European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Agriculture
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I rise to support this cross-party amendment in its entirety, but particularly to cover the issues I raised on Monday at Second Reading and, if I may, to have the right of reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, who made reference to my speech from earlier in the debate in his closing remarks. He said: "The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred to animal welfare. At the moment, we cannot prohibit the movement of live animals because of EU law. But when we leave, let us hope that we can address that, because we have expressed an intention to do so."—[Official Report, 13/1/20; col. 556.] That is factually correct and I entirely applaud the Government’s intention of doing something about that important issue. However, with the deepest respect for the noble and learned Lord, that is completely irrelevant to the point I made. There is nothing in a non-regression clause which stops the Government raising standards. What it does do, as other noble Lords have rightly said, is ensure that standards are not lowered. That is the issue we are collectively concerned about as we face the worrying prospect of these free trade agreements, with all bar one of the countries proposed having lower welfare standards than ourselves My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville talked about chicken legs and breasts. I want to talk a little about eggs because, as it stands at the moment, the United States of America has no standards whatever on the welfare of hens used for laying eggs. Therefore, if we allow the American market access to ours, we will face eggs coming in to be used in food products with standards far lower than those produced by British farmers. Our farmers will rightly argue that their welfare and production standards are higher and cost more and that they are therefore at a competitive disadvantage. They will press the Government to reopen the battery cage directive, which has been with us for so long as part of our membership of the European Union and guarantees higher farm welfare standards If the Government were to lower those standards, I would like to ask the Minister whether my understanding of the following is correct. Given that we have gone through this process of nationalising all this EU legislation through statutory instruments, sitting through hours and hours in the Moses Room, is it correct that, if the Government were to lower our animal welfare standards for battery hens, for example, the Government would need only to introduce a statutory instrument and would not require primary legislation? That is my understanding. It is a real worry to those of us right across this Chamber who have, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just said, fought so hard and for so long for high animal welfare standards that those could be lost by a simple statutory instrument The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, who is not in his place, spoke movingly, in the debate on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, about the Government needing to set out their vision for Britain in the post-Brexit world. He articulated it very well. What is the Government’s vision for Britain? If they want Britain to be a world leader in animal welfare, they have to demonstrably deliver that through all their legislation, trade deals and marketing. Look at the example of New Zealand, which has said that it wants to be a world leader and is a world leader—it has done just that. This is in every piece of legislation and every trade deal and it is in their marketing strategy This is the first piece of legislation of the new Government which mentions animal welfare and yet, by not accepting a non-regression clause, they are basically saying that standards could be lowered as a result of trade deals in the future. Therefore, it begs the question: how will the Government guarantee that animals will not suffer lives compromised by lower animal welfare standards if the Government will not accept a non-regression clause in the withdrawal Bill?