Sheep Farming: No-deal EU Exit
Gareth Snell Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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George Eustice
The hon. Lady has it the wrong way round, as it is always the case that for sectors that are producing goods, such as agriculture, a weaker exchange rate against the euro leads to higher prices. It is no secret that since the referendum result in 2016, when there was an adjustment of sterling against the euro, agriculture commodity prices in the UK have been at highs, and that has helped farm incomes. That is a recognised fact; exchange rates are a key driver of agriculture commodity prices.
We recognise that even with those important factors going in our favour, the sector is still exposed. Some modelling has been done by a number of different organisations, including the NFU. It is important to recognise that tariffs are a tax on consumers first and foremost. Some estimates therefore anticipate that were the EU to apply full most favoured nation tariffs on lamb, there would likely be an increase in consumer prices in the EU of up to about 20%. That reflects the fact that the UK is the dominant lamb producer in the EU and there are limited other options for it to source its lamb from.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister mentions choosing to apply MFN tariffs. I profess not to be an expert on the sheep industry, but in the ceramics industry we have been told that there is no choice over MFN and it is the tariff that has to be applied to abide by World Trade Organisation rules. Is the Minister now saying from the Dispatch Box that the Government can apply discretion on that? If so, will he outline what that plan is?
George Eustice
Yes, absolutely, there is discretion, and the UK Government have already indicated what our tariff schedule would be in a no-deal scenario. Governments have the opportunity to have a lower applied tariff—lower than the bound tariff set in the WTO. The option is also open to any Government unilaterally to suspend tariffs. Indeed, should it wish, tariff suspension would be open to the EU, which I think is unlikely. Alternatively, and more likely, is the creation of an autonomous tariff rate quota for lamb that would be open to the whole world, including the UK. There are many options that both the EU and the British Government have unilaterally to apply tariffs that are lower than the WTO bound tariff.
However, as I said, it is important to recognise that we are the dominant producer. The EU could source more product from New Zealand, provided it had access to the ceiling currently set under the EU tariff rate quota. In the medium term, countries such as Spain could increase their production, but they are unlikely to be able to do that in the short term. For those reasons, it is likely that there would be an increase in consumer prices in the European Union as a result of its applying the full MFN tariff.
It is important to recognise that that increase in price would dampen demand in the European Union. Modelling suggests that that would increase supply in the domestic market and that as a result prices in the UK could fall by up to 30%. To put that into context, that means prices going back down to roughly where they were in 2015, which was a difficult year for the sheep sector. We are talking about a significant potential reduction, but it is not unprecedented. It would simply be going back to levels prior to the referendum result.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Coffey
Hopefully, the hon. Lady will be swift in her praise for the work we are doing with the forthcoming environment Bill. As the species champion for bitterns, which are literally booming as we speak, I know that this issue matters. We want to take more proactive approaches to how we protect species. I am not sure whether a swift box in every single house is the right thing, as opposed to all sorts of other things such as beetle hotels—there is a wide variety—but we need to make sure that we encourage a wide range of biodiversity for birds, for wildlife and for the protection of nature for future generations.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The crowing from the Department about their bird policy this morning is rather touching. The Minister will be aware that changes by the water undertakers to discharge water regulations are causing concern for the Bathroom Manufacturers Association and house builders. Will she meet me and a small delegation to discuss how future developments can better look after our waste water?
Draft Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
At a given time, taxi drivers may drive for personal use a taxi vehicle that would be registered on the database as a private hire vehicle. Have the Government considered how they might make a distinction in the database between when a vehicle is working and when it is being driven for personal use?
Dr Coffey
It will not be for the Government to make that judgment call. It will be for the local authority, because that concerns the charge it intends to impose. The database simply gives local councils the information about which vehicles are private hire vehicles and which are not. When the time comes, if ever, when Stoke-on-Trent City Council has a clean air zone, the hon. Gentleman may wish to take that issue up with it directly.
The purpose of the regulations is to require licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply to a central database certain information relating to taxis and private hire vehicles that have been licensed in their area. The instrument is made using powers under the Environment Act 1995. The database may then be used by local authorities for the purposes of enforcing locally introduced clean air zones that will apply charges in respect of taxis and private hire vehicles. The database will ensure that taxis and private hire vehicles can be differentiated from other vehicles when entering a charging clean air zone.
Regulation 3 will place a duty on all taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply certain information at least once a week. That information will include the vehicle registration number, the start and expiry dates of the vehicle licence, whether a vehicle is a taxi or a private hire vehicle, and the name of the licensing authority. Additional information required and the means of providing it will be set out in supporting guidance, which will be published before the regulations come into force.
The regulations extend to England and Wales and apply to all 315 taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities, including Transport for London. Given the geographical location of charging clean air zones, it is important that all taxis and private hire vehicles registered in England and Wales are recorded on the database.
The creation and maintenance of the database itself will not have a significant impact on businesses. A regulatory triage assessment has been prepared to assess the impacts on licensing authorities. The database will be designed and hosted in a way that complements existing processes wherever possible, in order to minimise the burden on licensing authorities. Licensing authorities will be funded for this additional work in line with the new burdens principle.
The draft regulations are necessary to support local authorities in introducing charging clean air zones where these have been demonstrated to be the quickest way to reduce roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations to legal limits. We cannot rely on a voluntary approach for the submission of information covered by the draft regulations, given that there are 315 licensing authorities in England and Wales. Without a centralised database, local authorities will be able to charge only those vehicles that they have licensed in their own area.
The draft regulations and the database are necessary to ensure that measures to charge taxis and private hire vehicles will be effective. Without such a database, the level of reduced emissions from these vehicles will be less certain, which may result in the need to introduce charging for additional vehicles, possibly including private cars. As such, the creation of the database is an important step in supporting our air quality ambitions and those of local councils. For those reasons, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). He and I disagree on answers to Brexit, but no one can doubt his passion for his community and the causes that he champions. I wish to make a brief contribution in that spirit of conciliatory debate.
I wish mainly to speak to amendment (p), which I have tabled along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). We hope that our amendment is the start of a conversation: a process to understand that there are various things wrong with the Prime Minister’s deal that mean that we are unlikely to be able to support it next Tuesday—things that will probably not be resolved by next Tuesday. But whatever the result on Tuesday, it is the start and not the end of a process.
We as a Parliament have to be honest and up front with ourselves about where we go after Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, we are not suddenly going to have a magic answer coming from the rejection of the deal. We will see people who ardently advocate leaving on WTO terms with no deal going into the same Lobby as those who ardently want a second referendum with a remain option, and to campaign for remain. I am sorry to burst their bubbles, but one half of that unlikely coalition will be very disappointed in whatever we get out of Brexit as a result of our votes in this place.
The grown-up response is to look at the cross-party group—it exists, unfortunately, mainly on the Back Benches, not the Front Benches—who want to find a way of getting through this that does the least economic damage to our country but respects and understands that those who voted leave did so not because they were duped by words on the side of a bus, or because they were not clever enough to understand the Facebook ads put towards them, but because they had deep-seated anxieties about the inequalities that exist in this country. The amendment would, I hope, start that conversation.
For me, as a Labour and Co-operative party member, and someone who has worked in the trade union movement, how we protect and enshrine workers’ rights in future is fundamental to the sort of country we want to be. A number of those rights have been derived from Europe, but we must be honest about the fact that a number of rights that Europe now holds up as a bastion of its good practice came from work done by the United Kingdom in the first place, by driving those changes through Europe and providing the bar that everybody else needs to reach.
We must protect those rights and ensure that we do not regress or water them down once we leave the European Union. Any new changes from Europe must be considered by this place, and once we have brought back sovereignty, we will choose whether to adopt them. My argument will be that we should adopt all such measures and continue in step with Europe, because in my opinion any change or improvement to environmental standards, consumer protections or workers’ rights is a good thing.
Gareth Snell
I am afraid I will not. Everyone else has had their time, so I will carry on.
It is important to find a mechanism that protects those rights, and does not kick the can down the road with another referendum, or simply add procedure and stop talking about the people. Too much of this debate—we saw this yesterday on both sides of the House with tedious and continual points of order—has been about a point of process that does not progress the debate further, or resolve the fundamental issues that are important to my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent, and those of hon. Members across the House.
At some point in this Parliament we must decide what we are for—not what we are against, or what we wish to rehash or reargue, but what we are for. I wish that the conversations I was privileged to have this week with Government and Opposition Front-Bench speakers had taken place two years ago. I wish that the Government and those on the Labour Front-Bench had got together after the general election to try to hash out some sort of plan. Such a plan would not have pleased everybody or given them what they wanted, but we need a pragmatic approach to find a way of healing the country, bringing forward the things we know are important, and delivering a Brexit referendum outcome that does not do economic damage to our country. We must ensure that people who voted leave, and those who voted remain, feel that they have a stake in the future of our country.
My frustration with this process is, and continues to be, that we appear to be moving away from a pragmatic middle and towards two extremes. Those who do not support a second referendum are labelled as hard Brexiteers who wish to sell their country down the river, and those—like many of my colleagues—who hold the principled position that we should have a second referendum are an affront to democracy. Neither of those things is true, but at some point we must face facts and understand that the country voted to leave—albeit marginally—and our job as parliamentarians is to work out how we take that forward and bring everybody together. The amendment that I have tabled is one way of achieving that unity. It by no means solves everything, and it will not remove a number of the concerns that I still have about the vote on Tuesday, but if we can use it as a starting point after that vote, I hope we will have achieved something better.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
The Government obviously did not agree with every element of the Migration Advisory Committee report. The food industry is the most important manufacturing industry in this country and horticulture is one of our most productive agricultural sectors. It is important that we ensure that these crucial industries have the labour requirements that they need in future.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Illegal waste sites such as the Twyford factory in Stoke-on-Trent pose a huge risk to our environment. Despite the £10 million that was in the Budget, that site is not eligible for that help because it remains in private ownership. Court action has ordered a clearance. The local authority and the fire service want it cleared. Will the Minister meet me and those interested parties so that we can find a way forward so the site can be cleared once and for all?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman is a formidable advocate for his constituency and I will make sure that a meeting happens at ministerial level in order to try to ensure that that waste site is tackled.