Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Motion to Approve

Moved by

That the Regulations laid before the House on 5 April be approved.

My Lords, I hope that it will be helpful to your Lordships if I speak to both the Animal Health, Alien Species in Aquaculture and Invasive Non-native Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, given the close connection between the two instruments.

It may also be helpful to explain why we are debating the Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 again when it has already had your Lordships’ full consideration. We are doing so because timetabling issues in the other place led to a delay in the instrument being made; that meant that it was necessary to withdraw the instrument and make it under the emergency procedure, under which we are now debating it. Both statutory instruments were made under the emergency procedure as both were required to support the UK’s application to the European Commission for third-country listed status for animal health purposes. As the Government have made clear, we are seeking a negotiated deal with the European Union, but we are taking responsible action to prepare for other scenarios.

The European Commission called a meeting of the relevant committee—SCoPAFF—on 9 April to consider the UK’s third-country listing application and made it clear that it required all relevant animal health legislation to be in place by that date. Both SIs therefore had to be made in a very short window of time as both contain amendments to animal health legislation. By using the emergency procedure to make the SIs, the UK was able to assure the Commission that all relevant legislation had been made, enabling member states to vote unanimously on 9 April to list the UK as a third country. This would have enabled the export of animal products and most live animals from the UK to the EU to continue in the event of a no-deal scenario on 12 April. The Government have taken care to avoid using the emergency procedure under the EU withdrawal Act, but we considered use of this procedure to be appropriate in this instance.

I want to make it clear that our biosecurity controls for animals and plants are paramount and that these instruments continue to contribute to ensuring that we will have the most robust arrangements in place to protect public health and the environment. The instruments make technical operability amendments covering animal health, plant health, aquaculture, invasive non-native species, seed marketing and seed potatoes, and will contribute towards ensuring that the legislation protecting our biosecurity is fully operable.

As the first statutory instrument has been debated in this House previously, I hope that it will be helpful if I summarise it. The amendments made by the instrument concern recent updates on animal health control measures relating to African swine fever in certain member states. Retaining this EU decision requires the appropriate Minister in the UK to display public information notices regarding the importance of biosecurity measures to prevent this pig disease being brought into the UK; it also prohibits the movement of live feral pigs.

I thank my noble friend for introducing these two statutory instruments but regret the circumstances that he has set out. I welcome the opportunity to consider them and I have a couple of questions.

Mindful of the fact that we are on the eve of the Chelsea Flower Show, I wish to press my noble friend on the comments he made in relation to inspections and the role of the import controls. When these were considered in the other place on 9 May, our honourable friend David Rutley said:

“Notifications will be required for live animals, Germplasm and animal by-products not for human consumption, and high-risk food and feed are subject to vet checks”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/19; col. 13.]

This raises a question not only about plants but about who will be responsible for the inspection for beetles. Will it be the responsibility of the UK border inspection or the importer? Will the importer pick up the cost of these inspections?

Page 44 of Statutory Instrument 2019 No. 809, refers to the policy on GMO and food and feed regulations. My noble friend has said that these two statutory instruments have been brought forward today in case there is no deal. It would be welcome if he could reassure me that our policy on GMO will not change in the event of no deal.

On a separate matter, I am keen that we use the same language as is used in this and other statutory instruments and regulations from my noble friend’s department, whether it relates to the import of plants, animals, potato seeds or other items within the remit of these two statutory instruments. We successfully amended the Trade Act, but I am concerned that the wording used in that amendment related only to plant and animal health. I would argue that it should extend to food safety. I realise it does not fall entirely within the remit of these statutory instruments, but I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this at greater length with my noble friend if we have the opportunity to do so. I am very keen that the language used by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the same as that used by the Department for International Trade to make sure that, when we look at these issues across departments, we entirely understand what is being considered.

My Lords, first, I commiserate with my noble friend who has to introduce these statutory instruments. I am sure the whole House understands. What we do not understand is why we are doing this at all, as it is manifestly barmy. It just reminds us why we should not be trying to leave the European Union. It really has to be said again and again. When we are talking about invasive species, I can think of one or two whose names will be on the ballot papers when we come to the European elections.

I want to question my noble friend a little about the African swine fever element of this. I declare a family interest. It is not just a question of making sure that there is no spread of invasive African swine fever at our borders but of making sure that it does not spread inside our borders. I am sure my noble friend will not mind me saying so but there is a degree of unhappiness about the large and growing number of wild boars in this country—I refer to the animal species—and the danger that African swine fever will therefore be very difficult to control. Will the Minister take this opportunity to tell the House what measures we are taking internally to complement the external measures he has outlined?

My second point is fundamental. Can anyone imagine circumstances in which we would have different animal and plant health arrangements from the rest of Europe? I cannot imagine circumstances in which, divided as we are by only 22 miles of water, with enormous movement backwards and forwards—unless, of course, we get ourselves into a situation in which it all stops—we could have a system that was not a common system because we are a common area irrespective of our political arrangements. I hope my noble friend, on behalf of the whole Government, will apologise to all the civil servants having to do all this knowing perfectly well that it is a futile exercise because there is no way we can imagine a Britain divided from our nearest and sometimes dearest—sometimes not—friends in the rest of Europe and have different policies in these areas. This is a means of protecting ourselves from a common enemy, and that common enemy is disease spread by the movement of plants and animals.

My Lords, I declare my interests as stated in the register—in particular in forestry. We have to learn from past sad experience—for example, over Dutch elm disease, which has wiped out the great majority of all the elms of southern England. At this very moment, we are grappling with ash bud disease, which can make the timber of ash completely useless, except as firewood. Other, lesser infections and importations have affected chestnut trees, oak and larch, and one hopes that they are not spreading or getting more serious. Invasive weeds have been mentioned, notably by the Minister, and on quite a few occasions your Lordships have discussed Japanese knotweed, but I will say no more about that.

I notice that of course the regulations are unamendable —incidentally, I apologise for not having been present when they were discussed earlier—but I trust that the Government have devised the very best possible protection. As an island, we are better placed than those with land frontiers to protect our stock of plants and trees, but we should try to benefit from our natural advantages and devise the very best possible protection.

My Lords, my noble friend was emphatic about the stringency of the controls over the import of ash wood to this country. I take it that that means that no leaf and no centimetre of bark will come in. However, would he take this opportunity—alternatively, perhaps he would write, as I have given no notice of this question—to compare the progress of the disease in Britain and the United States and to compare the methods of control of the disease in those two countries?

My Lords, perhaps the Minister could say a little more about the process by which these errors were discovered. I think he used the phrase “further scrutiny”, particularly in relation to what we find in the animal health, alien species regulations regarding fruit bats, dogs and cats coming from Malaysia and Australia. Some of the things that have been corrected seem, at a glance, to be almost typing errors. We are asked to substitute for the words “set out in” the words “as set out in”, and elsewhere to substitute for the word “Law” with a capital “L” the word “law” with a small “l”. It looks as though someone is taking great care to look at these regulations again to check that something which may have been done under great pressure is being corrected so that it is absolutely accurate. I applaud that if it is what is going on, and I sympathise entirely with the Minister and all those in his department having to deal with such an enormous quantity of material in great detail. It would be interesting to know what the process is and whether more of these instruments may come forward as further errors are discovered. If so, for my part, I would regard that as a consequence of this very punishing exercise, which is putting great strain on many people.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very full introduction to these minor amendments and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has pointed out, corrections. We previously debated these statutory instruments on 20 February and 3 April. I do not want to bore the House by running through the comments that I made then or rehashing the debate that we had. The EU requirements on 9 April for changes in order to accommodate the UK’s third-country status ensure our biosecurity and that of the producers, and that is the right step forward. I agree with virtually all the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben.

I want to refer to African swine fever, which is a really major concern for national pig breeders. There are areas of the land with huge populations of feral pigs, and the disease is a threat to pig farmers as there is little monitoring of the health of the feral pigs. It is important that we protect legitimate pig breeders from African swine flu. There does not seem to be any way to monitor how the feral pig population is doing and whether or not the pigs are carrying African swine fever.

That apart, I think it is a pity that we are having to make minor corrections to important pieces of legislation. However, I am quite content for it to be dealt with under the emergency procedures, and I support the amendments.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out why the SIs that we are debating today have been subject to the affirmative procedure under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. Like other noble Lords, while we accept that this is necessary, we share the frustration that we could be doing something much more constructive in taking these issues forward rather than revisiting the past. This feels like a bit of a futile exercise; nevertheless, we understand that the Minister has to do what he has to do.

I am grateful for the helpful briefing with the Minister’s civil servants prior to this debate. I declare an interest through my involvement with the Rothamsted institute, which carries out scientific research into the areas that we are debating today.

I have a couple of general points about the process being used. In his letter of 4 April, the Minister explained that the procedure was being used because the EU had asked for a specific reassurance that these measures were in place to support the UK Government’s application for third-country status, and he has repeated a similar explanation today. Of course we understand why that third-country status was necessary, but when we met the Minister I asked whether the EU had been consulted over the wording of the SI prior to the deadline for it to consider that third-country status. I was told that that was not the case and it had not been consulted in advance. I find that a bit odd; I would have thought that, in the spirit of co-operation and particularly because we wanted its goodwill over our application, it would have been beneficial to keep the EU in the loop on what we were proposing, including the proposed wording for this SI before the decision was made.

I suppose that that raises another question: if the EU does not see the SIs in advance, does it simply take the Government’s word on trust that this legislation is in place? If that is the case, some of the corrections to errors that we have been considering may not even be necessary because we can just promise that the legislation is in place and not actually have to justify it.

Does the Minister agree with the Green Alliance that a lessons-learned exercise should be held on the whole process so that we can address the unintended consequences of the errors that will undoubtedly have crept on to our statute book? Indeed, are there lessons to be learned about how we could have better used stakeholders at an earlier stage to highlight and double-check some of these issues, so that we could have more confidence in the ultimate product?

Regarding the SIs before us, I accept that the Animal Health, Alien Species in Aquaculture and Invasive Non-native Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are basically a tidying-up exercise and I do not have any specific points to make beyond those I have already made about the errors. We have already debated the Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, and I do not intend to repeat what I said last time we considered them.

The Minister will know that, since then, the JCSI has raised a question about how we define the exceptions—small quantities in travellers’ baggage. I know that the department had an answer to that, but it would be helpful if the Minister could put the outcome of that dialogue on record, given that it has been raised by the JCSI, and so that we are clear on the department’s answer.

Lastly, of course, we all recognise the importance of robust biosecurity measures. It is something we have flagged up time and again and we cannot say that too often. The Government seem far more intent on getting a trade deal than they do on securing continuing involvement in the EU-wide intelligence gathering and disease notification systems, and the co-ordinated research institutions. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is absolutely right that our future is a common cause and we need a common strategy on all these issues. If we cannot get information sharing and a common strategy on biodiversity in place, we will be the loser.

Can the Minister clarify what progress is being made in the talks with the EU to guarantee that we will not face greater biosecurity risks and that we will maintain alignment with the EU, including sharing scientific advances and information about new threats without delay? Can he also reassure us about the Government’s plan for future biosecurity collaboration with the EU post Brexit? I look forward to hearing his response.