Import of Animals and Animal Products and Approved Countries (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I apologise to my noble friend for speaking after her, but I used to chair—until it was abolished—the EU Environment Sub-Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Trees, was an excellent member. One of the things we were really concerned about was that, when we moved out of the EU, we no longer had access to TRACES, which, as the Minister will know, is the main system for controlling biological security in animal and food products. Exactly as the noble Lord pointed out, we have put off these import controls I think three times. Can the Minister clarify how we are substituting the information we had from TRACES and how that now works? Are the Government satisfied with it, and where will we go with it in future while we wait for those biosecurity controls to come in in respect of the EU?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and for the helpful briefing he organised beforehand. I begin by very much echoing the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, about the Government once again delaying checks on food imports from the EU, and the biosecurity and consumer protection implications of all that. I also very much welcome the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on TRACES; we have discussed the issue many times and were always assured that there would be alternatives for TRACES in place, so it would be useful to hear from the Minister whether that is now the case or not.

I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing these proposals to the attention of the Committee and their implications for the loss of parliamentary oversight. The Explanatory Memorandum has set out the changes made by previous EU exit SIs and provides an explanation as to why these provisions are not considered sufficient to deal with urgent cases. We are acutely aware of the ongoing and changing threats to our animal and plant biosecurity, as well as to human health, and the need to have robust measures in place to act swiftly when new threats arise, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said. As such, we are sympathetic to the case being made and do not intend to vote against these regulations.

However, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has quite rightly pointed out that, once again, we face the loss of parliamentary oversight on the imposition of these urgent measures. It specifically proposes that the Minister be asked to give an assurance that the regulations will be used only on the rarest of occasions, so I ask on its behalf: can the Minister give an assurance that the powers will be used only on the rarest of occasions?

Following on from this, I have some detailed points which I would like the Minister to answer. First, if our response times because of parliamentary delays have led us to be vulnerable to biosecurity and food safety risks, why has it taken Defra until May 2022 to address this concern? What has been happening in the meantime? Have we left traders and consumers exposed to extra risk because of our inaction? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why nothing has been done before now.

Secondly, in correspondence with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee about the capacity of the animal disease policy group, Defra responded:

“The expertise, capacity and processes required to exercise the powers in this instrument appropriately are well established within government, and have already been used to effectively control a range of SPS … risks since January 2021.”


If we already have the means to control these risks effectively, does that not rather undermine the need to give the Executive these extra powers? Could the Minister give some examples of the effectiveness of the current control regime to provide some context to this debate? What are the effective control measures? Where were they lacking? Why do we need to give Ministers extra powers? Friends of the Earth has also written in, asking about the independence of the bodies making these decisions. It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some further light on the independence of the bodies carrying out these risk assessments and making recommendations to Ministers.

Thirdly, the correspondence from Defra makes it clear that the new powers will be used to impose import restrictions not just where there was a new biosecurity risk but also to lift existing import restrictions if, for example, a country had successfully controlled an animal disease outbreak. This point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. Can the Minister explain why existing parliamentary oversight cannot be maintained for the lifting of import restrictions? This does not seem to be as urgent as when a new biosecurity threat emerges—where action may be needed in days or, at most, weeks. There would very much seem a role for Parliament in overseeing the lifting of import restrictions and in making sure that the country of import had taken all the necessary action.

Finally, paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum outlines some of the risks of delayed action. It talks about the threat of retaliatory action against exports from Great Britain. It also mentions the threat of intervention by the WTO. The Minister referred to this in his introduction. Can he expand on this concern? I am struggling to understand what these threats are. Can he give a scenario as to how serious this risk of WTO intervention is? From what he said about retaliatory action, are we developing a reputation for responding slowly to biosecurity risks? Is this a real concern about which we should be aware? I am just trying to understand what our competitor or trading nations feel our biosecurity level is and what the threat of retaliatory action is. It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some light on this. I look forward to his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am not sure if the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, wants to intervene, but I would like a bit more clarification. Is the alternative to TRACES up and running or not? The Minister talks about it still being developed—is it there? Is it functioning?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for intervening. It sounded rather like work in progress to the extreme; I thought we would be rather further ahead than that.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It will always be a work in progress, because we are developing new intelligence and data on what is going on. We have a formal system with the EU in our relationship as a third country and with other countries outside. As the noble Lord knows, we are no longer part of the TRACES scheme, but we have access to the information we need to keep us safe.

With this statutory instrument, traders will continue to move their goods from the EU to Great Britain as they do now. Since 1 January last year, the UK has put in place strict biosecurity controls on the highest-risk imports of animals, animal products, plants and plant products from the EU. These controls will remain in place and we will still be able to respond to changes in biosecurity risk. If there is a delay to our rolling out of border control posts, there is no saving, as I think was hinted by someone. We have recruited people and are using them in an intelligent way to make sure that we are controlling the interim and will then build up the capacity of border control posts over the next 18 months to be fully functioning.

We are also able to use safeguarding measures to protect our biosecurity where we have particular concerns and evidence about pest or disease risk. Given that we have close alignment with and strong knowledge of the EU rules, we continue to have a high degree of confidence in biosecurity associated with those imports. We will have powers to check and seize non-compliant products and deal with any pest or disease risk identified.

I have spoken already about the animal disease policy group. I hope that has reassured noble Lords.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked whether measures like those in this instrument, which will remove parliamentary oversight by conferring additional powers on the Secretary of State, will be used only on the rarest of occasions. It is a very good question, and I hope I can reassure her. I am aware that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee stated in its report that noble Lords may wish to obtain assurance from me that instruments such as this, which remove parliamentary scrutiny, will be introduced only on the rarest of occasions. This is a valid concern that I am more than happy to address. Noble Lords can rest assured that instruments such as this will be laid only in instances where they are absolutely necessary, as I hope they know.

In this case, as I outlined in my opening remarks, the shift from a legislative to an administrative procedure is vital to ensure that we can respond quickly and effectively to changes in risk in approved trading partners, thereby protecting animal and public health and supporting trade. The powers granted in this instrument will not, however, be used “on the rarest of occasions”. Indeed, it is precisely because regular changes need to be made to import conditions—lifting or imposing restrictions in response to constantly evolving levels of risk in approved trading partners—that the shift to an administrative process is so vital.

I am seeking inspiration on other questions that have been raised. The noble Baroness also raised points from Friends of the Earth in its submission on this. In our response, we made it clear that the expertise, capacity and processes required to exercise the powers in this instrument appropriately are well established within government and have already been used effectively to control a range of import risks since January 2022.

While the required risk-based and evidence-led decision-making processes are in place, there is currently no quick and effective mechanism for such decisions to be implemented in law for non-EU trading partners. In other words, we currently have the ability to arrive at informed decisions, based on appropriate assessments of risk, but we lack the ability to implement them quickly in law. This instrument is therefore needed to establish a process for ensuring that decisions can be rapidly implemented in law to protect biosecurity and the safety of this country.

The final point that the noble Baroness raised was why this has taken so long. We left the European Union at the end of 2019; why are we doing this now? We have been aware of the deficiencies in retained EU law and how, in practice, these deficiencies prevent us from amending country-specific import conditions sufficiently quickly. While recognising these deficiencies, Defra took the view that correcting them was not essential on day 1 of EU exit. As other pieces of legislation have been prioritised, including that which enables import conditions for EU and EFTA states to be managed administratively, it has not been possible to draft and present this instrument until now. The matter was brought forward by the case relating to Ukraine, which I quoted, which showed the necessity for this instrument. I hope that I have addressed the concerns of noble Lords. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.