Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Viscount Trenchard

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading, but I am supportive of the Bill’s objective to enable the Crown Estate to continue to fulfil its core duty of maintaining and enhancing its value.

Amendment 37, as introduced so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and to which I have added my name, is a massive improvement to the Bill. I also agree with what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said in his impressive speech. I suspect that the main purpose of the Bill in the minds of its drafters was to ensure that the Crown Estate should continue to focus on activities which align with wider national needs, including energy security and sustainable economic growth, as the Explanatory Notes make clear. Indeed, the Bill specifically mentions its role as an enabler of offshore wind power generation.

Offshore wind power generation has a part to play in our energy mix, but it may receive too much emphasis as most offshore wind projects produce electricity too far away from where it is needed, and the costs of transmission and storage are often opaque. I would like to see more emphasis on small and so-called advanced nuclear reactors, which can be sited adjacent to data centres and industrial clusters where the energy is actually needed.

It would appear that the Government have introduced this legislation with only one major objective: to encourage and enable the Crown Estate to build more offshore wind farms. This is also evidenced by the announcement of the partnership with Great British Energy. I look forward to learning more about how GBE will operate; there are still relatively few details available. However, it is important in legislating to increase commercial activity in the seabed around our shores that restrictions must be placed on the development of salmon farms in England and Wales, especially given the damaging effects on nature and the environment resulting from salmon farms operated in coastal waters and sea lochs in Scotland. I declare an interest in that I fish in England on the River Tamar, as well as on the Rivers Laggan and Sorn on the Scottish island of Islay. We do not want to see the depleted populations of salmon migrating to English and Welsh rivers exposed to the additional threats posed by salmon farms.

Just over a month ago, my noble friend Lord Forsyth asked in Grand Committee what steps the Government were taking to protect wild salmon populations. I confess to having been underwhelmed by the reply to the debate given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, especially on two points: the need to monitor more strictly the harmful activities of some salmon farms, and the quite ridiculous restrictions placed on river-keepers’ ability to control stocks of predators such as cormorants. She noted that some predators are themselves protected so we had to be

“careful about how and when such predators can be managed”.—[Official Report, 12/9/24; cols. GC 170-171.]

I think that the noble Baroness is unaware that the cormorant population has increased from some 2,000 in the 1980s to over 62,000 today. Each bird requires over a pound of fish a day; why are they still protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981? Why does the EU still protect them under the birds directive? Does the Minister know how many gamekeepers are employed by the Crown Estate and how many cormorants they are licensed to shoot each year?

In replying to the debate last month, the noble Baroness the Minister said that the Government recognised the need for higher standards to be maintained in fish farms. The problems of excessive sea lice escaping fish possessing a very different genetic make-up and a very different DNA construct compared with indigenous fish were raised by several noble Lords in that debate, and spoken to especially powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth just now. What discussions has the Minister had with the Crown Estate about fish farms and about moving to more sustainable methods of farming salmon, especially land-based farms, which are completely isolated from the endangered wild salmon population? As my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Strathclyde have already said, this amendment would very much improve the Bill.

It is fortunate that, until now, English river systems have been, I believe, free of open-net fish farms, but I worry that the encouragement, implicit in the Bill, for the Crown Estate to increase commercial activity might change that—and I believe that this amendment is therefore absolutely necessary. I hope that the Minister will accept it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—words that I never thought I would hear myself speak. I was unable to attend the Second Reading but my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle did attend. After the previous day in Committee, I was approached by four different Conservative Peers who complained that a Green had not spoken on that day. One of those Peers was the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who has consistently, over the 11 years I have been here, complained that Greens speak too much. I hope to hear him express his gratitude today to hear a Green speak.

I support the amendment because, although I am highly suspicious of Conservatives and their environmental credentials, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is absolutely genuine in his care for salmon—and I support that completely. This is a very sensible amendment, and I cannot see any reason for the Labour Government not to accept it, so I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of why they will not.

These issues of environmental impact and animal welfare standards should be an overarching staple of any check on any Bill or policy that the Labour Government bring forward. I am afraid that these days I have my doubts about the Labour Government’s environmental credentials. We have seen some horrific decisions already in the first 100 days, or three months, so I sincerely hope that the Labour Government will accept this quite simple but, I think, very necessary amendment.