My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend on the Front Bench and his team. My goodness he has shown patience beyond belief and reminds me of the problems I had when I was Deputy Speaker in the other place. I am essentially a practical man. I hope my noble friend will listen carefully to the speeches made by my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Lilley, who raised some very relevant issues that we as a Government have to face.
I will only really address Amendment 270. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady McIntosh for tabling it before she knew whether there would be a Trade and Agriculture Commission. As has been pointed out, the commission and her proposals are not identical, but they are not dissimilar. I welcome what the Government have done so far.
Should the commission’s recommendations always be binding? I think not. I have listened to all sorts of advisory boards over many years across two Houses. I thank them, but they never were all binding. They certainly ought to be listened to very carefully, but they must be challenged on occasion.
Should the commission be a permanent body? I think it should, but every time we have a permanent body it is absolutely vital that we review its performance. I have noticed that the traditional review period is about five years. A bit of a drift has been going on to move beyond five years. Five years is about the right length.
I am not a farmer, but the quandary for me is that people say that farmers are being undercut by substandard producers. That raises the question: what happens if the producers are not substandard?
I always take an interest in what I suppose in the farming world are minority areas. I have long been involved with trees. I declare an interest in that I have a
very modest 40 acres of woodland, approved by the Forestry Commission on a 10-year plan. We currently have problems with ash importation and with oak, partly from importation and partly from indigenous problems. There is a continuing need in that area, which I think is covered by the Bill, to ensure that we support research and development, and control of imports to ensure that they are of a proper quality for our saplings.
Where is the incentive for our farmers to improve their products so as to reduce the trade deficit? That seems a vital area. I have not noticed a lot of discussion about that in the many hours we have listened to these debates.
I take an interest in two other areas. There is a huge opportunity in horticulture. It is a small industry in the UK compared with what it was 40 or 50 years ago, but we must have joined-up government. We have a situation where one of the key restrictions on development in horticulture is the cost of power. If you have glass, you need cheap energy. We are producing good, environmentally friendly energy and more green energy as a percentage of supply than we have ever done. Lo and behold, along comes Ofgem with a proposal to reduce the profit percentage of energy suppliers—to halve it, in fact. Where will the investment come from in green energy and in the pricing of the product to help the horticulture industry? Someone must have a close look at Ofgem and ask it to stop meddling.
Finally, as I have mentioned before, viticulture is a tiny embryonic industry, but I hope it warrants at least somebody in the relevant department keeping a watch on it. It is growing fast and is well disciplined, but is competing across the world against the continent, the US, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, to mention a few places. It is a good industry, which employs people and uses land that was not particularly well used in the past. It is a very exciting opportunity.