Agriculture Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville

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

[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

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville

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

[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.