My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and the helpful briefing that he organised beforehand. When we agreed to take all these SIs in one go, I do not think I realised just what a complicated task we were setting ourselves, because there is an enormous amount of detail in them and they all seem to be connected and to overlap. I therefore have a number of questions, but I fear that I may be referred to other SIs to find the answer.
As my colleague Daniel Zeichner pointed out in the Commons, the Explanatory Memorandum says that Defra does not intend to consolidate the relevant legislation at this time. All I would say is: “Good luck” to the person who eventually takes that task on because of the complications that we can all see before us.
We also face once more our old enemy the correction of previous drafting errors. This is an ongoing saga. Can I suggest to the Minister in all good faith that we need some kind of standing procedure to deal with all the errors that are coming to light and may well come to light in the coming months, rather than having to revisit SIs one by one as we are at the moment?
Turning to the individual SIs, I have a few questions. The first SI makes provision for public intervention, private storage and aid to continue at times of market failure. The proposal is that this should be done administratively, rather than by political decisions. The Minister has clarified that this administrative decision will be published on the Government website. However, given our recent experience of market failure in the collapse of dairy prices, which was a hugely political event, can the Minister explain whether that would be the sort of thing that would be decided as an administrative decision and whether there would be any parliamentary oversight of decisions such as that? Would Parliament have any say on that at all?
This SI also changes the provisions for fruit and vegetable producer organisations. The Minister clarified in the other place that there were 34 in total and four are believed to be transnational. Am I right in understanding that those transnational producer organisations will not be able to apply for support, even if the majority of their production takes place in the UK? Have those affected producer organisations been informed of this change, and are they content with it?
The second SI proposes changes to EU retained law to enable the Secretary of State to approve or cancel protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications for wine. This SI only deals with wine, so I presume that other protected designations are dealt with in other SIs. The SI says that there is not expected to be any significant impact on business. Given the UK’s growing wine industry, which I think we would all accept has been curtailed by EU regulations in the past, will it give our wine producers more flexibility in the descriptions of the wines that they are
able to market? Is it envisaged that we would have the UK equivalent of appellation contrôlée as a UK quality standard in future?
What UK body will replace the Commission in registering PDOs and PGIs? Will it be British only or include Northern Ireland? Will UK products such as wine remain registered in the EU or will they have to be re-registered to access the market at the end of transition?
The third and fourth SIs address issues arising from the transition from EU import certificates of conformity to those aligned with the border delivery model. It seems strange that the dates for ending the transition period for these certificates for beef and veal labelling is different from that of hops, hatching eggs and chicks. I refer to the excellent note from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on this issue. When it asked Defra about this, it was told that some provisions were made to align with the border delivery model, while other timescales meant that there would be a delay for a two-year transition,
“in order to allow policy teams to deliver the necessary IT system changes and recruit additional HMI inspectors”.
Three obvious questions arise from that. First, are some of the border issues so complicated that they need a two-year IT project to complete? Is there any danger of further delays, as we have known in the past, with the IT system not being up and running by that date? Secondly, are the HMI inspectors referred to specialist border inspectors, or is it envisaged that there will suddenly be a huge extra volume of work when the transnational arrangements end—which is why it is being staged, to enable those extra recruitments to take place? Thirdly, has sufficient thought been given to the extra burden on businesses importing across the border which might import mixed cargos with different deadlines for the forms and certificates?
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also drew our attention to the fact that the UK does not currently enforce poultrymeat marketing standards. I am very grateful that the Minister has clarified, after our pre-meeting with officials, that that is not so much the case and that a clarification has been issued. I thank him for that. However, if poultrymeat is imported from a third country, does that mean it could still say that it was free-range or organic, and that would not be checked? Could it claim not to be chlorine-washed when it has been? I understand from our pre-meeting that little or no poultrymeat is currently imported using these optional descriptions. Can the Minister clarify whether that might be expected to change in the future? These seem to be quite common terms so it is surprising that there are no imports using these labels now. Could unregulated poultrymeat be mixed with other products and given a misleading description? Can the Minister explain what is meant by that explanation? The SI also refers to the organic certificators’ group having been consulted. Is it now content with the proposals?
On a slightly different issue, perhaps I may ask a follow-up question on the application of the Northern Ireland protocol. In a recent SI debate, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, revealed
that 72 border posts were proposed between Northern Ireland and Britain. Is there a list now of where those posts will be based? Are they fully staffed—with trained staff—and ready to be operational at the end of the transition period? Do those trained staff include the specialist inspectors who would have to deal with the checks on the imported fresh food produce that the SIs specifically relate to? I look forward to the Minister’s response.