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While a lot of the focus has been on the Internal Market Bill recently, several other UK-level Brexit-related laws are racing to be passed as quickly as possible.
One of those is the Agriculture Bill. As agriculture is devolved, the Senedd needed to grant its consent via a Legislative Consent Motion (LCM – pdf).
The Agriculture Bill:
- Enables the Welsh Government to continue to provide financial support to farmers through a replacement for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
- Makes various specific arrangments relating to Wales concerning organic produce, ID and tracing of animals, the (fairer) redistribution of the red meat levy, fair dealing and producer organisations, marketing standards and data collection.
- Provides the UK Government with regulatory powers concerning World Trade Organisation rules on agriculture. This was a point of concern, but there’s a bilateral agreement between the Welsh and UK governments on the use of these powers.
Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs Minister, Lesley Griffiths (Lab, Wrexham) said the Agriculture Bill would provide temporary arrangements before a Wales-specific law is drafted and introduced, but:
“In recommending legislative consent, we are acknowledging it’s not perfect and not as we would have drafted it. However, the Bill as amended is, on balance, acceptable. I want to assure the Chamber we intend to vigorously oppose clauses in the internal market Bill that would enable this or any government in Westminster to fire the starting gun on a race to the bottom of food safety and animal welfare standards.”
– Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs Minister, Lesley Griffiths
Chair of the Environment Committee, Mike Hedges MS (Lab, Swansea East) raised concerns about the LCM process itself, which doesn’t provide the same levels of scrutiny or engagement as Welsh laws. Despite the constructive engagement with his committee, the LCM grants too many powers to Welsh Ministers without accompanying duties.
Both Mike Hedges and the Chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee, Mick Antoniw MS (Lab, Pontypridd), thought there was enough time for a Welsh Agriculture Bill to have been introduced and Wales might have been in a better position if that started from the outset.
Shadow Environment Minister, Janet Finch-Saunders MS (Con, Aberconwy), believes the UK Bill would provide an element of stability and certainty to farmers, but there was criticism from Jenny Rathbone MS (Lab, Cardiff Central) that amendments hadn’t been added to protect food safety and food standards.
Llyr Gruffydd MS (Plaid, North Wales) thought the LCM as a whole presented a dilemma:
“We have the option of either giving consent to legislation, which….in my view, is damaging to the sector but protects our ability to provide grants, or to reject consent in the hope we can defend the sector from some of the threats that I see in the Bill, but, through doing that, lose the ability to support the sector through payments. So, it’s not much of a choice at all.”
– Llyr Gruffydd MS
In the end, the LCM was agreed unanimously.
