Exiting the European Union (Pesticides)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the most controversial of the four SIs that we have dealt with today, and we had a forthright debate on this subject previously in Committee. Much of that debate was about the theme I have been pushing today—that is, questioning the process of oversight and accountability.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Pesticides Action Network have both contacted me to demand that the Opposition scrutinise what the Government are saying and doing, so it was at our behest that this instrument was moved from the negative to the affirmative resolution procedure. In fact, we were tempted to vote against it on the basis that the Government need to explain better and to be clearer about how they intend to carry through—not just legislatively, but practically.

As I said earlier, this is about dissecting the parts that we have played as an integrated constituent partner within the EU, and how we begin to pull away. Two of our major agencies—the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive—will be involved in this process. The HSE will almost certainly be responsible for testing the measures. It is therefore important that we know from the Government what they intend to do and how they intend to do it.

The RSPB and the Pesticides Action Network made six points. First, there is the loss of oversight checks and balances for a significant consolidation of power within an agency that, as such, does not exist at the moment. That is why I referred to the FSA and the HSE, because they are certainly going to have to be responsible for this in the short run. Secondly, there is the weakening of the requirement to obtain independent scientific advice that I referred to previously. Thirdly, there is the weakening of other standards. Fourthly, there are the important parts of the regime left unclear or with detail to be filled in through guidelines. I accept that this debate is partly about trying to clarify further where we might be in terms of those guidelines, but it is not yet absolutely clear what is going to happen. Fifthly, there is the loss of capacity and the lack of investment in the stand-alone regime. Again, I keep referring to that. Finally, as I have said and they confirm, there are the mistakes that were made in drafting these SIs on a previous occasion.

In the previous debate, the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), gave me some assurances. However, this is a work in progress and not necessarily something that has yet been completely nailed down by the Government. It is really becoming very important. I am still not clear what has happened to the REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—directive, for example. This will be a very major part of what the REACH directive, as constituted when it comes into UK law, then entails, because pesticides, or plant protection products as they are properly referred to, will be an important part of what it is properly accountable for. I would welcome the Minister saying something about that. The chemicals division of the HSE has 150 people because it is largely operating within the framework of the EU. It will not be doing that after 31 October, so it will be important to know exactly how this is going to be constituted in a different format, given that we still do not have the environment Bill enacted.

There are other concerns that are important at this stage, to reiterate what I said in Committee, cost being one of them. The Minister has presumably looked at who is going to pay for this, because it will potentially be more expensive when we have a stand-alone regime.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns. One of my concerns is that the Government may seek to recoup some of these costs, or to make savings, through the weakened requirement to obtain independent scientific advice. As I understand it, the measure now says:

“The assessing competent authority may obtain independent scientific advice where it considers it appropriate to do so.”

That is quite a bit weaker than the current requirement where it says that it “shall” obtain advice. That may be one way in which the Government would seek to save money.

[Dr Drew]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is one of the things we waxed lyrical about in the previous incarnation of this debate where we looked at “may” replacing “shall” and “must”. That gives—dare I say it?—a degree of wriggle room about how this is going to operate. This really does need sorting out by the Government because it will be too late if we get to this stage in a month’s time and it is not at all clear what is going to happen. This matters, because farmers need clarity.

I read today the report on the ban on neonicotinoids. I do not pretend to understand everything in it, because I read it quickly, but it was quite interesting. It looks at some of the scare stories put about that neonicotinoids would lead to a dramatic reduction in sugar beet and other products, whereas that does not seem to have been the case initially. We need to know what pesticides will be allowed and who will scientifically adjudicate on their safety. Will we have a different regime? We could choose to ban glyphosates, which the EU decided not to do, largely at the instigation of British MEPs. That matters to not only farmers but every gardener, because most of us have Roundup in our sheds and, if we are ever going to dispose of it as a potentially hazardous product, we will have to think about how to do it.

These debates are crucial, and this one has a more far-reaching impact than any, so we have to ensure that we get this right. It would be interesting to know from the Minister whether this is the final time we will consider this; what mechanism is now in place, whether it be the HSE working with the FSA or, eventually, the office for environmental protection, which presumably will encompass those two agencies when it comes to these products; and the detail of how we are changing the process of looking at the scientific basis of how we deal with these products, which are potentially quite hazardous but which farmers would argue are crucial to the way they carry out their business.

Agriculture Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

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.

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[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)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

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

[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.

Agriculture Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[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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[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.

Agriculture Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

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

[Dr Drew]

I agree. Perhaps we just know a lot more about allergens nowadays and people are more willing to be overt in coming forward to say what should happen. This is a simple amendment that gives the Government the opportunity. The Government, through the Minister, may want to say there is a different way of doing it, but here we have an Agriculture Bill that is about food production.

I will be interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East has to say about her new clause, but clause 20 is a place where we could put a measure that will be immensely important to people who have allergies, so they know that they are being protected. We have various assurances from the Food Standards Agency that it is able to pursue cases; it is just not able to pursue cases because of the gap in the law, which should lead to criminal proceedings when someone been wilfully negligent.

Again, we are having to learn. In a post-Brexit situation—if we get to that situation—the British Government must have fool-proof security in how they deal with food standards and food safety. Given the a huge call on the Government to do this, I hope they will respond positively. If the Government will not remedy the problem at this stage, it would be interesting to know when they will act. Having stated that they intend to address a legislative gap, they are obliged to do so. Clearly, we cannot do this via a specific bit of legislation because we are waiting for Godot. You have to grab the opportunity when it comes around.

I hope the Minister will consider amendment 118 to be helpful. It will save lives, while also telling people who have lesser conditions but who want to know, if they are allergic to nuts or whatever, that a product has been properly labelled. If food is not properly labelled, the law should take its full effect.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I endorse what my hon. Friend says about amendment 118. There are so many calls now for better labelling of food and more information that we run the risk of getting to the point where the information is in such tiny print that it becomes meaningless, particularly for people who, like me, have reached the age where their eyesight is not as good as it used to be. It is important that consumers get as much information as possible.

New clause 15 would strengthen the Bill by requiring the Secretary of State to make labelling regulations that require meat, milk, dairy and egg products, including those that have been produced intensively, to be labelled as to farming methods. Eggs are not included in the legislation because they are already labelled. Surveys show that eight out of 10 consumers in the UK would like to know how farm animals are reared.

The Government have a role to play in ensuring higher animal welfare. We talked about that in the context of public money for public goods and the definition of higher animal welfare that will come out in 2020, and on that basis farmers will be rewarded, but the market also has a role to play. Consumers only shop around for the higher welfare products if they know what higher welfare is and is not. That includes how meat and dairy products are being reared.

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[Dr Drew]

We are making some progress. I blame the hon. Member for North Dorset; he has been holding us up, but now that he has gone we are racing through. These are quite important amendments. I will not labour the point on “must” and “may”—I think the Minister will be keen on that—but I do want to talk particularly about amendments 93 to 95, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East also has amendment 111 in this group, so we will take a little bit of time going through this, because it is quite important.

Amendments 93 to 95 would remove the requirement restricting new statutory codes to first purchasers at the farm gate, addressing unfair dealings along the whole supply chain—beyond first purchasers—to ensure that that regulation applies to all stages of the supply chain not currently covered by the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I must say that we feel the Bill has been somewhat hurried here. We have made the point of who we did not hear evidence from, one of whom was the Groceries Code Adjudicator, whose powers we feel very strongly have been somewhat hamstrung by the Bill. We either value the Groceries Code Adjudicator’s work or we see it as fairly irrelevant.

This matters because it has been a bone of contention that producers can only ever take action through the Groceries Code Adjudicator relating to certain parts of the food chain, principally improprieties at the retail stage. I understand that the farming organisations have always wanted to extend those powers—powers, not duties—so that they can take action against intermediaries in the food chain. This is important, and we want clarity on this at the very least.

There is this thing about whether they are able to derive evidence of harm. The Government have noted that smaller suppliers—including the majority of farmers— growing our food, both in the UK and overseas, are vulnerable to abusive treatment by their buyers; that is why we have a Groceries Code Adjudicator in the first place. That behaviour can involve: paying invoices late, which is the classic one; changing orders at the last minute; cancelling orders, because we all have examples in our constituencies of particular producers feeling that they have been hung out to dry by the way in which certain buyers are able to manipulate the market; and charging suppliers unexplained fees to keep their food on the shelves.

We know that food supply chains are complex, with behaviour in one part of the chain obviously having an impact in another. Again, we want clarity here, because we think that this part of the Bill could be improved; we are trying to help the Government, not damn them. Limiting the clause’s focus to the relationship between a farmer and their immediate buyer sadly misses out what happens in the intermediary parts of the food chain. It will be interesting to know whether the Government see this as a role for the Groceries Code Adjudicator, or whether they are unhappy about it.

There was widespread support for putting the Groceries Code Adjudicator in place; it was a cross-party arrangement. It took longer than some of us would have liked, given that we started talking about it when I was last a Member, but eventually it came to fruition. The sad thing is that there is still a belief that the Groceries Code Adjudicator’s powers are too limited and that it is too constrained in where it might want to intervene to right wrongs. On these three amendments, we are asking the Government at least to be clear about what they see as the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator in relation to the Bill.

At the crux of this are the circumstances in which the body might need to appropriate precise costs and take a more forensic approach when indirect suppliers request adjudication on a case in which unfair dealing had been perpetrated by other parts of the supply chain. It is about looking at whether we can improve the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, and at the very least we want clarity on how the Bill will either do that or not. Again, we may want to revisit this on Report if we do not feel confident that the Government have listened and acted.

Regulations are about how this will be implemented in relation to the supply chain—of course, this is largely about statutory instruments—but the Government need to say something in the Bill about their priorities, and their willingness to listen and act on what many of our producers have identified as a serious issue. In terms of primary legislation, it is important not to leave out what those trading relationships are and could become if there was a more level playing field.

The enforcing body, which presumably is the Groceries Code Adjudicator, needs not only the powers to act but the resources. From talking to producers and from my knowledge of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, I know that cases are often not pursued because there are not the resources to do it. These are terribly complicated issues. Again, it is not something that the law has ever embraced, because it is so complicated. We set up the Groceries Code Adjudicator to get away from that particular legal quagmire.

It is worth noting that the EU, blighted as it might be, is currently passing a law that would set up an enforcement authority. At the very time that we are leaving the EU—supposedly—it now recognises that it has to take additional powers to deal with these unfair trading practices along the whole of the agriculture supply chain, from the farmer to the retailer. That received support from Conservative and Labour MEPs.

This is an important issue, which we make no apology for bringing up at this time in order to look at where we are in terms of the powers invested in the Groceries Code Adjudicator, whether those powers should be increased on the face of the Bill—something we could do here—and whether that would deal with some of the intermediary abuses that, at the moment, are not within the aegis of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I hope to be fairly brief. I will address amendment 111 first, because it links directly to amendments 93 and 94. In the event that amendments 93 and 94 are unsuccessful, and therefore the fair dealing measures in the Bill cover only the relationship between a farmer and the first buyer, amendment 111 has been tabled to address a potential unintended consequence of imposing these obligations on first purchasers, namely that producers who act as aggregators for their neighbours could potentially be classified as purchasers.

It is common practice here and overseas that if one producer has the infrastructure, skills or time, they may collate the produce on behalf of local farmers. A farmer with a big barn or storage facility may aggregate apples in a packhouse for neighbouring growers in his or her part of Kent or East Anglia. A bean grower in Kenya may do the same for neighbouring farmers. Amendment 111 ensures that those aggregators will still be classed as producers, and that they are then within the scope of protection.

Amendment 112 is about the sector-specific statutory codes. We have been told that they will initially be introduced in sectors where voluntary codes have been unable to significantly improve contractual relationships. I know that in evidence it was suggested that dairy would be the first sector to have the code applied, because it is seen that the current arrangements are not working that well. There is concern that certain sectors will have priority and that the Government will never get around to actually bringing other sectors into the scope of the statutory codes, for example for the fruit and veg sector. There would then be powers to support fair purchasing in the dairy sector, but not other sectors. Amendment 112 is simply about ensuring that the codes are not confined to certain sectors but apply to all sectors. I have lengthy notes on the rest of it, but I think I will leave it at that.

Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and we can disagree about what is Stalinist. Why did the Government call their White Paper “Health and harmony”? Why did they not just call it “Farming and harmony”? We all did our consultations, maybe more in oral form than in written form in some cases. Why did we all say, “The Government are on to something here, having linked together environment, food and health”? As we have discussed this morning, they already have some difficulties with food, but they have an even bigger difficulty with health, particularly public health.

This is a very minor amendment that would provide an additional sub-clause, supporting agriculture and horticulture businesses to ensure public access to healthy, local food, which we have not stressed. We are very much in favour of local food chains as an alternative to the globalisation of the food market, because we think it is very important that people have access to good, local food that is sustainably produced. That is very minor. It is just adding a sub-clause, which would do things that presumably the Government want to do, given their public health strategy. If they do not want to do it in this part of the Bill, where will the strategy have any bite? We should argue the case that public health is important to an agriculture Bill, and we make no apologies for pushing the issue. I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East has to say about her amendment. We believe this is important and should be in the Bill, and this debate is the start.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely support my hon. Friend and his amendment 51, but my amendment 70 is a bit more detailed. I will talk first about the public health, food-related issues.

As has been said, the White Paper is called “Health and Harmony” yet there is a conspicuous lack of information about what the Government want to do to improve public health. Almost 4 million people in the UK have been diagnosed with diabetes, 90% of those type 2, which is very much associated with diet. That costs the NHS £12 billion a year, which is a good enough argument to try to do something about it.

Childhood obesity has been mentioned. We now have more children classified obese at the age of 11 than in the US, which is definitely cause for alarm. Recent research by Kellogg’s described food deserts in our most deprived areas, where it is really difficult for families to get their hands on affordable fresh fruit and vegetables. I think two of the top five areas are in south Bristol.

I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food and a member of its children’s future food inquiry, which recently published data. Members might know that the Government have an “Eat Well” guide, which is meant to indicate what a healthy diet looks like. It is not used as it should be, in that it does not inform public procurement in the way that it should, but it is out there. The inquiry’s report found that almost 4 million children in the UK live in households that would struggle to meet the official nutritional guidelines. They would not be able to afford to eat in line with what the Government recommend as a healthy diet.

My amendment also mentions the overuse of antibiotics in farming. That is not the use of antibiotics to treat illness; it is usually the result of intensive farming, with the routine over-prescription of antibiotics to compensate for the fact that animal husbandry is not as good as it could be. That is causing a public health crisis. The former Chancellor, now editor of the Evening Standard, went to the States and made a big speech to highlight that this is a public health crisis for anybody who is reliant on antibiotics.

We have seen the rise of superbugs in the NHS. I have a niece with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis patients rely on periodic applications of antibiotics, which are fast becoming ineffective. We need to take serious steps to reduce their routine use in farming. The amendment also refers to reducing the use of chemicals and pesticides on farms, and the associated health risks have been mentioned.

I very much look forward to the Government’s food strategy document. I was originally told that the outline document would come forward just before Christmas, but I have heard rumours that is has been put back further and may even have been shelved. I do not want to rely on reassurances that all this will be dealt with in a food strategy document.

I appreciate the concerns that we cannot necessarily deal with what the finished product would look like, but we could look at measures such as grants for marketing, infrastructure for on-farm processing, creating local farm supply chains and what the Minister mentioned earlier about having food production around cities, so that it would be easier to get healthy food into cities. We could also look at an equivalent to the EU fruit and vegetable aid scheme. Public procurement is incredibly important as well. There is a lot more I could say on the subject. There is a chance in the Bill to ensure that people have healthier diets. It is crisis that we cannot just ignore.

Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister will be delighted to know that I am going to be very brief on this one. There is concern that it is not very clear in the Bill whether the public goods that are identified in clause 1(1) will be the primary focus for any payments, as we have already said that there is a limited pot of funding available. The Bill needs to reflect the fact that the Government have made a commitment that future policies will be underpinned by payment of public money for the provision of public goods.

The public goods are listed in the Bill, but it does not actually indicate whether they will be a funding priority—it just says that these are things that money can be spent on. It does not specify that any payments for productivity should contribute to the delivery of public goods. The two things could be entirely separate.

We have already discussed the fact that the Bill contains powers and not very much on duties, which means that it is vulnerable to change or being dropped entirely by a future Secretary of State. As I understand the Bill, there would be nothing to stop him or her from implementing payments for productivity only, without any reference to the public good. There is no indication as to how the pot of money would be divided up between the two, so there is concern, and Greener UK and the pesky environmentalists that people have talked about have been working on the amendment. They just want some assurance that a future scheme would not be weighted in favour of productivity payments, with no requirement to reduce environmental impact, and to make sure that the delivery of the public goods listed in clause 1 would not be undermined by the productivity clause.

[Dr Drew]

I have very little to add to what my hon. Friend has said. Basically, the amendment seeks to clarify what is meant by “productivity”. We believe the Government have quite a narrow definition of productivity that undermines the environmental sustainability that the Bill is based upon. We hope the Minister will say how he would interpret productivity and that he will take a wider view since we are looking at different aspects of productivity besides the purely agricultural and limiting definition that could be implied. For us, the issue is about improving quality and efficiency, but also about how we go about doing that. Again, that is the weakness of the Bill. It says a lot about what it might want to do, but not much about how it will do it, so we want that clearly defined. Reducing dependence on pesticides, weedkiller and fertilisers is implied in the way in which the Bill is being promoted, but exactly how that will be attained is not in the measure.

Sustainability, a primary feature of the Bill, needs to be spelt out more clearly in terms of how the legislation is entailed, otherwise there will be a misuse of public money. For example, we are not really spelling out how we want to minimise the carbon impact of agriculture. We know that agriculture could achieve carbon sequestration much more fully than it currently does.

On climate change, we are looking at issues to do with restocking levels and how they would impact on emissions levels, and at the antibiotic issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East identified. Amendment 53 would require a proper consultation on the meaning of “productivity” and a much broader understanding of sustainable productivity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

I hear the assurance from the Minister and provided we get some clarity at a later stage about what is really meant by productivity, I am happy not to push my amendment to a Division.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Draft Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Drew

Wednesday 28th February 2018 General Committees

[Dr Drew]

I would argue that we are far too lax in our control of bonfires. I could add a fourth thing that people moan about: people setting fire to their garden waste next door. Given that in many authorities—including mine—there are ways to dispose of garden waste, to me, bonfires are an idle way of dealing with it.

On dioxins and furans, which come out of incineration, my argument is that we are not properly checking that. We are somewhat ignorant about particulates and what they end up doing; they do come down somewhere, because their nature is to reassemble themselves. We are not necessarily talking about incineration here, but I am just using it as an example of why we have to be very careful about what we collect and what we do with it, because in this country we are not very good at deciding what we are doing.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Is not the whole point of having a waste hierarchy that at the top of it is reducing waste from occurring in the first place? Then we try to recycle and reuse. Even anaerobic digestion allows us to produce energy from waste. Incineration is right at the bottom of the pile, before landfill, because it does not make any good use of those precious resources.

[Dr Drew]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Whenever we talk about waste in this place, it is right that we critique what we are doing and ask whether we can do it better. I could go on about how this building operates. I found out through parliamentary questions that we are not that good in how we dispose of our rubbish—out of sight, out of mind. If we cannot get it right in this place, how can we expect the Great British public to take waste more seriously?

I would like the Minister to explain in more detail the difference between what is unlawful and what is undesirable; that may be the argument that is considered when someone is thinking about whether they are responsible for removing certain waste. Take the example of a farmer who has had waste tipped on their land. It has been there some time, because it is difficult to remove. At what stage in the 21 days has it become unlawful? Is the onus entirely on the landowner then to remove it, pay for it and take precautionary measures to stop it from happening again? That is what was discussed in the bit of the meeting that I was in yesterday. We all know from going around the countryside that there are now more fields with boulders at the gates. That is about stopping people from getting access to the fields and, more particularly, stopping people from fly-tipping. That is an ever-present and difficult problem.