Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Randall of Uxbridge

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and also to follow the very expert testimony of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I am speaking to Amendment 152 and 254 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, respectively. Noble Lords will have noted that both have cross-party, and indeed non-party, backing. It is worth repeating, again, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, that the House has already agreed something very similar to Amendment 152 in the Agriculture Bill.

These are apparently two separate amendments about pesticides: one focused on public health, the other more on nature—but of course those two things are not distinct but very much interrelated. They reflect the countryside that is increasingly soaked in poison. That is what pesticides are, by definition. We have been applying stronger poisons, and more of them, more often. In the first half of the last decade, three metrics—the area treated, often measured as spray hectares, the frequency of applications and the number of active ingredients used—all leapt significantly. So, while UK cropland covers about 4.6 million hectares, the area treated is many times larger. Defra figures show that that increased from 59 million spray hectares in 2000 to 73 million spray hectares in 2016: a rise of 24%. The average number of active ingredients per field has risen from 12.8 per hectare to 15.9 per hectare.

Let us imagine actually living next to that field. I am sure everyone has seen the videos: spray nozzles practically brushing people’s windows, other nozzles right up against garden hedges. Imagine being a pollinator—a moth or a solitary bee—going about your business. Your body is gradually being degraded, and your behaviour modified disastrously: all the impacts that we have just started to understand, with 16 active ingredients—poisons—introduced right into the depths of your world and your home.

The person applying the pesticide, quite likely from an air-conditioned tractor cab with protective equipment, has protection—still not enough, but protection. You, the local resident or pollinator, have none. You have no idea what it is in that spray, and even the experts really have no idea what impact that cocktail of chemicals will have. I refer to Defra’s own former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir Ian Boyd, who, in an article in Science in 2016 said the impact of “dosing whole landscapes” is being ignored, and the assumption that it is safe to so behave is simply false. Even the person applying the pesticides will suffer ill-effects, as a recent Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine journal entitled Influence of Pesticides on Respiratory Pathology set out. It notes that there is a

“significant increase in respiratory problems within the population”

of people working in agriculture because of this.

Turning to look particularly at the pollinators, many of the UK’s most valuable crop, including apples, strawberries and runner beans, are pollinated by insects. The monetary value of that—if you can put a monetary value on it—is put at £430 million a year. Honeybees are important, and there is often a lot of focus on them, but they probably do only 10% or 15% of the work. These wild creatures are crucial, and they are perhaps the ones that are suffering the most.

We are talking about food security being at risk, and in particular the supply of healthy food: fruit and vegetables. The chemical industry will say, “We need these chemicals to grow food”. I would very much agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and others that the closeness between the Government and the industry is a grave concern. There is something of an infamous paper from 2011 titled Without Pesticides, Apple Production in the United Kingdom Would Not Be Viable. Well, I ask noble Lords to look back and think about before we had pesticides: we actually had apples, a lot of apples.

This is where I would, perhaps, slightly disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who talked about convenience. I think what we have is a broken system. Farmers are being forced to use these chemicals, and forced to use production methods to suit the supermarkets and multinational food production. We can produce the food in different ways, and it may be sold in different ways. Potato blight has caused much use of chemicals. There are varieties that can do very well with little or no application of chemicals, that are blight resistant, but they are not necessarily to the exact specification of the international fast food giants, who want their chips all around the world to look and taste exactly the same. But each field is not a global field; it is a local field, and we need to be growing the right crops in that field for the right conditions. This is something noble Lords may already be aware that I am quite passionate about, but I am going to restrain myself here and just make one final point.

In Defra’s 2019 report on pesticide usage on food crops, there is a graph entitled “Area treated with the major pesticide groups”. In that graph, fungicides tower above the rest. The weight of fungicides increased by 5% from 2017 to 2019. Yet, increasingly, as we were discussing a few weeks back in the soil amendments, we understand that fungi are a crucial part of healthy soils. We are heaping a specific targeted poison on our environment to kill the essential life in our soils. This is also, of course, damaging the pollinators that this amendment refers to, and is having impacts on our health.

There is also the issue of antimicrobial resistance. Here we come back, as so many debates do, to Covid. There is something called “black fungus”, which is a problem particularly in India. Its technical name is mucormycosis. It is infecting—utterly horribly—patients already very ill from Covid. Treatment is prolonged and difficult. We have a huge problem with resistance to anti-fungicide drugs. We have also seen, in the US and the UK, increasing levels of infection from Aspergillus and from Candida auris. All these fungi that we target out in our natural environment are a threat to our health. We are using the same kinds of drugs in the environment that we are then using to treat the diseases in our bodies.

In summary, we have a natural world—a world of air and ground in which we live—that is out of balance: a poisoned world. These amendments are very modest. They are small steps towards turning that around. When we were talking about the state of nature and about a species target, the Minister said, “Well, things are going to have to get worse before they get better”. He said we need time to turn the curve around. Well, I would say that in this area there is no time. We absolutely have to act on pesticides now.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and indeed the other speakers to this amendment. I have added my name to both of these amendments. There is really very little to add to what has been said. I found that my main theme was slightly taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I was going to emphasise that, when we talk about pesticides, we are talking about poisons. If you refer to them as “poisons”, perhaps that has a little bit more significance for people.

As has been said, one amendment is about human health—very important—and the other one is about the natural world and pollinators. Although I put my name to it, I could have added some other pollinators that have been left off. I have a feeling that moths and bats were not there. Moths are very important. However, I am not going to quibble about this.

The real point is that we are doing as the Government wanted because, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, the Government said during the passage of the Agriculture Bill that the place for it was not there but in the Environment Bill. So I am delighted that we are doing the Government’s work in bringing this back. I am sure it will have the same reaction in your Lordships’ Chamber and that we will be passing it back to the Commons, so I would have thought it would be wise for the Government to accept these amendments when they can.

Because I am in a particularly generous mood today, I am not going to refer to an earlier life of the Minister, who did sterling work in this area before he had to accept responsibility for government positions. I understand his position admirably and I think that he is doing a fantastic job. I know he has got extremely good history on this and I hope he can prevail with the powers that be.

I look forward to hearing his response—and, indeed, the Government’s response when this comes back on Report, if it is not accepted.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Randall of Uxbridge

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for initiating it. I think it has been very useful and I truly appreciate the passion with which he desires to see public engagement with, and understanding of, this Bill. I very much appreciate that. A number of noble Lords have said we need this Bill to be both precise and intelligible, and when we draw on the legal side of things I am very much influenced, as I often am, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who suggested that in legal terms “nature” would not achieve what “biodiversity” would.

I am going to bring a biological consideration, that being my intellectual foundation to this, and may complicate this debate further by pointing out that where we sit right now at this very moment is, in one definition, a part of nature—we are human animals and the rest of the animal species on this planet are non-human animals—as it is something we created. It is an ecosystem we have created. However, I am not going to go too far down that road, as I fear that may be a debate more fit for the Bishops’ Bar when it re-opens than this Chamber today.

I want to raise the issue that the noble Lord’s amendment brings to the fore, which is the definition of “biodiversity” and, specifically, to explore further what the Government’s understanding of biodiversity is. I can address some questions that have been raised about where this term come from. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, suggested that some things are called “biological diversity” and some things are called “biodiversity”. The term “biodiversity” was coined in 1985, and it is a contraction of “biological diversity”. Without being a lawyer, I do not think there is a legal contradiction between using those two terms interchangeably.

What is not always sufficiently understood is that biodiversity is not just having lots of species. There is sometimes a feeling that we are protecting diversity when there is this really rare moth, and there are three reserves where we are saving it, so that is all right because we are saving biodiversity. If we look at what biodiversity is in a much broader sense, it starts at the level of genes. If you look at a magnificent, enormous murmuration of starlings, should you still be lucky enough to have such a thing, or a wonderful flock of sparrows—ditto—then, although it cannot be seen, in the depths there is great genetic diversity. It is something that keeps that species healthy, and if you get population numbers down to a tiny level a very important part of biodiversity is lost. The interchange of genes is lost if you have a series of isolated populations.

It is really important to have the species to have the genes, but biodiversity is also complete ecosystems. These are systems, such as savannah and woodland, that have developed over billions of years, have complex interrelationships and interrelate to their physical environment. That is all biodiversity as well. This is what has made the earth habitable over billions of years and is what some people call Gaia. To look at this in a way that those of a more literary bent in your Lordships’ House might find familiar, this is a library of life. It a library of ideas and a library of ways of interrelating. It has been said that what we are doing by destroying biodiversity is burning through the library of life. So, I would really like to see, perhaps in the Minister’s answer, or perhaps later in writing, a lot more from the Government about their understanding of what protecting biodiversity means. They must make sure that the target for biodiversity—assuming the Bill goes through in its current form—really addresses the different levels and ways in which we need to understand biodiversity, and does not boil down to “Well, we have three reserves for this rare moth and that will do.”

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 5, to which I added my name. It is always good to follow my noble friend in his wise words. I have to say, though, that I rather feel out of my depth in this debate. I thought that it was going to be quite a simple subject, but I should have thought that we have such experts in your Lordships' House. I have been listening to the legal side of things, which I have little understanding of, while making law, and the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on a much more scientific, biological aspect.

I come at this with a view that we want to make things simple. We are going to come, in the group following the next, on to a connection with nature. That is my biggest concern. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said that the word “biodiversity” arrived in 1985. I was not a young man, necessarily, when it first appeared, and I had been used to using other words. I have been involved in this environmental field as an amateur for all my life, and I accept “biodiversity”—I use it myself—but I am not sure that the people we want to connect more with nature do understand it. I would say to those noble Lords who have mentioned international things that the European Union introduced Natura 2000; it did not call it “Biodiversitas 2000” or anything else. “Natura” and “nature” have their place. I would regard myself as an amateur naturalist; I do not know how you would say I am an “amateur biodiversity person”.

I think this has been a very useful debate. I end up more confused, though that is a position I often find myself in, listening to debates. But I have to say that there is a real need for us to make sure that our fellow citizens understand that the environment is about what they hold dear—and that is nature. When I was at school, we had nature study; we did not have biodiversity study. But I admit that I am not in the first flush of youth.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Randall of Uxbridge

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 23, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, to which I was pleased to add my name. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who has also signed it, and he put his finger on the case for this amendment, as did the noble Baroness herself.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, this amendment would ensure that there is a derogation from the market access principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination which would allow all four UK nations to put in place proportionate measures to protect the environment and tackle climate change. I echo completely what she and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. We do not need to emphasise the crisis that we are facing with climate change and the environment. It is the big issue of our time.

There are concerns that without this derogation there is a potential for stifling innovation, as there will be no incentive for a nation to set higher environmental standards for goods given that it will have to sell goods from the other three nations which may have been produced to a lower standard. I make no apology for repeating the example of a possible consequence if we do not include this amendment, and I want my noble friend the Minister to put my mind at rest on this.

A potential ban on peat for horticultural purposes is a good example, and something that I have been campaigning on for some time. It is an issue that affects climate change and biodiversity. If any of our four UK nations decided to ban the sale of peat for horticulture due to its impacts on biodiversity and emissions, and to preserve our precious peat bogs, what would that mean for another part of the UK that had, at that time, decided not to go down that line? Can my noble friend confirm that, as I read the Bill as currently drafted, the far-sighted nation that decided to ban peat would still have to sell peat from elsewhere in the UK? I am no expert on this, so can my noble friend the Minister also clarify what the situation was while we were still within the EU? I have often heard that one of the advantages of leaving the EU was being able to do exactly what we wanted.

I use that as an example, but I could have given a number of other similar scenarios, such as single-use plastics. I know well from my time as a special adviser to the previous Prime Minister that the devolved countries do not always move at the same speed on environmental measures. I do not want their ambitions to be stifled, however accidentally.

I do not want to detain your Lordships over this excessively, as we have heard already from several others, but I will just say this: without insurance, I regard this as a very serious flaw in the Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 22, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Hain, and Amendment 23, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I too will be brief, because those introducing the amendments—which the Green group support—have done a great job of explaining the urgent need for them both.

Amendment 22 deals with public procurement. I spoke quite extensively—for three minutes, anyway—on a statutory instrument on this issue on 16 November, so I will not go on at great length. I will just point out that we have seen many states in Europe make great progress on this issue, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, set out, Wales has also made significant progress—perhaps the most progress of the nations of the United Kingdom. We have also seen great progress in England for what is known as the Preston model. Public procurement is absolutely crucial for improving the quality of our public health and our environment, for tackling climate change and for supporting small independent businesses. We are setting the model here for what we might hope to be future devolution within England—for Yorkshire, perhaps, and Cornwall, so they should also be able to leap ahead with the resources and powers to do so.

On Amendment 23, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, just said, it is crucial that no nation in the United Kingdom is held back by others being laggards—and we know which ones that is likely to be. The point of devolution is to allow nations to diverge, to take different paths and to act according to their local circumstances. The noble Lord gave the very good example of peat, something on which we keep hearing promises of action but where we have yet to see the action needed. We hope that we will see real leadership on this and then see the laggards follow.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Randall of Uxbridge

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I shall not detain the House long. I have added my name to those of my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Dundee on Amendment 5, because, as has been said, it is important that we get clarification. We must also ensure that farmers and other land managers realise that the access provisions are voluntary and will not be imposed. We need to take everybody along with the new framework, and the new way of looking at how we finance our agricultural system. If land managers fear that this will be compulsory they may not take part in it. Obviously, there is a good reason why we want more access—but it must be voluntary.

I echo the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about making paths, if possible, accessible to all, not just to what he called the hardened rambler. I also concur that there are occasions when paths and access must be curbed, for various reasons. Even nature reserves have to close paths because a bird—or some other creature, but it is normally a bird—has decided to nest right by them, and the last thing it needs is a lot of people walking past. I hope that the Minister can give us the clarification that we desire.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I offer the Green group’s support for Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will speak on other amendments, so I shall confine myself to this one. Amendment 2 has multiple benefits. As the noble Earl explained, it would improve the clarity of the Bill, with “health and wellbeing” being measurable and quantifiable terms rather than the—if I may say so—rather woolly drafting of “enjoyment”.

This also helps us to come to terms with the rest of the debate and to set out clearly what the Bill is trying to achieve. We need our countryside to provide multiple services for us. In terms of our health and well-being, we need a great improvement from our present diet, to one packed with fruit and vegetables. We also need widespread broadly available leisure opportunities, and we need to look after the health and well-being of the natural world so that it can maintain biodiversity and bio-abundance, store carbon, prevent flooding, provide clean water, et cetera.

The economy is a complete sub-set of the environment, and ours is in a parlous state, as the RSPB reminded us this week with its reflections on our “lost decade for nature”. There is a context to the Bill involving contesting views, summed up as “sparing versus sharing”. The idea behind sparing is that we trash much of the land—the soils, the biodiversity and the waters—but we leave some of it, in its still surviving or restored state, as pristine as possible. Spare some, and the devil—or the agrochemical companies—take the rest.

Sharing involves looking after all our land—the soils, the wildlife, the air and the water. Those are things that everybody needs around them all the time for health and well-being—rural and town residents, visitors, and those who eat the food that comes from them. That is, as the noble Earl’s amendment says, for their health and well-being. An occasional visit to a specially protected treasured area will not deliver health and well-being if the rest of our countryside is trashed.

When we reach Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and consider the damage done by pesticide application, this will all come into acute focus. Amendment 2 gives us a chance, in the early stages of the Bill, at the start of today’s debates, to set out a crucial understanding of how our health and well-being, and our future, depend on looking after every inch of our environment. If we live in a healthy land, we will have a healthy society.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Randall of Uxbridge

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge [V]]

My Lords, it is always a great honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and I am sure that nobody would tire of hearing her, even at this time. I am sure that I will hear a collective sigh of relief because I think this will be my last contribution to the Committee. I thank the Committee for its indulgence, not least my two noble friends on the Front Bench who have had to listen to my ramblings.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has already referred to the two amendments standing in my name. I am grateful to her and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Quin, for putting their names to Amendment 230. I am grateful again to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and to the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Addington, for doing so on Amendment 231.

As has been discussed, these amendments regard the potential loss of the good agricultural and environmental conditions—the GAECs, or whatever they are to be called. Amendment 230 relates to GAEC 7a, which includes: maintaining green cover at the base of a hedge for two metres either side from its centre; not trimming hedges during the main breeding season of nesting birds; not removing stone walls, earth banks, stone banks or material from these, as they provide important habitats for many plants and animals. If this amendment were inserted, it would amend the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 to ensure that these important protections are maintained.

Replacing elements of GAEC 1 to protect ponds and small water body habitats is also important, because a wide variety of small water bodies are vital for freshwater biodiversity. But they remain largely overlooked and generally excluded, as I understand it, from government policies such as the water framework directive and river basin management plans, which describe how we should protect freshwaters. Small standing waters, ponds and small lakes are particularly important for biodiversity compared to other freshwaters. These waters support a surprisingly large proportion of freshwater biodiversity and are especially important for uncommon freshwater species.

Amendment 231 would change the Reduction and Prevention of Agricultural Diffuse Pollution (England) Regulations 2018 to provide a requirement for buffer strips of green cover adjacent to watercourses, surface waters, et cetera, mirroring the current cross-compliance requirements in GAEC 1. This amendment would also require land managers to keep a farm map with surface water, boreholes and so on marked outside nitrate-vulnerable zones. The term “surface waters” is included in GAEC 1 and is taken in common parlance to include ponds and lakes. I think that Amendment 231 would provide legal certainty on this. I thank noble Lords for listening to me.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. He set out very clearly the benefits of Amendment 230, to which I was pleased to attach my name, and Amendment 231, to which I am pleased to offer my support. It is a little unfortunate that this got split from Amendment 117 on meadows, which the noble Lord kindly backed after I had tabled it, because the two fit together rather nicely. They are two hugely valuable biological and ecological resources that are to a large extent being destroyed and lost in parts of our countryside. It is undoubtedly true that the common agricultural policy was responsible for a huge amount of destruction, but the cross-compliance, or GAEC, regulations have in recent years helped to at least keep what we still have. It is crucial that under the new arrangements we do not lose that protection, and that is what these two simple amendments aim to do. I hope very much that the Government will be able to take them on board and incorporate them in the Bill.