Imported Beef

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. This is a really important issue. When we as consumers go into a supermarket, to an extent, we park our environmental and social conscience with that brand because we trust it and want it to be doing the right thing. So if it says that a meat product is UK-produced and it has a union jack on it, we expect it to be so; we expect it to have been produced with high welfare standards and the highest environmental standards possible. If that is not the case, we as a department, as a Government and in this House should raise this seriously, both as consumers and as the Government. We meet retailers on a very regular basis and raise these issues often; I would be happy to give the noble Baroness more detail outside.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. In talking about imports from the European Union, the Minister did not say that there is a principle of equivalence. Although the standards outside this country may not be exactly the same, there is a generality of equivalence between the various standards in various member states. Does it not follow from that that the right way to approach the problem we are discussing is to have transparent, binding farm assurance schemes in the markets where our trading partners produce animals so that there is transparency both in terms of getting through the tariff barrier and other restrictions as well as for the consumer to know what they are buying?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. That is of great assistance to the Government and regulators, as well as to retailers which want to make a virtue of the kinds of products they put on sale. It is also of great help to the consumer for them to make the right choices about the products that they wish to buy.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Parminter clearly set out the arguments for Amendment 126, which I fully support. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, ably introduced her Amendment 130, to which I have added my name. I will speak briefly to that amendment.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, made it clear that he is personally committed to ensuring that environmental standards are maintained, that biosecurity is improved, and that the Government leave the environment in a better state than they found it. However, this commitment and aim are not shared by all in the current Government.

The Bill is worded in such a way as to provide a very large degree of what can be called “wriggle room”. We have debated in Clause 15 the meaning of “appropriate” and how this will be interpreted by both officials and Ministers when it comes to individual pieces of legislation.

Clause 15 allows Ministers to amend important retained EU environmental law on nature, water and chemicals, ensuring that there is no reduction in environmental protection. This has to be achieved without extra bureaucracy, taxes or burdens being incurred. My noble friend Lady Parminter has spoken on this issue.

In evidence to the Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, the Secretary of State referred to the Environment Agency’s wish

“to change quite a lot of the water framework directive”.

The quality of our water has featured in our debates more often than many of us would care to mention. To be informed that a lot of changes are likely to come to the water framework directive without any indication of what they may be is extremely worrying for many in this Chamber. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also raised this.

Amendment 130 would insert a new clause whose aim is to maintain environmental standards across a range of regulations and directives, which the country has taken for granted and which have protected the health of the population, our environment, wildlife and the marine environment over the years. Proposed new subsection (4) lists those laws that we believe are essential to keep. Others are also important, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also raised, but those five are vital and should be included in the Bill. There is consensus on this across the Committee.

We have debated these issues on previous days in Committee without the Minister giving any comfort. On this occasion, we are all looking for the Minister to realise that the vital issue of protecting the environment and the population is not going to trickle away. Unless he wants to see a flood of opposition from all quarters, both inside and outside Parliament, he will accept the amendment before we come to Report. I look forward to his agreement.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have been listening to this debate with interest. Obviously, it relates to environmental standards, but is also about the way in which the legislation that deals with environmental standards is cast. I am sure we are all agreed that some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, described could be substantially mitigated, to the benefit of everybody.

Having said that, what we see with the two amendments we are considering is the introduction of legal certainty into the legislation. That, it seems to me, is actually quite important because, as has been described on previous days in Committee, the underlying rationale behind the kind of approach being adopted by the Government is what I might describe as the operation of a compensatory principle. This, it seems to me, is a very attractive notion. But how is it going to work? In particular, as has been debated previously, what is the currency you use to determine whether or not something is compensation? It has to be equivalent, it seems to me. That is the basic meaning of the word in the English language.

Then there has been discussion about “Well, it’ll be done on the whim of a civil servant or a Minister”. But I do not think this is going to be the end of the story—this is what my concern is—because any change that comes about will produce winners and losers. Wherever there are winners and losers, not least in this area of policy, the law gets dragged in. I can see that the whole scheme on which this particular approach has been adopted is going to lead to an absolute abundance of applications for judicial review, because any change that is made on the basis of this compensatory principle is going to have a winner and a loser, and is going to be the hinge on which the legislation depends. I would be very interested to know the views of the Front Bench on this, because I can see that what sounds superficially like a siren song of easy administration may well end up providing an absolute bonanza for lawyers. I suppose that, as one myself, I should declare an interest.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to say a few brief words before the Minister replies; this is prompted by the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, in summing up on the last group, and the letter we received today from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. My noble friends, in moving and speaking to the amendments in their names, and other noble Lords from other Benches, have highlighted the objective of the amendments, which is to get pledges to uphold environmental protections, including those in international instruments.

In the last group, the Minister gave as an example a pledge to uphold human rights. We are shortly to have a Statement on the well-named Illegal Migration Bill, in which the Home Secretary has said that this is 50% likely to breach the European Convention on Human Rights. If that is the standard by which we judge the Government’s intentions in upholding international law, I do not think it is terribly encouraging.

We debated on Monday the definition of a subject area in the light of the letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. I think we have done so again today. Does it mean water quality? Is it the whole of environmental law? Is it the whole of what Defra does? None of us has the foggiest idea. The same puzzle arises over the term “objectives”. The letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, tells us that

“the individual limbs of the power”

in Clause 15

“are also restricted. Subsection (2) is limited such that any replacement legislation must be appropriate and must fulfil same or similar objectives as the retained EU law or assimilated law that it is replacing.”

That is, of course, the wording in the Bill. She goes on:

“This limits the functionality of this limb of the power to essentially adjusting policy to better fit the UK context”.


Apparently, this is

“rather than radically departing or introducing legislation in ways that are controversially different from the existing legislation.”

So now we have “appropriate”, we have the “same or similar objectives”, we have “subject area”, and now we have a pledge to essentially adjust policy to better fit the UK context. I am afraid that this does not assuage concerns because I, for one, do not have the foggiest idea what restraints or constraints there will be on the Government in their adjustment of policy. They are proposing to adjust policy on refugees, with a 50% likelihood of breaching the European Convention on Human Rightsm as well as, in the opinion of these Benches, totally breaching the refugee convention. I am afraid that the Minister has his work cut out to convince us—certainly these Benches—of the Government's good intentions in the environmental area.

Agricultural Transition Plan

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can absolutely assure the noble Baroness that they are safe to eat. The FSA advice is that they are safe to eat and that there is no zoonotic effect on human health from crabs that have been found dead and have been examined.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Absolutely, in addition to the organisations I listed earlier. The initial views are that finding something to which we can attribute the cause is unlikely, but Professor Henderson has suggested that the university sector will be well placed to extend research in this area, and he is working with it to see what further research can be done.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my agricultural interests as in the register. I would like the Minister to return to the reply he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, when he explained that British agriculture and those engaged in it would not be, with their products, competing against people who operate under lower environmental and welfare standards. How does that square with the remarks of his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Lainston, on the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill, where he told the House that the standards in Australia were lower than those in this country?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our policy is that agricultural products taken in as part of a trade deal cannot be imported into this country if they fall beneath our standards of animal welfare and environmental protection. That is the policy in the agricultural chapter of the Australia deal; it is the first time such a chapter in a trade deal has said that.

Sewage Pollution

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that that is disgraceful. If it was an illegal sewage dump, which I am sure it was, that matter should have been investigated and should be prosecuted. The Environment Agency now has the resources. Its ambitions have been set not just by Ministers but by legislation that requires this practice to finish. Of course, with our current infrastructure, there are occasions when, if there is not a release of sewage in a storm, that water will back up into people’s homes. We cannot have that in a modern economy such as ours. We must make sure that we build the infrastructure. Some £170 billion has been spent since privatisation on water infrastructure. We are spending enormous sums of money in this price review period, which will rise to £56 billion in the years ahead. The sort of things that the noble Lord describes are absolutely terrible in waters that we want to be enjoyed by people and tourists. Our coastal economies need to be blue-flagged to make sure that these are things of the past.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest: I am affected by the phenomenon that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention. There are a number of instances, certainly in the locality where I live, of old discharges that received consent many years ago continuing. Because they were authorised long ago, when standards were much lower than they are now, such discharges are not an attractive feature, yet the utilities company responds that they are lawful. Could the Minister look into this because it is disagreeable, to put it mildly?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I should have started by referring noble Lords to my entry in the register; I, too, am affected by this issue. It is an affront to me. I was part of a national campaign to clean up our rivers but I had to resign from it to take up this post. This is something that matters to me as much as it does to everybody.

I will take up the noble Lord’s issue. The consenting system must be updated. Frankly, some of the consents have been superseded by the fact that large numbers of new people are living in communities where the sewerage infrastructure is not up to the required standard. That is where we want this huge investment to take place. Any discharges that are consented to must be fit for the times in which we live, not the times in which they were created.

Tree Health in England

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests in the register and explaining that I own some ash trees. One of my abiding memories of the Platinum Jubilee weekend was the obvious impact of ash dieback on the tree cover of Cumbria: everywhere were black, skeletal twigs protruding through the tree canopy. This pandemic predates Covid and moves more slowly, but it is a real pestilence just the same. We have not talked about it as much as Covid-19, fortunately, but the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has done us a good turn in bringing this debate.

We should not be surprised by something such as this happening. After all, Dutch elm disease occurred in this country’s living memory and, before that, in the 1930s. Pundits have predicted this kind of thing and historians of nature, ecology and the environment have chronicled this kind of happening regularly, from time to time over the centuries. That is not to say it is not sad. We regret that the landscape, as we know it, is losing a very important component and is dying in front of our eyes. But something else will emerge. While it is destroying part of our living world, it is not destroying the world itself.

As other noble Lords have said, I understand that some trees are likely to be resistant. As long as they are spared the woodman’s axe and their natural offspring are allowed to grow, we, in partnership with plant breeders, will be able to replenish our countryside’s ash trees. As has been said, the life cycle of trees is long. It is not the end of the ash, any more than Dutch elm disease completely wiped out the English elm or wych elm.

It seems to be agreed that tree nurseries spread the disease from spores contained in stock raised on the continent. In this context, we need to be clear that we have always had phytosanitary arrangements and being in the single market did not affect that. As others have said, we have to tighten them up. I suspect that, in addition to a number of pernicious plant diseases, we will see more invasive species that are likely to carry out a lot of damage. I put it to your Lordships that the grey squirrel has probably done more damage to British tree cover than ash dieback has. We have to plan for this happening. The problem is that, like generals, we are always tempted to fight the last war. It has also been suggested that spores may have blown over the North Sea. If that sort of thing happens again, it will be rather more difficult to deal with.

What should we do? First, we should breed and propagate resistant ash trees. Secondly, we should replace them but, if that is expensive, with diversified species, as has been said. We should not be too frightened of these alleged non-native species, such as sycamore, beech and Spanish chestnut. The greater the diversity we have, the greater the chance is of some of them dying.

If an outbreak of some disease is discovered, we should monitor it, destroy it and—I add this deliberately —properly compensate for those trees lost. It is much cheaper to spend a bit of money and properly wipe out the disease than for people not to report it and then for it to run out of control.

Finally, we obviously must cut down and destroy the infected trees. It is on this point that I wish to conclude, since many of these trees are on the edge of the highway. For safety reasons, they have to be taken down quickly. For that to be done, it is necessary to have traffic lights, which require a permit from the local authority. These require a payment. I gather that the amount varies significantly from local authority to local authority. It looks to me as if some are profiteering from it. I ask the Minister to look into this and suggest that permits should be issued either free or for a nominal sum. It does not seem right that local authorities look as if they profit from this, in the same way that it was said that some suppliers of PPE did in the Covid outbreak.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am content with the Bill, the gist of its purpose and the role that the proposed committee will play in the debate about animal welfare, a topic about which everyone has an opinion. I begin by declaring an interest, for I am a livestock farmer in Cumbria. I personally do little shooting and in the old days used occasionally to go out with the fell packs. I am also a patron of the Livestock Auctioneers’ Association and president of the National Sheep Association.

While I fear that there always are abuses, real farmers care about their stock and take pride in it and the way it is looked after. I also do not believe that animals have rights. Rather, we as humans have obligations towards them that should and must be legally enforced. This is a widely recognised legal phenomenon and an entirely sensible approach to these matters.

I was a Member of the European Parliament when embedding the concept of animal sentience in EU law was discussed. At that time I was very unsure whether this was the right direction of travel, but I have become satisfied that it is.

Contrary to what some seem to say, animal sentience has been understood for quite a long time. After all, Homer understood it. You have only to read the 17th- book of the Odyssey: returning in disguise after a 20-year absence, Odysseus is recognised only by his faithful old dog Argos.

In this instance as in so many others, and as is so often the case, for our national policies to be sensible they have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis—the Scylla of treating animals as mere chattels, and the Charybdis of anthropomorphism. Walt Disney has done this issue no favour; “Bambi” is a confidence trick. Equally, in this context, Beatrix Potter has quite a lot to answer for. Although it will come as no surprise to your Lordships, and although I never knew her, those of my Cumbrian friends and neighbours who did, tell me that she was a very practical, down-to-earth hill farmer whose attitude towards her own animals bore little relation to her fictional creatures.

I welcome the committee, but it is not a substitute for either government or Parliament. I assume its purpose is to help public debate on this topic, as part of a wider political process. Both Parliament and the Government have never been backward about ignoring committees, and I do not anticipate that that is going to change. The impact of this committee will depend on its tone and modus operandi. It has to base its thinking on expertise, not partisanship, its approach and composition on independence of thought and action, and its conclusions on intelligence and wisdom. These aspects must be central to its activities and will determine its seriousness, or lack of it, and hence its influence and ability to be a force for good. Whether that happens depends on what it does and the conclusions it reaches which, I hasten to add in conclusion, is not necessarily the same as agreeing with me.

Rural Landlords and Land Letting: Reform

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my landowning and farming interests and my other declarations in the register and join the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, as a fellow Cumbrian and chairman of the Cumbria LEP, in respect of his comments about Newton Rigg College.

The recent debates on the Agriculture Act 2020 in your Lordships’ House showed the interest in and the disagreements about the future of agriculture, otherwise known as rural England. Changes are afoot across the land. For the past two or three generations, buttressed by town and country planning legislation, the countryside has been almost exclusively a focus for farming and forestry. We need to be clear that upland and lowland farming and animal and arable farming are different. Indeed, in some ways, forestry is a form of arable farming. Living we do as in a country where the landlord and tenant system is prevalent in all kinds of different forms across all urban and rural Britain, how then should arrangements work, especially at a time of change?

Too much current discussion is focused on today and the existing legislation when a new look is required right across the piece. I believe that ad hoc tinkering is likely to lead to muddle and injustice. What is the role of contract and what is the role of legislation, be it hard or soft law? Everyone knows that change always costs money, but agriculture’s economics have been battered and the national finances are under the cosh. We have to be clear that working capital must be retained in the sector because, if it is not, constructive change will be paralysed. This is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, the long-standing ideas of the CLA about the rural business unit have found their time. It is completely self-evident that bringing about change needs a complementary tax regime that does not haemorrhage working capital from the sector.

Agricultural Transition Plan

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

I understand that today the co-chairs of the EU-UK joint committee have announced their agreement in principle on all issues with regard to the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland. I think this will have some impact on some of our areas, and further details will be given. I believe that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is making a Statement tomorrow. I put that in the context of the recognition that agriculture is devolved. If one remembers, we included provisions in the Agriculture Act respecting the devolved arrangements of all parts of the United Kingdom, the importance of ensuring that Northern Ireland can make its own provisions as a devolved part of the UK and respecting the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland. Our manifesto pledge was to maintain the current annual budget to farmers, and that would mean that the total farm support provided to Northern Ireland farmers was £330 million. It is within the scope of the Northern Ireland Administration to ensure that they have the policies that they would wish for Northern Ireland farmers.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I must draw attention to my agricultural interests in the register. Like all other speakers, I welcome the publication of the agricultural transition plan, but, like them, I also recognise that it leaves a huge number of questions still unanswered. Can the Minister confirm that all the money taken away from the BPS each year will be transferred to schemes which will pass it on in its entirety to farmers and land managers and will not be used for the government administration of the scheme? Furthermore, can he confirm that the new arrangements will not lead to additional bureaucracy imposed on the payees, which in turn will cost them money?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, as I said at the outset, and as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in his announcement, it is designed so that the reductions in the legacy direct payments will be transferred into a whole range of schemes within the agricultural budget. These might be productivity schemes, environmental land management schemes or slurry schemes, and this will ensure that farmers and land managers have that resource available within the amount of that budget that was promised for every year of this Parliament. The money being transferred from the direct payments will go into the schemes that I have outlined.

Picking up the point about bureaucracy, I assure noble Lords that all Ministers are determined not to replace one sort of bureaucracy with another. Complaints such as “We have not got the detail” are, I believe, precisely allayed by us wanting to ensure that at every turn—whether in simplifying the BPS or in having ways in which we do things differently—the schemes are not bureaucratic, and that their design is straight- forward. This is so that people such as me can understand them, and not have to read them three times or employ someone to help with that.

I assure my noble friend Lord Inglewood that the whole point of what we want from the codesign is for all farmers to feel that these are their schemes, because for so many it may involve retirement, new entry or productivity. It is about environmental land management in all its component forms. All the tests and trials in that area involve working with farmers, precisely to ensure that they are not bureaucratic and that we are not asking for mission impossible. We want farmers to have a sense of achievement not only because they produce public benefits, but because they feel that this is a worthwhile part of their joint endeavour in producing food for the nation.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I do not think we have the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, do we? No. Then we will go on to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, we have had a very interesting, worthwhile and civilised series of sessions, discussing our individual, and the Government’s, visions, ideas and plans for the future of rural Britain and agriculture. Clearly there are disagreements, but overall there is a degree of consensus, which I personally much welcome. However, while I do not wish to be the bad fairy at the christening, I do wish to point out that this is an enabling Bill, and without the measures that follow, nothing can result. It is about that that I wish to comment and, at this point, I reiterate my interest as declared in the register and note the agricultural organisations with which I am involved.

I feel I have no alternative but to tell the House that I fear the emperor may have no clothes. I have had no information not in the public domain, and I know that some confidential information has in fact found its way into the press. However, I am quite clear that a number of those who are committed to working closely with the Government and Defra on these matters, and who will not fail to continue to do so—people who come from the practical world of agriculture and the environment—are very concerned that the department is simply not grounded in reality. Farming and land management have to be grounded.

In particular, there are real anxieties about the ability of the Sustainable Food Initiative to act as a bridge between the basic payment scheme and ELMS because, quite simply, there is not enough money. It is as simple as that, and those who say it understand these things. Equally, there is no confidence that working IT systems either will or indeed can be put in place in time. After all, we have been there quite recently. Failure in these respects will certainly lead to significant numbers of farms and rural businesses going bust.

The Minister, as many have said quite rightly, has conducted the proceedings in a genial and constructive manner admired by all around the House, but we must not forget what is happening behind the proscenium arch and curtain in front of which he delivers his lines. If I am right—and, unusually for me, I hope I am not, but I fear it is possible I may be—all that we have been discussing over the past few weeks will turn out to be an agreeable hallucination that will turn into nightmares or worse for many in rural Britain, particularly smaller businesses. Perfectly decent enabling legislation is quite capable of metamorphosing into appalling public administration. Let us all hope and pray that it will not happen in this instance, but the potential for it to do so is clearly there.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I think we can now call the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. Is the noble Lord there?

Agriculture Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

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

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I should begin by declaring the interests I declared earlier during the passage of the Bill. I shall speak to Amendments 89ZA and 93 and to the gist of the arguments behind others. It is important that UK agriculture and the UK public should be confident about the marketplace for food in this country.

UK farming—using those words in a wide sense—is operating in a global marketplace and needs to be sure that it will be playing on a level playing field not only because of the food implications of its activities, but because of the implications the revenues from food production will have on the delivery of all other public goods, using that word in a general sense, that we have been discussing during the currency of the Bill. That differentiates the debates that we are having from the arguments that pertained at the time of the repeal of the corn laws. I am afraid that as an individual I think that it is invariably the case that reassurances from any Government today are no guarantor of government actions tomorrow. Under our constitutional system, the best guarantor of such things is a specific provision in an Act of Parliament.

From the food perspective, for the entire population the problem is summarised as what has come to be known as the chlorinated chicken issue. It seems to me that chlorinated chicken, which may or may not be disagreeable, is not the issue. The problem is that the place where that chicken originates is so rife with damaging disease and practices that it is necessary to apply those techniques to it. That being the case, it is surely better not to have food from those sorts of places in the first instance. Finally, environment, welfare and other land use factors are important for the globe as well as for the United Kingdom. Encouraging and promoting bad practices elsewhere is something we should be ashamed of doing and we should not do it.

[Lord Burnett (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who brings ministerial and practical experience as a farmer to this debate. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I shall speak to Amendment 89ZA and Amendment 93, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Krebs, my noble friend Lady Bakewell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

I spoke on food standards and other matters in my contributions at Second Reading and in Committee. I remind the House that I farmed on my own account for more than 20 years and had the honour of representing the rural constituency of Torridge and West Devon from 1997 until I retired from the other place in 2005. I still live in the constituency. In 2001, the constituency was probably the most adversely affected in the country by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Since 1976, and particularly since 2001, I have observed first-hand the agricultural industry making substantial investments in time and money in improving animal welfare, protecting and enhancing our environment and complying with rightly stringent provisions relating to food safety and hygiene, traceability and plant health. British agriculture is justifiably proud of the high standards it has attained in responding to all these challenges and of its ability to provide to good and safe food for the British people. I am aware that some Ministers have declared that the Government will not enter into agreements with countries that dilute these high standards. At Second Reading I stressed that Ministers come, and Minsters go. I gave other compelling reasons why the British public and the agricultural industry should have assurance of statutory protection in relation to high standards for all the matters covered in Amendment 93.

This was all before the Government took the momentous and deplorable decision to provide, or endeavour to provide, powers to renege on the international treaty with the EU, which they had negotiated and agreed less than one year ago. This has shocked most of us in our House and also the British public. In the past, this country has rightly been respected for our commitment to the rule of law and our compliance with international law.

This proposed legislation—which enables this country to resile from its treaty commitments—is outrageous and undermines the good faith of this Government, whose cavalier approach to the rule of law is the most compelling reason why this new amendment on food standards should be enacted. The British people and the agricultural industry must all have all the protections we can provide. Thank you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this amendment has been most ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I want to briefly re-emphasise the reasons why I strongly support it. As the noble Baroness said, agriculture has to play its part in meeting our net-zero commitment. At the moment, as she also said, agriculture may account for only some 10% of UK emissions, but by 2050, if nothing is done about agriculture and other parts of our economy play their part, it could account for about a third.

In earlier debates, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, referred to an excellent new book by Professor Bridle entitled Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air. Professor Bridle expresses the challenge by calculating that, at the moment, the average daily food-related greenhouse gas footprint for each of us in the UK is six tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalence. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we need to halve emissions by 2030. In other words, if food and agriculture are to play their part, the footprint of every one of us has to go down from six to three tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalence per day within 10 years.

We have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that the climate change committee has repeatedly reported that agriculture and land use are not making their required contribution to our greenhouse gas emissions reductions. This leaves an intolerable burden on other sectors, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has already said. I will share a different quote from the climate change committee’s 2020 report to Parliament:

“Agriculture and land use, land-use change and forestry … have … made little progress.”


It concludes that there has been no net change in emissions over 10 years, and no coherent policy framework to deliver change.

The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, referred to peat bogs. Last Sunday’s Observer reported that there are currently no plans to stop burning peat bogs this autumn. Peat bogs are a major carbon store and burning them releases significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Surely, if the Government are serious about their green credentials and about reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land use and agriculture, they should ban this burning now.

Agriculture is not delivering the necessary greenhouse gas reductions. This Bill is the chance to change that and ensure that the right policies are put in place. The Climate Change Act is, in the argot of the day, an oven-ready framework within which to place both agricultural emissions reduction targets and climate adaptation to make our future agriculture resilient to climate change. That is why we need to support this amendment.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, in my capacity as chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and as a member of the Cumbria Leadership Board, I have recently been involved in debates about carbon in that county. One of the things that concerns me is the debate around emissions which, inevitably, is not quite as simple as one might expect at first blush.

It is clear, however, that any strategy has to begin with where we are now. It must also recognise that it is almost inevitable that those with some kind of an interest are inclined to engage in special pleading. In the case of agriculture, I know that farming contributes; I am a farmer, and I know that my farm does. However, farmers, including myself, have to react and deal with what may be the considerable and costly implications of the appropriate response. As has already been said by one of the Baroness Joneses, the first thing is to have agreed metrics, and then to use them impartially to map the journey into the future, based on the information they give us.

Business accounts are compiled with agreed metrics and standards to present a true picture of the underlying economic activity. The same must be true with carbon accounting. I fear I may sound like a cracked record but, once again, the economic implications and consequences of effecting change must not destroy the agricultural industry and other rural land uses. As the Financial Times pointed out last weekend, the economic future for much of the UK industries in these sectors looks pretty parlous.

In the case of rural land uses, a number of activities are natural carbon sinks and cleaners. Those responsible for the framework of the new world must give proper financial recognition for that. In many cases, what they are doing now is being done for nothing, both for the general benefit of the wider public and the financial advantage of the polluters. Were polluters to actually have to pay, it not only would be a major step towards reducing emissions elsewhere but would help underpin the rural economy, parts of which are pretty fragile and part of left-behind Britain. The short truth of the matter is that insolvent businesses cannot deliver a brave new world in rural Britain. Furthermore, if that happens, a great deal of what we have been considering over the past days and weeks will turn out to have been pure fantasy. It is as simple as that.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome Amendment 100 and echo many of the sentiments in it, but pay regard to the role that farmers, landowners and the landscape have in reducing the challenge faced by climate change and helping to restore biodiversity, much of which has been discussed through the passage of the Bill.

There is a potential role for farmers in ELM schemes going forward. There is a lot more that the natural landscape can do, not least in areas such as national parks. I know that the North York Moors National Park is keen to play its role and is waiting to hear from the Government about how it can do that under the ELM scheme; in particular, what advice it can offer to farmers and rural businesses that can help. There will be opportunities to plant trees and to help carbon sequestration. Pasture-fed and grass-fed livestock will also help.

There are other opportunities in the Bill, which I hope my noble friend will explore in summing up this group of amendments. There are possibilities to adapt to and mitigate climate change. I always get excited about Slowing the Flow at Pickering and the possibility of rolling out other such schemes, working with nature to store water temporarily on the land. We must not lose sight of the fact that many farmers are small or tenant farmers. They do not own the land, so will not benefit from any of these schemes. I hope that my noble friend and the Government bear that in the back of their mind. The Bill already reflects a commitment that helps farmers to manage livestock in a way that mitigates and adapts to climate change. I welcome the opportunity provided by Amendment 100 to discuss those issues.