Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
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“We need that bigger, long-term planning and a long-term view. It comes back to the landscape plan again: understanding what we have, with local variations of management systems for different parts of the country and the different crops we grow. As our consumers change their buying habits and as the climate changes, we may need to adapt our farming systems to produce different products. We need a land management plan that we can adjust to fit that change of cropping. Patrick Begg: One thing to add, which we should not forget, is the stimulus that good regulation—and I mean good regulation—means for private sector investment and innovation. There are plenty of examples where regulation provokes quite a lot of clever thinking about what could be done.”
“If we focus too much on the long term in a certain way—and I know it sounds ridiculous—we might become bankrupt tomorrow, and then there is nothing. Martin Lines: On environmental standard supervision, I cannot see that enforcement. There are base standards already out there, but how are they going to be enforced, and in which Bill? We want some clarity now, not an environment Bill coming later, so we as farmers have a clear understanding of where it lies. We want to keep the land in good heart. Previous Bills have been about keeping our natural assets in good heart for future generations. Where is that? This goes back to short-term planning. There are a number of farms with short-term tenancies and short-term views: taking as much out of the land as possible today, with consequences for future generations.”
“Because then I leave your daffodils in, and the moment I harvest the bulbs, I take all the soil out and all the stones away. The preparation for how I do certain things is completely different from what someone else is doing. Crop rotation is crucial, but every crop has different demands, so knowledge, innovation and looking at new ideas are crucial. There is not one solution. We need to have an holistic view and look at all the different parameters to make sure that it can work, because a potato farmer has completely different demands from those of a daffodil farmer, a vegetable farmer, or a wheat farmer. They use completely different practical elements. The ideas and the principles are probably the same—working with the soil and trying to minimise the damage—but again, that balance of short-term and long-term profitability is important.”
“It has about 40 inspectors who go out and look at how farms are performing on water quality and soils, and that is not enough to secure that regulatory foundation. It is also not enough to ensure a fair and proportionate inspection process for farmers, because those inspectors only ever have enough time to apply a penalty and go, rather than work with the farmer to help them comply with regulation in future. Gilles Deprez: Knowledge is also very important. My crop is completely different from his crop, so the way we work with land, or the way we prepare our land, is completely different. For example, with my daffodils, the bulb is underneath the ground. I need to make sure that I do proper land preparation, which means soil disturbance. In a certain way, that is not ideal, but it would be a lot worse if I did not do it. Why?”
“We think that there is a really important case to be made for the importance of fair, proportionate, but effective regulation. That is not just about having the right rules in place, but having skilled and knowledgeable staff who then go out and enforce those regulations. There is a lot of talk about advice-led regulation. That is about not just going out with a stick and applying penalties straight away, but going out and advising farmers and working with them to help them be more compliant in future. We would support that, but that needs investment from Government in the necessary resources. A recent report from World Wide Fund for Nature highlighted the fact that the Environment Agency only has enough capacity to inspect 0.5% of farms in any given year.”
“We are told by civil servants that that is because there is this ongoing review by Dame Glenys Stacey looking at the future of farm regulation and inspections and that they will look to another Bill in the future to provide the powers necessary to secure that regulatory floor or foundation. We will be looking for assurances from Ministers and the Government about that regulatory baseline, because without that foundation, you do not have anything to build from in terms of your public goods policy. For the progressive farmers, such as Martin and Gilles, who want to go out and restore natural capital and provide those public goods for society, it is absolutely critical that they are not then undercut by those looking effectively to go for maximum profit, regardless of the societal and environmental cost.”
“Q My second question is whether the Bill is strong enough or gives enough clarity on the regulatory baseline. Public goods should be rewarding going above and beyond what is legally required, but we will lose the cross-compliance element of CAP. How do we ensure that farmers are rewarded for doing the extra things and also enforce the people required to do the standard things, such as ensuring the water supply is not being polluted or whatever? This is your baby, Mr Lancaster, isn’t it? Thomas Lancaster: For us, that is absolutely essential. At the moment, the Bill is a bit silent on that.”
“Q 47 (Bristol East) (Lab): Can I turn to rents and economics? You said that at the moment a landowner would be charging £98, or whatever the going market rate is, for the land, but they are also getting direct payments on top of that. Is that right, or would that offset the rent payment? George Dunn: No. In a landlord-tenant situation, it is the tenant who will apply for the basic payment scheme—”
“Q 48 Yes, but they may be required to pass it on, and we heard evidence this morning that quite a few have to pass it on— George Dunn: In a number of cases, there is either a direct transfer of a direct payment, from the tenant to a landlord, or the way that the rent is calculated will take into consideration the fact that the tenant is getting direct payment.”
“Some of that will be to go and see what advantage they can take of the proposed new ELM scheme, see what natural capital they have got and see how they can better—it is a horrible word, but I will use it—exploit it under the new scheme. Others will look at how they can diversify—at whether, for example, the barn can be converted into offices, a wedding venue or what-have-you. People are starting to think in a much more market-facing way than was perhaps the case a few years ago.”
“Q 49 My question was this: if the landowner is not then getting those direct payments indirectly, will it still be economically viable for them to rent out the land for farming, or will we find landowners choosing to go into other areas, for example tourism, quad biking and whatever it is they do? Or will they just require more money from the tenant farmers, but the tenant farmers will not be getting any more money, because they will not be getting the direct payments? Christopher Price: It will be a combination of factors. As already said, we anticipate that rents will go down, at least in the short term, while the industry recalibrates itself. However, most landowners, if not all landowners, are already looking at what other opportunities there may be.”
“The reasons for people owning land and letting it out are simply different to the economic uses they are getting from it. So, it might be because they are looking for development into the long term, or they might be interested in using the reserve rights for minerals, for sporting purposes or for other activities. Also, the tax system within which land is owned is quite beneficial, in terms of agricultural property relief and the ability to claim other relief. So there are other reasons why landlords will still choose to let land, and we have seen the area of land let in this country remain pretty static for about the past 30 years, at about a third. So I do not suspect that we will see a massive shift from the let market simply because we see rents adjust downwards a little bit.”
“Q 50 Presumably, if there is less land available for farmers, that will then push up rent prices? Christopher Price: I would suggest that, say, on every farm—this is talking in averages—there is 10% to 15% where the input costs are greater than the value that is got out of the process. There is a lot of land that need not be used for farming and that could be used for nature in particular, provided that there are sufficient incentives in place for people to do so. George Dunn: I also think it is important to appreciate that, in the current economic circumstances, the return on capital that the landlord is getting from a rental payment, even if it is £200 per acre, will only be 2% of the capital value of the land that they are offering to let.”
“We would be deeply concerned about that because young people need support and we would not like to see that taken away from our communities and possibly to other parts of the country or to trust funds or whatever.”
“Most Welsh upland farms—that is probably about 60% or 70% of Welsh farms—are self-contained units of simply fields. There is a grave concern that a movement to the public goods-type payment would have a huge adverse impact on the farms that cannot cash in on the carbon and the easy wins that you see for some farms that are right up in the mountains. Most hill farms and mountain farms are not the stereotypical type of farm. They are family farms of maybe 100 hectares or so, comprising mainly fields. John Davies: We have some concerns around the tenanted sector too. Roughly 30% of Wales is in the tenanted sector. Would they be bypassed by the opportunity of public goods? That was highlighted in an earlier answer.”
“Q May I ask about uplands farming and the economic viability regarding the future? I know people have expressed concern about support being withdrawn. John Davies: It is very important that we recognise the impact on our community, culture and language, because that is something that is very special to upland Wales and all of Wales. That is something that is particularly precious and one of the benefits of a thriving agriculture that can sometimes feel overlooked. Dr Fenwick : We are concerned that what is proposed would have an adverse impact on all communities depending on their nature and the sector where they are primarily operating. Also, it is a great concern that most upland farms are not the big expansive areas of heathland and common land and moorland that people imagine them to be.”
“It is really important that the Bill is robust in that way and does not allow that opportunity to be changed. Huw Thomas: In that regard, the Bill may have missed something. This could have been the vehicle for making a statement about those standards and insisting that imports are produced to the same standards as our domestic products going forward.”
“Q Changing tack completely, in terms of the trade deal scenario, Welsh lamb is a pretty important product. We have heard noises from Australia and New Zealand in particular about what they would like to see from a future trade deal. I know it is not specifically in the Bill, but is there anything we can do to protect it—the Bill goes to the heart of protecting standards and not allowing imports in. What impact do you think that would have? John Davies: I think it is broader than lamb, to be honest. It is about not allowing products that have been produced to completely different standards to those that are allowable here. We respect those standards. Obviously, we do not want to start producing hormone treated beef or chlorinated chicken or any of those things.”
“Q Something like a non-regression clause in future trade deals? Dr Fenwick : With trade, you have the potential of a double whammy in terms of losing access to EU markets due to the height of the barriers that may come into place plus the potential for more imports of cheap produce. Given such uncertainty—there are dangers for the sheep industry in particular, but also for other industries—we firmly believe that now is absolutely the wrong time to add uncertainty by implementing the biggest changes to the underlying principles of rural payments since the Agriculture Act 1947.”
“Many changes have been made over the last 20 years. I started farming in 1986, which was a major period of change. We are subject to some of the most strict rules and regulations.”
“Q One last question. A story broke today about 300 cases of salmonella poisoning in lamb products and the Food Standards Agency warning people to cook their meat more. I did not get a chance to ask the Food Standards Agency witness, but do you think we are doing enough to enforce food safety standards in this country at the moment? One of the concerns that has been expressed about the Bill is that there is no regulatory baseline and there might not be enough enforcement and monitoring. How do you reward people going a bit further, if you are not monitoring whether people are actually adhering to the legal standards? John Davies: Honestly, I am not the best person to answer that, but I think that consumers take safety as a given. Obviously, we have a great deal of confidence in the Food Standards Agency.”
“Q The number of cases has risen significantly, which is why it has been reported. Do you have a feeling as to why that is? Dr Fenwick: No, but the detection, containment and restrictions on most farms are testament to the fact that we have a very good system of detecting problems and clamping down on them when they do occur. Going back to your initial question, the concern would be if we opened the floodgates to places where their standards fall well below those that are a legal requirement here, then we open the floodgates to far worse problems than we would ever see in the UK.”
“As a Bristol MP, I thought it was particularly important for me to be here. Southmead Hospital is not in my constituency, but the University of the West of England nursing course provision is. I back up entirely what my hon. Friend says about the difficulty of getting qualified nursing staff. If staff are to have all the extra responsibilities and training that have been suggested, we must ensure that the sector is properly resourced and that properly trained people come through into the profession.”
“It sounds like a fantastic organisation. I wonder whether those lessons could also be rolled out to other public services. I have been talking to Avon and Somerset police, where there have been issues about tasering people who clearly should have been treated differently. Does my hon. Friend agree, particularly as the criminal justice system and the police often come into contact with people with autism and do not know how to treat them?”
“The charity Focus on Labour Exploitation—FLEX—has warned that the scheme to which the Minister referred involving temporary visas for non-EU workers to work on British farms could lead to a sharp rise in exploitation if there are ties to a particular employer. Later today, to mark Anti-Slavery Day, I will lead a debate on ending the exploitation and slavery of workers in the supermarket supply chain. Is the Minister aware of those concerns and will he follow this afternoon’s debate? This is one of the worst sectors for modern slavery and the exploitation of workers, so can he make sure that he is on the case?”
“I want to make it clear that this is not just something happening overseas that has little to do with us. These are products on our supermarket shelves, and we are eating them without realising their links with slavery.”
“The Environmental Justice Foundation uncovered horrific examples of slavery in the Thai seafood sector. Workers were tortured and abused, with wages, food and sleep withheld. Some men were kept at sea for months on end, being transferred from one ship to another without ever seeing dry land. They were force-fed methamphetamines to keep them working for longer, and bodies were thrown overboard when they were unable to go on. Some 59% of fishing workers had witnessed the murder of a fellow worker. There is also evidence of Rohingya migrants from Myanmar being trafficked from camps, and even detention centres, and sold to Thai fishing vessels as slaves, yet millions of pounds’-worth of seafood products are still imported to the UK from Thailand every year.”
“By contrast, in Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has transformed the tomato sector, aiding prosecutions of slavery operations, forging alliances between farm workers and consumers, and leveraging consumer power to put pressure on the big supermarket buyers to end exploitation. That has now been rolled out to other American states, and it is a fantastic organisation. The seafood sector is particularly notorious. In Ireland, a permit scheme for fishermen has seen African and Asian men trafficked on to trawlers, doing 20 hours a day of manual labour, legally bound to the employer and too scared to speak up for fear of arrest or deportation. Ireland now has a tier 2 ranking for trafficking—on a par with Indonesia and India—due to the Government’s failure adequately to protect victims and successfully convict traffickers.”
“A chicken factory in America was discovered to be employing illegal and under-age workers, blackmailing them to work for minimal pay in unsafe conditions under the threat of deportation. Quite often it is undocumented migrants who are most vulnerable to exploitation. Workers at the chicken factory were found to be wearing nappies at their post because they were not allowed to take toilet breaks. The tomato industry is also rife with exploitation. Some 60% of UK tinned tomatoes come from southern Italy, where illegal gangmasters, who are part of organised crime, control worker recruitment and supervision. This is an extremely lucrative business, profiting from what an Italian prosecutor described as “conditions of absolute exploitation”.”
“Earlier this year, a Cornish gangmaster who systematically exploited her workers—skimming off their pay, sending them to work double shifts with insufficient breaks and charging them to live in unsanitary caravans—was shut down by the GLAA. In Kent, 16 Lithuanian farm workers won a case against two gangmasters who forced them to work under threats of violence and kept them in squalid living conditions. Two other Lithuanian workers were trafficked to work in a meat processing plant, had their pay withheld and were subjected to violence. Their traffickers were sentenced to just three and a half years in jail. There are numerous other examples from the meat-processing sector.”
“From the recent industrial action by staff at McDonald’s, Wetherspoon’s and TGI Fridays to the International Labour Organisation’s estimate of more than 1.1 million victims of slavery working in the agricultural sector, that is all part of the same picture, showing that the cheap food we often take for granted all too often comes at a human cost. Today is World Anti-Slavery Day, and Tuesday was World Food Day, so this is a fitting time to start looking seriously at how we end this exploitation. Long after the Morecambe bay disaster in 2004, when 21 Chinese illegal migrant labourers drowned while picking cockles, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority is still finding cases of human trafficking and slavery in the UK food industry.”
“I beg to move, That this House is concerned about the practice of modern slavery and the exploitation of labour in the supply chains of supermarkets in the UK; notes this week marks world food day and anti-slavery day; recognises the global leadership that the Government has shown in tackling modern slavery in supply chains in the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and calls on the Government to help ensure that steps are taken to protect the workers and farmers who produce food. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time for this debate and to my co-sponsors, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery, and the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy). Unfortunately, neither of them is able to join us.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have been talking to Nautilus International, the seafarers’ union, which has highlighted cases where people working on those ships are exploited. That is an issue in the oil sector, for example.”
“The planned merger between Sainsbury’s and Asda would see them control more than 30% of the UK groceries retail market. They have promised that, if the merger goes ahead, they will cut shelf prices on key items by 10%, which will cause yet more downward pressure on prices for suppliers. Supermarkets now keep an increasing amount of the money their customers spend—as much as 50% in some cases.”
“These are things that we take for granted; a grape is, to an extent, a luxury item, yet the women producing them cannot feed themselves or their families. If buyers were prepared to pay just three cents more per melon to a producer in Honduras and less than two cents on a banana in Guatemala, that would give those workers a living wage. A big part of the problem is the supermarket model itself. It provides us with unparalleled choice. We can buy products from all over the world, all year round, at low prices and at our convenience. Retailers are increasingly operating in challenging circumstances, under threat from the discounters and online competition, and this is leading to over-consolidation. Tesco and Carrefour have teamed up to buy products.”
“He has exposed some of the worst practices in food producing there, starting with the pineapple sector, and I think he is now writing about the chicken sector. He has been threatened, harassed and pursued through the courts as a result, and I do not think the Foreign Office is doing enough to support him. The examples that I have given are clearly abhorrent and illegal, but it is also unacceptable that small-scale farmers and workers producing Indian tea and Kenyan green beans—common items in our supermarkets—are earning less than half of what is needed to ensure a basic but decent standard of living. When women working on grape farms in South Africa were surveyed, 90% reported not having enough to eat in the previous month.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I chaired a joint event last night between the APPG on human trafficking and modern slavery and the APPG on agriculture and food for development. One point made powerfully was that while we want the Government and the supermarkets to act—I will come to that in a moment—we must also look at procurement. The Government could be incredibly powerful if their procurement policies made it clear that they would not source from companies that could not give absolute assurance that there was not slavery in their supply chain. I mentioned the Thai fishing sector. The Foreign Office should be doing more to support human rights defenders such as Andy Hall, whom I have been in contact with for many years.”
“We can use our consumer power to demand more of our supermarkets, using the Oxfam “Behind the barcodes” scorecard to track their progress. As the chief executive officer of Divine Chocolate has said: “We live in times where, on the one hand, the turnover of the world’s biggest supermarket group is higher than the Gross National Income of Norway or Nigeria, and, on the other, where most of the world is dependent on smallholder producers for at least 80% of its food. Supermarkets have a responsibility to those producers, and we have more power than we think to call them to account.” The food sector can certainly do more. In the EU, just 10 supermarket groups account for over half of all food sales. Just 50 food manufacturers account for half of all global food sales. If they act, that will make a huge difference.”
“Fairtrade’s research into the banana sector found that banana farmers bear the cost if the retailers’ forecasts are wrong. In the worst instance, banana farmers reported receiving late changes to orders in 40 out of the 52 weeks in the year. Feedback Global has revealed the unrealistic specifications buyers use to reject produce from vegetable producers in Kenya, where on average 30% of production is discarded at farm level and another 20% prior to export—that is 50% of their produce—largely on cosmetic grounds. There is virtually no domestic market for these crops and alternative buyers cannot be found at short notice. What can we do about this? For a start, we as consumers can do more. We can buy Fairtrade, which is the only initiative that requires a minimum price for producers and has a mandatory trader standard.”
“It is not just the cost savings that are not passed down; there is also a greater risk in that we are much more likely to see pesticide poisonings and other health and safety violations. For example, the import price for pineapples from Costa Rica to Germany, primarily for supplying Aldi and Lidl, fell by about 45% between 2002 and 2014, despite increasing production costs. Oxfam has documented conditions on two pineapple farms in Costa Rica, which included poverty wages, subcontractors demanding monthly commissions, penalties or dismissal for workers who wanted to organise, and pesticides being sprayed while workers were in the fields. There are other unfair practices that contravene the groceries supply code of practice’s principle of fair dealing.”
“I was not actually aware of that point, so I thank my hon. Friend for bringing it to my attention. I am very concerned to hear that that is the case. As I was saying, supermarkets now keep as much as 50% of the money their customers spend, while the share that reaches workers and food producers has fallen, sometimes to less than 5%. Oxfam’s research has found a direct correlation between drops in the prices paid by the supermarkets to suppliers and the risk of increasing human rights violations in supply chains. This is basically propelling a race to the bottom on wages and rights. Slavery and labour exploitation typically happen towards the bottom of supply chains, where things can get very murky and there is a lot less transparency.”
“I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I am focusing today on supermarkets because that is where it is easiest for customers to interface and because they so powerful within the market. However, there are many big food manufacturers and others throughout the supply chain, as she says, that need to step up to the mark as well.”
“One point is that there is just so little transparency. A limited range of goods is covered by Fairtrade certification. It tends to cover commodities such as coffee, cocoa, bananas and so on. We need far greater transparency. During the horsemeat scandal, there were stories about lasagne selling for £1 that had traversed about 13 or 14 EU countries, with dozens of small products going into making this probably highly unappetising meal. It is so difficult to trace that, but we do need to make a start.”
“I absolutely agree. I also think that big companies can have a Fairtrade brand that might account for 5% of its sales, but the rest of their coffee or tea does not carry that certification, so what does that say about the conditions under which that share of the market is produced?”
“The Government must do more to ensure that all businesses are compliant with the law, with tough financial penalties if they are not. A new evidence briefing from the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and the University of Nottingham has found that just 19% of the agriculture sector is abiding by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act.”
“They need to engage constructively with trade unions throughout the supply chain that are working to ensure real living wages, root out bad practices and provide a route for whistleblowers—whether that is Unite and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union in the UK; Nautilus, the seafarers union, which has already been mentioned; or global framework agreements with the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations. The Government can also do more. With the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the UK became the first country in the world to require large businesses to report on the steps they are taking to eliminate slavery from their supply chains, but there have been only 13 convictions in the past 18 months.”
“There are key actions supermarkets can take, from conducting human rights due diligence in line with UN guiding principles on business and human rights to respecting living wage and income benchmarks in supplier negotiations. Needless to say, they should be paying their own staff the living wage too. Supermarkets need to end the fantasy of social audits, which are almost entirely for PR purposes.”
“I agree. That is very much about the complexity of the supply chain and the need for greater transparency. If the supermarkets and the big food companies act, that could make a huge difference. Oxfam has found that all the major supermarkets in the UK—Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi—lack sufficient policies to protect the human rights of the people they rely on to produce our food. Oxfam’s “Behind the barcodes” scorecard provides supermarkets with a rating based on their transparency, accountability and treatment of workers, farmers and women. Aldi languishes at 1%, while Morrisons and Lidl are at 5%. The highest scoring is Tesco, at a still fairly unimpressive 23%. However, I was pleased that Tesco came along to the joint APPG meeting yesterday, and it seems very willing to try to improve that score.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I certainly hope that the Minister will reply to it in her winding-up speech. As I said, only 19% of the agricultural sector is abiding by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act. By contrast, the rate of compliance with the new gender pay gap reporting rules was 87% on day one of the first year of reporting.”
“A wider definition of supply chain liability is needed, so that real or feigned ignorance is not a justifiable excuse when instances of slavery are revealed. We also need better support for victims. I very much support Lord McColl of Dulwich’s Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill, which would extend the proposed 45 days of additional support to 12 months. We can see how victims of slavery are terrified of coming forward because of the risk of deportation.”