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.

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[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.

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[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?

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[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.