Beef Cattle and Sheep (Carbon Footprint)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Heath]

There is a constant store in any land management system. Any landscape feature, if it is not changed, will have a constant store, so there is a zero-sum gain. If the land is ploughed up or a different crop is grown, the equation may change and the position will be different. That is the simple point that I am making.

We want to continue to fund research into improving the sophistication and accuracy of carbon footprinting methods to support the industry and we have engaged actively in the production of internationally agreed standards for carbon footprints. Research under the UK’s agricultural greenhouse gas research and development platform is a £13.5 million initiative which, in response to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is not in his place at the moment, is shared with the devolved Administrations, so it is also relevant to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. Its purpose is to improve the understanding of greenhouse gas emissions from UK agriculture, and it will also provide underpinning evidence to improve the quality of carbon footprints.

Given the wide variety of production systems and processes in beef and sheep farming, carbon footprinting inevitably becomes part of the marketing mix, but as with other product information, the industry has a responsibility to be transparent about what it has and has not included in the analyses.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister address the point that was made by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) about methane emissions? I believe that 37% of methane emissions are attributable to the livestock sector, but the hon. Gentleman argued that because they come from a natural source they may not be as environmentally damaging as emissions from other sources. My understanding is that emissions are emissions and cause the same harm regardless of where they originate.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady is of course right. A greenhouse gas is a greenhouse gas and has an effect on climate change. I do not accept entirely the argument about some being natural and others are not. That is transparently the case, but it is not a distinction that should affect our consideration of emissions. Some processes and activities are more avoidable than others, and some have a societal interest. The hon. Lady’s contention is perfectly respectable and she is entirely consistent in what she says about not using pasture land to produce animals as we do at the moment. However, society generally does not agree with that view. Society in this country generally wants to eat meat and wants the most efficient and effective processes, which is why we provide research support to help the industry to make those processes as beneficial and as least harmful as possible, but that does not mean that people do not want to eat meat. In the same way, people want to move around the country despite the fact that doing so has a demonstrable effect on greenhouse gas emissions.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thought I made it clear at the beginning that I was concerned primarily about soya and grain production and its impact, rather than grass-fed animals in this country.

[Mr Heath]

I understand. I am not trying to misrepresent the hon. Lady’s point of view. She opened her comments by saying that she was somewhat masochistic in expressing her view in a debate populated largely by people with agricultural interests.

If we can do anything to mitigate effects on agriculture and any other sphere, we should do so. If we can provide help with research and help the industry to help itself in reducing those effects, all the better. We want to put all those factors into the equation with the other undoubted benefits of extensive pasture and the societal changes in parts of the country where other forms of agriculture would be exceedingly difficult, or in areas where there is huge expertise, for example, in beef production. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) prayed in aid his Hereford cattle, and I thought there might be tension between those with Herefords and those with Aberdeen Angus cattle, but that did not arise. Let us join together in saying that this country is blessed with not only some of the best breeds of livestock, but some of the best livestock husbandry anywhere. I am proud of that, and it makes my job that much easier.

My final point is about industry development and supplementary requirements, and responds in part to the report of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton’s all-party group. Getting development of supplementary requirements under PAS 2050 and product rules under the greenhouse gas protocol product standard will help to bring consistency to carbon footprinting in the beef and sheep sector. EBLEX has taken the lead, and is a very effective levy-funded organisation. It is working on a UK-wide basis, which is relevant to some of the arguments about levy funding in the red meat sector, to produce the best possible advice and support for all producers throughout the United Kingdom, and I support it in that.

My hon. Friend and his all-party group have made some important points about the lack of consistency and the interpretation of the information we have to date. We accept that there is a lack of consistency. We want to improve that and to make the information as useful as possible because that will help the industry to move in the right direction in reducing as far as possible the emissions from agriculture and ensuring that we contribute as much as we can to our overall reduction in greenhouse gas. I hope we all support that. It is a principal feature of Government policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Not all those costs will impact on farmers and food processors, of course, but the hon. Lady raises a valid point about the cost of EU regulation that I hope is not lost on Members of the European Parliament and European Commissioners. That is precisely why we are committed to making progress on our better regulation agenda and why at EU level we continue to press for all new proposals to adhere to the Commission’s smart regulation policy. We are also abiding by this Government’s principles for EU legislation, which include regulating only when there are no alternatives and ensuring that there is no gold-plating when introducing European measures into UK law.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

When I met the Minister on 10 December last year to discuss my Food Waste Bill, he promised he would give me a copy of the advice his Department had received from the Food Standards Agency about whether the provisions in the Bill to remove civil and criminal liability from good faith donors of food waste would be compatible with EU food safety regulations, as it was suggested by his Department that they were not. I am still waiting for a copy of that advice despite chasing the Department—can he update me on that?

[Mr Heath]

I can only apologise that the hon. Lady has not yet received that information. I will look into the matter in the Department to ensure that she gets what she has asked for.

Horsemeat

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

There is a lot in what the hon. Gentleman says. When I hear those on the Opposition Front Bench giving a critical analysis of the very arrangements they put in place as though they had been invented over the past few months, I find it difficult to take some of their criticisms seriously.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My concern is that this scandal is the tip of the iceberg and there is much more to be uncovered about what goes into our food and what is in the meat supply chain. Will the Minister assure me that the Government will learn the lessons from this episode and mount a wider investigation into those issues?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We need to get to the bottom of some of the supply chain issues across Europe. First, we need to deal effectively with the immediate problem, but then we need to stand back and take a long, hard look at some of the other practices. The retailers and processors in this country and across Europe also need to consider how they operate, because I am not convinced that they are as convinced as they ought to be of the provenance of some of their goods.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I understand that the Arla price reduction was triggered by its agreed price formula, rather than made simply at its discretion, but I appreciate the concerns about the timing of the announcement and compliance with the industry code. That is why at last week’s Dairy UK board meeting I pressed for all processors to get on with implementing the industry code in their farmers’ contracts. I reminded them that if the code fails to deliver the desired outcomes over time, I will consider legislating.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Last year, Compassion in World Farming investigated a random selection of dairy farms in Germany, Spain and Denmark and found recurring evidence of cows being pushed to their physical limits to produce high milk yields and being chained indoors by the neck, in some cases all year round. Will the Minister back Compassion’s call for specific European legislation to set minimum welfare standards for dairy cows across the European Union, as we have for pigs, chickens and calves, which would help to set a level playing field for dairy farmers in this country?

[Mr Heath]

We always need to be aware of welfare issues in farm animals. This country has nothing to be ashamed of in the standards we have, compared with those of many others. We continually press at European level for common agreement on levels of farm animal welfare, and we will continue to do so.

Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thought for a moment that my hon. Friend was congratulating you, Mr Chope, on introducing that concept, and I wondered whether I had missed something. Yes—a one-nation CAP reform. That is our slogan for today.

If the concerns raised by environmental organisations are not addressed, there is a danger that the CAP, which has demonstrably made some progress over the past 20 years—albeit painfully and slowly at times—could, as part of a process intended to improve its environmental performance, perversely be taken backwards. I am glad to say that there is general agreement on the need to green the CAP, which I regard as absolutely necessary if we are to achieve three objectives: first, to support more long-term sustainable food production; secondly, to address the ever-increasing challenge of global food security; and, thirdly, to meet our environmental goals, which range from halting and reversing biodiversity declines by 2020, to meeting our climate change targets.

Greening of pillar one payments must happen and, at the same time, pillar two must be fully protected or ideally, increased. The added justification for those changes is, in the words of the RSPB’s evidence to the Committee’s inquiry, to

“legitimise expenditure of €300 billion over the next seven years.”

That is a huge sum of money. We know from yesterday’s debate on the EU budget just how much concern there is in this place, and among the wider public, about EU spending, of which the CAP is the largest single component. I agree with the Committee’s conclusion that it is a concern that greening may be seen by the Commission as a way of justifying the significant public expense of its policy on direct payments, rather than a way of delivering environmental improvements across the EU. I hope that the Minister will devote some time to that concern in his response.

There is also concern, as there is in relation to other areas of Government policy, that this could become an exercise in so-called greenwashing—greening in name, but not in outcome. Greening must be designed and implemented in a way that secures genuine environmental improvements at farm level and across all member states. There are worrying signals that the member states want to maintain the status quo but to repackage the status quo as green when it is clearly not. The Luxembourg paper contains some strong examples of that. The measures suggested by 16 member states in that working paper, published in April, are even worse in delivering environmental outcomes. In particular, the section on farmers who are “green by definition” has raised concerns. Arguing that a farm is automatically green just because a certain proportion of it is grass is nonsensical, as there is huge variation.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

indicated assent.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am glad that the Minister is nodding. I hope that he repeats that when he comes to make his speech at the end of the debate. Grassland can be managed in a way that is good for the environment, but can also include reseeded and extensively managed grassland, which does not deliver comparable environmental benefits. The UK was one of the member states involved in that document. I am pleased that the Government have since distanced themselves from it, saying that the UK was not a co-signatory, but just wanted to move the Commission’s thinking forward. I hope that the Minister will use this opportunity to clarify that again.

One argument that we are hearing a lot, including from the Country Land and Business Association and the NFU in the UK, is that farmers in agri-environment schemes should be counted as “green by definition”. It is true that there are many good examples of what those schemes are achieving in the UK, but there are two problems. First, there would be no environmental additionality from such an approach, and that is badly needed. Secondly, it would in effect involve double funding. Farmers would be paid once via their agri-environment scheme payment—paid for under pillar two—and paid again from their new greening payment, when the new CAP comes into force, under pillar one. Therefore, although it is important that greening and agri-environment schemes work coherently together, I do not think that “green by definition” is the answer.

Let me move on to talk about flexibility. The Select Committee and the Government agree that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate. The Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), talked about that in some detail today, as did the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). It is only practical for there to be flexibility so that environmental measures can be tailored to local environmental and agricultural conditions. I would very much support that approach. However, there are some dangers with too much flexibility.

I can see that, for the UK, a flexible approach makes most sense, as we are leading the field with our higher-level stewardship schemes and would most likely use that flexibility to deliver positive environmental outcomes. However, if member states are allowed the full flexibility that they are calling for to implement greening in their own way, that flexibility could extend even to determining what counted as green. That could allow member states to kick out the Commission’s greening proposals and do what they liked, and sadly in many EU countries that could amount to next to nothing. The NFU has also raised concerns about that, but from a different perspective. As the report outlines, the NFU is concerned that DEFRA may impose more stringent greening measures on UK farmers that would not apply in other EU countries.

As I think the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, it is very important that we achieve the level playing field that is talked about so often when it comes to EU matters. I therefore support the calls from a number of environmental bodies that there should be a common framework that every member state must deliver, with flexibility to tailor implementation to local circumstances. A free-for-all on greening is not the best outcome for the environment in the EU.

Let me deal briefly with ecological focus areas. It is perhaps in the Commission’s proposals for EFAs that a common approach has best been mapped out and could make the best contribution to realising the ambition of greening the CAP. There is criticism outlined in the report about the proposed percentage of a holding that would be included in EFAs, with concern that that would mark a return to set-aside and severely limit increases in food production and competitiveness. However, as many environmental organisations have pointed out, because it could include a wide range of landscape features and low-grade agricultural land, which may already be under some form of environmental management, it would not necessarily mean taking significant areas of high-quality arable land out of production.

EFAs could have significant potential to make the direct payments that farmers receive from pillar one of the CAP deliver more for the environment. By including in EFAs important landscape features of the countryside, such as hedgerows, and ensuring that EFAs help to protect and maintain them, the character of our farmed landscapes and their wildlife could be greatly enhanced. However, the proposals would not achieve that aim and would need to be carefully designed and implemented to deliver real environmental benefits.

Lastly, I would like to raise an issue outlined by the CPRE. It stresses the need to ensure that the environment does not lose out when it comes to allocating funding to rural development measures under pillar two. Ensuring that pillar two is adequately funded is essential not only for green farming schemes, such as environmental stewardship, but to ensure that enough rural development funding is available for measures that support local food producers to boost economic sustainability in rural areas. The CPRE recently mapped the links between those who produce, process, buy and sell food sourced locally. It found that local food networks could be contributing £6.75 billion of value to local economies.

That is particularly important in Bristol, one of whose seats I represent. We recently held a mini food summit, bringing together organisations such as the CPRE and the people running Bristol’s green capital bid, which I very much hope we succeed with next year—it may be third time lucky. We were talking about how we could bring together people working in the food sector across Bristol as a hub for the south-west. The shadow Farming Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), was there, and I think that he would agree that it was a productive discussion in terms of how we can look at sustainability issues, encourage people to grow food locally and tackle food waste, which I have not mentioned today, but have spoken about on many other occasions. Obviously, that is also an issue in the EU. It is important to us locally that we look at how we can support local food networks.

The Select Committee says that DEFRA must redouble its efforts

“to find, engage and secure reliable allies across the European Union”

and have the resources in place

“effectively and persuasively to put the UK’s case that the CAP should support…the agricultural sector and provide environmental protection.”

I totally support that conclusion. I am somewhat pessimistic about what can be achieved, but I urge the Minister to throw his weight—his much-diminished weight, it must be said—behind our efforts to ensure that real progress on environmental issues can be made as part of this process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

As my hon. Friend knows, the circumstances in Ramsgate—about which we have spoken—were entirely unacceptable. I want to make that absolutely clear. I immediately asked for a report to be drawn up by officials who were working on animal health regulation, which they will submit to me shortly. I shall be happy to share their findings with my hon. Friend.

We have no power to ban live exports, but I do have powers to ensure that the regulations that are in place are enforced strictly and rigorously, and I shall do so.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

When I introduced my Food Waste Bill earlier this year, I thought that I was making good progress in convincing the then Minister in the House of Lords of the need for legislation to protect good-faith donors of food to charities from criminal and civil liability, but I now have the impression that DEFRA is trying to hide behind EU food safety standards. What are Ministers doing to move things forward?

[Mr Heath]

On the day I was appointed, the hon. Lady very kindly twittered that she did not like me. However, I shall put that aside and say that I shall be happy to discuss the background to her Bill with her if she wishes, and see if the Department can do anything to help.

Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords]

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and David Heath

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I knew it began with a W. Anyway, she is probably very familiar with this quote:

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

The hon. Member for Macclesfield said that he was not a great fan of J. K. Galbraith. I happen to be a great fan, although I had not heard that quote before. His “A Short History of Financial Euphoria” ought to be required reading for anyone who takes up a job in the City these days. The hon. Gentleman resisted the temptation to resort to political point scoring. His point that the OBR can in time become a respected and trusted reference point is valid—I certainly hope it will be achieved.

What the hon. Member for Macclesfield said about greater powers being given to the Treasury Committee was interesting. I was a member of the Committee for a couple of years when first elected to Parliament in 2005, and I remember spending many sittings seeking assurances from the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England about regulation, the risks that derivatives trading imposed, and so on. I remember receiving blithe assurances that it was difficult for Committee members— with their limited resources—to challenge on an ongoing basis. If increased powers are given to the Treasury Committee to vet appointments, to scrutinise the work of the OBR, particularly its funding, and to ensure that it has the necessary resources to do its job, thought needs to be given to whether the Committee has the resources necessary to do that job.

The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) slightly lost me at the beginning with his talk about Disraeli and fridge magnets, but then moved on to talk about Bank of England independence, which he claimed was a Liberal Democrat manifesto—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

It was.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not denying it. The hon. Member for Bristol West said that it was an example of Liberal Democrat manifesto policy being implemented 13 years before they got into government. I would suggest that the reason he is claiming credit for that is that there are very few examples of that now that they are in government.

Let me move on to the Bill. The plans for the National Audit Office have received very little attention in this debate, because there is a general consensus that they are the right thing to do. They are almost exactly in line with our plans for the National Audit Office that we set out in our Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, which we did not get through the parliamentary process before the May 2010 election was called.

We support the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which we see as continuing the direction of travel that we set in government by giving independence to the Bank of England and the Office for National Statistics. However, we have a number of concerns about the details of the proposals. We welcome the amendments that were introduced in the other place—with some, limited success—to try to make the OBR more independent from the Government, for example by giving it budgetary independence, so that we can be sure that it has the resources that it needs to do its job and produce genuinely independent forecasts without being compromised by Treasury control. We intend to explore that further in Committee, to see whether we can give the OBR greater independence. It is also important to explore in Committee how we make the OBR more accountable to Parliament, rather than to the Treasury.

However, we will not let this Government hide behind the OBR or use its independence as a shield to protect them from valid criticism of the impact of their economic policies. The Government are wrong if they believe that the OBR will protect us from the consequences of the Chancellor’s misjudgments. Indeed, the OBR will help to hold the light up to the Government’s record. It is notable that the OBR has already predicted that unemployment will be higher under this Government than under Labour plans, that growth will be lower under this Government, and that consumer prices index inflation will be higher. In fact, as has been mentioned—I think by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East, or perhaps by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South—the OBR has already had to revise its growth forecast downwards twice, down from 2.6% to 2.3% after the emergency Budget, and down again, to 2.1%, after the spending review. That is a telling verdict on this Government’s policies for growth—or lack of them—and the Chancellor’s failure to produce a growth plan. We wait to see whether the March Budget will force the OBR to downgrade its growth forecast yet again.

The OBR has also confirmed—although the Government seem to have ignored this because it is politically inconvenient for them to acknowledge it—that the deficit was more than £20 billion lower in 2009-10 than expected, owing to firm and decisive action taken by the Labour Government. What is clear—we do not need the OBR to tell us this—is that under this Government unemployment and inflation are rising, living standards are falling and the recovery has stalled. Although we support the substance of this Bill to a large extent and we shall not seek to push its Second Reading to a vote this evening, we remain deeply sceptical about whether the Government have learnt any lessons from the past eight months during which the shadow OBR has been in place. We hope that lessons will be learnt going forward.