Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who was very generous in what she said. I agreed with everything she said—particularly that part.

I congratulate the committee on putting together a really valuable report and will focus, at least initially, on the international role of the UK in agitation and in leading by example, where the UK has a particular role to play.

It is an obvious thing to say but, logically, there is nothing more important than mending our relationship with the natural world. Absolutely everything we have, everything we need, everything we do and our entire economic system is based on nature, which is why the damage we are doing to it, all around the world—to our rivers, mangroves, corals and forests—is just so mad.

If I more or less keep to my time now, by the time I have finished and sit down we will have lost the equivalent of nearly 400 football pitches-worth of forest. That almost defies belief and imagination. These are forests that are home to four-fifths of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, around 1 billion people depend on them for their survival, and, as we know, the forests regulate so much, not least our climate and rainfall. The Congo Basin alone is believed to generate more than half of the rainfall for the entire continent of Africa. This is not just an issue of biodiversity, and it is certainly not just an academic discussion we are having.

The reality is that there is no technological substitute for these systems: the only solution, and the ultimate challenge, is finding a way to protect what remains and restore what we have carelessly lost, and then to do everything we can, through all of our decision-making, to reconcile ourselves, our cultures our civilisations and our economies with the natural world, on which we depend. It is an obvious thing to say—and I am certain that, for this Room, it did not need to be said —but it is an argument that needs to be made repeatedly.

The reason for that is that, far too often, when we hear debates about the environment, or when the environment is discussed as a political issue, we are not actually talking about the environment; we have reduced the whole thing to a very narrow focus on carbon and climate change. It is an extraordinarily one-dimensional discussion that we are having most of the time. The reality is that we could put all the solar panels in the world on all the rooftops around the planet, and invest 10 times more in energy efficiency, but if we do not massively ramp up our efforts to protect and restore nature then it is all pointless. There is no pathway to net zero and there is no solution to climate change without forests, and I think it is really important that we keep our conversation as broad as possible. Climate change is an overwhelming threat, but it is a symptom—just one symptom—of the underlying and abusive relationship we have with the natural world.

I do not want in any way to sound like I am discouraging efforts to accelerate the much-needed clean energy transition. It is crucial, I think, that we ramp up our focus on preventing nature loss. By the way, we know that we can do it; there are examples all around the world. I had the privilege of being a Minister for the international environment, and I saw with my own eyes initiatives on a tiny scale and a huge scale—and sometimes on a national scale, where countries have managed to break the link between productivity, prosperity and environmental destruction.

I have just come back from Indonesia a couple of days ago. I hate flying—I have to be drunk to get on an aeroplane, so I am probably not making as much sense now as I would like to be. I can tell you that Indonesia, a country that has taken a lot of flak over many years for high rates, historically, of deforestation, has got its deforestation under control. It does not get the credit for it but it has—the data does not lie. It has broken the link between palm oil production and deforestation. There is still some deforestation, of course, but it is nothing compared to what it was. If all the great forest countries behaved in the way that Indonesia has, we would be having a very different discussion. We know that it can be done.

Noble Lords will remember that, a few years ago, we had the privilege of hosting COP 26 in Glasgow, which we made an effort to turn into a nature COP. We wanted a broader focus, and we delivered the Glasgow leaders’ declaration on forests. We got 145 countries, representing 90% of the world’s forests, to commit to end deforestation this decade, and secured $20 billion to support those countries to do it. We persuaded the multilateral development agencies to align their policies and portfolios with that aim. It represented—in theory, at least—an unprecedented package of support for forests. I put on record my thanks to the extraordinarily talented people in the invisible part of government—the people who do not normally take part in these debates but who do the real work. Without any doubt, that was a consequence of an extraordinarily effective diplomatic effort.

Since then, we attempted to take that same energy, approach and momentum to Montreal, which was about a year later. In order to have an impact and to be able to influence the debate, we protected those diplomatic networks that we had created. We remained co-leaders of the High Ambition Coalition and the Global Ocean Alliance—organisations designed to extract maximum ambition from countries with which we get on well. We spearheaded, with Ecuador, the Maldives and Gabon, a programme that suggested how countries might club together in order to fund what is needed for nature restoration. It was a programme that was, more or less, adopted at Montreal, in the Kunming-Montreal protocol.

There is no doubt that the UK played a very important role. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said earlier, but the truth is that I had the honour of being the front of much of this work; the real work was done by hundreds and hundreds of people in government who were up all night, four or five days in a row. I thought some of them might be knocking on the door of madness by the end of it, relying only on coffee, but they did an extraordinary job and went way beyond what I, certainly, was expecting at the time. I am very grateful to them.

What was agreed at Montreal was seismic. It was an action plan that will put the world on a path to recovery. We are here to talk about the 30 by 30 target, and obviously that was the headline achievement that was secured at Montreal. But it was also agreed—and this is hugely important—that the wealthier countries will provide at least $20 billion a year by 2025 to help countries rich in nature but economically poorer to deliver their part of the bargain.

A lot has undoubtedly been achieved since Montreal. We have targets, agreements and treaties. In basic terms, we have the tools that we need, if we are serious about it, to turn the tide on nature destruction, but if we do not use those tools and properly do our part then the targets are academic. They would just be targets on paper.

The truth is that, globally—I include the UK in this—we are not living up to the commitments we made. We are less than one year from that $20 billion a year target. By the end of next year, the rich countries are supposed to be contributing $20 billion between them. A report produced by the ODI and commissioned by the brilliant Campaign for Nature, based entirely on OECD figures, shows that just two countries are contributing what they regard as their fair share of that finance. The UK is not one of them. I am certainly not blaming the new Government, who have only just taken their seats, but the UK is not one of them. The UK has a hugely important role to play in turning those grandiose commitments into something approaching reality.

We have been at the heart of this debate for some years now. It was a colossal error of judgment on the part of the most recent iteration of the Conservative Government just to walk off the stage. We were not there at the big events; we were fiddling the figures to make it look like we were spending more money than we were, and we were letting down allies. I think we did the UK’s reputation an enormous amount of damage. This Government have the awesome responsibility of turning things around, rebuilding our reputation and showing that, when we make a promise on these issues, we stick to it and keep our word.

That matters financially, for the reasons I have just explained, but it goes far beyond finance. It is also about politics. We have a history of being able to agitate in negative ways, but also in very positive ways internationally, persuading the world to do what we think it ought to be doing. When it comes to nature, our voice has counted for something. There have been many events and times in the last few years when regional groupings have gathered to talk—for example, about the Amazon. You would have all the Amazon countries there and the UK. We have had similar events in Asia, when leaders from Asian countries have gathered to talk about their biodiversity, and the UK has been the only non-regional member there. We have a voice, and it is essential that we use it.

We have to get our rich-country friends to step up and pay their fair share. We have to mobilise the private finance that we need, because there is nothing like enough public finance to do the job. We have to make sure that the forums that we are part of, such as the G7, honour the commitments that they made. If your Lordships remember, at the last G7 there was a commitment that all international aid—not just climate or nature, but all international aid—would be aligned with the global biodiversity framework. That has not happened—it has not happened in the UK or elsewhere.

I am running out of time, so will make one final point. The biggest challenge that people talk about when it comes to restoring our relationship with nature is finance. We are told that there is a $500 billion black hole annually; that is needed every year to turn things around. By coincidence, that is also how much the top 50 food-producing countries spend each year in subsidising often highly destructive land use. The UK is one of the few countries, possibly the only country, that has really got to grips with this challenge of reforming our subsidies, such that we are paying public money in return for public goods like the environment. I know others will be talking about this in due course, but it is really important that the new Government seize that agenda, recognise the opportunity and do not in any way yield to the vested interests that undoubtedly will be trying to pressure them to water down our commitments on land use subsidy reform. It is too important internationally and for the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, I gently remind your Lordships that, although it says an “advisory” Back-Bench speaking time of nine minutes, it is slightly more than advisory. We have a lot of speakers here today, so I hope that noble Lords will keep an eye on the clock and keep to the time limit, as far as possible.

Clothing Sales: Sustainability

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have very demanding targets in our Environment Act commitments, which include reduction by 50% to 2019 levels. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the impact of fashion and textiles in terms of both carbon and the use of embedded water, and we will be publishing details next year of how we are going to progress the producer responsibility for textiles. Our priority is packaging.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, there are some outrageous claims made by people in the fashion industry about the sustainability of their products. What are the Government going to do about greenwashing and about tackling those claims, some of which are fabricated claims? The EU, as we have heard, is taking action, and that is one of the things it is going to legislate on. Are the Government similarly going to take action on that?

Environment (Local Nature Recovery Strategies) (Procedure) Regulations 2023

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, formally, this is a Motion to Regret on the instrument, but really it is a Motion to Regret the lost opportunity to halt the decline of biodiversity in the UK. We are now one of the most species-depauperate countries in the world. The UK not only comes at the bottom of the list of G7 countries in terms of the amount of biodiversity retained—it is also third from the bottom of the list of all European countries, ahead of only Ireland and Malta.

This really serious situation that we face as a country in terms of declining biodiversity has been stated many times in this House and in the other place, and ambitious targets to restore nature have been most recently outlined in the Environment Act. For example, in January we had secondary legislation laid on environmental targets, which contained legally binding targets for restoration of certain species in areas with important habitats. These legally binding targets include protecting and restoring at least 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats by 31 December 2042; ending species decline by 2030; and our 30 by 30 target, which the Minister knows as well as I do, to protect 30% of our land and ocean by 2030. So we should all be really heartened by these ambitious targets—I certainly was—but they do not describe the specific mechanisms by which these targets are to be delivered on the ground. For this, we were promised secondary legislation, such as the instrument that we have before us today, on the local nature recovery strategies.

The point of this statutory instrument is to enable the delivery of a consensual process whereby 48 local nature partnerships across England will map out what remains of the important habitats in their county and then develop a plan for nature recovery. The intention is that these spatial plans for biodiversity recovery will then influence critical land-use decisions and be used alongside strategic planning for food, infrastructure and other land uses. So far, so good—but when it was published in May, a couple of months ago, I and many others were really dismayed by the content of these local nature recovery strategies and the regulations delivered by the secondary legislation. I would go so far as to say that I simply do not believe that what we have in front of us in secondary legislation will achieve the purpose that it is set out to deliver, which is to reverse England’s biodiversity loss.

I want to express my regret for three missed opportunities in this legislation. First, I regret the fact that in the guidance there is no mention of the specific legally binding targets, which I have just mentioned, set out in the environment targets regulations, published in January. Instead, the guidance refers to the vague sentence that strategies

“should also reflect what contribution the strategy area can make to national environmental objectives, commitments and targets”.

It does go on to say

“including those legally binding targets established by the Act”,

but what that means in practice is that each of the 48 partnerships, which in themselves will have another 30 or 40 members, will have to come up with their own individual targets and priorities of recovering and enhancing biodiversity and hopefully—I am not sure how—they are all going to add up to meet the Government’s legally binding targets.

I simply cannot understand how this will work without some overarching centralised co-ordination and specifically determined species and habitat targets provided, as a starting point if nothing else, for each county. In effect, we are asking all 48 authorities to work in the dark. Equally problematic under this heading is the fact that there is almost no guidance given to identifying or creating corridors for nature. Without enabling wildlife to move across landscapes, we end up with a series of islands surrounded by a desert of agricultural land or a desert of an urban area. The islands become smaller and smaller, and that is an absolutely guaranteed way to lose species, for species to go extinct.

I know the Minister understands the importance of nature recovery and corridors, which we have discussed many times, but how can he be sure that the local nature recovery strategies we have in front of us will actually add up to these overall targets, which are legally binding? Because there is no mention of it in any of this statutory guidance.

Closely linked to this is my second regret, which is that the local nature recovery strategy guidance is totally silent on output format and the development of a centralised platforms. All we have is regulation 19, which requires that local authorities publish their local nature recovery strategies on their own council websites or, if they cannot do that, they can create their own website and put a link back to the council website. In practice, this means the creation of 48 different websites and, very likely, 48 different formats for the local nature recovery strategies of each of the 48 partnerships.

There is also no guidance or requirement for a centralised data deposition, so the data could all be in completely different formats and we would have no idea how it all added up to meet the legally binding targets we agreed in January. Again, I simply cannot understand how this will work. It will make it even more difficult to determine a transparent overall picture across England and to know how we are doing on reaching these legally binding targets. So I would appreciate it if the Minister would explain how his department will support a regularly updated digital platform for local nature recovery strategies that is transparent, digital and consistent, so that everyone is starting with a level playing field, both the public and developers alike. I sincerely hope that this is an area that we can make some progress on.

Probably the most worrying, and my third and final regret, is that the statutory guidance does not set out how the strategies, once developed, will actually inform decision-making. There is a duty for public bodies to “have regard” for local nature recovery strategies. This, quite frankly, is feeble. We know that it will not change decisions on planning, licensing or incentives for better land management. There is one phrase that I find it equally worrying in terms of governance in the accompanying guidance for landowners:

“The strategies do not force the owners or managers of the land identified to make any changes. Instead, the government is encouraging action through, for example, opportunities for funding and investment”.


So, in effect, there is no requirement for owners or managers of land on which potentially important habitats are located to do anything if they do not wish to, nor is there any clarification on incentives to take part—for example, through payments via the Environmental Land Management Scheme.

To summarise, even though the Government have just announced a really welcome £14 million pot to fund local nature recovery strategies, all the effort and expenditure could be wasted if they do not actually influence what is happening on the ground due to this vague guidance on targets, lack of centralised co-ordination and extremely weak governance on their delivery. I would go as far as to say that, while the legal link between local nature recovery strategies and decisions by public authorities is weak, I actually regret that no amount of guidance can fill the gap, even if it were significantly better guidance than we have today, due to this very weak governance. I look forward to the Minister’s response and just note that we could make progress on this issue in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, where noble Lords across the House are supporting amendments to fix the legal weaknesses at the heart of the problem.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who has made an excellent case today as to why the omissions in these regulations need to be urgently addressed.

Throughout the development of local nature recovery strategies, we have been hugely supportive of the concept. There is no doubt that they have the potential to be an important vehicle for the delivery of many of our environmental ambitions set out in the Environment Act. Already, around the country, councils are coming together at county level to address the challenges of meeting our environmental targets locally, and they want to make the process work. However, as the Minister knows, we already have concerns about the status of those local nature recovery strategies once they are produced. Without the right legislative underpinning, there is a risk that much of their work will go to waste and we will lose the enthusiasm and good will of those involved in the process.

Under the current wording of the Environment Act, planning authorities are required only to have regard to the LNRS as part of a general biodiversity duty. That is why the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and I have tabled an amendment to the levelling-up Bill which would require local planning authorities to deliver the objectives of the relevant local nature recovery strategy in their development plans. We will debate this further when the amendment comes up on Report, and I hope that we can make some progress at that point in resolving the issue. I am very grateful to the Minister for meeting us to discuss this last week. I hope that he is able to come back with a little more information—we were rather hoping for some alternative proposals. Given that the amendment is potentially due next week, we are running out of time. I just say that as a general nudge. I mention it also because it is symptomatic of a very narrow interpretation of the role of local nature recovery strategies, combined with overreliance on guidance notes rather than the formal statutory underpinning which can deliver real change.

I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, made a very powerful case for the combined local nature recovery strategies to connect up and form a national nature recovery network. This could provide the essence of the well-known Lawton ambition of “bigger, better and more joined up”, which everyone understands to be the holy grail of nature recovery. But nowhere in these regulations is this spelled out as an objective. There is no requirement for county-based representatives to look over the border to see what approach their neighbours are taking. There is no overarching objective of joined-up corridors across the country which could facilitate the spread of flora and fauna across wide landscapes. There is no requirement to look at the wider geographic challenges or to use the opportunities that the current protected landscapes such as national parks and AONBs could provide.

While there is a role for Natural England in advising on the habitat and species priorities, there is no obligation for wider collaboration between local nature recovery partnerships or for a national map to be produced. Why has Defra largely omitted the need for such national connectivity from the regulations and guidance, which the noble Baroness has been a great champion of and has made a powerful case for today?

There is a further obstacle to the development of a national nature recovery plan in that each local authority is required to publish its recovery strategy on its website. That is good, but there is no requirement for these websites to be on a shared platform. There is a danger that we will end up with 48 individual proposals, with artificial political boundaries, that bear no relation to one other in the language used, impact on habitat and species revival, and other deliverables towards the targets. Equally, there is no requirement for quality control, so the local nature recovery strategies may well vary in scope, evidence and ambition.

Can the Minister explain whether a national online platform for LNRSs is being considered, and how we can be assured that a quality assurance programme will be enacted to ensure that the objectives set out in the Environment Act really are being delivered? I look forward to his response.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I take a much more optimistic view of these regulations, although I expect to be in the lists with the noble Baronesses opposite when it comes to their status in terms of planning regulations. These are local nature recovery strategies, whereas both noble Baronesses appear to want a national nature recovery strategy, imposed from the top down. I think that 30 by 30 will work only if it becomes an intensely personal local thing, if it exists in every community and is worked out locally in a way that suits local people within the context of an overarching national objective that is not set out not as obligations but ambitions. I am dead certain that local wildlife trusts and many other locally based nature organisations will support what is going on and be part of it, but I see no reason to despair that these things are not centrally specified. It is their great strength that they are local.

There is a general question for all the nature-related organisations as to how they gather data so that it is synchronised. I hope that Defra is talking to the Natural History Museum about that so that we have a common structure and that the data each of us gathers in all the organisations we are involved in can find a common use. Why should Sussex have to express its local nature recovery strategy in the same framework as central London? It is just daft. This is local—we should be expressing our local convictions and ambitions.

There is provision in this for the consultation draft to be given to neighbouring authorities, which will doubtless result in some co-ordination, but surely the key to this is being local. If it is to be effective, that means local people in the driving seat.

Live Animals: Export Ban

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, when will a suitable border inspection post be up and running in Calais? Can the Minister give a commitment that the ban will be introduced before live animal exports can go through Calais again, because I understand that that has been the barrier to there not being any in the recent past?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We are in negotiations with the French authorities, and we want to make sure that there is a good border control post at Coquelles. That will assist us as well with the illegal import of products of animal origin, which are causing us great concern for biosecurity. I cannot give her an exact date, but I feel sure that a post will be created, and that will regularise the trade in both directions.

Shark Fins Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords from across the House for their support for this simple but important piece of legislation. It will ban the import and export of shark fins in the UK and take a stand against the barbaric practice of sharks being caught, having their fins sliced off and being thrown back into the sea to have a slow, lingering death. Thankfully, the UK is now making it clear that this practice must stop, setting an example to our global trading partners, which we hope will follow suit.

I pay tribute to my honourable friend Christina Rees for passionately and expertly steering the Bill through the Commons. I thank the Minister and the wonderfully supportive staff in Defra, who did much of the heavy lifting on this Bill, particularly Lara Turtle and Cat Bell. Most of all, I place on record my thanks to the many marine and shark conservation groups that have campaigned so effectively on this issue, in particular, the Shark Trust, Bite-Back and Shark Guardian.

This Bill sends an important message about the importance of marine conservation. As we discussed at Second Reading, it is not a substitute for a more comprehensive animal welfare Bill, but for now we take pleasure in the passing of this Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I want briefly to thank my noble friend Lady Jones and Christina Rees MP in the other place for bringing forward this Bill. It is an important piece of animal welfare legislation. I am delighted that the Government chose to support it and that we will see it pass. I thank everybody who worked on it and supported it.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to support this Bill today and to thank the noble Baroness. Lady Fookes, for being such a doughty campaigner on animal welfare issues over the years. As we discussed on the Shark Fins Bill, the Government’s method of bringing in animal welfare legislation through a series of Private Members’ Bills is not the most desirable approach. Nevertheless, I have a great deal of admiration for the noble Baroness and I am sure that she will steward this Bill through the House with the utmost care and efficiency.

This is a Bill that has considerable cross-party support. The commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies appeared in both the Labour and Conservative 2019 manifestos. The Bill also has huge public support. The British people have made it clear in numerous polls that they do not want the UK to contribute to the suffering and inhumane killing of declining and endangered wild animals in overseas trophy hunts any more. For example, recent polling shows that nearly 90% of people support a trophy hunting ban, with 76% wanting a ban applied to all species. There is huge distaste and abhorrence for the spectacle of people killing magnificent animals for fun and then glorying in the display of body parts.

This so-called sport, with its roots in colonialism, has no place in a modern, compassionate society, and those who continue to partake in this activity, as we saw with the killing of Cecil the lion, are held in contempt by the vast majority of British people. The people involved in this sport are contributing to the decline of some of the world’s most endangered species. For example, wild lion populations have dropped to only 20,000 individuals and the previous population of 20 million African elephants has now reduced to just 400,000.

The argument that killing more of these animals somehow helps conservation flies in the face of common sense and does not withstand detailed scrutiny. If we are serious about conservation, we should be developing alternative plans that preserve the declining species and help communities through tourism and alternative forms of employment. The fact is that trophy-hunting tours feed relatively little back into the local economy and there is relatively little trickle-down to those in the local communities. In terms of economic impact, it is estimated to make up only 0.03% of GDP across eight trophy-hunting nations in southern Africa. It is not a sustainable way to bring new investment to local communities.

In addition, we have the spectacle of animals being bred in captivity simply to be shot by inexperienced hunters. This is a long way from the conservation aspirations that some in the sector claim as their purpose. In fact, there is no requirement for hunters to be experienced or proficient at using a weapon, leading to many animals being wounded and dying a long, slow death. The fact is that trophy hunting is a popular practice of a few wealthy game hunters, who are creating specious arguments to try to preserve their reviled sport.

This Bill is one step towards a full ban on the import of animal trophies. However, the UK has always been a world leader in conservation and animal welfare and the Bill represents another step forward in setting an example for other jurisdictions to follow. I therefore very much support it and hope that it can proceed through this House and make it on to the statute book unamended.

Water: Wales and England

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a crucial point. Household consumption amounts, on average, to 60% of public water supply and has decreased 5.2% since last year from 152 to 144 litres per person per day. This remains above the forecast of 136, but our environment improvement plan gives very strict targets for further reduction. Some of that is about communication, but it is also about demand-led measures, which can cause the dramatic reductions that we want to promote.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, in 2020 the Government reported that 3 billion litres—a huge 20% of the UK’s total supply—are lost every day through leakage from the pipes. Last month, Ofwat expressed concerns that some water companies do not have plans to meet the minimum requirement of a 50% reduction over the period 2017-18 to 2050. Can the Minister explain what urgent action is being taken to make sure that the water companies address this really serious concern?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Through our direction to Ofwat, the Government have made this an absolute priority. The latest figures show that three-quarters of companies are meeting their leakage targets and some have reduced leakage by more than 10% in the past two years. We will continue to crack down on the amount of water lost through leaks with targets; we expect leakage to reduce by 16% by 2025.

Horticultural Peat

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government why they have delayed the complete ban on the sale of horticultural peat until 2030.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, we have not delayed the complete ban on the sale of peat. Last August, we announced that we would ban the sale of peat for use in amateur gardening by 2024. We are clear that we are considering limited technical exemptions for professional growers where alternatives do not exist. Professional use will be banned from 2026, with exemptions from the ban for essential use until 2030. These measures will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but a voluntary approach to ending peat use was agreed in the horticultural sector back in 2011. It has already had 12 years to find alternatives—what has gone wrong with all that? As he said, most retail growers are already marketing peat-free compost and are on target to meet the 2024 deadline, so why do the professional growers need an extended deadline when, as we know, peat is not a unique growing medium and peat-free alternatives already exist? In the meantime, as he will know, every year of peat extraction—which is continuing to happen on an industrial scale—causes millions of tonnes of CO₂ to be released into the atmosphere.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, which is why we are bringing forward this mandatory ban. I am aware of the voluntary requirement from 2011 to find an alternative because I brought it in. We are now having to pass measures to see this happen. The Horticultural Trades Association and others are registering concerns about how they are going to get their members to use alternative means and maintain our food security. Environmentalists and those of us who want to see an early ban are very keen for that to happen as quickly as possible. The fact that both sides are unhappy means that we might be getting this just about right.

Water Companies: Licences

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: this was a key recommendation of the Pitt review following the floods in 2007. The Government are implementing it. It is complicated, because it is about who owns and has responsibility for the maintenance of the SUDS. My noble friend is right that this will have an impact on the amount of unwanted effluent that flows from developments into watercourses and aquifers, and it is being implemented—we are taking it forward urgently.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from the previous question about the water companies marking their own homework, can the Minister explain how it is that the water companies themselves are responsible for monitoring and reporting? Will that change? He will know that a lot of the monitors do not work, so how can we be assured that decisions will be made on the basis of accurate reporting? It is not in their interest to provide that accurate information.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There was no information on this until 2013, when I required water companies to publish a full list. We now have—or will have in a matter of weeks—100% of all the monitors. The Environment Agency investigates anywhere a fault is not being correctly measured. The telemetry will exist to measure the quality of water in all these outflows, above the outflow and below it, so accurate comparisons can be taken. That sharing of information, which was lamentably woeful but which we have corrected, will be a key part of our attempts to successfully clear up our rivers.

Imported Beef

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all imported beef has been produced using the same high welfare and environmental standards as beef produced in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. We remain firmly committed to upholding our world-leading animal welfare standards. Welfare standards are considered in all our trade negotiations, and each new agreement will continue to be subject to robust parliamentary scrutiny. It has always been the case that some products produced to different animal welfare standards can be imported into the UK as long as they comply with our import requirements. Those import requirements include the ban on meat treated with growth- promoting hormones.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply but how does this commitment on not lowering standards square with, for example, the recent deal to import Mexican beef, which we know has a higher carbon footprint than the UK’s and is contributing to tropical deforestation, or the deal with Australia, where they use hormone growth promoters that would be illegal to use in the UK? Can the Minister understand why struggling beef farmers issue a hollow laugh when they hear these promises to protect standards, which are simply ignored when our Trade Ministers are desperate to thrash out a deal?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As I say, they will not be allowed to import beef that has been reared with growth-promoting hormones in it. That is absolutely clear. It is our policy, and it will remain so.