Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-28
Topic: Agriculture
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, if the Government are not too keen to listen to the voices from Opposition Benches or even from expert Back-Benchers on their own side, they really ought to listen to someone like the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who speaks in this House as the voice of the countryside and of farming communities This group of amendments is very important. Even though we are now on the seventh day in Committee on the Bill, it is one of the most important groups of amendments that we will discuss. That is why I was very happy to put my name to the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, which between them cover food standards on the one hand and animal welfare, plant health and the environment on the other I repeat those four things because they sum up just why politically this is such an important issue for the Government. This is an extremely unusual issue, in that it unites a whole series of people in the country who would not normally march down the street together. I know that this Government are rumoured to take daily opinion polls and have a focus group every 10 minutes to work out what people think about things, so they must know that what I am saying is true and that somehow they have to draw the line and put it into legislation, otherwise people will never be satisfied This is also an issue that unites the media, and not just the farming media or the liberal-left minority media who normally get involved in this matter. It also includes the right-wing tabloids—the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the rest of them—and the Daily Telegraph. We have seen what happens when they get behind a campaign such as this: the Government cannot win unless they are able to satisfy them that everything is okay I ought not to be giving political advice to the Government; I ought to be telling them to do hopeless things that allow me to go out on to the streets to campaign and say what rotten folk they are. However, this is too important for that. I know that Ministers in this House are not the final decision-makers on what they can and cannot do; they are working for their bosses in other places. Nevertheless, we have here a Minister who has influence and authority in the department, and we are relying on him to come back with something that will satisfy us and the country. I say that in all honesty, although perhaps he does not want to hear it On issue after issue, we now have a country where a large number of people are very frightened about their health, because of Covid and everything that has happened. A lot of people are scared to go out of their house, and if they are willing to do so they will want to wear a mask for the next 10 years. A lot of other people are on the side there, but a lot of the people who matter are very frightened. We also have a Prime Minister who has just launched a campaign to make sure that we are all a bit less fat. I can appreciate that and I will join his campaign, but these issues are all linked: good health, good food, relying on good farming and good production processes, and all within a good environment that allows people to go out and enjoy themselves and get exercise It seems a long time since we started this Committee. When we were discussing access, perhaps on the first day, and people were worried about the speed at which we were going, I said, "Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet". For good or for bad, I have been in your Lordships’ House now for over 20 years, and I have to say that seven days in Committee for a Bill of this complexity, importance and size is not unusual; it is normal. I do not think it is because we have had to operate within this hybrid system. I join everyone who compliments the staff, the leadership and everybody else who found a way for us to have something that approximates to a Committee. Even though I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said earlier in the House about the need to get back to a new normality—if that is not a contradiction—because we have to make more progress, nevertheless we have had something approximating a Committee and everybody needs to be congratulated on that. However, I do not believe that this Committee a year ago it would have taken less than seven days; in fact, it might even have taken a bit longer To go back to the amendment, I am not an expert on a lot of the things in this group, although I know about the environment, but they are so important to people. Everybody cares about food. Increasingly they care about good food, increasingly they care about the environment and increasingly they are realising that the future of farming is in jeopardy unless we get it right I beg the Government to listen to what is being said here today by voices across the House, by voices from the rural parts of Yorkshire and Northern Ireland, by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, from the countryside—people who know what they are talking about. Unless something comes back, I think the Government will suffer serious defeats on Report. Another old tradition of the House is that ping-pong goes on for longer than two days, and this may be a sufficiently important issue that we might even get back to proper ping-pong The noble Lord, Lord Empey, said that the tradition in this House is that we do not vote in Committee. That is absolute rubbish. It is a modern invention by Governments trying to have an easy time. There are traditions and traditions in this House. I do not know whether Lord Palmerston would recognise our House today as the one that he presided over, but I do know that for the first 10 or more years that I was a Member here we always voted in Committee. I am not suggesting that we should in hybrid, because that is a bit different, but voting in Committee is a very good way of getting shot of some issues early, one way or the other, and allowing the major issues to go to Report. So when people tell you that what happened last year or the year before are the traditions of this House, it is bunkum. The traditions of this House go back longer than any of us—even those of us who have been here rather longer than we ever thought we would be.