Storm Bert: National Preparedness

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Flood Re has been running for a number of years, and I am sure the noble Earl and other noble Lords are aware of the exceptions to what can be put forward to it—for example, multiple-occupation buildings. My understanding is that it is being reviewed, because it is available only up to a certain date and we have reached the stage where it will be looked at. The other issue is that businesses are not covered either. It is important that we continue to monitor and review its effectiveness, while also looking at how we support the people who are not supported by what is a very important insurance back-up.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I will take my noble friend the Minister back to the question from our noble friend Lord Harris on paving in built-up areas. I hope I did not mishear her; I think she did not specifically say whether the new planning arrangements will address that issue, which is a very serious problem in high-density urban areas. It is usually to do with people wanting to park cars. Will the Government promote the use of porous materials, which will support the weight of vehicles but are much less damaging to the environment?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I do not want to pre-empt the outcomes of the National Planning Policy Framework, but some excellent porous materials are now available, and it is important that the Government encourage their usage where they are appropriate.

Farmers: Flooding Compensation

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Lord is right about the 150-metre restriction, which was lifted within 48 hours of that announcement. The farming recovery fund will pay farmers who suffered uninsurable damage from exceptionally high continued rainfall from Storm Henk in the period 2 to 12 January this year. The fund is a contribution towards the cost of recultivating whole land parcels flooded by notably high river levels caused by the storm. For grassland, the grant is towards the cost of recultivating grassland ready for reseeding; for arable land, it is for getting the land ready to plant crops. I appreciate the noble Lord’s point that there is extensive damage over a lot of areas, but it is not the Government’s intention or job to compensate every single farmer for all those issues.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend look kindly on the fact that livestock farmers are unable to put their sheep and lambs on to the fields because the fields are simply too wet? That is going to have devastating consequences for the livestock industry in North Yorkshire and other parts of the north of England. Will he agree to be less prescriptive with the criteria set out in the farm recovery fund? Will he go further and recognise the role that internal drainage boards play—I speak as a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities —in regular drainage maintenance and recovery after floods of minor watercourses? Will he look to create more of them where it is appropriate to do so?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I am particularly sympathetic to the issue of livestock farmers, being one myself. As I explained in my opening comments, that fund is restricted to a number of areas at the moment but we are exploring what else we might apply it to. There are a number of funds that the farming community can use, and this is just one of them. The flood recovery framework covers the business recovery grant. It also includes the property flood resilience repair grant, and it provides for business rates relief from local authorities.

Peatlands

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

My noble friend makes another very good point on the use of a range of different measures for protecting our uplands from wildfire. We have in our armoury, if you like, the ability to cut heather, and we still allow people to burn heather in certain areas and, in particular, to use that as a defence against wildfire.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ritchie referred to the use of peat in horticulture. Will the Minister remind the House what the Government have done and what they will do in the future to reduce to zero the use of peat in horticulture, both domestically and commercially?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

My Lords, we need to give the horticultural industry some time to adapt. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are committed to banning peat in horticulture. The reason we have not got there yet is primarily down to parliamentary time. I hope that we will be able to address that issue very shortly.

Food Import Requirements

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. I am afraid I am not an expert on apple varieties across the UK, but I know that there has been quite a lot of emphasis in government policy of late to widen the breadth of our different types of seeds and trees. I am sure that apples will be on the list; I will check for him.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, may I take the Minister back to his answer to the question from my noble friend Lord Berkeley? Perhaps I am very stupid, but I found it quite difficult to understand what he was telling us about the difference between what will happen in Dover and what will happen at the new facility outside Ashford. If people are being checked at Dover, what is then happening at Ashford? What is to prevent—this is the question he was asked—lorries leaving Dover that should be going to Ashford not doing so?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I hope I can clarify that for the noble Baroness. If you are commercially importing goods into the UK, you are following a system where you fill out an electronic form and that form identifies whether you are in the high, medium or low-risk category and whether you are going to be selected for a check at Sevington. When you arrive at the Port of Dover in your lorry, you will be notified that you have been selected for a check, and that information goes from the Port of Dover to Sevington. Sevington is then expecting to see the delivery arrive there shortly thereafter. That is entirely different from a white van arriving with illegally imported products—let us just call it pork—from eastern Poland. That is checked by Border Force at the port of Dover. So you have Border Force and you have border control posts, and they perform different functions.

Climate Change

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I have no knowledge that we are going to row back on that commitment. It was made by three recent Prime Ministers, and we want to make sure that it continues.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister, in an earlier answer, referred in passing to the production—I think that was the word he used —of more reservoirs. Can he tell the House what plans there are for reservoir building in England at the moment and where those reservoirs are planned for?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My experience of this is that it is not quick enough. The River Thames is the conduit for water for a number of water companies in the south- east and it needs a reservoir in its headwaters. That has been being planned now for more than a decade and a half, and we want to see it built. It is unlikely to be built within the next decade because it is an incredibly complex process, but we are also looking at trying to move water more effectively. We can now move water from Yorkshire to Ipswich and from parts of Wales into the south-east of England—I know that is a controversial issue and I do not want to unleash the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on that one. We are looking to use technology to move water more effectively.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Clause 1: Precision bred organism

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I should advise the Committee that, if the following amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments 2 to 9 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 1

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, the problem with propagation is that once you propagate organisms, you end up with all sorts of effects on the environment that you really do not expect. That will obviously come up later, and it is one of the concerns addressed in the amendments I have put down today. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw to the attention of the Committee that in the amendment we are about to discuss, the Marshalled List says,

“leave lines 4 to 6”.

I believe it should say “leave out” and that is what I propose. If I am wrong, I hope somebody will shout.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and, indeed, our very acute Committee chair. I will speak to my Amendments 11 and 86 in this group. It is a great pleasure to follow the House’s acknowledged expert, who set out very clearly the major problems with this Bill and, indirectly, made the arguments for the two amendments I am presenting here. It is perhaps worth starting with my Amendment 86, which amends the Short Title of the Bill, leaving out “Precision Breeding” and inserting “Genome Editing”. I am very happy to debate whether that should be “gene editing” or whatever, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Winston, clearly set out the reasons why we should not be debating a Bill called “Precision Breeding”. As he said, there is no such thing as precision in biology.

There are many areas of science in which “precision” is appropriate and extremely useful. We think about elements of physics and mechanical engineering, say, and talk about going down to millimetres, micrometres, nanometres. We can look at how those might change when the temperature changes, for example. All of those things will be eminently, entirely predictable. That is true of physical properties, but it is not true of biological properties, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, clearly set out.

I covered this issue extensively at Second Reading, so I am not going to go into it at great length, but essentially, precision breeding is an advertising slogan; it is not a legal description. I do not believe that an advertising slogan should have a place in the title of a Bill. Interestingly, when it was put to me that I should seek to amend the Short Title, a technical expert said to me, “You will never get that through the Clerks”. In fact, it went through without a murmur. I think there is a real awareness that this Bill is not properly titled.

Horticultural Sector

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register. I will do my best in the short time I have to answer the many questions that have been asked.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Fookes on securing this debate and welcome the opportunity to respond on the matter of careers in the horticultural sector, as well as on the sector’s role in protecting the environment—a point she eloquently made. She is entirely right, as were other noble Lords, to talk about the wider benefits of this sector in terms of the Government’s growth agenda, biodiversity, net zero, well-being—which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell—and of course for our food security. The Government recognise my noble friend’s commitment to this important sector, including through her work, which she referred to, with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gardening and Horticulture, which she so ably co-chairs. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to say a few words on this important subject today.

We are all aware of the importance of the horticultural sector to our economy both locally and nationally, with production worth more than £4.8 billion in 2021. Our climate allows our talented and hard-working growers to produce a wide range of wonderful fruit and vegetables. I am sure your Lordships will agree that, being a nation of passionate gardeners—there are 30 million gardeners in this country—we need, for want of a better word, to weaponise them for all the good that I referred to earlier which they can deliver, as well as, of course, for the aesthetic beauty of what they produce.

My noble friend Lady Fookes and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned the importance of using unused space in gardens. I saw a wonderful scheme of garden swaps, where people who do not have access to gardens can go to those who have too much garden and grow food. It does not even require the transfer of money; they can pay for the space in fruit and vegetables.

We know that this is a hugely diverse and vital industry which we can justly be proud of, but, more importantly, it is one with enormous potential to grow. None of this would be possible without the hard work of our highly skilled and enterprising growers, and I am constantly impressed by their skill and dedication, which is so evident all around us, not just in the food that they produce but in wonderful parks and gardens and elegantly landscaped urban areas.

Perhaps more important is what they do for our economy. The horticulture sector faces an exciting but challenging, future. It needs to be sustainable and to use modern technology and practices that help the environment. So, it is now more important than ever that we make sure that these skills and this expertise are passed on to the new generation who are entering this exciting area of horticulture and agriculture and that they are progressive, professional and as excited about the opportunities as their predecessors. Attracting bright new talent into horticultural careers and having a skilled workforce in place is vital for the future of UK food and farming.

A career in horticulture is not what some people might imagine, as my noble friend said in proposing this debate. It is grounded in innovation and the use of advanced and ever-progressing technology. To be successful, it requires a good understanding of business management, climate and logistics—goodness me, we have seen that in recent years in trying to get food to market. Those skills too often associated with other professions but absolutely vital in horticulture.

By raising awareness of horticulture as an exciting and attractive career path, people will understand that the opportunities available to them in the industry are worth pursuing. That is where our friends from the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture come in. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the tireless efforts of TIAH’s founding patron, the noble Lord, Lord Curry, in his work driving TIAH from its inception, through to its creation and into its current exciting stage of development. He referred to a meeting that took place last week that brought together this sector with others. We are working together and learning from the success of other sectors in how they stimulate young people to get qualifications that they can take with them through different aspects of their working lives.

TIAH is an initiative we have been supporting aimed at ironing out the fragmentation that exists within the current learning and skills landscape for farming businesses, enabling the industry to drive forward greater uptake of skills. TIAH is developing professional competency frameworks and career profiles to demonstrate the skills required across a number of agricultural and horticultural roles and where to access the training to develop them. It also works to raise awareness about the huge variety of rewarding and exciting career opportunities available in the sector. Currently, only production is within TIAH’s remit, but its long-term intention is to bring other elements of horticulture into scope. Collaboration, however, is at the heart of what TIAH wants to deliver, and the ambition is to ensure close co-operation with the ornamental sector in areas where there are common issues.

My noble friend Lady Fookes will be familiar with the work of the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group and of course its ambitious action plan, Unlocking Green Growth, which she helped to launch at an event at which I was present. This looked at the opportunities and barriers that this dynamic horticulture sector faces in achieving sustainable growth which can be addressed through government and industry working collaboratively. The action plan identifies huge potential for growth in the sector, which could employ an additional 39,000 people by 2030 and be worth, as she said, an astonishing £42 billion to our economy. It goes on to highlight the wide range of potential benefits to society and the environment, including physical and mental health benefits for countless gardeners and all who use green spaces and nature-based solutions to the challenges presented by a changing climate.

We have an industry which, as a whole, can rightly be considered a green economy industry. That is why we in this Government are 100% on its side and are committed to work with the industry to maximise the sector’s potential. Taking up the challenge, my noble friend will no doubt have seen the reference to the development of a horticulture strategy for England in the Government’s food strategy, which we launched in June. This is a rolling programme that will examine the diverse roles of small, large and emerging growing models to increase domestic production and productivity in a sustainable way. While the government food strategy was the vehicle for the announcement, the HSFE will also include measures to support the ornamental sector in increasing productivity and domestic production in a way that enhances sustainability and resilience. We will primarily focus on the time period between now and 2030, but we intend that this work will lay the foundations for long-term impact beyond 2030 and there will of course be opportunities for industry to feed into the development of the strategy.

To award farmers and growers who produce environmental and other public goods and services, we launched the sustainable farming incentive in June this year. In that, we included the arable and horticultural soils standard. We also plan to introduce an orchards and specialist horticulture standard in the not-too-distant future.

As per a commitment in the England peat action plan, we have recently announced our intention—this answers the points raised by a number of noble Lords—to ban the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this Parliament, and we are exploring how to extend this ban to the professional horticulture sector. I was involved in conversations with the industry a decade ago on this. I was convinced at the time that the right way was a voluntary system. That has been proved wrong, despite wonderful advances by the industry. I applaud it for them, but they have not been good enough and therefore we are going to have to proceed with a ban. We are continuing to engage with the industry on making the transition to peat alternatives as seamless as possible. For example, we jointly funded research with the industry on peat replacements in professional horticulture. We will continue to work with the industry to identify blockages and help those who have not already switched to peat-free to do so.

The lights are flashing, but I gather I have a few more minutes so I will try to finish.

Defra has undertaken a review of automation in horticulture, a point raised by a lot of noble Lords, covering the edible and ornamental sectors in England. In addition to increasing productivity and horticultural-related innovation, automation can also lead to more sustainable horticultural practices. We published the report in July, and the government response will follow in the next few months.

I will refer in passing to a number of different points. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made a very good point about water usage. The industry is doing an enormous amount of work to try to limit the amount of water used in the production of food right across agriculture and horticulture. This is where government, the private sector and academia can work together.

We take innovation seriously. The farming innovation programme is part of a wider set of measures to stimulate innovation and boost sustainable productivity in agriculture and horticulture. We have invested £70.5 million so far through the new £270 million farming innovation programme for industry-led research. We announced our farming innovation pathways competition in March last year. Across the farming innovation programme, 47 projects are now live and more than a third are horticulture products.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about invasive non-native species. I assure her that this is one of my absolute priorities and a priority of my department. Our plant health experts do an amazing job. She is absolutely right to refer to growing media. I am constantly impressed by the work done to identify and limit potential risks. I am happy to talk to her in more detail later.

We will increase investment in industry-led research and development into solutions to help deliver net zero in agriculture and horticulture, including through the farming innovation programme. The Government are excited to work with the horticultural sector to meet these commitments to safeguard our environment for the future and leave it in a better place than today. His Majesty’s Government recognise the value of a thriving and competitive horticulture sector. I will try to answer any questions I have not been able to answer in the few minutes I have been given to reply. I thank my noble friend for bringing this debate forward and I look forward to further conversations on this subject in future.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I should perhaps say to those patiently waiting for the next debate that this debate did start a little late and, on Questions for Short Debate, Ministers are guaranteed a 12-minute response if they wish to use it. I apologise to those waiting.

Household Waste Recycling

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As I said, we passed provisions in the Environment Act that give us new powers to improve consistency and introduce both a deposit return scheme and an extended producer responsibility for packaging. All these measures require working with industry; we are consulting, and have consulted, on them and will bring them forward. The producer packaging measures will be brought forward in 2024.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Will the Minister address the possible small and perhaps niche issue of home composting? A lot of food waste and packaging could be composted but is not. Obviously, this is a more challenging prospect for those who do not have outside space, but what are the Government doing to encourage people who have outside space to use some of it to compost their own waste?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is a very good point. As the noble Baroness rightly says, many households do not have the ability or space to do this but those that do need to be given information. They also need to know what they can do with the end product; for example, we are banning peat as a growing medium and compost can be an alternative to that.

Wet Wipes: Disposal

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that “biodegradable” has become a bit of a weasel word as time has gone on and that it is now a very powerful bit of marketing language that does not always properly describe what you have to look at the small print to find out, which is that things that are biodegradable sometimes also contain plastic? Can he assure the House that the language used in marketing products will not be misleading in that way?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are many products that we were all told years ago were biodegradable but have now discovered are not, or which may be biodegradable to the eye but break down into microplastics. That is the problem with wet wipes: very often the material may disappear but the plastic is the problem and continues to cause problems in our environment. The noble Baroness is absolutely right.

Pesticides: Thiamethoxam

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. A lot of work is being done in organisations across the country—Rothamsted has been mentioned, but also the Roslin Institute and others in Scotland and England—where we are seeing the possibility of great advances, not through GMOs but through using and perhaps accelerating existing plant breeding techniques that will make these kinds of conversations seem very out of date.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, in answer to my noble friend Lady Whitaker, the noble Lord talked about the benefits of urban gardens for pollinators. Of course, he is absolutely right. One of the reasons why pollinators are very well served by urban gardens is that there is the great diversity of plant life there compared with, say, mass agricultural areas. However, there is a problem with people concreting over urban garden space. Could he say what the Government are doing in conjunction with local authorities to discourage this practice? It is a problem not only for pollinators but for flood management.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s last point is the one where the Government can be most effective, particularly with building regulations and planning policy. It is hard to say to a householder, “You cannot get rid of a 10 by 10 lawn outside your house”, but we can design in green infrastructure. An enormous amount of work is going on across government to try to make sure that we are greening our planning policies and urban infrastructure to address precisely the point that she raises.