Fair Dealing Obligations (Pigs) Regulations 2025

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the regulations before us this afternoon and thank the Minister for giving us the outline. It is an interesting backdrop, in the sense that pig prices seem to have been at their highest for a while now. I have come straight from a meeting with some Danish businesses—none of them farmers. While I am half-Danish, I wish to help only the British farmer, I should explain.

I am a big supporter of auction marts. How will this provision impact on sales through such marts? Will they be left pretty much as is allowed at the moment? Presumably, the regulations will come into their own at a different time, when the prices are particularly low and when the farmers, or pig producers, are not covering the full costs of their production.

Having been an MEP in an area with intensive pig farming and then having gone on to be an MP in another area with equally intensive pig farming, it was very sad to see the impact of foot and mouth disease on pig production. Many farmers will simply not go back into pig production again. Anything that we can do, like the content of these regulations, is very helpful indeed.

The Minister referred to the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, and I pay tribute to it. I still believe that we should go further and allow the adjudicator to look at the market and at particular supplies off its own initiative. If there is an imbalanced relationship that it is there to resolve—and overwhelmingly it has worked well—there is no way that someone is going to jeopardise it. That perhaps relates more to different sectors than to pigs, such as the dairy sector and fruit production. If you are in a contract and you are being unfairly discriminated against, it is difficult for you to jeopardise that contract by being identified as a complainant with the adjudicator. I take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether the Government will continue, please, to keep that under review.

Mindful of the fact of movement—which I do not think is covered by the regulations, but perhaps the Minister could write to me about this—we have a number of agricultural shows coming up at this time of year, right through to the autumn, and they are immensely important to the agricultural sector. Again, this probably covers sheep and lambs—I have not seen too many pigs at the Great Yorkshire Show, I have to say. Will the department give advice on movement of animals? I know it is on the case as regards avian flu, but some imports have already been banned because of foot and mouth existing in parts of the European Union. Will she make sure that the department gives advice at the earliest possible opportunity, well in advance of the shows taking place? That would be very welcome indeed.

I cannot let this opportunity go without singing the praises of the Malton pig factory. Again, while not directly within this remit, we have a bed and breakfast for pigs in North Yorkshire, and they are just as well looked after as we are at the famous bed and breakfasts that many of us stay in. One of the outlets for the bed and breakfast pig industry is the Malton Bacon Factory. It exported a huge amount to China, which takes pig’s trotters and other parts of the anatomy that I will not go into, which we do not enjoy in this country. That was a multi-million pound contract, and that might have gone by the wayside. The regulations focus probably more on those that do not necessarily have an initial contract.

One thing that struck me in the regulations—I am very grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s 21st report—is that it seems very odd in this day and age that many contracts are still not made in writing. Will the Government insist on that through the course of the regulation? The committee highlights in paragraph 44 that the requirements will

“include that all contracts are made in writing, contain clear pricing terms and set out how the price is determined”.

That relates to my initial question about how this will impact—presumably, the auction marts will be left alone and this will relate just to those contracts that are done individually. I would be very interested to know what proportion of the market is intended to be covered by the regulations. I welcome the regulations this afternoon and the opportunity to raise those issues.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always instructive to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I thank the Minister for her persuasive, well-informed introduction. I do not quite know how George Orwell—Mr Blair—would view these regulations, because he had it in for Napoleon. But the Explanatory Memorandum is very helpful, and clearly Mr Andrew Powley has played a blinder in the department.

In another place, for some 31 years, I visited perhaps six farms a year, and one was hospitably received—bacon sandwiches were often on the farm menu. Indeed, I was once an Agriculture Minister in the lovely land of Wales. I cannot be the only one of your Lordships who regularly tunes in at 5.45 am to Radio 4’s informative farming programme. Pigs feature therein, and I am sure our Minister listens quite regularly to that programme—after prayers, of course.