My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing these two Motions. I am particularly pleased that there will be a smooth transfer into UK law. The organic sector is still considered a fairly small one, but a very important one. The UK sector brings in a good, healthy amount of money—£2.2 billion to the UK economy and exports worth some £200 million —so the continuation of this trade is hugely important. At this stage I declare my own family farming interest, but we are not organic. We produce very healthy, good food, but it is not purely organic.
The Explanatory Memorandum talks about there being some 6,000 operators. Many of those are small businesses. Those classified as “small” employ “up to 50 people”. That is actually quite a lot of people in an organic movement. I wondered what proportion of the smaller ones have, say, 10 or five employees. What went through my mind was: although this is not supposed to have any financial burdens, if you are a smaller business it obviously has greater implications for you and the organisation of what you have to do. I would be grateful for a response on that one. I am glad that, on the control of imports, it is clearly laid out. I smiled slightly when we had a 20-page list of individual categories, which shows how complex and varied the whole organic sector is.
I welcome the production and control amendment, because I hope it will give great certainty to organic producers. It takes up to three years to turn to become organic from having been, perhaps, commercial farmers. We have often said that farming is a long-term investment —clearly it is—but on the organic side it is more demanding, because there are certain things you can and cannot do during your term of transfer.
5.37 pm