Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 31 January be approved.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register.

This instrument is a fundamental part of the vital reforms we are making over the agricultural transition period in England. These reforms support the prosperous long-term future of the sector to produce high-quality, nutritious food, and protect and enhance the environment for future generations. The Government committed to maintain the same budget for farming, totalling £2.4 billion per year, but to move it away from the EU’s common agricultural policy, which did so little for food production or the environment, and towards investing in the foundations of food security: healthy soils, abundant pollinators, and clean and plentiful water.

This instrument applies progressive reductions to direct payments made to farmers in England for the 2023 scheme year. It puts into law the reductions which the Government first announced in their agricultural transition plan in November 2020. The reductions are being applied in a fair way, with higher reductions for amounts in higher payment bands. Therefore, this is a process that favours smaller farmers over larger ones. The reductions are calculated to be replaced pound by pound with investment in our new and existing schemes. This is the third year of the seven-year agricultural transition period, during which direct payments are gradually being phased out as we invest in targeted schemes.

The Labour Party has put a regret amendment before the House, and my concern is that this will send a confusing message to farmers. We are seeing farmers feel less confident about the agricultural transition due to previous political uncertainty, but we have made great progress since then, with the provision of more details about our improved countryside stewardship and sustainable farming incentive offers.

According to the Farmer Tracker Opinion for England, which was published last October, farmers on 81% of holdings said that Defra paying for environmental outcomes would be very or moderately important to their business in future, so this opinion supports the need to continue our agricultural transition.

I turn now to the fatal amendment from the Liberal Democrats. The Government remain convinced that direct payments are not the right way to support farmers and improve the environment. Let me set out clearly what the fatal amendment means and what the Liberal Democrats are asking the House to vote on this evening. First, if the House supports this amendment, it will be voting against the interests of small farming businesses. In England, historically, half the direct payments money went to the largest 10% of recipients. I cannot believe that anyone in this House would want that to continue. Meanwhile, our new schemes benefit small farms with a new management payment under the sustainable farming incentive of £20 a hectare for the first 50 hectares. This means that farmers can receive up to £1,000 extra to cover costs, so that is one way in which we are weighting this budget to smaller farmers. There is no minimum amount of land that can be entered into the scheme.

Secondly, support for this amendment would be a vote against maintaining our food security. The EU’s area-based subsidies were substantially de-linked from food production in 2005. Indeed, they have inhibited productivity improvements. Meanwhile, our schemes invest in the very foundations of food security: from productivity to innovation, soil fertility and beyond. We set out our plan for this very clearly in the Government’s food strategy, and I have yet to see a clear plan from other parties.

Thirdly, supporting this amendment would be against the public’s demand for a better environment. Many in this House want, for example, to see our rivers restored. If the amendment was successful, many measures which directly restore water quality in our rivers would have to be shelved. We would be incentivising farmers to remove herbal leys and habitat-rich pastures that they may have planted alongside watercourses, and that would clearly be a crazy move to have to make because of how the amendment is worded.

Voting for this is not voting just to maintain the status quo; it is voting to stop any direct payments being released for new schemes. This would mean that we would have to stop landscape recovery projects, which are restoring more than 400 miles of river. We would have to stop the slurry infrastructure grant, which helps farmers to utilise their nutrients, which are such a valuable input but, when misused, can cause real pollution. We would need to cancel the existing 30,000 Countryside Stewardship schemes, which saw a 94% increase in uptake since 2020. Last but by no means least, support for the amendment would be a vote to keep farmers locked into a bureaucratic system that has worn them down with endless tedious red tape.

If certain Members of this House—the Liberal Democrats in particular—are serious about addressing urgent matters, such as the decline in our rivers or the crisis of species decline, what on earth is their game? That is the point: it is not a game; it is a desperately serious matter which should not be part of some cheap political campaign. We should be united in the ambition to support and incentivise our farmers to drive real change.

The basic payment system burdened our farmers with complex rules about the maximum width of a gateway or whether a cabbage and cauliflower were the same for the purpose of the three-crop rule. We have already scrapped those draconian rules and the related penalties to work with farmers rather than against them.

Let us be clear. This can be dressed up however noble Lords want, but the British people and our farmers will see straight through this. This amendment would keep rewarding people just on the basis of the land they manage, not what happens to that land, and it cruelly cuts the legs out from those who are doing the right thing. Those who support it do not support the many farmers who are embracing change, investing in their productivity, or building their resilience for the long term from the shocks from drought or pest outbreaks. They do not support the farmer who is putting a buffer of wildflowers alongside the river to protect it from run-off and retain vital nutrients on their farm and being rewarded for any revenue forgone.

I have a healthy respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell: she is a formidable parliamentarian and a valued member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and I know that this is probably not of her doing but has probably been pushed by someone at the other end of the building. I hope that she has the decency not to push this to a vote. In my two years in this House, I have seen that this is a place that takes its responsibilities seriously. We know that change is worrying for farmers. On top of this world of change are the effects of international events that have seen spikes in input costs. Let us not play this game: let us leave that to others and show that we want to get on with delivering for farming, our countryside and the millions who mind about it.

We will continue to accelerate the rollout of the sustainable farming incentive, with six additional standards being added this year. We will make it more attractive by introducing a new management payment of up to £1,000 per year, and this will help to drive uptake in the scheme among all farms, but particularly smaller ones. We will continue to simplify Countryside Stewardship, under which there are now more than 30,000 agreements across England, continue our planned increase to payment rates to help farmers who are already enhancing the environment to keep up with rising input costs, continue to offer grants for equipment to increase productivity, boost environmental sustainability and improve animal health and welfare.

Under round 1, the Government have already paid out £31.5 million, supporting more than 3,000 farmers with their investment plan, and a further round of the fund opened last month. We will continue to provide free business advice to help farmers to adapt and build their businesses. These are just some of the ways in which the funding being released from direct payments is being used. Other examples include the slurry infrastructure grant, which helps farmers to invest in better storage, the new entrants’ pilot, which will help to bring new talent into farming and land-based businesses, and the tree health pilot, which helps farmers to tackle tree pests. All these would be at risk if this fatal amendment passed tonight. This instrument is essential so that we can free up funds to continue to support farmers to build and maintain resilient businesses while delivering improved environmental outcomes and supporting sustainable food production. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everybody for their valuable contributions to the debate. It has been a great opportunity to highlight the important work the Government are doing to invest properly in our farming sector.

Sometimes people refer to farmers as being very conservative with a small “c”. I speak as one, and sometimes we are backwards in coming forwards; but when we get the idea of policy taking us in a certain direction, no group of people in the country can be more dynamic and better embrace change, innovation and all the other factors. Farmers are embracing change. I have seen some remarkable experiences around the country, and no doubt other noble Lords have too.

It is important that we press ahead with our planned reforms. Direct payments have held farmers back and are fundamentally unjust. Continuing to apply reductions to direct payments means that we can fund our other schemes, which deliver better policy outcomes and which we are designing with farmers so that they work on the ground. Our new schemes are designed to support farmers to be profitable and resilient.

We have recently updated the payment rates for Countryside Stewardship to reflect cost increases. There was an average increase of 10% for revenue payment rates for ongoing activity, and an average increase of 48% for capital payment rates. By continuing to invest in our new schemes, we will be providing support to farmers to help them reduce costly inputs and increase productivity.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked whether we were talking to the supermarkets—or it may have been the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, or both. I assure her that we are, on an almost weekly basis. Particularly through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, we work very closely to make sure that all the supply chain difficulties experienced through Covid and then as a result of the Ukraine war, as well as other lumps in the road such as avian influenza, are dealt with, and we work with them. The point that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, made struck home to me. As you drive past my local supermarket, you see photographs of farmers with chickens under their arms, in an idyllic scene. It is very much part of their marketing operation. We want to make sure that this is reflected in the farm gate prices offered and that we have a food supply chain system that reflects the work that has gone into producing that, as well as our need for good food security and the reasonable intention of the retailer to make a margin, but not one that is at the expense of anyone else.

We have a new entrants scheme to encourage new, young and diverse people into the farming industry—but also recognise that, for some people, this transition is not for them. A dignified exit scheme is up and running and allowing people to move on. But I hope that the scheme will bring in a new, younger generation, so that the average farmer is not me, a 62 year-old white man—it is a younger person, bringing new ideas into farming.

We will lay another statutory instrument to deal with payments later this year. I think that that answers another point that was made.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about Martin Lines of the Nature Friendly Farming Network. I am his greatest fan. He is helping farmers alongside the scheme that we are paying for and alongside the Prince’s Farm Resilience Programme and other organisations. On his farm, he is farming 11% less land, which he has put into environmental schemes, but he is producing more food off the rest; that is an example of where this can be of such benefit.

The noble Baroness, Lady Rock, produced a very good report, which we are working through. We are making sure that these schemes are accessible for the tenants and in the main do not require landlords’ consent—but also making sure that they are freely available to every part of the farming industry. Tenure is, of course, much in our minds.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, talked about accelerating the process of instigating ELMS. We think that we have this about right. We have worked on this on an iterative basis, so we have changed schemes where we have had to, and we have increased payments—such as when the Ukraine war happened and there were spikes in prices. We are working with the Groceries Code Adjudicator to make sure that there is a fair deal for farmers.

On the noble Baroness’s point about the land-use framework, I was always opposed to it. To go back a decade, I thought that it was a sort of Soviet-style, tractor-plan piece of top-down centralisation. I now have the zeal of the convert. The House of Lords report on this is really important; it is driving Defra forward. We will produce a land-use framework, which absolutely is needed, if we are to square the circle of all the different requirements that we need from our land to make sure that that happens.

I thought that the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, was uncharacteristically gloomy in his assessment. Farmers in Scotland have no idea what their Government are going to do; they are living in a fog. At least the fog of the transition is starting to clear south of the border, and we are showing farmers here the direction that we are taking and they are embracing it. In Scotland, it is an absolute mess. We are helping farmers here, whereas Scotland is continuing to pay an unfair area payment, whereby 55% of the money goes to the largest 10% of the farmers.

On complexity, I shall just say that, as a former land agent, I do not want this to be something that lines the pockets of land agents. I want it to be as easy as possible. The average time that it takes to sign up to the sustainable farming incentive is between 20 and 40 minutes. It is not something that requires a land agent to do it for you—although perhaps the noble Duke does require a land agent to do it. I am talking about the average farmer. Countryside Stewardship is more complicated, but we are simplifying it and linking it to the sustainable farming incentive, so you do not need different maps. Of course, there are over 200 different options under stewardship.

The right reverend Prelate talked about take-up. The new standards in SFI go live in July and I hope that we will then see farmers embracing it. The free advice we are giving to farmers shows them how they can access it. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, talked about Countryside Stewardship as if no one was going into it. We have seen a 96% increase in it and I totally reject his rejection of revenue forgone as a concept: it is vital that farmers see that if they are asked to do something different, if they are asked to reduce the stocking rate, they are rewarded for doing that. Also, we are not just assisting the large landowners, big NGOs, the National Trust and others; this is going into farmers’ pockets.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, talked about the minimum area. Five hectares is what we are talking about here. I am open to all sorts of ideas for new designations, but horticulture, which was unable to access the basic payment scheme, is able to access a great many areas of these schemes. On the point of my noble friend Lord Lucas, hand-holding sounds a bit patronising, but it is vital to support farmers in this, and that is why we are offering free advice. We will continue to do this. There is not a farmer in this country who could not, if they wanted to, have met a member of the Defra team, at shows, at marts or other agricultural events. They could have gone on a webinar or an event with the NFU or another organisation—we really have tried to do this.

There are roughly 500 actions, grants and advice offers that farmers can access right now to support their profitability, to help them to grow food and to protect the environment. I hope that that person the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, talked about will be able to access it and see that her level of profitability can be sustained. I urge everyone to take a look at the offer available and the improvements we have made, directly responding to farmer feedback. It can take as little as 20 minutes, as I said, to sign up to the sustainable farming incentive.

We have a comprehensive offer for the uplands, which we have developed in partnership with upland farmers. They have formed the landscape that underpins tourism in these areas and so much more, and we want to see them sustained, we want to see these landscapes farmed and we want to support them in doing so. We include in an expanded offer increased payment rates for Countryside Stewardship. We have significantly increased payments for upland options, such as low-input grassland, which has increased from £16 to £98 a hectare. The SFI has tailored options for the uplands, including the moorland standard, and this goes alongside other options that are applicable to upland farmers. All the standards we are introducing in 2023 are open to upland farmers if they have relevant land and features. Our offer for the uplands also includes the opportunity to apply for landscape recovery funding, farming in protected landscapes grants, animal health and welfare advice and grants, as well as grants to help boost productivity. Most of this offer is already available.

The “income forgone plus costs” approach to sustainable farming incentive payments delivers the largest profit margins on the least productive land. Upland farms, which have typically lower income than the median, are well placed to benefit. This is because the majority of actions for which upland farmers will be able to apply have a single payment rate, which is costed at a national level based on the median farm eligible for the action. Our historic agri-environment schemes use this approach and are popular in the uplands: around three-quarters of commercial upland farmers are already in agri-environment schemes.

To finish, I want to add that in January we updated the offers for schemes. Our Countryside Stewardship increased by 10% on average; the amounts we are offering in our grants in Countryside Stewardship have increased by 46%; our sustainable farming incentive management rate has increased; and the Countryside Stewardship higher tier is getting more farmers involved. We are reflecting the pressures that farmers are feeling because of costs.

We have introduced more flexible rules to allow farmers in legacy higher level stewardship to extend these agreements or to apply for Countryside Stewardship. That flexibility did not exist before. They can also choose to have a Countryside Stewardship agreement alongside their higher level stewardship agreement. Our schemes have been designed to complement each other. Farmers can enter the sustainable farming incentive alongside their Countryside Stewardship agreement, provided that the actions they are taking are compatible and they are not being paid twice for the same actions.

Food Price Inflation

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I will now repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to an Urgent Question in the other place:

“We recognise that food prices have gone up. The recent increase in food price inflation was driven by upward price movements in eight of the 11 food categories. The three most significant price increases since February 2022 are oils and fats, at 32.1%; milk, cheese and eggs, at 30.8%; and non-classified food products, at 28.9%. While recent unseasonable weather in Morocco has also created some temporary supply disruption to fruit and vegetables, domestic retailers have held prices comparatively low compared with the rest of Europe, where increased demand led in some cases to 300% rises in the price of some vegetables.

A number of media outlets have reported that the recent shortage of some salad and vegetables has been the driver of the increase in food inflation in February, but that is not the case. The overall inflation rate increases have been caused by several factors. There are other categories where price increases have been greater than that of vegetables over the past year.

These high overall inflation rates are driven by high utility prices and pressures on global supply chains that are being felt across Europe and beyond. Commentators expect the rate of inflation both across the economy and for food and drink to be near its peak. The Government have put in place a number of measures to support households with prices, including committing £37 billion to support households with the cost of living; £1 billion of that has already gone towards help with the cost of household essentials.

Looking forward to April, the Government will be uprating benefit rates and state pensions by 10.1%. The benefit cap levels will also be increasing by the same amount in order to increase the number of households that can benefit from those uprating decisions. In addition, for 2023-24, households on eligible means-tested benefits will get up to £900 in cost of living payments. That will be split into three payments of around £300 each across the 2023-24 financial year. A separate £300 payment will be made to pensioner households on top of their winter fuel payments, and individuals in receipt of eligible disability benefits will receive a £150 payment.

Free school meal eligibility is being permanently extended to children from all families with no recourse to public funds. The Government have extended free school meals to more groups of children than any other Government over the past half a century. We remain committed to ensuring that the most disadvantaged children continue to be supported.

We are also working closely with retailers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food, so while we recognise that this is a challenging time for consumers, we are taking a large number of steps to support people with the cost of living and I have great faith in the food supply chain, which has proven itself to be extremely resilient over the past few years.”

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for reading out the response from Farming Minister Mark Spencer, even if it does not fully reflect the struggles being faced by households across the country. Earlier this afternoon, the Bank of England raised interest rates for an 11th consecutive time, which of course will increase mortgage, credit and other costs at a time when many people are already scaling back on their food shops.

We understand that the Secretary of State cannot always be available to take a UQ, but her absence this morning was concerning. She is the department’s representative at the Cabinet table, and I think many people across the country would expect her to take an active interest in issues around food costs and security. Can the Minister therefore outline her involvement in this issue? What meetings has she had recently with producers and retailers, or have those meetings also been delegated to others?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that the Secretary of State is deeply involved in this issue. The Food Minister, Mark Spencer, took this Urgent Question, which is right, as he is the Minister responsible for food supply, food security and other related issues. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this matter affects a number of different departments right across government, and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have also been deeply involved in this. I do not know precisely what meetings the Secretary of State has had on this issue, but I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness with details of discussions she has had. I can certainly say from my own experience that the Secretary of State is very involved in this issue.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. Some £37 billion has gone to support households with the cost of living but there is no detail as to eligibility. Can the Minister say how this money is being distributed? I welcome the Government’s intention to permanently extend free school meals eligibility to children from all families with no recourse to public funds. Can the Minister say whether this means that free school meals will be available to all those who are eligible during the school holidays? As the Statement says, the price of milk, cheese and eggs has risen by 30.8%. Can the Minister say whether any of the £37 billion support is reaching the farmers who produce our milk, cheese and eggs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. On free school meals, the Government fully support the provision of nutritious food in schools to enable pupils to be well nourished, develop healthy eating habits and concentrate and learn in school. There is so much evidence from a number of different bodies about the importance of the right nutrition to assist with learning and ensure that the school day is as beneficial as possible. We have full confidence that schools and catering suppliers will continue to deliver a quality service. As the noble Baroness will know, under this Government, eligibility for free school meals has been extended several times, and to more groups of children than under any other Government over the past 50 years. This has included the introduction of universal infant free school meals and further education free school meals, as well as the permanent extension of eligibility to children from all families with no recourse to public funds—for example, people with temporary immigration status—which came into effect in April 2022.

We are doing much more to assist households, but she rightly asked where this money is going. It is going directly to those households that need it. Farmers and producers, who are at that end of the supply chain, are being assisted, supported and incentivised in a number of ways. She will have seen measures brought in in the Budget to help farmers through fiscal changes. We are securing and ring-fencing the £2.4 billion a year that we spend supporting farmers, but encouraging them to move towards a system of sustainable farming so that they are protecting our natural capital. This secures the food supply in the long term; it is not just dealing with a temporary problem that has emanated from the alarming effect of the war in Ukraine. Of course, we need to take further long-term measures to make sure that we are incentivising farmers to continue to produce food close to those who eat it.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for their generous support, but what further measures beyond the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill are they planning to help science enable farmers to produce more in this country while at the same time improving the environment?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Technology is our friend in tackling the needs of future generations. As part of seeing how the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill would work, I went to a laboratory in Oxford and spoke to real experts in this field. I came away extremely optimistic that, through the changes we are bringing in through such Bills, but also the incredible work happening across institutions in the United Kingdom and abroad, our ability to feed ourselves in future is perfectly feasible. It needs will from government, investment and continued support for the scientific community, which is driving this change. Also, that scientific evidence needs to feed through to the farmers, producers and processors so that they can continue to produce food affordably and in a sustainable way. I can absolutely assure my noble friend that science is at the heart of government policy on this.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to hear the Minister talking so positively about school meals, so why are the Government still rejecting the calls from Henry Dimbleby and public health leaders to extend free school meals to all children in families on universal credit? When food prices are going up so much, we will have more hungry children than we have already.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will know, we have extended free school meals to the largest group of children for decades, and we will continue to look at any other measures we can take. I draw her attention to the work that the Department of Health and Social Care has done for infants. It has increased Healthy Start food vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, which is a significant increase, helping low-income families to buy basic food such as milk, fruit and vitamins, ensuring that families are not choosing between costs and healthy choices. There are many other areas where the Government can assist, such as advice on diet and nutrition that enables families to make the right choices for them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement expresses great faith in the food supply chain, which I can see only as an expression of extreme complacency. It also reflects that domestic suppliers—that is, supermarkets—have kept prices low. Has that not been the source of recent supply problems? The Government have been suggesting that we should be eating more turnips. Of course, the majority of turnips that we consume are produced outside the UK. Does the Minister agree that we cannot keep relying on the soil, water and labour of others to feed ourselves, particularly for the fruit and vegetables which we need far more of?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our food supply chain was tested as never before through the pandemic. The noble Baroness looks at me as if to say that that is not the case—it is the case. It was tested as never before and found to be secure. With one or two short-term exceptions, it kept us in this country able to have the food that we needed available to us. On costs of lines in supermarkets, Defra works with retailers on a weekly basis to see what direction they are taking to tackle the crisis in household incomes and to make sure that lower-priced products are available, and that those lines are continuing. We do not have a command and control economy that directs our retailers in what they can produce, but they have risen to the challenge, providing a great many lower-priced lines which will continue to be available for families such as this. I hope that will continue.

Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 31 January be approved.

Relevant document: 31st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 14 March.

Motion agreed.

Imported Beef

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all imported beef has been produced using the same high welfare and environmental standards as beef produced in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. We remain firmly committed to upholding our world-leading animal welfare standards. Welfare standards are considered in all our trade negotiations, and each new agreement will continue to be subject to robust parliamentary scrutiny. It has always been the case that some products produced to different animal welfare standards can be imported into the UK as long as they comply with our import requirements. Those import requirements include the ban on meat treated with growth- promoting hormones.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply but how does this commitment on not lowering standards square with, for example, the recent deal to import Mexican beef, which we know has a higher carbon footprint than the UK’s and is contributing to tropical deforestation, or the deal with Australia, where they use hormone growth promoters that would be illegal to use in the UK? Can the Minister understand why struggling beef farmers issue a hollow laugh when they hear these promises to protect standards, which are simply ignored when our Trade Ministers are desperate to thrash out a deal?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As I say, they will not be allowed to import beef that has been reared with growth-promoting hormones in it. That is absolutely clear. It is our policy, and it will remain so.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend be kind enough to ask his fellow Minister when I can expect an answer to the letter I wrote to him in my capacity as chairman of the Climate Change Committee, in which I pointed out that the importation of Mexican beef, with its high carbon footprint, would be in contravention of the commitment of the Government both internationally and in the Budget?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will follow up my noble friend’s request. I am mystified by some science that gets thrown at me occasionally in this place which suggests that beef reared 12,000 miles away, transported in refrigerated trucks and ships and then distributed to retailers here can have a lower carbon footprint than beef or lamb produced on grass fields here and going just a few miles to a retailer. When I hear that, one word comes into my head. It is an unparliamentary one and begins with B.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister outlined, the Conservative Party pledged:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare … standards”.


But the Australians said of Liz Truss’s trade deal that tariff elimination on such a scale through a free trade agreement was almost unprecedented, and it is not clear what on earth the UK negotiators extracted in reciprocal concessions. The Australians’ welfare standards are lower. They have battery cages for laying hens, still legal, as are sow pens, as is the technique of mulesing on lambs, which I will not go into because it is too distressing. These are not permitted here. Although this deal may not amount to much—Australia is very far away—it is a really dangerous precedent, so can the Government assure the House that we will not be signing any more deals that undercut our welfare standards?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness, who knows a lot about these matters, that animal welfare and environmental standards will be absolutely at the forefront of all future trade negotiations. I just say that these deals balance open and free trade with protections for the agricultural industry. Australia and New Zealand will remove customs duties on 100% of tariff lines for originating products in line with agreed treatments that will be set out in respective tariff schedules on the day the agreements enter into force. There are huge opportunities, particularly for the dairy sector. Imports of dairy products into Australia and New Zealand have increased by around 30%, and I hope our farmers will be able to benefit from that.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister confirm that all beef sold here has to meet the same standards, whether it is imported or domestic? Will he further confirm that no country has ever tried to export its production standards, and that if we were to insist that every bit of imported beef met our production standards—as some in this House seem to want—that would rule out a trade deal with the EU, which does not always match our standards, let alone with the rest of the world?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there are some different standards in the EU, and we have worked as members of the EU and will continue to work with the EU and other countries through the World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Trade Organization to create greater and higher standards of animal welfare that more reflect what we have here so that there is a much more even playing field in trade across the world.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the Government appear very keen to do trade deals with Canada and Mexico, against the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which felt that such deals would compromise UK carbon targets, allowing imported meat with a higher carbon footprint than our own. Why are the Government not prepared to take measures to achieve the UK’s carbon targets? Perhaps they feel they are unimportant.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that we do not. The Climate Change Committee has gone through each department. I am responsible in Defra for making sure that we satisfy the Climate Change Committee’s demands, which are extremely challenging and testing. We have a commitment to get to net zero by 2050. British farming, under the leadership of the NFU, has committed to getting to net zero by 2040, and I can tell her that, as a farmer, that is an extremely challenging thing to do, but we as a Government and the leadership of farming are working together to help farmers try to achieve that. It is a vital priority that we decarbonise, and we understand that there is prosperity in doing so.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Earlier this month, it was reported that a British supermarket had removed from sale pre-sliced beef marked as British when in fact it came from overseas. Concerns have also been raised about imported meat being labelled as British because it was processed, rather than farmed, in this country, and packaging for New Zealand lamb is giving undue prominence to the union jack element of its country’s flag. What steps are Defra taking to review import procedures and food labelling requirements to ensure that consumers are not misled and that our brilliant domestic producers are not put at a disadvantage?

[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.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, not for the first time, I feel sorry for the Minister having to come to the House because I am convinced that, privately, his department must have approached our Trade Ministers saying that this is a bad deal. It is always possible for Defra Ministers to alienate some of their clientele but, today, they alienate farmers, environmentalists, animal welfare people and a big chunk of consumers, all at the same time, for the sake of paltry deals that will have a minimal effect on our standard of living. It seems like a humiliation to me. I hope that, if other deals come up, Defra will be stronger in making its views known.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am always grateful for the noble Lord’s sympathy, but it is unnecessary in these circumstances. We work closely across government; there has been a slightly changed landscape in government, with big new departments appearing. What is really important is that current trade deals, and future ones as they come in, have proper parliamentary scrutiny—there is a process for that—and reflect the high environmental and animal welfare standards that we have achieved in this country, which we want to see continue.

Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

Relevant document: 31st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, in moving the regulations I declare my farming interests as set out in the register.

This is the third year of the seven-year agricultural transition period. The new financial assistance schemes under the Agriculture Act are an important part of this transition as farmers move away from direct payments. They will help to ensure that sustainable food production and the delivery of improved environmental outcomes go hand in hand. Indeed, we are investing in the very foundations of food security—healthy soils, clean water and abundant pollinators—to support a prosperous long-term future for the sector.

We are due to meet at a later date to debate the statutory instrument that sets the reductions to farmers’ 2023 direct payments. I want to be clear to anyone who is minded to support the fatal Motion tabled by the Liberal Democrats about exactly what they would be voting for. First, that vote would be against small farms. We are replacing unfair and ineffective area-based payments with targeted payments. Some 50% of the direct payments budget went to the largest 10% of recipients, so by seeking to stop the agricultural transition the movers of this Motion are voting for that unfairness to continue. Secondly, that vote would be against food security. Support for that Motion would be a vote for the EU’s area-based subsidies to continue, and they did very little for farming, food production or the environment. The link between food production and the common agricultural policy was substantially severed in 2005.

If the fatal Motion on the other regulation is successful, the effect would be insufficient funding to deliver current plans. Specifically, we would have to cancel all the agreements or plans under Countryside Stewardship 2023, the sustainable farming incentive, landscape recovery, farming in protected landscapes, support for producer organisations, the future farming resilience fund, the livestock information programme, the animal health and welfare pathway, and the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture. This would mean immediately stopping work on projects to restore nearly 400 miles of river and to protect and provide habitat for 263 species—such as water vole, otter, pine marten, lapwing, great crested newt, European eel and marsh fritillary—across 40,000 hectares. We must therefore continue our move away from direct payments and the legacy of the EU’s bureaucratic common agricultural policy, which did little for farming, food production or the environment. I hope that, with that little taster of the debate in a week or two, I have persuaded noble Lords who were minded to table that Motion to rethink.

The regulations that we are debating today provide the legal framework for Defra and its delivery bodies to enforce and monitor the financial assistance schemes and to publish data about grant payments. This instrument makes technical amendments to those regulations to support the continuing transition to new schemes. Through this instrument, the definitions of three financial assistance schemes from the 2021 regulations have been removed. This change does not impact the schemes, which have already been launched, or their funding. It is so that the Government can be more flexible in adapting schemes to suit farmers’ needs. For example, the Government will be launching the animal health and welfare grants through the farming investment fund, which were previously defined as separate schemes.

The data publication requirements are amended so that the Secretary of State may exempt financial assistance schemes awarded to improve the health or welfare of livestock or plants if full publication would hinder the scheme’s purpose. For example, identifying a land manager who has received grants related to diseases in livestock could be damaging to their business and deter them reporting future cases. Similarly, the Government will continue to exempt the tree health pilot and animal health and welfare review from the full publishing requirement to protect the interests of affected parties. The Government have continued to name these schemes in this instrument to provide certainty to existing beneficiaries. However, as with all exempted schemes, the aggregated data for these payments will be published.

The Government are making sure that the taxpayer still knows where the funding is going. This instrument amends the data publication requirements so that, where the Secretary of State is required to publish the aggregate of financial assistance paid under a scheme, they must also publish the number of agreement holders who received financial assistance under that scheme.

These amendments will allow the financial assistance schemes to run more efficiently and effectively for farmers and help to achieve their intended benefits under the Agriculture Act while still making sure that there is accountability to the public. Therefore, this instrument is an essential step in ensuring that farmers can help build and maintain resilient businesses by spending public money in a way that helps us to secure the public good. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for setting out the detail of and background to the regulations before us today. I simply want to probe him on a couple of points, if I may, including on how these regulations will apply, especially to English farmers, and particularly tenant farmers.

The guidance was published in March 2022, and the path to sustainable farming was set out earlier. Has the guidance been updated since 2022? I do not see that in the Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 11. If they are just technical changes, that may not be so important.

Why was no impact assessment done? As my noble friend said, this is year three of the seven-year transition and where the finances will start to bite quite dramatically. I state at the outset that English farmers will feel unfairly treated. My understanding is that the direct payments will continue in Scotland, so those farms in North Yorkshire, Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland will look across the Scottish border and see a slightly more familiar scheme to that which they have now and which is being taken away from them. Is that something that concerns my noble friend the Minister?

My real concern is the transition from basic farm payments to ELMS. My noble friend concentrated very heavily on the advantages to the environment. I press him on how this will impact on hill farmers, upland farmers and small farmers everywhere, in particular those who produce grazing stock such as spring lambs and, indeed, fatstock cattle.

In a Financial Times article on 5 March, it is calculated that a drop in farm business income—a measure of net profit—of almost two-thirds is expected in this financial year. That amounts to a drop in profit of £16,300. When I was an MP next door—as indeed was my noble friend—I worked very closely with the graziers. I would hazard a guess that that £16,000 per grazier was their total income. The question is this: what alternative money will they seek? They tend to have the rights in perpetuity but they tend to be tenant farmers elsewhere. If they do not get direct farm payments because the landowner, where they farm elsewhere, is taking it then obviously they will not be getting any compensation.

My noble friend the Minister will be familiar with the work of Julia Aglionby, a Professor of Practice at the University of Cumbria’s Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas. Her projection is that income will recover to £22,900 in two years before slumping back to £16,700; this would place it at just above a third of its 2021-22 level. I understand that of particular concern to the president of the NFU is the fact that at the heart of this squeeze on government payments is the decision to calculate payments on the basis of income foregone plus costs, meaning paying for green improvements at rates aimed at recompensing farmers for the resulting fall in agricultural income.

According to the president of the NFU, Minette Batters, for some farms that took part at the pilot stage, the work was simply not cost effective. As my noble friend the Minister will be aware, upland farms are particularly affected because they tend to produce less food than lowland sites, meaning that they are considered to have foregone less income and are paid lower rates. As I understand it, most farmers will receive £151 a hectare for managing grassland with minimal fertiliser, but those doing the same work in so-called severely disadvantaged areas or upland farms will be paid only £98. That is a severe drop in income and this is only the third year of seven.

Can my noble friend the Minister address those points? How are these farmers meant to survive? What are the department’s projections for the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh years? Where the farmers in the uplands are tenant farmers, as many of them will be—I appreciate the fact that, in North Yorkshire, where I served as an MP, and in County Durham, where I grew up in the Pennines, probably 50% of the farming community is made up of tenant farmers—what hope do they possibly have of farming in future if they are not eligible for food production grants going forward? I realise that they will get money for stonewalling, which is a tradition that we want to keep, but they are hardly contributing to food security or sourcing more food—as the Prime Minister would like them to do—for our schools, hospitals and local garrisons. What future does my noble friend see, even in this coming year, for upland farmers and, separately, for tenant farmers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this SI. While this is my first outing shadowing him, I am sure it will not be my last—unless this goes horribly wrong—and I look forward to our interactions in the months ahead. I also thank his officials for indulging my newbie questions in the briefing.

In recent weeks, our newspapers have been filled with tales of food shortages, excessive levels of food inflation and the associated food poverty. There has even been a national debate about our domestic turnips. No longer is the impact on our farmers and rural communities reserved to news stories on “Farming Today”. We live in a period of global uncertainty and economic challenge; this is no less the case for our domestic agricultural economy than for any other sector. Labour shortages, new bureaucracy and the ongoing impact of the war in Ukraine on grain and energy supplies are having a direct and daily impact on our domestic food supplies, as well as on the natural environment.

It is therefore vital that, in our post-Brexit world, we get the regulatory and payment structures fit for purpose to ensure security of food supply, and that we do everything that we can to support our farming businesses and communities. They are invaluable to our long-term sustainability and security, and we all rely on them. That is why the Labour Party will not be opposing this SI. However, I have some questions for the Minister relating to the implementation of the regulations.

The financial assistance amendment places more burden on Defra civil servants in terms of monitoring and the likely ongoing adaptation of some of the financial assistance schemes already launched. Can the Minister confirm that Defra has the resources to apply these changes in a timely manner over the next 12 months, given the additional strains which would be placed on his department by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, should it pass into statute? I promise that I do not seek to rerun the arguments which were heard in Committee on the REUL Bill last week; rather, I seek reassurance from the Minister that this has been considered and that appropriate resources are in place.

Following on from the debate in the other place on this statutory instrument, I hope the Minister can assist the Committee in answering some specifics which his colleague, the Farming Minister, failed to address. My colleague Daniel Zeichner sought clarification on Regulation 5(c); can the Minister confirm which schemes do not require a request for payment but will instead require an annual declaration to the Secretary of State? How many cases do we believe will fall into that category each year?

I also seek clarity on points raised by the right honourable Kit Malthouse in the other place in Committee. Referring to paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, he asked:

“Does that mean that, without parliamentary consent, the Minister can start or close a new scheme or quietly”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 28/2/23; col. 8.]


abandon a funding mechanism that is no longer viable? As my noble friend Lord Grantchester highlighted, given the significant discretion that now rests with the Secretary of State, can the Minister confirm that, when schemes are launched, amended or closed, the department will be required to consult their beneficiaries before the terms are revised? If so, to what timetable will the department work?

I know that the Minister has vast experience of this area, which I do not claim to have, and is committed to making these regulations work for our farmers. I look forward to working with him in the months ahead to deliver the best possible deal for our rural communities.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions. I start by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, to her position; I built up huge respect for her when we were on Select Committees together and am delighted that she will be holding me to account—I should be careful what I say; I am a bit nervous because I know what an effective parliamentarian she is. It is great to see her in her place.

I shall tackle as many of the points raised as I can. In response to my noble friend Lady McIntosh, this is a devolved issue, so this instrument, like all our agricultural policy, is for English farms only. We are working really hard to make sure that the vast majority of the schemes that we take forward are available to tenants. We have changed the rules so that tenants can access schemes without the consent of landlords in the vast majority of cases, particularly in the sustainable farming incentive. We are working through the Rock review, which is a brilliant piece of work, and want to see as many of its recommendations implemented as we can, as quickly as possible.

My noble friend asked about the need to update the 2022 guidance. There is no need to because we are not changing the policy. There is no need for an impact assessment for the same reason. She asked about area payments in relation to Scotland and England. I cannot comment on what Scotland is doing because we are still not entirely certain. However, I can say with every fibre of my being that the need to move away from area payments is long overdue. When I arrived at Defra in 2010, the Farming Minister was Sir Jim Paice. He was absolutely clear, and I agreed with him, that we need to prepare the farming community to move away from the completely unacceptable system whereby the largest farmers get most of the money. The CAP system and area-based payments were not friendly to small farmers. Under our schemes, small farmers will be able to be more fleet of foot and adapt.

Upland farmers will have access to 130 of the standards that we are seeking to implement. I will talk more about that in future. I worked with Julia Aglionby; her input in trying to make our schemes fit graziers who have access to areas of uplands in particular has been invaluable. I gather Ms Aglionby is publishing her assessment of what this means. We will examine that and respond to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I feel I may have confused my noble friend. I did not mention area payments. I said that there is envy of what the Scots are being paid. My concern is that the way that the calculation has been done—income forgone plus costs—is leading to this perverse situation of a fall in incomes.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will seek to address those points as I go through my remarks. We want to make sure that the £2.4 billion is spent more fairly. That means a greater incentive for smaller farmers to receive more of the pie because they have been hard done by under the common agricultural policy. I will come on to talk about this as I address other points.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, raised some important points. I make no apologies for the fact that we have amended the schemes. He quite rightly asked about consultation. The schemes are indicative. We want to make sure that, as we work through not only our tests and trials but the implementation of these schemes, we are listening to farmers. This has probably been the largest consultative process that I have experienced in my time in Defra. The food, farming and countryside team has attended agricultural shows, done webinars, visited clusters of farmers, attended the vast majority of farmers’ social gatherings that can possibly be imagined and responded to concerns raised. We will continue to do that through our standard routine engagement with organisations such as the NFU, the TFA, the CLA and others and also directly with farmers. I have been able to put farmers who have raised particular points with me straight through to the director concerned and she has been able to answer their questions, so the answer to the noble Lord’s question about continued consultation is absolutely yes.

Agreement holders will have to be notified. On the noble Lord’s point about changes in farm tenure and ownership, these will be considerably simpler under the schemes. There should be no deterrent effect to being able to transfer the schemes if, for example, a partner in a farming partnership arrangement changes and there should be no bureaucratic barrier more than a notification, if required, in those schemes. There are issues relating to the time left of a farm business tenancy, for example. If it is less than three years, I think, it can be rolled over but it needs to be notified.

We are measuring the impact on the environment of the uptake of these schemes. We will also be measuring the impact on the environment of farmers and land managers accessing private sector green finance, and making sure that we are working to strategies through our Countryside Stewardship, which now has more than 30,000 farmers in the scheme. We have raised the payments by 40% and have increased the amount of support for farmers to go into those schemes. We want to make sure that local nature recovery strategies are doing what Professor Sir John Lawton did in his ground-breaking paper, Making Space for Nature: seeking to connect environments where possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about the exemptions. It is important that we get this right. Whether it is a perception or not, perceptions are reality in this case. If there is a perception about making public the fact that you are taking part in an animal health and welfare grant scheme or you might have tree diseases on your land, and that will be a barrier to farmers taking part in the schemes, then I think we are right to seek that exemption.

As the noble Baroness points out, there have been cases where certain animal rights organisations have targeted farmers. On the question of African swine fever, it is a notifiable disease, so somebody not notifying the Government would be breaking the law, but that is an absolute nightmare prospect. In all our border security measures, biosecurity and everything that we seek to do, the risk of that sort of disease coming into our farming community is at the forefront of our minds. We are tracking what happens and where it is spreading across Europe and making sure that, with people coming to this country, in this globalised world in which we live, we seek to minimise the chance of that disease happening here.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, raised the issue of food shortages. The principal cause of the headline-grabbing shortages was strange climatic conditions in southern Spain and Morocco, from where we receive most of our tomatoes at this time of year. It is a warning to us, but also to retailers, that we can expect strange climatic conditions. Our supply chains, which are resilient and were proved to be so during the pandemic, need to be prepared for such risks so that we can continue to see the food that we want to see on our shelves.

The noble Baroness’s question on resources is a good one. We in Defra are putting enormous resources into this; I can assure her that other issues we are seeking to deal with at the same time will not have an impact on the importance of rolling out these schemes, explaining them to farmers, getting as many as possible to sign up to them and making sure that we are supporting our farmers to produce food. We want them to produce food sustainably but we also have hungry mouths to feed. Food security remains an absolute priority for my department and the Government.

I will tackle other points as they have arisen and hope that I will cover all the questions. One point raised was on how we are helping farmers who will become unprofitable as a result of direct payment reductions. There are a number of ways in which farmers can be profitable without direct payments, including farm efficiency improvements, diversification and receiving money under new schemes. The actions taken will depend on the particular farm. The future farming resilience fund provides farmers with free advice from an independent provider to help them work out what to do for their business, including how best to improve business practices.

The impact on farmers of the phasing out of direct payments is obviously at the forefront of our minds. There is evidence showing that the scope—

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

My Lords, I fear the bells ring for us. We shall adjourn for 10 minutes then reconvene and return to the Minister’s remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to resume this, and I will get through these points as quickly as possible.

Let me clarify something about the exemption, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, rightly raised. The exemption is limited to only a few potential schemes that are established for reasons of plant or animal health or welfare and are in a similar position to those already exempted by Parliament in the 2021 regulations. Schemes developed under the other Section 1 purposes will continue to be published in full., including Defra’s core environmental land management or productivity schemes,

The proposed power to exempt a scheme or part of a scheme from full publication will be available only where it satisfies two conditions: first, if a scheme is established to protect or improve the health or welfare of livestock or to protect or improve the health of plants; and, secondly, if the Secretary of State is satisfied that publication is likely to hinder the extent to which the scheme achieves that purpose. As I have said already, we feel that these two areas fulfil those two tests. Ahead of any use of the power, we will provide our rationale on new exemptions to the EFRA Committee in the other place. We will also publish aggregate data on each exempt scheme.

Going back to the point about the impact on farmers of the phasing out of direct payments, there is evidence showing that the scope for productivity improvement would enable a large majority of farms to be profitable. In 2019, the Government published a farming evidence compendium that set out the impacts of removing direct payments, including analysis by sector, location and land tenure, and provided analysis on how farm businesses across all sectors can offset the impact of the scheme. In October 2021, the Government published further evidence in Agriculture in the UK Evidence Pack. We will continue to do this. Of course, under the Agriculture Act, we are required to publish details of our food security every three years. Our belief on our food security is that we will remain self-sufficient to roughly the same degree that we have been in recent years. Of course, fast balls, such as avian influenza and the war in Ukraine, come but, broadly speaking, we hope to be able to continue with roughly the same level of food security and, if possible, to increase it.

On upland farmers, farmers will be paid for more than 130 actions—not standards—in all the schemes that are applicable to them. I really hope that we can get across to them the message that they are valued, that they have a future and that we can work with them.

As I have said, we believe that our schemes will have no overall impact on the food security of our country. Investing in the natural environment will help us reduce future risks related to climate heating and the loss of biodiversity. We are designing our schemes to achieve win-wins for food and the environment where we can. I sometimes get questioned in this place by people who believe that food production and the environment are mutually exclusive. I know that everyone here is intelligent enough to know that that is not the case, that you can farm productively on much of our land and that we can restore the catastrophic loss of species that we have undergone in recent years to where they were. We can end that decline by 2030 and see the number of species and commitment to nature realistically delivered by our amazing farmers using these schemes and their own ingenuity.

If we do not continue to reduce direct payments as planned, we will not be able to offer any of the new schemes across the environment, productivity and resilience. Not only would we be unable to accelerate the rollout of the environmental land management schemes, as we are already doing with the sustainable farming incentive, we would have to cancel our plans for any new agreements in SFI and Countryside Stewardship. We would be unable to offer anything in the majority of the rest of our schemes, including landscape recovery and animal health and welfare. We might even have to cancel some of the more than 30,000 existing Countryside Stewardship agreements already in place.

There was an average increase of 10% in revenue payment for the Countryside Stewardship scheme, and our ongoing activity, such as managing habitats, saw an average of 48% for capital rates. Under the Agriculture Act, we have offered 7,870 Countryside Stewardship mid-tier or higher-tier revenue agreements and 1,508 capital agreements. This is farmers taking up schemes and doing good work on their farms—precisely the sort of thing that the public want to see in terms of public goods being delivered.

For our other agri-environment agreements, environmental stewardship, Country Stewardship under retained EU law and under the Countryside Stewardship regulations passed last year, we have 35,000 live revenue agreements. In the first year of the sustainable farming incentive, with the opening offer, we have more than 2,300 live agreements. The Government are accelerating the rollout, with six additional standards being added this year.

On the question about bureaucracy, the noble Lord has probably been and I have been the victims of bureaucracy which seemed wrapped in a mystery about why it needed to be so detailed. Applying for the SFI takes a matter of minutes, and they are probably the most valuable minutes that a farmer can spend in a year. It takes between 20 and 40 minutes for an average farmer to apply for many of the schemes.

The statutory instrument will help the industry move beyond the bureaucracy of the EU’s common agricultural policy so that the Government can better reward farmers for delivering climate and environmental benefits. I hope I have addressed the issues raised by noble Lords and that they will approve this instrument. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I seek two things this evening: first, to get through this group without having to write any more billets-doux to noble Lords, because I think they have had quite enough. I will be able to explain, I hope, what we are trying to do to satisfy noble Lords. The other is to leave them, if I did not in the previous group that I responded to, with the absolute certainty that we want to see our environment enhanced, and that existing protections continue to function in a way that works at a time when we are tackling the biggest crisis mankind has faced. My noble friend Lord Lilley raised points about the bureaucracy of trying to do the right thing—that if we want to create a wind farm, the delays in doing that are prohibitive. We need to do things quickly, because there is an urgency about what we are trying to do. There is an urgency in trying to reverse the decline of species, which is more than just a crisis. As Dasgupta said, it is more than just an environmental crisis; it is an economic one as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, mentioned my noble friend Lord Randall, who is in hospital. I sent him a message earlier and he replied; he is on the mend and we wish him well.

Amendments 126 and 130 seek to add conditions on and restrictions to the use of the powers contained in the Bill. Amendment 126 would place conditions on UK Ministers or devolved authorities when using the powers under Clause 15 to revoke or replace retained environmental EU law. In particular, this amendment would prevent any provision being made before all the conditions specified in the amendment had been fulfilled. This would add significant delay and negatively impact how we review and reform retained environmental law.

The Government have been clear that we will uphold our environmental protections and our commitments, both domestic and international. The UK is a world leader in environmental protection. In reviewing our retained EU law, we want to ensure that environmental law is fit for purpose and able to drive improved environmental outcomes. We remain committed to our ambitious plans, set out in the net zero strategy, the Environment Act and the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, which detailed comprehensive action this Government will take to reverse the decline in species abundance by 2030, achieve our net zero goals, and deliver cleaner air and water. This includes creating and restoring at least 500,000 hectares of new wildlife habitats, delivering a clean and plentiful supply of water for people and nature into the future, keeping councils accountable to improve air quality faster, incentivising farmers to adopt nature-friendly practices, and boosting green growth and creating new jobs. This Bill will not alter that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Defra’s approach is not the same as saying “retain by default”: is that what the Minister said “retain by default” meant when he talked about it last week? I really think we need to be clear.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our position, as announced by the Secretary of State at the launch of the environmental improvement plan, is that we will retain by default provisions for environmental protection. Where we think there is any element of doubt, we will retain. If it needs to go, it can.

I can give the noble Baroness some examples of areas of law that we will remove. We will remove around half of fisheries rules, as they are no longer relevant. They have either expired or relate to areas that we do not fish—for example, access to the Skagerrak, off Norway, for vessels with the flags of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We do not need that on our statute book. We will remove the Landfill (Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2011 because they set targets up to 2020, which has happened, for the landfilling of biodegradable waste. They have been achieved.

To remove unnecessary burdens, for example, we will remove some of the CITES-implementing legislation, which lays down specific rules for the design of applications and permits on the protection of wild flora and fauna, including prescriptive rules on the weight of paper that must be used for such documents. Removing these regulations will eliminate unnecessary restrictions and allow the UK to pursue a digital regime. When they were written, there was no digital regime; we can now do that. Commission regulation 644/2005 of 25 April 2005 allows for the removal and non-application of ear tags for bovines kept for cultural and historical purposes—in this context, bullfighting. It is a derogation that we have not used in the UK and will not be using, so we no longer need to have it.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Apologies for intervening again, but is the Minister saying that the Bill retains by default, or just that Defra’s approach is to retain by default? Those are two very different things. The letter we recently had from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, talked about how

“the internal methodology for identifying such retained EU law was for each department to decide, given their expertise and institutional knowledge”.

It would be useful to understand how that will work within Defra.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, that is Defra’s approach; that is what we are doing in respect of this legislation. Doing that allows us to keep protections in place, provide certainty to businesses and stakeholders, and make reforms tailored to our needs while removing irrelevant and redundant pieces of legislation, such as the ones I recently mentioned.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and other noble Lords asked about the justification for Clause 15(5). The UK’s high standards were never dependent on our membership of the EU. We can deliver on the promise of Brexit without abandoning our high standards. The powers to revoke or replace will provide the Government with the opportunity to amend retained EU law and will limit those reforms that do not add to the overall regulatory burden. This is about ensuring that we have a regulatory environment that is the right fit for the UK and not for an environment, as I said last week, that goes from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and which can fit our overall regulatory regime. Our intention is to revoke any retained law that is not fit for purpose and replace it with laws that are more tailored to the UK and reflect our new regulatory freedoms.

The noble Baroness mentioned taxation. This Bill does not affect the raising and collection of taxes; that is a matter for the Finance Act.

On no regression, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is clear that the Government cannot use the powers in that Bill to reduce the overall level of environmental protection, and includes a clause setting out this commitment to non-regression. As stated on the face of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the Secretary of State may make regulations only if satisfied that they

“will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection provided for by any existing environmental law”.

So any changes to environmental regulation will need to support these goals, as well as our international commitments, including those with the EU.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the Bill as somehow weakening our resolve or our ability to deliver on our international commitments. I can be absolutely clear on this: there has never been a more determined effort to deliver for international biodiversity and the international climate, as well as domestically.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If the noble Baroness will allow me: Britain is revered in many of the fora that I have attended, whether COPs or other UN events, for the leadership we have taken on this. We cannot do it internationally unless we do it domestically as well. That is why our 30 by 30 commitment is so important and why we will achieve proper management of our marine protected areas by the end of next year, which will deliver precisely on the 30 by 30 commitment for the marine environment.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, was before the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

Indeed. I do not wish to contradict the Minister, but I am going to. On reading my copy of the Bill, Clause 15(4)(f) states that the burden “may not … impose taxation”. It states that you cannot include new taxation if you are looking to introduce a new piece of legislation. That is pretty clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is because taxation is a matter for the Finance Bill—for the Treasury. This Bill does not relate to that. It is a negative. This does not affect taxation.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

Okay, but it goes on to say in Clause 15(10)(a) that the burden includes, among other things, “a financial cost”. A financial cost can be a levy, which is taxation.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Forgive me, I think that is dancing on the head of a pin. Taxation is not a matter for this piece of legislation.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I was going to ask the noble Lord something else, but I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said.

It is kind of fruitless if we ping-pong across, with Ministers generally saying that we are right behind current levels of environmental protection, international commitments and all that. I wonder whether we could try a little test case on the habitats regulations, which we have made some changes to already through the Environment Act, and a number of changes to them are already embedded in the levelling-up Bill. Some bits of those regulations are left for which I do not know what the Government’s intentions are. Inevitably, for something such as protected areas and our commitment to 30 by 30, not having a clear view from government as to how the habitats regulations will fare in this review process, which is under way through two separate pieces of legislation already, is a bit of a worry when we have to sort that out before the end of the year.

Perhaps we could use the habs regs as a test case and ask the Minister to map out for us what has been sorted in the Environment Act, what will be sorted if we approve it in the levelling-up Bill and what is going to happen to the remainder of the provisions of the habs regs before they fall off a cliff at the end of this year. That would give us a lot more confidence in some of the assertions—which we absolutely accept the Minister is making in good faith—about not diminishing standards and not welshing on or diminishing our ability to respond to our international obligations.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I totally respect the noble Baroness for her commitment on these issues. I know she would not want legislation that sealed the habitats regulations in aspic for ever, because the environment changes and demands change and Parliament has to reflect that occasionally regulations need amending. We may well want to raise the standards of those regulations.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

If I can correct the Minister on that, this retained EU legislation Bill has a hard edge. As of the end of December, if nothing else has been done it does not set it in aspic but sets it eight feet under.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If we maintain it as is, it will not fall at the end of the year. If we want to reform it, it will be in the form of an SI, as before, so noble Lords will have a chance to debate it. The noble Baroness seems to be presupposing that somehow we are just going to allow it to sunset, and we will not.

I will make a bit of progress, if I can. We want to positively—I think this answers the noble Baroness’s point—tailor our legislation to our new status as an independent nation. This is why we do not consider the proposed conditions for such regulations necessary.

Amendment 130 seeks to add a new clause to the Bill relating to environmental standards. This amendment would introduce a new clause requiring Ministers to meet the additional conditions set out within it. It would also specify that, when exercising these powers, the relevant national authority must have regard to the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity, the improvement of water quality, and the protection of people and the environment from hazardous chemicals. I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, may have concerns about the powers within the Bill and the impact their use may have on regulations related to environmental standards. I reassure her that such concerns are unfounded.

A number of noble Lords talked about the water framework directive. I shall relate very quickly an experience I had when I came into government with the Liberal Democrats in the coalition. I visited a river that was feeding into the Wye—a river that is often raised in this House for its condition. I visited a mill-house. Its owners said that they had been there for eight years. They pointed at some farm buildings about half a mile away and said, “When we came here we couldn’t see those farm buildings. Two metres of top soil has been lost in the eight years we have been here.” I asked where it was now and they showed me the millpond round the other side of the house which was full of the delicious red soil that comes from that area. I said, “How could this have happened?” The farmer who had allowed it to happen was receiving money from the basic payment scheme, and probably from the countryside stewardship scheme, but no one had visited, or if they had visited they had not raised this issue. The river authority—or whoever was in charge of the quality of the rivers; it was the Environment Agency at the time—had not raised the issue.

That was 12 years ago. Since then, we have produced measures which would require that farmer, if they wanted to continue to get public money, to have soil conditions that would prevent that kind of erosion, and the management of that river would require much higher standards. The water framework directive, which has some very high standards and high bars which we talked about last time, was being ignored, and one of the great rivers of our country was being ruined.

Let us not pretend that everything was perfect in the past. We have got a long way to go to improve our rivers, and it is the determination of this Government to write a new form of the water framework directive which will continue the high standards that we seek for our rivers.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

In his reply, the Minister has several times implied that it was the fault of EU law, but surely it was a problem of UK implementation and enforcement. I know I am a broken record in this respect but I have, at various times, referred to the Thames super sewer. Left to their own devices, the UK Government were not going to stop the discharge, in even minimal rainfall, of raw sewage through 36 combined sewage overflows into the River Thames as it goes through London. It was only infringement proceedings by the European Commission that led to this result. The standards that we have are not the EU’s fault; it is the UK Government and the agencies that have not done their job.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I never said that. I was the Minister who made the sewer that is being put in place happen. I know all about the urban waste water treatment directive, and it is a very good directive indeed. It is cleaning up a lot of rivers and will ensure that we have more investment such as we are seeing in the Thames. There may be cases where there has been poor implementation, and there may be cases where there has been very good European regulation which we want to see retained. There may be areas where we can see an improvement which reflects a local dynamic in our environment.

We cannot talk about this in a binary sense. There is some very good EU law which we want to see continue, there are some areas in which it is no longer necessary, and there are some areas in which with a few tweaks it can be improved. Among the proposed conditions in the amendment is a requirement to publish a statement setting out how such environmental standards have been met. Such conditions are already being met under the Environment Act 2021. The Act has established a robust legal framework to deliver environmental benefits and hold Governments, both now and in the future, to account in delivering them. Crucially, the Act also established the Office for Environmental Protection, an independent body to scrutinise government delivery and progress on environmental ambitions. In addition, we have a statutory duty, through the Environment Act, to report annually to Parliament on progress against the environment improvement plan and to undertake a significant improvement test every five years.

To reiterate the point on REACH, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised, we recognise there may be concerns about the future of REACH regulation. That is why we have deliberately built protections into the provisions of the Environment Act. The Secretary of State must publish a statement to explain how any proposal is consistent with the basic aim and scope of REACH. There must be consultation before we can make any changes. We have also excluded more than 20 provisions to protect the fundamental principles of REACH, including the no dating, no market principle, using animal testing only as a last resort, and the public transparency of the system.

Finally, I want to clarify a response made to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the last time I addressed the Committee on the Bill’s removal of interpretive effects. The removal of interpretive effects by the Bill refers to measures in Clauses 3 to 5 which repeal rights, powers and liabilities saved by Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. They abolish the principle of the supremacy of EU law and general principles of EU law as aids to interpretation of the UK statute book. Retained case law is not being sunsetted.

Further detail on interpretive effects was set out by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his letter circulated before the Committee on 6 March. We will shortly publish a list for noble Lords, so they will have plenty of time and opportunity to review the regulations we intend to allow to expire at the end of the year and those we wish to retain.

The Government are committed to upholding the environmental protections. I hope I have reassured noble Lords, and I therefore ask them not to press these amendments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister speaks for Defra and assures the Committee that the Government are entirely committed to progressing environmental standards and will follow international law. Why is there any problem putting a non-regression clause and an agreement to follow international law in the Bill if that is what the Government plan to do anyway? Further to that, can the Minister assure me 100% that before the next general election there will be no change of direction in the Government, change in Prime Minister or change in ministerial personnel?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I wish I could. I am very content with the current lot, and I hope they continue. I do not really understand the first point that the noble Baroness made. The Bill is quite explicit about where this stands in law. We want a proper regulatory regime underpinned by law; that is why we are having this debate.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate. I thank the Minister, who has had the decency again to come and speak to us. Given how critical the environmental laws are to the Bill, it is important that he is here and we are grateful for that, although it may not always seem it. It is therefore disappointing that I can say with a degree of certainty that he has not reassured Members about the issues we are concerned about. In a reasonable way, these two important amendments sought to work with the Bill to allay some of our environmental concerns.

I do not understand how the Minister did not quite understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, was saying. We accept what the Government are saying through the Minister, but if they want to deliver the commitments for our environment and, in principle, not regress, why not put it in the Bill? That would give us—and, just as critically, the public—the reassurance that we need.

I do not often quote in the Chamber, but this issue is not going away. On Sunday, David Attenborough starts a series called “Wild Isles”. For five weeks he will encourage the British public to find out what is so special about our country and what they can do to protect it. Sir David said this week:

“Though rich in places Britain as a whole is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. Never has there been a more important time to invest in our own wildlife—to try and set an example for the rest of the world and restore our once wild isles for future generations.”


For five weeks the British public will get that message and, in the same way as when they heard the plastics message, they will ask what they can do to protect their environment and what their Government are doing. They will see this cuckoo of a Bill, sired by someone who was prepared to trash our environment as well as our economy and, unless it has the significant safeguards we have talked about, it could predate on the environment they care about so much. The Government might choose to ignore us today, but they will not be able to ignore the British public. I withdraw the amendment.

Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for facilitating this debate. Even though we do not support fatal Motions, it is important that this debate has taken place, as he said.

I will be brief; it is very late, and I do not think that there is any need to go back and repeat the concerns and arguments which have been very clearly laid out by noble Lords this evening. As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, said, it is important to have a debate on this instrument, which was introduced, according to the Explanatory Notes, to implement either a negotiated outcome with the EU or the system envisaged under the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. As we have heard this evening, that outcome has now been negotiated in the form of the Windsor Framework, which we have welcomed.

We believe that the agreement of a green lane, which is designed to ease the movement of goods between GB and Northern Ireland and to support the functioning of a UK internal market, will be the subject of much discussion and debate as we go forward with the framework—it has received a lot of debate and discussion tonight. There has been a lot of talk about the paperwork and checks that will come in. I read the submissions to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and road hauliers were mentioned by noble Lords in the debate, so I know it is important that any checks or paperwork are not onerous, and that trade can continue as smoothly as possible under the circumstances.

We also understand that the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and his party need the time and space to fully analyse the agreement and the accompanying legal text—that is only right. We are glad that the Government have committed to providing any supplementary evidence that they may request.

The Government have also said that, if the Executive are restored, Ministers will negotiate whether and how this power can be handed back to the Northern Ireland department. Can the Minister give any more information about what assurances or commitments Defra would seek in those negotiations? We know that Northern Ireland businesses want the protocol to work and for disruption to be minimised, so there must be sufficient capacity for checks to be carried out so that they do not become too onerous.

We do not oppose the measure, but the fact that the Government have deemed it necessary is regrettable. I believe that compromise and respect would create a better situation. This is a very complex issue, and I say again that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for bringing us the time to debate it. I will listen to the Minister’s response with great interest.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by sending the whole House’s best wishes to DCI John Caldwell and his family, following the despicable attack that took place last week. As the Prime Minister set out on Monday, there is no place for such attacks in Northern Ireland or anywhere in the United Kingdom.

I thank noble Lords for their contribution to the debate, and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for introducing it; I have huge respect for him and his colleagues. I will start and finish my response to the debate on the basis of years spent in Northern Ireland in my early 20s, where I saw some of the terrible things that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, spoke about—and I have heard others speak in similar ways. I understand, perhaps more than many, the levels of compromise which have been required of him and his colleagues to get to where we are today, and the levels of leadership in the communities they represent, which the rest of us in these islands will never be called on to show. They have demonstrated quite remarkable levels of compromise and leadership, and I fully respect them for doing that.

The instrument which the Motion seeks to annul, the Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023, was laid on 12 January this year. In direct response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, I assure the House that, if the Assembly is restored, the implementation of these measures will become the responsibility of the Executive and be delivered through the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland. Their purpose is to grant the Secretary of State concurrent powers: first, to allow Defra to construct facilities for the purposes of performing official controls, with the primary purpose of controlling goods travelling via Northern Ireland into the European Union; and secondly, to enable Defra to direct the competent authority, DAERA—the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs—to hire suitably qualified staff to perform these controls.

The Windsor Framework announced by the Government this week establishes a new way forward for Northern Ireland, making substantial changes to the protocol. It addresses the full range of issues it caused, safeguarding both economic and democratic principles in Northern Ireland. It was always this Government’s preference to secure a negotiated outcome, and this agreement, we hope, delivers for all communities in Northern Ireland. I entirely respect the points made by the noble Lord, and his and his party’s wish to really study this: we must be patient with them.

Benefits from the agreement are significant and wide-ranging and I shall provide noble Lords, briefly, with a couple of examples. We have scrapped all unnecessary red tape for internal UK trade into Northern Ireland. We have also permanently guaranteed unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods to the whole UK market, maintaining the integrity and smooth functioning of the UK internal market. The only controls that remain are for a very limited subset of goods, such as endangered species. We have secured an expansion of the green lane for UK food retailers. Supermarkets, wholesalers, hospitality and catering companies, and those providing food to public services, such as schools and hospitals, will be able to use the green lane. We have removed the requirement for costly health certificates for individual food products; and the requirement for up to 100% physical checks is replaced with a purely risk-based and intelligence-led arrangement.

We have also successfully negotiated significant changes on plants. Previously banned seed potatoes and other commercially important plants described by the EU as “high risk”, such as British oak trees, will now be able to move between GB and NI. Overall, the Windsor Framework delivers for businesses, consumers and all people and communities in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

I now turn from the benefits of the Windsor Framework to this specific SI. As we have explained previously, this legislation was required in all scenarios. I pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Moylan: SPS checks into Northern Ireland have happened for decades. The whole island of Ireland has been an epidemiological area for these purposes for several decades. The SPS inspection facilities that we are talking about in this SI will ensure that goods destined for the European Union travelling via Northern Ireland are subject to EU checks and controls. These will mainly be goods travelling directly to the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland ports. They are necessary checks, as the former DUP Minister for Agriculture, Edwin Poots, acknowledged. They will ensure that checks on live animals are performed safely and with due regard to animal and staff welfare, something that is not possible at the moment with the temporary arrangements that have been put in place. This is a long-standing commitment to protect against disease, given that the island of Ireland is a single epidemiological unit, pre-dating Brexit. They ensure that Irish trucks are not using Northern Ireland ports as a backdoor into the EU without red-lane checks. So, as we said in the Bill and have always maintained, we will need to have the appropriate facilities to carry out red-lane checks.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I want to ask something just for the sake of clarification. My understanding is that the checks that have been carried out for many years relate to livestock and that most people understand SPS checks, which may technically include livestock, as checks on food, seeds, plants and so forth. While I fully accept that there have always been checks on livestock, for good reason, and that they are uncontroversial—I do not think anyone is asking that they be abolished—it slightly overeggs the position to suggest that there have always been SPS checks in the broader sense in which that term has come to be used in the course of the debate following the referendum vote in 2016. However, I am happy to be corrected.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am happy to talk to the noble Lord after this and clarify that point. Time is moving on.

I was talking about an important safeguard for Northern Ireland businesses. It means that they and they alone benefit from being part of the UK’s internal market. Irish businesses are not part of this and should not benefit from the green lane. Indeed, the implementation of the Windsor Framework can give Northern Irish businesses a competitive advantage over those in the south. We will encourage Irish firms to relocate jobs and investment into Northern Ireland.

The improvement of these facilities is also an important part of providing safe conditions for staff and animal welfare. The present contingency facilities were constructed at speed to allow controls to be delivered when we left the EU. Improving the facilities will ensure that consignments, including for live animal movements, move quickly through ports and on to final destinations, which could include Northern Irish farms. These arrangements are needed for Northern Ireland—its businesses and its reputation for high health status and high-quality agriculture and food production.

I turn to questions of timing and procedure for the introduction of this legislation, as raised by noble Lords. This legislation is time critical. As I set out, the conditions of the current facilities are of concern for both animal and staff welfare reasons. We want to ensure that, as above, the benefits of the new green lane are felt only by internal UK trade and that Irish traders are subject to full EU law checks and controls, as we have always said.

On process, although a public consultation was not required for this legislation as it relates to the implementation of an existing commitment and introduces no new policy, my officials and ministerial colleagues have engaged with industry and businesses extensively over the last two years and will continue to do so. Defra hosts a weekly forum attended by, on average, 150 businesses and organisations across Northern Ireland and Great Britain’s food supply chain, where people can raise issues, hear information and share their views. We have engaged with Northern Irish businesses, for which the integrity and reputation of their goods, from farm to fork, is critical to their success and viability. A useful example is milk; 30% of Northern Ireland’s milk is processed in the Republic, and milk and milk products were worth over £126 million in gross added value to Northern Ireland in 2020.

On the implications of this legislation for the devolution settlement, I reaffirm that the Government recognise that the delivery of these facilities is a devolved responsibility. In the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, it falls to the UK Government to be able to take that work forward.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords on the scope and aim of this statutory instrument. We have had a long, wide-ranging debate, but this is specifically about SPS measures that we need to put in place regardless of the changes, welcome though they may be, that have been announced in the last few days. I hope that, as the benefits we will draw from the historic Windsor Framework become apparent, we will put in place this week measures to ensure that we have proper sanitary and phytosanitary facilities in four ports in Northern Ireland. That is what the statutory instrument seeks to do. I hope I have persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, not to press his fatal Motion.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It is usual to say it has been a wide-ranging debate, and we can certainly agree on that if not much else at times.

I do not want to go back over some of the elements of this debate, but I want to say something in response to the noble Lord, Lord Bew. He ended on a note of challenge to us, saying that we have got what we wanted but are still not happy. I want to make a point, and it is worth putting on the record. He says that we demand a cross-community vote, whether or not we accept the protocol. That is a legitimate request because it is in keeping with the Belfast agreement. That has been changed and I have outlined the reasons why it is unacceptable. He then said that we have got a cross-community vote in relation to the Stormont brake and are still not happy. But the majority vote that has been granted to the Assembly in 2024 puts an end to the current protocol and instigates a period of negotiation for something new. The cross-community vote under the Stormont brake does not veto the law. It does not give the right to the Assembly to change anything, and that is the fundamental difference.

The devil is in the detail. We have heard the grand statements. We heard tonight that SPS checks have always happened between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is exactly right on the facts of that matter. It is easy to make wide-ranging statements and claim wonderful progress when you do not actually look at the details. People are saying that we now have free access between Great Britain to Northern Ireland for all goods coming through border control posts, but as I have pointed out—and nobody has challenged this—even for goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in the green channel, customs forms will have to be filled in. That is an Irish Sea border. Where else between any country or region of the United Kingdom does anyone have to fill in a customs form to transfer goods, and be subject to checks and to giving all the data and information to the European Union? Where else does anyone have to put goods that nobody can certify for definite will go into the Irish Republic down into the red lane, where the full checks of an international customs barrier are implemented?

We need to get real about this. No one need lecture me about entering and making agreements. I was part of the leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party that sat down and entered government with Sinn Féin, and shared power for years with it on a more stable basis than the Ulster Unionists did previously, when they had the majority. These are people who went out to murder our kith and kin, and who targeted my family visiting a hospital and tried to murder me. My noble friend Lord McCrea’s house was riddled with bullets. We sat down and shared power with them. They still eulogise these terrorists and murderers; they still praise and elevate them. The Minister is right to raise the matter of DCI Caldwell, and we have already expressed our sympathy and wish him well. Sinn Féin stand today and condemn that murder and say it is terrible, but the very same Ministers and leaders of Sinn Féin will stand up and eulogise and praise the murderers of police officers in front of their children—today.

We are still willing to enter government and to move forward with the people of Northern Ireland. Nobody need lecture us about being unreasonable. We agreed the New Decade, New Approach agreement. We agreed the various agreements down through the years. There is no one who should point the figure. At St Andrews, Ian Paisley made that historic agreement with Martin McGuinness. People have this idea that it is no to everything.

We will insist on our rights as British citizens. All we demand is equal citizenship. People talk about not wanting to create a hard border on the island of Ireland. We do not want a hard border. We have never sought a hard border on the island of Ireland. But we will not accept a hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. What do we mean by a hard border? What was it defined as by Sinn Féin and nationalist leaders, and by Leo Varadkar? As anything that changed—even a camera was not acceptable. How ridiculous. But for Northern Ireland there is the full panoply of border control posts, and officials jointly responsible to the EU and the UK, sharing data—all the things that are relevant to a third country. Britain is now designated for customs and trade purposes as a third country as far as Northern Ireland is concerned.

These things matter and that is why we are sitting tonight debating these issues—I wish that we could have debated them earlier and we would all be long home, but sadly that was out of our control. However, when we do debate these matters, we feel very strongly about what has been imposed. We will look in detail at all the issues that have been brought forward in this new deal. I hesitate to call it the Windsor agreement because the King was dragged into this whole affair needlessly and wrongly in a somewhat counterproductive, crass attempt to sell it to unionists—the Government should have known better and thought much more about that, as well as the overegging and overselling of it.

We will look at these issues in detail, but what we have seen thus far makes us question some of the propaganda and the claims that have been made. Be honest about it, tell us exactly what is going to happen regarding the equal citizenship of the people of Northern Ireland; do not claim that we are equal citizens and then put in place barriers between our citizenship—between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. We are prepared to make sacrifices to move Northern Ireland forward, but we will not sacrifice our equal citizenship within the United Kingdom.

Water Companies: Water Pollution

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have had with water companies regarding water pollution.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the current environmental performance of water companies is unacceptable. In December 2022, the Water Minister and the Secretary of State met with CEOs of lagging water companies—as identified by Ofwat’s recent assessment—to outline the Government’s expectations that performance must improve significantly. Furthermore, in January, my colleague Rebecca Pow met with the CEO of South West Water. She will be meeting the CEOs of all lagging companies individually every six months and she expects to see significant progress. Most recently, I also met CEOs of water companies with Minister Pow to highlight the importance of addressing water pollution and reaching their net-zero goals.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, the water companies are themselves responsible for monitoring the quality of water. They are awarding themselves top marks and bonuses when they are clearly failing, as the Minister has acknowledged. When will the responsibility for monitoring water quality be taken away from these companies and given to the Environment Agency? When will there be serious sanctions against those running these companies for their repeated failures?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

In 2013, we only knew about 5% of the storm overflow points where sewage was going into our rivers. We now know about 90% because we instructed the water companies to provide that information. By the end of this year, we will know about 100%. The Environment Agency is the guardian of water quality and it takes forward prosecutions. The Government have said that they will increase the fines available as, at the moment, there is a cap on them, which we think should be higher. The Environment Agency is already able to launch criminal prosecutions against CEOs. Ofwat has the power to impose a fine of up to 10% of a company’s annual turnover and all fines are taken from the water company’s profits and not from customers.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, we consume twice as much water per capita as we did 50 years ago. There is an increasing frequency in sewage discharges as a result of extreme weather events, all of which require institutional investment. Do the Government not have the choice either to reduce profiteering in the sector in favour of this investment or to ask the taxpayer to subsidise this infrastructure?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are asking water companies to spend a lot more—£56 billion. In this period alone, they are putting an extra £7 billion into investment in infrastructure. Water companies make a profit of about 3%. This is not dramatic, compared with what some other companies make, but we watch it very carefully through the instructions we give to Ofwat. We want to make sure that customers are getting a good deal but, more importantly, that there is investment going into infrastructure.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I wonder if the Minister is aware that, in two weeks, the Industry and Regulators Committee of this House will be producing its own report into governance and regulation in the water and sewage industry. This will clearly be of interest to many in this House. Can the Minister confirm that putting right the sort of problems we are talking about is going to take decades, not years? Can he also confirm that the money for it will not be public money, but that the companies themselves will raise money in the City, take on debt and possibly put up water bills?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

At a time of concern about household expenditure, it is important that we balance water bills. It is always a balancing act. We want to make sure that, with an average bill at just above £1 a day to provide all the water a household needs and to have all the sewage taken away, water companies can invest in the necessary infrastructure. Most importantly, during the next decade or two, we must eliminate rainwater getting into sewage. This is the challenge. At the moment, we have water coming off roofs and going into Victorian or Edwardian sewers. Many of them have been updated and improved, but billions of pounds still need to be spent to tackle this recurring problem.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have raised before in this House the River Wye, which is one of the most glorious rivers in our country. We know why it is polluted; my noble friend the Minister has mentioned this from the Front Bench before. Can he give me some idea of when that river will flow clean again so that we can be proud of it, as our forebears were?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not an aquatic scientist but I can tell my noble friend that the problem in the Wye is principally due to phosphates coming from the poultry industry, which has boomed in that area and for which no adequate planning provision was made to prevent the leakage of effluent. The Environment Agency and other parts of Defra are making sure that we are correcting that. I hope that we will prevent what is happening, which is an absolute tragedy. For large parts of the year, large sections of one of the great rivers of this country are nearly ecologically dead. We want to reverse that.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, there has been considerable media interest in the pollution of bathing waters, inland rivers and waterways as a result of the release of sewage overflows. Nearly every week, the Minister is called here to answer questions on this issue. Given that warmer weather is approaching, can he say how the Government will protect the health of the children and adults who will be exposed to this fetid and polluted water?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We rightly beat ourselves up about this but it is worth stating that our bathing waters are in their best state ever. Last year, 93% of them were classified as “good” or “excellent”. The number of serious sewage incidents has fallen from 500 a year in the 1990s to 62 in 2021, although that number is still 62 too many. What is called wild swimming—what my mother used to call swimming—is becoming a great national sport and activity. We want to connect more people with nature; that is a wonderful way of doing it. Making sure that our rivers are clean is vital.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel like a stuck record on this issue; goodness only knows what the Minister feels like. He keeps assuring us that the Government are doing a lot of work here so why does he think that, week after week, month after month, he has to come to the Dispatch Box to answer the same question?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refer the noble Baroness to the answers that I gave on 7 September, 25 October, 2 November, 14 November, 24 November, 30 January and 22 February, as well as to my 60 Written Answers. I think that we are all of the same mind: we want to resolve this problem. We are seeing massive enforcement activity taking place and a complete change to our farming system, which will weaponise soil as a great tool in preventing the pollution of our waterways. We are also seeing a variety of other activities, such as the riparian planting of woodland along rivers. Things are getting, and will continue to get, better but I like to fill the noble Baroness with joy by coming back and repeating this every week.

[Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links (Con)]

My Lords, water pollution is not confined to England. According to Scottish Water, more than 10,000 spill events typically happen north of the border each year; that is nearly 30 a day. Similar to other water companies, Scottish Water attributes many of those spills to flooding and more frequent rain due to climate change. Scotland’s environmental protection body, SEPA, works with the Environment Agency on cross-border issues across the Solent, the Tweed and in coastal waters but can the Minister ensure that he and his department are ever mindful to co-operate at a government level as well as at an agency level on cleaning up, planning and infrastructure upgrades? We all know that this issue does not stop at any border; neither does the effluent.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: nature does not recognise borders. There is an arrangement whereby the Scots administer the Tweed, which is a border river, and the English Government administer the Esk, which is also a border river. However, we must ensure that our policies on the environment are aligned, that water companies, whether they are in Scotland or England, are abiding by the rules, and that we are of a similar mind in bearing down on this problem.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the water companies and their directors are making considerable profits. When was the last CEO or director of any water company prosecuted, fined or jailed for the grievous breaches that are occurring? If they have not been, why have they not been?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Part of me wants to answer that question by saying, “our rivers are in a better state under this system of administration of our waters”. However, I really want to say that we have given ourselves the powers now to do precisely what the noble Lord is asking for. We can have criminal sanctions, we can fine considerably more than we could previously, and we can drive up standards through our directions to Ofwat, through what we are providing with the extra enforcement that we are giving to the Environment Agency and through many other areas. It is not for me to say who should be criminally sanctioned or when. That is for the courts, and we have given them the powers to do that.

Lindisfarne Highly Protected Marine Conservation Area

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of the proposed creation of the Lindisfarne Highly Protected Marine Conservation Area on the fishing community and the local economy of Holy Island.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have consulted on a proposal to designate five pilot highly protected marine areas. The Secretary of State announced this morning the Government’s decision to designate three of these sites. The Lindisfarne site will not be taken forward. A Written Ministerial Statement has been deposited in both Houses.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Very timely, my Lords. Fishing and wildlife have coexisted around Holy Island since the days of St Aidan in the 7th century. The proposed Lindisfarne highly protected marine area would have destroyed the small-scale, well-regulated lobster fishery, which provides essential employment for island families. Does the Minister, who has taken a close interest in the matter himself, which I welcome, agree that the welcome decision not to go ahead with the plan helps Holy Island to remain a working community as well as a wonderful place of pilgrimage and tourism?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord’s knowledge of this area is, of course, understood, and he is absolutely right. This was a meaningful consultation that sought the views of people from all sectors that affected the area, and it was deemed not right to take it forward as a highly protected marine area. It is, of course, a marine conservation zone. It has at least 850 species and a very valuable benthic population of seagrass in certain parts, and it is an extraordinary neighbourhood for tourists as well as people who exploit it in a sustainable way. We are now progressing designating other sites and making sure that we continue to listen to local people as well as conservationists, and that we get this right.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was going to stand up today and congratulate the Government for actually doing something right for once. They were going to establish five of these highly protected marine areas. Do I understand that they have dropped two plus Lindisfarne, including Farnes Deep? What exactly is happening, and why are the Government so lackadaisical about something so important?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

When Michael Gove was the Secretary of State, he asked me to chair a panel of scientists and others to look at whether we should have highly protected marine areas as part of our suite of marine protections. The conclusion of the embarrassingly named Benyon review was that we should, and that it was vital to do this—but we had to do it in the right way. We recommended that five pilot sites be created, and that we should consult and learn from the lessons of not only this but the implementation of the Marine and Coastal Access Act about a decade ago, when we came across the same problem with what were then called reference areas. We will now take forward at least two further sites as part of the pilot project, so the noble Baroness will be reassured that we will have at least five pilot sites, and then we will continue to grow this. I could extol the virtues of highly protected marine areas exhaustively, but I cannot in the time allowed to me in this Question.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, are the Government concerned about the very large supertrawlers —foreign owned, very often—that are now starting to fish particularly off the west coast of the United Kingdom?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Trawler activity on our seabeds is often incompatible with marine conservation. We want to make sure that while we are helping our fishing industry prosper in the new world in which we live, we are also mindful that what legitimate British fishing interests on these islands want is a rising biomass. That requires us to have marine conservation running alongside productive fisheries. The actions of some international vessels coming into our waters is of course of concern when they are breaking the rules, and we have available very strict enforcement policies.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the Government on getting two things right in two days.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am lost for words.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that the word “Lindisfarne” appears in my title. When this marine area was proposed, which would have caused a lot of the difficulty that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, talked about, he and I and the vicar of Lindisfarne consulted the people extensively. I was quite surprised that some locals thought that, by taking the title Baron Sentamu of Lindisfarne in the county of Northumberland, I had brought a curse to the island, so I am very glad that this afternoon I can go away without cursing anybody.

As it is a conservation area, will the same energy be put into ensuring that birds that come during their breeding season, particularly terns and others, and then go to north Africa, will continue to be protected? Secondly, the ferns on St Cuthbert’s, particularly the little one, are being eroded by global warming. What further work will the Government undertake to ensure that we do not lose those ferns?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble and right reverend Lord’s knowledge and understanding of this area and his support for the people who live there are appreciated. I had a letter from his successor, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, as well as letters from monks and many others, so I applaud the Church for its involvement in the consultation process. On his wider point, I entirely accept that there is an ongoing need for greater scientific understanding of what is going on. The value of our oceans in sequestering carbon is immense, and our understanding of blue carbon is increasing but not fast enough. In this area, some very valuable seagrass is deteriorating because of climate change and other factors, and we want to make sure that we are preserving it and, where possible, increasing it, because of its value to the environment.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with the praise heaped upon the Vicar of Holy Island, Sarah Hills, and the fishing community, which has done a wonderful job in standing up for its community. The Minister mentioned that lessons were learned from this review. What lessons were learned to help protect island communities doing sustainable fishing, such as those on Holy Island?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is a generalisation, but by and large local inshore fishing is much the most sustainable and we want to see it encouraged. It delivers most for our coastal communities, and the sense of place, the sense of community it brings to those areas benefits not just them but the vast numbers of people, including myself, who regularly go on holiday to places like Bamburgh and know that part of the world. It really is important that we listen to those voices, that we help them to ensure that their fisheries continue to be sustainable, and that we increase the biomass in the seas so that not only they but future generations can fish them productively.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the first three highly protected marine areas have been designated, as the Minister said. One is in Allonby Bay, near me, in Cumbria. While I absolutely support marine conservation and the importance of these sites, Maryport Town Council has been in touch because it is concerned about the impacts on an area that has been struggling. I am aware that the Secretary of State said that the decision takes account of the needs of Maryport harbour, so what assurances can the Minister give to local fishers at Maryport marina that they will have government support to counteract any negative social or economic impacts of the decision?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We amended the boundary of this site to reflect precisely the points raised by the noble Baroness and will continue to work with local people, particularly fishers, to do this. In the course of my review, we looked at highly protected marine areas around the world, and where they work best, their greatest supporters are the fishermen, because they see flowing out of them increased quantities of fish. These are areas where fish spawn and shoal at different times of year. The benefit of that to fishermen outside those areas, if we get this right, will be enormous. That is what we want for fishermen in that area.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, are our seas safe to fish in, given the amount of pollution this Government and the regulators are allowing the sewerage companies to pump into our oceans?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We want to continue to make sure that our marine areas achieve good environmental status, as we set out in our marine strategy. That involves dealing with plastics, litter and the quality of water flowing from land into the sea. It is at the heart of all our policies and we will work towards achieving it.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

In the light of what the noble Lord has just said, will he look at the predicament of fishing in Whitby, just down the coast from Holy Island, where there has been the terrible death of all the crustaceans—lobsters and crabs—decimating the fishing industry in North Yorkshire and south Durham?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are looking very carefully and determinedly to find a solution to this. The noble Lord will know that we commissioned our chief scientific adviser, Professor Henderson, to lead a panel of 10 experts to look into this, including the maintenance dredging going on there, the dredging around the new freeport and the pathology we can find from the dead crabs that have been washed up. It is regrettable that we have yet to find a reason for it, but that does not mean we have stopped looking. We are using the expertise not only in Defra and its wider agencies but in other areas of academia to try to find out what caused this serious problem.

Scotland: Bottle Deposit Return Scheme

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, as waste policy is a devolved matter, the Scottish Government have opted to roll out a DRS independently of the rest of the UK, due to launch on 16 August this year. We remain in close contact with officials and industry to learn from the delivery of the Scottish scheme and align on key decisions wherever possible.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, that Answer simply is not good enough. This is a unilateral scheme that has been completely ill thought out. Indeed, one of the candidates for the SNP leadership has said it should be cancelled. The deadline for businesses to register is tomorrow. It means a death sentence for small producers of beverages and price increases for Scottish consumers, and it drives a coach and horses through the UK internal market. It requires an opt-out from the internal market Act to proceed. Will my noble friend throw a lifeline to those businesses and consumers?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Let us see whether I can try to encourage my noble friend with this reply. The Government have not yet received an official ministerial request from the Scottish Government for a United Kingdom internal market exemption. There have been discussions at official level. He is entirely right to point out the failures of the Scottish scheme and the impact it will have on Scottish businesses. In November some 600 businesses wrote to the Scottish Minister outlining various reasons why the deposit return scheme is going to fail in Scotland. These include a risk of fraud, major losses in consumer spend, loss of investment in the Scottish economy, and financial and environmental implications for local authorities.

I have to wait and see whether the Scottish Government apply for a UKIM exemption, and then I can answer my noble friend’s question. One of the front-runners to lead the SNP has announced that if it rolls out in Scotland in August as planned, it will create “carnage”. I agree.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the Minister in charge in Scotland, Lorna Slater, has acknowledged that she has not yet submitted a request, she has not consulted any other Governments which have implemented a scheme, and she has no idea how it is going to work but insists it is still going ahead? Is not the reality that we need a UK-wide scheme that will meet the needs of people in Scotland and elsewhere, where it is extremely divisive and clearly incompetent, and, if we have a UK-wide scheme, the Government’s responsibility is to press ahead with it as quickly as possible?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is exactly right. If we were indulging in grown-up politics across all the Governments, we would have a scheme that acknowledged that waste is a devolved but aligned issue. There is undoubtedly an environmental benefit from reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and the amount of litter plaguing our highways, in particular. It is possible to run a perfectly sensible scheme. We have been discussing a scheme with the Welsh and Northern Irish Governments, but it should be run in alignment right across these islands. The Scottish Government have sought to appear more virtuous and to rush this, and they have failed the Scottish people and Scottish businesses. The scheme will result in huge costs and even the risk of booze cruises, so that people can go south of the border to get drink at 50% less cost. This is entirely ridiculous. We want to work with the people of Scotland to make sure we align on this.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, for once I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—and that does not happen very often. However, I fear the Minister has underestimated the seriousness of this matter. The Minister dealing with this appeared on television in Scotland yesterday. Although participating manufacturers have to sign up by Tuesday—tomorrow—she said she is reviewing whether there will be a delay of a year. This is total chaos. If the Minister can imagine the situation, if this goes ahead, manufacturers, including small manufacturers, will have to produce separate bottles and cans for Scotland and for England, which will be enormously expensive. If they do not, can he imagine the trade that might take place at Carlisle or Gretna, with people gathering the bottles that are worth 10p and going from England to Scotland and making hundreds and thousands of pounds. The whole thing is total chaos. This is a very good idea, but it must be done on a United Kingdom basis, so there is not this confusion. Will the Minister talk immediately with the Secretary of State for Scotland and see if he can impose Section 35 of the Scotland Act, stop this nonsense straight away and make sure a UK scheme is introduced, which would benefit the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I cannot disagree at all with the noble Lord. I agree with everything he said and assure him that I spoke to the Secretary of State for Scotland on this matter this morning. He is absolutely resolute that the points raised by the noble Lord are the case and are a serious problem, particularly in cross-border trade—even the letter that I quoted earlier talks about the risk of fraud. But this fits in with a pattern—on educational attainment, on ferries, on drug policy—that the people of his country have to endure with the Government in Scotland. We want to make sure that on environmental policy such as this there is an alignment. It is perfectly possible for all four countries of the union to work through a scheme and implement it gently, in way that does not have great inflationary costs and does not damage business, but that works with the grain of public opinion, which wants to see more recycling, less litter and a scheme that works.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I went litter-picking at the weekend and I am much encouraged by what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said. Do I understand that, if I were to fill a lorry with all the empty bottles scattered around the lanes of Leicestershire, I could go up to Scotland and make a great deal of money? This is most encouraging as far as I am concerned. I should say that I raised the issue of bottle deposits in my maiden speech in the Commons some 31 years ago.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can only applaud my noble friend for his virtuous activities at weekends, but, sadly, I have to report that I do not think he would be able to do that. For the Scottish scheme to work, an English drinks manufacturing company, say, would be required to produce a labelled item in a particular way so that it could not be deposited there. The current system is Kafkaesque and it has to be more sensible.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, in answer to my Written Question on this issue at the beginning of January, the Minister replied:

“Waste is a devolved policy area, and we are working closely with the devolved administrations and industry to support the successful delivery of the scheme across the UK, including mitigating the impacts that arise from differences in scheme implementation.”


Can he tell us what progress has been made since then, beyond the publication of the consultation response? While, clearly, we should not impose a system on Scotland, this opens a window of opportunity for the constituent parts of the UK to agree a joint approach, as other noble Lords have said. Are the Government willing to have the discussions needed to achieve this?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, and we are having those discussions. We are also looking at other countries that run successful deposit return schemes to try to learn from their successes, just as we are learning from the failures of the Scottish system, and we want to ensure alignment across the United Kingdom. I am absolutely on the same page as the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, that not everything being painted here is an accurate picture, and he spoke about a so-called “rush”. These regulations were passed by the Scottish devolved Administration in September 2020; as I believe the Minister confirmed, discussions started with Westminster in 2021; it is now 2023. Biffa, the delivery body for Circularity Scotland, has spent £100 million and 500 jobs are being created. The very principle that this Government say they stand for, “polluter pays”, is being delivered. Does the Minister agree that, if the Government step in at this very late stage—if Westminster stops Scotland delivering what it has a right to do under devolved law—that will mean a collapse in business confidence and we will never see a bottle deposit scheme across these islands after Westminster steps into this business?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think all of us will feel great sympathy for the noble Baroness in trying to defend what her party is doing as part of a coalition of abject failure. She talks about business; I can only quote what business says:

“Tens of thousands of businesses who produce, can, bottle, distribute, or sell alcoholic or soft drinks in Scotland now have less than a year to successfully adapt their operations, without the necessary knowledge or levers in place.”


It is not the principle of a deposit return scheme—I suspect some of us are old enough to remember the thruppenny bit—but how it is implemented. That, I am afraid to say, is right at the heart of the problem at Holyrood.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell us what will happen on His Majesty’s warships in relation to beverages? Not that we have many warships, so it is not too big a problem—but will it apply or not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Sunday evening has been enhanced by watching what happens to waste on an aircraft carrier and recycling on these facilities. If it lands at Rosyth or Portsmouth, will there be a different scheme? We can say only that it is a mystery wrapped in enigma inside a riddle.