Daniel Zeichner
MP for Cambridge · Labour · United Kingdom
“I recall, as a shadow Minister, visiting a major institution in the country and sending the management into panic when I asked them where the bus stop was to get back to the station.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the location of bus stops. I am so frustrated when I have taken the train to Cambridge, arrive at the station, see the bus, but have to walk 200 yards around the platform, come out of the station and walk 200 yards back to the bus stop, to find the bus has gone.”
“Devolution and local government reorganisation are different things. To be honest, they should probably be considered separately, but they have become so interlinked and intertwined in this debate that it is impossible to do so. If we are to have a stronger devolution settlement, it is right to spend more time getting it right.”
“I commend the Secretary of State and his team for their determination and resolve in the transfer to renewables. In the extraordinary and unprecedented weather that we are having at the moment I can assure the House that some shade would be really welcome in parts of the east of England.”
“I commend all the hard work that has gone into both the road map and the profitability review by the civil servants, the ministerial team and so many people across the sector, including Baroness Batters.”
“On that point about speculative building, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is probably not a fan of big, bold projects of this kind, but does he agree that there is a very good example just down the road in Cambridge?”
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“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure we will have a to and fro this morning. We will come to the three-crop rule later. I have a suggestion for a more conciliatory word: “framed” is a more accurate term, frankly. “Dictated” is highly contentious and in some ways designed to rile, and I can say to whomever did that, it succeeded. Some of us take exception to the idea that the Government of our country seems to have become a Vote Leave franchise operation.”
“I am grateful, Mr Stringer, but I am slightly perplexed as to how to proceed because the case I am making is about the need for proper scrutiny. I am trying to explain why we think that is so important, and to do that I have to delve into the detail of the paper, which we were not given sight of before. I will do the best I can and I will keep trying to refer back to the point about the need for scrutiny overall, if that is acceptable to you.”
“One assumption is that it will be derived from the savings that result from not making direct payments, or reducing them bit by bit, but that question needs a light shone on it. At what pace will this be done, and how will we do it? Unless those things are specified somewhere within a financial assistance scheme, it will be unclear who will have the resources to lead it. There is a potential danger that those who know how to make these systems work for them, and have the resources and wherewithal to do so, will be the ones who will take up the scheme. Its resources may not necessarily go where they are most needed, or where they will produce the best environmental benefit—as, to be fair, the Government have referenced.”
“I return briefly to how the advice under these schemes will be funded. I have to say that tier 3 looks good. It has some similarities with the pillar two LEADER schemes. It is also the first appearance I can see in the Bill of the idea of devolving down a bit and involving local communities in designing financial assistance schemes. That is a really important point, which I will return to. However, bringing people together, which is really important, requires resource. In the past local councils played that role, but I am no longer convinced that many of them have that capacity. If that is to work, we must answer the key question about any financial assistance scheme: where are the resources going to go?”
“The paper also contains—this is absolutely relevant to the design of the schemes—innovative, interesting suggestions about how payments may be calculated, including some market-based price-setting mechanisms using tendering or auctioning. I am not convinced that that is addressed elsewhere in the Bill. There is not much detail about it, and it is important that we tease out the Government’s thinking. Of course, they conclude that it would not necessarily be appropriate in tier 1. I can see why. If we are talking about thousands and thousands of agreements—this goes back to my question about distribution across the tiers—that would look like a very bureaucratic mechanism indeed. It may make more sense for the higher level, but any financial assistance scheme will have to deal with some of these points.”
“There is a kind of irony on page 22 of the environmental land management document, where the authors, in asking themselves how to design financial assistance schemes, rightly ask how we should define what it is we want. Lo and behold: up turns our old friend the good agricultural and environmental condition—GAEC—standards from the CAP years. Again, that seems in effect to be the CAP coming back—I suspect the Vote Leave checker had lost the will to live by that stage and did not scrutinise that paragraph—through the back door. I do not criticise that. Anyone would struggle with that, because however they tried to design a financial assistance scheme, they would have to design some definition of how public money was to be allocated. I am sure we can change the acronym, but the same conundrums will arise.”
“My contention is that such a system is not easy to create; it is hard. The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby made the important point that, sadly, under the three-crop rule, parts of the country are now underwater, and farmers are rightly arguing for a derogation. On the design of financial assistance schemes, it has been suggested that payments should be based on outcomes. Many of us would welcome that, but I wonder how difficult that might be in a time of floods. There are outcomes over which we have some control and outcomes over which, sadly, it appears we have much less control. I think that is worthy of discussion in the context of how we design financial assistance schemes.”
“The CAP was not designed as an environmental scheme but effectively as a food and rural support scheme, so we are undertaking a different task. Clearly, the Government based those designs for a financial assistance scheme to some extent on the experience of the tests and trials. Of course, numbers are relatively low in tests and trials, but the National Audit Office—in a way, its report advises those of us who are trying to scrutinise the design of financial assistance schemes—was not particularly complimentary about progress so far. According to the NAO’s commentary on the numbers that DEFRA hoped would be signed up by different stages of the process, the Department initially wanted 5,000 to be signed up by the end of 2022, but that dropped to 1,250. I wonder whether the Minister can confirm what the numbers are now.”
“Looking at the suggestions for a financial assistance scheme set out under tier 1, many farmers—if they get that far in the document—would be encouraged because for those who do not want to see change, the scheme looks remarkably like the old basic payment scheme. Given that a three-tiered approach is suggested, what do the Government envisage to be the split between the three tiers? That is a reasonable question. It is similar to a pillar 1 or pillar 2 issue—12% or 15%—in that a lot could be put into either tier 3 or tier 1. It would help if we knew how that would be done. It is correct that we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the CAP, but in designing any financial assistance scheme it is important to know what was the intention when the scheme was designed in the first place.”
“The suggestions coming forward from the Government face exactly the same kind of problems we faced within the CAP now that we are without it. As I have made clear, designing such assistance schemes and getting them right is a complex task. Any design will take time; to give the Government credit, they started on this path some 18 months ago. From our understanding, and from the National Audit Office report, it has not been an easy task. The suggestions about how financial assistance schemes should be developed make sense to me. Referring back to the policy discussion document, there is a suggestion of a three-tiered approach that sounds remarkably similar to the system we already have.”
“Thank you, Mr Stringer. I will try to take heed of that. I will not refer so closely to the paper and I will try to put my comments into the framework you suggest. People would always want a more simplified financial assistance scheme. Looking back at parts of the common agricultural policy, I suggest that that has been an aim for a long time. From debates about the statutory instruments this week, some of us have had the opportunity to read closely regulation (EU) 1307/2013, in which paragraph 2 states: “One of the core objectives, and one of the key requirements, of the CAP reform is the reduction of the administrative burden.” So, in designing any financial assistance scheme, we are all trying to do that.”
“The amendment is a long, probing one, and it has largely achieved what I wanted it to by establishing that there is no clarity on the schemes. I will not press the amendment to a Division, but I ask for an assurance from the Minister that we will get answers to our questions through one means or another. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .”
“The timeframes are not always easy for people, because they have to plan and will make decisions fairly soon, so not knowing even the most basic point about a financial assistance scheme and whether the Government expect it to apply to 5% or 95% of those who have been in receipt in the past, is disappointing, to put it mildly. I very much hope that we will get more clarity at some point in the future, in discussion, correspondence or written answers. The discussion has demonstrated a weakness in our processes; I am not sure that many of the questions that I have asked this morning have been answered. It would be much more helpful if the Government had been able to have an open discussion—perhaps not in Committee, but at some point—that would have been facilitated by the existence of the Bill.”
“Although it is wonderful to have theoretical discussions about how best to develop policy, people out there need some certainty, as the Government keep saying, which may partly be why the Secretary of State ran into problems with the NFU yesterday. In the 40 minutes of this debate so far, we have seen that, far from there being any certainty, there are a huge number of uncertainties. Obviously, if one is trying to make change and be ambitious in moving to a different system, uncertainty is almost inevitable, but the Labour party feel that there needs to be a little more clarity on some of those points to give people better opportunities to plan ahead, which is a point that many people in this room, who know far more about practical farming than I do, have made.”
“I thank the Minister for her response and I fully appreciate that it is difficult to respond to a series of questions that are only loosely related to the amendment. I listened closely to what she said, but I still think there is a potential problem. I do not think our intention is that every single local scheme would be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny; it is the overall financial assistance scheme that we are concerned about. I fully appreciate the notion of iterative and learning processes, but the difficulty in which we find ourselves is that for farmers, the change effectively starts next year—we have seen the Government’s announcement about the 5% and so on—so real people will start losing real money quite quickly.”
“I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 2, page 3, line 27, at end insert— “(2A) Financial assistance may not be given to any person who is not compliant with standards set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State under section [ Duty and regulations governing agricultural and horticultural activity ].” This amendment and NC9 provide a duty for the Secretary of State to set baseline regulatory standards governing agricultural and horticultural activity, which must be met by any recipient of financial assistance.”
“(4) Regulations under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.””
““(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must include provision about the standards to which activity for or in connection with all of the purposes in subsection (1) must conform. (3) Regulations under subsection (1) may include provision about enforcement, which may (among other things) include provision— (a) about the provision of information; (b) conferring powers of entry; (c) conferring powers of inspection, search and seizure; (d) about the keeping of records; (e) imposing monetary penalties; (f) creating summary offences punishable with a fine (or a fine not exceeding an amount specified in the regulations, which must not exceed level 4 on the standard scale); (g) about appeals; (h) conferring functions (including functions involving the exercise of a discretion) on a person.”
“We are moving on to a complex set of issues on baseline environmental standards. Amendment 36 reads: “(2A) Financial assistance may not be given to any person who is not compliant with standards set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State under section [ Duty and regulations governing agricultural and horticultural activity ].” New clause 9 reads: “(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to establish a regulatory framework relating to agricultural and horticultural activity for or in connection with the following purposes— (a) the management of land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment; (b) public access to and enjoyment of the countryside, farmland or woodland and better understanding of the environment; (c) the management of land or water in a way that maintains, restores or enhances cultural or natural heritage; (d) the management of land, water or livestock in a way that mitigates or adapts to climate change; (e) the management of land or water in a way that prevents, reduces or protects from environmental hazards; (f) the protection or improvement of the health or welfare of livestock; (g) the conservation of native livestock, native equines or genetic resources relating to any such animal; (h) the protection or improvement of the health of plants; (i) the conservation of plants grown or used in carrying on an agricultural, horticultural or forestry activity, their wild relatives or genetic resources relating to any such plant; and (j) the protection or improvement of the quality of soil.” Some will have noted that that reflects the wording elsewhere in the Bill.”
“In conclusion, new clause 9 outlines that it should be a duty for the Secretary of State to establish a baseline regulatory framework “for or in connection” with the listed purposes. It outlines that the regulations “may include” provisions about enforcement and would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure to ensure that we continue to have robust debate and scrutiny of the most appropriate baseline regulatory framework. Amendment 36 would ensure that those who receive financial assistance under clause 1 public goods are meeting those baseline environmental standards as well, and will be rewarded for going above and beyond.”
“There is also the point—I certainly would not say this about the current Ministers—that in future some of the financial assistance that is being redirected could be moving towards productivity rather than environmental protection, and that, too, could compromise our environmental safeguards. That goes to the heart of what the Bill is really all about. The “Health and Harmony” DEFRA consultation paper for the Bill outlined that the Government wanted to embed the “polluter pays” principle throughout. As I have said, the danger is that we could end up, as George Monbiot explained, paying the polluter not to pollute, which is the other side of the coin. We do not want that to be the outcome, and we have heard from a number of key witnesses how important that is.”
“We will return to that wider point, but on this particular point we believe, and the institute believes, that there may be some gaps in legislation that will result in there no longer being protections for hedgehogs, nesting birds and hedgerow habitats, partly due to some of the potential changes in the 2 metre wide buffer strip rules. Given that we have already lost 97% of our hedgehog population since the 1950s—a point that was made yesterday by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) in the Second Reading debate on the Environment Bill—there is genuine concern. That is why we need to make sure that we are covered.”
“I still think that that is probably what the Government want to do, but the contradictions and difficulties are being glossed over at the moment. The Institute for European Environmental Policy, in its report, commissioned by a number of the witnesses that we heard from in the evidence sessions, said that there are a number of gaps in legislation, which will have real consequences, particularly for wildlife on our agricultural land. The interaction between EU retained law and our current legislation is tricky. The assumption that all these plans will necessarily work as we think they will could well be open to challenge.”
“I do not deny that it is a difficult conundrum; it is one that I would love to be dealing with as a Minister, rather than as shadow Minister. I suspect that if I were in that position, the Opposition would be making exactly the same tough, robust points, because these are real-life conundrums. It is my job in the interim to make the points on behalf of our environment and our farmers. We need to make sure that across all our agricultural land, the baseline is land management that recognises the huge challenge of climate change, protects our soils, guards against flooding, encourages resilience in biodiversity and prioritises high animal welfare. We believe that we have to set minimum standards across the board, so that the Bill—this goes back to a point I was making earlier—genuinely incentivises those that go above and beyond.”
“Far from being a greener, pro-environment Bill, it will therefore have the unintended—or possibly intended—consequence of saving the Government a lot of money and making them look good, but doing nothing to improve the environment. That is a really serious issue, which is why the amendment is so important. Part of the solution relates to the points I raised about take-up in the ELMS document. If there is mass take-up, which is the suggestion, everything is possibly fine. If not, as I said, the downside is direct payments through the back door, and not getting the environmental lift we are looking for. I know the Government will not agree with that, but it is a risk. If we do not go that route and instead go the tougher route, there is also a danger of damaging the environment.”
“It might have been better to pass the environmental legislation first. We do not know what it will include. On the basis of what we have seen so far, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the shadow Secretary of State, said last night on Second Reading, we support much of it. We did not vote against it, but we think it needs to be greatly strengthened. Not knowing whether it will be leaves us in a difficult position. Some of a cynical disposition might say that the Government are left in almost a win-win position. They have burnished their green credentials, setting up a fantastic new environmental scheme, and have even got the money for it, which is quite unusual in politics; but the scheme is such that most people will not take it up.”
“Most do, of course, because public money is on offer; it would be foolish not to. However, it was a simpler system—a direct payment system—and people were happy to take the money. If they are asked to do more to get the money, it will be a different decision. I suspect that some will decide that it all looks a bit difficult and complicated, going back to my point about uncertainty, and will operate outside it. Returning to my point about numbers, a few farmers operating outside the system may not be a problem, but many doing so certainly would be. We would have to rely—this goes back to my point about the interrelationship between this Bill and the Environment Bill—on having some pretty strong legislation. Again, it is difficult for the Committee, because many would argue that the Bills are being considered in the wrong order.”
“The Committee on Climate Change issued a report in January titled, “Land use: Policies for a Net Zero UK”, which is a useful document to inform our discussion. It includes a handy chart on page 80 that outlines the current proposals for the replacement of the common agricultural policy. If people want a one-pager, it is pretty good. The only problem is that its opening line says that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs proposes: “The development of a new regulatory baseline reflecting the ‘polluter pays’ principle.” I am not sure that that is, strictly speaking, accurate. We are looking for it, but we do not think that it exists, without our amendment. The concern is that farmers may decide not to participate. When I first looked at this brief, one question that struck me was what percentage of people currently do.”
“The Bill includes provisions to move away from cross-compliance, with clause 14 giving Ministers the scope to simplify and amend the horizontal legislation that facilitated the operation of the CAP, including farmers’ compliance with EU laws on environmental and animal welfare standards—I apologise for diverting into eurojargon, but I am afraid the debate is constantly beset by it. I do not think that we have yet seen any long-term plan from the Government to replace that system, flawed though it may be, with the robust regulatory baseline that we believe we will need to ensure that environmental and animal welfare standards are met across the board in land management. There is an irony in that.”
“I may be missing something here—the Minister is a learned lawyer, so I shall be careful—but it seems pretty odd to be paying people to obey the rules. In any other sphere of life, I think people would find that surprising. In the slightly odd world of the common agricultural policy, the payment was an accepted part of the way we did things, but it is certainly worth raising the question now, when looking at potential compliance issues, and debating it. All members of the Committee, depending on their point of view, either enjoyed or winced at George Monbiot’s evidence last week. He put it pretty forcefully. I think many of our fellow citizens and constituents would want to ask the question, too. It is a reasonable point.”
“Again, had we had the opportunity to discuss the ELMS policy paper in detail, we would have seen that there were some innovative suggestions in it. I will have to continue to try to refer to them tangentially. We have left the European Union, and our worry is that there is a gap. We might well find that the Bill has unintended consequences that will leave much more of our countryside relatively unprotected. A point that I had hoped to make in the debate on the previous amendment, but which I will make now, is that there was an astonishing statement in that document about whether tier 1 payments should be dependent on regulatory compliance. I cannot think of any other sector in which there would be an issue about regulatory compliance.”
“I do not want to press the point, but I cannot believe that there has not been some discussion in the Department about where we hope to get to. There must have been some discussion; there must be some idea of the scale that is expected. I would welcome a response on that point. As part of the common agricultural policy, our farmers had to meet cross-compliance standards on EU environmental management, animal welfare and traceability to qualify for payments. Its onerousness and the fact that, to many, it seemed a bureaucratic system was the cause of justified complaint, but it is actually quite difficult to design compliance systems that do not end up in that situation. That is not to say that we cannot do better.”
“My apologies, Mr Stringer. I quite appreciate your direction. The purpose of new clause 9 is to set baseline environmental standards across all farmed land, regardless of whether the land manager has chosen to receive financial assistance for any of the clause 1 purposes. To some extent, that follows on from the discussion about the previous amendment. There is a genuine concern about the systems—it was referenced in the document about the design of the schemes, to which I referred. Uptake is a key issue, as we saw in relation to stewardship. The worry is that if the systems are too complicated, difficult and onerous, there will not be the levels of uptake that we hope for. I asked the Minister about the numbers that the Government anticipate will take up under tier 1 because that is absolutely vital to our discussion.”
“That is why we think we need a more comprehensive framework to deal with it. I appreciate what the Government have said about trying to implement the Stacey review’s recommendations, but we remain nervous that, without the resources needed, we may not be able to achieve what we are trying to do. We think that is key not only to supporting rural communities and people who work in producing food, but to achieving the environmental gains that we wish to see. Our worry is that without a comprehensive compliance regulatory system behind it, this move could lead to unintended consequences and possible environmental degradation rather than improvement. We think that that is so important that we will press the amendment to a vote.”
“We would then want to require the Secretary of State to bring before Parliament the decision on the consultation and tell us how it is intended to proceed. We know from the Stacey report that the current punitive compliance measures often do not have the effect that we seek. We want not to punish people but to help them to do the right thing. One of the positive things in the paper “Environmental Land Management” was about finding a way in which help can be given. A common complaint about the previous system was that it was pernickety and that a minor transgression could cause a disproportionate response. Those are things we all agree on, and would all like to get changed. The one thing I am nervous about is that a better system may require more people—or more technology, or whatever. The question is how it will be resourced.”
“I appreciate that it is assisted by others in that, and my understanding is that Natural England has a lot of the expertise behind it. Given some of the well documented pressures on that agency as well, however, the question arises of where the resource to make everything work will come from. Maybe it will come from the money that would have been going to farmers out of the direct payments scheme, but we do not know. That is the problem with the entire debate. There is potentially £3 billion to spend: how will it be used? We need some clarity from the Government. Our suggestion was that the Secretary of State should, within a month of the Bill’s receiving Royal Assent, hold a proper consultation on the most appropriate body to enforce important baseline environmental regulations.”
“I gently go back to my earlier observations: it is great to be ambitious but the Government have to think through the enforcement mechanisms that go along with that, and ask themselves whether they are prepared to bear the costs. Of course, there is quite a range of DEFRA-related bodies that deliver compliance with farm regulations, such as Natural England, the Forestry Commission, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and, sometimes, local authorities. It is not unfair to say that the Rural Payments Agency has not always covered itself in glory in the past. We congratulate it on its improvements in recent times, but we know the historical difficulties that it has had with, frankly, just doing the administration.”
“I was impressed by Dame Glenys’s report on the farm inspection and regulation review and I echo many of the points that the Minister made. I am sure she did not need to know that Dame Glenys is her constituent to reach the conclusion she did. I will just point out one or two observations from the report that reflect what I have said. I think that she said that current enforcement is nowhere near effective, and I am told that of the 10,600 staff at the Environment Agency only 40 do farm inspections. That seems extraordinary to me. There is thus only a one in 200 chance of being inspected by the Environment Agency. Quite clearly it is pretty busy at the moment, so that is not a criticism of the agency, but it shows the scale of capacity that is needed.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the reasons why she does not believe we need the baseline. I neglected to make any comments about new clause 22 in my opening statement, so I shall weave those in to what I say at this point. Of course we all agree that enforcement is critical. One of the things that has struck me in my relatively few years in this place is how often we pass legislation and then struggle with enforcing it. That does not do our reputation any good, and it certainly does not do our constituents any good. I have in the past reflected on the fact that all it does is to make good, law-abiding people cross. It does little to dissuade non-law-abiding people from their actions. As the Minister says, it is a conundrum.”
“Again, it has been said that this is a framework Bill. That is fine—we get that. But this is the opportunity for Parliament to ask these questions. The headline figure of money is a concern to some in rural communities, and it may not be available if is not within the right timeframe. I suppose I have a simple question.”
“If not all that money is used in one year, what happens to it? All I am looking for is some explanation, as the amendment suggests, that it would be possible to carry over money into subsequent years. That point has been raised on a number of occasions by a number of people, and there may be a simple explanation. When debating the statutory instrument on Monday and looking back at our old friend regulation 1307/2013, it struck me that the current system has quite complicated reserves that the CAP specifies for dealing with some issues around fines, compliance and so on. It goes into considerable detail about how that should work. A similar system may be envisaged for us. I asked some questions about the issue during the debate on the statutory instrument, so perhaps when there is a reply there will be some clarity.”
“I beg to move amendment 48, in clause 2, page 3, line 30, at end insert— “(3A) Financial assistance allocated to a scheme in a particular year but not spent within that year may be carried over to a future year for spending on one or more schemes.” This amendment would enable Ministers to “carry over” any monies left unspent at the end of a particular budget year for spending in subsequent years . This is a more probing amendment and one that we do not intend to put to a vote, so hon. Members can be at ease. Mr Stringer, you will be pleased to hear that I will not read out the amendment. I may have misunderstood how DEFRA’s economics works, and I am ready to stand corrected. The Government have not put it in legislation but have indicated that the money will be available for the remainder of the Parliament.”
“That is a good point. Some of this discussion has conflated the two things, which may not be helpful for people. Actually, no money is allocated nationally. It is a political promise; it is not in legislation. Of course, no Parliament can bind future spending allocations. We will watch with interest what happens in the coming weeks, but the political promise has been given.”
“I understand why Government Ministers cannot concede, but I suspect that, as people look more closely, quite a lot of them would agree with this position; if we are going to embark on these ambitious environmental schemes, as we want to, we want as much money as possible to be drawn from the Treasury. It is a very unusual situation, politically, to have a pot of money that looks like it has been allocated before. Where does it go in the future? That is what we are trying to pin down.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I am not sure that the issue is covered; that is why I am seeking clarification. I am afraid these points are about a lack of certainty. We are looking ahead a long way—seven years, potentially—for the transition. We have some clarity on the 5% plus, capping and so on for the next year, but beyond that —I hate to go back to the ELMS document, but there are timelines in there—some of it looks a touch optimistic, frankly. Given that the process was begun 18 months ago, I hope that it will become clearer through the trials and tests, but we would like to pin down the finances. That is what we are trying to achieve through the amendment.”
“I am sorry to press the Minister on this point, but will she define “very high”? I would say it has to be more than 50%; maybe it has to be more than 75% to be “very high”.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. — (James Morris . )”
“I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 2, page 3, line 32, at end insert— “(4A) Financial assistance under subsection (1)(1)(f) for protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock shall only be given to a person who satisfies the Secretary of State that they— (a) achieve, or have undertaken to achieve, standards of animal welfare which exceed the minimum requirements laid down by legislation governing welfare of livestock, (b) raise animals in such a way that enables them to carry out their natural behaviours, (c) do not subject livestock to any prohibited procedure (within the meaning of section 5 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006), (d) do not kill livestock in any place other than in a slaughterhouse unless— (i) a veterinary surgeon has certified that this is necessary due to the animal’s poor health, and (ii) the method of killing is humane, and (e) do not, after IP completion day, export animals for slaughter or fattening unless— (i) the livestock is exported from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, and (ii) it is made a requirement of sale that the livestock shall not be re-exported by the buyer.” This amendment would set minimum baseline welfare standards for the receipt of financial assistance for protecting or improving the welfare of livestock.”
“It would put in place a provision that financial assistance would be provided for the public good of improving animal welfare and health only if the Secretary of State was satisfied that the recipient had gone beyond minimum requirements and followed a number of important measures to guarantee animal welfare, as set out in paragraphs (b) to (e). They include that the recipient has raised animals “in such a way that enables them to carry out their natural behaviours”. I suspect there would be considerable support for that among the wider public. High animal welfare means taking into account scientific research that increasingly indicates that good animal welfare helps not only the prevention of suffering but the opportunity for animals to have positive experiences and exhibit their natural behaviours.”
“I hope the Minister has given due consideration to the careful planning needed to ensure that those receiving money for the clause 1(1)(f) public good are truly rewarded for achieving significant evidence-based improvements in animal welfare above the norm. Amendment 42 provides that financial assistance for the purpose of protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock would be given only if the recipient had exceeded a set of baseline regulatory standards, as established in new clause 9. Amendment 4 provides an expanded alternative. We have a slight sense that the previous amendment may not be carried, so it is good to have a second string.”