Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Thursday 15th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

I want to give the hon. Gentleman some reassurance about clause 32. It is a fairly standard inclusion in many Bills, and it is clear from subsection (1) that it is about consequential changes. In particular, that subsection talks about

“provision or savings in connection with any provision of this Act.”

If a change were made to the administration of a pillar 2 countryside stewardship scheme, and that affected a scheme that had been entered into under a previous body of law, the Government might want to be able to make consequential amendments as a result—to be able to pay the final year of a countryside stewardship agreement, for instance. Those are the kinds of changes we are talking about. It is difficult to predict when the Government might need to use that power, but it is to be used in a very narrow set of circumstances—for those savings provisions, effectively—just to ensure that we can tidy up loose ends. It is not to be used to make, or change, policy. It is very clear that these amendments are consequential to other provisions that have already been debated.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33

Financial provision

[Mr Dunne]

I beg to move amendment 109, in clause 33, page 24, line 39, at end insert—

“(2) Payments made by virtue of this Act must be paid pursuant to regulations made by the Secretary of State to implement a multi-annual financial framework determining the monies available under this section.

(3) Prior to any payments being made under this section, regulations must be laid before the beginning of the agricultural transition period.”

The Agriculture Bill should establish a multi-annual budgetary framework that provides certainty for farmers and allows them to plan and invest for the future.

I stress at the outset that this is a probing amendment, and I am looking for the Minister to give me some comfort that what I am asking for is in line with current practice and widely supported by the industry. I urge the Minister to have discussions across Government to consider whether something along the lines of this amendment could be incorporated in the Bill at a later stage. I have tabled the amendment because under the scheme that we are currently looking to replace—the CAP scheme—multi-year support packages have been agreed, and all farmers across the UK have been operating according to those packages and are accustomed to them. That is my first point.

Secondly, the Government have already acknowledged the importance of a multi-year settlement in the transition arrangements that they have announced and the Minister has secured from the Treasury, with a commitment to 2022, which is a significant development. I give full credit to the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for securing a commitment from the Treasury that takes us ahead of the comprehensive spending review period—outwith that—in order for farmers to have confidence in the way in which the current scheme will transition into the new one.

Thirdly, the new scheme is intended to be a multi-year arrangement for the period from 2021, as we move from an area-based payment to a public goods-based payment. The Government have clearly recognised that multi-year arrangements are required for this industry, not least because—as we have heard previously in this Committee—many tenancy agreements and stewardship arrangements are undertaken by farmers on a multi-year basis. That is not always the case: some tenancy arrangements, such as grass keep, last for only one season, but many last for many years.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Like my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow, for Gordon and for Brecon and Radnorshire, I understand that this is a critical issue. I agree with the sentiment that we can put into the Bill all the powers we like and come up with all the creative policy we like, but that they will not mean anything without money to underpin them.

For reasons that the Committee will understand, I will not support the amendment. Before I come on to that point, however, it is important to recognise what we have already done to acknowledge the importance of clarity on funding. At the last general election, we made a commitment to keep the total cash spent on agriculture at the same level for the duration of this Parliament until 2022. That breached and went beyond a Treasury spending review period, but the Conservative party took the decision that it was right and proper to prejudge the spending review process so that we could give clarity and certainty to farmers.

The challenge, as I understand it, is that the scheme is currently funded in a roundabout way by our sending money to Brussels and then getting it back. The concern that some farmers will have is whether the Government will be willing to support the scheme. My view is that the approximately £3 billion that we currently spend every year on agriculture and the farmed environment is relatively modest in the context of other areas of Government spending. Some Departments—perhaps including a Department that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow is familiar with—regularly accidentally overshoot their national budget. Given what it delivers for the farmed environment that covers 70% of our land, for habitats, for water and air quality, and for our important environmental objectives, £3 billion is a fairly modest sum.

As the policy returns home and we take back control, there will be a responsibility on Parliament—and on political parties in their manifestos—to demonstrate their commitment to our farmed environment and wildlife. We know that wildlife organisations have huge memberships: the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust each have between 1.7 million and 2 million members. We know that the British public are passionate about their countryside, wildlife and environment and want us to give them due priority and support.

We have therefore not only committed to keeping the cash total the same until 2022 but made a manifesto commitment to implement and fund a new environmental land management scheme after that. We have not described the total quantum of funding after 2022, but there is an absolute commitment for there to be a funded policy. We have also made it clear that agreements entered into by the end of 2022 under the existing pillar 2 schemes—some of which will run for a decade—will all be funded for the duration of their terms. I believe that we have done a lot in the area already.

As a former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow knows that in the long term these matters are ultimately dealt with through the spending review process. A spending review process is under way, and we expect it to conclude next year. By their very nature, spending reviews are multi-annual; they tend to set a financial envelope within a period such as five years. Departments also have other processes, such as single departmental plans and Supply estimates applied at departmental level, so that we have some continuity and multi-annual understanding in our approach to funding, rather than a stop-go process from year to year.

Finally, our new environmental land management scheme is predominantly designed around multi-annual agreements. There will not simply be one-off yearly payments; we envisage farmers entering into an agreement for three, five or possibly 10 years. It is implicit in the design that we have outlined for the scheme that a multi-annual understanding of funding will be needed.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend that I share his view that this matter is important and that I view the current spending on agriculture and the farmed environment as a relatively modest sum of money. We could deploy it far more effectively to achieve far more, but the spending review process is the right place to identify funding post 2022. I am sure that he and other colleagues will be making representations to the Chancellor and the Treasury on this matter.

[Mr Dunne]

I have heard what the Minister said. I indicated that this was a probing amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Extent

[George Eustice]

I beg to move amendment 42, in clause 34, page 25, line 15, at end insert—

‘( ) Part (Red Meat Levy) extends to England and Wales and Scotland only.”

The amendment relates to NC4 which is expected to form a Part of its own (under the heading “Red Meat Levy”) rather than being inserted in an existing Part of the Bill. The amendment provides for the new Part to form part of the law of England and Wales and Scotland only, because nothing in it relates to Northern Ireland.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

The issue in all those circumstances is less about the customs union and more about border inspection posts. That is why we have outlined in our approach a commitment to a common rulebook on those areas that require a border inspection, so as to reduce or even eliminate the need for border checks, and then an agreement on equivalence in other areas of legislation. So the border issue is less about customs.

Let me give another example. Scotch whisky is currently our most successful export, and yet it is always sold as a bonded product in an individual national market, because you have different alcohol duties in national markets, even within a single market. We already have examples of some of our most successful exporting sectors having no problem at all dealing with variable tax rates within a market.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

Is the Minister able to confirm what I learned last week? Scotch whisky sales to China amount to £35 million, but pork exports to China, which were opened up by this Government in 2016, I believe, amounted to twice that last year—£70 million in one year.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. In the agri-food sector, as in most other sectors, our trade with the rest of the world is growing far faster than our trade with the European Union.

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

Our plan is to leave the European Union, which means leaving the common agricultural policy and LEADER, but also putting in place superior schemes that we will design nationally. That is what we intend to do.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

If I can take the Minister back to his comments about the duration of existing schemes, perhaps he can take this opportunity to inform the Committee that he will have the powers to continue to pay under the existing higher-level, entry-level and countryside stewardship schemes, which in many cases run for up to 10 years. As I understand it, we had commitments from the Treasury that that amount of money would continue to be made available. Will he confirm that he will have the power to ensure that those existing agreements will be honoured?

[George Eustice]

That is a very important point. I can absolutely confirm that existing schemes will be honoured for the lifetime of those projects. I know that we will probably come to this when we consider later amendments, but the grant agreements between the Government and individuals will be honoured even after we leave the European Union. The Bill, together with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, gives us the power to bring across retained EU law and to continue to make payments under it.

Agriculture Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

No, this is a power for England only, and it will be for each of the devolved Administrations to decide how they want to design their enforcement and management process.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the clarity with which he has laid out for the Committee the Government’s intent regarding the implementation of the new scheme through accrediting bodies, and that is extremely helpful for the Committee to understand. While I recognise that this will be a new scheme with much more streamlined implementation and systems, we have significant problems with the existing countryside stewardship and environmental stewardship schemes administered by the Rural Payments Agency. If we are to persuade farmers to enter into new schemes, they must have confidence that the current schemes, where we have outstanding disputes and a lack of full payments being made under many of them, will be ironed out. If they are not, farmers will be increasingly sceptical about the prospects of a new scheme being introduced under these powers.

I am straying slightly beyond the purpose of the amendment, but I urge my hon. Friend to encourage the Rural Payments Agency to get existing schemes fully paid up. As at the middle of October, DEFRA’s statistics show that 751 countryside stewardship agreement holders, or 15%, have not been paid their final 2017 payment, while 8,116 environmental stewardship agreement holders, or 33%, have yet to receive their final payment. Please could he help to get a welly on?

[George Eustice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I intend to address those issues in more detail when we get to part 2, because clause 11, in particular, gives us the power to modify the existing EU schemes. As I pointed out earlier, the difficulty that both the RPA and Natural England have with these schemes is the dysfunctional nature of the enforcement regime designed by the EU that sits behind them. We have an opportunity to clean that up once we leave the EU.

Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

rose—

[Mr Dunne]

May I help the Minister on that point?

[George Eustice]

I think it is probably best if I answer one intervention before I take another.

We are in the middle of a huge decision to leave the European Union. An enormous amount of work is needed under the withdrawal Act to ensure that we have a functioning statute book on year one; we all recognise that, and it will necessarily take priority in the months ahead. However, I reassure the hon. Member for Stroud that all the EU regulations that bind us on this issue will still be in force in UK law when we leave the EU at the end of March. That will be unaffected by whether a Bill that recognises animal sentience has been introduced, because none of the regulations that we are bringing across are contingent on the overarching principle of animal sentience.

[Mr Dunne]

I have the distinct privilege of serving on the European Statutory Instruments Committee. The Leader of the House has reassured us that the volume of work for us in determining whether the forthcoming statutory instruments should be laid under the negative or the affirmative procedure will be very similar to that of scrutinising the routine number of statutory instruments that the House considers year on year. The forthcoming SIs should not give rise to the kind of concerns that the hon. Member for Stroud has voiced.

[George Eustice]

As a member of that Committee, my hon. Friend has to digest those points, so he probably has a clearer idea of the work that will be involved, but we recognise that it is a big exercise.

The hon. Member for Darlington raised an important point. I can reassure her that the Government are committed to publishing legislation that will recognise animal sentience. We do not believe, however, that it is right to bring that into the Bill in the way that she has by linking it only to the narrow issue of how payments are made, when we are talking about purposes that inevitably recognise animal sentience, because that is why we are incentivising farmers to adopt high standards of animal welfare.

Amendment 71, tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol East, also seeks to establish an additional rule that says broadly that financial assistance cannot be given unless it is over and above the regulatory baseline. I understand her point, and it is a legitimate question to ask, but it is wrong to try to prescribe it in that sort of amendment, for reasons that I will explain.

As a country, we have done something new in including animal welfare as a public good. I have been clear that I wanted to do that for the last couple of years. I have worked closely with the RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming, Farmwell and other organisations. We are trying something new. Just last week, I met Peter Stevenson from Compassion in World Farming.

We are considering several things in the design of a future animal welfare scheme. One of those is the possibility that we could financially reward farmers and incentivise them to join some kind of United Kingdom accreditation service-accredited higher animal welfare scheme—perhaps the RSPCA one or others that may form. We may also choose to support farmers to invest in more modern housing that is better for animal welfare. In the pig sector, there are some issues with outdated housing that does not lend itself to providing for modern welfare needs such as enriched environments and straw in barns. We may also have a third category of payment for the adoption of particular approaches to husbandry, such as lower levels of stocking density, systems that are more free range or even pasture-based systems.

Finally, we are interested in the potential for payment by results. Farmwell has done some work on that. The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned Compassion in World Farming and its view about payments for curly tails. If pigs go to slaughter with intact curly tails that have not been damaged, that is a good indicator that they have had a higher-welfare existence. Likewise, Farmwell has developed a feather-cover index for a depopulated flock of laying hens, which is a good indicator as to how well people have approached farm husbandry. In a free-range system, there can be good and poor farm husbandry.

It is a complex area. If there is a mixture of payment for capital items to renew housing, which may have higher welfare outcomes, payment for joining accreditation schemes and, potentially, payment by results, it is not always obvious how that would be benchmarked against a regulatory baseline, which by definition does not cover everything.

If the hon. Lady is concerned about money being spent in that area in a way that simply pays farmers for what they are already doing to comply with the law, I guarantee that there will be no shortage of push-back and pressure from within the internal machinery of Government—the civil service, the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and other Departments—to ensure that money is spent only to get additionality. We will not have the problem that she perceives, which is that we would spend money on things that are already a requirement by law, but if we were to accept her amendment, we might have a different problem, which is that we would place barriers in the way of policy innovation. For that reason, I hope she will not press amendment 71.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Philip Dunne

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

I disagree with my hon. Friend on this point because, as I said, I was not simply citing the 1947 Act. I also cited the Science and Technology Act 1965, which predated our membership of the EU. Even more recently, the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 used “may”, and things have not changed much since then.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has given the Committee a history lesson on different Governments introducing different powers in different scenarios. To help the Committee, will he remind us whether there is any unifying theme in those three Acts? Which party, for example, was in government on each of those occasions?

[George Eustice]

I think, if memory serves, a Labour Government were in power in each of those three examples. That point is well made. We have to understand the sentiment that lies behind the concern for duties on Government rather than powers for Government to exercise, as is traditional in our constitution. A lot of this stems from the fact that we are leaving the European Union—from a sentiment that says, “Whatever will we do when we have not got the EU to tell us what to do, to impose regulations on us, to launch infraction proceedings against us and to send in auditors to complain about the width of our hedges and gateways or about how we record payments?”

The answer is that as we leave the European Union, we should, as a country, embrace self-government—as we used to, and as we did in the 1947 Act. We should have more confidence in our ability to translate powers in an Act into actions and commitment for Government.