Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to explain the background to this legislative consent motion. First introduced to the UK Parliament on 16 January 2020, the Agriculture Bill makes provision with regard to devolved matters. Provisions relating to Wales are set out in Schedule 5 to the Bill, but also appear throughout the Bill. I recommend Members of the Senedd support a legislative consent motion for the Agriculture Bill.

In deciding whether to recommend legislative consent for this Bill, I have taken into consideration the helpful comments raised by the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee during their scrutiny. The Agriculture Bill contains provisions enabling the Welsh Ministers to continue to provide financial support to the Welsh agricultural sector through a domestic version of the common agricultural policy's basic payment scheme and rural development payment scheme. I believe it is appropriate for these provisions to be included in the UK Agriculture Bill as the Welsh Ministers will be able to provide the agricultural sector with much needed stability and continuity.

We intend that the powers will be used during transition to a new system of agricultural support, which we propose will be designed around sustainable land management principles. On 31 July, I launched the 'Sustainable Farming and our Land' proposals to continue and simplify agricultural support for farmers and the rural economy consultation. The consultation outlines proposals on how the continuity provisions allowing the delivery of a new domestic basic payment scheme and a rural development payment scheme may be used by Welsh Ministers. It sets out a number of small but impactful changes to their operation during the 2021 scheme year. Consultation on these proposals will conclude on 23 October.

The Agriculture Bill also contains other provisions for ensuring the effective operation of agricultural sectors across the UK. These include provisions for agricultural tenancy reform, the redistribution of the red meat levy, fair dealing and producer organisations, market intervention and marketing standards, data collection and sharing, and the identification and traceability of livestock, fertilisers and organics. The legislative consent motions that set out these provisions have been previously subject to Senedd scrutiny.

The Agriculture Bill provides the Secretary of State with regulation-making provisions to ensure the UK's compliance with the World Trade Organization agreement on agriculture following the UK's departure from the European Union. As I have previously outlined to the Senedd, these are fairly complex provisions over which the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee raised concerns during its scrutiny. I have given careful consideration to these provisions, and the committee's recommendation on them in their report of May 2020. I remain satisfied with the bilateral agreement made between the Welsh Government and the UK Government on the use of these powers. The agreement provides strong mechanisms for Welsh Ministers to express their views and have those views taken into account by Parliament and by the UK Government when making and using regulations in relation to the UK's dealings with the WTO.

In recommendation 16 of their report, the committee sought clarity on whether I believed the Bill should include safeguards to ensure that marketing standards in Wales are not undercut by imports in any future trade arrangements. I wrote to the Secretary of State on 12 June to set out the Welsh Government's position on animal health and welfare and key sanitary and phytosanitary matters in respect of a future trade agreement. Food safety, along with animal health and welfare, are devolved matters, and the Welsh Government's policy is clear: that high food safety, animal welfare, and environmental standards must be maintained in Wales. Although UK Ministers continue to insist they are determined to maintain the current high standards of food safety and animal welfare, they are reluctant to find appropriate legal drafting that would enable them to put such assurances into statute. As a Government, we regret this.

In recommending legislative consent for the Bill, we are acknowledging it is not perfect and not as we would have drafted it. However, the Bill as amended is, on balance, acceptable. I want to assure the Chamber that we intend to vigorously oppose clauses in the internal market Bill that would enable this or any Government in Westminster to fire the starting gun on a race to the bottom of food safety and animal welfare standards.

Over the next few years, we propose the Welsh agricultural sector will transition to a new system of agricultural support. Our proposals are clear: that it is important to transition to such a system sooner rather than later, to address the lack of economic and environmental resilience in the sector, and in order to protect the reputation of the industry. There has been a long passage of time since the original Agriculture Bill was introduced to the UK Parliament in September 2018. Taking this into account, alongside concerns raised by the Senedd during scrutiny, I concluded it was not appropriate to include the new financial assistance powers originally provided for in this Bill. Instead, it is my intention to make appropriate provisions in an agriculture (Wales) Bill. We intend that this Wales Bill will give Welsh Ministers provisions to design and deliver a bespoke system of support for Welsh agriculture, rural industries and communities.

During scrutiny, Senedd committees expressed concerns around the absence of a time-limiting clause in the original Agriculture Bill. To address these concerns, I instructed the UK Government to include a sunset clause on the face of the Bill. This now forms part of the Bill at clause 51, and assures the expiry of provisions in Schedule 5, along with a small number of related provisions, at the end of 2024 in accordance with that provision. By the end of this year, I intend to publish a White Paper that will set out the context for the future of Welsh farming and pave the way for the introduction of the agriculture (Wales) Bill. I move the motion to the Chamber.