Draft Organics (Equivalence and Control Bodies Listing) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 General Committees

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve once again with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place—elevated no less—and also surrounded by lots of hon. Friends. It is wonderful to see so many people here. I also understand that an additional Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister has been added to the team. I take it that that is no doubt a response to the ferocious onslaught from the Opposition Benches over many years. Although it may not be clear who is doing what yet, I hope that the Minister retains her responsibility for cats—I am sure that she will—and organics.

We have discussed this issue many times, and at first sight the proposed SI is thoroughly innocuous. I should start by reassuring everyone that, looking at the numbers present, the Opposition will not press the motion to a Division—[Interruption.] Well, we are not used to winning. At first sight, the proposals are reasonable, and the desire to streamline the UK’s organic regulatory framework is clearly laudable, but I want to raise some issues, not least those raised by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It does excellent work, and its in-depth examination of the instrument is exemplary. There has been some to-ing and fro-ing between the Committee and the Department as the Committee wrote seeking answers—those answers were quite hard to find hidden as they were in appendix 1—and those questions are worth putting on the record today.

The Lords Scrutiny Committee made the strong point that the SI will result in the loss of parliamentary oversight. Perhaps that is a minor issue for some, but I think it is rather important. As the Minister has outlined, in the explanatory memorandum DEFRA justified the decision to change the process to an administrative one by arguing that the current process can be very time-consuming and take up to a year. That rather prompts the question why it has to take that time to get an SI through. The Scrutiny Committee certainly did not find that a particularly convincing argument. It does not have to take a year to do things—in the last week or two we have noticed how legislation can be rammed through Parliament very quickly when the will is there. It should not take us a year to consider SIs, and nor is that a good enough reason to withdraw parliamentary oversight from this process.

The Lords Scrutiny Committee was also not convinced by the Department’s argument that changes to recognition were uncontroversial administrative amendments that do not require scrutiny. The Committee argued that such changes are exactly the sort of things that should be considered. I may be old-fashioned, but I think that parliamentary scrutiny matters: they are important big changes in our trading relationships with the rest of the world. The Committee argued that SIs are frequently used to make much less significant changes, such as updates to lists of recognised countries or bodies, and it argued that parliamentary oversight is desirable.

In the exchange of questions and answers with DEFRA, the department said that there would be sufficient transparency because the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament. We have all heard that argument and we know how well that works in practice. Frankly, we need something better than that. The Committee did not find DEFRA’s response wholly convincing, and it is right. It said that that response was simply a statement of the constitutional norm and was not a suitable replacement for parliamentary oversight of individual decisions in a specific policy area. It also raised the ongoing questions about the impact on Northern Ireland. That is hardly a surprise, given that that continues to be an unresolved issue that the Government bat away as unfortunate collateral damage.

In its response to the Scrutiny Committee, DEFRA stated that EU law will continue to apply directly in Northern Ireland under the protocol, and any changes in recognition by the EU in relation to organic standards will be made by the European Commission via legislative amendments. As a result, in cases of divergence of recognition between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, organic goods that are imported to Great Britain from a third country that does not have mutual recognition with the EU for organic goods could not be moved to Northern Ireland. That is a familiar argument that we seem to keep on replaying, and one might well conclude that it is absurd that the Government are proposing a system in which certain organic foods imported into Great Britain could be barred from another part of our country, namely Northern Ireland.

Does the Minister have any comments on the concerns raised by the Lords Scrutiny Committee? Despite all that and the deficiencies identified, it is important to recognise the views of the stakeholders involved. She has rightly said that they are concerned about the length of time it takes to make changes, particularly when we are dealing with many new situations with many third countries as a result of fragmentation.

I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the organic certifiers. They have asked me to point out that that there is a need for scrutiny, but they would like that to be conducted by an independent group made up of organic interest groups, enforcement bodies, representatives from the devolved nations and organic control bodies to provide oversight of the proposed changes and to the organic regulatory framework more generally. They argue that the such a body would help to provide the necessary safeguards and give guidance to Ministers to help them to engage with the detailed provisions of UK and third-party organic regulations while upholding the principles underlying those standards and serving the interests of the general public and stakeholders in the organic sector. Again, I would welcome the Minister’s views on that suggestion. There seems to be a plethora of potential committees that could established in this field. I am told that DEFRA has previously promised that it would establish an expert group similar to the EU’s expert group for technical production, but the organic sector has heard nothing further on the plans for its establishment. Again, I would seek the Ministers views on that.

In the annex to the TCA, there is also reference to a “Working Group on Organic Products”, which has yet to be formally established. Despite indications that the first meeting would be held in the summer, I am told that DEFRA has taken the decision to postpone the meeting until November at the earliest. When will the Minister’s Department finally come good on its promises and set up all those groups?

In summary, can the Minister guarantee that the SI is not just another example of the Government trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny? When the Minister replies, could she say a little about the future of organics in the UK? The EU has set a bold course—25% by 2030. Where will we be in 2030 on organics? I have to say that unless there is a significant change of course, my fear is that we will be way behind. We need to do better. The SI fiddles with the lists, but we need some ambition and some action, and I am afraid that that is too sorely lacking.

[Victoria Prentis]

I spent many happy years serving Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and—