Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has just left off on the hugely important issue of co-operation between different parts of the United Kingdom.

Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, looks to be superfluous, as I assume that the Minister will tell us that there is absolutely nothing to prevent a framework for agricultural co-operation between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by the free will of their respective Governments. The issue, then, is not whether a legal power is needed—I assume that no legal power is needed—but what machinery the Government envisage will be needed to promote co-operation between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on agriculture and the environment; I am not aware that any such machinery is in place at the moment. I think that the Committee would be grateful if the Minister could address that point. It is about not just ongoing talks but what institutional machinery there will be to promote co-operation.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, has just raised a very important point. In respect of co-operating with Northern Ireland, that means co-operating with the EU. As so often in our debates, I am afraid that everything comes back to Brexit.

This relates also a very important amendment in this very large group which has barely been discussed, because there are so many other issues. Amendment 234, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, proposes that:

“The Secretary of State must establish a service to provide a means for farmers to associate, and to support, advise and assist them to deliver improvements in food security, nutrition and environmental standards.”


In respect of agriculture and the environment, this strikes me as a very similar role to that which NICE—the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—plays in respect of the NHS, as an independent body promoting best practice on the basis of thorough research and engagement. Most people who have experience of the NICE arrangements in the NHS think that they work well, have by and large promoted good practice, and to some extent have helped to depoliticise what would otherwise be very thorny issues.

Amendment 234, and the body that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, envisages, looks to me to be a very good move, and I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate a willingness to consider it. It may be that we could work this up into a proposal between now and Report. I cannot think of any good argument against it, including from the Government’s perspective, because it is in the interests of the Government that a body of impartial evidence and the promotion of best practice are encouraged.

This comes back to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, in Amendment 66. I am a supporter of devolution, and it is to my great regret that, in the past 20 years, Scotland and Wales have tended, as a matter of reflex, to define themselves against what England does. I think that sometimes they are right to do so and sometimes they are wrong to do so. To my huge regret, often what happens in Scotland and Wales is not a decision about whether or not policies are better than those in England, but just wanting to be different from England.

There is a real danger for the management of environment and agricultural support that Scotland, Wales and to a lesser extent Northern Ireland—Northern Ireland is effectively still part of the EU—will seek to define themselves against England for the sake of doing so. That would be hugely regrettable. Therefore, machinery to promote co-operation is important. An impartial best-practice body of the kind envisaged in Amendment 234 could act as a means to promote co-operation between the constituent parts of the UK. It would not be the Government in London seeking to promote in any partisan way their own policies and the interests of England; rather, if this works well, it would be serious experts and a serious process of promoting consensus that could, if that is done, even though it starts off being in respect of only England, have an impact on promoting co-operation between Scotland and Wales. It could also interact with the European Union, which would be good in its own right, but also enormously beneficial for relations with Northern Ireland.

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

I will speak to Amendment 83 to Clause 1, in particular the work that my noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned. I will highlight the issue of catchment areas and draw attention to the fact that, while they create great difficulty in some areas of the country, they also do so in some of the most favoured areas, if I may put it that way.

The catchment areas in question are a series of spring-fed chalk streams and their seasonal winterbournes, which define the landscape around Winchester in north Hampshire. Many people know that they are famed for their world-class fly fishing for the most favoured in the rivers Test and Itchen, and for the watercress industry around Alresford. The unique landscape is a product of human as well as natural history, providing drinking water for Southampton and, at one time, pure water for banknote watermarking at the De La Rue works near Basingstoke.

In the last 50 years—certainly while I have lived in the area—more than half of all wildlife species have declined across the UK, never more so than in Hampshire’s winterbourne and watercress landscape, including its conservation areas, sites of special scientific interest and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Historically, efforts to protect rivers and their ecology focused on the channel and possibly the immediate floodplain. There now needs to be an increasing awareness that a river system is inherently linked to and affected by its wider catchment.

The water framework directive recognises this and requires a holistic view of the needs of the freshwater environment. It identified the pressures affecting Hampshire’s seven headwater chalk streams and set targets for the improvement of the chemical and ecological status of each. It also required stakeholders to be involved in local decision-making and delivery. Clearly, the quality of the water in these headwater chalk streams is critical, contributing as the streams do to the Test and Itchen river systems and the groundwater resource they share.

It therefore has to be a cause of considerable concern that recent surveys have shown that all the streams are at risk from excessive levels of nutrients, sediment and pesticides, the worst case being the River Alre, which is literally on my doorstep. The lake behind a weir, built in the 16th century to control the river waters before entering Alresford’s watercress beds, is heavily polluted with nitrates and phosphates, largely due to agricultural run-off. The Environment Agency is understood to have recently tested the water in the River Alre above the lake and found it below standard. An industrial-scale salad-washing plant is nearby and is licensed to use the river water to wash all pesticides and other chemicals from salads imported from Europe and elsewhere for distribution across the UK.

Apparently, the Environment Agency is required to negotiate with polluters over infringements rather than close them, with predictable results. The Agriculture Bill should present an opportunity to strengthen this rather toothless organisation to tackle this extremely harmful abuse. To give just one example, Salmon & Trout Conservation considers the presence of these pesticides responsible for the marked decline in Gammarus freshwater shrimp, the foodstuff of the trout of the river.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to the UK Progress on Reducing Nitrate Pollution report from the other place. Have the Government taken action to take up and recognise the recommendations made by the committee that produced the report? They will be essential to tackle this hugely damaging problem of nitrates in our watercourses, water tables and water catchments.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

With that in mind and with this debate, the reassurances and the further letter I will follow up with for any outstanding points, I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Caithness and in turn the noble Lord, Lord Curry, will feel able to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister has just given an excellent and really passionate account of agricultural education, and we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Curry, for raising this at the beginning. It has become clear in the debate that there are two distinct issues. The first is agricultural, forestry and related skills, and I thought the Minister gave an excellent response on that. The other, wider issue—particularly important as we set in place a framework for the future of agriculture in what is predominantly an urban and metropolitan society—is awareness of rural and agricultural issues. When I was Schools Minister, there were three distinct way in which we sought to promote that awareness: the rural studies GCSE, school farms, and city farms. In the letter that the Minister has just said he will write to us, can he give us an account of what the trends are in all three of those respects over recent years? This might inform what further steps we think it could be sensible to take on Report. My impression is that we have moved backwards on all three over recent years—that fewer are taking the rural studies GCSE and that city and school farms have been closing—but it would be good to have some facts. I would be grateful if he could write to us on that.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, perhaps I may repeat the words of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond: technology produces excellence in food production.

I support Amendment 35 in particular in this group. I can think of no more important aim for food production than food security. The essential purpose of policy should be to maximise food production in the United Kingdom while at the same time reducing harmful emissions.

Ever since the Centre for Alternative Technology opened in in an old slate quarry near Machynlleth in 1973, Wales has led the way. As the centre pointed out last week, the panic buying and empty supermarket shelves that greeted the opening stages of the Covid-19 pandemic woke a lot of people up to the reality that our global food chains are increasingly vulnerable. In response to the crisis, the centre quickly set up a project called Planna Fwyd!, meaning Plant Food! It has an amazing variety of schemes to help the local area to feed itself in the coming years. For example, it brings together a land army of people who can help to work the land; it supports home-growers with the skills and knowledge that they might need; it provides family seed packs; and it distributes fresh produce and offers seed swaps. It is a great initiative.

I would like to draw attention to a scheme that is proposed on the outskirts of Wrexham by a Brighton-based organisation, Low Carbon Farming. The company has two pioneering projects taking shape at the moment, one in Bury St Edmunds and one elsewhere in East Anglia. Last week, I spoke of the paucity of Class 1 agricultural land in Wales. I told the House that 400 acres at Holt, close to my home in Gresford, comprises the whole of Class 1 land in the entire Principality. The new project near the Wrexham industrial estate is still at the planning stage. It is to construct two 7.6 hectare greenhouses and a packing facility on poor-quality land. On one side there is Berwyn prison, of which I have spoken many times, on another an abattoir, and on the third the Wrexham sewage works belonging to Dŵr Cymru. It answers the call made by my noble friend Lord Greaves in Amendment 53 to produce food in an urban area, and I hope it might even satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

The Wrexham plan would capture waste heat and carbon emissions from the Dŵr Cymru facility and use them to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers at the site. Britain imports from other countries 80% of its tomatoes and 90% of its peppers. The promoters think that their current projects in East Anglia can meet 5% of the national consumption of tomatoes. It will use less water than traditional agriculture: treated water emerges from the sewage plant at 25 degrees centigrade and, at the moment, that heat is entirely wasted. The quality of the soil at the site is completely immaterial. The system could be hydroponic or it could use a suitable growing medium.

The Wrexham project proposes the creation of 150 new jobs. The Home Secretary should surely support it, since with 2,000 prisoners doing nothing very much next door there will be no need for the east European agricultural workers who she does not seem to like very much. There are shades of Norman Stanley Fletcher in “Porridge”. Access to such labour would also deal with the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, expressed at the beginning of this debate. The idea behind the project is that waste heat from the sewage works would be used to provide heat to the greenhouses through a heat exchanger; any carbon emissions would be directed into the greenhouses to be absorbed by the growing plants. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. It is obviously win-win all the way round.

I am addressing your Lordships from a passive house which we built five years ago. It relies upon a heat exchanger air pump, which greatly reduces our heating costs and provides an even flow of warm air throughout the year. It was a novel idea in these parts at the time, but planning permission was granted after some scratching of heads. I hope that schemes similar to the Wrexham Five Fords project relying on heat pumps can be developed throughout the country. That may require some modern thinking in planning departments but they are surely one important way forward. Does the Minister not agree that projects of this nature should be explicitly added to the aims set out in Clause 1, as highlighted by the amendments in this group, and that to promote sustainable food security they deserve full government support and investment?

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my speech has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who made the critical point that the fundamental interest of the state is to be able to intervene to see that people have enough to eat at affordable prices. The issue of food security is, therefore, to the fore. My question to the Minister is the obvious one that comes from this debate: do the Government have the power they need to maintain food security if that is required?

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, proposes to add food security as an item in Clause 1(1). That is clearly sensible if the Government do not already have those powers. I look to the Minister to give the Committee chapter and verse on whether the state already has powers to intervene to maintain food security by providing subsidies as and when required. It can clearly secure those powers extremely quickly, probably within 24 hours, if needed in the event of a crisis. Before we go off on a long meander through amendments on Report, it would be helpful to know whether this power already exists and, if so, where. If not, why do the Government not think this an appropriate moment to take that power since, where food security is not being maintained, it is clearly a fundamental duty of the state?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville [V]]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 35 and 70, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, Amendment 36, from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Amendment 71 from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and Amendment 75 from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, all of whom have spoken passionately. Health and sustainability are important to all families. Protecting food security so that citizens have access to good quality food will ensure healthier outcomes. The extremely large number of speakers on this group indicates the strength of feeling and concern about this subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, gave the statistic showing that children being admitted to hospital with malnutrition had risen by 25%. This statistic is scandalous in a country as rich as ours. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem referred to children living in poverty.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of Oral Questions about the quality of food eaten in our families and whether it is healthy. Most people want to eat a healthy diet but some do not completely understand what constitutes one. For many it is sufficient that it fills them up. We must move away from this and promote healthy eating at all levels. This is not just an issue for agriculture. As has been said, diabetes is on the increase. In the three years to 2018, 170 limb amputations took place each week on those suffering from the severer effects of diabetes. While we may all know these figures, and understand the horror caused by them, many of those eating unhealthy diets have no idea what may lie in store for them.

Exercise is of course key to remaining healthy but for those on low incomes, there are implications of healthy eating. It is estimated that eating more fruit and vegetables could cost some families as much as £15 extra per week. This is simply not affordable for them. Many families managed before the Covid epidemic but after its outbreak were forced to use food banks to survive. Food banks saw the number of people applying to them rise dramatically during the first stage of the crisis. It is vital that people are fed—but fed with nutritious food. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, made a vital contribution on this issue.

Amendments 35 and 63, in the names of my noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, respectively, promote the growth of food production in urban areas. I note the cautious comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on this. Growing food in urban areas has somewhat fallen out of fashion. As a child, I was brought up in Bristol when it was not uncommon for homes to have a pigsty in the garden, as well as a plentiful supply of home-grown vegetables. There was also a large section of allotments in the city. The keeping of pigs at home fell out of favour with the first outbreak of foot and mouth, but it is still possible for vegetables and fruit to be grown in and around urban areas. Councils should set aside more land for allotments, especially for those living in blocks of flats. My noble friend Lord Greaves spoke at length on the importance of allotments. The Happold Foundation says that:

“Cities the size of London will never be able to grow enough food to feed the population … However, it still seems desirable to get food production closer to the consumer to make it more sustainable, and to reduce the food miles of what we consume and we release less CO2 into the atmosphere.”


Perhaps the vertical indoor growing method, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will help with this.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the general thrust of these amendments and I hope that the Government will listen carefully to this debate and perhaps come back with the best of each amendment in future stages. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made a very powerful contribution in support of his Amendment 73.

Obviously, there are some differences between Amendments 272 and 274, but I will address in particular the point that my noble friend Lord Foulkes made about the fact that Amendment 272 mentions specifically the need to work with the devolved Governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. At each level of government in the United Kingdom, there is a responsibility to tackle climate change and each of these devolved Governments have specific legislative responsibilities for agriculture. If we are to make the case in this debate, and perhaps beyond, for a tighter connection in the Bill to the climate change targets, it makes sense that engaging with the devolved Governments would be a key component of that. There needs to be, in my view, far better co-ordination and agreement at all levels of government—local, national and UK—if we are to meet these targets by 2050.

The idea of including the climate change targets in this Agriculture Bill is inspired. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, made that case very powerfully when she talked about the leadership that the United Kingdom could show in what may end up being the largest Bill to come before your Lordships’ Chamber—and maybe our longest debates—this year. This Bill, taking back powers from the European Union and setting out a new strategy for British agriculture to be so closely aligned with the climate change targets, would be a very powerful signal not only inside but outwith the United Kingdom in the run-up to the summit in Glasgow, now in 2021. For reasons of the opportunities that the noble Baroness outlined and the leadership that we could show, I think these amendments are on the right lines.

If I may be allowed to digress slightly for a second, I tried to intervene last Thursday in Committee but had connection problems and was not able to make one very small specific point that in fact relates to this topic today. Amendment 12, which was debated last Thursday, used the phrase:

“the impact of climate change on agriculture”.

The amendment proposed this as one of the additional purposes to which the Government could provide finance. I felt at the time that this was the wrong way round and that it should have been about the impact of agriculture on climate change. That would be more in keeping with the amendments in front of us today, which are about the impact of agriculture on climate change. Perhaps those who were involved in moving Amendment 12 last week might think about that before we reach Report. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness the Minister has to say in response.

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I know that the Government are frustrated at the very slow progress of the Bill and, although we are very grateful for the extremely assiduous responses we have received from both Ministers—the noble Baroness and the noble Lord—I know there is concern at the slow progress.

In my experience of legislation passing through the House, a pattern establishes itself and, once you see the pattern, you understand the underlying issue of the approach that the House is taking to a Bill. It is very clear to me what the issue is in respect of this Bill. The Bill—which is of huge significance for the future of one of our major national industries as we leave the European Union—is, essentially, a framework Bill. It contains very little policy. It sets out a whole range of permissive provisions that enable the Government to do X, Y and Z but only one or two broad-brush policy statements, such as the noble Lord’s statement in our earlier debates that the Government will not subsidise food because that should be left to the market; in fact, is it clear to me that, even in our debates on that, when it comes to issues of shortage, scarcity and crisis, the Government not only have, but are proposing to take, significant new powers in that regard. Leaving aside very broad-brush statements of that kind, we do not know what the Government’s policy will be hereafter.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

With those points, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in that full reply from the Minister I heard him justify the seven-year period and explain Clause 8 giving the Government power to extend the transition if necessary. However, I did not hear his response to Amendment 143 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on why the transition is to start next year and not in 2022.

Some of us, going back to the last Labour Government, have a lot of experience with the problems of the RPA and getting new systems up and running. The Minister spoke with great confidence about these systems being viable and how the IT was going to work. All I can say to him is: good luck with that. I hope he is correct.

In the event that the RPA runs into problems, under the Bill as currently drafted—irrespective of the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh —do the Government have the power to delay the start of the transition and the pilots? Despite the noble Lord’s confidence that everything will be okay, many of us will feel much more assured if we know that the legal powers are there and will prevent a headlong rush in the event of teething and administrative problems.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

There are a number of points there. I think I said that under Clause 8 the Government allow for an extension of the agricultural transition period, should that be necessary, so there is an important safeguard there; we can extend the agricultural transition period.

I think I did reply to my noble friend; it may not be satisfactory to the noble Lord or my noble friend. We believe that direct payments offer poor value for money, and that is why we want to start in 2021 with, as I say, a modest reduction. I have deliberately said that this will be no more than 5% for around 80% of farmers, so that we can redirect that money into an ELM national pilot, Countryside Stewardship agreements and productivity grants.

Yes, we are all scarred by computer systems. I am the first to say that I am not a computer expert; that is why we have people who are. I repeat that everyone working on these matters is experienced in them, because clearly—as I have said—we want payments on time and a successful outcome for farmers. We also want to make sure that the ELM and all we do hereon in is value for money for the taxpayer. In the end, it is the taxpayer who will reward the farmer for doing the things that we as a society know the farmer can do very well.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I can assure him that my wife would be delighted if there were some means of restoring dialogue to “The Archers”. I want to speak briefly in support of Amendment 212, tabled in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Wigley. Clause 33 is a welcome step forward in making provision for a scheme which will address the long-running issue of a levy on livestock produced in one part of the UK but slaughtered in another being retained in that other part of the UK. This has long appeared to me to be unfair and has been the source of some contention, so the Government are to be commended for their initiative in this clause.

I support the amendment because it puts further flesh on the scheme to be devised by providing for the levy to be repatriated to the devolved Administration of origin, thus making it clearer what a key objective of that scheme should be. Quality Meat Scotland estimates that over £1.5 million of levy on Scottish animals is lost each year due to the fact that some cattle, sheep and pigs produced in Scotland are slaughtered elsewhere in the UK. I rather suspect that little goes in the opposite direction. If such a sum were repatriated, it could be applied to the promotion of quality Scottish beef, lamb and pig products. I therefore support the amendment and I hope that it commends itself to the Minister.

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

I am not wanting to speak on this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis [V]]

My Lords, the Minister has given a very full response, but may I check that we have the numbers right in respect of the seasonal workers pilot? This is clearly crucial in how we recruit workers from overseas to meet our vital seasonal needs. Did I take the Minister to say that 4,486 visas had been granted, of which 3,000—so about two-thirds—have actually come to the country? Have I correctly understood that that number is out of the 10,000 visas that the Government said, some months ago, they would make available to seasonal workers? If that is correct, is it the case that less than one-third of the visas that the Government said would be available for seasonal workers from outside the EU have actually been taken up? If that number is as low as it seems—3,000 out of 10,000—does the Minister have a view as to why the take-up has been so low?