Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Does the noble Baroness agree that one of the other concerns is that such members cannot then be voted out if people do not agree with them being there?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, we have a couple of amendments in this group, one in my name and one in the name of my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage. First, Amendment 73 in my noble friend’s name would mean that a non-constituent member ceases to be a member when they form part of a different CCA. We are aware that the Local Government Association has expressed concerns about this amendment. It has said...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Defra’s approach is not the same as saying “retain by default”: is that what the Minister said “retain by default” meant when he talked about it last week? I really think we need to be clear.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Apologies for intervening again, but is the Minister saying that the Bill retains by default, or just that Defra’s approach is to retain by default? Those are two very different things. The letter we recently had from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, talked about how “the internal methodology for identifying such retained EU law was for each department to decide, given their...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, my Amendment 130 in this group would ensure that the powers to amend the important pieces of retained EU environment law do not reduce the level of environmental protection that is provided for in them. As we heard in the previous debate, there is a huge risk to the laws on the environment and animal welfare protections. I brought a list of wildlife protections that are at...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of declining levels of confidence among farmers in England, as reported by the October 2022 release of the Farmer Opinion Tracker for England; and what steps they are taking to address this falling confidence.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) increased instances of extreme weather events across Europe and North Africa, (2) the impact of such events on the importing of fresh produce into the UK, and (3) the need to increase domestic food security.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to introduce legislation to enhance protections for farmed fish at slaughter; and if so, when.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Neither does the noble Lord, Lord Beith!
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government whether water companies are required to collect and submit data on (1) the number of storm overflow monitors that are offline at any time, (2) the duration of these outages, and (3) the reasons for the outages; and if not, whether they intend to introduce such requirements.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to further international collaboration relating to research on avian flu.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for facilitating this debate. Even though we do not support fatal Motions, it is important that this debate has taken place, as he said. I will be brief; it is very late, and I do not think that there is any need to go back and repeat the concerns and arguments which have been very clearly laid out by noble Lords this evening. As the...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, I feel like a stuck record on this issue; goodness only knows what the Minister feels like. He keeps assuring us that the Government are doing a lot of work here so why does he think that, week after week, month after month, he has to come to the Dispatch Box to answer the same question?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: The default position is actually that it falls unless you have this extension. The extension mechanism, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said, relies on something specific being identified. It is no criticism whatever of Defra staff, but if they have to identify extra pieces that need to be carried over, this is a huge amount of work. We do not even have a comprehensive...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To clarify the point about interpretive effects, I point out that the letter says: “Anything preserved will be subject to clauses 3-6 of the Bill which repeal retained EU interpretive effects.” Can the Minister clarify what this actually means in practice? How does it affect case law?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Perhaps the noble Lord could write to us with a detailed explanation.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: The Minister says that the sunset can be extended to 2026, but surely we need to know which regulations the department is looking to extend. How do we know that? How is Defra going to go about attending to that? The Treasury managed to take its regulations out; they are exempt. Why does Defra not just do the same and save all the bother?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, I rise to introduce my Amendment 37. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for her excellent introduction to her amendments and for leading our debate on this important subject. Amendment 37 sets out a list of the most significant environmental and animal welfare laws that the Bill currently covers. The regulations listed in the 21 proposed new paragraphs (a) to (u) demonstrate...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: My Lords, the first three highly protected marine areas have been designated, as the Minister said. One is in Allonby Bay, near me, in Cumbria. While I absolutely support marine conservation and the importance of these sites, Maryport Town Council has been in touch because it is concerned about the impacts on an area that has been struggling. I am aware that the Secretary of State said that...
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their forthcoming chemicals strategy takes steps to protect the oceans; and whether that strategy will include a ban on the use of non-essential per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs).