole day in their own home. A crucial feature of the Bill, as we know, is the introduction of a new system of financial assistance for farmers to replace subsidies paid as part of the EU’s common agricultural policy. In future funding will be in exchange for the delivery of public goods, which includes better public access.

Clause 1(1) states:

“The Secretary of State may give financial assistance for or in connection with any one or more of the following purposes”,


with paragraph (a) reading

“managing land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment”.

Although this is helpful, it does not acknowledge the value added of enabling people to experience some benefit from improvements in environmental quality. Amendment 6 adds

“and people’s access to it”

and seeks to ensure that where financial assistance is provided for the protection or improvement of the environment, public access enhancements are incorporated, where appropriate, so that people can experience some benefit from the actions taken. This is particularly important near centres of population, where the recreational value of new woodlands or better access to paths across open land is far higher than in more remote locations.

Clause 1(1)(b) refers to

“supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside, farmland or woodland and better understanding of the environment”.

However, as landowners or occupants, farmers are already required by law to keep clear public access to their land, so “supporting public access” could appear to be providing funding for doing something for which there is already a legal requirement. There is thus no certainty that funding will be provided for new public access or for making existing paths more accessible, yet this is important in enabling more people to get outdoors. Natural England estimates that 20% of people cannot use rights of way because they cannot use stiles or gates or they are with someone who cannot.

Amendment 9 replaces “supporting” with “enhancing” to express more clearly that financial assistance will be provided to enhance public access to the countryside by improving accessibility beyond the legal minimum of existing rights of way. It also helps ensure that funding can be provided for the creation of new access opportunities through, for example, the provision of paths along field margins as alternatives to unsafe country roads and at the rural-urban fringe to increase the connection of communities to nature and the rural world.

Clause 1(1)(b), which enables the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance for

“supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside”

is welcome, but more clarity is needed on the outcomes in terms of public access to and enjoyment of the countryside that will be supported through further financial assistance to farmers. Amendment 98 seeks to do this by adding to Clause 1(5)

“‘supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside’ includes the provision of new public access or improving the accessibility of existing public rights of way”.

Thus the amendment provides certainty that financial assistance may be provided for new public access or steps to make existing rights of way more accessible, and also that the new financial assistance scheme will provide direct benefits for the public through better access to the countryside.

Clause 2(2) states:

“Financial assistance may be given subject to such conditions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”


Landowners and land managers are required under the Highways Act 1980 to keep rights of way on their land clear and accessible to the public. The duty was reinforced by the system of cross-compliance governing payments to farmers under the EU’s common agricultural policy, which required, among other things, the fulfilment of legal duties for rights of way as a condition of receiving funding from the public purse. The Government are committed to ending cross-compliance and have suggested they will establish a new, simplified regulatory regime.

The principle of financial assistance being subject to conditions, as introduced in subsection (2), is welcome. What it does not do is specify what those conditions will be. Amendment 111 provides that:

“The conditions may (among other things) require the recipient to fulfil their duties for public rights of way under the Highways Act 1980.”


It will thus help ensure that landowners’ and occupiers’ duties for public rights of way are among the conditions that the Secretary of State may attach to the provision of financial assistance. This is important because existing rights of way are the primary means by which people can get outdoors. It is, therefore, vital to have in place a regulatory framework that encourages farmers to keep paths clear as a condition of receiving payments from the public purse.

The set of conditions, including those relating to public access, provide clarity for farmers over the baseline standards expected, and it also—as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said earlier—helps create a level playing field within the sector. Most farmers fulfil their legal obligations, so those who do not should not be treated equally and without any sanction for not keeping access open.

I hope the Government will give careful consideration to this group of amendments and the objectives they seek to achieve. It would be helpful if the Minister could say, in his response, whether they are also government objectives, either in whole or in part. If they are but the Government do not feel overexcited by these amendments, I hope, like my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, that the Minister will spell out very clearly in his response why the Government believe that the wording in the Bill—and which wording that is—already provides, without any doubt, the safeguards and assurances that these amendments to which I have referred are intended to provide.

Our farmers must have, and deserve, a fair deal as we leave the EU, and we need to make sure this Bill delivers precisely that. However, our countryside should be accessible to all and, in return, those who visit the countryside must exercise that right responsibly and in a manner that does not adversely affect those who earn their livelihood from the land and who provide us with a basic necessity of life—namely, food.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, whilst I can support reasonable extension to public access, as I said earlier it is indeed a double-edged sword. In those parts of the country where agricultural land is close to towns or cities, significant opening up of more footpaths, or increasing the numbers of people entering land used for agriculture, forestry or horticulture, may cause disturbance to birds and animals and exacerbate a littering problem that has got worse during the lockdown anyway.

It is likely that farmers, whose financial rewards are going to depend more on the quality and condition in which they maintain their land, are going to be reluctant to encourage more public access unless they are paid to provide it. They need to be paid because they will need to make good, or mitigate the damage to, the land, crops, fences, gates and wildlife habitats that will result from increased public access in those parts of the country near significant population centres.

Perhaps the amounts that farmers should be paid for public access would have to be more than is justified in terms of the numbers of people who would benefit. We should also remember that you do not need to have access to the improved environment in order to benefit from it in terms of better air quality, higher standards of food products and cleaner water in our rivers.

I sympathise with the intention of my noble friend Lord Lucas in Amendment 34, but I believe this is already covered by subsection (1)(b), whether the drafting of that is changed or not.

Amendment 59, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, seeks to enhance public access not only to land but also to water. Would my noble friend the Minister not agree that farmers and riparian owners would have to be compensated for the significant additional costs of this? Would he also concede that compensation should be paid to owners of fisheries whose catch numbers would be damaged by an increase in kayaking and boating on rivers and inland waterways?

Lastly, I slightly fear that too much path surfacing, signage and waymarking may make the countryside more like a cross between a golf course and a public park, which, in extremis, will urbanise the appearance of the countryside and remove its wildness, which is so valuable.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree very much with what was said early on in the debate, but I must say to both noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Shrewsbury, that making the argument requires a positive approach to access. It came across certainly in the first few minutes of the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that he would be very happy if there were no access anyway. He then went on to deploy the arguments and consequences of access.

Access is here to stay, whether it is the coastal path or access to the countryside. However, I could not agree more that in a small country it must be managed. Think about this: you go to a countryside car park for a walk. You will probably pay something, but there will also be a sign saying that every month the costs of removing the litter germinated by the car park and its users will be shared by every car parked there, and that by paying to park there you accept that. That might be a salutary warning to those causing the trouble, and to those who see trouble and do nothing about it.

I have been a walker in the Lake District for more than 30 years and I freely admit that I have never seen any seriously bad examples of fly-tipping. On the other hand, I have seen really bad examples elsewhere. I do not accept that it should be the responsibility solely of the landowner. There must be more enforcement, more cameras and more forensic examination of the waste. Given the kind of stuff that is so carelessly piled up in serious fly-tipping, the evidence that people leave can be traced back to where it came from. There is an argument about who actually did it, who was responsible in the end and where the waste came from, but the police should take some responsibility—they do not take rural crime seriously enough, and this is a rural crime. I very much agree with what was said about the broken windows theory, which is fundamental.

I am in favour of a crackdown. We have automatic number plate recognition cameras all over the city and in different areas. We need a bit more of it in the countryside, with some warnings about responsibility. That being the case, I realise that it is very difficult, though not impossible, to provide a proper enforcement system, but to be honest, there is no enforcement system at the moment. We ought to start to generate one.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, as I said on Tuesday, additional public access, however beneficial to people whose livelihood does not depend on agriculture, is a distraction from farmers’ primary responsibility to manage their land efficiently to produce food for the nation and to assist our balance of trade by producing high-quality food products for export around the world.

I congratulate my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Shrewsbury on their eloquent and persuasive introduction to their amendment. They are absolutely correct that the new scheme must properly compensate farmers for the damage and additional costs they will incur as a result of the obligation they will face to provide more public access. Littering has been getting worse in recent years. So has fly-tipping, which has got much worse through lockdown, as my noble friend Lord Caithness observed. I wholeheartedly support the amendment and look forward to the Minister’s reply.

As my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury said, the answer from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, which I heard as well, was unsatisfactory and rather ambiguous. It seems that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, also considers fly-tipping to be at least partly the responsibility of the landowner, which I was rather surprised to hear him state. Could the Minister clarify the Government’s policy on responsibility for fly-tipping and what my noble friend Lord Goldsmith actually intended to say?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions where you have rather more sympathy with what was said than what was written, because the amendment can be taken, and probably would be by many, as an attack on greater access to the countryside. On Tuesday I moved a series of amendments tabled in conjunction with the Ramblers and British Canoeing. I can give noble Lords an absolute assurance that both those bodies would agree with those sentiments.

As someone who lives in the Lambourn valley, close to Swindon and the M4, I know about fly-tipping. Usually a pile of rubbish occurs where there is access to a road and somewhere quiet. It will not be enhanced by a footpath, because people do not carry old fridges up footpaths to dump them—or if they do, I would steer well clear of them. Let us not confuse the issues. The incident the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury—who has been here even longer than I have and is a friend—talked about was just trespass. It was not to do with access. The two are not that closely related.

The general points about taking these problems more seriously, with criminal enforcement, are a serious matter. A lot of littering comes either from unplanned, uncontrolled gatherings where you do not have bins, et cetera, or close to urban centres. It is not just the young; grey hair does not stop you dropping litter. I have seen it myself. For any noble Lords who have travelled on the Tube, it is a bit like face masks; the young are only as bad as their seniors. It is engrained.

I totally approve of the attitude of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on the last amendment and of the Minister’s response. I am afraid it is rather unanswerable —I cannot ask you about what you have said until you have said it. I appreciate how it was taken down and I hope that flexibility will come in during our discussions on this, because it would make it work better.

This amendment raises issues, but it would be totally against the spirit of the rest of the Bill. Greater access would not cause most of the problems here. On being irresponsible in a Royal Park close to an urban area, I am sorry, but people have access to go there anyway. Extra access will not make it worse. On specialist paths for ramblers and other groups, these groups are more likely to report people—a path that ramblers use regularly will discourage fly-tipping. The general public all have a phone with a camera. Telling people that they have a responsibility to use them may be something the Government can do; they can certainly make it easier to report and get the reports back.

I do not think that we will get more of these problems every time we expand access to the countryside. They are there already in uncontrolled access. Having better control and understanding of the problems—integration, the odd use of cameras, not having better reporting infrastructures—is a better way to go about it.

On the final comment about a farmer resenting having to take time off because someone fell and broke their leg: if somebody falls in the street, would you stop and help them? I know I have done it a couple of times. Was it inconvenient? Yes. But come on—there are limits.

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[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I particularly enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who I have known for over 50 years, when he talked about his local bird life and the implications it has in this debate.

I support Amendment 42 to Clause 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and others, which relates to whole-farm agroecological systems and organic farming. The pandemic has been a tragic lesson in how broken our connection to our life support systems, by permission of nature, has become. In March, the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen, told us that

“Nature is sending us a message”


with the coronavirus and ongoing climate crisis.

In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published the most comprehensive study into the health of the planet ever undertaken. It concluded that human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of nature, on which the survival of the human race depends. This ongoing work is telling us that

“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming … as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a perfect storm for the spillover of diseases.”


The scientists leading this work have warned that

“The health of people is intimately connected to the health of wildlife, the health of livestock and the health of the environment. It’s actually one health.”


Agroecological agriculture—of which organic is one system—supports small farms that are diverse, integrated and use low levels of chemical input to ensure the long-term balance between food production and the sustainability of natural resources. Although agroecology is recognised in the Bill, it is in a very minor way. In Clause 1(5), the Bill states that

“better understanding of the environment”

—one of the purposes for which the Secretary of State may give assistance—

“includes better understanding of agroecology”.

This appears to signify a basic misconception of what agroecology is and what a large-scale transformation to agroecological farming could deliver for farmers, wildlife, climate and public health. It should not be relegated to a legislative footnote; it should be a key part of this Bill and the Government’s broader agricultural policy, as others have said.

While I welcome this reference in the Bill, a more substantive reference, such as that proposed in Amendment 42, is also needed to create a specific commitment under Clause 1(1) for financial and wider support for existing agroecological farms—such as organic—and to ensure that all farmers can promote agroecological practices on the whole farm. This would then allow for support and incentives for farmers to facilitate the integration of food production with the delivery of environmental and social public purposes, in line with the avowed objectives of the Bill. It would ensure that farmers could transition to ecological farming models, producing food while restoring environments and nature.

These benefits are enhanced when they are part of the whole-farm system, rather than in reserved areas or only on the margins. Organic farms have been shown to support 50% more wildlife than is found on conventionally farmed land and healthier soils, with 44% higher capacity to store long-term soil carbon. Agroecological farms can also improve public access to nutritious, affordable fruit and vegetables, and to community projects, supporting improved public health outcomes for us all, as well as enterprise. I therefore hope that the Minister will indicate his acceptance of Amendment 42 in particular.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I sympathise with Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, although I wonder whether it is necessary. Is it not covered effectively by Clause 1(1)(j)?

On Amendment 38, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, I observe that the best and by far the cheapest way to implement integrated pest and weed management measures will follow from our freedom from EU regulation, which has unnecessarily banned some pesticides and fungicides which could be used to reduce pest and weed problems without any negative environmental consequences. Of course, many chemicals have rightly been banned, but some have been banned without definitive scientific evidence.

I am sure that all noble Lords would support nature-friendly farming, as advocated by my noble friend Lord Caithness in Amendments 39 and 96. However, I believe it is already clear that nature-friendly practices are wholly consistent with the purposes listed in Clause 1.

Amendments 40 and 84, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, seek to add agroforestry schemes to the list of approved purposes. I agree with the noble Lord but believe that they are unnecessary, because agroforestry is surely included within the scope of Clause 1(1)(I). Similarly, my noble friend Lord Dundee reminds us that the Government have committed to plant 30 million trees without taking any agricultural land out of production. Will the planting of these trees lose us 7% of agricultural land, as I thought he also said, and how many of these trees will be planted on brownfield sites? Was this policy adopted before or after it was recognised that ash dieback might decimate the country’s population of ash trees?

The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in his Amendment 48 seeks to widen the purposes for which financial assistance may be paid to include conversion to organic and ecologically sustainable farming. I believe that the noble Duke is right: farmers who follow ecologically sustainable practices should be rewarded. I had believed that consumer demand meant that farmers were replacing less ecologically sound practices with organic practices and was surprised to hear how small the organic acreage is. Ultimately, organic produce should command significantly higher prices, which will increase the profitability of farmers who produce it. I support the noble Duke’s amendment.

We have already noted the introduction of a new concept: agroecology. Through Amendment 97, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, wishes to include whole-farm ecological systems as an additional and distinct model. I think that what it represents is already included in the Bill, and it would be better not to complicate the Bill unnecessarily.

I am not at all opposed to—indeed, I would support—increased monitoring of soil health, as proposed in Amendments 217 and 224, but I would not be able to support Amendment 259 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. Growing crops such as oilseed rape in this country has become unsustainable because EU regulations, which rely too much on the precautionary principle, have placed unnecessary and costly burdens on farmers and unnecessarily exposed their crops to various diseases. One of the benefits of leaving the European Union is that we will be free to develop our own food standards. These must of course maintain the highest standards, but should no longer unnecessarily apply rules which are unsupported by scientific evidence and which artificially raise the prices of food, especially at a time when many consumers are badly affected by the serious economic damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.

House resumed.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to comment briefly on proposed new subsection (b) in Amendment 75, which refers to reducing the use of antibiotics in livestock and related veterinary products. I fully agree with the aim of reducing the use of antibiotics on livestock as far as possible while retaining their use to treat sick animals to ensure their good welfare. Indeed, in the UK, we have been incredibly successful in reducing the use of all antibiotics on all livestock by more than 50% since 2014. Currently, in fact, usage is well below the target set in the 2016 report from the commission headed by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill.

With regard to so-called critically important antibiotics for human use, there is absolutely minimal use on livestock today. This has been achieved by management improvements, husbandry improvements and, of course, the use of vaccines, which are a major tool in controlling and preventing infectious disease. They are thus terribly important in reducing drug use for therapeutic purposes, so it is important that their use is not discouraged.

I seek greater clarification on what is meant in this amendment by “related veterinary product use”. I noted that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, commented on this to some extent in her earlier speech; I think she said words to the effect that she did not envisage the inclusion of vaccines in this amendment. I hope that that is so; it would indeed be counterproductive.

She also commented on anthelmintic use and its effect on dung beetles. As a parasitologist, I want to comment briefly on that. I assure her that that is not an issue in the UK. Some years ago, this was looked at carefully; various anthelmintics, which of course are for worms and which also have powers of activity against insects, were introduced. Poor research students were sat out in the open having to observe the degradation of cowpats in fields, some of which were grazed by cattle with anthelmintics and some of which were grazed by cattle without them. I assure the noble Baroness that there was absolutely no difference as a result of the anthelmintic treatment.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I repeat the declaration of my interests that I made last Tuesday.

Amendments 35 and 36 seek to add to the list of purposes for which financial assistance may be given. Amendment 36 is already covered by existing purposes, as is Amendment 35, up to a point. This amendment, moved by my noble friend Lady McIntosh, also seeks to establish food security as a purpose. It is hard to see how these amendments would have much of an effect on the proportion of our food that we import—or, indeed, the proportion of our food produce that we export. British farm produce, including arable, dairy and livestock, is produced to very high international standards and, I believe, can hold its own in both domestic and overseas markets.

I cannot see that Amendment 46 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has any place in an Agriculture Bill that seeks to reduce farmers’ dependence on the state. It would threaten to increase the cost and reduce the choice of meals provided by public bodies by introducing distortions to the market, reflecting particular views on environmental or animal welfare standards that go further than required by law.

In the same way, I would resist Amendment 47 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, because I do not believe that the Secretary of State should be involved in trying to persuade people to change their diet to a vegetarian one. I very much agree with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, with regard to her amendment. I have nothing against vegetarians—indeed, I have a daughter-in-law who does not eat meat—but it should be a matter of personal taste.

My noble friend Lord Northbrook, who is most knowledgeable in this area, has eloquently spoken in support of his Amendment 60, which seeks to ensure a sufficient level of food security. I do not think my noble friend is suggesting we need go back to a time when foreign food was virtually unknown to most people in this country. Of course we need to maximise our domestic food production, but it is also important that our new trading relationships continue to offer British consumers more choice at reasonable prices.

My noble friend also wishes to require the Secretary of State to support the production of food in England through his Amendment 69. On this, I prefer his drafting and the effect of the change he wishes to make. I also prefer his wording to that of my noble friend Lady McIntosh in Amendment 70, although her amendment is also an improvement on the current somewhat ambiguous wording.

I am afraid that I do not understand the purpose of Amendment 71, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, as I do not want the Secretary of State to become a sort of food policeman. I do not understand what the noble Earl means by suggesting that his amendment

“avoids the Secretary of State having regard to the production of unhealthy food.”

I am not sure that public health concerns, as mentioned in Amendment 75 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, should be in an agriculture Bill, however desirable the improvement of public health obviously is.

Amendment 92 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, defines “environmentally sustainable way”. I do not think that it needs to be specifically defined and I question whether avoiding the “depletion of natural resources”, desirable though that is, is clearly contained within the meaning of the phrase.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my long-standing and noble friend Lord Trenchard. I agree with the general thrust of his comments. After a long day on two important Bills, I will confine myself to two points.

First, the changing weather pattern, the risk of another pandemic and, more immediately, the possibility of an exit from the single market without an FTA all point to the need for a sensible, long-term focus on food security. I welcome my noble friend Lord Northbrook’s Amendment 60—an enabling amendment and not a requirement—and the part on food security in the lead amendment, Amendment 35, proposed by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. This plays to Clause 17 of the Bill and its proposal for a five-yearly report on food security, which I very much welcome.

Secondly, like the noble Lord, Lord Trees, I will talk about antibiotics. I support the provision on reducing farm antibiotics in Amendment 75 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. The impact of antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious issues facing the human race. It could make common operations extremely dangerous around the world, endangering people of all ages and in all countries—and with no prospect of a vaccine, so potentially worse than Covid-19.

At Red Tractor—I restate my interests here—we have worked hard with the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance to tackle this on farms through proper measurement and collection of data, assured standards and annual veterinary inspections. The former CMO, Dame Sally Davies, has commended us for the substantial decline in antibiotic use. For example, in the pig sector use of antibiotics has fallen by 60% over four years. However, there is more to do, and we are working with farmers, processors and retailers to do just that. The power proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, could help us to intensify the work, with some government support. This should be if and only if the need arises, and after proper costing and risk assessment—to hark back to my amendment to Clause 1.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said that he had been advised that the scope of the Bill did not cover health. I would like confirmation that the role of farmers in AMR is within its ambit when the Minister replies to this important group.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord McNicol of West Kilbride, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is very keen that we should allow fungi to be recognised as a separate group within the kingdom of living things on earth. We have obviously moved on from “animal, vegetable or mineral?”, a game which I think many noble Lords will have played as children on long car journeys. I am not sure that we cannot still include fungi within a definition of plants, because it would keep the drafting simpler, and I am not sure that there is any clause of the Bill where fungi will need separate and different references from plants.

My noble friend Lord Caithness is right in his Amendments 177, 179, 180 and 182, which would restrict the powers with regard to data collection to the purposes contained in Clause 23. I also sympathise with his Amendments 186 and 187, which would restrict the definition of “a closely connected person” and the extent of the data which may be collected, and I ask the Minister to give a clear response on these points.

My noble friend Lord Lucas, in Amendments 178 and 181, seeks to provide that the data collection’s purposes should be widened to include the duty to report to Parliament under Clause 17. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether he thinks there could be confidentiality issues here to protect members of supply chains, which are important. Amendment 183 seeks to include “plants”, but surely they are included in

“or other thing taken from the wild.”

I support Amendment 191 from my noble friend Lord Caithness, which seeks to release participants in supply chains both from the provision of unduly burdensome information and from a perceived requirement to disclose confidential information, which is very necessary. Amendment 192 seeks to include intellectual property rights, but surely they are already included.

I am not sure how many of the amendments in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, are necessary. With regard to Amendment 195D, I thought there was always an implied contract if there is a deal, but I would appreciate my noble friend the Minister’s confirmation of that. If I am right, the word “contractual” is otiose in Clause 27(2), which would make Amendment 195E unnecessary.

I cannot support Amendments 196 and 201 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, because product quality is not necessarily affected by animal welfare standards. Also, producer organisations are of course required to observe the high animal welfare standards that the law rightly requires.

I am interested in the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, in Amendments 197 to 200, which seek to widen the responsibilities of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure fair dealing. My noble friend Lady McIntosh makes the same suggestion in her Amendment 207. I would have thought that the skills required are comparable and that it should not be too difficult to recruit some agricultural specialists to the adjudicator’s office. Indeed, would that not be better than setting up yet another quango to deal with this matter?

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[Lord Judd [V]]

My Lords, I am very glad to support this amendment. It seems to me absolutely crucial that at this juncture, of all times, we should be committing ourselves to making sure that proper funding is available for agriculture. It is one of these difficult situations: for quite a long time in Parliament I have been concerned about it. We have a Minister in our midst who takes these issues very seriously, but he will not necessarily be there for ever—alas—and that means that we do not know what lies ahead; nor do we know how far the Treasury and other key members of the Government share the commitment and aspirations that we know he has.

It seems to me, therefore, very wise of my noble friend to table this amendment, because it is saying that we must not allow circumstances, inadvertently or deliberately, to create situations in which the amount of funding available for agriculture decreases. This is the very time that this should not happen, and I believe that this amendment relates to other amendments, not least those by my noble friend Lord Whitty which are coming up in a moment—or at least this evening, we hope—in which he talks about smallholdings and the rest. The point here is that I think we are entering an economic phase in which land and the opportunities it offers for productive, constructive and creative activity will become necessarily more available and more important than ever. I am very glad that my noble friend has wisely tabled this amendment.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I have heard it said many times by Ministers that the total amount of agricultural subsidy to be paid in 2021 will be no lower than the amount to be paid in the current year. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s confirmation of this. However, I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is quite right in his drafting of Amendment 105, because “the total amount provided” under Section 1 in 2020 is obviously zero. I think that what the noble Lord wanted to say was that the amount to be paid is no less than the total amount, including amounts provided under the direct payment scheme and other existing schemes.

I am not sure that it is fair to limit the proportion of financial support spent on administration or consultancy. A farmer might spend a high proportion on consultancy in one year and then nothing for several years. Different farmers categorise spending on administration in different ways, and if a farmer spends all his financial support on unnecessary administration, it follows that he will not be achieving the approved purposes and will not therefore qualify to continue to receive support. I am therefore unable to support Amendments 107 and 123, but I would support Amendment 112, permitting carry- over of unspent funds—but probably only to the next year, which I think is reasonable. Amendment 128, proposed by my noble friend Lady Rock, achieves the same purpose, although, again, I suggest limiting the right to carry over to the following year only.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. It is a pleasure to the follow the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and in relation to his comments on Hansard, I tell him, and indeed the whole Committee, that I once asked the late Lord Armstrong, who I rate as one of our greatest ever Cabinet Secretaries, “Robert, when you wrote up the Cabinet minutes, did you write what the Minister said or what he thought he had said?” He told me, “Oh, no, David. I wrote what the Minister would have said if he had thought of saying it.” I sometimes wish Hansard would do the same with my speeches.

I oppose the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in that the seven-year period should not be reduced to five. However, he is right to draw attention to the importance of CBD15 next year. It is every bit as important as COP26. Indeed, in a sensible world, there would not be two conventions but one, since they are inextricably linked. Habitat loss leads to more carbon and more zoonotic diseases as animals are forced closer to humans. However, that is not for this Bill. I think Defra has got the seven-year period right, and so has my noble friend Lord Randall; moving the deadline does not necessarily buy us more time.

This is the greatest and most exciting change in British agriculture since 1970. I am old enough to remember those UK White Papers produced by the ministry of ag, fish and food—MAFF, an excellent department, if I may say so—such as Food from Our Own Resources, which exhorted us to “produce, produce, produce”. One of the many excellent things about leaving the EU is that we will once again be able to design plans to produce food from our own resources and protect the environment at the same time. But let us not pretend it will be a simple change. Studies on ELMS are being undertaken, and the three tiers are being designed, but it will be a mega change for UK agriculture.

The EU system of giving every farm money based on acreage is simple, but utterly wrong, yet giving farmers payments for undertaking environmental land management schemes is infinitely more complicated; farmers need time to adjust, and Defra needs time to tweak the schemes. Of course, we want rid of the perverse EU payments system as soon as possible, but I prefer to take seven years and get it right than five years and get it wrong.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as stated in the register. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, suggests in Amendment 130 that the period of the first plan should be five years rather than seven years. In Amendment 142, he seeks to reduce the seven-year transition period, during which the direct payments scheme will be phased out, to five years. Farmers are already anxious about how their business models will have to change, and would not welcome the shortening of the transition period. Particularly because they do not have enough information on the new scheme, the noble Lord’s amendment is unwarranted and would be damaging.

However, there is considerable merit in Amendment 143 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, in that the seven-year transition period should start 18 months from now, rather than six, which would give more time for the Government to work out the details of the scheme, and would be neutral in terms of costs to the Exchequer.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in Amendment 144, is right to seek to ensure that payments under the new schemes compensate for the reduction in and ultimate removal of payments under the direct payments scheme. But I think his intention to limit the reduction in total support to 25% is rather modest. I believe direct payments for larger farms are set to be reduced by 25% in 2021, and the noble Lord’s amendment would still permit this to happen, even if such a farm receives zero under the countryside stewardship scheme and other current schemes. As I said previously, the larger farming businesses employ the majority of agricultural workers.

I would not support Amendment 146 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, except in so far as it equates to Amendment 143 to delay the changes by one year. The seven-year transition period is not too long, given the extent of the changes farmers will need to carry out.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, seeks to use this Bill to advance her concerns regarding animal welfare, but I cannot agree with her Amendment 147, which assumes that animal welfare standards are higher or lower, whereas different standards may produce different outcomes, and it is a fine balance. I regret that I do not see the justification for supporting her Amendments 147, 148 or 154.

My noble friend Lady Rock has eloquently explained the reasons behind her Amendments 150 and 151. I can see that where moneys are unspent, the amount provided in a subsequent year might increase if the Government accept carryover procedures. As for her Amendments 152 and 153 on delinked payments, they seem to provide an improvement to the Bill.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have christened this group of amendments, “Mind the gap”. We need some sort of rethink from the Government on a safer way forward.

I support Amendment 143. When I first read the Bill in its earliest form, nearly two years ago now, I thought, “That’s good—the seven-year transition from one system to the next. All will be well; farmers can plan ahead with no problems, and while the single farm payment goes down, they can enter into ELM schemes, with profits, under the new regime.” Defra had three years to get ELM schemes in place, then several years to roll them out to farmers on the ground, which, as others have said, is going to be an almost impossible task. I thought, back then, that it could happen at a manageable place, and all would be well. Farmers would be involved in tremendous changes, but they could survive the transition because the way forward would be clear to them.

But now, two years on, the way forward is still as clear as mud. ELMS have only just entered the pilot stage, farmers have no framework by which to plan and they are saying, “What will ELMS look like for me in my area? I have no idea. What training do I need? I have no idea. Do I need to plan for new equipment or facilities? I have no idea.” No one in the farming community has any clear idea of the future. The details of ELMS will not really emerge from the mist until nearly 2025.

In spite of the delays, we still seem to be stuck with a 2021 start to the transition period. This cannot be right. With the rug of the old world being slowly pulled out from under them, and the new rug unlikely to arrive for some time, I worry farmers will fall down the gap. As others have said, the delay is not really Defra’s fault; we had all the shenanigans around Brexit, and so with this Agriculture Bill doing the hokey-cokey—in, out, in, out—then Covid-19 causing genuine paralysis this year, it is not surprising the timetable has slipped. So, the Government have every reason to take this back and think again before we get to Report. I do not care how they do it, but we need something to close the horrible gap that is looming.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on the amendments dealing with the timings of the first report and subsequent reports on food security to be laid by the Secretary of State. It is vital that there are regular reports. Otherwise, of course, there is no proof that the obligations for farmers and horticulturalists have been carried out and had the desired effect, but a report is as good only as the data it collects.

As my noble friend Lord Hodgson mentioned, it should be an event. This is particularly relevant when it comes to farming. A report must be able to observe long-term trends, which will enable future policy development to be of the best. Agriculture and horticulture are areas in which many of the trends are slow moving, with little noticeable year-on-year change.

A report in the first year would arguably be of little use, and it is worth noting that many data services on food security publish annually—for instance, on the resilience of the UK supply, and on food safety and consumer confidence. These are only two of a long list that report annually.

In conclusion, it is vital that, along with the existing annual reports, there is a report that has time to look at the long-term trends. No report is worth the paper it is written on unless there has been enough time for in-depth analysis.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I was most grateful to my noble friend Lord Northbrook for his kind words of thanks for my support for his amendment in an earlier group. However, I fear I must disappoint him this time with his Amendment 165.

I worry that the inclusion in the Bill of onerous food security obligations on the Secretary of State might be counterproductive, because it is not clear whether the Government favour food sourced from domestic production or are even-handed between imported and domestic food. To report in detail more often than once every five years would be unnecessary. I therefore oppose most of the amendments in this group, especially Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, Amendment 167 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and Amendments 168 and 173.

A requirement for food security targets, as envisaged by Amendment 171 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, might arouse suspicion among our trading partners just as we seek to strike comprehensive free trade agreements with several of them. I suggest that improved diet and increased diversity of foods, including those imported from overseas, has contributed greatly to food security and household food security in the years since the Second World War and has much reduced the percentage of the household budget that the less well-off spend on food.

Rather than national food plans and national food strategies, the Government should ensure that, in future, our food markets will be free of the distortions that exist today as a result of our membership of the common agricultural policy. Amendment 173 provides for public procurement to promote the purchase of domestically produced food, which many might think a laudable objective. However, as noble Lords are no doubt aware, campaigns to buy British are usually at arm’s length from government because they fall foul of WTO rules. This amendment could leave the Government exposed to challenge, as I am sure the Minister is well aware.

If we are to have regular reporting on food security every five years, as envisaged by the Bill, I have some sympathy with Amendment 169, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, which should assist in the reduction of food waste from the current unacceptable levels, and with part of Amendment 172 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, except for that part suggesting that the Government could control the amount of food imported compared with domestic production.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington [V]]

My Lords, I would like to speak briefly to Amendment 162 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I totally support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and I too congratulate the Government for introducing Clause 17 into the Bill.

The excellent thing about Clause 17 is its comprehensive approach. Looking at subsection (2), the relevant factors in these reports—as noted by others—would have to cover a wide range of areas. To name but a few, they would have to report on: our population, its distribution and its nutritional needs; changing tastes and markets; the success or otherwise of a food waste strategy; the percentage of our food that comes from our own diminishing farmland; and port facilities, logistics infrastructure and the cost of transport.

Externally, they would also have to report on: the world political map with regard to food production and consumption; world political stability, for all sorts of reasons, including transport; and now, of course, the world health outlook. There will be other matters to be examined, but that gives you a taste of the breadth of the subject.

As the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, this will inevitably involve a small team of people at Defra permanently trawling for the relevant up-to-date information across this wide landscape, and this small team cannot just be convened every now and again. We have seen this year how quickly a situation can arise. The department needs to have its finger on the pulse, so if this team is permanently doing the work, and hopefully informing Ministers on a regular basis, why not have done with it and produce a report on an annual, or at the very least biennial, basis? Whether this report needs to be laid formally before Parliament is another matter. Personally, I would support an annual basis, as in Amendment 162.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

I strongly oppose Amendments 211, 213, 214, 215 and 216 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. These amendments seek to rename the red meat levy “the animal slaughter levy”, which seems to me completely unnecessary. Worse, she proposes that the money raised by the levy should go towards assisting farmers to transition from livestock farming to plant-based farming. As long as there is demand for meat in this country, her amendment would simply result in an increase in meat imports from overseas.

Does the Minister agree that these amendments have no place in this Bill and represent a misguided attempt to use taxpayers’ money to interfere with citizens’ freedom to eat meat if they want to? As well as creating the impression that eating meat is somehow bad or less good than eating vegetables, they cast aspersions on our excellent livestock farms and our meat-production industry. Besides, has the noble Baroness not seen the recent research that shows that vegetarians need to eat much greater quantities of food than meat- eaters to absorb enough protein to prevent muscle wastage as people age?

I understand the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in Amendment 212. There is an argument that the levy should logically be applied at the point of slaughter. The argument supporting this amendment seems to derive from the fact that there are not so many abattoirs in the other three nations, and I would like to hear the Minister’s view on this point.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who always speaks with wonderful, robust, basic common sense. He spoke for my wife when he talked of “The Archers”, and he spoke for me when he referred to the beguiling speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who is a very popular Member of your Lordships’ House, and deservedly so. But I would say to her this: just watch it when it comes to pushing the vegetarian agenda. I am entirely happy for people to be vegetarian—I have a daughter-in-law, to whom I am devoted, who is a vegan—but that is by choice, and we should not use surreptitious means.

I am wholly in favour of the spirit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and seconded by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. There is a great deal of basic common sense in that, and I hope it will commend itself to my noble friend, if not in its precise form, then in a similar one.

We should be enormously proud of the quality of British meat. Welsh lamb was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on a number of occasions—I love it, as well as Welsh and Scottish beef, and the wonderful lamb we produce in Lincolnshire. From all over the country comes marvellous produce. I think the favourite day of the month for my wife and me is going to the farmers’ market in Lincoln and buying quantities of good, home-produced meat, as well as other things.

I love vegetables; I have my five a day religiously. But we should not use legislation to try to undermine a great industry. We should take great pride not only in the quality of the meat produced in this country but in what can be done in this Bill to safeguard the lives of the farmers who produce it. Producing lamb in Wales is not the easiest of things, and there can be hardly anyone in your Lordships’ House who does not remember the terrible years after Chernobyl, when the Welsh farmers had such a very difficult time.

To my noble friend I say this. By all means, give strong support to Amendment 212, but beware of the wonderfully beguiling talents of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

My Lords, I offer the Green group’s support for Amendments 218 and 219. I associate myself particularly with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, as she moved Amendment 218, referring to the lack of collective bargaining for agricultural workers in England as exceptionally damaging. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, commented, the loss of the Agricultural Wages Board was a disaster and something that I also opposed at the time.

Where I perhaps have cause for some pause is on

“an appropriate supply of seasonal agricultural workers”.

As a number of noble Lords have reflected, a heavy reliance on seasonal workers is not necessarily a way to produce fair, decent jobs, a well-populated countryside and strong communities in it. We want people who are resident year-round to have good, solid, reliable jobs. We should still think of agricultural labour as something that fits in with the desire of many people for part-time and flexible working that suits their needs. Back in 2013, I was at a Fruit Focus horticultural field day and spoke to a grower there who talked about how, back in the 1970s, housewives—as they were then described—students home from the holidays and people coming from the towns into surrounding orchards would work as and when they could. That of course requires a very different sort of agriculture and food supply system that supermarkets would have great difficulty with, but it would be a way of ensuring that people had the opportunity to earn money. Labour is available.

I contrast that with a report in the Times newspaper a couple of weeks ago reflecting, as many noble Lords have done, on how the lack of workers from the European Union and beyond this year has caused difficulties. An asparagus grower was quoted as saying, “Well, you know, British workers just won’t do 12 hours a day of back-breaking work.” Well, I do not believe that we should have a food system that relies on anybody doing 12 hours a day of back-breaking work. We need to ensure that there are jobs that a reasonable range of people can do over a reasonable range of their lifetime, and that needs to fit in with people’s capabilities and capacities, and the skills, as the amendment alludes to, very much need to be developed through far more education and training.

I want to reflect also on what the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, just said about mutuals being involved in supplying housing for workers. We also need to look at encouraging, supporting and assisting in the growth of co-operative models of food production and food growing. Your Lordships might be interested in looking at OrganicLea, not very far from where those of you who are in the Chamber are sitting. It is a co-operative growing good, healthy fruit and vegetables and ensuring that its workers are part of a whole team.

I want also to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on her reference to mental health. An issue that I have been raising elsewhere in your Lordships’ House is the epidemic and truly awful levels of mental ill-health in the building industry. We have been talking a lot about key workers recently; builders and farm workers are clearly key workers. They need to have good, stable, secure jobs that can last through a working life, that fit within their practical capabilities and that give them a decent life and decent wages. So I commend both amendments to the Committee.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge the expertise in this area of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but am sceptical that her Amendment 218 would achieve the purposes she envisages and believe that it is unnecessary and indeed could be counterproductive. As my noble friend Lord Naseby mentioned, we already have excellent agricultural colleges, such as Shuttleworth and Cirencester.

The amendment represents an attempt to interfere with the supply of workers in ways which the market may or may not support. It presumes that there is likely to remain a shortage of trained agricultural workers. Is it not likely that further mechanisation will reduce the demand for agricultural workers? Is it not also true that much agricultural work does not require much training and is seasonal in nature? I ask the Minister to confirm that our future immigration policy will recognise the need and provide that foreign workers may be admitted to the UK for limited periods to carry out fruit picking and related jobs.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as recorded in the register. I want to speak to Amendment 218 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Parminter, and the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Carrington, and express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her introduction of the amendment and for her comments.

The Minister kindly referred in his response to Amendment 12 two weeks ago—was it just two weeks ago?—to work on agricultural and horticultural skills that I have been involved with during the past two years or so. Of course, the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year highlighted how vulnerable we are to disruption when we depend so heavily on a seasonal labour supply from overseas. So I agree wholeheartedly on the need for a strategy to address this vulnerability. However, such a strategy should encompass all labour markets in agriculture and horticulture, not just those of seasonal workers. We are lagging well behind other professions in projecting our sector as an attractive career choice, with no clear signposting, no accurate labour market information, a fragmented and confusing landscape of skills delivery, very few nationally recognised qualifications and no record of individual achievements, including CPD.

A comprehensive skills strategy which includes engaging with schools, FE and HE institutions, the apprenticeship scheme and training and lifelong learning is long overdue. All of us who are involved with the agriculture and horticulture sectors are regularly impressed by the range of skills required to farm successfully, as listed by my noble friend Lord Carrington in an earlier debate and referred to again today. As has been stated, the digital age and robotics will extend the range of skills required to embrace the many challenges we face in a fast-moving world, whether improving productivity or delivering the multiple potential outcomes through the ELM scheme, as well as adding value in exploring markets for our produce.

As indicated earlier by both the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Carrington, I have been engaged in a cross-industry skills leadership group which has the widespread support of all key industry organisations. This is not an appropriate time to do a sales job, but the group has recommended the establishment of a professional body to raise the profile of the sector and the exciting opportunities that exist in it, to recognise national qualifications and standards, to establish a single national data source of information, and to provide signposting for both employers and employees to encourage career development and CPD.

I once again thank the Minister for his personal support in trying to achieve these objectives and for the constructive discussions with and advice received from his officials within the department. I have to say that I do not agree with the comments made by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, a few moments ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, who have tabled these two amendments, that pesticides that cause harm to people and livestock should be banned. However, other pesticides have unreasonably been banned as a result of too rigid an application by the EU of the precautionary principle. I very much agree with the remarks of my noble friends Lord Naseby and Lord Blencathra. For example, the ban on neonics has made the cultivation of oilseed rape in this country uneconomic. The evidence about its toxicity is not clear, and its ban has been counterproductive in that farmers have been forced to use older and less effective pesticides such as pyrethroids and organophosphates, that are less effective and must be sprayed several times during the growing season. They really do harm bees, other insects and even birds.

The prohibition of neonics in the EU was the result of misguided pressure campaigns and false claims that bees are threatened by neonics; actual data show the opposite is true. Contrary to some reports, honeybee colonies have been rising worldwide since the 1990s, when neonics first came on the market. Surveys by the US Department of Agriculture show that American honeybee hive numbers have increased in seven of the last 10 years, and that there are now over 150,000 more beehives in the US than in 1995.

As a result of the EU’s ban on neonics, oilseed rape has become an uneconomic crop for British farmers, and the area cultivated in the UK has fallen by 60% since 2012. The deficit in this crop has been made up by imports, much of them from the Ukraine and other countries which still permit the use of neo-nicotinoids. These amendments would keep British farmers trapped under unnecessary rules. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the neonics ban is an example of rules dictated by mumbo-jumbo rather than science, referred to by the Prime Minister in his speech at Greenwich in February?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville [V]]

My Lords, this should have been the last group of amendments debated on Tuesday evening, dealing with pesticides, which we had previously debated. This debate has roused passions on both sides of the argument. Whichever side you come from, we all seem to agree that being sprayed with chemicals is unacceptable. I fully support Amendment 221 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who has also added his name to Amendment 226 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, as has my noble friend Lord Greaves.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked of the protection of wildlife biodiversity. Terrible damage can be done to humans by ingesting chemicals which can cause health problems and deformities. The noble Lord gave a graphic example of the sprayer of pesticides who was wearing full protective clothing but taking no care to ensure that those nearby, not protected by clothing, were not covered by the spray. This is not right. Rural residents deserve to be protected, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, reminded us of the previous contributions by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel. Will we remove toxic chemicals from our environment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said? There is a cumulative effect on humans, as well as the decimation of the insect population.

I regret that I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. Not all of us who have gardens spray our plants, fruit and vegetables with noxious chemicals to prevent pests. There are other means of discouraging pests and blight which do not contain poisons or spray up on our produce.

Over the years we have seen the devastating effects on humans of the use of pesticides and insecticides. Some noble Lords mentioned Roundup. I have experience of the effect of sheep dip. My noble friend Lord Addington mentioned DDT and organophosphates. We take an unconscionable time to act when presented with evidence of harm. It is, therefore, much better to ban toxic sprays and move to more environmentally friendly means of pest control, such as nematode worms to control slugs, instead of slug pellets, which kill birds that eat the slugs that have eaten the pellets, and eat the pellets themselves. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for his valuable contribution to this debate. These amendments are linked; both monitor the use of pesticides and alternatives. We cannot monitor the use of pesticides if we do not collect data on their use, as my noble friend Lady Northover indicated. I am grateful for her contribution and her attention to the UK’s history in preventing the banning of neonicotinoids and the transport of live animals—we should be ashamed of our part in that.

Noble Lords taking part in this debate have made important points. In earlier debates, the noble Baroness the Minister gave reassurances on the implementation of alternative pesticide use. It is important that the public are protected from possible pesticide spraying. The IPM should be implemented as soon as possible. When will it be consulted on and then implemented? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of Amendment 230, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. Hedgerows are much more than boundaries and a way to manage animals, as a recent story in my local newspaper, the Halesowen News, illustrated. Local residents in Halesowen were furious when the council “butchered” their local hedgerows. The residents recognised that the hedgerow blocked noise and reduced pollution and they also welcomed the fact that it provided a habitat for many species of wildlife, including nesting birds and small mammals such as hedgehogs, and contained many flowers and fruits essential for the bees.

Hedgerows are an essential component of the local agri-eco system; that is why Amendment 230 is so important in making sure that we continue to give hedgerows the protections that they need. They also play a vital role in reducing the rate of climate change through carbon storage, they regulate the water supply for crops and reduce soil erosion. Animal health can also be improved by hedgerows: a thick stock-proof hedge can prove a barrier to the spread of disease and can provide shade and shelter and reduce wind speeds. Recent research has shown, for example, that lamb survival rates are increased by hedgerows reducing the chilling effect of the wind.

Where there are gaps in the law after we leave the EU, we should take the opportunity through this Bill to ensure that they are filled. Amendment 230 makes sure that hedgerows are not overlooked by the Bill. We cannot let some areas of nature be overlooked, and I hope that the Government will accept this amendment. If the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, cannot accept it, can he set out in some detail for the Committee how the protection that this amendment seeks to put in force will be delivered?

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, makes a powerful case for a new environmental regulatory regime for agriculture in introducing Amendment 229. While I accept that regulation will never stand still but always evolve in line with famers’ and consumers’ priorities and our understanding of the natural environment and what affects it, I think that, at a time when farmers are having to adapt their business models to reflect the loss of what is, for many, the largest single component of their annual incomes, introducing a new regulatory regime would be unnecessarily burdensome and confusing.

I seek clarification from my noble friend the Minister that the cross-compliance rules will also apply to payments under the ELM scheme; I expect that this would mean that this amendment and, indeed, Amendments 230 and 231, in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, are not necessary. Furthermore, his intention to reduce from 20 metres to 10 metres the minimum length of hedgerows to which regulations apply is surely disproportionate and unreasonable. Is my noble friend not aware that, up and down the country, farmers are putting in new hedgerows?

In Amendment 297, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, seeks to place a limit on rearing pigs on any land at a density greater than 20 healthy pigs per hectare. A friend of mine whose family have farmed pigs in Lincolnshire for generations tells me that this density is very low. I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm that he agrees.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend because I was also hoping to ask for confirmation that hedgerows will be covered within ELMS and that famers will have to meet the cross-compliance requirements. From memory, when we had the debate on Clause 1 and the many amendments that were tabled at that time, it was my understanding that that would be the case. I know that my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge has taken great interest and is very expert in this area. I also am concerned about water quality and our requirements under the water framework directive; I am interested to know if we will keep up with the requirements of the successor water framework directives to come.

My main point is that I find Amendment 229 from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, very interesting, but I would be rather aghast to think that we were going to have a new environmental regulatory regime. I take this opportunity, if I may, to say to my noble friend the Minister that there is great uncertainty at the moment as to what the regulatory regime will be, as we have not yet had sight of the Environment Bill. Perhaps I am being slow here, but I do not see what the relationship will be between the office for environmental protection and the Environment Agency, Natural England, Rural Payments Agency and the host of other bodies. Who will be the policeman in all this and who will be giving the friendly advice to farmers in this regard?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, address myself to Amendments 254 and 258 and the issue of slaughter. Across the animal world, killing is done in ways that we do not like to think about. These amendments are a deliberate targeting of methods of slaughter of meat in the expectation that the consumer will read the label, understand it and be affected by it. No doubt there would be a campaign to persuade consumers not to buy certain products if regulations were made under these amendments. I want to draw attention to the selectivity in them.

This is a country in which fishing is a national pastime. It has recently been reported that even fish that are approved by eco-labelling schemes and sold in leading supermarkets have lived in grossly overcrowded cages and died slowly and painfully. Wild-caught fish are gutted or have their gills cut while fully conscious. Farmed fish are starved for a fortnight before they are killed. I have never understood how a kind person who enjoys fishing for himself can leave the fish to suffocate on the ground next to him. Trillions of fish not covered by these amendments suffer globally as a result of these methods of slaughter. In the UK, we shoot stags and pheasants for pleasure. Rabbits are killed for food by decapitation, breaking the neck and blows to the head. Millions of lobsters are killed every year by being semi- frozen and then thrown into boiling water, where they are left to thrash around for several minutes. Secret videos of horrors within UK slaughterhouses abound.

No doubt we will be told that stunning is humane and that non-stunning is not, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has pointed out, it does not always work. Poultry slaughter is highly mechanised for speed rather than for the minimising of suffering, and it frequently goes wrong. According to the European Food Safety Authority, 180 million chickens and other poultry were killed in the most recent count using an insufficient electric charge. According to Compassion in World Farming, 1 billion chickens are ineffectively stunned in the EU each year, and millions of pigs that are stunned before slaughter with CO₂ gas suffer.

My point is that our concerns should extend to all; they should not be crudely divided into stunning and non-stunning. The kosher requirement in this country is so tiny it is likely that many times more cattle were inadequately stunned, and therefore suffered, than were non-stunned and killed according to the kosher method. Consumers have every right to know what they are eating, but there should be honest, non-discriminatory labelling which should not deceive the consumer or insult faith communities. If you wanted to be comprehensive, every chicken leg would have to have a little booklet attached to it.

The European Commission’s Study on Information to Consumers on the Stunning of Animals in 2016 concluded that:

“for most consumers information on pre-slaughter stunning is not an important issue unless brought to their attention. However, this is an issue for a certain proportion of motivated consumers. It is by no means clear that consumers would actually act on this information if it were to be available.”

Its clear conclusion was that there is little accurate consumer understanding of the slaughter process. Kosher and halal meat is already labelled, so it is difficult to see a need for any further labelling. What then is the purpose of these amendments, in so far as they affect slaughter, because they are selective and pejorative in effect? They do not promote honest labelling, and they should be opposed.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, Amendment 247, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, seems sensible and I applaud his attention to economic conditions and to the expectations of consumers, as specified in the common market organisation regulation. I support his purpose, that regulations are only brought in for legitimate purposes.

I sympathise with my noble friend Lord Lucas in his Amendment 249, which seeks to explore the reasons why live poultry, poultry meat and spreadable fats are excluded from subsection (2)(j).

I am sympathetic, to a point, towards the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, which seek to increase the amount of information available to consumers by labelling and QR codes, but I expect that my noble friend will not want to go beyond what is proportionate and justified in terms of cost. For that reason, I prefer Amendment 258, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, which is the right way forward to deal with the animal welfare concerns which are often, misleadingly, confused with food standards.

I trust that the Minister will reject Amendment 256, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which would bind the UK to dynamic alignment with EU animal health, hygiene or welfare standards over which, even in this current implementation period, we have no influence whatever. As my noble friend knows, she and I are on opposite sides on EU alignment. I point out that these standards are not necessarily higher or lower—they are multidimensional. Her perceptions of standards do not take sufficient account of equivalence of outcomes.

Besides, we need to take up the opportunity that Brexit offers to improve our domestic regulatory environment. At present, the playing field for British cattle and sheep farmers is very uneven. Their French competitors receive €1 billion of voluntary coupled support payments every year. In the UK, the equivalent is a mere €39 million available to Scottish crofters. The threat to British beef is highly subsidised French and Irish beef, not American beef. Amendment 256 would make it much more difficult for the UK to enter into a good free trade agreement with the US and other third countries.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is a tireless campaigner for higher animal welfare standards. However, Amendment 266 in her name would directly conflict with the aim of Clause 40, which is to ensure that the UK, exercising its rights as an independent member of the WTO for the first time since 1973, must be compliant with the Agreement on Agriculture. The UK now has a chance to establish itself as a global campaigner for free trade and it is important not to deny British farmers the opportunity to export high-quality products to markets such as the US, Australia and New Zealand. Does the Minister agree that the amendment would put the UK in violation of WTO rules in these and other areas where we do not have an EU protected sector, such as olive oil?

Almost 50 countries have made a submission complaining about the EU’s SPS rules, including many poor, developing countries as well as the major agricultural exporting countries. Those who argue that the UK should maintain its illogical ban on the import of chlorinated or even peracetic acid-rinsed chicken should answer three questions. First, would they not think it a good idea if the incidence of campylobacter in the UK could be lowered to the average level of occurrence in the US, a little over one-fifth of the level here? Secondly, are they aware that the American maximum stocking density for poultry, as my noble friend Lord Lilley explained, is broadly equivalent to our own? Thirdly, are they aware that the UK imports chicken from Poland —an EU member state—Thailand and Brazil, in all of which poultry stocking densities are higher than those found in the US or the UK?

Finally, I turn to Amendment 263, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, which requires the Government to seek an agreement for the continued protection of UK speciality food and drink products. The Government announced in February last year that they will set up their own geographical indications scheme in fulfilment of our WTO obligations. Does my noble friend think this amendment would help him achieve his objectives?

[Baroness Northover [V]]

My Lords, this group of amendments covers a wide range of areas that relate to standards, labelling and speciality foods, and to how the market will operate after transition, not least in the different parts of the United Kingdom. There are some very important amendments here.

This section of the Bill is full of words such as “may”, not “must”, and in some places noble Lords are seeking to rectify this. This is extremely important if we are to maintain the standards that the Minister says we will have now that we have left the EU and will not compromise to do trade deals.

Amendment 236A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, the first amendment here, is slightly different from others in this group, most of which seek to maintain standards. The noble Baroness is seeking to move standards forward to address climate change. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in Amendment 253A also takes up climate change issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, wishes to ensure in Amendment 247 that reasons for regulations should be, as now in the EU, clearly defined as necessary—as one would certainly hope they would be.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was commendably brief, emphasising the importance of labelling for full transparency and proposing smart labelling, animal welfare and traceability. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, adds wine in his Amendment 253.

Crucial in this group is Amendment 254 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. Here they have scooped up key points in this permissive section to make it into a provision which says that Ministers “must” take action. So much in this Bill is permissive and does not specify what “must” happen. They seek to specify here that origin, transportation and method of slaughter should be transparent to consumers, but I note that my noble friend Lord Palmer and the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Deech, are concerned about this.

Then there are the amendments ranged around the country. Amendment 255 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and my noble friend Lord Bruce, would ensure that the Secretary of State consults the devolved Administrations and other bodies on regulations relating to marketing standards and the nature of the potential internal market in the UK. Amendment 263A from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, also explores the balance in devolution and the risks of trade deals agreed by the UK Government which might be unacceptable and destructive, for example in Wales, damaging the union itself. The Minister was going back to think about devolution. He will need to examine this as well.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have heard my county of North Yorkshire mentioned a number of times in Committee and I want to speak particularly to Amendment 271, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, because of the fear I have of our having to accept WTO rules as a result of crashing out of the EU without a decent trade deal. Our farmers in North Yorkshire, as elsewhere, will bear a great deal of pain if that happens. The Government made clear manifesto commitments, as we have heard repeatedly throughout the passage of the Bill, not to compromise, inter alia, animal welfare or food standards in any future trade deals, yet they offered no amendments to the Trade Bill, which we will have to rigorously scrutinise when we return to Parliament in September. This Bill is a foretaste of what may well yet happen unless we make sure that this legislation is absolutely watertight.

Our food must maintain the very high standards we have come to expect, ensuring that animal welfare and environmental protection remain at the very heart of our food production. The director of policy for NFU Scotland, Jonnie Hall, said:

“The UK Agriculture Bill is a once-in-a-generation piece of legislation and it must safeguard the sustainability of domestic food production and the integrity of domestic food consumption.”


As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others, Waitrose, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, M&S and the Co-op have all now said that they will never sell chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef from the US—where, incidentally, 50 million Americans get sick each year from the food they eat. As Sue Davies, head of consumer protection and food policy at Which? said:

“We do not want to import these unacceptably high rates of foodborne illness into our health system”.


Chlorine-washed chicken is barred from the EU because it is used to disguise farming practices that increase the risk of such infections as salmonella and campylobacter. There is also ractopamine, a horrible drug fed to pigs to make them grow fatter, which is banned in the EU and in 160 other countries, including China and Russia; 17-beta estradiol, another growth-promoting hormone, which EU scientists believe is a complete carcinogen; and bovine somatatropine, given to cows in the US to increase milk yields—again, banned in the EU, Canada and Japan on animal welfare grounds as it is associated with increased lameness and mastitis in cattle, which leads, of course, to greater use of antibiotics, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, and others, but is used and approved in the US. All these drugs have been banned in the UK, thanks to EU regulations, but they are quite legal on the US factory farms.

More than 1 million people have already signed the NFU petition to promote sustainable models of production and consumption across the world and I end with its concluding sentence, which calls on the UK Government

“to put into law rules that prevent food being imported to the UK which is produced in ways that would be illegal here.”

We must not sell our farmers out to the United States or other countries whose animal welfare and food production standards are so far below our own.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I repeat my declaration of interests as stated in the register. Since the Government announced the establishment of the Trade and Agriculture Commission on 10 July, under the chairmanship of Tim Smith, formerly chief executive of the Food Standards Agency, I believe that Amendment 270, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, and Amendment 279, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, are redundant. Besides, there are other problems with both the proposed commissions. My noble friend’s commission would be required to maintain standards at levels

“as high as or higher than”

those which apply now. The rather more detailed Amendment 279 is surely similarly redundant and would undoubtedly shackle UK producers to the restrictive EU regime, although it does contain two important concessions: new subsection (4)(e) recognises that,

“different production systems and regulatory approaches”

may produce equivalence of outcomes; and new subsection (4)(g) acknowledges that import restrictions may be detrimental both to consumer interests and to developing countries.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh just said, in her eloquent speech, that she wishes to retain the level playing field between EU and UK farmers. If she believes that such a level playing field exists, I fear she is mistaken. As I pointed out on Thursday, French livestock farmers benefit from €1 billion in voluntary coupled support every year. This compares with the mere €39 million available to Scottish crofters. I agree with my noble friend that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was right to confirm that we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards in all our trade negotiations. However, rules that enforce precise standards may be unnecessary or disproportionate. Standards are not two-dimensional: low or high. Outcomes may be similar but reached by very different rule books.

Among the problems with our EU standards is that some introduce distortions to the market without bringing any benefit. In the words of the Prime Minister in his Greenwich speech in February:

“There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment, or anything similar, any more than the EU should be obliged to accept UK rules”.


The Prime Minister also said:

“But I must say to the America bashers in this country, if there are any, that in doing free trade deals we will be governed by science and not by mumbo-jumbo because the potential is enormous.”


I have heard quite a number of America bashers, including several of my noble friends, express their views during our debates on the Bill. I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm categorically that we will diverge from EU rules and standards, at least in order to be able to adopt an SPS regime which does not violate the WTO’s rules. The EU is in violation of WTO rules on GMOs and hormone-treated beef. The UK will also be in violation of WTO rules in these and other areas, such as those where we do not have a sector which EU rules protect, such as olive oil.

Amendment 271 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, rightly requires the UK to ensure that any new trade agreements will conform to the WTO’s SPS agreement. This allows countries to maintain standards that are stricter than international standards if those standards are justified by science or by a non-discriminatory lower level of acceptable risk that does not selectively target imports. I worry that proposed new subsection 2(b) may conflict with proposed new subsection 2(a) because it would appear to target imports selectively in cases where the exporter’s rules or standards violate the WTO’s SPS rules.

Similarly, Amendment 273 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Amendment 276 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and Amendment 278 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, all require, in effect, the Government to import food only from countries which apply hygiene, animal welfare or environmental standards which are equivalent to or exceed those currently allowed in the EU or UK. However, if we were to insist that our trading partners meet our welfare standards, many currently available imported goods would be prohibited from sale in the UK. If we try to restrict our trade negotiators in the ways these amendments would require, we will fail to make good trade agreements with other countries and we will not be able to secure the great benefits that our independent trade policy can deliver in many other areas, such as financial services, digital and data. We would lose the opportunity to improve our domestic regulatory environment and we would render Brexit largely meaningless.

As for Amendment 280 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, I understand that the Government remain confident that they will successfully negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU prior to the end of the year. This amendment is not appropriate for inclusion in a Bill which sets out new, long-term future arrangements for agriculture.

[Lord Trees (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak particularly to Amendment 271 but I broadly support most of the amendments in this group, which are all about maintaining standards. There has been quite a lot of repetition. I am afraid I will also be guilty of that to some extent, although I will try to be brief, and there will be repetition in the future as the debate continues. I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the Ministers —the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield—who have maintained great courtesy throughout and have given us detailed answers to our many questions in Committee.

In negotiating a free trade agreement, the Government have repeatedly stated, as has been said, that they will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. But Ministers and Governments come and go, and as long as there is no statutory commitment to this goal, there is bound to be uncertainty. The commitment to create a Trade and Agriculture Commission is a step in the right direction but as currently proposed it is advisory and ephemeral.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, has withdrawn from this group of amendments. I call the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s Amendment 18, also in the names of my noble friend Lord Lindsay and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle. My noble friend is a great supporter of impact assessments and she is right. In framing the new financial assistance schemes, it is important for the Secretary of State to understand the likely effect of any new ways of remunerating farmers for their farming activities and for their stewardship of the countryside. Many farmers are presently bemused by the measures contained in this clause and would much appreciate greater clarity from the Government. The publication of impact assessments would improve their understanding and help them to plan for the future.

I do not think I can support the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in her Amendment 28, because she wishes the Government to publish more information than is appropriate. Farmers should be entitled to rather more privacy than the noble Baroness would allow.

In Amendment 32, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Dundee seek to shorten the period of the first plan to five years. However, payments under the new ELM schemes are not expected to commence until 2024, and I think the full seven years—which would mean only three years after those schemes start—would be the minimum time necessary for the Government to prepare their plan for the second period, based on their review of the use and effectiveness of the schemes during the initial period.

On the other hand, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, in his Amendment 33, seeks to extend the length of each plan from five to seven years. However, as I said in Committee, I do not think the noble Earl’s reason is valid. Even if the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is not quickly repealed, as I hope it will be, the noble Earl is surely aware that general elections have not taken place regularly every five years.

I think the noble Earl is being a little modest in seeking to ensure that plans are published at least two months before they come into effect, and I am delighted that, in Amendment 35, the Minister proposes that subsequent plans should be published at least 12 months before they come into effect. That is in line with what several noble Lords recommended in Committee.

I am not sure whether Amendments 47 and 106, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, are helpful. The best thing the Government can do for British farmers is to ensure that unnecessary, unjustified red tape is removed, so that they can compete successfully at home and abroad. During our membership of the EU, as noble Lords should be aware, British farmers have not enjoyed a level playing field with their competitors: French livestock producers receive €1 billion a year of voluntary coupled support, as opposed to a mere €39 million available to Scottish crofters.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

My Lords, since the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford, Lord Rooker and Lord Addington, have withdrawn from this group, I now call the noble Lord, Lord Carrington.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I too had the privilege of sitting on the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs—the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee—and I am grateful to the Government for their response to our report. I would classify it in English as “disappointing,” in Scottish as “peely-wally,” and I think the amendment before us goes a long way towards implementing what was unanimously agreed in the report. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that to have it in the Bill now is the right way forward to help Defra in the future.

The quality of the food we eat is costing us all billions—costing this country a great deal of money, and unnecessarily. We are the processed food capital of Europe, and that is a number one spot that we should not be holding. It was the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who said that we want to encourage the production of good, healthy food. I argue that the farmers do produce good, healthy food now: it is the industry, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said on the previous group of amendments, that turns decent, good food into the poison that we are fed by supermarkets—all this ghastly processed food. Some of it is absolutely delicious, and you have to go for a second helping, but it is poison: it is doing us no good and it is costing the NHS, in due course, one heck of a lot of money.

So it is the industry. I remember that on one occasion we were interviewing Judith Batchelar of Sainsbury’s and then the British Retail Consortium. I pressed hard and it took a long time to get a final answer from Judith Batchelar, but she did finally say that Sainsbury’s would not sell chlorinated chicken. The British Retail Consortium, on the other hand, said, “Oh, no, we have no control over our members”. In other words, “We are not going to say anything, and we are certainly going to produce the cheapest food that we can find on the market.” The industry will be called to the table kicking and screaming against any change.

As so much of the food we eat is either fast food or from restaurants, we have absolutely no idea what we are being served. It is one thing to buy something with a label on it in a supermarket or a shop, but it is quite another when we eat outside our home and have absolutely no idea where the food comes from.

On a point of nitpicking detail with the amendment, I would have liked in subsection (4)(d), on food labelling, to have included the effects of climate change. I mentioned this quite a lot in Committee, and I hope my noble friend has read the book by Professor Bridle that I recommended to him, or at least his officials have and given him a precis of it.

Another point we raised in Committee which is hugely important to the whole of our national food strategy is what I would term Whitehall governance. It is not just Defra; there are numerous departments within government that are all involved in the food we eat, whether it is education—through schools—or the National Health Service, or whoever it is. Whitehall governance has also got to improve. It was quite clear from the number of Ministers we had to interview to get any sort of idea of what the Government were trying to do that it is not a joined-up process.

I believe this amendment would go a long way to push that in the right direction. I do not think my noble friend Lady McIntosh is right in saying that it will pre-empt part 2; it will strengthen the Government’s hand when part 2 is published. By that stage, the Government will be a little bit more ahead of the game than they are at the moment.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment would include in the Bill a new clause introducing a national food strategy. I understand that Henry Dimbleby’s team will publish part 2 of their review before the end of the year, and that the Government have committed to publish a White Paper within six months of that. I therefore believe this is the wrong place and the wrong time to try to legislate, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. However, I do agree with many things he said in his introductory speech. In this instance, I tend to agree with my noble friend Lady McIntosh rather than my noble friend Lord Caithness.

I believe that the best way to encourage people to improve their diet and reduce the problem of obesity—which seems to me also worthy of being described as a pandemic—is to produce policies that will maximise prosperity for all. The lower the proportion of household income that basic necessities such as food account for, the more people will choose to buy higher-quality and healthier food products. The creation of another non-departmental public body with powers to influence food policy, including the reformulation of less healthy foods by fiscal means, would run the risk of creating a vast, unaccountable bureaucracy, which would cause distortions in the market.

As noble Lords are well aware, the economy has been badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and unemployment is rising. Does my noble friend the Minister not agree that it is the wrong time to restrict the marketing, promotion and advertising of what the amendment calls “less healthy foods”? Surely it is not good for your health to eat large quantities of certain foods, but modest consumption of many foods containing salt does not harm most people in any way. I worry that a new body, or an existing organisation, that the noble Lord wishes to have oversight of these matters might overstep the mark, besides the obvious risk of tempting the nanny state to be overzealous, which would reduce personal responsibility for matters such as choice of diet and possibly even have counterproductive results.

I think that Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy can make an important contribution to public understanding of the importance of diet. However, the best way to ensure that a wide range of healthy food is available at reasonable prices is to ensure that our food markets will be free of the distortions that exist today as a result of our membership of the common agricultural policy.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to speak to this amendment, to which I have added my name, along with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for so excellently setting out the rationale for this amendment, and I declare my interest as the mother of a dietician. I am grateful to the Minister for his time, and that of his officials, in providing briefings.

In Committee we had a long debate on this issue, with a large number of speakers raising the issues around the need for a national food strategy. We were headed off by the Minister on the grounds that we were waiting for Henry Dimbleby to produce his first report. This has now happened, and I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that this is unlikely to be actioned without something in the Bill.

I am sure the Minister will again try to head us off by wanting to wait until part 2 of Henry Dimbleby’s report is produced some time next year—it will not be produced this year, as the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, thinks. After the second report has been produced and digested, the Government have promised to produce a White Paper consultation on the food strategy within six months. After that consultation, a food strategy will appear at some time, but this could well be in 2022. I ask the Minister to give some clarity on the timescales in his response.

There cannot be many in the country who do not know that a healthy diet and exercise are vital if we are to avoid the rigours of diabetes and obesity or avoid falling victim to Covid-19. However, for many people, knowing that a healthy diet and exercise are needed does not necessarily mean that they fully understand what a healthy diet is, what foods they should avoid and which they should eat more of. Other noble Lords have produced really frightening statistics on the health of the nation.

The amendment is specific: nutritious, healthy food must be readily available. The rise in the popularity of television cooking programmes shows that people are interested in the preparation of interesting-looking food made from fresh ingredients. However, many TV adverts we see scheduled, especially from large supermarket chains, often feature food that is high in fat, salt and sugars, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has referred.

Beefburgers are a prime example. To me, the images on the screen are not that appetising, but I am sure that for those who regularly consume beefburgers, they are enticing and encourage them to fill their supermarket baskets with them. There is nothing wrong with beefburgers, eaten occasionally, made at home with fresh meat and without the addition of salt and sugar. However, when eaten on a daily basis, as they will be in some households—especially those who are on low incomes and cannot afford electricity to cook meals, and find it easier to go to the takeaway— they do not improve life chances. My noble friend Lord Greaves has given examples of ready meals and their quality, and I am sure that most of us have had one of these at some stage in our lives. Getting manufacturers to reduce the amount of fat, salt and sugar is key to improving diet—the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has said it all so much better.

In this House, we have a duty to do all we can to improve the diet of the nation. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, my daughter is a dietician and frequently says to me, “What are you doing about it?”. Alone, I cannot do a great deal, but together we can make a difference. This amendment is one way in which we can make a difference. On our virtual Benches we will support the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I urge your Lordships to support this amendment, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Agriculture Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I declare again my interests as stated in the register. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Noakes for adding her name to mine on these amendments. I look forward to hearing her contribution and those of other noble Lords.

Like many noble Lords, I attended most of the seven days of Committee on the Bill. Although there were amendments that I thought would improve it, I felt that a large majority were either redundant or harmful. Many were proposed by noble Lords who have consistently opposed Brexit and, even if they now accept the decision of the people and the result of the general election of December 2019, still seek to align our rules and regulations as closely as they can with those of the EU, even in cases where the EU is a global outlier.

There is much that I like about Amendment 93 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, as I said in debate in Committee. It is right that any new trade agreements that we enter into should confirm the UK’s acceptance of its rights and obligations under the World Trade Organization’s sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. As we start to participate in the WTO as a new independent member, it is important that we do all that we can to strengthen its relevance and remit, which have been weakened by the ambiguous attitude towards it held by the present American Administration. The US has refused to nominate new members to the appellate body, which is hampering the hearing of appeals. The UK should become a leading advocate internationally for rules-based free and fair trade because that is the way to build a more prosperous world. Indeed, given the US disregard for the WTO, the UK as the fifth-largest economy will be able to take the lead in reviving support for international trade liberalisation, which has lacked a champion.

The problem with the noble Lord’s amendment is that there is a conflict between proposed new subsection (2)(a), which would require trade agreements to conform to the SPS agreement, and proposed new subsection (2)(b), which would require all food imports to conform to domestic standards, which means EU standards. EU standards conflict in some instances with the SPS agreement, which encourages Governments to adopt national SPS measures consistent with international standards, guidelines and recommendations. Most of the WTO’s member Governments participate in the development of these standards in three other international bodies: the Codex Alimentarius Commission, established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the World Health Organization; the World Organisation for Animal Health, or OIE; and the International Plant Protection Convention.

The SPS agreement aims to ensure that measures are applied for no other purpose than that of ensuring food safety and animal and plant health. Such measures should be based as far as possible on the analysis and assessment of objective and accurate scientific data. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, the SPS agreement permits countries to adopt standards higher than international standards if they think it appropriate but only if there is scientific justification, not if such standards are misused for protectionist purposes and not if they result in unnecessary barriers to international trade.

The EU is a global outlier in international food standards because it gives too much importance to the precautionary principle, which obstructs innovation and interferes with free and fair trade, thus driving prices higher than they need be. A case in point is the EU ban on hormone-treated beef, which the WTO ruled is not based on sound science and denies EU consumers access to US beef at affordable prices. I know there are noble Lords who might welcome the price of beef rising to such levels where economics will force people to change from a mixed diet, including a significant amount of meat, to a largely or all-vegetarian diet, but, besides interfering with the freedom of the consumer to choose what diet he or she wishes to eat at affordable prices, such restrictions will interfere with and limit the ability of British beef farmers to sell to new markets overseas at competitive prices.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said he thought I was seeking to prevent the Secretary of State setting UK standards and requiring him to conform exactly to international standards. I do not think I am trying to do that in any way. I believe that we import many products manufactured in countries with different labour laws, environmental standards and animal welfare rules. Of course we must set domestic standards at the high levels that we rightly wish to uphold.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said that chlorinated chicken was “bad food”. For a start, most chicken grown and reared in the United States is treated not with chlorine but with peracetic acid. Secondly, I do not believe that it is bad food; certainly, I have never found it bad when I have eaten rather good roast chicken on visits to the US. If people do not want to buy American food because they think American farmers’ standards are too low, they do not need to. However, we are not quite as good as we always think we are; there have been many articles in the newspapers recently about poor poultry food standards, pollution of rivers and so forth. Neither are the Americans anything like as bad as many noble Lords make them out to be; indeed, there is not much difference between American rules on poultry stocking densities and UK rules on the same thing.

If the UK adopts food standards compliant with the SPS agreement, no one will be forced to eat food produced in countries of whose animal welfare standards they disapprove. However, I have not heard any noble Lords on the other side of this argument call for clear food labelling to identify products such as chicken reared in Poland, Brazil or Thailand, where average stocking densities are higher than those permitted in the US or the EU. I understand that Poland does not yet comply with EU rules. It is also interesting that there is no criticism of animals killed in conformity with halal rules to conform with sharia law.

In common with most noble Lords, I applaud the fact that the UK has made a big contribution to the raising of animal welfare standards in the world and I sincerely hope that we will continue to do so. Our efforts in this regard should be made within the OIE, and not by trying to interfere with free markets in food by applying restrictions on imports which will drive up the cost of food, especially at a time when so many people’s livelihoods have been affected by Covid-19.

For decades, the time-honoured way of dealing with SPS and technical barriers to trade rules has been to rely on equivalence of standards and technical regulation. This is because an equivalence or recognition approach ensures that everyone’s overall approach to risk is the same—not that every country’s rules are identical. We are more likely to get better rules, and more pro-competitive ones, if we adopt an equivalence or recognition approach with regulatory competition. Pure harmonisation is unlikely to lead to the best result and tends to increase the regulatory burden on our farmers, making them globally uncompetitive. Moreover, this is the approach of most WTO members. The EU is seen as the outlier. Our trading partners are asking the question: will we truly be “global Britain” or will we be more protectionist than the French? In the former case, we will be welcomed into the community of trading nations; in the latter, we will not.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Trenchard; indeed, it was a pleasure to add my name to his Amendments 94, 95 and 96. This is the first time that I have spoken during the passage of this Bill. Until my husband retired, I sometimes described myself as a farmer’s wife—but I claim no special expertise in agriculture and, for the avoidance of doubt, I have no interests to declare. I do, however, have an interest in trade matters; that is what has enticed me into the Report stage of the Bill and these amendments.

I start from the position that the main amendments in this group are not necessary. The Government’s policy is clear: they are committed to high food and welfare standards. They have demonstrated that commitment in all the trade treaties negotiated to date—both the continuity ones and the latest jewel in our trade crown, the free trade agreement with Japan. I am sure that we will go over that ground all over again when we commence our scrutiny of the Trade Bill.

We do not need to write into law what the Government are committed to. I fully accept that Governments do that from time to time, but it is generally done when they have weak parliamentary majorities and need to appease their opponents. Writing into law what the Government will do anyway can be a cheap way out of a confrontation. Noble Lords will know that that is the background to the wording of the Trade Bill that was brought forward by the previous Administration. We are not in that position today. The Government have a solid majority in the other place, which has already rejected similar amendments—and if your Lordships’ House passes these amendments, I would expect a similar response.

There is another reason why these amendments are unnecessary. International treaties have to be ratified using the CRaG procedure, which gives the other place the power to refuse ratification. Amendment 93 contains the equivalent of the CRaG procedure, but I fail to see why we need, effectively, to duplicate CRaG solely for the purpose of agricultural and food imports. If the other place does not like what the Government have negotiated in a trade treaty in relation to food and agriculture, it is open to the other place to refuse to ratify the agreement. Parliament already has the power that it needs by virtue of CRaG. Nevertheless, I have added my name to my noble friend Lord Trenchard’s amendments because, as he has explained, without his amendments, Amendment 93 would not make sense.

Now that we have left the EU, the starting point for our international trade will be the World Trade Organization. I welcome Clauses 40 to 42, which give the Government the necessary powers in the area of agriculture. This means that we should be ensuring that our standards comply with WTO standards; at the moment they do not, because our standards are derived from the EU and are in some respects non-compliant.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Viscount Trenchard]

94: After Clause 42, in subsection (2)(b), leave out “their importation, are equivalent to, or exceed, the relevant domestic standards and regulations” and insert “its import, are equivalent to, or exceed, the relevant international standards and regulations and which are consistent with the United Kingdom's obligations contained in subsection (2)(a),”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and the others in the name of Viscount Trenchard to Lord Grantchester's amendment, recognise that domestic standards are identical to EU standards and in certain respects are not compliant with WTO rules, correct the conflict between subsection (2)(a) and subsection (2)(b) as drafted, and ensure that international trade agreements will be compliant with WTO rules.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, in light of the assurances given by the Minister, I will not move my amendments.

Amendments 94 to 96 (to Amendment 93) not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Viscount Trenchard]

98: After Clause 42, in subsection (1), leave out “as high as, or higher than,” and insert “which (a) are equivalent to or exceed”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the other in the name of Viscount Trenchard to Baroness McIntosh’s amendment would ensure that the Trade and Agriculture Commission would establish criteria which would ensure that United Kingdom standards comply with WTO rules.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, in moving my Amendment 98, I will speak to Amendment 99, both of which are amendments to Amendment 97 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh. Once again, I thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for adding her name in support of my amendments.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh seeks to require the Trade and Agriculture Commission to retain UK standards, which means EU standards. She does not refer in her amendment to the importance of conforming to WTO rules or to the benefits of being free to decide our own regulations.

I believe that standards are not two-dimensional, high or low, but that equivalent outcomes for regulations on animal welfare, the environment, and food and plant safety may be achieved through the adoption of a less cumbersome, more proportionate regulatory system.

My noble friend, and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, in his Amendment 101, seek to strengthen the powers of the Trade and Agriculture Commission. I believe that this is not necessary, for the reasons given by my noble friend the Minister on 28 July, when he said that he is

“committed to ensuring that trade agreements do not compromise our high standards and will continue to take into consideration the views of relevant stakeholders across the food supply chain on the impact of trade deals. A range of established stakeholder groups is already in place to advise the development of government policy on trade.” —[Official Report, 28/7/20; col. 197.]

Since then, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has set up 11 new trade advisory groups, including the agri-food trade advisory group. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that if your Lordships’ House were to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, it would then be amended to require adherence to WTO rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I now call the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this debate, and the small number of noble Lords who have spoken in favour of my amendments. In particular, I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Dundee for seeing merit in my amendments—as indeed I do in his amendment. But I wonder why my noble friend has included the necessity to have representation of the public interest on fair trade with developing countries, without having it on fair trade with developed countries. Many—in fact, all—of the countries with which we are currently in trade negotiations are, I believe, developed countries. But I certainly congratulate him on his thoughts and ideas on that subject.

I also rather regret that I did not put down an amendment to Amendment 101, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, which seeks to do the same kinds of things as the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, but goes somewhat further. That was a missed trick on my part; I had thought of putting down these amendments early in the process, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Curry, had not put down his amendment at that time.

As I said in my remarks, I am of the mind and the opinion that it is unnecessary to strengthen the powers of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, for the reasons that I mentioned. I am also persuaded by my noble friend the Minister’s explanation that the existing regulatory bodies and the new committees are well equipped to take care of the interests of your Lordships’ House in maintaining our high standards and regulations.

I regret very much that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, is also silent on the need to conform to WTO regulations, because it is of the most extreme importance that this country should be a strong advocate and ambassador for free trade around the world, and should play a leading part in the WTO. If we start out also as a second outlier, like the EU has become, we will not be able to realise our potential as an influencer of the best emerging trade standards around the world in the future.

In these circumstances, and having heard my noble friend the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 98 (to Amendment 97) withdrawn.