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Lord Whitty: My Lords, the recommendations on health and healthy eating, particularly in schools, are an important part of this whole jigsaw. My noble friend Lord Hunt reminded me that he recently launched the "five free fruit" scheme—I believe that that is its name—in the West Midlands. It is important that part of the education commitment and the public sector commitment generally should encourage better eating. If the programme is rolled out and generalised, as the commission recommends, there will be a steady, positive and large potential market for English fruit growers. That is the biggest incentive for orchards—marginal orchards—to reconsider their targeting and marketing. Perhaps more importantly for the long term, if we get children eating the amount of fruit that the Department of Health schemes intend them to eat, they will continue that habit for the rest of their lives. To plant an orchard for 40 years is a pretty good investment.
Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, I welcome the report, but time is not on the side of the Government or the commission. Perhaps I am influenced by my constituency experiences—my constituency in the west country contained a large number of traditional family farms. The most difficult meeting that I had last year was with a constituent farmer, who asked me to come and see him, his wife and two sons. He asked whether there was a future in farming. I could not honestly say to them—they had a 200-acre farm—that I believed that there was any future in farming.
The Government's plans and the commission's proposals depend on people. Although there is praise for the proposals about new entrants, as the Minister rightly said, sustainability means profitability, and that means a rewarding career. Unless there is an early prospect of that, there will be a rise in the number of farms that have no successor and which have not had a machine or boot on them for the past two years—I believe that the relevant figures in the report are understated. I could point to land in my constituency to which that applies; hundreds of acres have simply been abandoned because it was not worthwhile continuing. The greatest challenge that we face is that of trying to maintain the industry's morale while these sensible changes are introduced.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I partly agree with the noble Lord—this matter is part of the challenge that we have to address and the future of relatively small farms is an important part of the jigsaw. Some people have reacted by saying that all of our schemes would prejudice small farms. In fact, the shift to environmental land management support might benefit many of the farms to which the noble Lord referred.
Having said that, there is no doubt that farming is going through a period of change and that there will be some restructuring. Some farms will merge and some will drop out. The proposals give them the prospect of a longer-term support system, which the public in general and—probably—governments of all parties would continue to support. The present system of support for such farms, which involves production subsidies, has a distorting effect on the market and on consumer prices. That does not have political support in this country or in a large part of Europe. That is why we have to negotiate our way out of the arrangements.
One of the benefits of successfully improving the CAP would be that at least some of the small farms would have a more sustainable future. I cannot guarantee, and the Government do not attempt to reassure, everybody that they will be here in four or five years' time. However, if we take a 10-year timescale there is a positive future for such farms and a real future for the industry as a whole.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, one passage in the Statement which the noble Lord did not read is:
- "Where we need to regulate, we should seek to do so in better and smarter ways which take account of the burden of regulation upon those on whom they fall".
However, does he recognise that it is wholly unrealistic and, indeed, depressing and frustrating for farmers to be told that they must become competitive when the supermarkets to which they seek to sell can buy food much cheaper from places overseas which do not have the same regulatory controls and standards? What are the Government going to do to compensate farmers for the additional burdens that they have to
bear by reason of regulations in this country which do not apply in countries which grow similar food and export it to us?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I accept that much of the way in which we regulate and enforce regulation in this country presents a burden to farmers both in terms of time and, consequently, expense. On the other hand, I also believe that in the UK and in Europe as a whole there is likely to be a continued demand for regulation on safety, environmental and animal welfare issues. Our aim is to rationalise the system of enforcement and regulation.
However, to talk of compensation, except in very specific circumstances, seems to me to be looking backwards and to be an example of the problems which governments have in relation to farmers. The farming lobby has frequently come to us for money following every little jib and jab of change in circumstance when really it should be looking to the bigger picture. I believe that the leaders of the farming unions accept that.
This is a framework for a bigger picture, and we do not want to return to the situation whereby farmers look for a couple of hundred pounds here and a couple of thousand pounds there. We are looking to a long-term, constant and sustained framework within which farmers will operate and which everyone will understand. Within that, a big factor will be the reduction in the complexity of bureaucracy and in the multiplicity of the number of regulatory agencies with which farmers have to deal. That is an important objective of the Government and it is reflected in this report. I accept the implications of that.
State Pension Credit Bill [HL]
6.2 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: If I mention to noble Lords that the next amendment is on the subject of polyandry, polygamy and the rest, they may be tempted to stay.
Clause 12 [Polygamous marriages]:
Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 67:
- Page 7, line 37, at end insert "or polyandry".
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 67, perhaps it would also be convenient to speak to Amendments Nos. 68 and 69. I must stress that we on this side of the Committee are not sexist; that is why we want the Bill to refer to polygamy and polyandry. Thus, we come to a more interesting matter.
First, throughout some 33 years in the other place and four or five years in this House, I cannot remember ever seeing a clause in a Bill which dealt with polygamy. No doubt the Minister will be able to tell us if that is not so. At all events, Clause 12, which apparently seeks to deal with the problem, is very complicated.
Secondly, perhaps the Minister can tell us approximately how many people are involved in such a situation. The issue refers to a question under a law. I presume that that means that a man in a country other than the United Kingdom can legally marry more than one woman or, alternatively, a woman can marry more than one man. Therefore, essentially it is a matter concerning people from another jurisdiction who are immigrants into the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
Clause 12 refers, as do so many other parts of the Bill, to making regulations. As I said earlier, in our view it is appropriate to use regulations if something is going to vary over time following the enactment of the Bill. But if an issue can be decided now and is not likely to vary over time, then it should be dealt with on the face of the Bill rather than in regulations.
Therefore, apart from adding the word "polyandry" to "polygamy", the amendment seeks to set out a specific solution to the problem. There are, of course, all kinds of alternatives; for example, a household could be aggregated in line with the approaches which apply elsewhere in social security legislation and the various members of the household could be deemed to comprise a couple. Alternatively, I suppose that one could disregard spouses other than the first wife and make them ineligible for pension credit. Other wives or spouses could then be treated as a single person. There is a whole range of different alternatives.
The matter about which we are not in the least bit clear in relation to this clause is which of the various alternatives the Government will select. I should have thought that, having given attention to the matter, they would now be in a position to tell us how they are going to deal with it. The amendment suggests that the person and other party in question should be treated as a married couple with additional spouses treated as a single person. That appears to be a straightforward way in which to deal with the matter.
At all events, I believe that this issue should be cleared up in legislation on the face of the Bill. Having said that, I hope that the noble Baroness can answer the specific questions that I mentioned at the beginning. We can then take the matter from there.
Baroness Barker: Hats off to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for tabling one of the most intriguing amendments in a very long time. I found it most interesting. Ever since I read the amendment, I have been racking my brains to think of a nation on earth where polyandry is a legal state. Thus far, I have not been able to find one, but no doubt the Minister has been able to because she has a crew of people who work on such matters. If I were betting, I should put my money on somewhere in Polynesia. However, I shall be interested to find out.
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