My Lords, I know that the Government are frustrated at the very slow progress of the Bill and, although we are very grateful for the extremely assiduous responses we have received from both Ministers—the noble Baroness and the noble Lord—I know there is concern at the slow progress.
In my experience of legislation passing through the House, a pattern establishes itself and, once you see the pattern, you understand the underlying issue of the approach that the House is taking to a Bill. It is very clear to me what the issue is in respect of this Bill. The Bill—which is of huge significance for the future of one of our major national industries as we leave the European Union—is, essentially, a framework Bill. It contains very little policy. It sets out a whole range of permissive provisions that enable the Government to do X, Y and Z but only one or two broad-brush policy statements, such as the noble Lord’s statement in our earlier debates that the Government will not subsidise food because that should be left to the market; in fact, is it clear to me that, even in our debates on that, when it comes to issues of shortage, scarcity and crisis, the Government not only have, but are proposing to take, significant new powers in that regard. Leaving aside very broad-brush statements of that kind, we do not know what the Government’s policy will be hereafter.
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What is now happening is that, in group after group—as in this group on the crucial issue of how we will tackle carbon emissions and climate change—noble Lords are tabling a whole series of probing amendments on absolutely critical issues to do with the whole future of this national industry, because we do not know what the Government’s actual policy is. We know what policies are in other areas; we know what our climate change targets are in respect of the underlying issue in this group of amendments, but we do not know—because the Government have not said—what their policy will be in terms of the new financial and regulatory regime for this huge industry going forward. All we know is that this Bill gives the Government a set of framework powers that enable them to do anything or nothing. That is the absolute truth of the matter.
I could make a wider set of points about how this just reflects the great national crisis that we are going through. Indeed, we are going through two national crises: the Covid-19 crisis, obviously, but also the Brexit crisis. We are having to put in place a whole set of policy and legislative frameworks to deal with the massive self-inflicted wound of Brexit.
For those of us taking part in the debate who do our very best to facilitate the passage of wise government legislation and fully understand that we are a revising Chamber and should not seek to challenge the premise
of Bills that have a majority in the House of Commons, this probing is absolutely essential so that we have some idea of what these powers might be used for. As a second Chamber, our job is surely to probe and seek to elucidate what the Government’s policies will be in respect of the use of the powers under this Bill. That is what we will need to do when it comes to inserting additional provisions on Report.
I have listened intently to these debates because what will happen to this big national industry is so important. I have detected in them that somebody I have never heard of before, called Henry Dimbleby, turns out to be a person of extreme importance. The noble Lord the Minister told us earlier that Mr Dimbleby is drawing up the national food strategy. It turns out—this goes to the heart of the point that I have just been making—that the national food strategy has still not been published. Apparently it will not be available until the end of the year, so we have a massive cart and horse problem in dealing with this Bill.
Since the Minister told us that Mr Dimbleby is a figure of such importance to the development of policy in this area, I have been assiduously reading his speeches. The speech that seems to be most revealing is one that he gave to the Oxford Farming Conference in January, where he set out a whole set of considerations that would feed into—forgive the pun—the national food strategy but did not say what the result would be, which is very frustrating for those of us trying to grapple with the Bill.
However, I just note, because it is very important for this debate—and I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister might respond to it—that in the speech Mr Dimbleby gave to the Oxford Farming Conference, the thing that he flagged up as being the most significant factor in the development of the regulatory and financial framework for the future of farming and agriculture was climate change. He said:
“Every stage of the farming process exacerbates the carbon crisis; the forests cleared to plant crops; the energy-intensive manufacture of fertiliser; the release of carbon from degrading soils; the methane produced by rice paddies and livestock; the energy used by manufacturing plants and retail outlets; and the fuel used to power the vehicles in the supply chain.”
He then continued in a later part of that speech:
“So, there’s a simple story.”
In the past, he said:
“We focussed on an existential risk—growing enough food so we didn’t starve—and we largely solved that problem. But as we increased the amount of food available to eat, we ate more and got heavier. And as we got heavier, we got sick. And as we increased the amount of food we grew on our land, we drove out nature and increased our carbon emissions.”
On the face of it, the statements Mr Dimbleby has made would lead to quite bold policies of regulation and financial incentives to reduce carbon emissions. Indeed, it is hard to see that they could be achieved without accepting the amendments proposed in this group. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister whether the Government agree with what their adviser, Henry Dimbleby, said in his speech at the Oxford Farming Conference in January. If they agree, I cannot see why they would not accept the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Caithness—a framework amendment simply making climate change a consideration under
Clause 1(4), which sets out the broad framework objectives for policy and financial support in respect of agriculture —and possibly the other amendments.