My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, and very much go along with the sentiments that he expressed. This is an ambitious Bill, which I find exciting. It deals with agriculture for this moment in time and for the future.
Let me make it clear from the beginning that I am full of admiration for farmers, who work so hard, usually in inclement conditions, to put food on our plates, by which we all live. We should never forget that.
What has come through this series of debates—and it is perhaps the nature of the hybrid system that so much time has been spent on Clause 1—is that Clause 1 sets the tone of the Bill and its moment has come. Words and titles are important. When I became the principal Opposition spokesman on agriculture in 1987, one of the first things I did was to change the title of my job from the Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries to the Shadow Minister for Food and Agriculture. It has always been important to mention food. Time has shown that that was right, and I am delighted that we now have a Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because it is very important.
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This set of amendments makes it clear that we live in a very urban society. People are well removed from agriculture and the production of food, and we must
always try to get the importance of food across. That is why we discussed the importance of the soil earlier and talked about animal health. It is worth reminding noble Lords of what we have been through: salmonella in eggs and bovine spongiform encephalopathy—mad cow disease. We all remember how appalling that was. Then we had foot and mouth; up here in Cumbria, we were very much at the front of that. We could not handle that as politicians in the House of Commons or House of Lords, so we created a separate Food Standards Agency to get that across. I feel we have moved the debate a long way forward, and now is time to take stock, perhaps to redefine some of the things we are doing and to take healthy eating on board.
I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, whom I hold in the highest regard, when he says there is too much politics in this and that we should not try to push good health and well-being. What does he want us to push? Does he believe that public money should be for public goods, and that they should be for ill health and poor-being? Of course he does not. Sometimes we have to grasp the nettle, and this is one of those times.
The series of amendments we are discussing now sets the tone for the Agriculture Bill, which will in turn set the tone, to a certain extent, for the Environment Bill that follows. That is good for all the British people, who will have better food produced and, ultimately, more prosperous farmers. That is what we want.