Insect Population

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely. Urbanisation is a big challenge. If we do not create green corridors in our cities, insect biomass, variety and abundance will surely perish.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This is such an important issue. My hon. Friend talked about agriculture, and the growth of the agrochemicals industry is obviously a main cause. Does he agree that integrated pest management and a more agro-ecological approach to farming is the way we need to go if we are to protect our pollinators and other insects?

[Alex Sobel]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is an expert on the subject in this place. She is absolutely right. We and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs need to do more work on that.

Modern Farming and the Environment

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. It is also a pleasure to be reunited with two former colleagues on the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) and the Minister, who have both gone on to other things. We also went into battle on many occasions during the Agriculture Bill Committee, although it is fair to say that we were not always on the same page about everything. Now the Minister has taken up his post, to which I welcome him, he may have to revisit some of his views, compared with the freedom he had as a Back Bencher.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming, I support the idea of a whole-farm system based on nature-friendly farming. As a nation, we should do far more to make organic farming and agroecology mainstream, as they do in France. Organic farms have on average 50% more wildlife and 30% more species than conventional farms. We should also do more to support agroforestry; pasture-based livestock systems, which have already been mentioned; integrated pest management; and low-input mixed farming, as we look to restore ecosystem services and our long-term food security. At every opportunity, we should move away from unsustainable intensification and an over-reliance on agrochemicals.

Over the years, numerous studies have shown that farming in an environmentally beneficial way is not just good for nature, but better for business. In 2018, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board found that introducing wildflower margins around the edges of fields increased bumblebee numbers in courgette fields and boosted yields by 39%. Due to the reduced input costs required from the farmer, that provided pollination services valued at £3,400 per hectare, so just because land is taken out of production, the farmer does not necessarily lose out. At the moment, under the common agricultural policy, there is a distorting incentive to farm absolutely every inch of the field, but we will hopefully move away from that under the new public-money-for-public-goods approach.

Despite a lot of professed support for more nature-friendly farming, the reality on the ground is different. Soil degradation in England and Wales costs £1.2 billion every year, with a staggering 2.2 million tonnes of soil lost annually. In the Agriculture Bill Committee, this Minister was sceptical about that and said that the soil on his farm had never been healthier, but the then Farming Minister, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), subscribed to the view that we need to do far more to support our soil. I suggested that we need a specific public good in the Bill, but the then Farming Minister said that that was already covered by the listed public goods. Whatever our views as to the wording required in the Bill, we all need to do far more to improve soil quality.

The decline in bees has been well documented over the years, but farmland birds are another indicator. Their numbers have declined by 56% in the past 46 years and 12% of British farmland species are now threatened with extinction.

The State of Nature report 2016 identified the intensification of agriculture as having, by a huge margin, the biggest negative impact on wildlife in the UK when compared with other sources of wildlife decline. As has been mentioned already, that has partly been driven by the CAP. I hope that we do not leave the EU, either today or towards the end of the process, but I would be glad to see the back of the CAP.

To reverse the decline of species and address the serious environmental challenges facing us, farmers must be incentivised to provide environmentally beneficial outcomes. That is why I have supported the introduction in the Agriculture Bill of the new environment land management scheme, based on the principle of delivering public goods, such as adaptation to climate change, improved water quality and public access, for which no functioning market exists. This approach is overwhelmingly supported by the public. A World Wide Fund for Nature/Populus poll found that 91% of those surveyed wanted the Government to pay farmers to protect nature.

However, as has already been mentioned, farmers need funding certainty if they are to go down that path. They need certainty beyond 2022 and I support the amendment that the Chair of the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), has tabled to the Agriculture Bill—whenever that Bill reappears—because we need multi-annual funding to give farmers that certainty.

We also need a strong regulatory baseline for the farmed environment to thrive, which is something that we discussed in the Agriculture Bill Committee, and if we have those standards, they must be enforced by a new farm inspection regime.

The other issue that will have a massive impact on farming in a post-Brexit world is what trade deals we negotiate with other countries. Again, this issue has been discussed in a lot of detail in other forums, so I do not intend to dwell on it here. However, as I have said, the Chair of the EFRA Committee has tabled new clause 4 to the Agriculture Bill and I have tabled new clause 1, which is very similar; we are working together, on the same page, on this issue. We are at serious risk of exporting our environmental footprint abroad while sparking a race to the bottom in food production and safety to compete on price at home. There is no point in having all this talk about keeping our environmental standards and promoting nature-friendly farming in this country if we allow imports from other countries that are produced to much lower standards than our own produce. As Minette Batters, the National Farmers Union President, said a few weeks ago:

“Mr Gove has said that over his dead body would British standards be undermined. I don’t want it written in blood. I want it written in ink.”

We want it “in ink” in the Agriculture Bill and we want that Bill to come back sooner rather than later.

The final issue that I will mention is climate change. We have 12 years to avoid a catastrophic climate emergency, and we must openly discuss the impact of livestock on climate change and the environment more frequently in debates such as this one. It is now almost 13 years since the Food and Agriculture Organisation published its “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report, which stated that

“the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution.”

Nearly 10 years ago today—it was actually 25 March 2009—I stood here in Westminster Hall, having secured a debate on the environmental impact of the livestock sector. There was quite a good turnout, but everyone else who turned out was there basically to give me a hard time. I like to feel that I have been slightly vindicated since then, because there have been so many other highly authoritative reports—it is not just me who says they are highly authoritative; my opinion does not count for very much—that make exactly the same point, and I ask the Minister, “When will we listen on this and do something about it?”

In its 2018 progress report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change identified agriculture as one of the key priority areas for an emissions reduction programme over the next decade. Otherwise, we will not meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

Before I call Kerry McCarthy again, I remind Members that I have said that speakers should take about five minutes each, and your speech has now lasted for eight minutes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Sorry—I did not quite get that. And, yes, soil is absolutely brilliant for carbon sequestration.

I will just conclude, Mr Evans; I apologise, as I did not know that you had said Members should take five minutes. The signs that are being sent out by the Government at the moment are that they are trying to head in the right direction with the Agriculture Bill, but the need to act swiftly is imperative, and I would like to see more ambition.

Draft Environment and Wildlife (Legislative Functions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Environment and Wildlife (Legislative Functions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin.

The draft regulations are an affirmative statutory instrument on the environment, for consideration in respect of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union in accordance with the result of the 2016 referendum and subsequent agreement by Parliament. Their purpose, under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, is to provide for public authorities in the United Kingdom to exercise a series of limited legislative functions that under EU legislation are currently conferred on the European Commission.

In each case, the legislative function was conferred on the Commission so that it could sort out the technical details of a specific EU regime and adapt to changes without the frequent need to refer back to the European Council and Parliament. The powers are vital to the functioning and development of the legislation, but they are strictly limited to specific technical and administrative matters. The functions are not the kind for which, in the domestic context, we would generally require primary legislation; rather, they are suitable to be dealt with by secondary legislation, or administratively.

Examples of the functions include specifying what forms are to be used; amending technical annexes to reflect advances in scientific and technical knowledge; and updating annexes to reflect changing requirements under international agreements. A good example would be a change under the multilateral convention on international trade in endangered species, known as CITES. In 2016, at the last conference of the parties, which I had the joy of attending, we adopted a decision to change the listing status of more than 500 species of wild animals and plants. The Commission subsequently amended the basic EU CITES regulation by a 2017 regulation. After we leave the EU, the UK authorities need to be able to continue updating such technical details for domestic purposes, to ensure that the legislation keeps pace with change, including technological developments and our international commitments, without the need for primary legislation every time that a change in such matters is required.

This coming May I hope to attend the CITES conference of the parties. It is highly likely to make further technical changes to the convention, and we will need to reflect those in our national legislation within the 90 days allowed under the convention. As I have suggested, it would be difficult, if not nigh impossible, to comply through primary legislation.

Until now, Parliaments and Assemblies in the United Kingdom have had little input into how such powers are exercised. With two minor exceptions, the draft regulations provide that the legislative functions coming to the UK will be exercised through secondary legislation, which is subject to scrutiny by our Parliaments. The exercise of the functions in specified cases also requires consultation with interested parties and expert bodies—for example, regulation 9 on industrial emissions or regulation 12 on CITES.

In other cases, the principles of good public administration and the Government’s own 2018 consultation principles will ensure that relevant expert advice is sought where appropriate, and that those affected by any policy developments are properly consulted. The regimes will otherwise continue to function similarly to how they do now.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister mentioned the need for expert advice. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, however, is incredibly stretched at the moment, so what assurances will she give on sufficient expert scientific or technical input before statutory instruments are brought before the House? It is one thing to say that Parliament gets to scrutinise, but we are not experts, and experts need to be involved.

[Dr Coffey]

To use the example of CITES, such bodies will often input into consideration of changes to species to be protected in future. At the moment, Parliament gets no say on that whatever; it just gets done through international agreement, with the EU just changing it so it is there. There is an element of the different sorts of science experts that we have in the United Kingdom, but we will not necessarily need to limit ourselves to the United Kingdom alone in consideration of scientific expertise in the future. A key differential is that now Parliament will have a say on bringing such things into UK law. That is a step change from what we have today.

The draft statutory instrument makes a number of adjustments, but I assure the Committee that there is no change of policy, and there will be no impact on businesses or the public. Regulation 2 confers functions under the EU regulation on persistent organic pollutants, often known as POPs. That includes, for example, a power to amend POPs waste concentration limits, for the purpose of adapting to scientific and technical progress; and to ban, restrict or modify the use of POPs in accordance with international agreements.

Regulations 3 and 6 confer functions under the EU regulations on illegal timber and timber products. The functions include a power to recognise licensing schemes in partner countries to form the basis of licensing, and to amend the list of timber products to which the licensing scheme applies.

Regulation 4 confers functions under the EU regulation establishing a European pollutant release and transfer register. The functions include a power to take measures to initiate reporting on releases of relevant pollutants from diffuse sources where no data exist, and to adopt guidelines for the monitoring and reporting of emissions.

Regulation 5 confers functions under the EU regulation on trans-frontier shipments of waste. The functions include a power to establish and amend technical and organisational requirements for the practical implementation of electronic data interchange for the submission of documents and information.

Regulation 7 confers functions under the EU regulation on the Nagoya protocol on access to genetic resources, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits. The functions include a power to establish and amend procedures for monitoring user compliance and for recognising best practice.

Regulation 8 confers functions under the EU regulation on mercury. The functions include a power to specify the forms to be used for export and import restrictions, and to set out technical requirements for the environmentally sound interim storage of mercury, mercury compounds and mixtures of mercury.

Regulation 9 confers one legislative function contained in an EU directive. That directive relates to industrial emissions, and the power relates to determining best available techniques for preventing or minimising emissions from activities covered by the directive.

Regulations 10 and 11 confer functions under the EU regulations governing the use of leghold traps and the import of pelts and goods. The functions include a power to grant derogations from the ban on the import of pelts and other products, and to determine the appropriate forms for certification of imported goods incorporating pelts of listed species.

Regulation 12 confers functions under the EU regulation implementing CITES. The functions include a power to establish restrictions on the introduction into the UK of listed species, and to provide for derogations from certain provisions.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

Might I suggest that the hon. Lady makes a contribution to the debate so that I will be able to answer her questions fully?

I have explained that we will exercise those powers by laying statutory instruments before Parliament, which is not what happens today, as I have pointed out. For the sake of completeness, I draw the Committee’s attention to the two minor cases in which administrative procedures will be used, rather than secondary legislation. They relate to aspects of the POPs and leghold traps regimes. In the first case, the administrative function being conferred concerns the determination of the format for the provision of information by the competent authority; in the second case, it concerns the publication of model forms for use by importers. To be clear, the draft regulations concern administrative elements, rather than a change in policy.

In addition to the above measures, the draft regulations amend the retained direct EU legislation where that is necessary to make it function properly after exit. An example of such an amendment is changing references from “Community legislation” to “retained EU law”.

All the legislative functions covered by the draft regulations fall within the environment and wildlife policy areas of DEFRA. We have decided to deal with them in a single instrument that is subject to the affirmative procedure. The draft regulations allow the nine so-called “home” instruments, which would otherwise separately confer each legislative function, to be subject to the negative procedure. In each case, the conferral of legislative functions was the only element in the “home” SI that required the affirmative procedure. The structure of the regulations will allow the exercise of legislative functions by UK bodies in those areas of the environment to be considered together.

The draft regulations extend and apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. They deal with both reserved and devolved matters. In the case of reserved matters, the legislative function will be conferred on the Secretary of State to exercise on behalf of the whole UK. We have consulted extensively with the devolved Administrations about legislative functions that relate to devolved matters and, where appropriate, they have consented to our proceeding by means of the regulations. Where matters are devolved, functions are conferred on the Secretary of State and Ministers for the devolved Administrations. The default position is that each Administration will exercise a function separately. Where devolved Administrations consent on a case-by-case basis, however, the Secretary of State will be able to exercise functions on their behalf.

I point out that we are making technical amendments, in effect to allow us to continue to undertake our international obligations on such matters in a way that would not be possible if we did not have the powers. I hope that I have explained to the Committee how the European Commission does that now.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. Once again, we are discussing a statutory instrument that tries to make provision for a workable regulatory framework after Brexit in the event of our crashing out without a deal. Each time, Labour Members have spelled out our objections to the Government’s approach to secondary legislation, but I make no apology for doing so again because the volume of EU exit secondary legislation undermines accountability and proper scrutiny.

The Government claim that no policy decisions are being taken, but establishing a regulatory framework necessarily involves matters of judgment and raises questions about resourcing and capacity. The potential cumulative impact of all this secondary legislation will be immense, especially in some sectors. Because of the limited accountability that it allows, secondary legislation ought to be used only for technical, non-partisan, uncontroversial changes. Instead, the Government continue to push through contentious legislation without the opportunity for proper in-depth scrutiny. In that light, the Opposition put on record our deep concern that the processes regarding the draft regulations are not as accessible and transparent as they should be.

The draft regulations need to be seen in the context of the withdrawal agreement and the draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill. The draft Bill is not capable of maintaining current EU protections because it does not create an effective body that can make judgments binding on public bodies or Departments, or impose meaningful sanctions. The public can have no confidence in the Government’s proposed environmental watchdog if it is appointed by and reports to DEFRA. In any case, there will be an environmental governance gap from leaving the EU until the date when the proposed watchdog starts to function, even if the proposed Bill is not delayed.

It is essential not to allow Brexit to be used as an excuse to reduce or weaken our environmental protections. If we are to keep in step with any environmental improvements, the Government must ensure that the UK commits to non-regression on environmental standards with the EU, and they must give that commitment legal clout in the environment Bill.

The explanatory memorandum to the draft regulations states:

“This instrument does not make changes to substantive policy content.”

It will, however, allow UK authorities, particularly the Secretary of State, to make changes that could have a significant environmental impact. The powers of the EU Commission under the persistent organic pollutants regulation will be transferred to the Secretary of State, who will be empowered to amend the draft regulations by statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure. There is nothing in the draft regulations to prevent the present Secretary of State or any subsequent incumbent from watering down the regulation of POPs. If they did so, the negative procedure would give Parliament precious little control over their decision.

The aim of the European Parliament in passing the POPs regulation was to phase out their use as soon as possible or restrict their production and use, minimise POP releases and establish provisions regarding POP waste. The Commission currently has the power to amend POP waste concentration limits and ban or restrict their use in accordance with international agreements, but where is the provision in this SI to ensure that the Secretary of State will only tighten the regulation, or that he will do so in step with other countries? The devolved nations will have their own arrangements, which may afford more democratic control, but in England, Parliament is not taking back control of the regulation; it is passing it to the Secretary of State.

The European pollutant release and transfer register is a publicly accessible electronic database that implements a protocol of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe to facilitate public participation in environmental decision making, as well as contributing to the prevention and reduction of environmental pollution. But where is the breadth and depth of expertise available throughout Europe—let alone the resources—to inform a British version of the register? How can we possibly do anything other than take our cue from Europe on these matters, without any longer having the power to influence them? Surely the same is true of the Nagoya protocol. The Commission has the power and duty to establish and monitor the use of a register of genetic resources collections. Transferring them to the Secretary of State will take away the valuable shared knowledge and practice that we currently enjoy.

Again, with the shipment of waste regulation, the Commission has the power to establish the technical and organisational requirements for the practical implementation of electronic data interchange; to establish procedures governing the export of wastes; to maintain a correlation table to support enforcement; and to amend to reflect international agreements and changes in other EU legislation. Those functions are to be transferred to the Secretary of State, but what possible sense does it make to replicate all that activity at a national level? How much additional cost will be involved? How will the UK keep in step with any changes in EU legislation? If we do not, how will we be able to maintain our shipments of waste to EU countries for treatment? It is all very well for the Secretary of State to talk about developing our own recycling facilities, but we cannot do that for all our waste by December 2020, let alone by 29 March.

In the regulations regarding wildlife and trade, the powers to amend, for example, to add a country to the list of approved countries from which we will be allowed to import animal pelts, will transfer to the Secretary of State. However, whether he or any subsequent Secretary of State decides to stiffen or relax such regulations will be a matter for further regulation and not easily challengeable by this Parliament or anyone else.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That was going to be my question to the Minister. There is keen public interest in ensuring that we do not promote the fur trade in any way, shape or form. It is one thing to say that discussion at the European level does not have direct democratic oversight, but it is a big discussion, involving lots of countries and with a big political debate around it; if we are talking about a Committee such as this one, or perhaps the Secretary of State or an official exercising functions in an office somewhere in Whitehall, I worry that the policy agenda will move on without our realising that something we would not have accepted is happening.

[Sandy Martin]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We would much prefer provision in every single regulation to make it clear that the Secretary of State cannot relax or move backwards on any current EU regulations under a statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure. That is the major flaw of a large number of such instruments. With most of the transferred powers, the functions can be exercised by the Secretary of State without a requirement to obtain expert or technical input or the need for consultation with those likely to be affected. That is a recurring theme.

Despite the reassurances of the Secretary of State— I mean, of the Minister—sorry, an instant promotion there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I also saw that interesting announcement by the University of Manchester, which just shows the benefits of this Government having invested in the university to develop graphene. There are a number of ways in which we can try to reduce the impact of plastics, and we will continue to support water companies in their long-term plans, including on desalination.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Yet another report has been published this morning—this time in The Lancet—highlighting the damage that our food systems are doing to not only public health, with 11 million avoidable deaths, but the climate. I have been banging on about this for more than 10 years in this place. Is there any chance that the Government will ever listen to these reports?

[George Eustice]

It was a pleasure to have the hon. Lady on the Agriculture Bill Committee, where she raised some of those issues. In particular, we discussed the impact of imported soya on our environment and the steps we are taking to reduce that.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We absolutely could, including in Northern Ireland. Of course, there are restrictions on the amount of state aid that we can give, but those restrictions operate as a result of our membership of the WTO as well.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State and I were both in Oxford last week for the farming conference, and indeed we had lunch together—[Interruption.] It was a very nice lunch.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Vegan?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Well, it was vegan, but the Secretary of State had cheese.

There is definitely a consensus that no deal would be absolutely disastrous for the farming community. The Secretary of State is totally focusing on the risks of no deal, and to me that is something of a red herring. We could easily avoid no deal—it is entirely in the Prime Minister’s power to avoid no deal either by extending or revoking article 50 if we get to that cliff edge. Can the Secretary of State now talk about the deal that is being put before us for the meaningful vote and try to persuade us of the merits of that deal, rather than talking about no deal?

[Mr Speaker]

The Secretary of State might wish to describe to us his cheese selection and his salivation over it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

I was relieved to hear that the Secretary of State’s son is making an excellent recovery. I am sure that many Members were shocked when they heard about the accident.

We are here today to debate environmental protections following Brexit. We are at a critical time for the future of Britain’s environment and the Government must be ambitious when it comes to protecting our environmental standards; otherwise, we could sleepwalk into an environmental crisis. Unfortunately, the withdrawal agreement does not contain a whole lot of action or ambition. The Government should commit today to strong, enforceable and measurable targets that go even further on environmental standards. We want to see no backsliding, only progress. The onus is on the Secretary of State to get to work immediately to make good on his many promises and to deliver a better environment, post-Brexit.

Thanks to the Labour amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, Ministers have had to publish their draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill. While I welcome its publication, it falls far short of what we were led to expect. Again we have warm words with no substance to underpin them. The withdrawal agreement requires us to establish effective oversight and enforcement of environmental law. Enforcement therefore relies on having an independent and adequately resourced body or bodies to hold public authorities to account. There have been warnings that we are facing a “governance gap” for environmental protection, post Brexit. Nothing can replace the full powers now held by the EU and the European Court of Justice, but a powerful watchdog would make a real difference, so it is disappointing that the proposed office for environmental protection will lack teeth and will not be directly accountable to Parliament. It must be able to enforce the law and it must be properly resourced. We need an environmental watchdog with real power, independence and scope. The office must hold Ministers to account, not do their bidding.

The Government’s track record on the environment has been woeful. They have repeatedly failed to tackle toxic air, they have given the green light to fracking and they have pushed ahead with Heathrow expansion regardless of the environmental impacts. Labour has pressed the Government repeatedly on the need to enshrine crucial environmental principles, such as the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle, into domestic law. I am pleased that these are in the draft Bill, and I am glad that Ministers have recognised their importance, but will the Secretary of State tell us whether the principles, as drafted, are legally enforceable, and what will need to be included in the national policy statement to interpret their application? He often repeats the mantra that the Government intend to leave our environment in a better state than they found it, but we need to know how the draft Bill will deliver this, with legally binding, ambitious and measurable goals and plans.

There are serious questions as to how effective the proposed office for environmental protection will be if we accept imports with lower environmental standards. The Secretary of State is well aware that some of his colleagues are pushing ahead with plans to open us up to lower-quality imported produce. Brexit cannot be used as an excuse to allow deregulation and the undercutting of our high standards. Will he give concrete guarantees that this cannot happen? Unlike the International Trade Secretary, who has dismissed concerns about chlorinated chicken, I do not see the prospect of importing food produced to lower standards as any kind of prize. The Secretary of State needs to stand up for Britain.

[Kerry McCarthy]

On that point about ensuring that there is no lowering of standards in any post-Brexit trade deals, will my hon. Friend be supporting my new clause 1 to the Agriculture Bill and a similar amendment that the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has tabled, to make absolutely sure that we do not see a lowering of standards for food coming into this country? As we saw at the Oxford farming conference last week, farmers certainly do not want that to happen either.

[Sue Hayman]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. A number of amendments have been tabled to the Agriculture Bill and we are looking at them closely. Her new clause is important, and we are taking a close look at it. It would be useful to have a conversation with her about it at a later date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This is undoubtedly one of the most important votes that I or anyone else in the House will participate in during our parliamentary careers. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) that we should not be here. The very fact that we are where we are, having this debate 78 days before exit day, is a sign of failure. It is a sign that the people have been badly let down by the politicians to whom they look for leadership.

Brexit began as a crisis of the Conservative party’s own making. From the red meat of a referendum thrown to Eurosceptic Back Benchers to the red lines drawn up before a Tory party conference speech, for them it has never been about the interests of this country or of the people we have been sent here to represent. The whole process has been characterised by complacency and, indeed, by an astounding degree of arrogance on the part of some from whom we should have expected better. There was the casual approach to the referendum itself—a vote that was called with not a thought given to the consequences of it being lost—and article 50 was triggered when the country was clearly not ready, just so that we could show that we were “getting on with it”. Even then, as the clock started to tick down towards exit day, we were still not putting in the work and still did not have a clue as to what we wanted from our soon-to-be-former EU partners, let alone having a clue as to how we could go about getting it.

We saw Government Ministers display shocking ignorance, whenever they appeared before Select Committees, before the House or in the media, of the potential consequences of Brexit. The Secretary of State for International Trade said that a UK-EU free trade agreement would be

“one of the easiest in human history”.

The former Brexit Secretary, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), said:

“It is like threading the eye of a needle: if you have a good eye and a steady hand, it is easy enough”.—[Official Report, 7 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 233.]

I assume the right hon. Gentleman is still searching in the haystack for that oh-so-elusive needle, let alone getting round to threading it.

This idea that Britain is somehow—perhaps because of its history or the empire, or perhaps because we have always punched above our weight as a small island—subject to different rules and can do things a different way is a total fallacy. We cannot dictate terms to the European Union. We certainly cannot tell the people of Ireland what to do these days. We cannot demand trade deals entirely on our own terms. They are deals: they require agreement. That seems to me to be an absolutely fundamental, basic point that so many proponents of Brexit have entirely missed. Freedom is nothing unless we have somebody else who agrees with us and wants to go along the same path. The rest of the world is not waiting breathlessly for us to leave the EU. They are not eager to give us exactly what we want just because it is Britain asking. Any future trade deals will involve compromise and lengthy negotiations.

I have something of an obsession with the pig trotter protocol, which we discussed in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee yesterday with the International Meat Trade Association. I have this obsession partly because of its comedy value, although it is not so funny for the pigs involved. It was first talked about in 2008 and then resurrected by David Cameron after he led a huge trade mission to China. We are still trying to negotiate the sale of pigs’ trotters to China. It is a product that we do not need and that China likes, for some bizarre reason.

The fact that it has been so difficult to get a tiny deal like that in place should be a wake-up call to people as to how difficult it will be to get these fully comprehensive trade agreements with all these other countries that actually do not want exactly what we want. Australia and New Zealand have been pressing us about lamb quotas post Brexit. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that yes, he does want a race to the bottom on standards post Brexit. He does not want to agree to a deal whereby we do not allow chlorinated chicken and hormone-pumped beef into this country. That is why I tabled new clause 1 to the Agriculture Bill so that we can try to avoid that scenario.

I was one of 122 Members who voted against the triggering of article 50. That decision has been more than vindicated every day since that vote. I will vote against the Prime Minister’s deal next week and I will support a people’s vote, should the opportunity arise. It is now the only way I can see to get us out of this mess. That people’s vote would obviously have an option to remain on the ballot paper.

The promises made in 2016 are not going to be delivered, and any Brexit deal will impoverish my constituency as well as the whole UK. No deal would be a catastrophe, but I reject any attempt to use that threat to strong-arm us into supporting the Prime Minister’s deal. Article 50 could be extended or, more sensibly, revoked. Rejecting what is clearly a bad deal does not mean accepting no deal, and it is entirely within the Prime Minister’s power to take no deal off the table.

The choice before us now is not between deal and no deal. The choice is whether we accept Brexit on the terms on which we know it would happen—the terms that the Prime Minister has been able to agree with the EU—or whether, now that we know what Brexit looks like, we still want to do it. This journey began with the British people and it is only right, now that we know the facts, that they choose its final destination.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, we had a good discussion on these matters in the Bill Committee, and I look forward to discussing his amendment on Report. Our view is that the types of measure that he has outlined would probably not be right, because it is sometimes possible to recognise equivalence, and our standards do not have to be identical in drafting regulations. However, there are a number of other approaches that some countries take, including scrutiny and oversight roles for Parliaments as trade deals are discussed.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I very much support the amendment from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and I have also tabled new clause 1 on the same topic. It is estimated that by 2050, antibiotic resistance could cause up to 10 million deaths a year, and we know that 80% of the antibiotics sold in the US are sold for animal use. We heard from the chief veterinary officer yesterday at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee about what we are doing to reduce antibiotics use here. Will the Minister resist it in US imports too?

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Here in the UK, we have made huge progress in reducing the use of antibiotics. Poultry in particular has seen a 50% reduction in the use of antibiotics. US agriculture remains quite backward and some years behind in these matters, but we continue to work together to try to raise its game and approach.

Agriculture Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

My hon. Friend rightly chides me that we never bring timber into this discussion. That is, of course, as important as food and other areas, so we should be looking at an integrated approach. He is absolutely right. This is important because, unless we state in the Bill how we will approach trade, we will lose the opportunity for agriculture’s voice to be heard properly. More importantly, there are no safeguards or failsafes in place, because the Government did not listen to us on the Trade Bill.

I hope the Minister recognises that across the terrain of the farming and environmental organisations and the food lobby, security is what is wanted, in the form of a new clause that gives the certainty that we will keep to our word—that the standards of British food will be maintained and will not be subject to cheaper, poorer imports. That is why we make no apology for saying that this is a really important part of the Bill, and that we hope the Government will listen and accept what we are trying to do.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I would like to speak to my new clause 14 and to support new clauses 12 and 23.

As has been said, there is a great deal of consensus regarding support for the principle behind the motions. I was with the National Farmers Union in Gloucestershire during the mini-recess in early November, and members were adamant that all the benefits that would come from the new subsidies regime would count for nothing if they were undercut by cheaper imports that were produced to lower standards. That would mean their either somehow having to lower their own standards, which they are adamant they do not want to do—they are proud of the standards they work to—or simply going out of business. As has been said, the green groups are supportive of the measures for obvious reasons, as is anyone who is interested in food sustainability and anyone who thinks it important that we stick to the standards we have kept to for many years through our membership of the European Union.

We know there is a threat; for all the reassurances the Minister can give us about not lowering standards post Brexit, we know that many in his party are keen to see that happen. To start with, the response I was getting from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was that there would be no lowering of British standards post Brexit, which obviously leads to the suspicion that we would allow lower-standard imports. The response has now moved, very late in the day: when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the farming Minister gave evidence to the EFRA Committee last week, they were keen to say that the measure would not apply to imports. The EFRA Secretary also gave me assurances that the Secretary of State for International Trade believed that as well. Given the record of the Secretary of State for International Trade on the matter—I was in Washington last year when he hit the headlines talking about chlorinated chicken and so on—I think that he is, to coin a phrase, “intensely relaxed” about the import of lower-standard foods.

There are certainly many in the Conservative party—the global Britain Brexiteers—who are keen to see us go to a no-deal scenario and, I believe, a race to the bottom. My constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), has argued that as socialists we ought to welcome cheaper food imports because they would solve food poverty. He is also the person who said that food banks were a great thing because they show big society coming together and people helping each other. I have urged him, on a number of occasions, to cross the border into Bristol to see what food poverty actually looks like. From what I know of his constituents, I do not think they would welcome the bringing of chlorinated chicken into the country.

[Martin Whitfield]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Minister and the Secretary of State had the certainty that the minimum level was stated in the Bill, they would have some confidence and protection and the ability to say, when we come to trade agreements, “We can go no lower than this”? That certainty may help with the negotiations.

[Kerry McCarthy]

We know there will be huge pressure when the negotiations start. The US has made it clear that it wants to see its produce that is currently banned allowed into the country, and Australia and New Zealand have said something similar. The International Trade Committee has warned of the risk of an “agriculture for services trade-off” in a future deal with the US, and we know that when they get into the negotiating room that is what will happen.

During the passage of the Trade Bill, I tried to put in an amendment, and we were repeatedly told that the Bill was not about future trade deals and the scrutiny of them, despite there clearly being provisions in it that talked about such deals. When I tabled amendment 81, attempting to insert a non-regression clause into any new trade agreements, I was told that that was not the place for it, and Ministers now say that that would be outside the scope of the Agriculture Bill too—the farming Minister said that to the EFRA Committee last week. This Bill is about protecting farmers, our food standards and the fairness of the UK supply chain. This amendment is fundamental to everything the Government are trying to do to support and sustain high-quality British food, produced to high environmental food safety and animal welfare standards. I should have thought that the Minister would welcome its being enshrined in the Bill, so that the Bill matches those words.

We heard some concerns about the potential impact if we allowed American imports, for example, into this country. There are food safety issues; the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that chlorinated chicken is not about food safety standards but is just an animal welfare issue of how the animals are treated beforehand—the fact that a bucket of bleach is tipped over the chicken at the end deals with any hygiene issues. When he gave evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on 31 October, I pointed out that the incidence of food poisoning in the US is around 10 times higher than in the UK. On average, one in six people in the States will succumb to food poisoning each year, and about one in 66 in the UK. The Environment Secretary was quite taken aback by that, and said he would go away and look at that.

A total of 380 deaths each year are attributed to salmonella in the US; there were no deaths from salmonella in England and Wales between 2005 and 2015. The campylobacter infection rate in the US is more than 6,000 per 100,000 of the population. In the UK that rate is much lower, and falling. The US has an average of 1,591 cases of listeriosis a year, compared with 177 a year in England and Wales.

Unless Americans are particularly unhygienic in their homes, there is clearly a food safety issue in American food. We do not want that imported into this country. Most recent evidence published by microbiologists at Southampton University in the US journal mBio found that bacteria such as listeria and salmonella remain completely active after chlorine washing. The process merely makes it impossible to culture them in the lab, giving the false impression that chlorine washing has been effective.

It is not just the case that we do things slightly differently here, and that although the American system deals with all the hygiene issues at the end, we deal with them throughout the production chain and they have the same impact. There is a very clear difference in the produce there. The Minister said that in the US they

“turn a blind eye to what might happen on a farm, and then treat it when it gets to the abattoir.”

That is why he said it was an animal welfare issue. It is not just an animal welfare issue. Even if it was, we would not want to accept that here anyway. Colleagues of the farming Minister, such as Lord Deben, will be very interested in this issue when it comes to the House of Lords. He said recently that imports of US-standard food would lead to a huge decline in food safety.

The routine use of antibiotics on farms is contributing to the growth of antimicrobial resistance and the rise of superbugs and putting public health at serious risk. That is five times higher in the USA than in the UK. The Minister will probably say that we are making strides to reduce the routine use of antibiotics in UK farms. In America it is still much higher, and if we are forced to compete with American imports, inevitably that will lead to intensification of our farming system here. Many more animals will be crammed into mega-farms, which will mean that antibiotic use inevitably will go up because that is what it tends to be used for—as a pre-emptive measure against infection when lots of animals are crammed together.

I think we will return to this issue on Report, as there is cross-party support for that. It is not enough for the Minister to say, “We do not want a lowering of standards.” I do not cast doubt on the Minister’s credibility—I believe that he does not want that. I believe that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not want that. Unfortunately, I do not believe all his colleagues, or that there are enough safeguards to rely on warm words alone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 17—Primacy of public purposes—

“The Secretary of State must ensure the payment of public money delivers primarily the purposes in section 1(1) so that the natural environment is conserved, enhanced and managed for the benefit of present and future generations.”

This new clause is intended to ensure that the list of public purposes set out in Clause 1 are the primary objective for payments under the Bill.

New clause 19—Financial assistance: duty to provide advice—

“(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations to secure the provision of training, guidance and advice to persons receiving financial assistance under this Act, for the purpose of enabling those persons to deliver the purpose or purposes for which the financial assistance is given.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may include provision for advice on matters which include but are not limited to—

(a) the impact of any practice upon the environment,

(b) business management, including the development of business plans,

(c) the health and welfare of livestock,

(d) the safety and health of workers in any agricultural sector,

(e) innovation, including alternative methods of pest, disease and weed control,

(f) food safety, insofar as it relates to the production of food or any activity in, or in close connection with, an agri-food supply chain,

(g) the operation of any mechanism for applying for, or receiving, financial assistance under this Act,

(h) marketing of any product falling within an agricultural sector under Part 2 of Schedule 1.

(3) Regulations under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.”

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make provision for training, guidance and advice to be made available to persons receiving financial assistance.

New clause 27—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 providing—

(a) opportunities for persons to be farmers on their own account;

(b) education or experience in environmental land management practices;

(c) opportunities for increasing public access to the natural environment and understanding of sustainable farming; and

(d) 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]

New clause 16 aims to get specific targets into the Bill, to ensure that it meets its objectives in relation to the public goods for which financial assistance is provided in clause 1. Those objectives are all laudable, but verge on the vague. The new clause would include targets and objectives to ensure that air quality is safe; that our fresh waters and seas are in good ecological and environmental status; that our soils are healthy and used sustainably; that the extent, quality and connectivity of habitats is increased, and natural processes are restored; and that the richness of species is maintained, and their abundance is restored to at least favourable conservation standards on land, in fresh water, and at sea.

We know from the Climate Change Act 2008 that legal targets with identified milestones have a proven track record in delivering environmental outcomes. We could have a separate debate about whether we are doing enough to meet the targets in that Act when it comes to future carbon budgets, but that is a matter for another day. We at least have targets that set out the future programme, and also provide farmers with policy certainty and a framework for future investment. I accept that setting out such targets on the face of the Bill would be rather complicated, particularly as we are still looking at quite a lot of the detail about how to measure some of the public goods, reward farmers for meeting them, and so on. Rather, new clause 16 would impose a duty on the Government to bring forward targets and objectives as soon as possible.

During this Committee’s fifth sitting, the Minister said that the Government would do that, and again, I believe he is genuine in wanting to take this forward. He said:

“we have a 25-year environment plan. An environment Bill will come from that, which will set out targets, objectives and commitments to get trends moving in a particular direction. It will give a longer term commitment and buy-in, which successive Governments will work towards.”––[Official Report, Agriculture Public Bill Committee, 30 October 2018; c. 149.]

However, we know—it has been on the front page of the papers—that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has some differences with his colleagues in this area. In this case, those differences are not with the Secretary of State for International Trade, but with the Treasury. The Sun said that the Treasury was trying to block green targets from being enshrined in law. Perhaps when he responds the Minister can tell me whether there is any truth in that suggestion.

The Treasury certainly got its way in the Budget, with little more than tokenistic gestures on the environment. The biggest announcement, £10 million for tackling abandoned waste, seemed to be there only so that the Chancellor could set up a joke about the shadow Chancellor, who had fallen over some fly-tipping and bruised his face. In particular, despite great fanfare when the Chancellor referred in the 2017 Budget to the Government’s intention to deal with plastic pollution, and then re-announced it in the spring, that was a damp squib in this year’s Budget. The purpose of the new clause is to protect the Minister and his boss, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, from their colleagues in the Treasury. We are on the Minister’s side: we want to make sure he can deliver a green Brexit, as we believe he wants to do. We want to help him with that.

The Chancellor’s view that any new laws should be kept to a minimum does not, I believe, represent the views of many businesses. In a letter published in The Sunday Telegraph—yes, I am a Sunday Telegraph and Sun reader; I hope Conservative Back Benchers are listening—members of the Aldersgate Group, including Siemens, Marks & Spencer and IKEA, called for the Bill to set

“measurable targets to cover improvements to air and water quality, soil health, peatland restoration, net biodiversity gain and resource efficiency.”

The group said that those targets

“provide a level playing field”,

which is what everyone wants,

“incentivise investment in innovation, support job creation and help businesses develop commercial strengths in fast-growing areas of the world economy.”

As the group’s executive director says:

“Where environmental protections are ambitious, well designed and properly implemented, they can actually deliver economic as well as environmental benefits”.

We hear a lot about red tape, regulation and targets being a burden on business. I included that to show that business likes targets and certainty. Businesses like to be able to plan, and to know that the Government are on their side.

Reassurances by the Minister will not be enough; we need the promises to be enshrined in law. We know that the Environment Secretary was offered another job just a couple of days ago. I never thought I would say that I was glad that he turned it down, but for the time being I am glad that he is still in post. However, given the current chaos on the Government Benches we do not know who will be in post perhaps even in hours, let alone days, weeks and months. It is important that we enshrine it in law, so that we can protect the noble ambitions of the farming Minister and his boss.

[Dr Drew]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East and to support her in new clauses 16 and 17, which are important.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I should have said at the beginning that I will not press new clause 17 to a vote. I have had a change on that for the time being.

[Dr Drew]

It is always great to be corrected by my own side, particularly when I have just said how wonderful the new clauses are.

[Kerry McCarthy]

You told me to do that!

[Dr Drew]

Okay—left hand and right hand. I will speak to new clause 16, which was excellent, and which we fully support because it is about targets, which is largely what the group of new clauses is about.

Although we are losing new clause 17, new clause 16 is important. It tries to tie together the Bill with the environment plan, which is crucial to the Government’s way of thinking. It is about setting targets and putting meaningful arrangements in place so that we can look at where the Government’s joined-up thinking is taking us. We hope that the Government will look carefully at new clause 16. They might agree with what we are doing, but we will look at that on Report.

Again, there is universal support from farming organisations and, in particular, from the various green contributors to the Bill. They want ambitious and legally binding targets set “for nature’s recovery”. Those are not my words, but those of The Wildlife Trusts, which looks at the UN sustainable development goals. Goal two—“End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”—is highly relevant to the Bill. It is about setting ambitious targets by 2030, and indeed some by 2020, regarding the way in which we want to change agriculture across the world. If we do not do that in the UK, we will miss a real opportunity, and the Bill is the opportunity to do that.

I want to speak principally to the two new clauses in my name and in those of other hon. Friends. New clause 19 is about offering advice to those seeking to make dramatic changes to the way in which they farm or operate the land, which is important. We feel strongly about that because it is missing from the Bill. The Government have talked about land management contracts.

Agriculture Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

I will start with new clause 16, tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol East, which seeks to add some environmental targets to the Bill. We discussed this topic earlier in the Committee’s deliberations. As I said earlier, the Government have clearly demonstrated our commitment to the environment through the 25-year environment plan. We are currently in the process of developing a detailed indicator framework so that we can accurately measure progress on those important environmental trends. Obviously, we have already consulted on the key element of our agriculture policy, which is to deliver payment for the delivery of public goods, but fundamentally I see this as an issue for the forthcoming environment Bill. We will be publishing a draft of that Bill later this year, which will deal with environmental governance and environmental principles. In the second Session of this Parliament there will be an environment Bill that will include some of these things.

I will address the point that the hon. Member for Bristol East made about whether there is some division between DEFRA and the Treasury.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Before the Minister gets on to that, nearly a year ago—I think it was December last year—we were dealing with amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and there was quite a controversial amendment about animal sentience. We were told then that the amendment did not need to go in the Bill because the Government were bringing forward an animal sentience Bill. We do not have an animal sentience Bill; we had a draft one, but that all went haywire. I know that there will definitely be an environment Bill, but how can the Minister reassure us that it will deal with the issue of targets?

[George Eustice]

There will definitely be a Bill dealing with animal sentience and sentencing. As I speak, we are considering where we might be able to fit those particular provisions into future legislation.

The hon. Lady asked whether there is a division between DEFRA and the Treasury. There is not. Within Government there are discussions, obviously, and then there is a consensus and an agreement. She kindly offered to protect the Secretary of State through the proposed new clause, but I can assure her that the Secretary of State needs no protecting; he is very good at making his case within Government. We already have some statutory targets through international agreements in areas such as climate change, but we believe that environmental targets and objectives should be picked up through the 25-year environment plan—there were some objectives in that plan—and are fundamentally a matter for the environment Bill. I am sure that she will be very engaged in discussions about that Bill when it comes forward.

I turn to new clause 19, tabled by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud, which concerns the importance of advice and guidance. The Government agree with him about the importance of advice and guidance, particularly as we roll out a new scheme, but clause 1 is absolutely clear that we can already pay for advice and guidance. Subsection (1) of that clause states:

“The Secretary of State may give financial assistance for or in connection with any of the following”.

The term “in connection with” enables us to make financial assistance available to support advice, and I want to spend a little bit of time explaining what the Government intend to do in this area.

As I touched on during an earlier debate on other clauses, we envision the new environmental land management scheme as effectively a covenant or contract between individual farmers and the Government. We intend to support a system in which farmers would be able to receive advice on the design of an environmental land management contract. That advice might come from an agronomist accredited by a UCAS Government scheme or from one of our employees from Natural England, or a third-party organisation like the Wildlife Trust might develop a cohort of people who could provide that advice. Having worked with the farmer, visited the farm, walked to the farm and not got too obsessed by maps, form-filling and all the rest of it, they can sit around the table with the farmer, help them put together the agreement, and then sign it off with the presumption that it will be supported and paid for.

We want to get back to a system in which there is much more human interaction, and in which trusted agronomists, trusted advisers who are accredited by the Government, and Government officers from agencies such as Natural England work directly with farmers. We do not want everyone to get bogged down in paperwork, form-filling, mapping and having to spend hours on a helpline, only to find that nobody can help them with their query. We have got a great opportunity to redesign the system.

The hon. Member for Stroud said that, as this is a new scheme, there will potentially be challenges in getting farmers used to it. I understand his point, but until a couple of years ago about 70% of farmers were in either an entry-level stewardship or a higher-level stewardship scheme, so by and large they are very familiar with these types of agri-environment schemes. They have run similar schemes previously, so I think they will be able to pick up these schemes and adapt to them.

The other thing we are doing is having a seven-year transition in which we gradually wind down the single farm payment. During that time we will be piloting the new system. That gives us plenty of time to familiarise farmers with the new system, and to perfect the system, so that when we roll it out fully we do not have problems along the way, and to ensure that we have the capacity to give advice in the area to which the hon. Gentleman alludes.

The other point I want to address is about the holistic advice to farmers. We have been looking at projects run by a number of organisations, including the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which gives a lot of technical advice and has a network of what it calls monitor farms so that it can share good practice and knowledge transfer, and the Prince’s Countryside Fund, which runs very good peer-to-peer support groups to help farmers with their business management and help them address change. It has had some success with that. We are keen to learn from that as we roll out support for farmers. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, farming can be a very lonely business. I grew up in a farming community, so I am familiar with the issues. There has always been the great tragedy of high levels of suicide in agriculture—usually about 50 a year. That figure has been fairly constant for a number of decades. We want to ensure that, as we go through this period of change, we give farmers all the support we can to help them adjust and move to a new system.

New clause 27 is all about county farms, about which the hon. Member for Stroud and I share a passion. This is the first time today I have been able to mention the 1947 Act. As he is aware, sections 47 onwards and part 4 of the Act established county farms and the right of local authorities to buy them. The new clause looks familiar because, although we often say that this is the first Agriculture Bill since 1947, that is not quite true. It is the first major Agriculture Bill since 1947, but of course there was the Agriculture Act 1970, which rolled forward some of the provisions from the 1947 Act and changed others. It created the requirement for local authorities to submit a plan to the Department and seek our agreement for any consolidation and reorganisation. That was a time-limited power, and I understand that new clause 27 is effectively attempting to replicate it. Earlier this year we laid before Parliament—I have to sign these off every year—the 67th annual smallholdings report, under section 5 of the 1970 Act, so there are still some requirements under that Act.

I want to explain what we intend to do about county farms. My view is that we should create a financial incentive for local authorities to invest in and commit to their county farms in the long term. The idea that I have in mind is to create, under clause 1(2), a fund for investment in county farms that is open to local authorities, subject to their submitting to us a clear plan demonstrating their long-term commitment to their county farm estate. I would like to see more emphasis placed on turning county farms into what might be called incubator holdings, to genuinely support new entrants. At the moment the problem is that once people get on to a county farm, they often get stuck there for 20 or 30 years and do not have the ability to progress.

Our idea is to look at what we can learn from other parts of the economy where there are, for instance, innovation centres offering mentoring for setting up new businesses; where the local enterprise partnership might be involved, working with the local authority to draw down additional funding; where it might be made a requirement for local authorities to have partnership agreements with private estates, so that they have farms to move farmers on to after five years; and where we might also support the development of peri-urban farms on other parts of local authority land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

Again, I make the point that we have limited opportunity to consider legislative change. As far as I know, the hon. Member for Crawley is hardly some animal rights activist who has been out on demonstrations to demand that this practice ends. He is a Conservative MP whose constituents have no doubt written to him saying that it is not something that they wish to condone.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I know where the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire is trying to come from. The fact is that we have already banned production in this country. All we are talking about is banning imports. We are not moving on to new radical territory. We are just trying to achieve a degree of consistency.

[Dr Drew]

That is the summation of the case. It is not something that we would say was anything other than a level playing field. Yes, we are stopping certain well-known establishments from selling foie gras.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

The Government have a policy on the issue as well. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, in our manifesto we committed to control the export of live animals for slaughter. I will describe in a moment what we intend to do and what work we have already done.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I do not understand why there is a difference between banning live exports for slaughter and not for fattening. Surely it is the journey—the live export—that is deemed to be unacceptable. Does it really matter whether the animals are going to be killed at the end of it or given a few more meals before they are slaughtered?

[George Eustice]

I do not accept that. The hon. Lady has fallen into a counter-argument against the ban on live animals, which is that if you have the transport regulations right, or if you improve them, there is not necessarily a difference between a crossing by sea and a crossing by road. The reason why it particularly matters for slaughter is that we have the very clear principle that when you are moving animals for slaughter you should absolutely minimise the stress on those animals. It can be a stressful environment as it is, and having a long journey before slaughter is fundamentally different to transport for rearing.

Our position is that we want to control export for slaughter. We subsequently issued a call for evidence. We worked with the devolved Administrations on this because it obviously affects Northern Ireland and has implications for Scotland. Scotland exports live calves to Ireland, for instance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon pointed out, there are also issues with some island communities, such as Shetland.

Agriculture Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

The report will not have commenced by December. Obviously the report will cover December. Absolutely, there are obligations under the CBD and where policies we have in this document help us to deliver some of our objectives under some of these international conventions—there are many different ones that are not listed here, such as the Bern convention and others—we would be able to reflect it.

Under the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which is also cited in subsection (1)(e), the UK is obliged to report every five years on how the rights outlined in ICESCR are being implemented. The next report to the UN is expected in 2021.

Under the UN sustainable development goals, progress is demonstrated via the single departmental plan process. There are departmental annual reports and accounts, and data that is reported by the Office for National Statistics.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I was waiting for the Minister to get on to the sustainable development goals, because that is where his response is weakest. There is not a clear mechanism. When the Environmental Audit Committee took evidence the other week on the progress being made on the goal to end hunger, we asked four Ministers from four different Departments whose responsibility it was in Government to deliver on that goal, and they all looked completely blank and turned to each other. We need a proper mechanism to report on what we are doing on the SDGs. It is not enough to say that it is buried in the detail of departmental plans.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady makes a legitimate point. That is one example where there is not a requirement within the convention or commitment to publish, but we pick up those obligations through the departmental plans.

The other area that we do not currently have a specific provision for is the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. I can tell the hon. Member for Stroud that the Fisheries Bill commits us in clause 1—I will not go too far down this point, because it is a separate Bill, which we have to look forward to—to a whole set of sustainability objectives and a joint fisheries statement to outline how we will deliver those objectives. The environmental objectives under UNCLOS will be picked up through the provisions in the forthcoming Fisheries Bill.

I hope that I have been able to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we take these conventions seriously, that we already have a multitude of requirements to report through articles within the conventions themselves and, therefore, that the new clause is unnecessary.

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

Requirement must specify purposes for which information may be processed

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 113, in clause 14, page 9, line 45, at end insert—

(ia) achieve a reduction in food waste of no less than 50 per cent by 2030, from a 2015 baseline”

This amendment would require the provision of transparent data of food wasted in agri-food supply chains to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 12.3) of halving per capita food waste from farm to fork by 2030, against 2015 baselines.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 114, in clause 14, page 10, line 5, at end insert “(including terms of employment and pay for persons within the meaning of section 13(3)(b) or (c))”

Amendment 116, in clause 14, page 10, line 7, at end insert—

“(ca) promoting the welfare of creatures of a kind kept for the production of food, drink, fibres or leathers”

This amendment would ensure there is provision in clause 14 for the processing of data for the promotion of animal welfare.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Amendment 113 revisits the issue of food waste, which we discussed last week. I declare that I am chair of the all-party group on food waste. We submitted a response to the “Health and Harmony” consultation paper, along with organisations involved in food waste campaigning—This is Rubbish and Feedback. I am pleased to see that the Government have made some progress recently, particularly in the food waste reduction road map, but their approach still seems to be based on voluntary action. It is important that we see something more specific that binds the Government to future action.

There are powers in the Bill that could be used to require those in the agri-food supply chain to supply information on waste in the supply chain. The explanatory notes state that clause 14(4)(f)

“allows data to be collected for minimising waste from agri-food supply chains, which may include food waste”.

Mandatory food waste audits are crucial if we are to get any idea of the scale of the food waste problem and who is responsible for where it occurs in the supply chain. We said last week that too often there is a focus on the consumer end, and I am keen to ensure that it is not just the farmers who are blamed for this. Many of the problems are caused by what happens in the middle—the pressures that supermarkets and food manufacturers put on farmers, and the way that products are marketed and sold to consumers .

[Sandy Martin]

We had a debate yesterday about plastic packaging. One of the barriers to the reduction of plastic packaging in supermarkets is that they are very reluctant to let anybody know exactly what is happening. If we are going to reduce food waste, we need to make sure that supermarkets give that information.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is true. Some supermarkets have been a lot better than others. Tesco has taken quite significant steps in auditing the waste in its supply chain; others have only paid lip service. One of the problems with the way that the Courtauld commitment works is that everyone is bundled in together and they report in aggregate, so we do not know who is making progress and who is not. We are also committed to meeting sustainable development goal 12.3, and I believe we should make that a binding statutory target, which must be done in legislation.

[Mr Goodwill]

Obviously, crop yields vary according to the season and often farmers need to grow plenty to ensure that they can supply their contracts. Would the hon. Lady define stock feed potatoes or carrots used to feed livestock as waste, or would that be exempted from her definition?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Let us be clear: this is a discussion we have had in part about whether, if certain produce is ploughed back into the field, it should count as waste. This is not about pointing the finger at farmers and blaming them for what happens on their farms; it is about trying to ensure that the data is there, so that we can see what processes are needed to reduce avoidable waste. In the food waste hierarchy, the aim is to ensure that any food produced that is fit for human consumption is consumed by humans, and then, working our way down the hierarchy, by livestock, and then used in processes such as anaerobic digestion. At the bottom of the hierarchy is landfill—an absolute no-no, I would say.

Although there is a legal obligation for that food waste hierarchy to be enforced, we know that it is not and there are no consequences if people do not follow it. One of the reasons it is not enforced is that we do not have the data on where food waste is occurring. I say clearly that this is not about blaming farmers for anything; it is about trying to reward farmers for doing the right thing. We need the information to be available.

[Mr Goodwill]

May I press the hon. Lady further? On our farm, we used to grow swedes, which by and large were for livestock, but we would harvest and net up one in 10 or one in 20 for human consumption. It would be hard for any farmer to collect data on her description of food that is fit for human consumption but then finds its way into the animal food chain.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am trying to get at where the policies of the supermarkets and the buyers lead to food waste on farms. We are talking about when food is produced and supermarkets reject the produce—sometimes on spurious cosmetic grounds, but usually because of poor predictions of when they will need it. Perhaps it is a bad summer and the supermarkets are not selling as many salads or other summertime foods as they otherwise would. That is what we are trying to get to the bottom of.

This is not about farmers choosing to do certain things with their produce; it is about trying to get to the bottom of the unfair relationship. We have the Groceries Code Adjudicator, but although there are measures in the Bill to strengthen that role, they still do not go anywhere near far enough. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has said that she does not believe she needs any more powers, whereas I know that farmers and a significant number of people throughout the supply chain are crying out for that relationship to be made fairer and be more firmly enforced.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that the data is not with the farmers, but with the supermarkets through the buyers’ decisions on what they take and what they reject? Surely we cannot expect the farmers to differentiate the uses made of their crops?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Yes, that is entirely the case. This is about the food supply chain. If we are only to look at our food system in relation to farming and treat that as something segregated, we cannot help farmers in the way they need to be helped.

[Mr Dunne]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying; perhaps I could illustrate to her, with a current example from my farm, the difficulty with what I think she is suggesting. We have a potato crop, and the very dry conditions through the summer, followed by some rain in August, have led to a large proportion of the potatoes in unirrigated fields developing what are called “dolly heads”, where there is an extra spurt of growth, and the potato, instead of being a single shape, has a misshapen bit alongside.

To get buyers to accept loads that contain those shapes, we have to send samples off to them. They decide whether to accept or reject them; sometimes, we send the entire load off and it is rejected on sight and sent back to the farm—we cannot anticipate precisely how the supermarket or intermediary will react until they see the load. What is being suggested can lead to extreme complication for the farmer in deciding what should happen to the particular product. What happened to the product is not their fault, but is to do with the climatic conditions.

[Kerry McCarthy]

There is certainly evidence that, whereas under the Groceries Code Adjudicator regime produce should not be rejected because supermarket buyers have just decided they do not actually need what they are contracted to buy, they are increasingly using cosmetic reasons as an excuse, because they are still allowed to reject on cosmetic grounds. A crop of potatoes in one period might be entirely acceptable to the supermarkets because they need those potatoes, but then, on cosmetic grounds, they will reject produce that looks almost identical, because they have got their predictions wrong and do not actually need the potatoes they thought they would. Sometimes this produce is not going to be sold as nicely smooth and rounded baking potatoes packaged up in the supermarket; it will be going into products where the shape does not matter, but the supermarkets have got their predictions and buying calculations wrong and do not actually want it, so they use cosmetic reasons as an excuse.

The memorandum on the delegated powers in the Bill says that clause 20 provides powers for new marketing standards that could be used to

“reduce food waste (for example, by having the flexibility to change any standards that are purely visual)”.

That picks up the contention about EU marketing specifications being responsible for some produce being rejected. As I understand it, the supermarket standards are actually much higher than the EU marketing standards, so the fault does not lie with EU standards; the issue might be supermarkets trying to employ them as an excuse. I think that having more flexibility in relation to marketing standards is unlikely to make a difference, and I hope that the Minister addresses that point.

My key point is this. When we discussed amendment 85, I think, the Minister said we should not make farmers responsible for meeting the food waste target, as most of the time they are not responsible for food waste, and I absolutely agree. That is why the mandatory target should sit in this part of the Bill, where we are talking about the supply chain.

I have said that the Courtauld 2025 commitment is a helpful tool, but it is not ambitious enough. The fact that participation is voluntary means that it will never achieve as much as we would like and will certainly not get us towards the sustainable development goal. However, when Courtauld 2025 was announced, the Waste and Resources Action Programme was meant to be generating a baseline for primary production by the end of 2018. Can the Minister update us on that? My understanding is that it might now be only an estimate rather than a set figure. The fact that there have been funding cuts to WRAP and the industry is still being secretive with its data means that we cannot come up with the baseline that we would like to see.

Finally on amendment 113, I just reiterate the point that we want to see a level playing field. At the moment, 89 businesses have signed up to the food waste reduction roadmap, but that is fewer than half of the top 250 food businesses. Again, the good guys will sign up and get a lot of credit, and then the Government can say, “This is really working. We’ve got companies that are doing their best to reduce food waste.” But what about those companies that have not signed up? I will leave the food waste side of things there.

Amendment 114 is a probing amendment to follow up on a debate that I had a few weeks ago, on international Anti-Slavery Day, about modern slavery and labour exploitation in supermarket supply chains. We know that the sector has a really serious problem with that. The International Labour Organisation estimates that agriculture, if grouped with forestry and fishing, is the sector with the fourth highest proportion of victims of forced labour worldwide. Other sectors, such as apparel—the fashion or clothing industry—seem to be getting to grips with the problem, but the food sector does not appear to be. I mentioned many examples during that debate, so I will not go into detail now, but they ranged from organised crime in the Italian tomato-growing sector to workers in the Thai seafood industry—cases of torture, enslavement and workers being kept at sea and passed from ship to ship for years at a time, with 59% of workers, I think, saying that they had seen the murder of a fellow worker. In this country, we still very much have an issue with gangmasters and poor conditions in the sector.

Oxfam has sent up the Behind the Barcodes scorecard, which rates supermarkets on their transparency, accountability and treatment of workers and farmers. There is also a gender element, because women tend to be more likely to be victims. On that scorecard, Tesco again comes out best—at 23%. It did actually come along to a meeting of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern slavery, which I thought was good. It listened to the clothing industry talk about what it had done, and it seemed keen to do more. So Tesco was on 23%. Morrisons and Lidl are on 5%, and Aldi is on 1%, so we have a discrepancy between the supermarkets trying to do the right thing and others not taking it seriously at all.

[Sandy Martin]

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that, when supermarkets or anyone else involved in the agri-food supply chain do not want to give information that would enable some of the problems to be dealt with, they can hide behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality? Amendments 114 and 113 would enable the Secretary of State and people engaged in the purposes of the Bill to overcome the commercial confidentiality blanket used by some.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Supply chains can be so opaque and so long. I am very much in favour of shorter supply chains so that we know where the produce comes from. Again, as I mentioned in the debate in the Chamber, when the horsemeat scandal broke and we were discussing lasagne that might contain horsemeat, it was astonishing to discover that it had been on an around-Europe trip to at least a dozen different countries—perhaps more—before it ended up as a finished 99p lasagne in the frozen food section of a supermarket. It is amazing how something so cheap can be produced by going on that journey. Some products have dozens and dozens of ingredients, and it becomes almost impossible to trace the origin of those ingredients. I am all in favour of shorter supply chains and less-processed food.

The key point with both amendments, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, is that it is all well and good for the Government to put transparency provisions in the Bill, but we would like to know a bit more about how they intend to use them to ensure that we root out not only food waste but labour exploitation in supply chains. The information I was given—in a new briefing from the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and the University of Nottingham—is that only 19% of companies in the agriculture sector abide by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act 2016. It is not enough to say that we already have the legislation when fewer than only one in five adheres to it. We need a wider definition of supply chain liabilities, so that participants in that supply chain cannot feign ignorance or rely on real ignorance. The companies are huge, and they need to know what is going on in their supply chain.

I also want to ask the Minister about the EU’s unfair trading practices directive and how we will seek to replicate that in the UK supply chain. We have been told that the UK supports the broad aim of the directive but that we want to do our own thing. I am interested to know how that will relate to the supply chain provisions in the Bill.

[Dr Drew]

I thank my hon. Friend for this group of amendments, which are important in terms of both food waste and how our food chain operates. This is the Agriculture Bill, rather than a waste Bill, but it is appropriate for us to look to amend and improve it. I strongly concur with what amendment 114 is trying to do. We clearly welcome the reintroduction of an Agricultural Wages Board. We always thought it was a real loss when the coalition Government got rid of it. There are reasons why it is difficult to attract people into the agriculture sector, including the employment limitations caused by that change, so we would always concentrate on reintroducing that body.

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[George Eustice]

We have had an interesting discussion on a range of issues in this collection of amendments. I want to touch on each in turn.

First, I turn to amendment 113 in the name of the hon. Member for Bristol East. The amendment attempts to insert an additional paragraph in clause 14, adding to the list of purposes for which information can be collected, to cover a target for food waste. I think this may be a probing amendment; we had a discussion of a similar nature last week.

Food waste is incredibly important and the Government recognise that, which is why later this year we are going to publish a new waste and resources strategy that will cover the issue. As I explained in a debate on an earlier amendment, WRAP is doing a piece of work at the moment looking at waste in the primary sector. Between 2007 and 2015 we have seen a 19% reduction per capita in the amount of food that is being thrown away that could have been eaten. As the hon. Lady pointed out, the quartal 2025 commitment is a commitment for a further 20% per capita reduction by 2025. There are ambitious targets already set through quartals, and we are working with WRAP, which is a DEFRA-supported agency, to deliver that objective.

In terms of the specific amendment, I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to clause 14(4)(f), which states a purpose as

“minimising waste arising from activities connected with agri-food supply chains.”

My contention would be that we already have a clear purpose stated in the clause, which enables us to collect information. It is about minimising waste arising from activities. I think her amendment is unnecessary because it duplicates what we have already provided for in clause 14(4)(f).

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have given my notes to Hansard now, but I think I am right in saying that the clause I cited says that it could be used for that purpose. I am trying to make sure that it is used for that purpose.

[George Eustice]

It is a point that we have often heard here, about the powers or the duties. We have set out our commitments and our targets, such as through the quartal 2025 and our waste and resources strategy, and we have the power here to do what is necessary to collect data, so that we can minimise risk in the supply chain. It is there, listed with all the other purposes, so I believe that the hon. Lady’s amendment is unnecessary. It is an inappropriate place to introduce a target. We can have a debate about targets and whether there should be targets of this nature in a future environment Bill, for example, or whether we should continue to work with the quartal commitments. As I said, they have already made solid progress. This particular clause is about the collection of information and I do not think it is the appropriate place to set a target in the way that the hon. Lady has outlined.

I turn to amendment 114, also in the hon. Lady’s name. Again, it links to an earlier discussion we had about the Agricultural Wages Board, which was removed. Fairness of employment contracts is an important issue, but it is dealt with in other ways. We have the national living wage, introduced by this Government. It is currently £7.83 per hour for over-25s and in April next year it is due to rise to £8.21 per hour. The regulations are already set out and are enforced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which enforces all the national minimum wage legislation. In addition, we have the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, which deals with some of the practices that I know the hon. Lady is concerned about, such as modern slavery and abuse in the labour market. We have the GLAA already, which has powers to tackle and investigate that issue.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman has strong views on this. We debated this at an earlier stage of the Committee. Our view is that the Agricultural Wages Board became redundant, first with the introduction of the national minimum wage and then, more importantly, the introduction by this Government of the national living wage, which provides new protections, so the Agricultural Wages Board was no longer required.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I appreciate that there are problems with enforcement of the living wage, such as people trying to get around it by offering accommodation at extortionate rates. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority—I have looked at the figures for prosecutions—could do more. I am not so concerned about what is happening in this country as about the supply chain. None of the measures the Minister talks about make any difference to rooting out exploitation and modern slavery in the supply chain. We import millions of pounds’-worth of seafood from the Thai sector, which we know is rife with slavery and exploitation. They come into our supermarkets and are sold on our shelves. The legislation the Minister talks about does not help us deal with that, which is why we need transparency, and to put an obligation on the supermarkets and food processors, to know what is going on and who is doing what. If we have cheap food on our shelves it is cheap for a reason, and I think the Government have an obligation to find out why.

[George Eustice]

I understand that point, but there is obviously a limit to what we can deliver internationally. We have international forums through which we argue for such issues to be addressed.

Coming back to this particular clause, which links to another point that the hon. Lady raised about unfair trading practices in the EU dossier currently under discussion, the purpose of this part of the Bill around collection and sharing of data, and this requirement in clause 14 for people to provide information, is linked to unfair trading practices. The purpose of subsection (4)(b) is to promote transparency and fairness around the price of goods, and it is about the terms and conditions that individual purchasers or processors might have for farmers. The purpose is to improve fairness for producers, so that they have better transparency and can make more informed choices about who they sell their goods to.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

It is because we have taken quite a large power to require the disclosure of information and we think it is important that we give people clarity and certainty about the purposes for which that will be used. Animal welfare is an incredibly important issue, which is why it is addressed in many other parts of the Bill—not least in clause 1, where it belongs.

To come to the hon. Gentleman’s point, if we were to have, for instance, a scheme requiring labelling on method of production, that could be done under other legislation. We already have the Food Safety Act 1990, for instance, which provides powers regarding labelling of food. There are other powers in other pieces of legislation that would enable labelling to be addressed. We do not believe that it is required in this clause of the Bill.

We have a joint passion about the importance of animal welfare, so I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Gentleman that it is addressed elsewhere in the Bill, and that it would not be appropriate to include it in this clause, for the reasons I have explained. I hope that, on that basis, he and the hon. Member for Bristol East will withdraw the amendment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My amendment was a probing one, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 15 and 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17

Declaration relating to exceptional market conditions

[Dr Drew]

I beg to move amendment 46, in clause 17, page 12, line 35, leave out “may” and insert “must”.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make and publish a declaration if the Secretary of State considers that there are exceptional market conditions in accordance with Clause 17.