Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think anyone would pretend that we do not need more progress or do not need to accelerate efforts to reverse deforestation, but the pledges that were secured at COP are being delivered. Through the Global Forest Finance Pledge, which is the umbrella pledge for all this, the UK committed £1.5 billion over five years. So far, 22% of that pledge has been spent, so we are on track to meet that commitment. Specifically, we made commitments around the Congo basin; around $300 million of the $1.5 billion that was secured or promised at COP 26 has now been disbursed and spent in that region. Likewise, through our pledge to indigenous people in local communities, we secured a commitment of $1.7 billion from 22 different donors around the world. So far, nearly 20% of that money has already been invested, so we are on track to meet the commitments that we made. I should say, as I have not answered the noble Baroness directly, that a significant focus of UK funding has been on the promotion of agroecology.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister say a little bit more about what is being done to stop the import of soya and palm oil into this country, which is fuelling the deforestation in so many of these developing nations? I know it is a pledge, but we want to see concrete action in the UK now, so perhaps the Minister could update us on the action on that.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

With the noble Baroness’s help, we passed the Environment Bill into law. That made provision for a due-diligence law, requiring secondary legislation, that is working its way through the system. We needed to consult—and this has been done by Defra—on which commodities should be initially included in the first tranche of the due-diligence legislation. I have pushing for—and I think we will end up with—a very expansive approach, covering all the key commodities, and that will have a direct impact on our own supply chains. We are, however, doing much more than that. We co-chair, with Indonesia, the FACT dialogue, which brings together 28 countries representing the vast bulk of deforestation caused by agricultural commodities, as well as the main consumer markets. We are working together to try to agree a mechanism for breaking the link between commodity production and deforestation, the former being responsible for about 80% of the latter. We are making progress, but it requires us to talk to countries that do not necessarily agree with us on every issue, so we have to go as far as we are able to go while pushing all the time for greater ambition.

United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Single-Use Plastics) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could just take up a theme from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, around the leadership campaign that is going on at the moment at the other end of the Palace, and to thank the Minister for intervening in that debate and reminding people, along with his right honourable friend Chris Skidmore, that climate change is a pretty important subject. If it is junked by those candidates, that is bound to have a severe effect not just on our planet and country but probably on the party as well. I hope that he has luck in that mission, but I am doubtful to a degree, unfortunately—and I say that with great gravity.

I intervened only to a certain degree during the passage of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which was fairly fraught, during the lockdown and the Covid crisis. I seem to remember all sorts of confusion between mutual recognition and non-discrimination and the two being mixed up by a number of the speakers who maybe should have known better. The question that I got involved on was exactly this one, around how we make sure that environmental protections that are part of devolved authorities’ programmes are not overridden by those principles, so they can be enforced within those national boundaries. Therefore, I am pleased by and welcome this SI in making that possible in part, so that environmental protections in the devolved authorities and nations can be enforced and not overridden by imports from other parts of the UK. I very much welcome that.

As noble Lords have said, the reason why this is an issue practically at the moment is that in England, the most populous part of the United Kingdom, we are very much behind the times. Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland are ahead of us in terms of these restrictions on single-use plastics. I understand that, after going through this consultation, the earliest we in England will be implementing similar regulations is April 2023. Although nearer than it was, this is still some time away. Perhaps the Minister can find a way of making that quicker. I would be interested to hear his views on that.

I also understand that there is this strange issue of plastic straws in pubs, which you will continue to be able to use—not that I would, obviously—even when they are banned from retail. I would be interested to understand whether that has been resolved yet.

To me, the bigger issue on single-use plastics is still export. There were a number of areas in the 2019 Conservative manifesto around levies on single-use plastics, particularly around export to non-OECD countries. I have certainly become more and more of the opinion that that should be much tighter—maybe we should even export only to EU or G7 countries. I would be very interested to understand from the Minister where we are on that and the various provisions made in the Environment Act. I remind Members that last year we exported some 770,000 tonnes of plastic waste abroad. Those are staggering figures and reflect some of the figures from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

This is an area where clearly we need urgent action. We should be a leader, not just nationally but internationally, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on where we are on this much broader agenda as well.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing this SI to our attention. I add my support to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about the Minister, and thank him for addressing the candidates to be the next Prime Minister and keeping their feet to the fire on the environment. Although we have had our occasional disagreements in the past, nobody doubts his passion and commitment on this issue. I hope he keeps fighting that battle.

Like other noble Lords, I accept that this SI is becoming necessary following the agreement with the devolved Governments in the Resources and Waste Common Framework. I was grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope; I did not realise we were making history in the way he suggested and that this was the first time an agreement on common frameworks was finding its way into regulation and statute. Obviously, that is something we should celebrate. I thank him for drawing that to our attention.

I will raise one practical thing, which is that the Resources and Waste Common Framework is still referred to as “provisional”. Perhaps the Minister can clarify when that will be a final agreement. I do not have a problem enacting it, but if it is only provisional presumably there is a final sign-off to take place at some point. I would be grateful if he could advise what the process is for that to happen.

As noble Lords have said, it is obviously welcome that all sections of the UK are now taking co-ordinated action to ban the use of certain single-use plastics, as set out in the SI. As I said, I do not have any objections to the SI, but I have a couple of questions about the implications for further actions on plastics. Are the UK Government planning to ban further categories of single-use plastics? We know that it is only a very limited list at the moment. If further single-use plastics were now being considered, would a separate SI be necessary to address the internal market implications of a ban on each occasion as it came on stream?

Secondly, as a number of noble Lords have said, over the last years the relatively slow pace of progress in England has been frustrating. We have heard again today that Wales and Scotland seem to be leading the way on this. Although we understand that it is necessary to consult before taking action, it is frustrating that Defra is doing this in a piecemeal manner and taking so long about it. I hope the Minister can give us some good news on that before we leave today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The truth is that this fairly crude speech that I am delivering, which the noble Lord could deliver more eloquently, could apply to most of the topics that we debate, and that is the whole point. Nature is the source of everything, and it is astonishing to me sometimes that we have to make that argument.

Perhaps where I will part company with one or two people in the Room is in saying that over the last few years the UK has been a global leader on these issues. I would say it has been the global leader on many of these issues. It was the UK that created the coalition of 100 countries calling for 30% protection of land and sea by the end of the decade. It is the UK that is doing all the running in creating a coalition on illegal fishing. It was the UK negotiators, as I said, who helped get countries over the line in relation to the plastics treaty. There is no country in the world pushing harder for high ambition at the CBD Convention that is being held in Montreal. It was the UK that delivered the biggest-ever package of commitments around deforestation at COP 26. Subsequently, it is the UK that is leading the global dialogue to break the link between commodities and deforestation.

I really could go on and on with areas where it is the UK that is corralling the world into action and ambition on these issues. That is why the anxiety that has been expressed in this Room today about the leadership election has been expressed by leaders all around the world. I do not know who else they are talking to, but in my dealings as an Environment Minister negotiating a lot of these points, I have a lot of them on WhatsApp and I have had messages from countries big and small —from G7 countries to tiny little dots on the map in the Pacific—terrified about the prospect that the UK is going to crawl away from its international leadership position and go back in on itself and ignore and abandon the concerns I have been talking about today and which I know are shared around this Room.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am sorry, I know the Whip is saying that we need to move on. I will just say quickly that I do not doubt the work that the Minister has been doing on an international level. I pay tribute to that. But back here, we have increasing frustrations about the implementation of the Environment Act and other domestic legislation that we have all worked very hard to craft. There are a lot of things that just are not happening at a domestic level. Coming back and driving that same agenda here in the UK—that is what we really need.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I do not doubt what the noble Baroness has said. There are lots of things internationally we could be doing. We should be taking a stronger position, in my view, on deep sea mining. None of the big countries is taking this seriously, but it is a threat to the seabed that is probably unmatched. There are lots of areas where I would like to see us toughen our position and take a more proactive approach.

There are domestic problems. We debated for hours the effects of sewage in our waters. It is not true to say that we have gone backwards. The laws today are stronger than they were when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. That is an objective fact. You could argue that they have not gone far enough, but we have not gone backwards—and likewise on a whole range of the issues we are talking about today. I am not pretending that this Government are a paragon when it comes to the environment; no Government in the world are. I am saying merely that our Government have earned a global reputation for leadership on the environment which is, I think, unmatched around the world, and it is precious.

Food Insecurity: England

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that there has been year-on-year food price inflation, with rises of 6.7% in April, up from 5.9% in March. She mentioned supermarkets, and Defra has been engaging with the supermarkets very regularly to discuss cost of living issues and the steps they can take to help address them. We will continue to explore a wide range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food, for example by maintaining value ranges, price matching, price-freezing measures and so on. This is a priority for Defra and, as she implies, is a cross-cutting issue on which departments are working together.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Dimbleby National Food Strategy report was published in July 2021, which is nearly a year ago. It sets out recommendations on many of the food insecurity issues that we are raising today. Given its significance, is the Minister embarrassed by the length of time the Government have taken to respond to that report?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I first acknowledge the work that went into that report. It was a brilliant piece of work and I am grateful to the team behind it, not least Mr Dimbleby. I hope, as I know the noble Baroness does, that the Government will provide a proper and comprehensive response, as soon as possible.

Direct Payment to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Grand Committee

This suite of SIs work together to give a package of measures across the farming industry which should bring some certainty to the farming community but which I fear are not likely to do so. Together with the existing trade deals and those currently under negotiation, it is no wonder that the British farming industry does not feel that the Government have its back.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these SIs, which, as he said, follow on from the detailed debates we had during the passage of the Agriculture Act, and indeed previous SIs which began to roll out the detailed proposals.

First, addressing the SI which introduces year 2 of the basic payment scheme reduction, as has been said, this is not a surprise, as the plan for this reduction in 2022 has been set out in previous documents. Nevertheless, even for the lowest category of claimants, a drop from 5% to 20% is significant. Already the farming press is reporting significant cases of hardship, and the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, recently admitted in the Chamber that it was hard to see how many upland farmers could continue to make a living under the new regime. We know, for example, that pig farmers have been particularly badly hit by what Victoria Prentis, the Minister in the other place, has described as an “exceptionally challenging period.” I therefore share the concern that several noble Lords raised about the Secretary of State’s comments last week, in which he said that the reductions in the basic payment scheme for farmers would be more than recouped by their increased income from the sale of produce. I do not think anyone of us felt that that was a reality, and indeed I very much share the comment of Minette Batters, who said

“one of us is … living in a #ParallelUniverse”.

I think she summed up the views of many when she said that. Perhaps the Minister could comment on what seems to be an unrealistic comment of the Secretary of State and say whether he agrees with it.

Of course, the Welsh Government have de-risked the changes by postponing the basic payment cut for a year to allow the farming community to adjust to the new arrangements. Can the Minister say what the impact of this is, with farmers receiving different subsidies throughout the devolved nations, and what is the impact on the internal market from the phasing out happening at different timescales?

I am conscious that this SI is for one year only, as was the previous year’s SI. In the current climate that probably makes sense given the huge traumas that are going on in the sector. As noble Lords have said, we are seeing the impact of unforeseen world events causing massive increases in the cost of fuel and gas, and shortages of feed and fertiliser. The Explanatory Memorandum in paragraph 14 makes it clear that these arrangements will be kept under review, saying that

“Defra and its agencies will monitor and review the impact of this instrument as part of its standard policy-making procedures.”

Can the Minister shed more light on what these monitoring arrangements are? I would have thought that in the current climate that is exactly what such flexibility was designed to address, and presumably at this moment risk analyses are taking place as to the impact of these huge world events. Can the Minister say what tests would have to be met before the Government agreed to deviate from the rollout of the basic payment cuts? If not now, when would they ever agree to do it?

Can the Minister also give more information about the savings being made from the first year of the basic payment cut? Again, as noble Lords and the Minister said, it has been said that no money will be lost from the overall pot of money if it is not reallocated via other ELM schemes, but we know that many of those other ELM schemes are not fully up and running yet. Can the Minister reassure us that none of the unallocated money in that first year has been reclaimed by the Treasury? We know what the Treasury is like, and it is hard to imagine that it has allowed that money to sit in a pot awaiting its allocation for future years—it is very generous if it is thinking like that. I think we would all like to be reassured that the cuts in one pot are there and can be shared and made available for this and future years. Just so that we can have some further reassurance on that, when will we be able to see the accounts to give us some factual information?

The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, raised the split in the distribution of the ELM schemes. Can the Minister say whether it is still the intention to split it evenly between the three pillars so that a third will still be available to go to individual farmers rather than the larger projects that were also envisaged under the ELM portfolio?

The second SI tightens up the rules for checking, monitoring and enforcing the applications for financial assistance. I do not have a great deal to say on this, although I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that the tone is rather unfortunate. Obviously, it is important that schemes are watertight and not open to fraud, but it is also important that we have the right degree of flexibility in terms of the investigations that take place. However, I point out the irony of Defra deciding to go its own way on leaving the EU, only for it to concede in paragraph 7.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum that the changes that it is now introducing

“will bring Defra’s investigative powers closer to those … previously created under Common Agricultural Policy … rules”.

I turn to the third SI on the arrangements for lump sum payments; again, noble Lords have raised a number of concerns about this. My first reaction on reading this SI was: is this it? Is this all we are going to get? I had expected a much more detailed document setting out the criteria, any exemptions and much more detail about how and to whom the land could be transferred. We understand the need for and potential benefits of having a scheme that allows farmers to retire with some dignity if they do not want to participate in managing their land for environmental benefits, but we also need to be confident that these retirement payments will transform the way that the land is subsequently managed and owned. This was very much our ambition during the passage of the Agriculture Act.

The Minister may have seen the briefings that we have been sent by Sustain, which echo many of our concerns about this proposal. A fundamental concern is that there is no priority for the land that becomes available to be offered to new entrants. In the Commons debate, the Minister, Victoria Prentis, said:

“The lump sum exit scheme sits alongside extra support to help new entrants into the industry.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 15/3/22; col. 13.]


But these two schemes are not linked up. There is currently no incentive for a retiring farmer to offer the land to a new entrant. It is far more likely that, as we have always feared, the land will be gobbled up by the large landowner next door, who will have an inside track on details of the sale and will use it as an opportunity to expand their landholdings. This was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who also made a good point about these sums of money simply not being sufficient for people who want to move off the land to be able to buy a house away from the farm.

Another alternative is that the land will be bought up by large corporations that have no farming background but are keen to offset their carbon emissions or to use it for biodiversity net gain to offset developments elsewhere. We know that the Government are encouraging this, and in many ways those schemes have merit, but we need to know where the land will go and who will be making use of it.

If we are not careful, both those depressing scenarios —the landowner and large corporations—are very likely unless the provisions in this SI for disposal of the land on retirement are tightened up. The end result is that we will see small family farms squeezed out of the sector, which was the point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.

Will the Minister look at this again and provide some reassurance about new entrants and where that land will go? Will he also look again at the very narrow definition of “connected person” in Regulation 7(1) of the Agriculture (Lump Sum Payment) (England) Regulations 2022, because, as it stands, you can transfer the land to any family member as long as it is not your partner or spouse. I ask again whether this been fully thought through, because it seems likely that the payments will be made within a family—maybe to the father—with other members of his family carrying on farming much as before. Again, we are facing a scenario where new entrants will find it very difficult to make headway in coming on to the land.

Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Randall, for taking over the baton from his colleague Andrew Rosindell, who presented the Bill in the Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, has been a doughty fighter for animal rights and the environment and he has made the case for the Bill very persuasively today. Of course, we recognise that this is effectively a government-sponsored Bill; it would not have got this far if it were not, so the issues that I raise today are ones to which we hope the Minister will be able to respond as much as the noble Lord who has sponsored the Bill.

In essence, we support the Bill. Anything that adds to the arsenal of measures that can be taken against those who transgress animal welfare legislation should be welcomed. However, as my shadow Defra colleague, Daniel Zeichner, made clear in the Commons, this applies only if these are additional measures that do not lead to a watering down of existing legislation. There is a danger that fixed penalty notices could be seen to trivialise more serious animal welfare abuses.

The Minister in the other place has already made clear that the new penalty notices framework is intended to be applied to existing offences already subject to prosecution—so they were judged worthy of prosecution by those drawing up the previous animal welfare legislation. These new fixed penalty notices also allow the offender to remain anonymous rather than publicly being held to account in the way that they would be if the case went to court. I am keen to seek assurance from the Minister that the application of fixed penalty notices will be only for administrative offences, such as failing to microchip a dog or indeed the examples that we have heard this afternoon about the movement of animals, rather than any animal neglect or abuse issues. This issue has been raised by the animal welfare charities and it would be good to get assurance on it on the record.

It is also clear that one reason for the Bill is to help tackle the backlog of court cases, which the Government have allowed to reach unacceptable levels. If this is the case, we would hope that the total number of cases for breaches of animal welfare legislation, either through fixed penalty or court hearings, should increase in total. I hope that the Minister can confirm that this is the Government’s intention. This point has been reinforced by the RSCPA, which rightly points out that, as the Bill is drafted, the number of fixed penalty notices issued by local authorities will be anonymised and/or amalgamated, so we may never know exactly how many have been issued. It is also important that enforcement bodies can share data and information, particularly when it comes to the movement of animals around the country and the need to track persistent offenders.

Our concern about the unintended consequences of the Bill have been raised by Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Its concern is that the burden of proof in issuing fixed penalty notices is “beyond all reasonable doubt”, which is a higher test than the original legislation. Is there a danger that offenders will be let off for offences where they would otherwise have been found guilty? Does this mean that the number of successful cases will drop rather than rise?

There is also a more fundamental concern about the Bill: we do not know which offences in which Bills will be covered by the fixed-penalty provisions, as that is all to be set out in subsequent secondary legislation. There was some discussion in the Commons about a grid being produced to make clear what the intent is, so I am sorry that that suggestion has not yet reached fruition. This is the sort of issue that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee have raised concerns about in the past. We really are sailing in the dark in understanding the scope of the legislation before us today, and indeed when it comes to having a chance to influence the detailed provisions in the future. So while we understand the good intentions of those putting forward this legislation, there remains a nagging concern that it could result in a less rigorous and effective regime.

The RSPCA has raised some points of detail that I would be grateful if the Minister could address. Can we be assured that the enforcement officers given the powers to award fixed-penalty notices are appropriately trained and assessed as competent? It would certainly be easier if the powers were limited to use by animal health or welfare officers who have already reached a level of training and competence.

Is it intended that prosecutions for the same offence could still occur if the fixed-penalty notice is not paid or the behaviour that resulted in the notice is not rectified? Otherwise, fixed-penalty notices might become discredited and allow repeated breaches of the animal welfare legislation to carry on unchecked.

The maximum fixed-penalty notice fine is set at £5,000, but is it intended that guidance will be issued, setting out the breaches of legislation that could incur this maximum fine? Otherwise, enforcement officers might opt for trivially small sums that did not match the seriousness of the crime.

There are many questions that still need to be resolved and I hope the Minister will be able to address some of them today. I also hope that, in taking the legislation forward, he will agree to work closely with the animal welfare charities, so that we end up with legislation that strengthens our existing legislation and drives up animal welfare provision in this country. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument, which seems fairly straightforward. However, I have a number of questions to ask him, if he is able to answer.

The Flood Re scheme was set up as part of the Water Bill in 2014 after the horrific flooding we witnessed during that winter. It was to ensure that, for those properties whose owners would find it almost impossible to gain flood insurance cover on the open market, the owners would not be left with no redress. The fund was to be paid for by a levy on all insurance companies, so spreading the load. The figure at that time was £180 million, as the Minister said; as a result of this statutory instrument, the figure is being reduced to £135 million.

The Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, anticipates that flooding is likely to increase rather than decrease. In that case, how can the Government be sure that reducing the Flood Re fund by £45 million will not have a negative impact on those who cannot get insurance on the open market? Surely the fund should be monitored at the very least, or increase in anticipation of future demands on it.

The Explanatory Memorandum is clear that these regulations designate a new FR scheme. Given that the existing flood reinsurance scheme is working well, why is it necessary to have a new one? Apart from the difference in the sum involved, in what way will the new scheme be different from the existing FR scheme?

Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that the liability limit will be reviewed

“every three years instead of every five.”

That is fine. The liability limit was £2.1 billion in 2016, with increases in line with the consumer prices index. Can the Minister say what the liability limit is currently, in 2022? It is important to review the limit but it has to be done in conjunction with the risk profile, as identified by climate change professionals, not just what Defra officials think might happen.

Paragraph 7.5 of the EM states that the surplus funds on the wind-up of the existing scheme will return to the Government. Can the Minister say why this surplus is not being transferred into the new scheme? This seems to me to be a mistake. If the insurance companies are paying a levy towards Flood Re, surely they should be the ones to reap the benefit of any surplus in the existing fund. Paragraph 12.3 refers to the lack of an impact assessment, as there is a negligible impact on businesses. If the surplus in the existing fund were transferred back to the insurers, it would have no impact at all on business. The Government are attempting to have their cake and eat it.

The new scheme will allow insurers on a voluntary basis to make payments of up to £10,000 for resilience repair—build back better—over and above the cost of like-for-like reinstatement of actual flood damage. My recollection is that this resilience repair element was part of the original commitment of Flood Re. Can the Minister say whether this was ever implemented from the start? If not, why not? Resilience is a vital element of this scheme.

I cannot see any reason why a new fund has to be set up if the existing one is operating well and has surplus funds in it. I am sorry to say that I feel something of a sleight of hand is going on here; at best, there is a distinct lack of transparency. Given the view of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee that the incidence of flooding is likely to increase in future, I feel the reduction in the levy pot by £45 million is premature. Can the Minister reassure us that, for those who have access to the Flood Re fund, it will be there when they need it?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful introduction to this SI and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing it to our attention. I had a strong sense of déjà vu when reading it, as I was present when the first SI was debated back in 2015, which clearly illustrates that I have been in the job too long. I remember our original debates and will come back to some of the issues raised then.

Since then, the UK has suffered more regular and devastating extreme weather events, as the noble Baroness has said, with the result that thousands of properties are being flooded, many on a repeat basis. This has underlined the need for more robust and accessible home insurance. It is good to hear that Flood Re has been judged a success and that it has helped thousands of homeowners in flood risk areas who would otherwise have struggled to insure their homes, as the Minister was saying. It was also reassuring to hear that the scheme has met its initial liquidity and capital requirements and has a high solvency ratio, making it financially secure. On this basis, we accept that it makes sense to reduce the levy on insurance companies from £180 million to £135 million a year.

However, a number of questions arise from the proposals, which I would be grateful if the Minister could address. First, the Explanatory Memorandum referred to the statutory quinquennial review of the FR scheme and the recommendations that arose from it. Have all the recommendations of that review been agreed by government and put forward in this amended proposal today, or are there other recommendations still out there or under consideration or which have been rejected by the Government?

Secondly, as we have heard, one of the recommendations before us today is the build back better proposal to allow claims up to the value of £10,000 to enable homeowners to fund flood-resilient improvements over and above any like-for-like repairs. This is a welcome initiative, but paragraph 12.3 makes it clear that the participation of insurers in the build back better supplement will be voluntary. Why was it not made compulsory for all insurers to offer this payment, given the urgent need to make our properties more resilient to flood risk in future? Do we have any information about the appetite of insurers to pay this extra supplement? The Minister quoted some statistics, but I would be grateful if he could confirm what proportion of insurers are providing the build back better facility.

Thirdly, I return to some of the concerns raised when the original scheme was introduced which still seem relevant today. Are the poorest and most vulnerable—those in tenanted and rented properties—still excluded from the scheme? It really does not seem right that people living in the same or adjoining properties could have access to different standards of flood insurance purely on the basis of the status of those living in the property. Do you still have to be the homeowner to qualify? Since the scheme now appears to be financially secure, what consideration was given to extending access to it to wider categories of claimants, such as tenants?

Can the Minister clarify the current status of farmhouses? I know that this has been a concern for the farming community. Most people would say that they are primarily residential properties, even if they also act as a business address. Can farmhouses join the Flood Re scheme?

Finally, could the Minister clarify whether we are still focusing on properties deemed in high-risk flood areas? Given the recognised threat of extreme weather events arising from climate change—the noble Baroness talked about the issues raised by the Adaptation Sub-Committee on this—how can we be sure that the right areas are now being designated as high-risk flood areas? Has not our experience of flood risk in recent years been that it is increasingly hard to define? Does the Environment Agency have the resources to reassess and redesignate flood risk areas from low to high risk with sufficient speed to ensure that insurers can respond accordingly? What further powers are the Government proposing to give to the Environment Agency to ensure that no further properties are built in high-risk flood areas against its advice, as can happen at the moment?

These are all issues that need to be addressed if Flood Re is to achieve its true potential. I hope the Minister can address them. I look forward to his response.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I will address the questions put to me.

As has been noted, the levy will reduce from £180 million to £135 million per year for the next three years. That is based on an assessment that £135 million is what is needed. The view is that we do not want to set the levy higher than it needs to be because it is effectively a form of tax.

I note the arguments put forward by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Jones, that everything suggests that flood risk is increasing and that volatile weather patterns are likely to become more so, but the scheme is not designed to be the UK’s answer to flood risk; it is a part of the answer. There is a whole bunch of other policies designed to make the UK more resilient in the face of increasingly volatile weather. For example, a major component of the environmental land management subsidy system is about better land management to create more resilience. Our tree strategy, the peat strategy and so on are all different components of it. There is the grey infrastructure component of the work Defra is doing as well. This is just part of the much wider approach the UK is taking.

The scheme is financially secure. Flood Re has met its initial liquidity and capital requirements and has a high solvency ratio. The Government have undertaken the necessary due diligence to assure themselves that Flood Re has enough funds to cover any losses as a result of a major flood event. The Government Actuary’s Department agrees that £135 million is suitable and well within the risk appetite of Flood Re.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about the liability limit. Flood Re has set the liability limit at £1.9 billion from 1 April 2022 for the following three years. This is a non-statutory change already approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment, aligned with the Government’s assurance process.

Build back better will play a key role in helping to increase the resilience of UK households to flooding. We hope that it will drive a cultural shift across the insurance market, driving positive changes in supply chains, raising awareness and demand for property flood resilience, and helping to capture the evidence on the benefits of property flood resilience to support future changes in the market.

Research by Defra and Flood Re has demonstrated that the additional investment for flood resilience over standard repair can be as high as £35,000, but averages to around £5,200. However, the Government recognise that the cost of making different properties resilient may still exceed the contribution from build back better. Insurers and/or the householders can choose to pay for build back better above the £10,000 cap if that is what they want to do.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that I have covered the questions put to me. The scheme is necessary; it helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Flood Re schemes and builds a nation more resilient to climate change. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords on their questions.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, one question that I do not think he addressed was about high-risk flood areas. At the moment, you can access the scheme only if you live in a high-risk flood area. Obviously, that is a moveable feast these days because of extreme weather events, so it would not necessarily be the traditional areas that get flooded. There could be flash flooding in many parts of the country for all sorts of reasons. How often does the Environment Agency update that information and allow new properties to come onstream to be insured under the scheme? If we are not careful, it could become outdated very quickly and not be available to all those categories of homes that need it.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am told that the Environment Agency will reissue a map of flood risk some time in 2024. As she says, even that new map will need to be continuously updated. One hopes that those areas at high risk today will not necessarily be at high risk in the years to come if the measures that we invest in now are carried out appropriately and if our rationale and assumptions are correct.

Single-Use Plastics

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ban (1) the sale of single use plastics, and (2) other single use materials.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, where evidence supports the case for a ban we will act, as we have with a number of plastic items—straws, stirrers, cotton buds—and as we plan to do on further single-use plastic items. The Environment Act enables us to introduce a range of other measures to tackle single-use items, including a deposit-return scheme for drinks containers, extended producer responsibility schemes and charges on any single-use items, regardless of material.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but why are the Government insisting on consulting on every plastic single-use item separately, when the damage to the environment is well known? We have just finished the consultation on plates, cutlery, and balloon sticks, then there is a longer drawn-out process to consult on wet wipes and plastic cups, and I am sure that there will then be a further delay, then a few more items will be investigated. We gave the Government powers in the Environment Act to introduce a comprehensive ban on polluting single-use items, so why are they not dealing with this on a comprehensive basis? It would be hugely popular. Why must it be done item by item over such a long time?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I very much share the frustrations of the noble Baroness about how long some of these things take, but it is worth pointing out that, as she says, we now have the power to ban products which cause environmental pollution and are harmful to human or animal health and harmful to nature more broadly. The bans that have already been introduced, on plastic bags, for example, resulted in a 95% reduction in sales. Straws, stirrers and cotton buds have reduced by similar amounts and there are many more products in the pipeline where the UK Government are very likely to be introducing the necessary bans.

Waste and Agriculture (Legislative Functions) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his full introduction to this relatively straightforward instrument dealing mainly with waste. The Explanatory Memorandum claims that without this SI it would be “cumbersome” and difficult to make any necessary changes to take account of new methods of sampling and waste treatment in future.

Paragraph 7.2 of the EM sets out the functions already in place and working well but does not mention those that are perhaps not working well. Is the Minister able to say whether any of the functions under the EU directives concerning waste that have transferred are not working as expected?

I am afraid I have some somewhat detailed questions. The various categories of waste covered by this SI are wide. In Chapter 5, Regulations 12 and 13 deal with the retention of functions from the batteries directive. This includes powers to specify criteria relating to the export of waste batteries. Regulation 12(1) states that an

“appropriate authority may, by regulations, make provision specifying criteria for the assessment of equivalent conditions where treatment and recycling of waste batteries takes place outside the United Kingdom.”

The Minister will know that all households are now aware that they cannot just throw their expired batteries into the waste bin but have to dispose of them safely. Having disposed of my batteries in the relevant safe way, I am sure I am not alone in not expecting them to be exported for their final resting place. Can the Minister say just what percentage of the

“batteries, accumulators and battery packs”

referred to in Regulation 13 is disposed of within the United Kingdom and what percentage is exported for disposal, and which countries take our batteries for disposal?

While I have not read all the directives covered by this SI, I have done some investigation on the mining waste directive, 2006/21/EC. This covers extractive waste from land-based extractive industries and the relevant regulatory procedures required for England and Wales under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. This relates to unpolluted soil, non-hazardous waste from prospecting of mineral resources, except oil and evaporates, and waste from peat extraction. The definition of extractive waste is unpolluted soil and waste arising from prospecting for mineral resources and from peat workings. I am sure the Minister can see which way I am going.

Article 3(15) further states that for a site to be considered as a mining waste facility, the extractive waste would have to be kept in it for differing periods of time depending on the category of waste. For

“unpolluted soil, non-hazardous prospecting waste, waste resulting from the extraction, treatment and storage of peat and inert waste”,

this is specified as

“a period of more than three years”.

Can the Minister say what the average time period of storage is for extractive peat waste and what the quantities are currently likely to be?

The section in the instrument relating to agriculture is at the end under Part 4 and relates solely to the financing, management and monitoring of the common agriculture policy, in so far as it relates to CMO markets and rural development measures, and corrects errors in previous SIs on the subject. Given the number of SIs in the past on this subject, although they were before the Minister was in post, can he give reassurances that this SI is a catch-all and corrects all previous errors, or are there likely to be more? As I said, this is something of a tidying-up SI, and I am happy to support it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this SI, and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing this SI to our attention. As the Minister said, the SI proposes to transfer several technical powers relating to waste from the European Commission to the Secretary of State, as well as correcting an error. In this regard, I have a number of questions.

First, can the Minister say when the error was first identified and why it has taken so long to bring the correction before us? This partly echoes the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that a lot of water has gone under the bridge since the SI was first drafted. We have dealt with a number of corrections over the years, so why has this one taken so long? Perhaps he could address that point.

Could the Minister also say whether there have been any adverse consequences resulting from this drafting error? If there was no definition of the appropriate authority, I would have thought it undermined the whole legislation and that the legislation had no standing if it did not say who had the authority to carry it out. I would like to have a better understanding of what has been happening in the intervening period since the original wording was agreed by us. Perhaps he could also explain how that error came to light and why that took so long.

Secondly, referring to the various waste management standards, which the Minister said are all currently operational, can I double check whether all those standards were approved by Parliament in the first place? In other words, have they been signed off in the normal way?

Thirdly, paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that

“if this SI were to fail and the powers were not transferred to the Secretary of State”,

it would not be possible to make regulations to take account of improved scientific techniques in the future. In other words, this is the only way to do that. I take slight issue with that, because surely there remains the option of bringing forward new regulations to take account of improved scientific knowledge, an option that would exist at any time, without necessarily giving all those powers to the Secretary of State. We are being asked to give up our involvement in those decisions. That matters because, as we all know, having debated so many SIs in the past, the definition of improved scientific knowledge is a bit of a movable feast, and we might have a different view in Parliament from the Secretary of State.

The Explanatory Memorandum says that this is to allow more flexibility for the Secretary of State in responding

“to scientific and technical changes”.

But given the Government’s current excitement about the forthcoming Brexit freedoms Bill, how can we be sure that the freedoms for the Secretary of State set out in this SI will not be used to reduce standards in the name of technical advance? For example, there are several references in the SI to the Secretary of State being able to exercise this power only if it is considered

“appropriate to do so as a result of scientific and technical progress”.

This phrase is used in Schedule 6(3) relating to end-of-life vehicles, in Schedule 11(2)(a) relating to mining waste, and in Schedule 20(2) relating to the WEEE directive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the Minister said he will go through Hansard and perhaps give us a more detailed reply, but I suspect he already knows the answer to the last question I asked him. Partly on the back of the Brexit freedoms Bill, is there a wider review of the powers of the Secretary of State arising from the withdrawal Act, as set out in paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum? Is this a one-off, devolved to the Secretary of State, or are the Government going back and looking at all the provisions in the withdrawal Act? Is that a bigger process that Defra is involved in?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

No, it is not. Defra is one of the busiest departments of government at the moment, not least because we have an enormous amount of follow-up to do following the passing of the Environment Act. An enormous amount of secondary legislation and work will follow. One area of the work we are looking at is how we can refine, and potentially improve, the habitats directive. That is also taking up a lot of bandwidth. What we are talking about here today is not the thin end of any kind of wedge. There is no overall Defra review that is happening. In the context of what we are talking about today, I can say that this is a one-off, as opposed to part of an overall review.

Peat

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I am very happy to make that commitment on behalf of my colleagues in whose portfolio and remit this issue sits. From an international perspective, the noble Baroness makes a very important point. We are designing programmes on the back of the new commitments we have made using our ODA; £3 billion of our international climate finance commitment will be invested in nature-based solutions, a very big part of which will be peatlands. I hope that we can describe in more detail soon what those projects will involve.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, in a Written Answer to me, the Minister stated that all government departments and their arms-length organisations should meet the mandatory government buying standards, which include not purchasing peat. Can he confirm that all government departments are indeed abiding by that ruling, and explain why organisations such as the Forestry Commission are still purchasing and using peat when, as we have heard, other alternatives are available?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: Forestry England continues to use peat in the manner she has described. However, it has committed to eliminating completely the use of peat in the growing media by 2028 at the very latest. All government departments and their related organisations must ensure that they meet the minimum mandatory government buying standards when buying goods and services. We also encourage the wider public sector to do likewise, but it is certainly our intention to accelerate the progress that is and being and needs to be made.

Rivers and Coastal Waters: Sewage

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point. There is no doubt that wet wipes can be a serious contributing factor to overflows at treatment works. Defra has already announced a call for evidence, which will explore among other things a possible ban on single-use wet wipes—or at least those that contain plastics. I assure the noble Baroness that, whatever the outcomes of that call for evidence, we are absolutely determined and willing to do whatever is necessary.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the chair of the Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd, said recently that the directors of water companies that are guilty of repeated deliberate or reckless breaches of environmental law should be struck off and, potentially, given custodial sentences. Does the Minister agree with her? If so, what are the Government doing to ensure that the individual directors responsible for these environmental crimes pay the right penalty for those actions?