Examination of witnesses
Rt Hon Michael Gove MP and Clare Moriarty.
Q1 The Chairman: Colleagues, may I do some of the parish notices first? I would remind Members to declare any interests, if they have any, before their questions. Perhaps I could remind the Committee that I am a board member of the Marine Management Organisation, which is relevant to this session. The session is being recorded by webcam and a transcript will be produced. We will send you a copy of the transcript, which you can change if you believe there to be any errors.
Secretary of State, may I welcome you and the Permanent Secretary, and ask you to introduce yourselves briefly for the public record before we start?
Michael Gove: I am the Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I have been in office for about 500 days. I am very fortunate in having one of the finest public servants in the country, Clare Moriarty, as my Permanent Secretary.
Clare Moriarty: I am the Permanent Secretary at Defra.
Q2 The Chairman: Thank you. You are very welcome to the Sub-Committee. To give some background, this session is around the notices that have come out from the Department around a ‘no deal’ scenario and how that will be coped with, which is, obviously, very important to all those areas that are involved.
In terms of this session, as you have probably noticed, we have a large number of questions, which we are not expecting to get through because we will finish by 12.15. The challenge is on me with the Members here, as we would like to keep it fairly snappy and fairly factual, rather than asking long questions, and, hopefully, not have long answers either.
We had the NAO report recently which I suppose, if I paraphrase it, and forgive me, said that Defra had done very well and had done a huge amount of work, but, at the end, it is an almost impossible task and there are lots of risks to being able to accomplish these various issues. I am interested in your brief reaction to that and, specifically, what areas concern you most. The one that concerns us as parliamentarians is the number of SIs that have to come out—I think some 93. Do you think we are anywhere near to achieving that particular goal?
Michael Gove: I thought it was a very good report. It was the equivalent of going to the doctor and him telling you what it is that you need to do to be match fit, stressing that, while you may have lost some weight and been doing more exercise, there is still a considerable way to go. It is a description of where we were at an earlier stage in the year.
The Chairman: Was it in June?
Michael Gove: Exactly. As Sir Amyas was drawing the conclusions to his report, we were already acting, not just on the conversations that we had had with him but also on the resolutions that senior officials and Ministers within the Department had made to step up preparations in the event of no deal. It was absolutely accurate at the time of writing. The challenges that he puts are absolutely correct. Subsequent action has been taken and the area that you quite rightly highlight—secondary legislation and Statutory Instruments—is one of those areas where he did say, “You have to improve your fitness”, and we have. A new Minister has joined the Department since the report was written—David Rutley—and he has taken charge of this process. It was the case that in the Whitehall terminology of red, amber and green, this was a red-rated issue and it is now an amber-rated issue. We have accelerated work on the Statutory Instrument programme and we are confident that we will deliver them all before March 2019.
At this stage, the one other thing I would say is that many of our Statutory Instruments depend upon agreement in and indeed passage in the devolved administrations. One thing we have agreed on with our counterparties in the devolved administrations is that we will work at speed and at pace, and, wherever there are issues of potential difficulty, I have said to the team, “Please, please, please be as accommodating as possible to the needs of the DAs”.
The Chairman: That is a very encouraging statement, so you expect all 93 to be delivered within the timeframe.
Michael Gove: There are now 86 because some of them have been merged together. There are some Northern Ireland-specific SIs that we have to deliver on behalf of the Northern Ireland Administration. There will be a bulge of activity in November and December but we are confident.
The Chairman: We look forward to it. What would you say is still your main area of concern as Secretary of State, given the fact that your department has the heaviest lifting to do of probably most of Whitehall in this area?
Michael Gove: My biggest concern is, funnily enough, those things over which we have no control: the actions of third parties. My biggest concern is what will happen at our ports, not so much what will happen at the principal container ports, but, in particular, what will happen in the Dover Straits and in Eurotunnel. My biggest concern there is not that there is any lack of willingness or imagination on the part of the Port of Dover or Eurotunnel; it is that, at the moment, around a fifth of our exports go through that pipe and because every time a product of animal origin enters the EU, if you are a third country, it needs to go through a port with a Border Inspection Post, and, as yet, Calais does not have a Border Inspection Post. Of course, it is not within my power to direct that, though we can seek to persuade the French Government. That is my single biggest concern.
Within the Department overall, the concerns fluctuate. We have weekly reporting sessions and daily meetings to deal with them. At any given point, my concern might be the development of an individual IT programme, but a week later remedial action will have been taken and that is back on track. I might see, for the sake of argument, that recruiting the staff necessary to work in the new team that we have set up to engage business has not been quite as good as it should have been, and a week later I will find that we have managed to get the very best people from the Treasury.
The Chairman: That is very useful. We will move on to some of those issues later, but, first, we will move on to exporting animals and animal products and the Earl of Stair.
Q3 The Earl of Stair: First, I would declare interests in agriculture, forestry and horticulture, as well as my interests as declared. Before we can enter into any trade arrangement we have to be listed as a third country. How long do you expect it to take for the UK to be listed as a third country and to gain listed status from the EU that will allow animal exports to take place? How much of that process could take place before we leave the EU next year?
Michael Gove: It could all take place before. It is a decision by the EU, and I respect its reasons: it says that we cannot enter into negotiations about becoming a third country until we are outside the EU. It is perfectly logical from its point of view that our having agreed a provisional implementation period of 21 months that we should do it during that period, and there will be ample time. At most, it would take six months. However, in the event of no deal, if the European Union recognises that that is a live risk or indeed the base case scenario, there are indications that the EU could accelerate that process. The Director-General of the Commission Martin Selmayr has said that within five days the EU could take all the legislative steps necessary that it believes it would need to satisfy itself. He has not said in terms that that would involve the UK being a listed third country, but I think that is implicit in what he has said. At the moment, regrettably from our point of view, and perhaps understandably from the point of view of some in the EU, it is not entering into those negotiations, and that is a frustration for us.
The Earl of Stair: Do you think it will go ahead fairly quickly once we leave?
Michael Gove: I think—and I cannot know—that if we knew that we were leaving without a deal, the EU would definitely accelerate that process. Again, without wanting to place too much on the shoulders of businesses within the EU, it would be deeply damaging to the business models of a variety of enterprises across the European Union if we were not a listed third country.
The Earl of Stair: How many additional officials and veterinarians would be required to implement all the requirements and when will you start recruiting them?
Michael Gove: You have put your finger on a particularly important point, which is, assuming that we are a listed third country, it will still be the case that live animal exports will need Export Health Certificates. At the moment, we generate just over 50,000 Export Health Certificates every year. The estimate is that it could be anything from a 150% increase to a 300% increase in the number of EHCs that are required. Within that, it may be the case that the way in which exports are packaged changes and the percentage number moves down. We have estimated that there will probably need to be—not employed by Defra—an additional 50 vets given the responsibility for signing off the Export Health Certificates. Principally, it will be the responsibility of the private sector, of exporters, to make use of that vet capacity, but there is capacity within the vet profession to meet that additional demand. More than that, we have been in contact with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, which has said that it is looking at, and hopes to be able to agree early next month an approach whereby people who are not themselves veterinarians can sign off EHCs if they are supervised by vets, and that will satisfy animal health concerns.
The Earl of Stair: One final question. What escalation in costs do you expect out of this and who is going to carry the brunt of these costs; will it be the producers or the Government?
Michael Gove: I think the Government will bear some of those costs.
The Earl of Stair: Some or all?
Michael Gove: Some.
The Earl of Stair: Some of them will be put on to the producers.
Michael Gove: It is the case that if as an exporter I am required to pay a veterinarian for Export Health Certificates that will be an additional cost, yes.
The Earl of Stair: Is that only for Certificates?
Michael Gove: Yes.
Q4 The Duke of Montrose: First, I would declare a family interest in livestock farming and an interest in rural affairs generally. Secretary of State, you very kindly mentioned that nearly all our exports go through Dover and the Channel Tunnel. Do you see these being rerouted to meet the requirement to travel through a Border Inspection Post and what assessment will this have on the ports used by the exporters?
Michael Gove: On the assumption we have a ‘no deal’ scenario, there will be short-term and medium-term impacts. In the short term—and, as I say, about one-fifth of our exports overall go through this particular pipe—one thing we are looking at is how we can support business to re-route exports. So it is likely to be the case that the Low Countries ports—Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Rotterdam—will increasingly become the ports of entry for exporters.
The Duke of Montrose: Do you have any plans for a slaughter policy if exports are stopped?
Michael Gove: If exports are stopped—and the Permanent Secretary dealt with this at the Public Accounts Committee—it is the case that you would not be allowed to send animals for export in circumstances where we do not know or cannot be certain that they will reach their ultimate destination safely. The concern that had been expressed by some that we would have animals slaughtered en route will not occur. It would not be the case that the animals would have been put into that position in the first place by the APHA—Animal and Plant Health Agency.
The Chairman: Clare Moriarty, if you want to come in at any time, you are very welcome to. We are going to move on to something that concerns quite a lot of citizens and that is pets and travelling abroad. Baroness Sheehan.
Q5 Baroness Sheehan: Secretary of State, in a ‘no deal’ Brexit the UK will leave the pet passport scheme and at the moment owners have no guidance as to what will be required of them afterwards. First, how many pets are taken from the UK to the EU every month?
Michael Gove: We do not know how many pets are taken from the UK to the EU because of the pet passport scheme, but we do know that, in 2017, 314,261 pets entered the UK on approved routes. That does not include pets from the Republic of Ireland because we have a common travel area for pets as well as for humans across the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Of those 314,000, the evidence suggests that 95% came from EU countries. If you presume, broadly, it would be the case that around 300,000 pets will probably have gone from the UK to the EU. In the technical notice that we published about pet transportation, and in the associated documentation, there are, essentially, three statuses that a country can have with respect to the EU and pets. You can either be a listed Part 1 third country, a listed Part 2 third country or an unlisted third country. Listed Part 1 countries are countries, essentially, that the EU is satisfied do not have a risk of rabies. By definition, that would be the UK. It is within the EU’s gift to confer that on us.
Baroness Sheehan: We will come onto this. The next question is: how many additional Official Vets will be required to enable all these pets to travel if a no-deal Brexit resulted in the UK becoming a listed country under the Pet Travel Scheme?
Michael Gove: There would be no need for any additional vet capacity. If we are a listed Part 1 country, in effect, it is very similar, but not identical, to the situation at the moment. There will be no change in terms of health preparation and only minor changes to documentation. That is the most likely scenario. If we were an unlisted third country, it would be a very onerous process, but unlisted third countries are only countries where there is a real disease risk. I will not mention them by name—that would be unfair—but it is very far from being the position the UK is in. I cannot, as I say, predict what the EU will do, but even if we were an unlisted third country, we have more than enough veterinarian capacity. It would, however, be a cost for travellers because they would have to visit the vet at least twice before being able to take their animal abroad.
Baroness Sheehan: When are you going to start letting pet owners know what they will be required to do?
Michael Gove: In the technical notice we have outlined what I think the three possible scenarios are. To an extent, we depend on the EU making it clear, but we have said that if you fear—and, as I say, I think this is the least likely scenario—that we will be an unlisted third country, and you do want to take your pet abroad from 30 March 2019, you will need to see a vet about four months in advance, i.e., from next month. We have communicated that and we will communicate that again. As I say, this is the least likely scenario, but if you wanted to be absolutely certain that you can definitely take your pet abroad, and you were worried about the worst possible scenario, and you were taking your pet abroad, for example, during the Easter holidays, then you should see your vet. It is a relatively straightforward procedure, but you should see your vet, to ensure the vaccinations and so on are appropriate, in November.
Baroness Sheehan: I assume that pets of UK citizens in the EU would be able to remain with their owners.
Michael Gove: Yes.
Baroness Sheehan: In a ‘no deal’ scenario, how would you ensure pets coming from the EU to the UK are healthy?
Michael Gove: We would have exactly the same vaccination requirements that we have at the moment. There would be no lowering of the standards required of EU pets coming into the UK. Over to Clare.
Clare Moriarty: Just to add, at the moment, if you bring a pet in from another EU country you have to demonstrate that it is the pet it says it is and it has had its vaccinations, and, for certain countries, has had a particular treatment for a particular tapeworm. All of that exists at the moment and we will continue to employ those means.
The Chairman: Thank you. There are a number of pet owners among our Committee, so I declare our interest corporately.
Michael Gove: This is an issue of very profound concern to the Gove household as well.
The Chairman: I suspect so, and if Defra comes unstuck anywhere, it will probably be in this area I suspect, but hopefully not. We are going to move on to an area which is becoming increasingly important, particularly with China policy and things like that: waste shipments. Lord Young.
Q6 Lord Young of Norwood Green: It is a complex issue and in the interests of time I am going to focus my question. Are waste exporters able to submit applications for a new licence that would be valid post Brexit before the UK leaves the EU? That is an important issue given the length of time that can take. What contingency plans are in place to deal with waste that may become stranded in the UK if there is a disruption to exports to the EU? Have you now agreed with the EU on how reapprovals of shipments will take place?
Michael Gove: All of that is still subject to negotiation at the moment. I would say that given what had already happened with China, and what is now happening with Malaysia, we recognise that there is more waste that needs to be processed in the UK and in the EU. We have been talking both to waste companies and to the Commission about how we can ensure that authorisations and access remain.
Lord Young of Norwood Green: Do we have the capacity to deal with more waste within the UK?
Michael Gove: Not at the moment, no. One thing we will be saying more about in our resources and waste strategy, which we will publish, God willing, just after the Budget, is exactly how we propose to increase that capacity.
Lord Young of Norwood Green: The other issue is about renegotiating approvals and they are still the subject of negotiation.
Michael Gove: They are.
Clare Moriarty: The general point that the Secretary of State made earlier applies in that we stand ready in all sorts of areas. Companies need to register to operate in the EU and the companies are ready to do that, and we are engaging with the EU on this issue of whether they can apply before the point at which the UK becomes a third country.
The Chairman: In this area, I see it as potentially a bit like the M26 in that we are going to have a back-up, because there is the waste strategy, which we look forward to this autumn, but planning permission for waste plants can take seven or eight years to get there.
Michael Gove: Quite.
The Chairman: Do we have a contingency plan for the backing up of millions of black plastic bags? It is a serious issue, is it not?
Michael Gove: It is a very serious issue, but it works both ways, in that it is in the EU’s interests as well to make sure that we have—
The Chairman: It is in the EU’s interests to do a deal, as we all want to do a deal, but we are talking about if we do not.
Michael Gove: Yes, we are drawing up contingency plans for each area if individual UK commercial concerns, for whatever reason, cannot maintain the access to the EU market they have had in the past. We are going to say more about that once the resources and waste strategy has been published.
The Chairman: Do we have contingency plans were it all to go wrong?
Michael Gove: Yes. That does not mean that we can mitigate every risk but we will seek to mitigate as many as possible.
The Chairman: If we can move on to the easier area of fisheries and Baroness Wilcox.
Q7 Baroness Wilcox: I am going to ask three questions in one go because we are rushing along to see if we can get some really good answers out of you. Your guidance states that you will seek to inform UK fishermen in March of their quotas to fish in UK waters. What steps need to take place between now and then to ensure that that happens? Has agreement been reached with the devolved administrations on this process? What would be the implications of you not being able to inform UK quota holders in March?
Michael Gove: The process will be, first of all, an agreement at the December Council with our EU partners. Before the December Council we will come up with an agreed position across all the devolved administrations and the UK Government. I do not believe there will be any difference to that harmonious process operating this year from any other year. If we leave without a deal, it would be the case that we would honour the commitments entered into at the December Council, and so that means that, even though we leave the European Union in March, it would still be the case that quota allocations for UK vessels, and, for that matter, access for EU vessels, would remain as had been negotiated in December 2018 right up to December 2019.
Q8 Baroness Wilcox: Marvellous. I should have said that I come from a fishing industry background, and I apologise to the Chairman for not doing so. I will sneak in another question since you have been so quick. What level of additional resources will be required when the UK leaves the EU to effectively control access to UK waters? I am particularly keen to know how fast we are going to be making the 16 boats that we need to be able to go and do the things that we have not been able to do during the time that we have been in European Community waters?
Michael Gove: We presented a business case to the Treasury outlining the additional capacity that we need by way of ships, aviation and also staff. As the Chairman will know, we need, potentially, to recruit another 60 people to work in fisheries protection. We are in the process of recruiting those people now. They need three months’ training to be ready and effective to do their job. We can get some of that capacity from the private sector, but we will also need some capacity from the Royal Navy, and I wrote just last night to the Defence Secretary to reinforce the importance of the business case that we presented to the Treasury being signed off.
Baroness Wilcox: Thank you. I apologise to my colleague Lord Cameron as he should have asked that question. I got so excited that you were going so quickly that I took it.
The Chairman: I am sure Lord Cameron will cope. I will hand over to him.
Q9 Lord Cameron of Dillington: I am quite interested in how you are going to arrange the Total Allowable Catches post March in the event of a no-deal Brexit. We will have gone through nearly a quarter of the year. How is it going to work out in the long run on that?
Michael Gove: We will—and this might be misconstrued by some—honour the arrangement that was entered into in December 2018 throughout 2019, whether we leave without a deal or not. Everyone accepts—and some people have called it a nine-month bridge, or whatever—that there will be continuity. During that year, even though we will formally and legally have taken back control and formally and legally will be an independent coastal state, and we could theoretically take a different approach, we will honour everything that has happened, and in December 2019, we will negotiate, as we will every year, as though we were a Norway, the level of access to our waters that we will allow the EU, and for that matter Norway, the Faroe Islands and anyone else, and the reciprocal access that we get to their waters.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: Can I ask another question, which is about sales? Bearing in mind that we export most of the fish we catch, particularly nephrops from north-east and north-west Scotland, which will be dear to your heart.
Michael Gove: Yes.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: How is that going to work in the case of no deal? Will we be stymied? How many catch certificates, export certificates will we need for these catches?
Michael Gove: We will probably need about 100,000 new export catch certificates. It depends on how you bundle things together. A catch certificate is for a consignment, so you can have a large number of fish in one consignment, or a large number of shellfish, with one catch certificate, but that is our working estimate. The MMO is developing a new system to ensure that we can allocate export catch certificates appropriately. It has been one of those projects where the feedback so far from the project management team has been most optimistic about the speed with which the MMO has risen to this challenge.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: And the Europeans are…?
Michael Gove: There are two unknown factors. The first, as Lord Stair pointed out earlier, is if we are not a listed third country we cannot export anything. As I say, I do not think that is an eventuality that is likely to arise, although that is the EU’s current negotiating position. The other thing is what the tariff situation might be. The point you make is very powerful. Much of the fish that we eat is not caught by our boats—it comes from further north—-and much of what we catch we sell, but certainly there is a very strong desire among the French and other restaurant, retail and food processing sectors to ensure that we can continue to have access to these products. It is not without risk but the incentives are all aligned in the same way.
The Chairman: We move then on to the importing and exporting of plants and Lord Selkirk?
Q10 Lord Selkirk of Douglas: How many phytosanitary certificates are issued each month in the UK currently? How many does the Secretary of State anticipate being required each month in the case of a ‘no deal’ Brexit? Can I also ask for a word to be said about the request for additional resources in relation to IT, guidance from Defra, and the timescale for the UK plant passport scheme?
Michael Gove: The first thing I would say is that currently around 100,000 phytosanitary certificates for exports from England and Wales to non‑EU countries are issued each year at the moment. In a ‘no deal’ scenario, we expect a 300% increase in that to accommodate current flows into the EU. It is the case that a UK plant passport scheme would come into effect from April 2019. That would mean that businesses would need to amend the references they use on current plant passport documents to reflect the document is a UK plant passport rather than an EU plant passport. This is a relatively simple process that involves removing references to the EU and replacing them with references to the UK. While it is a significant uplift, it is not a massively complicated endeavour. I do not know if Clare wants to say any more.
Clare Moriarty: One of the things that makes the import and export of plants slightly less complicated than food of animal origin is the way in which the IT systems work. We have an IT system, we have tested it and we believe it will continue to be up to the task of dealing with this larger volume. We are in the process of recruiting additional plant health inspectors because, unlike vets, they are employed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency. It is one of the projects we have a very close eye on, but it seems to be in good shape.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas: Thank you. Will guidance from Defra be forthcoming?
Clare Moriarty: Yes.
Michael Gove: Yes, absolutely.
The Chairman: We might well come back to that subject later, but let us move on for the moment to labelling and producing food and Lord Rooker.
Q11 Lord Rooker: I am not clear on food labelling and what you want to do as a result of Brexit. On the one hand, there are arguments about once we are out we can do what we want and there are things we want to change. What are those things? Secondly, if there is no deal, what is the significance of consulting on the food labelling that we want to do and changing the regulations between a deal and no deal, because of timing to producers, the timing for changing labels, the timing for getting new UK addresses for EU countries that want to import? What is the difference in timing between the two with a deal or no deal?
Michael Gove: There are some things that we would need to do, and you have put your finger on them—making clear what is UK and what is EU, and changing the labelling to reflect the EU's own law—that will be required in the event of no deal. That is a simple requirement of the base reality of what leaving means. However, there is a broader set of policy questions which relate to many of the concerns that people have expressed about current food labelling, some of which are changes that we could have introduced were we still in the EU, some of which are changes that we can introduce outside the EU, and those are changes which later in this Parliament, or in a future Parliament, a Government could take.
There is a separate and specific issue raised by the tragic case of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse. We are able to change the law while we are still in the EU to require a greater degree of detail to be specified about potential allergens in food products that are being sold. As you quite rightly say, there are a number of different work streams here and we are trying to say, “These are things that will be required just by the law in the event of no deal”. It is a bit of administrative work that some might find irritating but it is required. There are potential future options, which would enable us to say more about either animal welfare or the provenance of things that are sold. Then there are some specific consumer-safety changes, which, irrespective of any or all of this, we should be making anyway.
Lord Rooker: I want to come back on one aspect. What about the timing factor? We do not know if there is going to be an announcement about there being no deal. The information that food producers who are exporting from the UK to the world need to produce is pretty vital. Is January the deadline? Have you discussed with industry what its deadline is for knowing what you want to do?
Michael Gove: The critical thing there is that, not just with food labelling but with everything, the Prime Minister will say at a given point, if we believe that we cannot get a deal, that the Government are moving to preparing for no deal and that no deal is the Government's lead option. That does not mean that we will stop talking to our European partners. That will all depend on what happens, as we all know, in the October and November Councils, if they occur. At that point, the Prime Minister will make a statement or report to the House of Commons, and the Government will move to that footing and communicate it to everyone that the technical notices that we have issued will be supplemented by other guidance as to how to prepare.
Separate to that, and thanks to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, the Government will have to introduce a neutral motion into the House on 21 January saying, “We are going ahead with no deal”, and the House of Commons will have an opportunity to vote on that. I would not want to anticipate what might happen at that point, but the Prime Minister will spell that out. It might be the case—and we have seen how European negotiations work—that progress is made at the October Council and at the November Council, and that it is even as late as the December Council before a deal is done. Obviously, everyone would like a deal to be done earlier. I do not want to the tie the Prime Minister's hands, but if insufficient progress is made by November, the Government will take stock, reflect and decide, and the Prime Minister will decide at what point to say, “This is our lead option”.
Lord Rooker: Can I come back on one point that you raised on allergens? Prior to the current Food Information Regulations that came in in 2014—the EU food regulations—in the UK we had an allergen symbol on the front-of-pack labelling.
Michael Gove: Yes.
Lord Rooker: When the negotiations were taking place, the Food Standards Agency wanted to keep that front-of-pack warning. Defra officials did not and co‑operated with the EU to remove the front-of-pack allergen warning. Would you like to put the front-of-pack allergen warning back?
Michael Gove: It is under active consideration at the moment, yes.
Lord Rooker: To return to what used to be the case.
Michael Gove: I hope we may be able to go further. One thing that occurred as a result of this tragedy is that the team at Defra is urgently reviewing all the options. For precisely the reason you mentioned, which is we do not want to have constant change, we want to ensure that when we say, “Right, this is the new approach that we are taking towards allergens”, that it is as strong as it can possibly be.
Lord Rooker: Thank you.
The Chairman: Can we move on to the huge proportion of British manufacturing industry, chemicals? Viscount Ullswater is going to start.
Viscount Ullswater: I would declare an interest that I am a trustee of a landed estate in Cumbria. Can UK chemical manufacturers re-register their products with the EU via a Member State-based affiliate or representative before the UK leaves the EU, as the NAO report suggests this process cannot begin until the UK has left the EU? How many products would that entail if all the products currently exported were to continue to be exported after a ‘no deal’ Brexit? How long do you anticipate it might take from the date of a company providing the necessary paperwork to being able to sell the products? Have you any estimation of the cost?
Michael Gove: The first thing to say is we are hoping that we will stay associate members of the ECHA—the European Chemicals Agency—but, of course, in a ‘no deal’ scenario that bet is off. Companies are able to take steps now to transfer the registration to an EU-based affiliate or to an only representative. As it happens, I think a significant proportion of only representatives happen to be based in the UK, but it is the case that they can start that process now. If a company starts that process, there should be no air gap in registration between now and a ‘no deal’ exit scenario.
My understanding is that UK businesses hold over 11,000 registrations with the ECHA currently, and that covers 5,000 unique substances. I am unable to compute the cost for the chemicals industry reregistration. I do not know if Clare has some more information.
Clare Moriarty: There are two processes that need to be gone through. The first is for those who hold registrations to transfer the registrations to an EU address so they continue to be held by the European Chemicals Agency. We know that quite a number of companies have started doing that. The cost they have been talking to us about is between £250 and £1,000. There is a process to be gone through. We also need to make sure that, in the event of no deal, companies are able to have a registration in the UK as well. We will be taking all these registrations and grandfathering them into a new UK-based service which will look and feel exactly like the European Chemicals Agency system.
Viscount Hanworth: If there is no deal on Brexit, are the existing REACH registrations going to be transferred in a straightforward manner—grandfathering I think you describe it as—into a new system? Conversely, how much of the necessary information will be subject to restrictions arising from its commercial ownership?
Clare Moriarty: All the existing registrations will be transferred into the new UK system, and companies which hold registrations will have a period of 60 days from the point of exit where they have to provide some basic information and then a further two-year period to provide quite full and detailed dossiers, which they will have because they will have provided them to the European Chemicals Agency already. That is commercially sensitive information, but there is a well-established process within the European Chemicals Agency for dealing with that, and that will be replicated in the Health and Safety Executive, which is going to administer this system.
Viscount Hanworth: We have been alerted by witnesses that there are considerable difficulties and inhibitions arising out of the commercial ownership of much of the necessary information. How do you react to that?
The Chairman: And the fact that it is a combined system. On the registration it is not just one business but all businesses that are involved in a particular chemical, and so there is some jointly owned IP, which is causing all sorts of issues. That is what you had in mind.
Viscount Hanworth: Indeed, that is my point. It makes it a good deal more complex if there are many owners.
Clare Moriarty: I was not aware of that and it is really helpful when people flag to us things that we were not previously aware of. Can I take that one away and we will investigate it?
Viscount Hanworth: Can we give you our information? We have had very strong representations in that connection.
The Chairman: Thank you. In fact, on any of these questions, if you wish to come back to us through Alex, our clerk, please do. Can we move on to the importing of animal and animal products and Lord Krebs?
Q12 Lord Krebs: I declare an interest as adviser to two of our food retailers, Marks & Spencer and Tesco. Secretary of State, I would like to ask you whether Defra has secured the access that you need from the EU to develop the UK’s replacement for TRACES?
Michael Gove: Yes is the short answer. Our new system will be designed, from scratch is the wrong phrase, but it will be our own system. We have the essential datasets that we need to ensure that our own IT system will work appropriately.
Lord Krebs: Are you expecting TRACES to be fully functional on the day the UK leaves the EU?
Michael Gove: Yes, I think we will have a base operating model that will be sufficient and effective, but that is not to say that it cannot be improved immediately after exit.
Lord Krebs: If it still requires some improvement, what is your estimate of the extent of delays that are likely to ensue at borders?
Michael Gove: I think the delays at borders will not be as a result of TRACES. Delays at borders will be as a result of the decisions that the EU may or may not take about the ease with which we can get our exports into its market.
Clare Moriarty: It is possibly worth saying in the first instance that the existing TRACES is used for people importing food from third countries, and we will use the import notification system, which we are building and is well advanced at the moment, for imports from third countries, which, by definition, are coming into container ports where there is a well set up system for dealing with them. It is our intention to extend it so that products from EU imports in the future are pre-notified through that system, but in the event of a ‘no deal’ we would not be doing that on 29 March because the most important thing is to ensure that we are protecting the flow.
The Chairman: Do you want to move on to stakeholders?
Lord Krebs: May I continue on this, please, Chairman? One thing you are saying in your guidance is that you might restrict checks of imports from the EU to high-risk products?
Michael Gove: Yes.
Lord Krebs: How many consignments of high-risk food and feed are currently imported from the EU each month?
Michael Gove: At the moment we do not import that which is high risk. We have access to intelligence about the presence of, say, swine fever in the pig or boar population in parts of the EU and, as a result, we take appropriate measures not to import. In those circumstances, if we had intelligence that, for the sake of argument, there was an outbreak of a particular disease or there were circumstances in any part of the EU that would lead us to want to check that, we would use an intelligence-led approach. For the sake of argument, if we knew that meat type X from nations A and B had been exposed to a particular risk, we would check those consignments, whereas we would be relaxed about food from other nations which were not subject to, and not the victims of, a disease outbreak or another threat to human health.
Lord Krebs: What about food fraud? We know from DNA testing that one-fifth of all meat samples are not what they claim to be.
Michael Gove: Indeed. It is a bigger issue overall. At the moment, by definition, because we do not check products from the EU because we believe that other EU countries have in place the food safety requirements which we ourselves would consider to be necessary, it could be the case that an unscrupulous manufacturer or food processor in France or Germany could send something into the UK market, much as they could send it into the Italian market. We would have to rely on intelligence through the criminal justice network and on checks at point of sale to ensure that we were dealing with it. Yes, after the horse meat scandal that we saw in the past, we know food fraud is a live issue, and a concern that we have—and it relates to the point Lord Rooker made about labelling—is how in the future we develop more rigorous ways of ensuring that the provenance and quality of the food that is sold can be guaranteed.
The Chairman: Did you want to pursue stakeholders?
Q13 Lord Krebs: Secretary of State, may I go back to the beginning when you were talking about SIs? What is your reaction to the letter that Shaun Spiers sent to Tamara Finkelstein on 4 October lamenting the fact that Defra has not been consulting adequately with stakeholders on the formulation of SIs?
Michael Gove: I saw Shaun and other representatives of Greener UK earlier this week, and we had a discussion about a whole range of issues, including the legislation required to ensure that there was no air gap. There is a tension between consulting as broadly as one would like and making sure that we have a functioning statute book and that regulations are in place that provide and guarantee people with the reassurance and safety that they demand. The critical thing about these Statutory Instruments is that they are intended, as far as possible, to ensure that we have legislative continuity as we leave. They are basically there as a way of ensuring that the legal framework that people enjoy at the moment can stay the same. It is different from us embarking on a significant change where, quite rightly, a proper process of lengthy consultation would be required if we were diverging from the status quo.
The Chairman: In the NAO report it was implied that DExEU was, effectively, trying to stop your good work in this area.
Michael Gove: It was implicit in what Sir Amyas said that some stakeholder engagement in the past might have been inhibited by DExEU guidance, but whether or not that was the case in the past—and that is a theoretical question, as it were—it is certainly the case now that we have freedom to engage with all the stakeholders we want to in more or less the way that we want to. The principal constraint on us, as Greener UK is very fairly pointing out, is time.
The Chairman: That is why, as a Committee, we are concerned about this. Where things are written quickly, there are always potential issues. If you do not have sufficient stakeholder involvement as well there is a double jeopardy to ensuring you get the statute book right on day one.
Michael Gove: That is one reason why, although the process has been accelerated, we cannot do everything tomorrow. It is the case that, even when an SI is thought to be ready by the lawyers and the policy officials who have been drafting it, and even when it is agreed by the devolved administrations, a fresh pair of eyes looks at the Statutory Instrument to ensure that it is seaworthy.
The Chairman: The public may not realise, of course, that Parliament does not have the ability to amend these things; we say yes or no. I think the Earl of Stair wanted to come back on fisheries.
Q14 The Earl of Stair: Reflecting on the points you made about fisheries earlier on, you mentioned that you had written to both the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence looking for vessels and aircraft. Have the Government actively investigated the possibility of leasing, or borrowing even, vessels from third parties? Come March next year there is no question of us having new vessels in place of our own, and there will be a very large area of sea that will, effectively, be seen as a free-for-all by many people. Have you actively looked into sourcing vessels and aircraft from different sources rather than relying on purchasing and building our own?
Michael Gove: Absolutely, that is our approach. The Defra approach is to say that of course we will benefit from the support that the Royal Navy gives, which is superb, but we also need commercial avenues to be explored as well.
The Earl of Stair: The reality is that the Royal Navy, as stretched as it is, is unlikely to be able to provide sufficient vessels. Have you looked to a third party to supply vessels?
Michael Gove: Our case to the Treasury is that we absolutely need third-party involvement.
The Chairman: As we have managed ourselves very well, if there are other Members who wish to ask further questions perhaps they would indicate to me or Alex. Lord Krebs.
Q15 Lord Krebs: I wanted to pursue a little further your meeting with Shaun Spiers. You said you had met with him, which is very nice, but you did not say whether or not you agreed with his statement in his letter to Tamara Finkelstein that there had not been sufficient consultation on these SIs, and are you going to do something about it?
Michael Gove: There is a tension. I quite understand Shaun’s point of view. I believe that we are balancing the need to consult with the need to make sure that the statute book is there. In the meeting that we had with Shaun and with other representatives of Greener UK, he was very clear that the most important thing—and I do not want misrepresent him and if, for any reason, I am being unfair to his characterisation of events, I must apologise and will correct the record—is his team wanted to make sure that the protections were in place. The single most important thing was to make sure that we did not have any air gap or diminution in environmental protection. It is very fair of Shaun to say that he would like more time. In an ideal world, I can quite understand why more time would be available, and I think it is a legitimate concern that he is expressing, but I fear that we have to press on.
Clare Moriarty: I was just going to add, my understanding is that, of the 86 Statutory Instruments, only two of them involve any change to policy. This is absolutely about making sure that we do not have an accidental gap in the statute book as a result of having passed the Withdrawal Act but not yet lined up all our Statutory Instruments. As the Secretary of State says, slightly paradoxically, the greatest help we can give to all the environmental organisations is making sure that we have done the very technical work. Some of the Statutory Instruments are 150 pages long but do not contain anything new. They are simply giving the assurance that that which is currently in EU legislation will not only be transported into UK legislation but will function in UK legislation. If we have not quite had the right conversation yet with Greener UK and other organisations, again that is a useful indication. It is not enough for us just to give reassurance. We need to make sure they feel reassured by it.
Lord Krebs: I think that would be appreciated by Greener UK.
Q16 Baroness Sheehan: Secretary of State, you mentioned one of the things that keeps you awake is the Calais-Dover Strait. Is the fact that there are no Border Inspection Posts there a consequence of the Le Touquet agreement, which is a bilateral agreement?
Clare Moriarty: No, the Le Touquet agreement is about juxtaposed control. It governs the fact that we apply passport controls for France and French passport controls are applied in France. In the case of Eurotunnel, all the French controls are applied in England and the UK controls are applied in France. The reason why there is no Border Inspection Post in Calais is because there has been no need for any checking because the transport that comes through the short Strait, by definition, comes immediately from within the EU. Since 1 January 1993, there has not been checking of traffic coming through those routes, so there has not been a need for a Border Inspection Post and one has never been built.
The Chairman: In our last 10 minutes, I have Lord Rooker, Viscount Hanworth, the Duke of Montrose and Lord Young, and I am going to have to close the list there. Lord Rooker.
Q17 Lord Rooker: From memory, the ratio of food production animals to people in Northern Ireland—compared to England—is massive, a factor of 10 times. There are huge numbers and it is a big issue for its economy. In terms of animal feed, there is an integrated secure entry system on to the island of Ireland. How are you going to cope with that? It does not figure and is not politically sexy in the discussions about borders, but it is a hell of an issue for food safety and animal welfare that there is a fully integrated system of imports of feed for animals on to the island of Ireland. How is Brexit going to deal with that if there is a ‘no deal’ scenario?
Michael Gove: One reason for coming up with the proposals that have become known as the Chequers deal is precisely to deal with that and other related situations. With no deal, we can take steps to mitigate risks but we cannot eliminate all of them. I would say—and this is a statement of fact, and I do not mean anything by it other than this—whatever risks the UK may face, and whatever challenges we may face as a result of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, those risks are magnified and even more acute for the Republic of Ireland, which is why the Government and I are so keen that we secure a resolution which makes sure that life and commerce on the island of Ireland can continue as close to now as possible.
Q18 Viscount Hanworth: The EU has a system for issuing quotas for ozone-depleting substances. Do you have a plan to establish an IT system to administer UK quotas if we leave the European Union with no deal?
Michael Gove: Yes. One thing we are negotiating with the devolved administrations is whether that quota could be, as it were, divided between them. We think it is better if it is exercised on a UK-wide level. Some of the interests in the devolved administrations think that might be seen as a power grab, but, from my point of view, the main thing is pragmatically to ensure that, as we leave, we can continue to meet our obligations to ensure that we reduce F gas usage over time.
Viscount Hanworth: Will they be more stringent than the current European Union regulations?
Michael Gove: We are not anticipating them being so.
Clare Moriarty: We are operating within an international convention. There are a number of areas where we act currently as part of the EU but the framework is set by a broader international convention, and I think that is the case with F gases.
Q19 The Duke of Montrose: Secretary of State, if I understood your answer to my last question, you were saying if we cannot have exports we should stop trying to export sheep, but that means there are over 3 million sheep in the country that we have no plan to keep through the winter and we are back to the fodder question.
Michael Gove: That was my fault for answering the question wrongly or ineptly. My point was that a story had appeared in the newspapers suggesting that we would have animals which were on the verge of being exported that would have to be slaughtered at the port, which is not true.
One of my biggest concerns about a ‘no deal’, to return to the Chairman’s earlier point, is, as you know, the sector which is most exposed to the European market and British agriculture is the sheep meat sector and, associated with that, it is the case that peak consumption time for lamb will be in the spring just after March 2019. We already have a number of ways of providing support for sheep farmers, upland farmers in particular, in the event that there is a problem with reaching the marketplace, but it is also the case—and this is not to do with the ‘no deal’ exit plan—that the Department for International Trade and ourselves are working incredibly hard to ensure that we find new markets for sheep meat. Within the UK, sheep meat consumption is diminishing, but there is a growing market for it in the Middle East and beyond, which we believe the UK is incredibly well-placed to meet. The needs of sheep farmers are very much in my mind as we shape policy and that is one of the reasons why I hope we can reach a deal.
Q20 Lord Young of Norwood Green: Has Defra done a potential skills gap analysis? You referred to phytosanitary arrangements and the fact there is going to be demand for more vets, et cetera. You cannot take that off the shelf; it takes time. Are you doing a skills gap analysis over a wide range of issues in the event of no deal?
Michael Gove: Yes, absolutely. At the moment within the Department we are scaling up and we have recruited a number of very good people. More broadly, and I think this lies behind your question, there will be other areas where there will be a demand for particular skills. As I say, with respect to Export Health Certificates, we have identified what we think that demand is. It is not a demand that the Government employs, but we are aware of what may be required and we are there to help business to deal with that. Immediately preceding this Committee hearing, I was talking to the Food and Drink Sector Council about this issue, among many others: in the event of a ‘no deal’, what do the Government need to do with respect to skills gaps and other things to ensure they can continue to do the good job they do?
Lord Young of Norwood Green: Are you publishing some guidance or information in relation to this?
Michael Gove: At the moment we are working with the individual commercial players, but, yes, I have no problem, other than diverting people from the hard work they are engaged in at the moment, with publishing more detail about what is required. It is a fair point that the technical notices we published will give people a lot of information about what may be required, but more information in the event of no deal will be provided by the Government to explain how the requirements spelt out in the technical notices can be met and what the Government can do to help.
The Chairman: One of the continuing themes in many of our Brexit reports in this Committee is the very large dependence of the commercial sector on non-UK EU vets, particularly. Also, our definition of skilled workers might be very different from that of the Department for Work and Pensions, or the Home Office, regarding the sorts of skills in the field, which, as I am sure you are well aware, is of great concern.
Clare Moriarty: It is possibly worth saying in relation to vets that there are at least 9,000 vets and the issue with them is more about ensuring there are enough of them who have the precise qualifications they need. We know that there are 6,000 vets who have the basic qualification that they would need to, for example, sign Export Health Certificates. There is a six-hour training package which would get them to the point where they can apply. In all of this we are looking at it at quite a granular level because the particular issues that need to be addressed vary hugely between professions. As the Secretary of State says, we are trying to work with the various sectors to ensure that we are hearing any issues that come up from them about future supply.
The Chairman: Secretary of State, I was hoping we would have some extra time so I could ask you to opine more broadly on Brexit, which I am sure would be useful to all of us, but, in fact, I have Lord Cameron who wishes to ask an additional question.
Q21 Lord Cameron of Dillington: Mine is a very short question to the Permanent Secretary. What are the two Statutory Instruments that do involve major changes to the rules as they currently stand?
Clare Moriarty: First, I would have to go and check that. Secondly, I do not think it is a question of major changes to the rules. This came up when I was in front of the Public Accounts Committee with my colleagues earlier in the week. As I understand it, only two of them are anything other than entirely technical measures. I will find that out and come back to you.
Michael Gove: I think one of them, although I may be wrong, relates to seed potatoes.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: A subject dear to my heart.
Michael Gove: And mine.
Q22 The Chairman: Secretary of State, Permanent Secretary, is there anything you would quickly like to add? I am not asking you to, but is there anything that we have not covered or you feel you want to say in the last minute?
Michael Gove: I have mentioned it in passing a couple of times, but one thing that is remarkable and heartening is the hard work of the team in Defra and its agencies. My admiration for the people who work in the department has only risen as they have risen to this challenge. We ask a lot of people in public service, particularly people in the Civil Service, and they have done a great job. I am glad that was reflected in Sir Amyas Morse’s report. In any report that you may make, which will, understandably, be critical of Ministers in some respects, I hope that you appreciate that the fault is ours and we are supported, certainly in Defra, by a great team, and that should always be acknowledged.
The Chairman: Good. Absorbing 1,300 extra staff during that process is quite something as well. Secretary of State, Permanent Secretary, Clare and Michael, thank you very much indeed for coming before us. It has been a very useful session and I bring this session to an end.
