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

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I join those who wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on securing this debate. I must declare my interests as set out in the register, in particular as the recently retired president of the National Sheep Association of the United Kingdom, 50 years as a hill livestock farmer and member of the Scottish NFU.

I consider it a privilege to have been able to participate in this committee inquiry, and the rate at which our committee staff summed up the evidence put before us I found quite breath-taking. We received evidence from 20 witnesses representing every aspect of the industry, from academics to production and marketing. We also received 56 written submissions, all of which must have a direct interest in this subject, including from the Minister.

For the livestock side of the industry, it hardly needs me to emphasise what many other Peers have been saying. In fact, most of the points I would like to make have already been introduced into the debate, but I want to nail down one or two aspects. Anything less than tariff-free access to Europe will cause immense disruption to the livestock industry. The noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Wigley, have drawn the attention of your Lordships to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board report which came out just last week. It reiterates that the Government have said that they will guarantee the same level of funding at £3.1 billion for food production from the date of Brexit to the end of this Parliament. Some farmers feel that they can operate without any of that, but what there is has provided a lifeline for much of our beef and sheep production, as many noble Lords have pointed out. Can the Minister tell the House how much, if any, of that sum was required for the administration of the current scheme or what additional costs were incurred under this heading? It would be a great triumph if the Government could come up with a support system that cost less, and I hope that they will strive to achieve that.

Most noble Lords will also understand how agriculture presents a stumbling block to the dedicated free trade enthusiast, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, as it continues to develop tariffs and subsidies in spite of various international agreements. That is so much so that it has been the undoing of much that was hoped for in the most recent Doha development agenda. However, it has always proved hard to see how there cannot be some assistance in certain critical situations. The Government are obviously looking at the minimum that can be worked with as well as where we will stand if no deals are available. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, told us that there has been some discussion about the allocation of European tariff-rate quotas for agricultural goods. Inevitably, this has produced a negative response from the third-party nations which at present are the beneficiaries of this policy, and that highlights how there is nothing straightforward about the whole negotiation. Because of the third parties involved, it looks as though no meaningful agreements can be reached until the UK lays out its attitude to basic WTO rules and publishes a proposal for its tariff rate schedule. Can the Minister tell the House if there is a target date for finalising this proposal and what that date might be?

The report I referred to earlier emphasises that the number of farms in England has fallen by 20% in the past decade, but we are familiar with the fact that that is only part of the story. Some consideration should be given to the manning required to keep the skills and experience needed to make the countryside run well. Until now, farmers have prided themselves on being open to innovation. The innovation they have welcomed has largely been in relation to efficient and economic food production. What illustrates that well is that according to World Bank figures, the total numbers working in UK farming just after the Second World War came to around 10% of the working population. Today the figure is less than 0.9%, which is a fall of around 99%. For other countries in Europe the equivalent figures are 20% at the end of the Second World War reducing to a current figure of around 2.8%. How much lower can we afford to go? Proposals now come with a heavy element of what we like to think will be beneficial environmental measures. There is no doubt that as we understand more about the science of what surrounds us, they are something that we have to try, but their history is fairly short and it will take some time to tell how many of them will turn out to be merely passing fads. We are still faced with an escalating world population and the need to double food production efficiently.