Sustainable Livestock Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

As my hon. Friend knows, I entirely support the idea that the House should be sovereign, and if there is any doubt about which set of rules should reign supreme, it should be Acts of Parliament passed in this House, not those passed by the European Union. I do not want to spend too long proceeding down the line of European Union rules and regulations. I appreciate that that would stray—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has just said. It is very wise that he has made that observation and that he intends to operate in accordance with his own stricture. The point about regulation has been made and the point about European competence has been made. The hon. Gentleman, though a new Member, will be very well familiar with Standing Order No. 42 on the subject of tedious repetition and irrelevance, and I know that he will not wish to fall foul of that. In passing, although I know he is a man with an exceptional memory, I should perhaps just remind him and the House and others interested in our proceedings that on another private Member’s Bill on 22 October this year, he developed his argument for one hour and 39 minutes in respect of a two-clause Bill. This Bill has five clauses, it is true, but he behaved in a slightly unsatisfactory way on that occasion, and I feel sure that he will not want to repeat the experience.

[Mr Nuttall]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I mentioned the European Union, but it was brought up by others and I simply responded to them.

I am concerned about the Bill because it appears to me that in the long term it is likely to result in the decline of meat-eating in this country and it will also affect the dairy products that we consume. I will explain why that is likely to be the inevitable result of the Bill.

The Bill’s whole premise is to impose on the Secretary of State a requirement

“to improve the sustainability of the production, processing, marketing, manufacturing, distribution and consumption of products derived to any substantial extent from livestock”.

The requirement could hardly have been drafted in wider terms, although, to be fair, I am sure that that is exactly what the Bill’s promoter desired.

[Mr Nuttall]

It does indeed, and I will make mention of them later. I am not sure whether the Bill’s promoter considered those points when drafting the Bill. If so, it raises the question of whether they were taken into account.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. For the avoidance of doubt, I trust that the hon. Gentleman has no intention of offering the Chamber a disquisition on the contents of the coalition agreement. That would be a lengthy enterprise indeed, and I know that he does not wish to stray into that.

[Mr Nuttall]

No, absolutely not. It is a very tiny matter really.

I want to deal specifically with clause 1. Subsection (1) states:

“It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry.”

What I am not clear about is why it should be the duty—I emphasise the word “duty”— of the Secretary of State to ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry. Surely the best people to ensure that farming is maintained are farmers. Surely it makes sense to rely on farmers’ desire for self-preservation to ensure that they tend their livestock and look after their land in a sustainable way. All the evidence points to the fact that we can rely on them, both to protect the welfare of their animals and to care for their own land properly. How can that responsibility be transferred to the Secretary of State? Do we really expect the Secretary of State to spend every weekend driving up and down the country doing spot checks to see whether farmers are doing their bit to maintain the sustainability of their farms?

If any industry—if we are calling farming an industry, which I consider to be an unusual term, but for the purposes of the Bill it is an industry—in the United Kingdom can make a claim for having proved over the centuries that it is capable of sustainability, it is surely the livestock industry. Man has been tending animals since the beginning of time. Agriculture is the oldest of all industries continued in this country. What more can the poor farmer possibly be expected to do to make his “livestock industry” any more sustainable than it has been already?

Fortunately, the Bill’s draftsman has also spotted this potential problem, and in clause 3, headed “Interpretation”, we are helpfully given a most enlightening explanation of what is meant by the phrase

“ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry”.

We find that it goes much further than anything that we may ordinarily think. For the purposes of the Bill, we are told that the words mean

“addressing the economic, social and environmental impacts of all stages of livestock farming and consumption, in order to…reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and address climate change in the United Kingdom and overseas…prevent biodiversity loss in the United Kingdom and overseas…promote animal welfare…protect and enhance the landscape…protect the resilience of farming communities, and…promote food security.”

Not much to do there, then.

We see immediately that the idea of livestock sustainability has in one fell swoop been extended to include animal welfare, the well-being of farming communities as a whole, which I take to mean the whole of rural Britain, and the promotion of food security—matters that I feel sure any casual inquirer into livestock sustainability would not expect to see because they go well beyond any concept of sustainability, even if it is considered in its widest sense. This starts to demonstrate the enormous difficulties that face anyone who attempts to define the term “sustainable” in so far as it relates to farming. The Bill seeks to define sustainability not just in environmental terms, but in social and economic terms too. It is such a broad definition that it makes the Bill completely unworkable in any meaningful way.

I am concerned that the definition in clause 3(d) includes a requirement not just to protect the landscape, but to enhance it too. It is not clear to me why that requirement should be included in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is enormously generous in giving way. Is it not true to say that the glories of England are created by God and the farmer, and not the bureaucrat?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) should respond to that very graceful intervention within the terms of the debate on the Bill, and I feel sure that that is what he will do.

[Mr Nuttall]

Over the centuries, farming has been sustained in this country by the farmer and the countryside has been looked after by the farmer, and I will come on to those matters later in my remarks.