Rural Economy

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, I think the best thing here is that I will be able—very soon, I hope—to furnish the House with the first rural proofing report. Following this House’s Select Committee report work has been under way on the formation of a rural affairs board, and indeed, because of Covid, the Rural Impacts Stakeholders Forum, of which the CPRE is a member.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, as we know, one size does not fit all when it comes to our rural communities; Norfolk’s needs are not the same as Cumbria’s. I ask my noble friend to ensure that the Government take note of local data gathered together by community agencies when they come to think of their infrastructure and other policies that they want to make for these already very fragile communities.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My noble friend is right. Rural areas can be very different from each other, and we believe that local people are often best placed to judge what is right for their communities. For instance, the Government provide grants of up to £18,000 to groups that wish to pursue a neighbourhood plan. Defra itself provides funding to the 38 rural community councils across England.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

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

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on why I cannot support Amendment 36 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. Leaving the EU, and now dealing with the pandemic, has led to farmers feeling that they are in a more uncertain place than ever before. They are under pressure to feed the nation now more than ever. Therefore, support to them is vitally important, and introducing new schemes that reward farmers for producing that which they do best should not be delayed.

The present system will be simplified. It was in Committee that we heard that Defra is on track and organised for implementation for 2021, and, even more importantly, that the money is in the piggy bank and oven-ready to go to those who will benefit most from the payments. New and existing countryside stewardship agreements can still be applied for up to 2023. Delay appears unnecessary and possibly harmful, and instead of bringing certainty, allows for another year of possible uncertainty. The farmers where I live appear content with the 2021 start.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will resist Amendment 36, which would delay the start of the agricultural transition. Climate change and the biodiversity challenge are urgent, and we need to provide the financial support and the advice and guidance as soon as possible to equip farmers and land managers to tackle these challenges.

On Amendment 38, in his name, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, admitted that he was not a great fan of organic farming in the past. I have not exactly waved a flag for it either—but he, like me, is concerned about the decline in the area of land farmed organically in the UK compared with most other developed countries. Organic production accounts for only about 2.5% of agricultural land in the UK; the EU average is 7.5%, and Austria has a whacking great 24%. Yet the UK organic market is growing like a mushroom—far faster—and we are sucking in imports as a result. UK farmers are basically missing out on the growth in the organic market.

The public benefits of organic production are well attested in things like biodiversity, environmental performance and animal welfare, so growth in the organic acreage would be a good thing. What is needed is not only support for the organic transition to be enhanced into the future; it needs to be coupled with the provision of advice. It is a big step change for farmers and to do the transition well they need support. There used to be something called the Organic Conversion Information Service, but support for peer-to-peer learning would be a help.

We also need to see help with ongoing market development, as other countries have done. Using public procurement to increase the amount of organic food consumed in public settings would be an excellent thing. Copenhagen, for example, can now boast of over 80% of food consumed in public settings being organic. What support can the Minister give to organic growth?

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I am in favour of both these amendments. I was just reflecting on a visit I made to a small town in south Shropshire called Clun, which was then home to what was said to be the food bank in the smallest community anywhere in the UK. I am glad that both noble Lords introducing these amendments have focused not just on the individual situations, as pressing as they often are, but on the need for communities to be assured that money is coming in. On that basis, we want a Britain where there is no need for any food banks; we should not rest until the last food bank closes due to lack of demand. In the meantime, we have to find other ways to make sure that money is going into communities that sometimes are, and have for some time been, really struggling.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to disagree with this amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington. He is godfather to my daughter and one of my oldest friends. When I say that, I mean that I have known him forever, not that he is old in age, obviously.

I understand where the noble Lord is coming from: the needs of farmers and their households, along with rural communities, must be supported through the challenges they face. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to drive enterprise and jobs by re-energising our rural areas and those who live and work in them, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will do just that. It will cut out bureaucracy and create a fund that invests in UK priorities and is easier for local areas to access. To that end, I know that departments are working closely together to address the challenges faced by our rural communities. I hope that the Minister can elaborate on how that will pan out, with the UK Shared Prosperity Fund being very much part of dealing with those challenges.

Importantly, the problem with the support programme suggested by my noble friend is, I believe, that it would bring unintended consequences, taking money away from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and therefore muddying the waters—which, I am sure, is not what was intended by this amendment.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

As the noble Baroness who has just spoken said, we all have huge admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington—but, alas, I cannot support his amendment either. The whole point of the Bill is to move farming subsidies away from simply supporting farmers to exist as farmers, and the amendment seems to try to reverse that. I believe we should be giving support and advice to farmers to innovate and transform, and to provide the public goods that the public want and be paid for it.

I fully recognise how upland farmers in particular have had their whole livelihoods dependent on subsidy. The whole point of these agricultural support changes is to show how such marginal farmers, whose pure farming enterprise is likely to be insufficiently profitable, can earn a living by diversifying into producing a range of public goods.

Similarly, Amendment 44 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has a very worthwhile objective, the continuity of socioeconomic programmes currently funded under the EU rural development programme. These have been very important for many of our most underprivileged and remote rural areas in the UK, but I do not think the continuity of socioeconomic support should be gained by kidnapping the limited funding that will exist for ELMS and under the previous CAP budget.

Instead, we really have to hold the Government’s feet to the fire to move forward more rapidly on clarifying the role, operation and size of the UK shared prosperity fund so that there is no delay or gap. My worry is that when the shared prosperity fund fully emerges, it may be neither shared with the rural areas, in that it is showing signs of being very urban focused, nor indeed terrifically prosperous, not having much money behind it. I hope the Minister can allay my fears.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. No? We will move on. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm of Owlpen.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on the amendments dealing with the timings of the first report and subsequent reports on food security to be laid by the Secretary of State. It is vital that there are regular reports. Otherwise, of course, there is no proof that the obligations for farmers and horticulturalists have been carried out and had the desired effect, but a report is as good only as the data it collects.

As my noble friend Lord Hodgson mentioned, it should be an event. This is particularly relevant when it comes to farming. A report must be able to observe long-term trends, which will enable future policy development to be of the best. Agriculture and horticulture are areas in which many of the trends are slow moving, with little noticeable year-on-year change.

A report in the first year would arguably be of little use, and it is worth noting that many data services on food security publish annually—for instance, on the resilience of the UK supply, and on food safety and consumer confidence. These are only two of a long list that report annually.

In conclusion, it is vital that, along with the existing annual reports, there is a report that has time to look at the long-term trends. No report is worth the paper it is written on unless there has been enough time for in-depth analysis.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I was most grateful to my noble friend Lord Northbrook for his kind words of thanks for my support for his amendment in an earlier group. However, I fear I must disappoint him this time with his Amendment 165.

I worry that the inclusion in the Bill of onerous food security obligations on the Secretary of State might be counterproductive, because it is not clear whether the Government favour food sourced from domestic production or are even-handed between imported and domestic food. To report in detail more often than once every five years would be unnecessary. I therefore oppose most of the amendments in this group, especially Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, Amendment 167 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and Amendments 168 and 173.

A requirement for food security targets, as envisaged by Amendment 171 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, might arouse suspicion among our trading partners just as we seek to strike comprehensive free trade agreements with several of them. I suggest that improved diet and increased diversity of foods, including those imported from overseas, has contributed greatly to food security and household food security in the years since the Second World War and has much reduced the percentage of the household budget that the less well-off spend on food.

Rather than national food plans and national food strategies, the Government should ensure that, in future, our food markets will be free of the distortions that exist today as a result of our membership of the common agricultural policy. Amendment 173 provides for public procurement to promote the purchase of domestically produced food, which many might think a laudable objective. However, as noble Lords are no doubt aware, campaigns to buy British are usually at arm’s length from government because they fall foul of WTO rules. This amendment could leave the Government exposed to challenge, as I am sure the Minister is well aware.

If we are to have regular reporting on food security every five years, as envisaged by the Bill, I have some sympathy with Amendment 169, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, which should assist in the reduction of food waste from the current unacceptable levels, and with part of Amendment 172 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, except for that part suggesting that the Government could control the amount of food imported compared with domestic production.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill, but none of us can be expected to discuss it during a pandemic. Indeed, going forward, the background against which we find ourselves will change our views about what is important to us.

Never have we been so grateful to farmers for making sure that our food retailers are well stocked during this uncertain period. It has highlighted the importance of sustainable, accessible and safe local food. As we move forward, our farmers want and deserve certainty about their future to enable them to carry on producing the high-quality food that we have all come to expect. However, that future must include continuing high welfare, food and environmental standards. Indeed, the Conservative manifesto stated:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”


I welcome the letter that was sent this week by the Secretaries of State for Trade and Defra confirming that food standards will not be lowered during future trade deals. We need to hold them to this commitment.

Animal welfare is obviously a high priority going forward. The APGAW released a report yesterday emphasising the importance of local abattoirs, many of which have closed. They are central in supporting the rural economy, keeping our food local and upholding good animal welfare. As such, they should receive capital payments in our agricultural framework. Can the Minister reassure me on this point?

This is our chance to make sure that our voice is heard globally on welfare and food standards. With this Bill, we are looking at a new future. Farming can thrive and diversify, with strong market opportunities both at home and globally. Ahead of us can be an opening of new export markets for our farmers, and these trade deals can influence standards worldwide. To that end, I welcome Clause 17, which requires the Secretary of State to report every five years on food security and consumer confidence in food.

At long last, farmers in the UK are free from the constraints of the CAP. We can develop our own agricultural policy, leading to farmers producing more food in this country, which in turn will make us self-sufficient going forward. The future is most certainly “public money for public good”. As is often said, farmers are the custodians of our countryside, and the Bill enables financial assistance for environmental farm practices, along with support for agritech that will enhance productivity in a sustainable way. The Bill allows us to level up the rural economy, providing grants to improve productivity in farm businesses so that they can become both resilient and successful.

In conclusion, I thank the Minister for keeping us informed and for answering our queries before reaching this stage today.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, it is not easy to debate or even to discern the cumulative implications of the measures mentioned in the gracious Speech. Many serious measures that urgently require new legislation received no mention, while many of those that are mentioned are dealt with by gesturing towards indeterminate action. For example, and this has been widely discussed, nothing is said about housing, which is surely an urgent matter, or about ensuring that future elections and referenda are fair—again, an urgent matter. I have decided, perhaps rashly, to discuss the latter theme in today’s debate because I believe that the business models underlying certain uses of electoral campaigning are doing great damage.

The Government have repeatedly said that they regard the protection of elections and referenda as urgent. For example, on 9 May—this was only one of a number of Answers given by Ministers in that month —in reply to a Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the Minister stated:

“The Government are committed to protecting electoral and democratic processes from foreign interference into the future”,—[Official Report, 9/5/19; col. 1301.]


and then claimed that the Government are consulting, and that in the event of another referendum there would be time for legislation. Nothing has been done, however, and repeated questions have elicited no more definite answers. The bitterness and tremendous distrust that Brexit has produced will not be surmounted if democratic processes are widely believed to have been corrupted.

I hope that other, more knowledgeable noble Lords will speak on housing, but I will say a bit about what is needed if future elections are to earn the respect of the electorate; that is, even of those whose preferred outcome does not receive a majority of the votes. I decided to speak on it today, rather than in the debate on constitutional issues on Monday, because I believe that the dangers arise in very considerable part from the business models that currently support the distribution and targeting of online content with political aims.

Many who buy or supply targeted online content with political aims or effects are not regulated by and cannot be regulated by the Electoral Commission. Whereas campaigning expenditure by political parties during election and referendum campaigns is tightly regulated, campaigning expenditure by others—whether other political or commercial groups, foreign states or rich individuals—is unregulated. Moreover—this is the crucial matter—it is protected by a cloak of anonymity, despite the harm it can do to democratic process and, indeed, to democracy.

The harms that I am concerned about are not the well-known private harms based on the misuse and abuse of digital technologies, which are usually initiated by users of social media. There is a great deal of concern and expertise in your Lordships’ House about those harms and, in many ways, the report on online harms from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport addresses them. They range across the many forms of online abuse familiar to us, from fraud to cyberbullying, extreme porn to defamation, and many others. I agree with other noble Lords that these harms can be very serious.

However, the online harms White Paper does not deal with the other harms—those which concern me today. These are public harms, in the economist’s sense of the term: harms that damage not individuals or individual interests but social institutions and processes—communication, culture, serious journalism and, above all, democracy. The phrase “disinformation campaigning”, which is new to me, is now being used to refer to these harms, and it is the subject of a very recent report by the Oxford Internet Institute, titled The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation—I wanted to say “disorder”. The report provides an inventory of the use of algorithms, automation and big data to shape, and indeed distort, public life. It comments on the tools, strategies and resources employed by those whom it refers to as global “cyber troops”, including state and corporate agencies, and sometimes rich individuals, that use covert means to shape and distort public opinion.

Social media are of course used, or perhaps I should say misused, in these disinformation campaigns, but they are the conduit not the source of the misuse. Those who use social media are not the customers of their service providers, since they do not pay money for the service they receive, but merely provide their data in order to receive it. For that reason, consumer protection legislation does not come into the picture. In return for doing this, content will be directed to them by their service providers at the behest of others, who remain anonymous. The service providers are focused on selling opportunities for their actual customers —those who purchase their services—to target their service users. It is that distinction between customers and users that is commercially different from other parts of the economy. That content might of course merely amount to advertisements, but it may consist of political and other messages, including disinformation. Targeted disinformation can damage democracy at its roots.

That recent report from the Oxford Internet Institute notes that the dangers to democracy are growing rapidly. We are all aware of a few past disinformation campaigns, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, on which the Select Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the other place did an excellent report some months ago. Many are also aware of some regrettable disinformation campaigning before the referendum, involving, for example, inaccurate claims about the cost of the UK’s membership of the EU and the imminence of Turkish accession and mass migration. However, this misleading campaigning was not, or at least not entirely, anonymous and, as is often pointed out, evidence for its effectiveness remains incomplete.

Since then, things have moved on and become more dangerous. The report estimates that organised social media manipulation has more than doubled since 2017 and that 70 states are now using computational propaganda to manipulate public opinion. It also notes that politicians and political parties in 45 democracies are using it. They are using these tools to, for example, amass fake followers, spread manipulated content and secure voter support. The report also notes that, in authoritarian states, government entities have used these methods of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent. It estimates that 25 states are working with private companies or strategic communications firms that provide computational propaganda as a service. It seems to me highly unlikely that democracy can survive—

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I point out to the noble Baroness that the advisory speaking time is seven minutes.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, you see the dangers.

Equine Welfare Standards

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve equine welfare standards.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I have stepped inadequately into my noble friend Lord Higgins’s place this evening. He apologises for being unable to attend because of a family illness, and I thank him for initiating this important debate.

I had my noble friend down as a heroic athlete rather than an equestrian, but clearly there are more shoes to his feet than just running ones, and we must now add riding boots. I myself have been involved with horses and ridden them since I was two; frightening though it is to say, that is for 63 years. All the horses that I have owned have lived to an old age and at present Treacle, my grandchildren’s Shetland, is thought to be around 28 years old, so clearly I am doing something right.

As noble Lords will know, horses 63 years ago were an extremely important part of people’s livelihoods. They were still used for work on farms, and in towns they were used by breweries, scrap merchants and milkmen, to name just a few. Now we associate them with sport and pleasure, but they are no less important to our way of life and the economy. Contributing around £8 billion to the economy, the horse industry employs more than 200,000 people. This employment is particularly important to those living in rural areas.

With nearly 1 million horses in the UK, we are reaching something of a crisis. This crisis is not the fault of thousands of responsible owners who look after their horses, ponies and donkeys in an exemplary way. I am sure we all know people who go without certain comforts so that their equine friends are looked after to a high standard. This crisis is about irresponsible dealers and owners who are ignorant and in some cases naive about the responsibilities associated with owning horses. The market has become saturated and prices have crashed in the murky world of irresponsible dealers and breeders.

It is estimated that 7,000 horses could be at risk. There has been an increase of reported welfare problems, seen by the RSPCA, Redwings, the BHS, World Horse Welfare and Blue Cross, all of which must be congratulated on the hard work they do towards animal welfare. Arguably, perhaps the increase in reported cases is welcome and means that the public are becoming vigilant and doing something about what they witness. However, I am not convinced that is the case, and of course an ideal is to have no reported problems at all.

It can cost up to £100 a week and in some cases more to keep a horse, but one with bad conformation and in poor health can be worth no more than a few pounds. There are breeders and dealers who allow their horses to run together, breeding indiscriminately, regardless of age and conformation, and so on, which means that many of these horses are worthless.

A report called Horses in Our Hands, published in July 2016 following a four-year study by the University of Bristol, funded by World Horse Welfare, found four main areas of concern: unresolved stress and pain behaviour, inappropriate nutrition, lack of suitable stabling and turnout, and delayed death. I will speak briefly on one of these problems: turnout, or indeed lack of it.

Fly-grazing has become an increasing problem among the travelling community, but the problem is not exclusive to them. For instance, dealers in Wales were found to be fly-grazing their animals over a wide area. Landlords and local authorities find it costly and time-consuming to prosecute so the practice carries on, and there is confusion about how to eliminate it. Local authorities do not have the resources to prosecute or indeed even investigate, and horses are not designated as one of the priority animals.

By nature these horses tend not to have passports or be microchipped, so finding their owners can in itself be problematical. Many horses are not legally identified. Even if the owner is known, unless the horse is signed over to the local authority or a charity they are unable to rehabilitate, sell or geld the animal until a case is concluded. That results in horses being kept in centres for a considerable time, which leads to rising costs and fewer spaces available for incoming horses. Of course, charities do not have blank cheques to build new facilities.

What can be done about this and the other problems found in the report I mentioned earlier? As I have so often said in this House on many different topics—this is no different—we need a joined-up, concerted approach to this distressing problem. Animal health welfare groups, vets, trading standards and professional equine bodies—including yard owners, feed suppliers, farriers, hunts, pony and riding clubs—and the Government need to work together to educate the public, encourage best practice and enforce the law.

Government and equine organisations must communicate clearly about equine welfare, and make sure that owners can identify suitable sources of advice and that the advice they receive is up to date and without commercial bias. Practical solutions must be developed and owners encouraged to seek help and advice, particularly when they find themselves in trouble from unexpected hardships. They should feel that they can come forward in the knowledge that they will be helped, not judged.

According to the RSPCA, the new legislation passed in 2013-14, which has made it easier to deal with problems of fly-grazing, has brought the numbers down. However, there is still patchy enforcement of the legislation. Good practice for this and other welfare concerns needs to be enforced with training for local authorities and for animal welfare officers dealing with horses.

I am aware that the problem of horse identification is being tackled by Defra—I am sure that the Minister will confirm this. This has to be one of the most important priorities if vets, local authorities and charities want to find unscrupulous owners. I understand that from next month there will be a central database, to be fully operational by the end of the year. However, the problem will remain if local authorities do not enforce the law due to lack of resources. Have we missed an opportunity in that horses born before 2009 do not need to be microchipped? I hope that the Minister might consider making microchipping for all horses mandatory.

There is a welcome initiative in which in certain cases discounts are available on the cost of microchipping and obtaining up-to-date passports for animals. This has been seen to be popular among the travelling community, so perhaps it could be extended. However, if you cannot afford to get your horse a passport and a microchip, perhaps you cannot afford a horse in the first place.

I have touched only briefly on a few of the problems facing equine welfare. There are many more issues that I could have raised, such as the live transport of horses and ponies over long distances and abroad. I greatly look forward to hearing from other noble Lords this evening, who I am sure will cover many of the issues not mentioned by me.

In conclusion, the Government cannot be solely responsible. Equine welfare must be the responsibility of all of us involved with horses. We must be the eyes and ears for horses and report bad practice where we see it so that the animals we respect and love can lead healthy, happy and productive lives.