Agriculture Bill

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

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

[Lord Trees (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak to this amendment in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Mallalieu, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register, and particularly my role as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare.

This is an enabling Bill, and I note that many amendments to date have been seeking more detail on how the Bill’s objectives will be realised. This amendment, adding one small word—slaughtering—puts some meat on the bones, if noble Lords will excuse a veterinary pun. It offers a means of helping to achieve two of the strategic objectives of the Bill: namely, to improve animal welfare and to enable the financial self-sustainability of farming and, in this case, of livestock farming.

First, with respect to welfare, there has been a huge reduction in the number of abattoirs in the UK in recent years. Since 2007, we have lost 40% of the abattoirs that existed at that time, as the industry has consolidated into bigger units. There is nothing wrong with bigger units, but bigger means fewer, and that means that animals in turn must travel longer distances in order to be slaughtered. It is a laudable commitment of this Government—and also a recommendation of a recent animal welfare committee report and a recent resolution from the British Veterinary Association—that animals should be killed as close to the point of production as possible. Fewer abattoirs runs counter to that admirable welfare goal.

On the financial self-sustainability of farming, one way that livestock farmers can achieve that is to add value to their product and retail directly. This is enabled by abattoirs that offer the so-called private kill option. These are, for the most part, the smaller abattoirs. Private kill returns the products of slaughter to the primary producer or their collaborators for processing. It enables local food production of good provenance and low food miles. It offers livestock farmers, especially those in upland areas, a viable business model. It offers them a much fairer and higher share of the price that the consumer pays. But it depends on the existence of suitable abattoirs.

Clause 1(5) currently lists “ancillary activities” for which the Secretary of State may give financial assistance, which are

“selling, marketing, preparing, packaging, processing or distributing products”

from agriculture. Spot the missing link in the farm-to-fork food chain. As a livestock farmer, how can one do any of those ancillary activities without slaughtering?

The amendment is not about subsidising abattoirs. It would merely allow as eligible for assistance certain abattoirs that recognise the higher regulatory standards rightly required for operations that are relatively low throughput and local. Conditions of support can be developed in statutory guidance or schedules and could for instance include capital grants for equipment needed to comply with new legislation, such as the recent introduction of CCTV or to achieve more sustainable and carbon-efficient waste disposal.

Given the key role that small abattoirs can play in improving animal welfare, enabling local food production and enabling the financial sustainability of livestock farming, while contributing to the wider rural economy and our national food security, I submit that there is a strong case for their eligibility for support, subject to conditions, under this Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my farming interests are set out in the register. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, has just pointed out the word that is very obviously missing from the list in Clause 1(5). Livestock farming has to produce meat in the main and “slaughtering”, the most essential and first step in the process of all those set out in the list, is missing.

I do not think that this is an oversight. I am afraid that it might be deliberate, and there are two possible reasons. The Minister may consider that the word “preparing” includes slaughtering. If this is the case, could he or she please make it clear in plain terms for Hansard and then we can all go home happy? If the Minister will not do so, I am afraid that the omission is deliberate and has been made because so many small and medium-sized abattoirs have closed and the Government are frightened of making a commitment that they fear might require them to prop up a line of possibly failing businesses.

That is not my intention in putting my name to this amendment, nor do I believe that this very small amendment, if accepted, would result in public money being thrown away on a pointless, uneconomic enterprise. I hope that government money would not be spent under any of the other categories included in Clause 1(5) on other enterprises without a good reason and a good business case. This simple one-word amendment is important for livestock farmers, of which I am one, particularly farmers in the uplands, of which I am one. It is important for small producers, and vitally important for family farms, which the Government say they want to support.