My Lords, I want to pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has just left off on the hugely important issue of co-operation between different parts of the United Kingdom.
Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, looks to be superfluous, as I assume that the Minister will tell us that there is absolutely nothing to prevent a framework for agricultural co-operation between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by the free will of their respective Governments. The issue, then, is not whether a legal power is needed—I assume that no legal power is needed—but what machinery the Government envisage will be needed to promote co-operation between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on agriculture and the environment; I am not aware that any such machinery is in place at the moment. I think that the Committee would be grateful if the Minister could address that point. It is about not just ongoing talks but what institutional machinery there will be to promote co-operation.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, has just raised a very important point. In respect of co-operating with Northern Ireland, that means co-operating with the EU. As so often in our debates, I am afraid that everything comes back to Brexit.
This relates also a very important amendment in this very large group which has barely been discussed, because there are so many other issues. Amendment 234, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, proposes that:
“The Secretary of State must establish a service to provide a means for farmers to associate, and to support, advise and assist them to deliver improvements in food security, nutrition and environmental standards.”
In respect of agriculture and the environment, this strikes me as a very similar role to that which NICE—the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—plays in respect of the NHS, as an independent body promoting best practice on the basis of thorough research and engagement. Most people who have experience of the NICE arrangements in the NHS think that they work well, have by and large promoted good practice, and to some extent have helped to depoliticise what would otherwise be very thorny issues.
Amendment 234, and the body that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, envisages, looks to me to be a very good move, and I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate a willingness to consider it. It may be that we could work this up into a proposal between now and Report. I cannot think of any good argument against it, including from the Government’s perspective, because it is in the interests of the Government that a body of impartial evidence and the promotion of best practice are encouraged.
This comes back to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, in Amendment 66. I am a supporter of devolution, and it is to my great regret that, in the
past 20 years, Scotland and Wales have tended, as a matter of reflex, to define themselves against what England does. I think that sometimes they are right to do so and sometimes they are wrong to do so. To my huge regret, often what happens in Scotland and Wales is not a decision about whether or not policies are better than those in England, but just wanting to be different from England.
There is a real danger for the management of environment and agricultural support that Scotland, Wales and to a lesser extent Northern Ireland—Northern Ireland is effectively still part of the EU—will seek to define themselves against England for the sake of doing so. That would be hugely regrettable. Therefore, machinery to promote co-operation is important. An impartial best-practice body of the kind envisaged in Amendment 234 could act as a means to promote co-operation between the constituent parts of the UK. It would not be the Government in London seeking to promote in any partisan way their own policies and the interests of England; rather, if this works well, it would be serious experts and a serious process of promoting consensus that could, if that is done, even though it starts off being in respect of only England, have an impact on promoting co-operation between Scotland and Wales. It could also interact with the European Union, which would be good in its own right, but also enormously beneficial for relations with Northern Ireland.