My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for setting out the remit of the statutory instrument that is before us this afternoon. We have been greatly assisted by the 14th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which my noble friend will be aware has a number of outstanding concerns that I will raise.
Paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that
“instead of laying new statutory instruments for new recognitions or changes to existing recognitions, the law be amended”
in the way that my noble friend outlined. It concludes:
“This will save a considerable amount of officials’ and Parliamentary time and allow for greater speed in updating information.”
I do not think that Parliament has ever asked for less time to scrutinise legislation. As my noble friend will recall, when much of the legislation went through under the treaties and the Acts taking us out of the European Union, concern was expressed at the amount of parliamentary scrutiny that there would be.
My first question to my noble friend is this. Paragraph 10.1 specifically states:
“The changes to the listing of control bodies and third countries have been discussed with UK control bodies … and with the devolved administrations at the Organics Four Nations Working Group.”
I am interested to know whether that was just one meeting. Was there the opportunity for the devolved Parliaments and Governments to raise any concerns that they must have?
My noble friend will be aware that, in this very Room last week, the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee met to raise a number of issues. His department was mentioned, as there are, I think, 14 common frameworks that relate to it. I might be wrong, but I do not think that Parliament has seen a single one of those. Obviously, it is of great interest to us to see what has been agreed. I mention that as background. I would like to think
that the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish nations have had the opportunity for both their Parliaments and Governments to raise any concerns that they had.
I turn briefly to the issues raised in appendix 3 of the 14th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—the exchange of letters with our honourable friend Victoria Prentis, in the other place, as Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has done the House a great service in pointing out its concerns. I would like to quote from the report:
“These Regulations replace a legislative process for updating a list of third countries and third country control bodies which are recognised as equivalent in relation to organic standards, with an administrative process.”
It concludes that
“there should be parliamentary oversight of updates to lists.”
Will my noble friend explain to us this afternoon why there is the need for such speed in this regard? Can he convince us that there has been proper parliamentary oversight of what was delegated to the Government to perform this?
The report goes on to cite a letter from the Lord President to the chairman of the committee, our noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts:
“I agree that it is important that Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise significant changes in addition to streamlining processes to ensure that the regulatory system best serves the needs of British businesses and consumers.”
Obviously there was a long debate about equivalence at the time that the legislation went through. Noble Lords ought to know my admiration for the organic sector and its importance to the rural economy.
I conclude by again raising an issue that was raised by our noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts with our honourable friend Victoria Prentis. On page 30 of the report, the committee sets out again its concern that the decisions before us this afternoon have been removed from the oversight of Parliament by switching from a legislative to a purely administrative process. I am not entirely sure that my noble friend has set out the context for why we will not in future be able to look at these statutory instruments, albeit briefly, or why we are losing the parliamentary oversight, which seems to be the nub of the concern expressed in the 14th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
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