Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

With the leave of the House, motions 4 and 5 will be debated together.

I beg to move,

That the draft Organic Production (Control of Imports) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.

With this we will consider the following motion:

That the draft Organic Production and Control (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.

These statutory instruments are made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 which incorporates EU law into UK domestic law on exit. This Act also gives powers to the UK to make amendments to the retained law to make it operative. One of the things these instruments do is take powers currently held by the Commission and transfer them to the appropriate Ministers in the UK.

These instruments are grouped as they both relate to amendments to EU organic legislation, namely Council Regulation (EC) No. 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 889/2008 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No. 834/2007, with regard to organic production labelling and control, and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1235/2008 laying down detailed rules for implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No. 834/2007 as regards the arrangements for imports of organic products from third countries.

I should make it clear that the instruments do not make any changes to policies; they are purely technical in nature. They correct technical deficiencies in organics legislation to ensure it remains operable on exit and to preserve the organic standards of the current regime. The Government are strongly supportive of organic standards, many of which were developed in the UK and adopted by the EU. The UK has a world-recognised standard of food production and labelling which we wish to see maintained.

The UK organics industry is currently regulated by EU law, which sets out standards for organic production. Regulations apply to the production of food, animal feed and livestock, including bees and farmed fish, marketed as organic. The regulations set out the requirements for organic production, processing, labelling and imports as well as the inspection systems that must be in place to ensure the requirements are met. They stipulate that organic food must be inspected and certified within the scope of a tightly regulated framework and originate from businesses registered and approved by organic control bodies on the basis of a rigorous annual inspection.

The UK has over 6,000 organic operators and the sector is worth over £2.3 billion in the UK economy. Many operators are farmers and small and medium-sized enterprises. Indeed, the Soil Association reports that in 2018 the organic sector was worth £2.3 billion to the UK economy, with organic sales increasing by 5.3% in 2018. The market is in its seventh year of growth. Home delivery of organic produce through online and box schemes is growing fastest, at 14.2%, and independent retailers maintain strong sales of organic, with sales increasing by 6.2%. Key categories driving growth in the market are beers, wines and spirits and chilled foods, and in 2017 exports are estimated to be worth £225 million, excluding food from other processing and animal feed. Ambient grocery products, which include tinned and packaged food, are the largest export.

My hon. Friend will, I hope, come to this later in his speech, but how will we ensure that the standards of our organic farmers in the UK are not undermined if we are not overly attentive of what is being shipped in at the borders?

My hon. Friend can be assured that we are in no way seeking to water down our standards. We will no doubt talk further about that during the rest of the debate.

The approach that I have referred to responds to industry concerns and helps to maintain continuity, ensuring a flow of products. The organic regulations will now apply to imports at UK borders rather than EU borders and will ensure the continued regulation and certification of imported organic products to the standards currently applicable in the UK—I underline that point. The import system allows traceability of each product at all stages of production, preparation and distribution. This gives consumers confidence that imported organic products have been produced to the same high standards as UK organic produce.

The draft Organic Production and Control (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 ensure that organic standards remain the same for organic operators within the UK by making operable EU legislation in Council regulation 834/2007 and Commission regulation 889/2008. Without these amendments, part of the legislation would not be operable when applied in a UK-only context—for example, references to the UK as a member state. The certification and traceability of organic food and feed products will continue and standards will remain the same. This instrument sets out minor technical amendments. It also references the time-limited period of 21 months during which we would not require additional border checks for organic products being imported from the EU, European economic area and Switzerland.

The first set of regulations concerns reserved matters, as these regulations relate to the control of imports and exports. The second set concerns devolved matters. That is why we have two SIs before us today. Although there is no formal duty to consult as there are no substantive changes to the status quo, we have engaged with the United Kingdom Organic Certifiers Group, UKOCG, and from that engagement it is clear at the outset that the UK organic control bodies are particularly concerned about continuing recognition of UK certified organic products by the EU and recognition of EU imports by the UK. Our decision to continue to recognise products from the EU, EEA and Switzerland for a time-limited period has been welcomed by the group as it provides certainty on imports for the immediate future. We continue to work closely with the group on this and on the future implementation of the UK regulations.

These statutory instruments apply to the United Kingdom, and we have worked with the devolved Administrations on their development. Officials have had very helpful discussions with their counterparts in the DAs, and we are working with them on all aspects of the organics regime to form an agreement on how we can all work together moving forward.

The Minister is probably aware that concern has been expressed by some agri-food companies in my constituency, although perhaps not those in the organic business, about packaging, labels and access to those things. There seem to be some delays either from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here in London. They are asking what food stamp they will have to have on their packaging so that they can export their products. There is some cloudiness or mystery about exactly what that will be. Can the Minister clarify where we are?

I understand, I think, the hon. Gentleman’s point, in the sense that there are a number of labelling issues, as he appreciates—I know he is an expert in these matters. I think the point he is making is about the EU logo, which is mandatory for all products packaged in the EU. In the event of no deal, such products should not use the EU organic logo, but producers can continue to use the logos of their organic control body and certification code and sell in the UK and in countries that have agreed that the UK has sufficiently similar organic standards. That said, as he knows, there are still issues—I have no doubt that Members will speak about this—to do with the EU’s recognition of UK organics. There are issues with labelling that I can take up with him in more detail separately.

I will now wrap up my initial remarks, hear what other Members have to say and come back to these points in more detail. These measures remain essential to ensure that UK organic businesses can maintain their organic certification. These statutory instruments will ensure that the strict standards in place for organic production are maintained when we leave the European Union. I commend them to the House.

I am delighted to be taking part in this debate at this fairly late hour. We could have done this in a Committee Room upstairs at 6 o’clock, so it is good to know that the timetabling really is working well. At least we have a packed Gallery wanting to listen to our every word. We would not have had that if we had been doing this upstairs at 6 o’clock, because our Second Delegated Legislation Committee earlier was also packed—with no members of the public. There is something about what we are saying or doing that is not quite hitting the public’s imagination. However, these draft regulations relate to an important issue for the organic industry. The topic of the earlier Committee—the movement of animals—was also important, for reasons that I set out then, and I do not intend to repeat them.

The Lords debated the two statutory instruments that we are considering now on 13 March, so there has been some scrutiny. However, our caveat, as always, is that the process has been terribly rushed, and none of us knows quite what the repercussions will be. Although the civil servants are doing a wonderful job of cutting and pasting 43 years’-worth of European regulations, no one knows how well that is being done. We will not see the impact for some time, but there will be an impact.

We do not have any particular problem with taking the two statutory instruments together, but the issue at the heart of all this, as has been picked up by the National Farmers Union and the Soil Association, is to what extent we can guarantee that the quality of our organic industry will not be undermined by cheaper imports. That is a real threat, because the proposed trade deals are with countries that have different organic standards. The US, for example, does things very differently from us when it comes to the treatment of organic produce, both in growing it and in trying to keep it as fresh as possible for as long as possible.

It took some time to work all this regulation through with our EU neighbours. There was no quick fix, and our approach to organic standards is different from that of some other EU countries. It is good to see the former Minister, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), in his place, because he signed off one of these statutory instruments, so I am glad that he has come to check that we are doing a good job. He may have something to say about what he did in signing it off. The draft regulations are about ensuring that we not only do not dilute our standards, but keep our export markets in place. The last thing we want is to shut down our potential future exports when we have been successful. Even though we are still a major importer of organic produce, we have a good reputation based on what we sell abroad.

I rise to support these two statutory instruments. I will be brief because, although I intended to serve on the original Committee, I appreciate that I have not had a chance to give you a great deal of notice of my intention to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to our civil service and the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who, on these regulations and many others, have done a sterling job in making sure that retained EU law is operable should we leave without an agreement at the end of this month. Over the past six months, I have seen at first hand the huge amount of work put in by DEFRA officials, working late at night, to ensure that we have such statutory instruments in place so that retained EU law is operable when we leave.

We often read media reports that we are not ready for a no-deal exit and that we could not possibly leave without an agreement, and on that basis Parliament decided last week to vote to say that we should not leave without a withdrawal agreement. My experience in the Department until quite recently is that a huge amount of work has been put in, and the civil service has made sure it is an option for us to leave without an agreement, should that be necessary and should Parliament have the courage to do so. Obviously, we will find out in the next couple of weeks whether, indeed, that is still necessary.

Both sets of regulations, in common with all statutory instruments tabled under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, make very minor changes simply to make existing retained EU law operable.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my fear that people working extremely hard very late at night to get through vast quantities of regulations might make some mistakes?

No, I do not. Having worked in DEFRA for five and a half years, I have tremendous admiration and respect for all those people. Although they work very hard through the night, somebody will mark and check their work the next day. That is how our civil service works, and it has made a sterling effort to make sure we have all these regulations in order.

As a general rule, almost every regulation of these two statutory instruments substitutes “Secretary of State” for “European Commission”. These regulations are not complicated but rather straightforward. We often hear a lot about so-called Henry VIII powers in such debates, and there is a suspicion that, through the use of statutory instruments, we might be making changes to primary legislation that should not be made.

In truth, the most pernicious use of a Henry VIII power in modern times has been section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which has run rampant through whole pieces of primary legislation, even important flagship Acts that predate our membership of the European Union. We are in a rather odd situation in debating on the Floor of the House whether it is okay to change “European Commission” to “Secretary of State”, as the original powers implied by these statutory instruments were imposed by the European Union without any debate in this House, typically through either an implementing Act or a delegated Act, and therefore with little or no scrutiny by the European Parliament and often with little or no scrutiny by the European Council. The role of this Parliament, if it was lucky, was to receive an explanatory memorandum but, by and large, only ever to receive letters to the European Scrutiny Committee advising on what the European Union had done to us.

Nevertheless, this is what taking back control means. It means that our Parliament, for once, is starting to take an interest in these matters, rather than leaving them to the European Union.

I pay enormous tribute to my hon. Friend. I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was an Agriculture Minister, and I went through a great amount of this important work with him. On organic standards, is it not the case that we very much see ourselves as setting the bar not just nationally but across Europe and across the world, that we have influenced Europe on these standards and that we ought to keep these standards as high, if not higher, in leaving?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, that is exactly what the regulations are about. We have had some influence on the organics regulations. Indeed, when I first became Agriculture Minister, something called the organics dossier was going through the European Parliament, and it concluded that journey only around six or nine months ago. Along with the smarter rules for safer food dossier, it became something of an internal joke about an interminable debate taking place in the European Union. In the end, we managed to get that agreement into something that was satisfactory to us, although it meant that not much had changed.

Finally, let me recognise something in the statutory instrument related to the control of imports. As the shadow Minister said, we are indeed ready to replace the EU trade control and expert system with a new UK system that has been in development in DEFRA for at least the past nine months. There has been a prototype version for several months and it will be ready to replace TRACES from the point at which we leave the European Union. I welcome the Minister’s point about the recognition of existing EU logos and standards for a 21-month period. Of course, we all hope that the European Union will do the honourable and sensible thing and reciprocate.

You wait ages for one Drew to come along, Madam Deputy Speaker, and then two come along together.

Agriculture is a critical industry for the rural communities throughout Scotland. It is very important to the people who elected me and many of my colleagues. The regulations are part of a process that takes away rights from people, takes away guarantees and opportunity, takes away power from the Scottish Parliament and puts business and food production at severe risk.

The agriculture sector in Scotland currently depends on 10,000 non-UK migrant workers in the soft fruit and vegetable sectors for the harvest in the summer and autumn, especially in the highlands. Tens of millions of pounds could be lost as there is no certainty about whether the LEADER programme will continue. The programme has provided £50 million from the EU with match funding of £50 million. Nor is there any certainty that funding for agri-environment schemes that support climate-change objectives will be available post-Brexit. That means a potential loss of around £40 million per year.

No rural constituency in Scotland voted for Brexit—none of them voted in favour of leaving the EU—yet Scotland is having to leave with the rest of the UK. All Brexit scenarios are bad for Scotland. We are 11 days away from leaving the EU and we still do not know whether we will leave with no deal or, if there is a deal, how that will affect rural Scotland. All sectors of the Scottish rural economy would be negatively affected by a no-deal Brexit, but the farming and food and drink sectors are particularly exposed. Brexit is bad for our EU friends, neighbours and colleagues.

A no-deal Brexit is projected to result in EU migration falling and potentially turning negative. That would create skills shortages for industries such as agriculture and food processing, which, as I said, rely on EU and seasonal workers. EU citizens who are currently working and living in the rural economy will be able to stay only if they apply for settled status. The Migration Advisory Committee’s proposals and the £30,000 salary requirement for skilled workers would mean that many sectors in Scotland’s rural economy would find it hard to recruit seasonal migrant workers.