Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Viscount Ridley

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Moorland Association and as the owner of moorland in County Durham. I shall address the issue of emissions. There is good scientific reason to think that the SI to restrict burning might actually increase net CO₂ emissions—some noble Lords may vote this evening to regret that possibility—and here is why: cool heather burning generates only a very small percentage of the emissions from heather moorland, as we have heard, and it enhances the sequestration of carbon. Recent scientific research by the University of York has revealed that, if you cut heather, it releases high levels of CO₂ as it rots. By contrast, burning turns some of it into inner charcoal, which does not rot but remains in the ground for many decades. More importantly, heather burning prevents the shading out of sphagnum mosses, which are by far the largest sequestrators of carbon in blanket bogs. This has been demonstrated by experiments, but it is also obvious to anybody who has spent time examining the vegetation on moorland.

I ask my noble friends, and I also ask the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to recognise the fact that grouse moor managers have already delivered 25% of the Government’s 2025 peatland restoration target for the whole of England. They have blocked 4,000 miles of drains over 20 years and restored at least 66,000 acres of bare peat. This work is saving 60,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year. Peat restoration partnerships are an effective example of stakeholders working together. Blocking agricultural drains resulted in the North Pennines area of outstanding natural beauty peatland programme being award the climate change award at the Durham Environment Awards 2015. Its management plan recognised that sound grouse moor management can contribute significantly to the conservation and enhancement of natural beauty. So will the Minister agree to keep the science under review, so we can find out whether this burning restriction actually increases emissions from peatland, as is entirely possible?

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, is not participating in this debate, so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw.

Business of the House

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Viscount Ridley

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley]

I have taken five minutes so I do not quite understand his point, but there we are.

I am always conscious that the House of Lords should not exceed its powers. It is not an elected Chamber and it does not have the democratic legitimacy of the Commons. That applies to life Peers as well as to hereditary Peers. Our job is not to force through legislation but to tidy up, revise, gently question, and sometimes to ask the Commons to think again. This is surely a case where we should be doing that. We should ask the Commons to think again about shoving legislation through in this unprecedented fashion. I am equally clear that if there is ever a time when the House of Lords suddenly needs to discover its constitutional teeth, it is when the Commons is doing something unconstitutional, egregious, hurried and potentially worrying. This is not an argument about Brexit but about doing things properly.

If there ever was a justification for the constitutional monstrosities of hereditary Peers being still here, it is that we can occasionally cry foul when a despotic majority tries to ride roughshod over the carefully balanced but fragile device that is the British constitution and—if noble Lords will excuse the mixed metaphor—to stand against the sudden and dangerous enthusiasm of a temporary, 50.08%, majority that does not want to do things in the proper way. What is more temporary than the majority exercised by Sir Oliver Letwin? In this case, the despotic majority is the Motion passed by a single vote in the other place at something like the third attempt. A majority is no less despotic for being small if it is allowed to be unconstitutional.

The purpose of the Commons passing that measure was to take control of the House of Commons and force a Bill on to the Order Paper to defy the clear wishes of a huge popular vote of 17.4 million people and deny them what they have voted for—namely, Brexit, if necessary without a deal, on the date they had been repeatedly promised. You can be in favour of that or against it—

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Respectfully, can the noble Viscount supply the evidence to show that the 17.4 million British people who voted to leave voted to leave without a deal? They were given many options, and many promises were made to the effect that that would not happen. What evidence does he have that they would prefer no deal to any other outcome?

[Viscount Ridley]

Those 17.4 million people voted for Brexit, and it is abundantly clear from what both Houses of Parliament have done since—passing Article 50, setting a date, and the Prime Minister saying hundreds of times that no deal is better than a bad deal—

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

Can the noble Viscount explain why—when we have been telling ourselves for a long time that Parliament and the people no longer speak with the same voice—Parliament having made that decision and said those things is the same as the people having done so?

[Viscount Ridley]

We are here because there is a difference between a remainer Parliament and a leaver majority in the country. That is why we are here; that is the problem we are trying to resolve. My argument is that this Bill does not resolve it because it denies them the clearest form of Brexit, which all the polls suggest an awful lot of people want.