Fourteen pro-farming Tory MPs rebelled in a Commons vote last night attempting to impose a legal bar preventing the government from watering down food standards. The rebels were: Peter Aldous … George Freeman … Tracey Crouch … Roger Gale … Simon Hoare … Neil Hudson … Jason McCartney … Stephen McPartland … Caroline Nokes … Neil Parish … Douglas Ross … Henry Smith … Julian Sturdy … and Theresa Villiers.

But…………

Neil Parish’s rebellion was ultimately a case of “shearing a pig”: a lot of squealing and no wool. – Liz Pole

[Owl never found a Sasha quote about the “farmer next door”]

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk

MPs have rejected the latest attempt to require imported food to meet domestic legal standards from 1 January.

They struck down a Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill to force trade deals to meet UK animal welfare and food safety rules.

Campaigners have warned the UK could be forced to accept lower standards to secure a future US trade deal.

But Farming minister Victoria Prentis said the government was “absolutely committed to high standards”.

Existing laws would safeguard them, she told the House of Commons, adding that these were “of more use than warm words” in maintaining animal welfare, food standards and environmental protections.

The bill – designed to prepare the farming industry for when the UK no longer has to follow EU laws and rules next year – returned to the Commons on Monday following amendments by the House of Lords.

The government says EU rules banning imports of chlorine-washed chicken and other products will be automatically written into UK law once the post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December.

But peers made a number of changes, including one which would give MPs a veto over sections in trade deals relating to food imports, which would be required to comply with “relevant domestic standards”.

They argued these changes were necessary to make it impossible for the US or other countries to export so-called chlorinated chicken or beef fattened with hormones.

However, MPs voted by 332 votes to 279 – a majority 53 – to back government plans to reject the amendment.

media captionJamie Oliver accuses the government of using “back door” secondary legislation to avoid scrutiny of post-Brexit food standards

However, Conservative MPs Sir Roger Gale and George Freeman said they would vote for the amendment to remain in the bill, saying it was in line with their party’s 2019 manifesto pledge to maintain welfare standards.

Neil Parish, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, told the Commons that Brexit meant UK agriculture could move in a “much more environmental direction”, including planting more trees and cutting the use of nitrates.

The country should be a “beacon” of high animal welfare and countryside-protection standards, he added.

But Conservative MP John Lamont supported the government, saying the amendments were “not in the interests” of food producers or standards and would be “bad for trade”.

Party colleague Anthony Mangnall said there had been a “huge amount of fear-mongering” over the importation of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, and that “has to stop”.

‘Back British farmers’

In the Commons, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Tim Farron said the controversy over chlorinated chicken was not “about the quality of food” but the “integrity of our farming industry”.

For Labour, shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said this was a “crucial moment for British agriculture”, adding that high standards could all be “thrown away”.

He urged the government to “show some leadership” and “back British farmers”.

The bill must include guarantees that UK farmers would not be “undercut” in post-Brexit trade deals, Mr Pollard said.

However another potential rebellion by backbench Tory MPs was avoided by the government when the deputy speaker ruled out an amendment to strengthen the new Trade and Agriculture Commission.

Speaking about this week’s votes in Parliament on the Agriculture Bill, Labour’s Constituency Spokesperson for Tiverton and Honiton, Liz Pole, said “Labour supported the Lords Amendment on keeping British standards in trade deals. On the other hand Neil Parish’s rebellion was ultimately a case of “shearing a pig”: a lot of squealing and no wool. In voting down all the Amendments – which were backed by Labour along with a broad coalition of major environmental groups and the National Farmers Union – the Conservatives have broken their word on sectoral support and Climate Action, and have failed Minette Batters’ test of “the moral compass of government” by failing to guarantee the future of British farming, British standards, British trade and British food security.”

From Today’s Western Morning News:

FARMING: Farmers took their fight on food imports to the heart of the capital yesterday, reports our Farming Editor, Athwenna Irons

Farmers taking part in a protest organised by Save British Farming in central London yesterday, as the Agriculture Bill returned to the House of Commons (Image: Aaron Chown / PA)

Farming leaders have made a last-ditch effort to safeguard Britain’s high food production and animal welfare standards from being undermined in future trade deals as the Agriculture Bill returned to the House of Commons.

Last night, MPs were granted a second chance to debate and vote on the landmark piece of legislation as they considered two amendments that were backed by the House of Lords last month.

The first, proposed by Lord Grantchester, sought a “requirement for agricultural food and imports to meet domestic standards” – amid long-standing fears that opening up the UK’s borders to cheap, lower quality imports such as chlorinated chicken could put British farmers at a major competitive disadvantage.

The second, tabled by Lord Curry of Kirkhale, aims to strengthen the powers of the recently-established Trade and Agriculture Commission and give MPs greater scrutiny of its findings and recommendations in relation to future trade deals. 

Supporting both amendments, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) wants Parliament to be provided with independent advice about the impact every trade deal will have on British food and farming standards before it decides whether to accept or reject those trade deals.

Currently there is no requirement for Parliament to debate trade deals before they are signed into law, the NFU has warned, and safeguards to allow MPs to reject such deals are limited.

Speaking to Times Radio yesterday ahead of the debate, Minette Batters, president of the NFU and a Wiltshire farmer, said: “We must expect the same standards of our food imports that we expect of our farmers here. It is very straightforward for farmers, if we are undermined by cheap raw ingredients that come in that do not have to abide by the same laws that we have to in this country, it will obviously undermine our producers here and in many cases it could put them out of business.

“The big success story for us as UK citizens is that we have the most affordable food in the whole of Europe, and we sit third in the league table globally… It’s about making sure that we do not put at risk what we have. We should show global leadership in this area and that’s what farmers are really up for – the opportunities around achieving net zero emissions and carbon neutral food, but we’ve got to maintain our standards.”

Labour is calling on ministers to put a “guarantee in law” that British food standards will not be lowered  as a result of the trade deals that the Government are currently seeking with countries including the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Shadow Environment Secretary and Plymouth MP, Luke Pollard, said it’s time for the Government to “put their money where their mouth is” and support British farmers.

Mr Pollard, Labour MP for Sutton and Devonport, added: “Ministers keep promising they’ll maintain high animal welfare and environmental standards after Brexit, but there’s still a serious threat that they will drop that promise to get the trade deals they’re so desperate to secure with Donald Trump and others.

“If the Government are serious about maintaining our high UK standards post-Brexit, they should get a guarantee in law, and support Labour’s amendment on Monday [October 12] to safeguard our standards and back British farmers.

“To vote out their own manifesto commitment to protect British food standards from their flagship food and Agriculture Bill is absurd.”

In May, the House of Commons voted against an amendment to the Agriculture Bill that would have guaranteed high standards for food and drink entering the country post-Brexit. In response, the NFU launched its food standards petition, which was signed by more than one million people and has been backed by celebrities including chef Jamie Oliver, presenter Jimmy Doherty and, most recently, Great British Bake Off judge, Prue Leith.

It also emerged yesterday that the Speaker of the House of Commons looked set to deny MPs the chance to vote on the Lord Curry amendment concerning the powers of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, amid a dispute over the terms of the ‘Money Resolution’ of the Agriculture Bill, which allows for the expenditure of public money on new laws.

Simon Jenkins www.theguardian.com

Before last year’s election, Boris Johnson’s local government minister, Robert Jenrick, announced a massive £3.6bn of handouts to 101 “left-behind” towns across England. Forty of these were defined by Whitehall as most in need. The remainder were allegedly chosen by two ministers, Jenrick and his number two, Jake Berry. Most were marginal seats, all but one of which voted Tory at the subsequent election. They included Jenrick’s Newark and Berry’s Darwen, neither in the most needy category. (Newark was 270th.) Jenrick even boasted that he had secured an opportunity to future-proof Newark, after it was awarded the maximum £25m grant. He has subsequently insisted that there was a “robust and fair” methodology to the allocations and dismissed as “completely baseless” allegations that he was involved in Newark’s selection.

The grants were strongly condemned by the National Audit Office last July and Labour is now demanding an explanation, which Jenrick is refusing to give. The accusation is that, to a degree, Johnson’s majority of 80 was bought.

Never has Britain’s centralised government been more in the spotlight than now. After over six months of trying single-handedly to suppress coronavirus, Johnson has today accepted what was evident from across Europe, that local government is best at governing locally. His “world-beating” private contractors and beta-quality ministers have failed. He now needs the local knowledge, resources and staff that only elected town and city government can supply.

Local councils are replying that they need power and money if they are to rebuild Whitehall’s chaotic coronavirus regime. They need power to micro-manage social distancing, hospitality and the protection of hospitals and care homes. They need power over local universities, clearly reckless hotspots of infection. Reports of Whitehall arguments into the night suggest that Johnson’s aides are denying them this power. They want to fix the three new tiers of lockdown, their content and their timing.

Local government also desperately needs money, both to make enforcement consensual and to pinpoint the most desperate recoveries in local economies. That restoration cannot be centrally determined. Least of all can it be in the hands of Jenrick. Grants, loans and furloughs cannot be apparently built on an edifice of favouritism and political advantage.

In just a year in office, Jenrick has shown blatant bias in his decisions. He attempted to help the Tory donor Richard Desmond avoid tax by rushing through approval for a housing development in Docklands, a decision that was subsequently overturned. His new planning algorithm will favour property developers in the south. His white paper even invents a class of builder to be excused from regulations governing conserving historic buildings with “earned autonomy”. It’s not clear how those rights can be earned.

Whitehall ministers have for decades banned local councils from raising taxes or loans, forcing them to come cap in hand to the centre for grants and other favours. This has led Britain to the widest disparity between rich and poor regions in west Europe. It has also led to favouritism to contractors and projects more typical of a banana republic. Rumours are already swirling round the sums disbursed to certain companies during coronavirus.

Public funds must be subject to public audit. Yet the towns fund affair showed the National Audit Office to be a paper tiger, and parliament likewise. Vast sums of taxpayers’ money are now splurging into the public and private economy without meaningful control. If Johnson’s post-Covid, post-Brexit Britain must rely on the sweepings of a political pork barrel, the outlook is dire.

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

From a resident:

“I think Owl needs to be informed that the Sidmouth Beach Management Plan, or at least its Preferred Option, is very far from ‘fully funded’, as it says on East Devon Watch.

In fact, the opposite is the case.   It is an eye-watering £50 million short, according to EDDC’s own figures.  Ironically the Preferred Option is the most expensive of all the options that have been considered.

The PO explicitly states that regular recycling and recharging of both the main and east beach will be required throughout the 100 year lifetime of the BMP.  EDDC helpfully provide an estimate of how often this will be needed and what it will cost. Recharge and recycle will be needed every 10 and 4 years respectively.   The cost of both combined is about £4 million. Recycle is less expensive than recharge, but we can therefore expect the cost to be £50 million over 100 years.   So half a million pounds per annum will have to be found.   The PO offers no indication as to where this money is coming from.   Not from EDDC, that is for sure.   I think they expect Sidmouth Town Council to find it, which is unthinkable.

So EDDC’s plan is to get a cheaper option undertaken now, and then allow future generations to pick up the longer term consequences.

But, its worse than that. The PO explicitly states that its calculations of the level of protection from sea ingress and continued erosion both depend upon the maintenance of a ‘design level’ beach.   However, by recognising the future need to recharge and recycle, the document recognises that this will not be maintained.  Why recharge and recycle, if the beach is already satisfactory and doing its job? So the PO is explicitly designed to fail.

And, its even worse than that. Most locals expect any recharged material to quickly disappear in the next significant storm. The beach presently has a fairly consistent profile arising from the forces of wind and wave that act upon it.   Since the PO includes no offshore changes, those forces are going to remain much the same over the next 100 years.   It is therefore inevitable that the beach will quickly revert to its current profile.   So well below design level. The PO thus openly acknowledges that it is not going to work.

So there is no money for recharge and recycle, and even if there were, it is only going to work quite briefly.   Both beaches are likely to return quickly to their current profiles.  This means that erosion at East Beach and vulnerability to flooding at Main Beach are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

It is for this reason that the huge splash wall ( higher than Seaton’s ) has been introduced at the eleventh hour to the scheme, having previously been rejected.”

By Reality Check team BBC News www.bbc.co.uk 

Boris Johnson said in his virtual conference speech: “This government is pressing on with its plan for 48 hospitals. Count them. That’s eight already under way and then 40 more between now and 2030.”

This is an upgrade of the “40 new hospitals” pledge Mr Johnson made during the election campaign in 2019 – a claim we examined last December.

So, how is the hospital-building plan progressing?

The eight

In a press release announcing £3.7bn funding for the 40 hospitals, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) listed the schemes.

The first four on the list are described as “in build”. Some of them were started before Mr Johnson became prime minister.

We contacted the hospital trusts involved to find out how the projects were going.

Two of them – the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital and the Royal Liverpool – have been beset by problems and delays since the collapse of contractor Carillion.

The Midland Metropolitan University Hospital was originally due to be completed in 2018 but is now expected to open in 2022. Building costs are set to almost double from the original £350m.

A report by the National Audit Office said the total costs associated with the project were likely to reach £988m, of which £709m would be met by taxpayers.

Building work started on the Royal Liverpool Hospital in 2014 and the hospital was originally scheduled for completion in 2017.

The trust told us that although parts of the hospital opened temporarily earlier this year, they were now closed and construction work was ongoing. The completion date and total cost of the scheme have not yet been finalised, it added.

Construction of the Cumberland Cancer Hospital began in January 2020 and it is expected to finish next year.

And work on the outside of the 3Ts Hospital in Brighton is almost finished, but the trust told us it didn’t have a firm completion date at this stage.

At the Greater Manchester Major Trauma Hospital, the trust says government investment has been confirmed and building work on the Acute Receiving Centre will start soon.

The rebuilding of Northgate Hospital in Northumberland is expecting final ministerial and Treasury approval of £54m funding by November. Preparatory work has started on site and it is hoped to have the new building fully operational by March 2024.

The Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust says it is aiming to submit a planning application for its new building this autumn, with an estimated opening date of 2025-26.

Planning for the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre near Loughborough is progressing – £70m of government funding has been earmarked for the building and the target is for the rehabilitation centre to be treating patients in 2024.

We asked the DHSC for a statement on the status of these eight projects and whether they were all under way. It told us that all eight were hospitals that were committed to under previous governments so were already under way when this government made its pledge in 2019 to build 40 new hospitals.

So the prime minister is taking credit for projects begun by his predecessors.

‘Forty more between now and 2030’

A further six hospital trusts have been promised funding and form the first phase of the government’s Health Infrastructure Plan, known as HIP1.

The schemes involved in HIP1 are:

• A new Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow
• The rebuilding of Watford General Hospital
• A new hospital at Whipps Cross University Hospital in north-east London
• A new hospital for Epsom General Hospital and St Helier Hospital
• A rebuild at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Glenfield, and new facilities at Leicester General
• A new hospital at Leeds General Infirmary.

We asked for updates on these projects. Most of them are still in the planning stages but demolition works have started at Leeds General Infirmary. The first patients are expected to be seen in the new hospital in 2026.

Twenty-one hospital trusts were given a share of £100m in seed funding in September 2019 to develop their proposals.

The government now says those trusts will all be fully funded to deliver 25 new hospital buildings (some trusts are building more than one).

A new hospital at Shotley Bridge in Durham has been added to the list, and the government is inviting bids for a further eight schemes.

Taken together this does add up to 40 but with eight of them yet to be identified.

How much will it cost?

Last year the government pledged £2.7bn funding for six hospitals in HIP1.

With the addition of new projects to the list, it has now increased the funding commitment to £3.7bn but this will be a fraction of the final cost of building 48 new hospitals.

The DHSC has not provided an estimate of final costs, and turned down the BBC’s request for a breakdown of how much individual trusts were receiving from the £3.7bn.

The Government, following its obsession with simple messaging, has placed all local authorities into one of three tiers. The bottom tier represents “medium risk” of infection,  the one we are in. Successive tiers represent escalating risk.

In this plan, which has been in preparations for days, there is no “low risk”, no hope, no escape.

What message does that send?

Below this article Owl posts the latest (9 October) press release from Tim Spector’s symptom tracker app group. This is less gloomy than current statements from the Government. It reports that this is the second week in a row that “R” numbers have come down. Infection rates are slowing down but still rising. 

Chloe Parkman www.devonlive.com 

The picture of coronavirus in Devon, outside of the city of Exeter which is dealing with an outbreak at the University, has been explained by health bosses.

It comes as the county is put in Tier 1, medium risk, in the Government’s three-tier lockdown system.

A spokesperson for Public Health Devon said: “Cases elsewhere in Devon are still comparatively low (and certainly below the national average) compared to other local authorities.

“Outside of Exeter the highest current weekly rate in Devon is East Devon at 48 per 100,000 population and the lowest currently weekly rate is Torridge at 20 per 100,000 population, compared to a national weekly rate of 165 per 100,000.

“There is no dominant factor that would explain how the infection is spreading – some have arisen from residents returning from abroad or other areas where infection rates are higher, while other cases arise within households, or from social interaction.

”There is no evidence to suggest significant infection occurring in schools.

”Because of that broad pattern of infection, it’s even more imperative that we follow the latest guidance around social distancing, washing our hands regularly, and wearing face coverings.”

PM Boris Johnson has warned that there are more people in hospital with coronavirus than when the country first went into lockdown and that deaths are rising.

Making a statement in the Commons, the Prime Minister said: “This morning, the deputy chief medical officer set out the stark reality of the second wave of this virus.

“The number of cases has quadrupled in the last three weeks, there are now more people in hospital with Covid than when we went into lockdown on March 23 and deaths are already rising.”

The PM added that he did not think a second national lockdown ‘would be the right course’

COVID cases still on the rise and North South divide continues

covid.joinzoe.com /post/covid-cases-still-on-the-rise

According to the COVID Symptom Study (CSS) UK Infection Survey figures, there are currently, 21,903 daily new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average over the two weeks up to 04 October (excluding care homes). This is an increase of 1,000 cases in the last seven days. This figure is based on the number of newly symptomatic app users per day, and the proportion of these who give positive swab tests. The latest figures were based on the data from 12,078 recent swab tests done between 20 September to 04 October.

The app’s data shows a big disparity between the North and South of England. There are more than five times more cases in the North compared to the South of England, with the most new cases being seen in North East and Yorkshire (5,425) followed by North West (5,248). The South of England data suggests that the second wave has yet to impact this region. Currently the new cases in South West and South East are still below a thousand daily (985 and 914 respectively). This supports a regional approach to restrictions. The top three areas of concern with one in 100 estimated people infected are around Glasgow, Nottingham and Sheffield according to our data.

The CSS UK Infection Survey R values for the UK are; England 1.0 , Scotland 1.1 and Wales 1.1. This is the second week in a row that the R values have come down. The R value of 1.0 in England is a positive sign that the upward trend that was seen a few weeks ago has slowed down, but is still rising.

The CSS UK Infection Survey has been running since early May when the COVID Symptom Study commenced the daily swab testing programme provided by the Test and Trace. The CSS has so far recorded over a million swab results from app users. The CCS UK Infection Survey estimates the number of current COVID-19 positive cases in the community based on the information logged by users in the app and the results from the swab testing programme. It identifies differences in numbers within the regions throughout the UK, and tracks the change in estimated cases over time. It is the largest survey of its kind in the UK, bigger than the ONS’s COVID-19 Infection Survey and the REACT study by Imperial College London.

The COVID Symptom Study app is a not-for-profit initiative that was launched at the end of March 2020 to support vital COVID-19 research. The app was launched by health science company ZOE with scientific analysis provided by King’s College London. With over 4 million contributors, the Study is the world’s largest ongoing Symptom study of COVID-19.

Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, comments:

“There are a lot of data sources out there and they are generally showing the same trends. Our data shows that rates are still rising but we have been seeing a slowing down nationally of the increase in daily new cases, which is reflected in the R values of 1 and 1.1. The data also show increasing regional differences with worst hit areas in the North of England still increasing rapidly- especially now Yorkshire and the North-East.

Our data is a number of days ahead of the other sources, which means we are an early warning system, unlike the figures on confirmed cases, which have a big lag and are prone to error. It’s good news that cases are slowing down, but we aren’t out of the woods yet, especially hospital admissions are starting to increase, which we predict will continue to do so over the next two weeks.

It’s unclear yet if local measures like the 10pm curfew have had a real impact but what is important is that people understand the risks in their area and the range of early symptoms found on the app. The key to get this virus back under control is to follow the guidelines around self isolation. If you think you might have COVID-19 stay at home, get better and help to keep others safe and stop the spread of this virus.”