I must declare my interests in the register, but I think my background in the horticultural and farming business is probably more important. I shall concentrate on horticulture, hoping to show that international co-operation is the most important way in which we can deliver biosecurity.
Perhaps I might be excused some personal history. I left school at 17 and went to work in the family bulb-growing and farming business. I was ambitious for its success. I went to work in the Netherlands at a nursery and bulb farm. I learned an important lesson—they were very good at their horticulture. Although they were competitive and entrepreneurial, they worked together and shared, even across borders.
Which brings me to the substance of this debate. The sciences were what I knew about, and it became clear that science lay at the foundation of biosecurity. Discovering the cause of pests and diseases was also its remedy. Eventually, as the result of my interest in science and the regulation of commerce, I chaired the European Bulb Committee, which was set up in Brussels to advise on the integration of horticulture within Europe, its regulatory framework, co-operation and product biosecurity across what became the European Union.
However, here comes the rub. Without doubt, Brexit has hindered this trade, particularly with the Netherlands, in both additional bureaucracy and costs. Biosecurity is about international co-operation. Nothing demonstrates this better than plant breeding, in providing new varieties to protect against evolving pest and disease pressures. It is an expensive business: up to 25% of a plant breeding business’s income can be spent on R&D, according to the British Society of Plant Breeders. It is also a risky business: roughly half of plant breeding research is focused on disease resistance and tracking the genetic battle between plants and disease. This battle is why the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, which we passed in the previous Session, has been so important.
However, as the British Society of Plant Breeders has pointed out, regulatory separation between us and our trading partners in effect doubles the cost of registration and delays testing, trials and certification, which are all part and parcel of making sure that the remedy is effective. Noble Lords will see that I am of the view that we need to find ways of working together again, trusting our differing and diverging regulatory systems, if we are successfully to deliver resilience and responsiveness to present and future disease threats—both at home and abroad—and to provide the biosecurity and trade that the world needs.
]]>We all have a political hinterland, and mine very much includes Nottingham—it is a political place for me. I spent a lot of my time there and in 1979 I was the candidate for the European election in Nottingham. I narrowly lost, so I do not have the proud hinterland the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has of having represented the people of that city. I know that it is not a problem city—thank goodness it is not—but it is very sad that such an incident has occurred. It shows how a strong community can respond to such situations, and it reinforces the view, which I think all of us in politics share, wherever we sit in this House and wherever we speak from, that we want to build strong communities that can withstand grief, sadness, shock, horror: all the things that have come through this incident.
I thank my noble friend for giving us the chance, through this Statement, to say these things.
]]>Noble Lords will know that I have an interest: we are horticulturalists who supply quite a number of the retail outlets in Northern Ireland. I hope noble Lords will not object to me explaining that things are not as I thought they were. If noble Lords remember, I was very much relieved that we would be able to maintain our trade with Northern Ireland in seed potatoes, which are banned under EU law in European countries. I thought that the Windsor Framework would be pragmatic enough to realise that it was nonsense that we would not be able to sell them. But I now find—and I know this to be the case because it has been ratified in discussions between the Horticultural Trades Association, of which my son is a recent president, and the UK Government—that it is not possible for Taylors, my family business, to supply seed potatoes to retail outlets in Northern Ireland. They can be sold only from a grower in Scotland or the north country to a grower in Northern Ireland. The retail trade has gone completely for that particular product.
This applies to a whole series of things listed as being non-negotiable across the United Kingdom border with European Union countries. Those products include snowdrops—the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, will be most upset that he cannot buy these from the UK and have them delivered to Northern Ireland, even if they originated in the Netherlands at some stage or another. This is one of the paradoxes of this framework.
I hope that the Minister can say that this is not set in stone and that there will be pragmatic solutions. I do not take the pessimistic view of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, that this is the end of the story. This is the start of the story and is about a new relationship between us and Europe. This is why I support this statutory instrument. I regret that the only method that we have of debating the issues around this is through an amendment to the statutory instrument. That cannot be right. It cannot be in the interest of the people of Northern Ireland and is certainly not in the interest of British commercial interests in trade with Northern Ireland.
I too have known my noble friend the Minister for quite a long time and trust him implicitly, as indeed is true for my noble friend in front of me, the Minister of State for the Foreign Office. It is the Foreign Office that negotiated this agreement. I hope that this agreement can be an ongoing process and that we who are economically connected with Northern Ireland will be able to continue to trade with it.
]]>It is inevitable that we will talk about farming in general as we talk about this SI. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, spoke particularly about the strains that face farmers—the difficulties that they have in marketing their produce—but we can all agree that we want to take the industry forward. We want to see the agricultural and horticultural industries going forward.
There may be a certain amount of frustration in the criticism of this SI. Change is, of course, difficult. Nobody likes change, least of all farmers, but we are blessed in this House in that I always feel that we generally have a consensus on this issue. I am slightly distressed to suddenly find that we are talking about a “fatal Motion” and a “regret Motion”. We have in my noble friend the Minister someone who was a colleague of mine in Defra some 11 years ago and whom we can rely on to make sure that the interests that we express here this evening are expressed within government.
I know that change is a difficult matter, but what are we trying to achieve? We are trying to achieve a diversity in farming that has not existed before. We are trying to induce a situation where farmers realise that what is environmentally beneficial to this country is also part and parcel of the way that the state, the Government, funds farming and gives farmers a chance. This SI is a step on the way. It is only the beginning of a continuing process, but we should support it at this stage. This change will be to the benefit of the country and to the benefit of the industry of which I consider myself through my family connections to be a part, and I consider it to be to the benefit of the world in which the majority of our fellow citizens want to live.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has proposed this amendment. I cannot agree with her. I think it is looking backwards when we need to be looking forwards. I know that we and the Labour Party are both anxious to make sure that we have a policy for agriculture and horticulture which builds on where we are and what we want to achieve; it is something that I think we share.
]]>I have some interests to declare. As noble Lords will know, I am involved with a family farming and horticultural business. I am also very grateful for the briefings I have received from the Library—just one of the excellent documents it produces—the NFU, Science for Sustainable Agriculture, the British Society of Plant Breeders, British Sugar and many others. Among other things, I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, which has long campaigned for gene editing to be facilitated. I have a particular interest in the Bill, and I will concentrate on my area of knowledge, which is, of course, plants rather than animals. It may interest the House to remember that, 10 years ago, I was the Minister in the Home Office responsible for licensing animal experiments. It would be interesting to know whether the Home Office is likely to be involved in any way in the regulation that will follow from the Bill.
I have long been interested in horticultural research. I had an early encounter with it at school, when my form master, who was also my botany master, somehow got hold of some irradiated tomato seeds. I was the pupil required to grow these tomatoes and see whether they had changed in any way, and whether there was anything remarkable about the genetic stimulation that irradiation had produced in them. I was also a founding member of the Horticultural Development Council. Some of the institutes available to us then have disappeared, but we do have research institutes in both the public and private sectors in this country that are second to none. Mention has been made of NIAB, the John Innes Centre and Rothamsted Research, which are all centres of excellence we can rely on.
The Autumn Statement provides for increased investment in research and development work, and this is just such an area where British excellence can be a huge advantage. The advantage of gene-editing technology takes us a step further to healthy, productive cropping, with disease resistance, an efficient use of plant nutrition and an awareness to adapt to climate change.
I support the Bill. In an increasingly hungry world, the technology we are able to use has opportunities way beyond our own needs in the United Kingdom. As the Minister said, we are world leaders in genetic technology, and this Bill should be welcomed in every way.
]]>I start by saying how much I have enjoyed listening to other noble Lords talk about our late Queen and the way in which she has served the nation. We have heard some admirable speeches, as my noble friend Lord Wakeham said. I echo his admiration for her diligence in knowing what the issues are and being prepared to work to acquire that knowledge. Nobody can doubt that she has been a very hard-working and diligent monarch. She has combined that with constitutional integrity, which has been vital for this nation, the developing world and the Commonwealth of which she has been head.
Noble Lords have mentioned her human qualities. Perhaps that is an important dimension because that was how she was able to relate to many noble Lords here present who have had opportunities to get to know her, to work with her or to accompany her in particular activities.
I do not know whether I should declare an interest, but I want to talk about my family horticultural business. For 37 years, we have been the warrant holders, as bulb growers, to Her Majesty the Queen. Some people may say that is not a particularly proud boast, but I personally take great pleasure from it and it has preceded all this other stuff, of red Benches and the rest of it, and is probably more important in real terms than anything I have been able to do here. Although gardening does not compete with horses or dogs, it comes a very close second, and you have only to go round the royal gardens of royal properties at Balmoral, Windsor and Buckingham Palace to get an idea of how seriously Her Majesty took gardening. It was not just visits to Chelsea and scant things like that.
That has provided me with some common link. Perhaps I may end with a little bit of an anecdote from my political life, because I was a Lord in Waiting, which was for a number of us a great deal of fun and enjoyable, although it involved duties. I see colleagues here who are Baronesses in Waiting; they will know that it is a great honour but also interesting. One of the great things that the monarchy has done in this country is to make working with it interesting, with everybody feeling that it is a worthwhile thing to be doing.
Obviously, when I first went along to see Her Majesty, the bulb connection sprang to mind. It served as a common theme, so we talked about politics, of course, but we also talked about horticulture and the like. There was a famous occasion when we had a visit from a certain important ally. In fact, it was my last royal duty. We were part of the welcoming group at Buckingham Palace. The particular visitor was extraordinarily diligent, so much so that the bandmaster had to reprise the music while he inspected the guard of honour, as he insisted on stopping to speak to about every other person, asking them where they came from, what they did, how long they had been in the service or whatever it happened to be.
Subsequently, this particular distinguished visitor seemed to take an awfully long time moving around in the reception area. Her Majesty said to me, “I think we’re going to have to break this up. He’s getting stuck.” Of course, she was rather mischievous about this, but asked me what I thought we should talk to him about. I said, “Why don’t we talk to him about daffodils?” Of course, this particular President was not used to talking about daffodils. He had never met anybody who knew anything about daffodils, and he certainly did not know anything about them himself. He was much more interested in casinos, New York property development and things like that, if I might say so. Oh! I have revealed who it is. Never mind; the confidentiality of these speeches is well known.
I felt that it was evidence of her humanity that the thing that helped her through the days of hard work that she had to accomplish was the fact that she had a sense of humour, a genuine wit, and she was great fun. All noble Lords here who have had anything to do with Her Majesty will know that to be with her was great fun.
I wish the House comfort in its grief because we are all upset at her death. May the King live long.
]]>The report was sent to us after the decision had been made to mandate the chairman of the committee to propose a Motion for change here. That is the wrong way to go about these things. It is mainly because of this that I am on my feet today; I would like to think that we could do things better. We can get agreement in this House for change—we will need some, because it is not functioning particularly well at the moment, if I may say so. Therefore, we ought to have an acknowledgement that the membership of the House is here to contribute to this change and not to be ridden roughshod over.
I fear that this proposal—coming so soon after the House decided that it would like to go back to the hours it had before Covid—is a mistake. I think it will lead to bad feeling in the House and make it a less pleasant, congenial and sociable place to work. Of course it is a place of business and earnest intent, but we are earnest because we are a collegiate body in our thinking. I think of all the assets of this House; it has expertise and people of talent, but it does things together. That is why I propose a different way of going about change, in this case and in future.
In the meantime, I back my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment, because I believe it is the only way in which we can bring the Procedure and Privileges Committee to realise that there is a way of going about these processes.
]]>We do not achieve change in this House when there is no consensus. The formula of a take-note Motion and a binding decision being grouped together, as they are today, is not only unusual but, it has been said, unprecedented. I see it as an abuse of the House’s procedures. It could have been handled so differently. We could have had a proper debate and then a consultation, but that was not to be. I am sure the whole House, whichever way it feels about the Procedure and Privileges Committee report of which we are taking note, is grateful that we have this chance today, and we thank the Chief Whip and the usual channels for the extended debate we have this afternoon.
My amendment to the Senior Deputy Speaker’s second Motion is one of four. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Forsyth and we will hear two others; they are all anxious about the consequences of the changes proposed. As has been said, less than a year ago, on
I do not know whether noble Lords will remember, but we got an email—a parliamentary notice—immediately before we rose for the Easter Recess, when most of us go home and have no contact with our parliamentary email; it is actually difficult to interact with your parliamentary email if you are outside London, and a lot of people were not able to respond to the consultation. I ended up writing a letter to my noble friend the Senior Deputy Speaker—noble Lords will know that we are old colleagues and friends—so I suppose I count as one of the people who was against these proposals.
We were given options. The options were extremely complex and it was quite difficult to choose as to who would start and when and what they would do with them. I am not surprised that the consultation did not attract a lot of individual respondents; just look at the number of Peers here this afternoon, even those who applied in aggregate. I understand that the Lib Dems submitted a large number of supporters for the proposals in aggregate, and we know that the Association of Conservative Peers did so, but how many individuals in this Chamber today actually voted in this consultation? Had we done so, we might have saved the embarrassment of having to reject a proposal that was made in all good faith—we decided on
When the committee met on
But Members of the House were not involved—no one asked us. It chose to do so just as we rose for the Easter Recess, and the conclusions of the committee were published the Tuesday immediately after we returned from the Jubilee Recess. Perhaps I am paranoid about this, but I feel there was momentum for pursuing an objective which appealed to individuals in this House without any real input from its membership.
]]>This is an unprecedented event: 70 years our sovereign. There is one thing certain and sure: none of us here is going to see such an event again. Who would have been able to envisage the pattern of events that our own lives would see and how our national life would change, when we saw those images of the young woman stepping down the aircraft steps, drawn away prematurely from her visit to Kenya, to be greeted, among others, by Prime Minister Churchill? What a period of transition it has been, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said—more than we could have imagined at the time. We have the Commonwealth, which she has assisted to be a force for good in the world, a world in which travel and mobility are the experience of all. Let us go back to that fuzzy black and white image on our small black and white television screen in an overlarge veneer cabinet: who could have foreseen multi-channel colour TV, overtaken in turn by the computer, by the internet, by social media, by mobile communications? We live in very different times.
During those times, as many noble Lords have pointed out, the presence of Her Majesty the Queen has been a reassurance for us, for our nation and for the Commonwealth. We all speak from a position of privilege in this House, but I thought I would talk from personal experience of a time before I came to this place, which indeed has brought me very much pleasure and satisfaction. I have been fortunate to have been a member of the Royal Household—the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I were colleagues together—as a Whip and as Chief Whip in this place. I have loved my Palace duties and the pleasure that state visits have brought. The way that her Majesty has dealt with different Heads of State is quite remarkable. Many here will know her better than I do, but take my word for it if you do not: she is a delightful person to know.
She loves horses, but she adores gardens and flowers too. In this regard, I have some personal experience because, 37 and a half years ago, my family was appointed to the warrant holders as bulb growers to Her Majesty. Since medieval times, suppliers to the Royal Household have been warranted. There is nothing grand about this, but more than 800 individuals and companies are warrant holders, big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The Queen’s role in encouraging excellence through this system has been remarkable. Since 1840, there has been a Royal Warrant Holders Association and I am a great believer that sociability is a huge advantage to human progress. We learn so much from each other. My brother Roger is the grantee of the warrant, and he and the rest of us have benefited much from the encouragement and companionship of others in the Royal Warrant Holders Association. It has been the source which our Queen has given to ensure excellence in many different trades and, like the Queen’s awards for industry and for export, has played a part in keeping businesses modern and competitive.
I end by saying that throughout her 70 years on the Throne of this country, she has shown faith, constancy and determination. She is a pattern for public duty and service which we in this House, I know, seek to follow. Meanwhile, let us enjoy the celebrations.
]]>It is essential that we have grass-roots activism, grass-roots fundraising and grass-roots presence as a political party on policy-making. I do not believe that this House would wish to see pop-up party machines dominated by centralised political structures.
In his opening remarks, the Minister mentioned the large number of speakers—this reflects the importance of the Bill to our participating democracy. Regardless of party, we all have an interest to ensure that our methods of elections are honest, fair and seen to be fair. That is what this Bill seeks to achieve.
]]>This is an important Bill. I judge it by a simple test, and a very personal one, for I am a believer in active participatory democracy and that active political parties at the grass roots are the custodians of that tradition. I want to know how the Bill strengthens that tradition.
I believe that our democracy and our parties are not just for election day. They should provide a corpus of political opinion to shape policies and political ideas within communities. I join the welcome and tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. He pointed out the way in which there has been a considerable decline in the membership of local political parties. I am a strong believer in participatory democracy. Some will analyse that mass voluntary political parties were a response to the enfranchisement of the last century. Some will say that, in modern times, they are largely irrelevant. If that is so, I regret it. I find that it is not sufficient for parties to rely on a world of opinion polling and modern communication.
Many of us on these Benches go back a long way in our commitment to voluntary party activism. You can hear my noble friend Lord Cormack talk of these times, including when I succeeded him as the chairman of Lincolnshire Young Conservatives—we all have to start somewhere. My noble friend Lord Hodgson and I went on a tour as senior volunteers in the general election of 1997. We went to 63 key seats, and we lost them all. Given this background, it is not surprising that I will be judging the Bill by the contribution it makes to preserving community focus in politics—
]]>There was a ridiculously short time between the publication of proposals and our first debate on
We have had some good speeches today. We have had quite good points made. I, personally, am of the view that we ought to give the proposals now before us in this report a try. But I am concerned that it may work out more difficult in practice than we suppose. The technology is fine, but we do not want to be hamstrung by a decision we make to approve this report and find ourselves going through the Lobbies with pass readers. I think we are unanimously agreed on Tellers within the House, but we are not quite sure how they are going to coexist with pass readers.
I suggest to my noble friend that he acknowledges that there is some concern about the way we will be proceeding in practice and perhaps agree that, if we accept the report before us today, we should have an opportunity, and he himself would be prepared, to initiate procedural change to match the terms of the report he has presented to us.
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