El Niño

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to highlight the attention that is being paid to the impact of El Niño. Indeed, the Government Office for Science is undertaking work to assess the potential impacts on the UK, including implications, as I said, for the food system. Defra is working with the Met Office and other government departments to understand this and the wider risks to our national resilience. There is no current evidence that this event will lead to food security issues for the UK, although we continue to assess emerging evidence and forecasts, as well as industry intelligence. The Government published their annual statement on national resilience on 14 July this year, in which we announced a multi-year campaign to direct the public to updated guidance on simple steps that they can take to make sure they are prepared for risks such as power cuts or storms. This campaign, which builds on existing guidance that we already publish on GOV.UK/prepare, will launch later in the year and will indeed bring the UK into line with European peers, most of which already run similar awareness activity.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, with consecutive droughts followed by a flood, the consequences for the UK are severe. The Government have tools in their toolbox, such as the Cunliffe report and the forthcoming clean water Bill. For what reason has the clean water Bill been delayed until next year, if that is the case?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to point out the importance of the Cunliffe report and the need to reform the water industry, but this is a very complex matter. As she noted, or at least implied, we are due to have a water Bill and, as was announced in the King’s Speech, it is coming. We will unveil further reforms as part of that process.

King’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, who has so recently been released from his duties as what you might call the enforcer of policy on the Liberal Democrat Benches. It was a joy to hear his contribution. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate on the humble Address, and I congratulate the proposer and seconder on their opening contributions. I was honoured to have coincided with the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, in our time together in the European Parliament, and pay tribute to her work both there and here. I was also hugely impressed by the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Roe of West Wickham, who has served this country with great distinction both in a military capacity and, more recently, in the fire service. We look forward to many contributions from him.

I find myself in agreement with much of what was said in the last two speeches. I particularly want to build on the points raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, in particular, the challenge of the rural economy and the contribution that farming and food production can make to economic growth in rural areas.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Obviously, we have seen the challenges of energy supply and the challenges to farming from the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine and the Middle East, and, more recently, the clean energy proposals put forward by this Government, which are primed to take 10% of some of the best farmland out of production. I believe they should be looking at alternatives such as nuclear, and I welcome the contribution nuclear will make going forward.

I would like to pause for a moment and look at the European partnership Bill. Like many others, I have been following the SPS agreement and the negotiations. I hope that this approach will lead to something more along the lines of the frictionless trade we were promised at the time of the referendum. Other promises, noble Lords might recall, included to “take back control”. In areas such as immigration that certainly has not materialised, but a lot could be achieved on an ongoing basis through the SPS agreement, and by building on that in the new European partnership Bill.

I ask the Minister whether we could look in particular at BTOM—the border target operating model—which was introduced relatively recently. Are the Government going to review and refine that as part of this agreement? We were very late in putting checks in place on imports of food and drink, plants and horticulture from EU countries, whereas our producers have obviously experienced delays and barriers arising from the checks and balances imposed on imports of our goods. I would be very interested to know whether there is scope for further welcome refinement of what is a relatively new development.

I would also like to understand the thinking behind the Government proceeding on the basis of dynamic alignment in an agreement with Europe, and whether other farming competitor countries, such as New Zealand, have achieved an agreement with the EU of equivalence on SPS and imports and exports. Our farming community would have greatly favoured that, and I hope the Government will keep an open door in this regard. There is a coalition of agreement across the House that equivalence is a better way to proceed. Dynamic alignment would mean automatically having to follow EU rules, which could retain barriers that it is the will of the Government and this House to remove; we do not wish to see new barriers put in their place. Therefore, I voice a vote of confidence in the Government’s negotiating skills—that we can look more to equivalence than dynamic alignment. That would greatly help our farmers and food producers.

In noting Government’s clean energy proposals—we are going to have another clean energy Bill—I hope that they will seek to protect the countryside as we know it. It is unacceptable that those who live in the countryside are going to face massive installations, such as in the very village in which my noble friend Lord Kirkhope lives, and where my goddaughter and niece also live. The little village of Scotton, and adjoining Lingerfield, are facing all sorts of horrors: two solar farms and a huge battery installation, married to the pylons and overhead power lines that will have to transport this into the grid. I make a plea to the Government in looking to the grid not to obsess about our national grid. Why are we not looking at a local grid, making sure that the electricity and energy generated can be consumed as close to the point of production as possible? That would be a much better way forward.

I turn to the water Bill. I welcome the Cunliffe review, the subsequent water White Paper and the proposals that were outlined in the King’s Speech. However, I add a word of caution: there are challenges in merging the economic regulation of the water sector and environmental regulation into one body. What I think is clearly missing since we left the European Union is the role of the European Commission, backed up by the possible referral to the European Court of Justice, which had real teeth in relation to underlying infringements by any water company. That, together with privatisation, has dramatically changed the way the water sector cleaned up the act of both our rivers and our seas in the 1980s. I am delighted that that took place under a Conservative Government; it is an achievement of which I, for one, am personally very proud.

I hope that the Government will take the opportunity of the water Bill also to give water companies the tools they require to do the job. I welcome the reference to looking at pre-pipe solutions—that is where it is going woefully wrong at the moment. All the emphasis seems to be on saying, “Let’s deal with the water—let’s call it sewage—coming out of these four- or five-bedroom homes”, whereas we should look at pre-pipe solutions. Planning applications should be granted only if there is capacity for the waste and sewage to be disposed of safely.

Let us give water companies the power to do the job. Let us make them statutory consultees, particularly in major planning applications of all kinds, including for data centres and major housing developments. Let us look at more natural solutions to flooding and water resilience and to making sustainable drainage systems mandatory. Let us have more slow-the-flow water schemes, such as we currently enjoy in Pickering, which has prevented Pickering and the downward communities from flooding.

I look forward to scrutinising these Bills as they appear before the House. I lend my support to what the Government are trying to do, but I believe that we need to look at, for example, areas of equivalence, rather than dynamic alignment, to make sure that we have joined-up thinking on farming, food production and energy supply.

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to support the sentiments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Kramer, in tabling these amendments, in particular Amendment 9A. I declare my interest as advising the board of the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. I wonder whether, when the Minister comes to respond to this group, he could clarify the position. I noticed that dispensing doctors are not referred to in Amendment 9A, but in effect they probably employ more staff than other GPs, pharmacies or organisations itemised in the amendment.

The reason for that is that, in addition to dispensing to regular patients, dispensing doctors also perform a profoundly important role in rural areas where there is no community pharmacy, because their patients have nowhere else to go. A dispensing doctor normally intervenes to dispense in those rare circumstances. I have to say that the reason I am so familiar with dispensing doctors is that my late father and my now retired brother were both dispensing doctors.

As dispensing doctors are quite large employers in this regard, is the Minister minded to look favourably on reimbursing them for the additional costs that they will incur through the increase in national insurance contributions, either through the very helpful amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, by adding dispensing doctors to it, or will he look at some other avenue to ensure that the costs incurred by dispensing doctors will be met? I am sure the Minister is aware that pharmacies and dispensing doctors are currently not being fully reimbursed for the costs of medicines that they are dispensing or prescribing, so they are in an acutely difficult position caused by the Government’s announcements on national insurance contributions in the last Budget. I ask him to answer those points in addition to those raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, which seek to mitigate the effect that the measures in this Bill will have on charities that provide social care. Particular attention needs to be paid to those that provide services in areas where the primary responsibility lies on the public sector. I understand that about one-third of social care staff in Scotland are employed by the voluntary sector. The support that they provide is an essential part of the system of social care in Scotland as a whole, and without their support the public services as currently funded would be quite unable to meet what the public need demands of them.

To put a little colour on what I have just been saying, I will return very briefly to an example I gave to the Grand Committee—that of the Cyrenians, a charity that addresses the causes and consequences of homelessness in the south-east of Scotland. It sees homelessness as something which is always about much more than a lack of housing; it cannot be solved simply by building more houses, nor can it be solved by the public sector alone. What the Cyrenians do is help people to avoid becoming homeless in the first place. It provides a range of services, such as mediation and support to families that are at risk of breakdown—which leads in due course to homelessness of one partner or the other.

The Cyrenians charity also provides services to ensure that people coming out of hospital are not discharged into homelessness. It runs a residential community which provides accommodation for people with acute psychiatric and mental health problems who have been discharged from a hospital where they have been receiving treatment. These are people who can be discharged only because that support is available.

All in all, the Cyrenians run over 60 services with a staff of over 200. It estimates that the increase to national insurance contributions provided for in the Bill will cost it about £170,000 a year. This is a significant burden on its finances which, for various reasons, are already being stretched very thin. I am told that it cannot benefit from any increase in the employment allowance. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but the charity believes that it is not eligible, as its class 1 national insurance liabilities were more than £100,000 in the last year. The public sector exemption is not available either.

The result is that the charity will no longer be able to provide the training and development that its staff need. That will lead, inevitably, to an erosion in the extent and quality of the service that it offers. Those who will suffer will be those most in need of protection: those who are at risk of, or who are already suffering from, homelessness, for whom the public services cannot provide.

Another Scottish charity that works in the area of social care is Ark Housing Association. It is a larger organisation which is in a similar position to that of the Cyrenians in that it seeks to provide services across a large area of Scotland. In its case, these services are offered to vulnerable adults, such as those with a learning disability and other complex needs. As matters stand, that charity too is not eligible for any support from the Government, as it has a turnover of about £24 million per year and employs over 700 people. It estimates that the effect of the Bill on its operations will be, in its own words, “devastating”.

As matters stand, the charges that it faces to do its work barely break even, year after year. It estimates that its national insurance increases will amount to a further £600,000 per year. This means that it will not be able to survive without damaging cuts to its services to reduce costs, and even these may not be enough for it to survive. As in the case of the Cyrenians, the people most affected are the thousands of vulnerable people for whom the social care that Ark provides is a vital lifeline, and who have nowhere else to go.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, as the Bill stands, social care and support providers in the third sector in Scotland will face a situation of crisis that the public services simply cannot cope with. Something has to give, and the responsibility for this lies with the Government. I hope that the Minister will feel able to assure the House that he recognises that something needs to be done to minimise the impact of these increases on this sector. For the time being, however, I will support the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, if she decides to press her amendment.

Inheritance Tax, National Insurance and VAT

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, on securing this debate. I will focus my remark on the Budget proposals threatening to break up and cause the collapse of family farms, in turn taking land out of food production while also threatening prospects for tenant farmers.

This proposal is economically illiterate. The current policy was permitted in the first place precisely because farms are capital rich and cash poor. Farmers contribute significantly to the UK economy. The figures from the ONS demonstrate that, in 2022, agriculture contributed £12.7 billion to England’s GVA—of which Yorkshire and the Humber contributed almost £1.5 billion—and in Scotland agriculture contributed £2.5 billion. So why would any Government imperil that part of the economy, and how much would it raise?

In the Urgent Question repeat today, the Minister admitted that figures from the OBR show that these proposals for APR and inheritance tax, taken together, will raise only £0.5 billion and not before 2029-30. As the OBR Supplementary Forecast Information Release of 22 January shows:

“the yield from this measure is not likely to reach a steady state for at least 20 years”

and that

“This policy costing was assigned a ‘high’ uncertainty rating”,


owing to the uncertainty of how farmers would respond to the measures

“given the range of options potentially available. This in turn adds uncertainty to the modelling of the behavioural responses”.

You could not make it up. It is a highly uncertain as well as highly undeliverable policy, representing a complete onslaught on rural life from a metropolitan elite, on top of the cancellation of the rural services delivery grant and planning laws leading to the destruction of the countryside. This is a cruel, nonsensical policy and should be reversed.

Climate Agenda

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lilley on initiating it. I too welcome my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead to these Benches and warmly congratulate her on her formidable maiden speech. We entered Parliament together in the other place in 1997, and I served under her leadership in the shadow team for environment, food and rural affairs, so I can vouch that she is well versed in the issues before us today.

Personally, I accept that climate change is real and that we are subject to increasing extreme weather events. I would argue, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad did, that we need a global approach to tackling it, and we need to find international solutions of not just one country acting on its own but to act together with the EU, the US and the BRICS countries, which we saw meeting this week—otherwise, progress will be slow, and it could serve potentially only to penalise our own industry and households. I welcome the reality check by the then Prime Minister, my right honourable friend Rishi Sunak, who in September 2023 undertook a more pragmatic approach.

I would like to speak in particular to the impact of the climate agenda on rural affairs, and I have to say that it is not altogether a positive one. Let me take some examples from the recent Climate Change Committee progress report to Parliament. First, the ending of production of any cars other than electric vehicles by 2030 will be extremely challenging for rural areas. There is a lack of charging points in rural areas, and there is also a lack of range. Apparently, we have gone from charge anxiety to range anxiety. If a car can go only 200 miles maximum, without any heating, radio, windscreen wipers or air conditioning in the summer, we rural dwellers—in either summer or winter—will be lucky if we can go 100 or 150 miles without having to charge again.

Secondly, on the commitment to renewable energy, such energy is often generated on land in the north of England or Scotland, or offshore and brought in to coastal areas. Yet the energy created is transported across rural and coastal areas—away from the very communities that could do with that electricity more than some others—through ugly, intrusive pylons and fed into the national grid. There is a very strong argument for ensuring that, whether it is offshore or onshore wind, the energy generated serves communities close to where it is generated, which is what generally happens in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. As a result, those rural communities would be more inclined to support this type of rural energy going forward. I fear that if the Government persist with plans to criss-cross the country with even more overhead line transmission pylons, there will be a revolt. The earlier REVOLT—Rural England Versus Overhead Line Transmission—campaign, started by Professor O’Carroll in North Yorkshire, may be dormant but it will be revived if this persists.

Thirdly, the recommendations to ramp up tree planting and peatland restoration both sound like good ideas, but we should be aware that it takes 200 years to create a peat bog. Realistically, while we can bring about modest achievements such as the peat dams we created through the Slow the Flow project to prevent flooding in Pickering and North Yorkshire, it takes 200 years to create a peat bog from scratch. Tree planting in inappropriate areas can in fact be extremely damaging: it can create more floods, rather than prevent them. Also, I firmly believe that trees should not be planted on most fertile, productive farmland.

As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans set out, farmers have a key role to play in tackling climate change and achieving net zero. They have been the victims, particularly over the past 18 months, of the record rainfall taking large rafts of land out of production. My noble friend Lady May referred to 2023 being the hottest year on record; the last 18 months is the wettest period on record, particularly in England. Farmers would like to become more self-sufficient in energy production but, as I understand it, they are currently prevented from doing so by existing planning rules. The rules should be revisited to ensure that farmers can generate more of the energy they need, as other businesses are doing.

The rural economy provides the food we eat, and farmers are the powerhouse of rural communities. If we have learned anything from the current invasion and hostilities in Ukraine, it is that we need to boost our self-sufficiency in food, not least in fruit and vegetables, which is woeful: we are only 16% self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables. We also need to boost our food security. Food security and energy security are complementary and should go hand in hand.

The climate agenda should work just as well for rural areas as for urban ones. It should not undermine food production, jobs, growth and prosperity in rural communities, as it currently appears to do.

Procurement Act 2023

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I will look into that matter and write to the noble Lord on that point.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in their manifesto, the Government committed themselves

“through public sector targets to source locally-produced food”

to help farmers. We on this side would applaud that, but how does the Minister square that with the terms of the Procurement Act, which prevents farmers and others from bidding to be sources of food in schools, prisons and hospitals?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am not aware of any particular measures that would prevent them from doing that, but I will look into that matter and revert to the noble Baroness.

Bus Fares: National Cap

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I completely agree with my noble friend. There is no point in having a regular train service if passengers cannot reach it by bus. It is always about the consideration of the last mile of a journey. If people get into their cars, they tend to stay there. It is a very important aspect that has been picked up by looking at the bus open data service. Bus companies sharing their data has been an enormous problem—anyone in the north of England knows that that helped prevent us bringing in an Oyster-style ticketing service across the north. It is crucial that we get this right and that all companies are obliged to share the information.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Could I press the noble Baroness further? She has given a very positive answer on concessionary fares for the elderly, but her response does not actually give a commitment to continue the £2 fare. Could she give a more positive answer about the timetable and an assurance that there will be no cliff edge from 31 December this year, particularly for young people and those living in rural areas who do not benefit from the concessionary fare, which has played such a positive role in rural transport?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I hope I made it clear that the success of the scheme is well recognised. We have to look at all aspects to make sure that it is sustainable going forward and that we do not have to return to this in the future. So many people depend on this and it is very popular. Of all the schemes that have come into place, this one is very well known; the public actually know about it and this has led to an increase in patronage. People have changed their habits from using other forms of transport to using the bus. In my view, it has been a real success.