Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Earl of Shrewsbury

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support Amendment 123, from the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I declare an interest, as on the record from previous debates on this Bill. I will not cover again all the points I made both at Second Reading and in Committee.

It is a fact that lead is a poison. I have an enthusiasm in supporting this amendment that comes entirely from my love of the shooting sports, in particular game shooting. Noble Lords will recall that I have probably been supporting all the shooting sports in this House since I came here 40 years ago, very often as a lone voice. Shooting is not exactly something that many of your Lordships are fondly in love with. I want everything I shoot to go into the food chain for human consumption. It is good, wholesome, low-calorie, low-cholesterol food that is both nutritious and delicious.

I am a realist and a very small minority of my shooting colleagues—I do not call them friends because they are not—could not give a fig whether they sell their game into the marketplace for human consumption. So far as they are concerned, they can dispose of it by other means. I find that absolutely despicable and disgusting. There is absolutely no place in my shooting world for people like that, who taint the vast majority of the game shooting enthusiasts of this country, who behave very responsibly indeed and desire, like me, to be able to ensure a growing market of consumers for the game that we produce. That is why I am standing here, pleading with your Lordships about lead.

This amendment will not affect target and clay pigeon shooters. We do not eat targets and clay pigeons. Clay pigeon shooters and target shooters shoot 60% of all the lead shot-cartridges produced in this country. Game shooters shoot 40%. Nine shooting bodies or bodies supporting the shooting sports, including what used to be the Game Conservancy Trust—the GWCT, which my noble friend Lord Caithness and I have a lot to do with—stated some while ago that they intended voluntarily to cease shooting with lead shot. That was done about a couple of years ago, in my memory. I believe that they are now backtracking, and this is another reason why I support this amendment very strongly. The amendment provides certainty for the shooters. It gives certainty to the supermarkets, which are going to stop producing food that has lead shot in it. The stated intention of these nine bodies was to give up lead in a five-year timeframe. There is your timeframe. There is nothing wrong in giving a timeframe. It gives support to the shooters. It gives support to everybody involved with the game-producing industry. We all know then what we are doing and by when we have to do it.

My shooting friends—and I had an invitation from one very nicely this morning in the post—are all saying now, “Will you kindly stop using lead on our estates? We would like you to go and use non-toxic shot, because we cannot sell the birds at the end of this coming season to the Game Dealers Association, because it has already stated that it will not take toxic-shot birds and there goes our market entirely.”

The supermarket chains, especially Waitrose, have for quite a while now had a strategy and process whereby they are stopping accepting lead-shot and toxic-shot game. They believe that the market is going to go much better for non-toxic-shot game. Waitrose mentioned to me that it can sell 1 million more units of game a year to the consumer. That is good for shooting, and that is why I am standing here saying this.

I believe that there is no earthly, legal or operational reason why Her Majesty’s Government cannot agree to this amendment, which covers only game shooting. It does not include clay pigeons shooting, which, as I mentioned, uses by far the largest amount of lead shot in the country. The Government can take on clay pigeon shooters on a different day and take them through a consultation. It will take them years to do it, but I would like to see game shooting legislated for now.

I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept these amendments or to accept Amendment 123, because it is sensible and easy.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak first to Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to which I was pleased to attach my name. It also has the cross-party and non-party support of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I will also briefly address the other two amendments here.

Your Lordships’ House might not be surprised to know that my arguments around Amendment 123 might be slightly differently expressed, and I might have drafted the amendment slightly differently. None the less, the fact that we are still pumping lead out into our environment is disgraceful. We hear the phrase “world-leading” a great deal. As we have heard, Denmark banned lead shot for hunting 25 years ago. California did it last year. If you look around the world, it has taken an unconscionably long time but we have just seen Algeria become the last country in the world to stop selling leaded petrol. We have known for a long time the damage lead does. We cannot justify continuing to use it in this way. This might have been an amendment for which the term “no-brainer” was invented, when you think about the fact that this is damaging the brains of children in particular. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, we have banned lead-shot game here in this House but have not acted outside the House. That really cannot be defended. It is untenable.

Amendment 53 looks at protecting nature from the toxic, disastrous chemicals that are pesticides, but I really want to focus on Amendment 52. We have been debating for some time and I want to come back to briefly highlight the powerful points made particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Many Members of your Lordships’ House, particularly those sitting opposite, will be able to picture the scene: an air-conditioned cab with air filtration; an operator equipped with a whole range of complex, high-tech protective equipment; and a child playing in a garden right beside where the person in all that protective equipment is applying chemicals.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said she sees the other side of this in her professional practice. People—sometimes young people, sometimes very young people—with cancers, with neurodegenerative diseases. Once the noble Baroness sees them, it is essentially too late. We cannot allow this to continue. This House has many times expressed its strong support for this amendment. I stress that these three amendments are not an either/or, pick-and-match lot. All these amendments should be in the Bill.

I very much hope that, given the direction of travel and where push pressure is coming from, the noble Lord will concede on Amendment 123. We have to vote. I urge the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to put this to the vote. We have to get both Amendments 52 and 53 through. This is not an either/or option.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Earl of Shrewsbury

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury [V]]

My Lords, the prevention of disease among livestock is critical to ensure a vibrant future for UK farming. The outbreak of disease can cripple farms, cause chaos for farming communities and, ultimately, cost the British economy. For example, the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 led to over 2,000 cases of the disease, and in each individual case it meant a farm having to cull all its livestock. I know at first hand about that; I was farming right in the centre of it and all my neighbours had their livestock taken out. It was horrible.

Globally, it is estimated that as much as 20% of animal production is lost from disease. Furthermore, preventive measures to tackle the disease in the UK remain too low, particularly in the case of endemic diseases. Just one example is severe foot rot, which is found in 90% of lame sheep, despite a preventive vaccine being available. Sick animals are of course less productive, have reduced welfare, and place a major burden on farmers.

The Bill represents a real opportunity to reduce this burden and build a resilient and sustainable UK farming system. It is welcome that the Bill makes provision for financial assistance to be provided to protect or improve the health or welfare of livestock, which is recognised as a key public good in Clause 1(1)(f). Yet one crucial nuance in the language of that provision must change. It states that financial assistance can be provided for the purposes of

“protecting or improving the health or welfare of livestock”.

The health and welfare of livestock is not an either/or matter; they are of equal importance and, from my perspective, this opinion is well understood and shared by many, but especially by livestock farmers and vets. Therefore, the Bill must read that financial assistance can be provided for the purposes of protecting or improving the health “and” welfare of livestock.

The current wording risks effacing the interwoven nature of animal health and animal welfare. Preventing diseases is conducive to good animal welfare. Indeed, the reality it is impossible for animals in poor health to have good welfare. Moreover, it is not only important that we get this right from a legislative standpoint but, given that this line appears in the opening section of the Bill and that it epitomises the objective of the legislation—to provide farm support for the public good—it is critical to establish the right tone in relation to how the UK approaches animal health and welfare issues. As such, that is why I tabled this amendment, which proposes to replace “or” with the little word “and”. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

I thank the noble Earl for his introduction to this section on animal welfare, and I commend to your Lordships’ House Amendments 68, 125, 136 and 225 tabled by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I also express my support for Amendment 44, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, which essentially expresses opposition to factory farming—a form of food waste that may come up in other sections of this debate.

However, my primary interest in this group relates to Amendment 77, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for supporting it. It is something of an orphaned amendment in that it relates to Amendment 47, which is in group 9. However, I can see why it was put here, because it refers to consulting with

“persons and organisations who represent animal welfare interests … relevant non-governmental organisations, and … other persons the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.