Environment Bill (Second sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 10th March 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 10 March 2020 - (10 Mar 2020)
Dr Whitehead
Q
Rico Wojtulewicz: It is definitely not my expertise, but if it is a real concern, the industry would support measures to ensure that that does not occur.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
Rico Wojtulewicz: Guidance on what we could do to increase the swift population, such as on what trees and food they might like and what lights do and don’t attract the food that they enjoy eating. All these little things actually make a big difference. If that knowledge is there, it feels quite isolated. I think we are very enthusiastic about the things we can do, which will effectively make our sites better at delivering what people want.
The difficulty is that sometimes politicians perhaps do not understand the development process and what occurs. We in the development industry need to ensure that we have a greater understanding of what we can do on site. Perhaps you would have a particular target in an area that you know would encourage more swifts. Perhaps you could issue specific guidance for that local authority, as part of the network.
Kerry McCarthy
I think Brighton and Hove has just done it, and Exeter. I am working on Bristol.
Rico Wojtulewicz: They have. I am from Brighton.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Rico Wojtulewicz: I think that is a really good point. The majority of our members are small and medium-sized, where someone might be a bricklayer one day and a site manager the next. They are trained to a high level—typically level 3, with more of them taken on than level 2. This is absolutely an opportunity to ensure that the education is there, not only because it would allow for better building approaches but because it would reduce the burden on a local authority always to have an expert. The more that the development industry can do to deliver what we can, the better. That means that local authorities can be certain that what is being delivered is correct and right for their local area. That is a great idea, and it would absolutely have the support of the National Federation of Builders.
Robbie Moore
Q
Ruth Chambers: It is an interesting question about the EHRC. We recently came across something that, if it would help the Committee, we could provide a short note on. I think that last year the Government undertook what is called a tailored review of the EHRC. In its evidence to that review, the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself was arguing for greater independence, more accountability to Parliament and a slightly different model, but the Government said that they did not think that that was appropriate for that body. So even a body that the Minister this morning was drawing some comparison with is saying that it feels that it is not sufficiently independent from Government.
We would not say that, for us, in the NGO sector, that is the best comparator. The two bodies that we think are more comparable in this space are the National Audit Office and the Office for Budget Responsibility—not necessarily in terms of their form and function, but in terms of how their independence is delivered via laws, both now and in the long term.
Ali Plummer: It is worth saying that what we are looking for here, ultimately, is that the OEP will hold the Government to account on meeting their environmental obligations, so building in some independent safeguards just to make sure that there is that gap between what the OEP can do, in terms of holding Government to account, and how it is set up is really important. As Ruth said, there are clear examples of that happening in other places, so what we are calling for is certainly not unique or unheard of in other places. I think that it would make sense to apply it to the OEP as well.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Rebecca Newsom: Absolutely—we totally agree with what you have just said. We have to think about our global impact, as well as getting things right here. There is a major problem with the UK’s global footprint at the moment. A lot of the products that we consume on the UK market often, when it is related to meat and dairy, are somehow connected, through the supply chain, to deforestation. For example, 95% of chickens slaughtered in the UK are farmed intensively in a way that means they are fed on soya, and half of Europe’s global deforestation footprint is in relation to soya. We know that it can be tracked back, but, at the moment, there is not that kind of transparency.
The way to deal with this issue is twofold: first, reduce how much meat and dairy we are consuming in the UK, because we need to be freeing up agricultural land globally to give back to nature and allow abundance to be restored. We know the Government are very keen on nature-based solutions for climate change, and a key part of the puzzle is giving land back to nature. That requires a shift in our consumption habits. A global footprint provision in the Environment Bill to allow targets for this would enable that to happen.
The other piece to the puzzle is sorting out our supply chains and putting a requirement on corporations to clean up the supply chain and conduct due diligence. That can be delivered through the amendment you tabled on enforcing the 2020 deforestation deadline; the Government have backed that previously, but it needs legal enforcement, and also the establishment of due diligence legislation in six months’ time, which would set up that framework to enable it to be delivered.
Ruth Chambers: Can I add one thing to that? Again, this is a vital issue. If we take a step back and think about the journey of this Bill, it has been on a journey, and we have been on a journey with it. Its existence came from draft provisions from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which were intended to close the environmental governance gap I have already talked about that arose as a result of EU exit. Then the Government took a very welcome step and decided to take the opportunity to enshrine domestic ambition in law through the Environment Bill, which came out in October and was re-published in January. This is the missing piece of that trilogy.
We totally understand that the Bill has been on a fast track—rightly, because nature’s decline cannot wait a moment longer. We understand why it has not been possible until this point in time to include measures in the Bill, but we hope the Government will do all they can to ensure these important issues are addressed, whether substantively or by using the Bill as a very important springboard ahead of the international summit later this year.
Bim Afolami
Q
Ali Plummer: From my perspective, one of the things the OEP can do is help bring a strategic overview of how some of this is working, to really drive and make regulation work a bit better in this country. One of the things regulation suffers from is underfunding and under-investment, to be honest; that applies particularly to bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency. Natural England has suffered huge budget cuts, and when it comes to its ability to properly regulate the things it is supposed to, it is struggling to fulfil some of its statutory duties. As a result, one of the things the OEP can do is take a much more strategic overview and hopefully provide a bit of insight and guidance—and enforcement, when needed—to make sure regulation is working effectively. It is not the OEP’s role to step in and perform the roles of these regulators, but it can take a much broader view and make sure the regulators are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and are properly upholding environmental law.
The Chair
I need to bring the Minister back in. Ms McCarthy, do you want to come in briefly?
Kerry McCarthy
We are having a sitting on Thursday, when we may be looking at things such as the waste hierarchy, so I can probably save my question for that. It was mentioned earlier today that, because there is already technically a waste hierarchy that is enforceable in law, we do not need anything here. I would like to return to that, but I think we can do it at the Thursday sitting. I am flagging it up now in case Thursday’s witnesses are listening.
Environment Bill (First sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 10th March 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 10 March 2020 - (10 Mar 2020)
The Chair
Ms Norberg, do you wish to add anything before I go back to the Minister?
Signe Norberg: I would like to add that our business members, who represent around £550 billion of global turnover, do support the Bill. They really want to see a robust environmental regime, because they fundamentally believe that environmental policies make clear economic sense for them. It is also better for the overall environment.
On why businesses want to see that happen, it does not just make clear economic sense; it also provides a stable environment in which they can invest in their workforce and in green products and services, and innovate their business model. If the Bill clearly sets out what is expected and by when, and what the targets are in the intermediate term to meet these objectives, it will help businesses to adjust their business model, where needed, but also to go beyond the targets.
We would certainly support some of the points that Ed has made about objectives. We would also like to see the interim targets strengthened further, because when you have certainty about what is going to happen in the next five years, it helps you also to look at the long-term targets that are 15 years ahead. If there is also something around remedial actions—so that when it looks like the intermediate targets are going to be missed, action will be taken—that will give businesses certainty around what is expected of their sector, but also about how they fit within the overall environmental framework.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
Signe Norberg: Certainly, and that stresses the importance of the interim targets, with the long-term targets being, as they should be, long term and indicating the direction of travel. The interim targets help to drive progress in the intermediate term, but also help us to see where we are and what we need to do to put us back on track. If we strengthen the interim targets, that will certainly be something that we know our businesses would welcome, because it not only provides the direction of travel but helps them look at their own model.
Martin Baxter: We fully support long-term targets because they give the strategic predictability and confidence for business to invest over the long term. The importance of interim targets is that they determine the pace at which we need to make progress, hence the need for a robust process for setting the long-term targets and involving businesses in the interim targets, to ensure absolute clarity about the likely investment needed to achieve progress at the rate we need. If we want to speed up progress, the question is, “How much will it cost and where will the cost fall?” We have to make sure that businesses are part of owning some of these targets, because they are the ones that will have to make the investment to deliver them. They have to understand what changes will be needed and what policy mechanisms might need to be introduced to ensure that that can all be achieved. That is where the role of interim targets and their link to environmental improvement plans, and the robustness with which those interim targets will be set, is really important.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Edward Lockhart-Mummery: Absolutely. The objectives would guide how the targets and interim targets were set. The Secretary of State, when setting targets, would have to think how those targets would contribute to meeting the long-term objectives. That would be the legal mechanism. When stakeholders were having discussions with Government, everyone would understand the purpose of those targets and that would temper the discussion, because everyone would have a clear vision for what they were.
Objectives could also determine how principles and environmental improvement plans are applied in the Bill, so that when you are developing environmental improvement plans, you are also thinking, “What are we trying to achieve through this Bill?”, when you are applying principles and when the OEP is exercising its function. Thus, everyone is clear on the purpose of all those processes in chapter 1 of the Bill, which is the governance framework, and those objectives link to how the Government applies those processes, so that it is clear externally what we are trying to achieve. Then businesses, local authorities and other organisations know what we are trying to achieve through the Bill and know that when Government pull all those levers, it is all trying to go in a particular direction.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Edward Lockhart-Mummery: We definitely support strengthening the targets. This is something we have discussed a lot in our group, and there are slightly different views of exactly how you do it. Some people would support the targets’ being legally binding, and others say that the final targets should be legally binding, but on the interim targets there needs to be more transparency. Then, if an interim target is not met, it could be that it triggers more of a reporting process, where the Government say, “We have missed the interim target. This is why, and this is what we’re doing about it,” rather than their being legally binding.
Potentially, if you made those interim targets legally binding, it could have perverse effects. Government might be a little less ambitious in setting interim targets, because it is always harder to know exactly what you are going to be able to do in the shorter term, particularly when some things require a lot of capital investment. If the target is to increase recycling rates, that requires a lot of capital investment or whatever.
There are some questions about exactly how you would set those interim targets. Because they are nearer term, it is more likely that the same Government will be in power when they are met, so what you do not want is for them to end up being very unambitious in setting the targets. A transparency mechanism would certainly be very good.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Q
“enhancing the coherence between the different governance elements so they are mutually supportive and aligned to drive environmental improvement to a common purpose”?
That sounds like management-speak. Can you try to bring it alive and explain what you really have in mind and what the benefits of it are?
Martin Baxter: Certainly. There are three key elements in the governance section of the Bill. First is the process for setting legally binding targets, and underpinning that is the significant improvement test in the natural environment. The environmental principles have a slightly different objective, on environmental protection and sustainable development. The Office for Environmental Protection has a different set of objectives as well. We think there is a real opportunity to set a common purpose in terms of clear objectives, as Ed has outlined, and to point all aspects of the governance process into achieving those. That is where we think you could get far greater coherence and cohesion between the different elements.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Q
Martin Curtois: Consistency of labelling could be one of the most significant changes in the right direction. At the moment you have this awful phrase, “widely recyclable”, and no one knows what it means. It could apply to one local authority and not to another. We would advocate literally a simplified traffic light system, whereby green is recyclable and red is not. I think the shock, for a retailer or producer, of having a red dot on its packaging would be such that it would want to avoid it. At a stroke, you would be improving recyclability straightaway.
That is one key element of it. It also drives people mad that they just do not know whether a product is recyclable or not, so you would get an improvement not only at the front end in terms of the manufacturers’ production, but in the materials we receive at the processing facilities. As you can imagine, we receive thousands of tonnes of materials a year. Anything that can be done to ensure that people are sorting it more efficiently at the outset will make our job of reprocessing it more straightforward.
Andrew Poole: For me and for small businesses, a lot of this legislation is generally about trust. The problem is that, if we do not get these things in place, everyone knows that the stick will come. There is an opportunity at the moment to be on the front foot. A lot of our engagement around the Bill has been about keeping businesses on the front foot and steering the legislation in a way that is beneficial to everyone. It is a case of giving all of these things a consistent approach, including labelling, for example. It is about trust in the outcomes of the legislation, and about making the right decisions. It is about trusting what they can see and seeing that the decisions are the right ones. It is important to have that transparency around the whole Bill.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
David Bellamy: We have not identified any shortcomings to date. Obviously, there are voluntary approaches. You mentioned WRAP, and there is also the UK food waste reduction road map. Companies are signing up to that in increasing numbers and manufacturers are making good progress. We are expecting a consultation on food waste reporting from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs soon, and there is no need for primary powers in the Bill to do that. There was talk of the potential for powers on setting targets down the track. I am not sure where the Government are on that at the moment.
We have not identified any shortcomings as such. The inertia is there with the UK food waste reduction road map, and knowing that food waste reporting is going to come in as planned as a legal requirement in line with the road map.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
David Bellamy: Yes. It is defined in the consultation, but certain companies of a certain size will be required to report their food waste. The idea is that they would do that in line with what they report under the road map, or what they do under Courtauld currently continues, so that there is no disconnect.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
David Bellamy: Yes. That is my understanding of the Government’s proposals.
Andrew Poole: Making it mandatory would be a sign of failure potentially at a certain level, in the sense that we can encourage them to do it voluntarily. I come back to the idea of making it easy for people to do it. Once we get to the mandatory stage we would then be arguing about issues. We picked on the reporting requirements of things like that. If it was risk-based and proportionate, that would be the way to go. We would hope that businesses in particular would be doing this voluntarily, to begin with.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Andrew Poole: It is quite important with those big producers that many of these requirements are not pushed down through the supply chain. If you are a small supplier supplying a big supermarket, one of the requirements is to deal with a proportionate and risk-based reporting mechanism. That has to be borne in mind if you are targeting big supermarkets such as Tesco. They have to report everything, and the burden is passed down through those that supply them as well.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Andrew Poole: I am saying it would have to be looked at quite carefully, so that the requirements were proportionate and the supply chain was taken into consideration as well.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)
Q
Andrew Poole: I come back to the point I keep making, which is that small businesses are signed up to this—in the broad concept. They want to do the right thing for the environment. They are human beings. What is increasingly important is that they want to demonstrate to their customers that they are doing the right thing. They are aligned with the broad concept of the Bill.
When it comes to those granular details, that is obviously what is going to make or break the Bill. Government must see small businesses as a partner for delivery at every stage where those decision have to be made. I suggest that the outcomes of this Bill will not be achieved without a fully engaged small business community playing a very active role in it. It is a plea to policy makers and legislators that small business views are taken into account fully when those decisions get made, at each stage.
Agriculture Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsThursday 5th March 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 5 March 2020 - (5 Mar 2020)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I rise to support everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has said on new clause 1. I shall also speak to new clause 4, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), with the support of many of his Conservative colleagues. At the moment, I am the only Labour Member whose name has been added to it, but I am sure that many others would join me on Report.
Some of us sat on the Committee that considered the first draft of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament. I was also on the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, as well as part of as various all-party parliamentary groups, and there were also debates on these matters in the Chamber and at oral questions. Ministers, including the then Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Farming Minister and, at various points, the International Trade Secretary, gave us verbal reassurances.
There was a bit of a trajectory, because in the early days, we could get Ministers to say only that UK standards would be protected. Eventually, after lots of prompting on our part, some of them—although certainly not on the International Trade side—said that that also applied to imported goods. The Minister needs to reflect on why it is very clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said, that those assurances are not believed. The absolute fact of the situation is that everyone, from the NFU to environmental and consumer groups, wants those things enshrined in law, as do the Conservative Members who have signed the new clause.
The Minister has talked about including those assurances in a trade Bill, but when the Trade Bill was introduced to Parliament, we were fobbed off. We tried to get something in there, but were told that it applied only to current trade agreements and not to future ones, although some legal opinion said that it did. When we tried to discuss that during the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and all the discussions about Brexit, we were told that it would pop up somewhere else. That game of musical chairs just does not wash with people. We want to see this measure in the Agriculture Bill because it specifically relates to food standards and animal welfare, as we have heard in detail.
I remember trying to bring the matter up during arguments about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, way before Brexit. The then Member for Streatham, who was our shadow Business Secretary, made great play about the NHS being at risk under TTIP. When I started trying to talk to him about chickens, he looked at me as if to say, “What on earth is she on about now?” Now, the chickens have come home to roost—metaphorical chickens—and everyone knows about the issue, but nobody is convinced that the Government are willing to support preventive measures.
We spoke earlier about articles in the Daily Mail and The Guardian. I will quote a Guardian article from 6 March—hon. Members are probably ready to sneer at it—which said:
“Agriculture in the US remains quite backward in many respects. It retains a position of resisting more information on labels to limit consumer knowledge and engagement.”
The vested interests involved in the US food sector are absolutely immense, with huge lobbying efforts and huge amounts of disinformation and press work. The article continues:
“Its livestock sectors often suffer from poor husbandry, which leads to more prevalence of disease and a greater reliance on antibiotics”,
which we know is an issue.
“Whereas we have a ‘farm to fork’ approach to managing disease and contamination risk throughout the supply chain through good husbandry, the US is more inclined to simply treat contamination of its meat at the end with a chlorine or similar wash.”
The article continues:
“In the US, legislation on animal welfare is woefully deficient.”
That article was penned by the now Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, during the brief hiatus after he left the Government in February 2019. He immediately turned to The Guardian to make known his views on just how worried he was about US animal welfare.
Mr Goodwill
Does the hon. Lady understand that the US actually consumes most of its own beef? Only about 13.5% of its beef is exported, mainly to Japan and the far east. There is not a great stockpile of American beef looking for a market, either in the UK or the EU.
Kerry McCarthy
I am not sure that that is particularly relevant. At the moment there is a ban on hormone-pumped beef entering our markets. The UK is the third biggest market in the world for food imports. It is clear that if the doors were open, there would be a potential market here and the US would be very keen to get into it. Most of the discussion on trade deals so far has not been about the beef sector anyway.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has already said, at about the time that the now Secretary of State wrote that article, he also tabled what are now new clauses 33, 34 and 35 to the then Agriculture Bill. Why would he do that? He had made the arguments in public. He did a sterling job trying to defend the Government’s position during the first sitting of the Agriculture Bill. He came across as reasonably sincere, but the moment he had the freedom to say what he really thought, he went to the press and wrote an article in The Guardian outlining clearly and eloquently what his concerns were. He did not seek verbal reassurances from the Government; he sought legislative reassurances. So if it is good enough for the Secretary of State when he is allowed free rein to say what he feels, I am sure the Minister can understand why many of her colleagues on the Conservative Back Benches and Opposition Members also agree with him.
Deidre Brock
I agree with much of what the previous speakers have said. New clauses 1 and 4 are grand in their way and I will support them, but we have to go further. I want to see the standards of the EU maintained, but perhaps that is for a different debate. However, it is possible to write it into domestic law that imports have to match the sanitary and phytosanitary standards of the WTO.
The WTO agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures is clear that science has to underpin the standards to protect human, animal or plant health. The agreement allows states to protect their food supplies and the imports of supporting products to the benefit of citizens. I know the argument will be that Ministers seek to protect citizens, but we do not know that that will always be the case. We should seek to ensure that citizens have the confidence to believe in this measure and in future Governments, and in the commitment to protecting foods and health. Citizens should also have the right to understand how Governments intend to do that and should have the ability to challenge them if necessary.
The SPS agreement allows standards to be set, so we should have them set. That would have allowed Ministers to assure the public that animal welfare and plant health would be maintained, and that imported food would be of a standard that we could rely on for health and the protection of life. As NFU Scotland recently pointed out, assurances around priorities in negotiations work only if the US upholds its side of the bargain. It stated:
“After all, there’s no point having a level playing field if the two sides are playing to different rules.”
I therefore support new clause 7.
Victoria Prentis
I thank hon. Members for tabling these new clauses. I genuinely appreciate the opportunity to talk once again about the importance of food standards. The hon. Member for Bristol East will never find me sneering at or questioning the importance of food standards. This is an important debate, and it is right that we have it here, and while considering other Bills, as we move to a new world where we have left the EU and hopefully have free trade agreements with many other countries.
I welcome the opportunity to reiterate the Government’s commitment to not lowering our standards as we negotiate new trade deals. The Prime Minister has consistently stated that we will not compromise our high environmental, food safety or animal welfare standards now that we have left the EU. We made that commitment in our manifesto, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade reaffirmed that commitment to the House earlier this week in respect of a US trade deal.
Victoria Prentis
I will give way, but I have a long speech and a lot to cover.
Kerry McCarthy
I am sure the Minister does, but the problem is that I suspect I know what she will say. To cut to the chase, given that it would make everybody so much happier if that commitment was in the Bill, what is the reason for its not being?
Victoria Prentis
I will set out the Government’s position on that. The hon. Member for Cambridge was kind enough to say that I was an esteemed lawyer. I do not know whether that is true, but I am certainly a very experienced Government lawyer, and I gently say that the purpose of primary legislation is not about making people happy, although the purpose of the policy behind it might well be that. We come at this from the same place: we all like high standards in British agriculture and want to support our farmers. However, I will set out why the Government have come to this conclusion, which will take some time, I am afraid, and I will deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East.
To deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol West, we are retaining existing UK legislation, and at the end of the transition period, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will convert on to the UK statute book all EU food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards. That will ensure that our high standards, including import requirements, continue to apply.
The hon. Member for Cambridge said I was an esteemed lawyer—who knows?—and also that he was waiting for a letter from the Department. I am certainly an experienced enough lawyer not to wish to interfere in that process. If a letter is being drafted, I will make sure to look at it. However, he asked specifically about hormone-treated beef and washed chicken. I will give him the directives and the way they are transposed into British law as I see it. The top line is that all EU law on food safety standards was carried over by the 2018 Act.
EU Council directive 96/22/EC, as amended, which bans the import and production of hormone-treated beef, was transposed into UK law through national legislation. It is found in various regulations, including the Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) (England and Scotland) Regulations 2015; Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) (Wales) Regulations 2019; and the Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016. I will write to the hon. Gentleman on that, because I do not expect him to take a note of all those, or the Secretary of State will write to the shadow Secretary of State. I do not want to interfere in that letter-writing process.
On the washing of poultry, European Union controls on the surface decontamination of poultry—regulation 853 /2004—will be retained through the 2018 Act, and have been made ready to be carried over into UK law immediately after the transition period through the Specific Food Hygiene (Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which will maintain the status quo that no product other than drinking water is currently approved in the EU to decontaminate poultry carcases. That will remain the same in the UK. I will write to the hon. Gentleman properly about that, so that he has the details. It is complicated, as he says.
The regulations I have mentioned include artificial growth hormones for domestic production and imported products, and we would require legislation to change those regulations. Both hormone-treated beef and washing of poultry are covered. The Government have said that any future deals must respect our regulatory autonomy, which means that we will not sign agreements that threaten our ability to set our own high standards, of which we are proud. Our standards are driven by consumer and retailer demand and frequently go above current regulatory standards; most of us would welcome that. The Agriculture Bill will help to ensure that we continue to maintain those high standards in line with the needs of our farmers, retailers and consumers.
Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsThursday 5th March 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 5 March 2020 - (5 Mar 2020)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 26—Smallholdings estates: land management—
‘(1) A smallholdings authority which immediately before the commencement of Part 1 of this Act holds any land for the purposes of smallholdings shall review the authority’s smallholdings estate and shall, before the end of the period of eighteen months beginning with the commencement of Part 1 of this Act, submit to the Secretary of State proposals with respect to the future management of that estate for the purposes of—
(a) providing opportunities for persons to be farmers on their own account;
(b) providing education or experience in environmental land management practices;
(c) providing opportunities for increasing public access to the natural environment and understanding of sustainable farming;
(d) contributing to a mitigation of climate change, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,
(e) providing support for innovative food production techniques (including techniques which do not involve management of land), and
(f) providing opportunities for innovation in sustainable land management practices.
(2) No land held by a smallholdings authority as a smallholding immediately before commencement of Part 1 of this Act is to be conveyed, transferred, leased or otherwise disposed of otherwise than—
(a) in connection with the purposes listed in subsection (1); and
(b) in accordance with proposals submitted under subsection (1).
(3) For the purposes of this section, “smallholdings authority” has the same meaning as in section 38 of the Agriculture Act 1970.’.
This new clause would limit the disposal of smallholdings (“county farms”) by local authorities and would require local authorities to review their holding and submit proposals for future management to provide opportunities to extend access to farming, education, and innovation.
Kerry McCarthy
This revisits something that we discussed when the previous Agriculture Bill Committee met, but there have been some positive moves from the Government in respect of county farms since then. I am pleased that there have been quite a few indications of support, but we could do more, which is why I have tabled the new clause.
County farms are an undervalued national asset, and they could play a significant role in the future of UK farming. I have the support of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Sustain and the Landworkers Alliance for the new clause, which is aimed at rejuvenating the county farms project and improving the information that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs holds on the estate. It would require councils to submit a report to the Secretary of State within 18 months of this Act’s becoming law, saying how they would make best use of their smallholdings to support new entrants to farming. We have heard, and it is generally accepted, that the price of land in particular can act as a real deterrent to new entrants.
The new clause also looks at promoting sustainable land management practices, sharing knowledge of those practices, and increasing public access to the natural environment and farming. The new clause is needed because there has been a steep decline in the county farm estate over the past 40 years, and that sell-off appears to be continuing. Between 2010 and 2018, the size of England’s county farm estate fell by more than 15,000 acres, with 58% of that sold between 2016 and 2018. If we want to reverse that trend, it is clear that we need a fresh approach, rather than business as usual, and I hope that the new clause will kick-start that.
There was a session—I think it was of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, but I get confused sometimes, because we also discussed this at the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming—where Cambridgeshire County Council was spoken of. It does really good work on this front. Its estate generates a substantial income for the council of more than £4 million each year, and since 2009, the 109 new tenants who have joined the estate have an average age of 30, which is half the UK average.
We spoke earlier—I think it was when we were talking about de-linked payments and other things—about the average age of farmers in this country and how we really need to bring a new generation on board. County farms seem to be doing that in Cambridgeshire. The estate is also supporting a pioneering agroforestry farmer, Stephen Briggs.
At the very least, I hope the new clause will encourage councils to look favourably on including enhanced management and environmental obligations as part of the tender process and management. This is about not only allowing access to land through the county farm movement, but encouraging people to farm in a certain way. CPRE’s recent report on county farms highlighted the fact that a number of councils already view their estates as a crucial lever in responding to the climate emergency.
As I said at the beginning, we have had some promising words from the Government, but we have not had action yet, and the Bill is still completely silent on this. The now Secretary of State told us in the Agriculture Bill Committee back in October 2018 that he was considering whether to use funds under the productivity strand of the Bill to refresh the model. In January 2019, I chaired a session at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, interviewing the then Secretary of State on stage. It must be said that all the promises he made then went down very well.
One of those promises was to announce a new package of financial support for county farms in the coming months. He reaffirmed that promise in a letter to the EFRA Committee in March 2019, stating his desire to
“create a financial incentive for local authorities who want to invest in their council farms”.
In September, that promise was repeated, this time in response to a written question that I asked the current Secretary of State.
While I warmly welcome the statement in the “Future for Food, Farming and the Environment” policy statement published last week that the Department
“will offer funding to councils…who want to invest in creating new opportunities for new-entrant farmers”,
when can we expect some firm detail on the timetable of financial assistance that will be offered? In the meantime, based on the language in the policy statement, I see no reason that the new clause, which is designed to encourage new entrants and sustainable farming, would not help the Government to achieve their desired outcome.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East for tabling the new clause and look forward to working with her on how we can support smallholding authorities to invest in, and commit to, their county farms. We want to help them to provide more opportunities for new entrant farmers and to continue to offer the wider environmental and public benefits.
I am concerned that the new clauses would constrain smallholding authorities’ ability to manage their estates effectively and would create an additional administrative burden. Rather than legislating, I would prefer to work collaboratively with smallholding authorities. We want to support them to manage their estates so that they can provide more opportunities for new farmers and existing tenants, as well as for the benefit of the wider public.
I hope that the hon. Lady is assured by the document published last week and that she will continue to talk to me. We will continue to talk to smallholding authorities about how we can take things forward. I therefore ask her to withdraw the motion.
Victoria Prentis
I have already responded fairly fully to the hon. Member for Bristol East and I feel that the Labour Front-Bench amendment is strikingly similar. I have said all I need to say on this subject.
Kerry McCarthy
I hope we can continue the dialogue about county farms and that we can see some concrete action from the Government. Given what the Minister has said, for once I will take her at her word that she has leapt upon this and I will not push the measure to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 6
Quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs
“(1) Subsection (2) applies to any function of the Secretary of State under—
(a) Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs (“the EU Regulation”),
(b) the delegated and implementing Regulations,
(c) any regulations made by the Secretary of State under the EU Regulation, and
(d) any regulations made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 relating to the enforcement of the EU Regulation or the delegated and implementing Regulations.
(2) The Secretary of State may exercise the function only with the consent of the Scottish Ministers.
(3) In subsection (1), the “delegated and implementing Regulations” means—
(a) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 664/2014 supplementing the EU Regulation with regard to the establishment of Union symbols for protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications and traditional specialities guaranteed and with regard to certain rules on sourcing, certain procedural rules and certain additional transitional rules,
(b) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 665/2014 supplementing the EU Regulation with regard to conditions of use of the quality term “mountain product”, and
(c) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 668/2014 laying down rules for the application of the EU Regulation.
(4) The references in subsection (1) to the EU Regulation and the delegated and implementing Regulations are to those instruments—
(a) as they have effect in domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and
(b) as amended from time to time whether by virtue of that Act or otherwise.”—(Deidre Brock.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Deidre Brock
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is about protected geographical indictors. They are a vital part of the business plan of many of Scotland’s top food producers and many food producers in other nations. They are a guarantee of quality and of the care and skill that goes into their production.
I am sorry to say that I remain to be convinced that a UK system would be any kind of replacement or match for the EU system, but the UK Government still intend to create their own new system instead of sticking with the EU system, as I understand they could have done. It therefore seems sensible to me to make sure that the new scheme properly serves producers who have the full protection under the current scheme, and any new producers wishing to get geared up for it.
To protect Scottish producers, it seems sensible to ensure that there is input from the Scottish Government to the new scheme. The new clause would simply ensure that the views of Scottish Ministers are properly considered in the exercise of functions under the scheme. It reflects and respects the devolution settlement and is measured.
Victoria Prentis
Yes, the Government are up to dealing with the climate crisis and are determined to do so, and yes, we agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is no more important thing that we should be doing as a Government.
I am really proud that the UK became the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from across the UK economy by 2050. We already have a strong foundation of action and leadership to build from, having cut our emissions by 42% since 1990 while growing the economy by 72%. That does not mean that we are complacent or that we do not recognise that there is a great deal more to do, urgently.
Victoria Prentis
I am going to make some progress.
Climate change is a global challenge, requiring action across the whole economy. We do not have sector-specific targets. That is to ensure that we meet our climate change commitments at the lowest possible net cost to UK taxpayers, consumers and businesses, while maximising the social and economic benefits to the UK of the transition.
We have set out a range of specific commitments, in the 25-year environment plan and under the clean growth strategy, to reduce emissions from agriculture. That includes strengthening biosecurity and control of endemic diseases in livestock, and encouraging use of low-emission fertilisers. However, we know that, to achieve net zero, more is needed from the sector. We are looking to reduce agricultural emissions controlled directly within the farm boundary with a broad range of cost-effective measures, primarily through improvements to on-farm efficiency and land use change.
The new ELM scheme will help us to contribute to our net zero commitment by providing farmers with an opportunity to receive financial reward for delivering a range of public goods. We already report on climate change performance under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the convention on biological diversity. Additional reporting as required by the new clause would place an unnecessary burden on the Government without delivering significant new information to Parliament.
Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 3rd March 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 3 March 2020 - (3 Mar 2020)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 17, page 14, line 32, at end insert—
“(f) food insecurity.
(3) For the purposes of this section ‘food insecurity’ means a person’s state in which consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year.
(4) Before laying a report under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must—
(a) consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, the relevant Northern Ireland department, and such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, and
(b) have due regard to international best practice on food insecurity, including but not limited to the United States Household Food Security Survey.
(5) A report under subsection (1) must include—
(a) an assessment of trends in food insecurity, broken down by different parts of the United Kingdom and different regions of England, and
(b) a summary of actions to be taken in areas of high food insecurity by the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive.
(6) The Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the relevant Northern Ireland department before preparing a report under subsection (1).
(7) In this section—
‘parts of the United Kingdom’ means—
(a) England,
(b) Scotland,
(c) Wales, and
(d) Northern Ireland;
‘regions of England’ has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”
Amendment 62 was initially tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck), but it has support from at least three parties. I pay tribute to her and the work she did on the all-party parliamentary group on hunger with the former Member for Birkenhead, which led to the establishment of Feeding Britain and its offshoots, such as Feeding Bristol. I am pleased to have been involved in that.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields introduced a private Member’s Bill a while ago, and as a result of that pressure the Government agreed to measure household food insecurity as part of the family resources survey. The first data will be available in 2021. In a recent press release, she referred to the amendment saying that
“there is no commitment…that the measure will continue for future years, nor that the results of the survey they are conducting will be laid before Parliament for scrutiny.”
The point of amendment 62 is to try to give some certainty. As she says, we have seen
“devastating levels of hunger right across the UK”
and the UK has been
“dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing to measure food insecurity”
but we do need a degree of certainty about it.
As to the Minister’s comments on the welfare system, a Department for Work and Pensions Minister in the House of Lords said yesterday that there is “no doubt” at all that universal credit has driven people towards using food banks. Many people who use food banks are experiencing in-work poverty. We have had examples of people who work for Tesco selling cheap food but who are still not being paid enough, particularly if they are casual workers or on zero-hours contracts, and the welfare system is not flexible enough to adapt to that. Clearly we have a crisis. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields says:
“It is clear urgent action is needed. To keep ignoring this issue is a shameful dereliction of duty.”
We need firm data. Amendment 62 would give the Government the tools they need to identify the key drivers of food bank use in detail, as well as which groups in our society are most likely to request emergency food parcels. It will shine a light on the number of people who, year-on-year, go several days without food, as well as on others who skip meals due to lack of money or parents who sacrifice their own meals to feed their children—not all of them will be food bank users. In the past, the Government have been sceptical of data produced on food bank use by, for example, the Trussell Trust. That is all we have been able to rely on. It has become a proxy measure for hunger and food insecurity, but there will be many families who rely on broader programmes of support. Feeding Bristol had a holiday hunger programme to compensate for the fact that children do not get access to free school meals during the long summer holidays. That would not necessarily be picked up by the food bank data, because food distributed with play schemes and so on.
Victoria Prentis
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady, and I welcome her to her place. I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East for the amendment, and I recognise the commitment of the hon. Member for South Shields in her important work around food insecurity and in ensuring engagement with the devolved Administrations on the amendment.
We are planning to include a theme on household food security, which is clearly set out in subsection (2)(d). As part of that theme, we will be considering the key indicators that help us take a view on food insecurity and why it happens. I hope that the hon. Member for Bristol East will understand that we do not intend to list in the Bill all the data sources we will use in the report, as it would make the Bill unhelpfully unwieldy.
As I said on a previous amendment, our purpose in producing the report is to set out our analysis of the widest relevant sets of statistics relating to food security in the UK, ranging from global UN data to UK national statistics. Many of those data sets are only published at UK level, so breakdown to the devolved Administration area or regional level will not be available in all instances. We will not commit at this stage to the precise data we will use, but all available relevant data will be considered, including breakdown by devolved Administration area if appropriate.
It is our intention that the report will inform discussion and debate about UK food security, both across Government and with wider stakeholders—that is why we are doing it. I assure the hon. Lady that we will of course consider the themes covered in the report, and the analysis, evidence and trends within it, with all sorts of stakeholders, including the devolved Administrations. We have well-established forums for discussion of that nature. Introducing a more formal requirement for a consultation for Ministers with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before the report is even laid is therefore unnecessary.
I hope that clarifies the intention of the clause and provides the hon. Lady with sufficient assurance. I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Kerry McCarthy
The problem with subsection (2)(d) is that it just talks about
“household expenditure on food (including in comparison to expenditure on other items)”.
As we have outlined today, that does not go anywhere near looking at the scale of the problem and the many factors that contribute to food insecurity. I am not prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsThursday 27th February 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 27 February 2020 - (27 Feb 2020)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend, who as ever makes some very valid points. Animal welfare is important to us all, and I am proud that, broadly speaking, it is also very important to farmers in this country.
Touching briefly on the issue of live exports, as I imagine the hon. Member for Cambridge knows, the Government has a manifesto commitment to end excessively long journeys for animals going for slaughter or fattening. We have said to date that we are actively looking at this important issue, and I understand that a consultation is planned imminently for this spring, so that we can take it further as quickly as possible.
I can reassure the hon. Gentleman very clearly, and not just by nodding, that there is no intention that payments will be issued to farmers for achieving basic welfare standards. The Government are world leaders in animal welfare, and are committed to retaining that status by maintaining and strengthening our standards, as part of a comprehensive series of measures to improve animal welfare. Using the powers in this Bill, we are developing a scheme that aims to improve welfare. As part of that, we are exploring a one-off grant system that will help farmers to improve welfare on farms, and might well include some of the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Cambridge, which we discussed earlier in our consideration of the Bill.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
For clarification, would that grant system be for capital expenditure to change the animals’ accommodation? If so, does the Minister envisage that there will be ongoing revenue-type subsidies to maintain the higher welfare standards, or is it just capital that is being looked at?
Victoria Prentis
I envisage the specific grants that I was just talking about as payments to enhance buildings, for example, or for other welfare issues. However, the hon. Member is right to mention other means of paying for welfare, and it is true that the Bill is currently flexible. I expect that we will get into the detail of that sort of issue as we progress with devising the schemes to improve animal welfare. She is right to highlight that issue, and should make whatever points she wants to as we devise the schemes. We are exploring a payment-by-results scheme, under which farmers could receive ongoing payments for delivering specific animal welfare enhancements that are valued by the public but, as the hon. Member for Cambridge said, not yet sufficiently valued by the market. The hon. Member for Bristol East is therefore right to continue to make whatever points she wants to in that space.
The amendment would restrict in primary legislation what will be included in the new scheme before those involved in the industry, as well as the Animal Welfare Committee, have had the opportunity to have their say. What defines enhanced animal welfare must be designed in consultation with those involved, so that the schemes deliver the best possible outcomes for consumers, the industry and, most importantly, the animals themselves. Our understanding of animal welfare today is far ahead of where it was when I was growing up on a farm, or 20 or 30 years ago. It would be short-sighted of us to set out requirements in legislation for payments, as it would restrict our ability to develop or amend schemes, such as the enhanced animal welfare scheme, when more evidence becomes available.
Turning specifically to amendment 42, improving the health of the national livestock, herd or flock, requires widespread co-ordinated action. We intend to launch the first schemes to improve the health of farmed animals from 2022 to 2023, concentrating on endemic diseases. We are co-designing schemes with farmers and vets, prioritising cattle—both dairy and beef—sheep, pigs and poultry, with the intention to widen participation to other species. Previous experience has shown that, without action being taken by the majority of farmers, efforts to control disease and improve health do not achieve very much.
That action does not have to be significantly above the legal standards to be very effective, but it does need to be part of a concerted effort on the part of farmers and others, which can, of course, include central Government. We are worried that the amendment would restrict us to providing financial assistance only, in effect, to better-performing farmers. Actions such as tackling endemic disease are best done when a large proportion of farmers and livestock owners are involved. If we limit the number of those who can benefit from a scheme, we will not be as successful in achieving our goals.
The hon. Member for Cambridge teased out the question of what constitutes a significantly higher standard of animal health. There is no single measure of animal health at the moment, and different actions to improve it will have different levels of public and private benefits. I am sure that we will continue to discuss such matters. At the very least, the amendment would make an important part of the financial clause difficult to work in practice, and could go so far as being counterproductive. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Environment Bill
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsWednesday 26th February 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
George Eustice
The Bill will establish the Office for Environmental Protection, which will have the power to take public bodies to an upper tribunal if there are breaches of the law. Of course, there are remedies in such a process through the usual mechanism of court orders.
The Bill sets out a framework for setting and taking concrete steps towards achieving our ambitious, legally binding long-term targets, and chapter 2 will establish that new, powerful independent Office for Environmental Protection to provide expert, objective and impartial advice on environmental issues and to take a proportionate and transparent approach to issues of national importance concerning the enforcement of environmental law. The OEP will hold this and every future Government to account by reporting on the progress we have made to improve the natural environment, as set out in our published evidence-based environmental improvement plans and targets.
George Eustice
I am going to make some progress.
The annual progress report we published last May showed that 90% of the highest-priority actions from our first 25-year environment plan, which will become our first improvement plan, have either been delivered or are on track. We have heeded the advice of both the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne). The OEP will enforce compliance with environmental law where needed, complementing and reinforcing the work of the world-leading Committee on Climate Change.
Environment Bill
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsWednesday 26th February 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who certainly has big shoes to fill. The way he talked about how his experiences in his previous professional life led him to want to make change in this place was particularly poignant. We may find that we could have a conversation about music at some point, although I maintain that I was never a goth. There is a local satirical magazine in Bristol that has nicknames for all the local politicians, and I am invariably referred to as “pint-sized goth MP Kerry and ‘the Banshees’ McCarthy”.
This Bill concerns the technical and mechanical arrangements for putting these measures into law. However, a real lack of vision surrounds not only this hefty piece of legislation but the Government’s general approach. I am increasingly concerned that we are not showing leadership in the run-up to COP26. We have not had a statement from the Government since the election or since the COP president was replaced by the Business Secretary, and there is so much more that could be done in showing global leadership on the climate and ecological emergencies.
On the Bill specifically, the four principal concerns raised on Second Reading last October, as well as by the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny, have not changed. There is still no substantive commitment to non-regression in environment law, and until that is included the Government’s verbal commitments on maintaining standards are, frankly, difficult to believe. The Secretary of State spoke at the National Farmers Union conference today, and he knows that the farming community is very much of that mind when it comes to the Agriculture Bill, but the concern spreads much wider among environmental groups as well.
The clause on environmental principles—clause 16 —needs to be strengthened. It is not good enough that Ministers must simply have only due regard to them. It is also a significant step backwards compared with the arrangement we had within the EU.
The lack of urgency on targets is deeply worrying. The interim targets are not legally binding. The long-term targets do not need to be set until 2022, and potentially cannot be enforced for almost two decades. We do have to have short-term milestones; otherwise, we will just see action delayed again and again, and there will be no mechanism for holding the Government to account. As has been mentioned, it is also quite worrying that the Secretary of State has the power to revoke or lower a target with very little scrutiny.
I would like to see much stronger action on land use in this country, particularly urgent action on natural climate solutions. There tends to be an awful lot of talk about planting trees, but that in itself is not enough to compensate for the damage that is being done to our environment. I was at a very interesting event with the all-party group on net zero yesterday, when I think it was said that natural climate solutions could account for 0.25 °C of trying to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C.
We need to look at protecting and restoring our peatlands, salt marshes and other carbon sinks. This was mentioned in the Agriculture Public Bill Committee yesterday. Apparently, there are various strategies around, and it all seems quite piecemeal. My concern is how we hold the Government to account if there is a certain amount of provision in legislation, but also lots of other documents that are not legally binding and cannot necessarily be challenged in Parliament. In some ways, that could muddy the water in relation to what we are trying to achieve.
I will not go into detail about the Office for Environmental Protection, other than to say that I hope it is still coming to Bristol. It does need more independence and more power. It needs to be properly resourced, because there is no point in its having the power to conduct its own investigations unless it is actually given the resources to carry out those investigations properly. It must also be given the power then to impose fines. I hope the Government will consider this in Committee.
Alarmingly—this was mentioned in passing in an intervention—in the year we are set to host COP26 and there is also the international biodiversity conference in China, the Bill is completely silent on the UK’s global environment footprint. We cannot just try to put our own house in order when we are a global nation—we are trading, we are importing and exporting—and having a considerable impact often on countries that are contributing very little to climate change themselves.
We need a target to reduce our overseas impact, including specific action on deforestation. It is a sad reality that economic activity by the UK, whether via finance or imports, has played a significant role in the destruction of the world’s forests to produce food. Last year, Global Witness identified that UK-based financial institutions have been the single biggest source of international finance for six of the most harmful agribusiness companies involved in deforestation in Brazil, the Congo basin and Papua New Guinea, providing a staggering £5 billion in finance over the last six years. Meanwhile, UK imports of commodities such as beef, leather, soy, palm oil and timber have been shown by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to take up an area of land—land associated with deforestation—more than half the size of the UK.
That is why I completely support the calls by the WWF and Global Witness to amend the Bill to include a mandatory due diligence obligation, which would require a business to identify and assess the nature of the actual and potential adverse impact of its activities on the environment and human rights, both domestically and internationally, as well as throughout its supply chains and investment chains. It would also require a business to take appropriate action to avoid, mitigate and remediate the negative impacts identified and assessed; to cease operations and investments where impacts cannot be adequately mitigated; and to report on implementation of the due diligence plan, including the actions taken and the effectiveness of those actions. I hope to serve on the Public Bill Committee, and if so, I will be seeking to put forward amendments that tackle this.
To conclude, it is not enough just to be planting trees in our own backyard if we are contributing to the deforestation of vast swathes of the Amazon abroad.
Several hon. Members rose—
Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 25th February 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 February 2020 - (25 Feb 2020)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 1, page 2, line 28, after ‘activity’ insert—
‘, provided that such assistance does not contradict or undermine the purposes in section 1(1).’
This could possibly be described as a probing amendment. There is general agreement that the Government’s commitment to the principle of public money for public goods is welcome. This amendment is a safeguard to ensure that the delivery of public goods is not undermined by any financial assistance for improving productivity. There is some concern that it could mean a greater proportion of the money going to the productivity head rather than to public goods. If the new environmental land management scheme is to be successful and provide value for money, all the payments need to contribute to the delivery of public goods.
It is still not clear how the future Budget will be distributed between financial assistance for public goods and productivity, and there is concern that we could end up with a pillar one and pillar two-type system—again, where public goods take second place. I am seeking assurances from the Minister. If I am confident that her assurances are credible, I will not push this to a vote.
Victoria Prentis
I thank the hon. Lady for that assurance. I understand that she wants to ensure that we do not provide financial assistance to improve productivity or production in a way that would harm the environment or undermine any of the purposes in clause 1. I hope that is a fair summary of what she said.
Kerry McCarthy
It is partly about not undermining that, but it is also partly about how the money is divvied up. If a huge proportion of the money goes towards productivity, it is not clear how the budget will be divided. That is what I am seeking clarity on—that there is money for public goods.
Victoria Prentis
I cannot give the hon. Lady absolute assurance at the moment as to how the budget will be divided, as that is a matter for the development of the scheme. We will do a great deal of work developing it, including years of pilots and a great deal of consultation, in which, I am sure, she will be involved. I can assure her that it is not our intention to put the productivity wing on a higher level than allowing damage to the public purposes, which are there to protect the environment, or the other purposes is clause 1. That is absolutely not our intention. Our ambition is to leave the environment in a better state than we find it.
Kerry McCarthy
Just to clarify, it would help if the Minister could give an assurance that all payments need to contribute to the delivery of public goods, whether it is a payment for productivity or directly for public goods. She phrased it to me in the negative—they should not undermine public goods—but the intention of this Bill is that everything should support that public goods agenda.
Victoria Prentis
I think the hon. Lady and I are dancing around the same issue, which is that the ambitions do not need to be mutually exclusive. We absolutely believe that producing food and managing a sustainable environment can and should go hand in hand. Improving productivity is normally about improving efficiency by using less energy and fewer pesticides to produce the food that we eat. Greater efficiency can also mean using less land, so that other land can be freed up for other purposes such as tree planting. I share the hon. Lady’s concerns, however I feel that her amendment would restrict our ability to offer financial assistance in the most effective way.
Daniel Zeichner
I appreciate why trying to get the balance correct is a difficult dilemma, but it is crucial that we do so. We are not satisfied, frankly, that we are getting the clarity that is required. We understand that this is a framework Bill, but much more detail is required to give certainty, so—I may be speaking on behalf of my colleagues here—we would like to push the amendment to the vote.
Kerry McCarthy
I am afraid I am not satisfied with the Minister’s reassurances and would like to push the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Kerry McCarthy
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 1, page 2, line 32, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) In framing any financial assistance scheme, the Secretary of State must have regard to—
(a) the need to encourage the production of food by producers in England and its production by them in an environmentally sustainable way; and
(b) the need to ensure that all farms and horticulture units, including those smaller than five hectares, can access financial assistance.”
The key point in the amendment is paragraph (b), which deals with the need to ensure that all farms and horticultural units—including those smaller than 5 hectares —can access this financial assistance. In 2014, the then Secretary of State ruled that a farm needed to be more than 5 hectares to receive direct payments. The decision to increase the limit from 1 to 5 hectares excluded one in six English farmers during the transition from single to basic payments.
During the oral evidence sessions we heard evidence from Jyoti Fernandes at the Landworkers Alliance that the threshold resulted in smallholders being at a serious disadvantage. In designing any new scheme, the threshold should be scrapped. Every farm, no matter what its size, has the ability to deliver the public goods listed in clause 1. The farms and horticultural units showcased in the latest Landworkers Alliance report, “Agroecology in Action”, illustrate what they can achieve in terms of encouraging biodiversity, building soil health, replacing agrochemicals, mitigating climate change, integrating communities and enhancing economic resilience. Earlier we discussed the need to bring food production closer to communities. Often, it is the smallholdings that do that. They also tend to have higher levels of employment than conventional farms. A 2017 study of agroecological farms smaller than 20 hectares found that they employed 26 times more workers than the UK per hectare average. It would be a huge mistake to exclude them from financial assistance.
It was good to see from DEFRA’s press release today that
“anyone from any farm or land type”
can participate. Will the Minister confirm that “any farm or land type” means farms smaller than 5 hectares?
Daniel Zeichner
I echo my hon. Friend’s comments. It is important that small farms are not left out of this legislation. As she said, in the evidence sessions we heard compelling evidence from the Landworkers Alliance that farmers on smaller holdings have been much disadvantaged to date by the current payments system due to the 5 hectare threshold, which cuts those with less than 5 hectares out of the system for getting payments. I was surprised to hear that 85% of its membership had never been able to get support for their work. We know why: back in the previous iteration of discussions, there was concern that small firms would not be subject to cross-compliance. That is my understanding. That was possibly a reasonable position to take, although I suggest that the answer to that is that there should be proper and appropriate checking and verification.
Precisely for the reasons that my hon. Friend has explained, we will support the amendment. We need to include many more people in the system and to make it far more likely that they will be able to benefit from it.
Victoria Prentis
It should have been obvious from my previous comments that I am a passionate smallholder, so I listened to what Members had to say with considerable interest. As I have said, I cannot promise exactly how the ELM scheme will work going forward, but I hope I can provide sufficient assurance in the rest of what I say. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to design agricultural, horticultural and forestry schemes in a way that best reflects our circumstances and allows us to deliver the best possible outcomes.
As my predecessor said, we are determined to work with industry to co-design the new schemes and ensure we get them right. In determining whether there should be a minimum size threshold for eligibility, we will need to weigh up the benefits that can be delivered by small land holdings—benefits that I recognise—against the administrative costs associated with managing agreements, as the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned. We need to ensure that the different schemes provided under ELMS provide value for public money.
Detailed eligibility criteria will be established for ELMS as soon as the schemes are developed, working with stakeholders. I can only apologise, because I do not have all the answers at the moment. This will be a very complicated, new set of schemes, which will take many years to develop.
I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Bristol East to clause 1(2), which is reflected in the press release she mentioned. It provides a power for financial assistance to be provided in connection with
“starting, or improving the productivity of, an agricultural, horticultural or forestry activity”.
The power clearly does not put any restrictions on the size of holding for which financial assistance can be provided. We will be designing our future schemes alongside industry in a way that delivers the best possible outcomes. I hope that she will withdraw the amendment.
Kerry McCarthy
I am confused by what the Minister is saying. She is right that there is no mention of any limit in the Bill, but her earlier words, before she mentioned the clause about start-ups, clearly suggested that she thought there could be bureaucratic problems. She was sort of putting objections in the way of extending the scheme to smallholder farmers. Today’s smallholder could be tomorrow’s big food producer.
I do not know whether the Minister wants to intervene to say more, but I do not think she has given any assurance at all. The 5 hectares issue has come up time and time again, including during previous discussions on the Bill. Why has the Department not got to the stage that it can give that assurance to smaller farmers?
Victoria Prentis
As I said earlier, the environmental land management systems have not yet been worked out. It is clear from the scoping document that was published today that they will vary enormously in their size and scope. Some will be concerned with just one farm, and others will be concerned with multiple farms or even a whole area, in order to provide the best possible ecological solutions that we are all seeking. I am unable to provide the hon. Lady with an absolute assurance at the moment, but I hear what she has to say about the importance of small agricultural holdings.
Kerry McCarthy
Once again, I cannot accept the Minister’s assurances and would like to press the amendment to a vote.
Mr Goodwill
I thank the Minister for her explanation. As a humble farmer, I would not wish to have an argument with a lawyer on a legal matter. Her point makes sense. The land occupied by many of these game species will be subject to support through the Bill, not least because of the wish to restore natural habitats and environment, and preserve some of our fragile natural environments.
What is not in doubt is that when the animals have been shot, prepared and put on the supermarket shelves, they qualify as food. Therefore, it struck me that some points made in the evidence session were not prepared to look at this as a useful source of food. Having heard the Minister’s sensible and legally wise words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kerry McCarthy
I beg to move amendment 13, in clause 1, page 3, line 17, at end insert
““protecting or improving the quality of soil” includes the restoration of blanket bog and other peatland habitats.”
The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, and I served on the previous Bill Committee.
Kerry McCarthy
And the Whip. That makes four of us; are there any more takers? Those of who went through the Bill then will remember quite a debate on trying to include soil as a public good. That was opposed by the Government and I remember that the right hon. Gentleman spoke vociferously against it. Lo and behold, it has now made it into the new version of the Bill. That shows that it is worth persevering with an argument, even if it seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the first instance. Someone may go away and think about it and come back and think: “She was right after all”.
Victoria Prentis
The hon. Gentleman is definitely getting action. I set out earlier what is being done to preserve peatland at the moment: £10 million of peatland restoration is definitely action, in my book. What I do not want to do is clog up—that is not a technical term; I am trying to find a soil-appropriate word—a definition of “soil” with something that happens in part above the soil, which is why I am resisting this amendment. The Government are committed to the importance of preserving peatland, but we need to ensure that all our soil types are protected by the part of the clause that is concerned with soil.
I hope I have reassured Opposition Members that we recognise the vital role peatlands play in helping to deliver on our agricultural and environmental commitments, and that there is no requirement to single out peatland in the soil provision of the Bill. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for her response, and I take her point about habitat, but peatlands are so important that I still think they could be included in this provision. The Minister has sort of argued both ways, in that she said “soil” did cover blanket bog and peatland and then said that this amendment would widen the definition, but this is so important and we do need action. As I have said, the Minister in the Lords, formerly the MP for Richmond Park, has made it clear that he wants a ban on peat burning. That is not specifically what this provision speaks to, but obviously we are going to give—
Mr Goodwill
Does the hon. Lady agree that a distinction needs to be drawn between the blanket bogs—such as Saddleworth moor, where the fire got right into the bog—and the drier, heathland type of moor that we have in North Yorkshire? The North York Moors National Park Authority itself supports the traditional management of that moor, particularly for the benefit of sheep but also of grouse.
Kerry McCarthy
There is a whole argument to be had about the management of moors for the benefit of grouse, when grouse are imported into this country in their millions just so they can be shot by people on an away-day. I would not have thought that was a priority.
Given peatland’s carbon role, its importance in the area of flood mitigation and all the other environmental benefits I have mentioned, it is important that we spell this out on the face of the Bill. We argued in the last Committee about whether the definition of “soil” needed to be spelled out on the face of the Bill, and I am asking for it to be spelled out in greater detail this time around. As such, I would like to press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 25th February 2020
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 February 2020 - (25 Feb 2020)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, leave out “may” and insert “must”.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance for the purposes listed in Clause 1.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I welcome everyone to the Committee. I suspect we will have lengthy and interesting discussions, and I am sure we are all very much looking forward to that.
To those who were here some time ago for Committee stage of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament, the amendment will look remarkably similar to the opening amendment then, although of course the world has moved on. This is a big issue, but I would like to preface my detailed “may”/“must” comments with some overarching observations.
I should make it clear from the start, as we did on Second Reading, that the Opposition support many of the principles underlying the Bill. Indeed, as I have pointed out before, one can find similar sentiments about improving the common agricultural policy and making it more environmentally friendly as far back as Labour’s 1998 rural White Paper. We have already said that the shift to incentivising farmers to provide greater support for the environment and deliver public goods, and to providing finance for that, is welcome.
I think there is widespread agreement about that—interestingly, not just in this country. Those who were present at yesterday’s debate on an agriculture statutory instrument will know that I spent some time then explaining how the European Union has sought to green the common agricultural policy, including by promoting measures such as environmental land management schemes. I observed that I find it slightly puzzling that a Government so enamoured with burnishing their green credentials did not fully use flexibilities such as the 15% in pillar 2 that could have been transferred to environmental schemes in England. However, a repentant sinner is always welcome—despite the nagging suspicion that some may not be entirely repentant.
The Opposition seek to work constructively to improve the Bill, but also to tease out what we see as some of the underlying contradictions, not least by pointing out that the Government are proposing a framework system for agriculture that does not see food production as a key part of its role. I quite understand why those fighting for a shift to environmental goods—they have fought the good fight for many years—may be nervous about the risk of business as usual through the back door, but we must be aware that just exporting our environmental damage somewhere else does not help. I must say that the Secretary of State’s continuing refusal to put into law the standards we need to apply to imported food does little to assuage concerns, and his comments at the weekend did little to reassure us. We will return to that at a later stage.
Members do not just have to take my word for that. They might want to look, for instance, at the powerful response to the new immigration system from the British Poultry Council last week. Its chief executive, Richard Griffiths, said the proposals
“have shown a complete disregard for British food production and will have a crippling effect on our national food security”—
a very strong statement from an industry leader. He continued, and this is the salient point for this morning:
“We cannot run the risk of creating a two-tier food system where we import food produced to lower standards and only the affluent can afford high quality British produce”.
That is the danger—some farmers paid via environmental land management schemes to do good things, with a bit of food production on the side, while the food that most people in our country eat is imported to lower standards. That is the risk, and we will not take it.
Our support is qualified on the Government coming clean on the plan. On a day when Sir Michael Marmot has laid out the consequences of the policies of the last 10 years—shameful consequences in my view—it is hardly surprising that people are worried, because the creation of a two-tier country is part of a piece, and the architects of this Bill have also been responsible in other policy areas for where we find ourselves today, in a disunited kingdom. We are not prepared to see this continue. For our purposes today, how much better if we had had the food strategy, and probably the Environment Bill, in place already, but we are where we are.
Having made trenchant criticisms of the Government, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that there have been improvements since the first version of the Bill, and we welcome them. We have noticed that the Government have been responsive to constructive criticism of their proposals and made additions to the Bill from its previous incarnation, following strong interventions by stakeholders. We hope that the Government continue to be receptive to improvements, because we believe there is certainly room for improvement.
It is precisely because changes have been made to the Bill, and because the climate and ecological crisis has become ever more pressing in the year or more since the Bill was last in Committee, that it is so important that we have returned to scrutinise this new version of the legislation. Our amendments are intended to strengthen the Bill—to give it more bite and deliver greater certainty to our farmers, to tackle the health and climate crises, and to fill in some of the gaps and missed opportunities.
I turn to “may”/”must” in amendment 1. Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State the power to provide financial assistance for the public goods purposes listed in the clause. It stipulates that the Secretary of State may do this, but there is no requirement to do so. Our amendment would change that, so that the Secretary of State must provide financial assistance for those clause 1 purposes, which I suspect we will debate at some length.
The simple fact is that the Secretary of State is not bound to do those things; they do not have to do them. The Government have guaranteed the previous annual budget under the common agricultural policy to farmers for every year of this Parliament, but what about after this Parliament? What guarantees do we have that financial assistance will continue to be provided for these public good purposes if that is not a strong requirement in the Bill?
What guarantee can the Minister give that the promised budget will be allocated? We still do not have the long-promised broader policy statement on ELMS. I wondered whether that was what the Prime Minister was working on at Chevening last week—I can imagine him spending his week doing the detailed policy work—but I am told that it is imminent and will be available within minutes. I think it is slightly disrespectful to Parliament to introduce such an important part of the policy process half an hour after Committee proceedings have started—I am sure we will all spend our lunch time poring over it.
I understand that the Secretary of State’s need to avoid the difficulties of his predecessor earlier this year and to have something to talk about when he is at the National Farmers Union—once a pressman, always a pressman. I rather admire that; however, I think we should have seen the statement before today.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I arrived in the office just before nine this morning to discover that these documents had been produced. That makes things very difficult, because we may have missed the opportunity to table amendments to this part of the Bill if anything in those documents raises concerns. As my hon. Friend said, it is wrong that this situation has been dictated by the need for the Secretary of State to make a speech at the NFU this morning. The Committee should take precedence.
Daniel Zeichner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are politicians and we know how the world works, but it is a pity. This Government have a strong majority and are at the start of their term; surely they should not be running scared so soon. Frankly, it speaks volumes. I do not blame the Minister—I am sure she is doing what she has been asked to do—but this raises particular difficulties for us. Until we have seen the documents, we will not know whether we should have tabled different amendments. We probably have a fair idea of what is in there, but this is no way to proceed.
Do we know that the money will actually be allocated? This is a change to a new and complicated system. The experience of stewardship schemes in the past is that they have not always been easy. We heard very enthusiastic evidence the week before last from some who say that everything will be wonderful. That is not what I hear from others. The question in my mind is whether budget allocated will be different from budget taken up. My sense is that many farmers think they are going to get the same kind of money, minus the 10%, in the years ahead. They may not. There is no guarantee that they are going to get the same amount for doing something slightly different. The money may be allocated in very different ways, which is part of the concern that people feel.
The shift that we need to see in our agricultural systems towards producing food in a way that is less destructive to the environment and that reduces agriculture’s contribution to climate change is too important to leave to the optional discretion of Secretaries of State. Under the current wording, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position whereby current and future Secretaries of State will be under no actual obligation to provide financial assistance to address agriculture’s contribution to climate change, despite that supposedly being a key driver of the Bill.
If the Government understand just how important the environmental and climate crisis is, it really is not such a tough ask for them to back up their commitments with stronger wording in the Bill. Others had the same discussion about the previous iteration of the Bill, so I am well aware of the current Secretary of State’s arguments against the change—that by keeping this as a power and not a duty, the Government are following a legislative tradition—I am sure the Minister has been given appropriate examples to make that point. I will not re-rehearse the point, but she will note that it was not only the Opposition who expressed that concern last time. She may find that some Members on her side of Committee care and worry about this issue. I would gently point out that the circumstances are really rather different now; in fact, the case has been strengthened since the previous discussion, given the climate emergency that we are facing. We hardly need look very far around the country to see the evidence of that.
Of course, we are also now leaving the European Union and embarking on a journey of considerable financial uncertainty for farmers and the wider rural community. That is why we need strong legislative commitments that guarantee long-term support for the environment and the climate, and financial certainty for our farmers. All that the amendment would do is make it a requirement to provide the financial assistance.
Other measures in the Bill are worded as requirements. Clause 4 makes the preparation of multi-annual financial assistance plans a requirement, while clause 17 obligates the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on UK food security. There are other provisions in the Bill where the power is a duty. The amendment would ensure that clause 1, which is pretty much at the heart of what we are talking about, has equal standing to other clauses. Shifting the power to a duty would rightly open the Secretary of State’s actions up to proper parliamentary scrutiny. If it is the law that the Secretary of State must provide finance for those essential activities, and they do not, they can be held duly accountable.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, at this very exciting time for agriculture. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his broadly kind words this morning and for his acceptance that we have a great deal in common across the House, as we move forward in planning the next stages of food production, farming and other systems that we want to implement to make sure the environment is better protected. We have much in common in this area at the moment.
As a newbie to this Committee, I also welcome those who served before and who, as the hon. Gentleman said, did a great deal to improve the Bill, which appears before us today in a new, streamlined form. Clause 1(4) includes an important mention of the role of food production as part of what we do in our countryside. It makes it clear that encouraging the production of food in an environmentally sustainable way is necessary. That is one of the most important changes made to the Bill, and I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to standards. I am sure we will return to this discussion, probably next week, when we discuss imports and how that issue will be taken forward. I ask him to accept that my predecessor and I—and, indeed, many Government Members who are interested in agriculture—have always been clear that it is important that we are committed to the highest possible standards of food production. We want reasonably priced food, but produced to a standard of high ecological and animal welfare.
Kerry McCarthy
Can the Minister clarify whether she is talking about standards in the UK or standards of imports, too?
Victoria Prentis
It is a great pleasure to take an intervention from the hon. Lady. She and I have worked together for many years on food waste reduction, so we have had a certain amount to do with each other in that sphere.
The Bill deals with standards in British agriculture that we impose on our farmers. It is inevitable at this exciting time for our nation that we will also stray into discussions on imports. I do not wish to shut those discussions down, however the Bill concentrates on the financial assistance that we give to the people who produce food in our countryside and are engaged in other schemes that, hopefully, will help us to enhance the environment.
I wish to restate the Government’s commitment to giving farmers, stakeholders and the public as much certainty as possible as we move away from the common agricultural policy towards our new policy of public money for public goods. I know that the previous Committee discussed at enormous length whether “may” or “must” should be used. As you may have heard, Mr Stringer, I am a former Government lawyer, and I am aware of the way in which legislation is often framed. When talking about financial assistance—which I politely say is what makes this different from the other clauses that the hon. Member for Cambridge referenced— it is traditional, in this sphere at least, although not in all Government legislation, to use the word “may”. Two examples are the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and the Science and Technology Act 1965, which both use the word “may” when discussing financial assistance. I would suggest that, in this situation, that is not an unusual piece of drafting nor one that in any way lessens our commitment to providing the financial assistance to which we have committed for the remainder of this Government.
We listened to hon. Members’ concerns during the passage of the first version of the Bill and have included new duties relating to financial assistance. The provision of the multi-annual financial assistance plans under clause 4 is a significant change, which sets out our strategic priorities for financial assistance under clause 1, with the first plan starting in 2021 to cover our seven-year transition period. Publishing these plans and other reports required under part 1 will ensure greater transparency and provide necessary certainty about the amount of public funding that has been allocated under clause 1.
Kerry McCarthy
Mr Stringer, amendment 11 is in this group. Is it in order for me to speak to that amendment now?
Kerry McCarthy
Thank you for that clarification.
My amendment 11 is very similar to the Labour Front Benchers’ amendment 2. It would give the Secretary of State the power to provide financial assistance for the purpose of
“establishing, maintaining and expanding agroecological farming systems, including organic farming.”
For a number of years, I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming. We have not yet reconstituted in this Parliament, but the group has gone from strength to strength. It is fair to say that, when I first got involved, it was very niche; we would have meetings with a small handful of people. Now, however, we regularly pack out Committee Rooms—standing room only. As I said, I chaired that group for a number of years, apart from when I was in the shadow Cabinet, when my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge kindly took over.
Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby just said, agroecology is not just about organic production. I entirely refute what he said about organic productivity and so on. Unfortunately, I do not have the figures to hand, but I am sure that the Soil Association will soon be in touch with him and the rest of us to put straight some of the things he said about the ability of the country to feed itself under an organic system.
Agroecological systems include organic, agroforestry, pasture-based livestock systems, integrated pest management—farming in a way that does not require pesticides—low-input mixed farming and biodynamic agriculture. All such things deliver a higher level of benefits and co-benefits across the farm than conventional systems do. Organic farms have 50% more wildlife than conventionally farmed land, and healthier soils with a 44% higher capacity to store long-term soil carbon. Obviously, too, if the soil is more fertile, that increases productivity. The amendment is supported by Sustain, the Landworkers’ Alliance, the Soil Association and many others.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned food deserts. The survey that he mentioned showed that two of the top five food deserts in the country were in south Bristol: the estates of Hartcliffe and Withywood. In the top 100, an area in my constituency is also listed. In a city such as Bristol, that is really surprising. Bristol prides itself on going for gold among the Sustainable Food Cities later this year—I am sure the Minister supports that; we are surrounded by countryside, with an awful lot of urban food growing; and Feeding Bristol does a tremendous amount of work to encourage healthy eating and tackle food poverty. Yet we still have those areas where that is a difficult problem to crack, so I very much hope we will pay particular attention to that in the food strategy that the Government are developing.
On the amendment, as I said, agroecology integrates food production with delivery of environmental and social public goods. That would give farms the support and incentives they need to transition to ecological farming models. I am sure that at some point we will talk about climate change, but land use—the sustainable use of land, which means sustainable agriculture—is absolutely intrinsic to meeting our global climate targets. We will discuss later why there is no commitment to net zero in the Bill, as supported by the NFU. We must take the situation seriously, and it is so frustrating that, year on year, all we talk about is fossil fuel use and industry, with perhaps a little nod to transport and electric vehicles, but we do not talk about this incredibly important angle—locally and in the impact overseas with deforestation and so on, as was mentioned.
The recent Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations modelling report makes it clear that a 10-year transition to agroecological farming, which was also recommended by the RSA’s food, farming and countryside commission, can deliver the food and environmental outcomes needed to feed Europe and to tackle the crisis we face. Were the Minister to look at the example set by France, she would find that there is far greater focus on agroecology and organic farming, and it has been done very successfully.
The Bill only rewards farmers for managing land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment; agroecology would reward them for integrated, whole-farm action. At the moment, a farmer might still farm unsustainably in the middle of the field, so most of the farm would not be sustainable, but could get the public money for public goods for things done around the edge. Farmers will be able to pick and choose—to cherry-pick certain things that they do—and that will not transform farming in the way needed.
If agroecology is specified as a Bill purpose, the Government could also chose to develop schemes that deliver social benefits as part of the farm system, such as community projects for public education about food growing and cooking. That is so important, to change farming from being seen as part of a countryside versus town thing; everyone eats food and benefits from the growing of healthy food.
The Bill fails to support whole-farm systems in delivering public goods in an integrated manner. Agroecological farms, including organic, at the moment may get start-up funding under clause 1(2), and certain agroecological approaches may get funding under clause 1(1), but there is not support for whole-farm systems to deliver public goods on an ongoing basis. That is not explicit anywhere in the Bill; I think it should be.
The Chair
May I clarify the answer to the hon. Lady’s initial question? It was completely in order to debate amendment 11. If she wishes to press it to a vote, that will be after the debate on amendment 40. I hope that is clear.
Daniel Zeichner
The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to go back to the Marmot report. Sadly, not everyone is living to 100—not everyone necessarily wants to live to 110 or 120, of course—and the worry is that the increase in life expectancy appears to have stalled. However, he makes an important point. I am not one of those who thinks that life was so much better in the past. Most of us can recognise plenty to celebrate in the modern world and in the technological advances we have made, but alongside those advances we have learnt some of the downsides and unintended consequences of some of the things that we can now do. Perhaps we are at a point in time—to go back to this being a key moment in developing our policy for the future—to look at the decisions made 40 years ago to tackle scarcity and shortage. Now, we might be tackling a different set of problems. That is why the debate is so important, but the right hon. Gentleman makes an important contribution.
Going back to the potential issues with pesticides, in March 2017 the report of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food highlighted the fact that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides has been associated with several diseases and conditions, including cancer, developmental disorders and sterility, and that those living near crop fields are particularly vulnerable to exposure to those chemicals.
Again, I acknowledge that some of that is contested, but it would be unwise to suggest that there is no potential problem here. If we can find ways of reducing the risk, that is surely something to be sought. It is also the case that, while those who are administering the pesticides should use protective equipment when using agricultural pesticides and there are clear guidelines and rules on that, adjacent rural residents and communities do not necessarily have anything like the same protection—most do not have any protection at all—and there are still no mandatory measures in the UK specifically for the protection of those rural systems.
Alongside that, boosting our supply of fruit and veg is particularly important for public health, as we have just discussed, so that people can have access to fresh, sustainably produced fruit and vegetables closer to home. We know that low intake of fruit and veg is among the most important dietary risk factors for chronic disease, including heart disease and stroke. I am told that, sadly, only 31% of British adults and 8% of children currently achieve the Government’s recommendation of five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
We are using far less of our agricultural land to produce fruit and vegetables than we could—only 1.4% in England, when the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit estimates that we could be using up to 19% of land to cultivate crops of fruit and vegetables. Looking back, we had a very different mix in past times. This is part of the wider discussion about the extent to which we are part of a global trading system and want to import things that we could very well produce here. Again, it is part of the economic trade-offs.
Kerry McCarthy
I was pleased to see mention of pulses in amendment 35. People often talk about fruit and veg, but pulses are not only good for the soil, in terms of fixing nitrogen, but an important part of a healthy diet. In certain parts of the country, including East Anglia, which my hon. Friend is very familiar with, they are a booming part of the agricultural sector. For example, for people who cannot handle gluten, there are pea-based pizza bases and things like that. I have spoken to producers about them. Does he agree that we ought to be pushing that as well?
Daniel Zeichner
As ever, I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. I am still chastened by one of the hon. Members opposite chiding me about my comments on eastern England at the evidence session, because I am very proud of eastern England, but I do reflect occasionally that the landscape has changed over the decades. We are very efficient food producers, but—there is always a but—there have been some costs to that in terms of environmental degradation. There is an opportunity, through these changes, to move some of that production to the kind that my hon. Friend is suggesting.
My guess, although I do not know for sure, is that many farmers would be quite happy to do that, because we know that farmers tend to operate within the rules that this place sets. That is why we have a responsibility to make that more attractive and to incentivise it, and not necessarily to make it attractive to carry on as we have done in the past. There is a real opportunity there, and I am sure we will talk further about diversification opportunities, but I must say that I worry sometimes about imagining that everyone wants to be diversified. Some people went into farming because that is what they want to do and they do it very well, and we should recognise that.
Going back to fruit and veg, the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit’s written evidence to the Committee estimates that, if there were a gradual increase in land use for fruit and vegetable production to 10% of suitable land, fruit and vegetable intake could increase by around 3.7% and 7.8% respectively. That could prevent or postpone around 3,890 cardiovascular disease deaths between 2021 and 2030. My guess is that the science is not exact, but the drift of the argument is clear. There is an opportunity here, and I very much hope that, as we discuss the environmental land management schemes in more detail, we will be reassured by the possibilities.
Victoria Prentis
I thank the hon. Lady for drawing attention to this important and pressing topic. We on the Government side are committed to leaving our environment in a better condition than we found it. That includes facing the challenges associated with climate change and with greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we legislated in June 2019 to introduce a net zero target to end the UK’s contribution to the most serious environmental challenge we face: climate change. We are the first major economy in the world to legislate for a carbon net zero target.
We have not made sector-specific targets, so I will not be accepting the hon. Lady’s amendment, although we are pleased with the ambitious target set by the National Farmers Union for its members. We are committed to continuing to work with the agricultural industry to tackle climate change together. One example is the £10 million of Government money given in May 2018 to help restore more than 10,000 football pitches’ worth of England’s iconic peatlands, which she referred to. This year we will establish a lowland agricultural peat task force that will build on the work already begun in this important area.
Kerry McCarthy
On the subject of peatlands—I have an amendment on this, to be considered later—it is one thing to talk about restoring peatlands, but if grouse moor owners are being allowed to burn peatlands, a huge amount of damage is being done, by destroying what is a natural carbon sink and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Does she agree with me, and with her ministerial colleague in the House of Lords—he has indicated that he believes this too—that we ought to ban that practice?
Victoria Prentis
I do not necessarily agree that all burning should be banned outright. Some low-level burning is not necessarily as harmful to the environment as the hon. Lady suggests. We can agree on the importance of peatland as a place to store carbon, and the importance of working together to ensure that peatland is restored and improved.
I move on to our £90 million industrial strategy challenge fund—the transforming food production initiative. Through this fund, we support industry-driven research and development to move agricultural systems towards net zero emissions. It has some relevance to the point made by the hon. Member for Newport West. It is important for us always to be open-minded and able to look at evidence. Everything we do must be evidence-based in this important area. This investment will support the development and adoption of advanced precision technologies and solutions to boost the efficiency of our agriculture. It will help to ensure that we produce high-value food in a way that maximises productivity and environmental performance.
The original drafting of the clause enabled the Secretary of State to give financial assistance for the purpose of
“managing land, water or livestock in a way that mitigates or adapts to climate change.”
We envisage that these objectives will be delivered by a broad spectrum of activities, and therefore all agricultural or horticultural activities that contribute to this purpose would already be within scope of funding support under clause 1(1)(d), as drafted. I hope that I have demonstrated that we already have the powers in the Bill to cover the proposed content.
Victoria Prentis
The Government legislated for net zero emissions, and in doing so we decided not to make sector-specific targets, but we absolutely support the NFU’s ambitions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman watched “Countryfile” at the weekend, but there was an interesting piece on agricultural emissions that mentioned both livestock practices and the keeping of nitrogen within soil. This debate, as he says, is not really partisan; we do not have different passions for this. We need to work carefully together, always looking at all the evidence, with improved support for research and development, which the Bill absolutely provides for. I hope that we will be able to meet the NFU’s exacting targets.
Kerry McCarthy
My concern is that other sectors have quite a clear road map for how we get to net zero, and carbon budgets that deal with that. I have never seen that for agriculture. I was quite worried that the previous Secretary of State seemed to think that the answer was all about technological solutions and weird and wonderful things, rather than in how the land is farmed. That is what is missing. Some of us have been talking about this for a very long time, but the Minister talks as if these solutions are new to the table and need to be investigated. There are a lot of good practices out there that would help. Why is there not a clear agenda or line of direction from the Government for achieving that?