Chamber and committees

Okay.

On the back of that, I would be interested to hear whether you feel that the Government is making enough progress on systemic change. Systemic change might not come up in relation to the progress that is made from year to year to meet annual carbon reductions, but it might point to increasing capacity and more of a change in systems that would deliver progress in the years to come and beyond 2030. We might also consider the relevance of that for the 2045 target. We are looking at big, systemic changes. Is Government on track to turn that supertanker around?

So, there might be a point when the net zero test has been piloted in a particular department that would allow for reflection about how it has driven certain decisions or improved decision making.

Do you see a potential conclusion to that bedding in ahead of the TCA agreement being fully revised? I am trying to work out where the issue sits within the agenda for that negotiation and whether there will be certainty as to what an appropriate model is and evidence to back that up.

I have a couple of follow-up points. Ed Barker and Sarah Millar spoke about the need for a veterinary agreement. Are we quite far away from striking a veterinary agreement? There are already models in place—you mentioned New Zealand and Switzerland—and it is a relatively short leap to securing an agreement that could help the sector.

I should declare that I am an honorary associate member of the British Veterinary Association.

I have other questions, but I can come back in after Alexander Stewart.

Are there fundamental policy differences in any of those spaces?

Is the point that the border target operating model needs to be bedded in and assessed before the argument might switch towards the potential need for a veterinary agreement?

I am interested in your overall views about the direction of policy within the European Union at the moment. I am hearing that divergence causes friction for trade and that having different standards can cause issues at borders. Do you feel that the decisions on regulatory standards that are being made in Europe at the moment are moving in the right direction for your sectors, or do you feel that there is policy divergence?

I can give one example. I know that beekeepers across the UK and Europe are concerned about adulterated honey and have called for country of origin labelling for honey. The European Union has moved quite quickly on that, through the honey directive, and is also looking at other import issues connected with the breakfast directives. However, there seems to be no appetite from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to move towards introducing that sort of regulatory standard.

That may be quite a niche example, but what are your overall thoughts? I should declare an interest because I am a beekeeper, although I do not produce honey in any volume for export. The issue has been raised with me and is one example of an area where the European Union is taking a stand and moving forward with regulation.

Therefore, you are saying that we are getting divergence, but there is a lack of capacity to deal with all of those multifarious issues, of which I have raised one, that exist within the food sector.