Sustainable Livestock Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:02 am on 12 November 2010.

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Photo of David Nuttall David Nuttall Conservative, Bury North 10:02, 12 November 2010

No, absolutely not. It is a very tiny matter really.

I want to deal specifically with clause 1. Subsection (1) states:

"It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry."

What I am not clear about is why it should be the duty-I emphasise the word "duty"- of the Secretary of State to ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry. Surely the best people to ensure that farming is maintained are farmers. Surely it makes sense to rely on farmers' desire for self-preservation to ensure that they tend their livestock and look after their land in a sustainable way. All the evidence points to the fact that we can rely on them, both to protect the welfare of their animals and properly to care for their own land. How can that responsibility be transferred to the Secretary of State? Do we really expect the Secretary of State to spend every weekend driving up and down the country doing spot checks to see whether farmers are doing their bit to maintain the sustainability of their farms?

If any industry-if we are calling farming an industry, which I consider to be an unusual term, but for the purposes of the Bill it is an industry-in the United Kingdom can make a claim for having proved over the centuries that it is capable of sustainability, it is surely the livestock industry. Man has been tending animals since the beginning of time. Agriculture is the oldest of all industries continued in this country. What more can the poor farmer possibly be expected to do to make his "livestock industry" any more sustainable than it has been already?

Fortunately, the Bill's draftsman has also spotted this potential problem, and in clause 3, headed "Interpretation", we are helpfully given a most enlightening explanation of what is meant by the phrase

"ensure the sustainability of the livestock industry".

We find that it goes much further than anything that we may ordinarily think. For the purposes of the Bill, we are told that the words mean

"addressing the economic, social and environmental impacts of all stages of livestock farming and consumption, in order to...reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and address climate change in the United Kingdom and overseas...prevent biodiversity loss in the United Kingdom and overseas...promote animal welfare...protect and enhance the landscape...protect the resilience of farming communities, and...promote food security."

Not much to do there, then.

We see immediately that the idea of livestock sustainability has in one fell swoop been extended to include animal welfare, the well-being of farming communities as a whole, which I take to mean the whole of rural Britain, and the promotion of food security-matters that I feel sure any casual inquirer into livestock sustainability would not expect to see because they go well beyond any concept of sustainability, even if it is considered in its widest sense. This starts to demonstrate the enormous difficulties that face anyone who attempts to define the term "sustainable" in so far as it relates to farming. The Bill seeks to define sustainability in not just environmental but social and economic terms too. It is such a broad definition that it makes the Bill completely unworkable in any meaningful way.

I am concerned that the definition in clause 3(d) includes a requirement not just to protect the landscape, but to enhance it too. It is not clear to me why that requirement should be included in the Bill.