Environment and Wildlife (Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Loomba, who have set out the technical aspects of the SI that we are debating today. They have probably covered that ground well enough.
This is a real opportunity to consider global biodiversity issues, perhaps the first that your Lordships’ House has had since the final report on the Aichi biodiversity targets from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. This brings to an end the UN decade on biodiversity—although perhaps it should be named the UN decade of biodiversity loss and collapse, because, of the 20 objectives set out for improving and saving biodiversity in 2010, none of the targets were met and only six were partially met.
Here, we are talking particularly about CITES and wildlife trade, and the implementation and application of those rules. In his introduction, the Minister referred to 93 new species being added to CITES, including a species of viper. I want to take this opportunity to draw the Minister’s attention—if it has not already been drawn to this—to an excellent article in Nature Communications dated September 2020. It talks about the underregulated global trade in reptiles, which is of particular relevance given his introductory remarks. The figures in this article really are quite shocking: 35% of reptile species are traded online, three-quarters of the trade is not covered by international regulation, and 90% of the species and half the traded individuals are captured from the wild. This journal article covers the fact that CITES is currently focused on the most economically valuable species that are traded in large volumes.
I note, of course, that all of these issues have come under a renewed focus in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are not yet sure of the path of the virus between bats and humans, but pangolins have certainly been suggested, and pangolins were added to CITES only in 2016. What this article suggests, and what I have seen in subsequent debate, is that CITES should consider turning around the burden of proof and method of regulation. It suggests that CITES should recognise certain species for which trade is allowed and then have a presumption that other species are not allowed to be traded unless they are known. I draw attention to the facts in this article: the researchers found that within about a year of a new species being discovered, there is first evidence of it being traded.
I understand that the Minister might not be able to reply immediately, but I ask him to ask his department to look at this article and to consider the incredibly parlous state of our global wildlife, and what the UK might do as a partner in CITES to make it more effective and really tackle the global biodiversity crisis.
Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I must begin by thanking the Minister for his generous response to my contribution in the previous debate. I look forward to future exchanges on the subject.
On the subject of this debate, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who is a great champion of nature, and indeed the two previous noble Lords, who said many things with which I can agree. The noble Lords, Lord Randall and Lord Greaves, in particular reflected on the widespread disappointment that the amendments to the Agriculture Bill that would have protected people who live in close proximity to agricultural land ultimately did not make it through the system. As both noble Lords said, we can but try again in the Environment Bill.
I am going to pick up something that the Minister said in his introduction when he referred to continued high levels of protection. The practical reality, whether we are talking about pesticides or persistent organic pollutants, is that we have a poisoned country, a poisoned landscape and, indeed, a poisoned planet. To start any debate on this topic, it is important to acknowledge that we have utterly failed in the past and that, while today we are bringing forward regulations that are much better than those in the United States and other regimes, even the EU regulations that we are transferring across are not nearly strong enough.
I have a couple of specific detailed questions. Like others, I rely rather heavily on the work of ClientEarth. Regulation 3(8) removes the wording that would permit the appropriate authority to make regulations in respect of the official controls, first, relating to production, packaging, labelling, storage, transport, marketing, formulation, parallel trade and the use of plant protection products, and, secondly and particularly, regarding the collection of information on the reporting of suspected poisonings. This is a direct question for the Minister, either for now or in future: that apparent loss of collection reporting on suspected poisonings is obviously a deeply worrying one, and it would be interesting to hear why that has happened and how it might be fixed. I also refer to wording relating to health and the hazards and risk of pesticides in Article 24 of new EU regulation 625/2017 regarding protection from pesticides and the risk of poisoning.
I also want to refer to chronic poisoning. Often, we hope or expect that, where there is an acute case, there will be reporting; it is the kind of thing that we might expect our media to pick up on. But with chronic poisoning developing over a number of years, such as in operators, agricultural workers or people living close to pesticide application areas—the amendment to the Agriculture Bill tried to address this issue—we have seen reports going back to 1987 of inadequate monitoring in the UK, yet we have not seen any change in policy or any real move to deal with that chronic situation.
Finally, I want to move on to some broader points that build on what the noble Lord, Lord Randall, said. The sale of pesticides in the UK each year is worth £627 million and, around the world, it is nearly $60 billion. Obviously, this is a big, powerful vested interest. As the noble Lord said, that vested interest wants to protect its sales, but I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said earlier: we want and need to move toward a world that uses no pesticides.
My response to the noble Lord’s concerns about neonicotinoids and the impact of their withdrawal on growing rapeseed in the UK is that we must grow a diverse range of crops that are suited to our conditions. I have stood in a field in Lincolnshire with a star rapeseed grower and discussed the difficulties of growing rapeseed in the UK. It has always been clear that rapeseed is not particularly suited to UK conditions, so we need to move to a different approach. It is one that the Government have focused on, at least in terms of talking about it, including to some degree in the Agriculture Bill—agroecology. If we are going to move in the direction of working with nature to use the power, force and richness of healthy soils and the richness of the interactions of integrated pest management, that is the way we need to go. Indeed, I note that both the EU directives that we are transferring across here focus on the need to move to pest management systems that do not rely on pesticides. What are the Government doing to take further steps in that direction?
We have been through so many cycles, from DDT onwards, of a pesticide being discovered and promoted as the new wonder chemical—a perfectly safe, perfectly wonderful solution to all our problems. Usually, a couple of decades later, we ban it because it has been a disaster. That is a cycle that we desperately need to stop.
Guantanamo Bay Detainees
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, the UK Government’s long-standing position is that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay should close. We will continue to engage with the US Government on this issue, as we do on a range of national security issues in the context of our joint determination to tackle international terrorism and combat violent extremism.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. I begin by commending the Government, who have spoken out both unilaterally and through multilateral channels on a number of occasions about the imposition of the national security law by China on Hong Kong. However, does the Minister agree that human rights are universal and that Britain should be standing up for them around the world, particularly when people are threatened, as they clearly are in Hong Kong? If Britain is standing up in the case of Hong Kong, why is it not standing up in the case of these men, who were clearly in imminent danger of their lives and subject to long-term abuse?
Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her words on Hong Kong and I welcome her commendation of our activity there. The UK takes great pride in standing up for universal human rights and freedoms. We will continue to do so with all our partners. We will continue to monitor this event and all cases closely and will continue to regularly raise human rights concerns with the Government of the UAE at senior levels, both in public and in private.
Burning of Peat Moorlands
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
We are currently engaging with stakeholders on the content of the England peat strategy and we expect it to be published later this year, but, as I said earlier, the Government are committed to phasing out rotational burning. We are considering all the evidence to ensure that any legislation actually works. It is undoubtedly a complex issue and it is important that we take the right steps to restore and protect this valuable habitat.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I refer the Minister to page 95 of the report, where the independent committee says:
“Burning … is highly damaging to the peat, and to the range of environmental benefits that well-functioning peat can deliver”.
It goes on to say:
“A voluntary cessation of this activity … has not produced the desired outcome so the practice should be banned across the UK with immediate effect.”
Does the Minister fully accept and endorse those words? If so, why in his initial Answer did he use the words “phase out” and refer to “real progress” from voluntary efforts, which contradicts what the report says?
Schools: Great British September Clean
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
The noble Baroness makes an important point. We believe fundamentally that businesses should try to reduce the amount of litter that their products generate. The litter strategy sets out how we intend to work with the relevant industries to tackle certain types of particularly problematic litter, including, of course, fast food packaging. Councils do have powers to tackle persistent unreasonable behaviour, and, through the Environment Bill, we will increase those powers.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that, with litter and waste, prevention is better than cure. In the light of the Which? study out this morning showing that two-thirds of branded grocery packaging is not fully recyclable, what steps are the Government taking to force companies to switch to less packaging and less damaging packaging, and to cover the costs of dealing with the waste? Following on from the questions asked by other two noble Lords, why do we need another consultation on England’s bottle deposit scheme, when we are already world-trailing on delivery of this?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
On the second point, consultations are more often than not a statutory requirement, but on the broader point, the Government absolutely agree that the emphasis should be shifted as far as possible on to producers. As noble Lords will know, we are introducing extended producer responsibility through our legislation, and that means making those producers pay the full lifetime costs of collecting and managing packaging when it becomes waste. But we also want to encourage businesses to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and these reforms will complement the introduction of a tax on plastic packaging that does not contain at least 30% recycled content.
Biodiversity
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
Further to the Written Answer that the Minister gave me on 25 June, which said that
“it is not possible to confirm on available data whether there has been an increase in”
raptor persecution during the Covid crisis, have the Government now caught up with the statistics? If not, I can direct him to the Raptor Persecution UK website, which reports today the total tally of
“44 hen harriers ‘missing’ or confirmed killed since 2018”.
It notes that this is
“ten times more likely to occur over … land managed for grouse shooting”.
Given this, why did the Government create a special exemption from Covid-19 health restrictions last weekend for driven grouse shooting and other shooting? Should they not instead ban driven grouse shooting and the release of pheasants for shooting, as an emergency measure to tackle the crisis that this report identifies?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
We are aware of reports that there has been an increase in wildlife crime, particularly that associated with raptor persecution, during lockdown. Raptor persecution is one of the UK’s six wildlife crime priorities and we understand that there are a number of criminal investigations ongoing. However, I am afraid that it is not yet possible to confirm, on available data, whether there has been an increase. I would welcome access to the report that the noble Baroness mentions. On the Government’s decision last week, she will note that it exactly mirrors decisions taken by the Labour Government in Wales and the SNP in Scotland, and is not—as has been reported—a special dispensation for any particular form of activity.
Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices (EUC Report)
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for introducing the committee reports and note how strongly worded all three are about the need for change and the inadequacy—not to mention the ancient nature—of much of what currently governs the oversight that we have.
I think it is worth revisiting the words quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith: trade deals are as important as most laws. It is one of the ironies of Brexit that, whatever happens, we have lost not only the oversight of laws by a democratic Parliament—as neither House in this place is—but the very strong oversight of trade deals and treaties in general that comes under the Lisbon treaty, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, just alluded to.
I will quote an independent report from the European Parliament think tank, which says that the European Parliament is
“powerful and active in trade policy, on a comparable level to the US Congress.”
We should aim for that level of scrutiny here in the UK. I note the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, that we can safely conclude that “take back control” did not mean that the people wanted to hand over control of our international treaties to Dominic Cummings.
However, I agree with Boris Johnson that we need to find a new place for the UK in the world, given where things are now. That is crucial to our security. This is an unstable, insecure world, threatened by multiple shocks, of which Covid-19 is just one. That place should be as chair of COP 26 and as a champion of climate action. Given our strong history in the UK as a place where much human rights law originated and much human rights campaigning has been done from, we should be a champion of democracy and human rights. However, we are not in a position to do that, just as we are not in a position to be a champion for climate action, unless we get our own house in order first. These three reports set out very clearly that we currently do not have that in place.
I will briefly refer to the debate in the Chamber today, which referred to the debate around the withdrawal agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, noted that repudiating treaties is what rogue states do. I probably spend more time on Twitter than most noble Lords, but I can tell any noble Lords who are listening that the hashtag “#PerfidiousAlbion” has been trending across most of the UK. If we are to be trusted in the world and if we are to take a stable, secure place in the world, democracy, oversight of treaties and full scrutiny have to be part of that process.
Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. I have two minutes in which to make two points.
In his introduction, the Minister referred to checks that the Government plan to make on the use of sanctions. However, following on from the noble Baroness’s points, what about checks on the non-use of sanctions? Do the Government intend to use sanctions only against countries or companies with which we have conflicts, or even with which our friends and allies have conflicts, while we turn a blind eye to those that we support?
We have a history of supporting very much the wrong people—to give a very partial list, the Shah of Iran, Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein—so are we going to apply these sanctions without fear or favour? Picking up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, will the Government consider appointing an independent advisory board on the application of these sanctions to improve security, safety, human rights, democracy and the rule of law all around the world? I know that the Minister said that he would not comment on future sanctions, but surely we should see some directed at probably the second-worst human rights abusing regime in the world—Saudi Arabia. At least let us stop the arms sales.
My second point is about corruption. I welcome the fact that the Minister referred to the Government’s plan to include corruption as a ground for sanctions. Can he provide a timetable for that to progress and be put into effect? This is particularly important given that the City of London is the largest centre of corruption in the world. NGOs describe it as home to so many professional enablers that it assists widespread state looting. This problem swirls around us all in the House and should clearly be of great importance to us.
Finally, as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, I echo noble Lords who have spoken about the need for action on the treatment of the Uighurs in China. We also need to see action on what is now happening in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon [V]
My Lords, we believe in a strong, stable and safe Indo-Pacific region. We have stood up for Hong Kong on the basis of our strong belief in principles and in law and we stand firmly in support of the agreement, which has been deposited with the UN. On our wider responsibilities, we continue to work with our international partners in pursuit of those objectives.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I declare my position as a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. Can the noble Lord the Minister say what steps the UK Government are taking to protect students from Hong Kong and students who might be supporting the rights of the people of Hong Kong in British universities, given the significant evidence of intimidation? What protection will be given to academics and institutions that stand up against such efforts?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon [V]
My Lords, the answer is simple. Anyone who breaks the law in the UK by hounding or attempting to intimidate students will be held to account according to the law of the land, which is our law.
Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I cite to the Minister three pieces of research that have emerged since these regulations were drafted. First, on King George Island, off the north-east tip of Antarctica, microplastics were found in the intestines of Antarctic springtails, crucial soil microbes. Researchers said that microplastics are now an integral part of the soil food web. A University of Strathclyde study showed that microplastics are blowing ashore in the sea breeze. A University of Manchester study found 1.9 million pieces of plastic in one square metre of deep ocean floor—a key area for the breeding of sea squirts, which are filter feeders.
In introducing the regulations, the Minister said, “This turns the tide; this is a landmark moment.” Does he really believe that future generations, as they sift through the layer of defilement we have left on every inch of this earth, will say, “Oh, but isn’t it great that they banned straws, cotton buds and stirrers in 2020?”