Brexit: Agriculture and Farm Animal Welfare (European Union Committee Report)

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Teverson and his committee for producing two very thought-provoking reports. I am very much looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden.

I would like to concentrate my remarks on conclusion 153 of the committee’s report on agriculture, which states:

“It may be hard to reconcile the Government’s wish for the UK to become a global leader in free trade with its desire to maintain high … standards for agri-food products”.


I think it will be not just hard but impossible. Besides the quality of our food, we can reach the same conclusion about our countryside, biodiversity, farm animal welfare, workers’ standards and almost every aspect of farming. The choice is between keeping what makes our landscape and food special or opening the door to free trade agreements that will force low food prices to determine everything. I remind your Lordships that cheap food is cheap because the environmental cost, the health cost and every other cost of producing it are hidden.

I was very pleased to hear Michael Gove say that we are,

“determined to be global leaders in protecting unique landscapes and habitats”.

To achieve that he will need to speed up the environmental plan so that there is a policy base for negotiations. I thank the Minister very much for chairing such an interesting round-table discussion on the plan last week in your Lordships’ House. I hope that it will be the first of several. Michael Gove also said:

“Our new agricultural policy will recognise the importance of improving production as well as protecting our strong food and animal welfare standards”.


However, he gives no clue as to the policies that will make this happen. I suggest a few policies that could help our farmers maintain their place in a global marketplace. I think that New Zealand has been mentioned at least twice this evening. The fact is that our farmers will not be able to compete with mass-scale, low-standard production scenarios. Britain has 700 people to the square mile and New Zealand just 46. We are a small, intensely populated island so we must plan for an agriculture that is closely and sensitively related to our communities and recognises that the health of our ecosystems is fundamentally related to the health of our cities, towns and villages. We are a relatively small-scale producer in global terms but other countries buy from us because of the outstanding quality of British beef, lamb and other products. That is a good niche to be in and is one we can expand.

I hope that post Brexit the EU will still be an important market for us. Therefore, will we try to conform to the same standards? Two current examples are neonicotinoids—I know that the Minister is responsible for the national pollinator strategy—and glyphosate, both of which are being increasingly restricted and possibly phased out in the EU. Will our Government move in parallel?

To keep and develop our quality agriculture, it is clear that we must encourage bright young people to go into farming. At the moment, scenarios of halving incomes, such as that in the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board report, are frankly very off-putting to them—realistic but off-putting—and so are the nigh impossible economics of getting a foot on the ladder because of the diminishing number of small farms, which was so eloquently laid out in the recent CPRE report. That report shows why small farms of under 20 hectares are very important. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are already thinking that public money should reward farmers for public goods rather than the size of their landholding?

Animal welfare has been mentioned this evening. I maintain that animal welfare is definitely a public good because well-kept animals, besides that being ethically important, are healthier. That is a very important public good when it comes to antibiotic usage. Other important policy areas to develop a vibrant food production sector include continuing to follow the precautionary principle with regard to pesticides and hormone-treated meat and improving food labelling schemes, which was also mentioned this evening. It is necessary to maintain country of origin labelling but expand that to include production methods, as advocated by the Labelling Matters coalition, and for all the reasons so eloquently laid out by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We need to be more open to farming methods such as agroforestry which deliver multiple benefits and multiple incomes for farmers. What are we going to do to recognise diversity of breeds and seeds? For example, diversity in seed varieties is very important. What will happen with the registration and intellectual property rights of EU-registered varieties?

Finally, there are two issues in the Brexit debate that are Defra’s responsibility but have not been mentioned recently. If Brexit happens, pets and pet owners face a sad choice: take holidays apart or do not travel. Pets will have to be left in kennels rather than enjoying France or Spain with their owners when the EU pet passport scheme stops applying to the UK, as the UK leaves the EU. Will owners returning from the EU with pets face months of quarantine? Can the Minister give any reassurance that reciprocal arrangements for pets will be reached such as those that will apply to people?

Finally, animal passports will also affect the multibillion-pound horseracing industry. Currently, Irish, British and French counterparts can, under EU law, move tens of thousands of horses a year freely in and out of each other’s countries without hindrance. What will happen if that tripartite passport scheme were to end? What discussions have been held about this issue, and is there a solution within sight?