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

Motion to Approve

Moved by

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 11 March be approved.

My Lords, as the Government have made clear, we intend to incorporate on to our statute book and make operable all relevant aspects of EU law from the point of exit to ensure that we have fully operable arrangements which protect our biosecurity and minimise trade disruption. This instrument covers animal health, plant health, seed marketing and seed potatoes and primarily makes technical amendments to ensure that recent EU decisions will be operable on exit day. I would like to make it clear from the outset that our biosecurity controls on animals and plants are paramount, and this instrument contributes towards ensuring that we will have the most robust arrangements in place to protect public health and the environment.

The amendments made by Regulation 2 concern recent updates on animal health control measures relating to African swine fever in certain member states. This instrument amends Commission implementing decision 2014/709, ensuring that recent updates relating to the two ongoing earlier requirements applicable to all member states are transferred to the appropriate Minister in the United Kingdom.

Appropriate Ministers are required to prohibit movement of live feral pigs and to erect advisory signage alerting the public to the ways in which the disease can inadvertently be spread by people who travel to and from affected areas. I assure noble Lords that this amendment supplements our existing powers in the Diseases of Swine Regulations 2014 to prevent and control African swine fever, including powers to cull infected animals and establish protection zones, surveillance zones and feral pig control zones in the event of any such outbreak.

Regulation 3 amends retained EU law to ensure that TSE functions operate correctly by replacing a reference to production and manufacturing processes approved by “the EU Commission” to processes approved by “the Secretary of State”.

Part 3 of the statutory instrument covers plant health. Regulation 4 applies to England only, and Regulation 5 applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The instrument amends the Plant Health (Amendment) (England) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the Plant Health (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 to deal with new EU plant health decisions introduced and to recognise arrangements with the Crown dependencies.

Planned meetings with the Crown dependencies concluded early in 2019 and Regulations 4 and 5 recognise the outcome of broader government agreements with them. The Crown dependencies, which include Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, are currently treated as part of the United Kingdom for the purposes of EU plant health legislation, so plants and plant products move between the Crown dependencies, the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU under the same EU plant health rules. Outside the EU, these arrangements will no longer apply, and there have been discussions with the jurisdictions concerned to agree future arrangements for the trade in regulated plant material. The Crown dependencies have agreed to adopt controls similar to those of the UK in order to continue to facilitate this trade. The changes made by this instrument give effect to those arrangements, specifically in relation to the import and movement of regulated material from the Crown dependencies.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument, which is hugely important for the protection of both animal and plant health. I welcome the steps that are being taken within the statutory instrument. Most of the sections refer to transposing EU law into UK law, but I have one or two questions for the Minister. In Part B, on page 34 on infested zones, it says that the conclusions will be,

“based on sound scientific principles”,

and gives powers to,

“the appropriate UK plant health authority”,

to amend the buffer zones where required. Can the Minister tell us whether this power is literally transposed across or is a new initiative? If it is a new initiative, it makes good sense; if it was already there, I am glad.

On the same area of infested zones, the statutory instrument says that the demarcation can be lifted,

“if the plant pest is not detected in the area over a period of four consecutive years”.

Again, I ask the Minister: is that current practice or a new introduction within the statutory instrument?

I now move on to the marketing of seed potatoes from the EU and Switzerland, to which the Minister has just referred. On page 43, paragraph (8) refers to “GMO regulations”. Again, I wonder whether that is within the current restriction and whether it will have any bearing on any new varieties that might be worked on or introduced.

On page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 2.10 refers to,

“UK plant passports to contain … information in relation to fruit plant propagating material and fruit plants”.

It states that the Plant Health (England) Order 2015 is out of date—the Minister referred to this earlier. Will it be updated or does the statutory instrument that we are debating at the moment do that?

Moving on again, I am glad to see that people travelling from the EU will be subject to the same rules as in the past when bringing plants and plant products into the UK, particularly those with their own packaging. One of the big risks we run is introducing disease from incoming plants, however well-intentioned the person was who brought them in.

The Explanatory Memorandum also refers to the European Statutory Instruments Committee’s comments that this SI has, “political and legal importance”, making “extensive amendments” to the two EU exit SIs. I wondered what these were, because when I read through it I did not pick them up. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to comment on that when he winds up.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction and for his time, and that of his officials, in the briefing session. As he said, we have here an SI that covers four subjects. First, regulation 999/2001 covers animal health in the form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy —BSE. Secondly, Commission implementing decision 2014/709 covers movement restrictions within the EU where African swine fever is present. Since the UK is designated free from that disease, we are not currently subject to those restrictions. Thirdly, Council directive 2000/29/EC covers protective measures on organisms harmful to plants and plant products. Fourthly, Council directives 2002/56/EC, 2002/55/EC and 2008/90/EC prescribe marketing standards for seed potatoes, vegetable seed and fruit-propagating materials. That is quite a mixed bag.

I shall deal first with the animal health aspects and TSE. This is a technical amendment relating just to England, as Scotland and Wales already have their own arrangements. Part 2, relating to African swine fever, relates to other member states. There is none here in the UK at the moment and we have not had an outbreak in the past. The SI makes provision to make it illegal to both import and export wild boar into the UK. There are powers in place to ensure that we can deal with an outbreak of African swine fever should one occur, and I am content that this aspect of the SI is both sensible and sufficient.

Until quite recently, a landowner a mile away from where I live had a small herd of wild boar on his land. His neighbours were none too pleased as it was not unknown for the piglets to escape and run riot, in the way that piglets will. Everyone was extremely pleased when he at last got rid of that small herd. I wondered whether he might have been subject to this SI had it been in place at the time.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his introduction to this SI and for arranging a helpful briefing beforehand. I also declare an interest as the chair of Rothamsted Enterprises, which is part of a research institute that does considerable research into plants and seeds.

When I read through this SI, I had a very real sense of déjà vu as, of course, these are issues we have debated before. I do not intend to repeat everything I said about the importance of biodiversity at that time. Many of those issues were captured expertly by the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee report, Brexit: Plant and Animal Biosecurity. The committee made the point:

“Geographical proximity means that the EU will always be a key source of biosecurity risks to the UK”,

and therefore argued that it was essential that the UK Government negotiate continued participation in as many of the EU’s notification and intelligence-sharing networks as possible.

The Commons European Statutory Instruments Committee also intervened to argue that the proposed SI should be upgraded to affirmative, because of its political and legal importance. We agree with that analysis. Could the Minister update the House on where we have reached in discussions with EU partners on shared intelligence and continued co-operation on biosecurity issues post Brexit? Can he update us on the plans for a UK database to capture biosecurity alerts and share information with the EU?

Turning to the substance of this SI, we accept that these amendments to the original SIs are necessary. However, we are also concerned that they are the product of what seems a rushed job, in which errors and unintended consequences will be inevitable. The original SIs were debated only a fortnight ago and now we are back here again, correcting new errors and omissions that have surfaced. I have to say that, for an SI intended to correct minor errors, there seem to be rather a lot of them.

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Byford and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Many of us have been battling over these statutory instruments in so many areas. There may well be other opportunities, but I wish to record the enormously constructive way in which we have worked together, whatever our views, to get the right result for the statute book. Biosecurity in this area is absolutely paramount. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that I accept responsibility for any errors. I am a person of detail. I do not like errors, but I am prepared to apologise and say I am sorry about it. The instruments have all gone through the normal checking process, including checks by Defra and other government lawyers as second and third eyes. They have also been scrutinised by the JCSI. Sometimes mistakes are made and I regret that, but a lot of the reason for having this discussion today is to ensure, as we always wanted to do, that what is on the EU statute book is accommodated in our own.

I am very grateful that my noble friend Lady Byford opened her remarks on the question of buffer and demarcation zones, precisely because of the considerable section of this statutory instrument that deals with Aromia bungii—the red-necked longhorn beetle. It is a really damaging, wood-boring pest, native to Asia, that has arrived in Naples. We wanted to ensure that this provision was on our statute book. Looking through the SI, the majority of its pages are arrangements for the buffer zones and the demarcation, which is specifically lifted from the EU decision and statute on dealing with that pest. That is why it is a full package. I say to her that these are all the elements of what we will have at our disposal, in the European Union and in our country, to deal with this invader—although, of course, this is all designed to stop its arrival.

My noble friend Lady Byford asked about the reference to GMO. The reference is to ensure that any variety of potato that is a GM variety complies with the relevant GM legislation. There are no GM varieties of potatoes authorised for marketing in the UK, so this provision is to ensure operability after exit in that situation.

The question of passenger luggage is obviously important. There is no policy change but the clarity of the text is to provide that legal certainty. As we have said on a number of other areas, when we leave, on day one, there will be the same biosecurity risk from within the EU. But we want to ensure that our message is to encourage passengers always to be biosecurity-aware, wherever they are coming from, because of the arrival of pests and diseases.

My noble friend Lady Byford also mentioned the use of “extensive”. I am obviously interested in that word because, as I have sought to explain to your Lordships, of the intricacies and detail of these new points that have come in. The large, extensive area is to deal with the beetle; that is how I would interpret the word because I have described all the key elements involved in this statutory instrument.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, rightly raised the subject of her knowledge of the wild boar. What has happened in eastern Europe, and with the jump to Belgium, is that the disease has rapidly spread in the wild boar population. There is of course the concern for commercial pig production. In the commercial pig units in that area of Belgium, I am afraid that all the pigs had to be put down because of the concern about the spread of the disease. That is why it is absolutely imperative—I assured your Lordships specifically on this—that we had the powers to deal with the matter. This goes back to biosecurity; the jump of African swine fever came when it arrived in the Czech Republic, with a weak connection to someone dropping a pork product. We do not have that confirmed but it is very likely to be the same in Belgium. That is why to raise awareness we have, for instance, put out a lot on the biosecurity imperative in the newspapers, in languages for people from eastern and central Europe, and about not bringing in pork products for all those reasons. I reassure your Lordships that our communications team is working with industry. In the pig industry, it is absolutely imperative that the personal biosecurity of everyone who works in a pig unit is of the highest order.

I also take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, about accumulations of wild boar populations. Mature consideration about how we manage wild boar is needed, not only in relation to adjacent commercial pig production but in general. I know that there is widespread concern among communities in the Forest of Dean about how best to manage an increasing population of wild boar.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised a point about ash. I am very much aware not only of the travails of the ash here but of the threat posed by the emerald ash borer in Russia and the United States. That is why it is important that we have a systems approach. The wood must be debarked; it must be heat-treated and dried to strict specifications. This is an area where biosecurity in terms of the protocols around importing wood is so important; I say that to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, spoke also about unlisted EU vegetable varieties. I am very pleased that she mentioned the kalette. We often see in shops nowadays all sorts of different produce that we might not have seen before, but it is a really important part of agricultural, horticultural and vegetable innovation and good-quality food. Many of these varieties are bred in the EU, particularly in the Netherlands. We want UK growers to have early access to seeds. In addition to kalettes, there are also lettuce varieties with resistance to downy mildews, for example. I say again that unlisting is not about any biosecurity concern; it is about where vegetable varieties have not been registered.