Waste: Chinese Import Ban

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Greaves on bringing forward this debate. It is not only topical but incredibly timely in view of the fact that the environment strategy was launched today.

My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, have already mentioned the BBC programme “Blue Planet II”, which has to claim quite a lot of the credit for sensitising the public to just how severe the problem is. However, credit must also go to the organisations that have been working on this issue for years. For example, the Marine Conservation Society has been carrying out beach surveys and looking at the different types of plastic and the build-up of plastic—from the little things used to clean ears, such as Q-tips and so on, through to the big plastic items that we have all seen on beaches. The work of the Marine Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace has meant that the public have become more and more aware of this issue, even before seeing “Blue Planet II”.

I think that consumers are now willing to act but they face a really confusing scenario. The Prime Minister is quite right: you need a degree in chemistry to interpret what is on the back of some packets. For example, earlier I was looking at the back of a pack of wet wipes. Some people might assume that these wipes are just paper impregnated with liquid, but that is not the case. They contain lots of plastic, which is why you cannot flush them down the loo, and presumably the time they take to degrade is similar to that of a nappy.

Industry, too, will need a big incentive when it comes to considering what to do about packaging. At the moment, the incentive is all on the side of producing packaging that is good for marketing. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: what sort of incentive can the Government consider to encourage industry so that recyclability is built into the design of products? I shall give your Lordships an example. When you buy a pair of scissors, you might find them just hanging on a hook in the shop with a price tag on them, but all too frequently they are packaged with a cardboard backing and a very hard plastic front so that you need another pair of scissors to cut open the packaging to get to them. Why on earth is that product packed in a plastic bubble?

Retailers could start to demand from industry that items come with less packaging. We must also think about online retailers. For example, if your Lordships have ever ordered a very small item from Amazon, such as a camera, they will know that it comes in a box of immense proportions. It looks as though you are going to unwrap a giant item but the box is filled with polystyrene packaging. For a start, that could be shredded paper instead, but the item could have been packed in a much smaller box and it would, I am sure, still have been quite safe. Plastic-free aisles are welcome but we will have to make sure that they do not just disincentivise getting rid of plastic from the rest of the items in the supermarket.

The Government will have their work cut out. Back in 2010 they set about a bonfire of quangos and regulations, and year on year they have cut funding to local authorities. As my noble friend Lord Greaves pointed out, local authorities do not have any slack. They cannot increase their capacity to run pilot schemes and so on with a view to improving recycling collection rates. The Government should look at why Germany’s recycling rates are so much higher than ours. Germany, South Korea and Slovenia have the highest rates. What are they doing that is so right? Perhaps the biggest blow will be the loss of the EU circular economy package as we face Brexit. That would have been very helpful, and I hope that the Government will still consider adopting it in its entirety.

My second question is: what about biodegradable plastic? I do not have a firm view on it but I understand that it is confusing the issue. On the one hand, biodegradable plastic is made from processed corn starch, but for it to biodegrade it needs to be at 50-plus degrees centigrade. Therefore, it would be ideal to go into an anaerobic digester along with the food that it is wrapping, but if it goes in with other plastics it will mess up the recycling scheme. It was the subject of a UN environment programme report in 2015, which highlighted some of these issues.

Finally, I hope that here at Westminster, and in all public buildings, we will do a few things to ensure that we do not need so many water bottles—for example, there should be more freely available drinking water. Our disposable cutlery should be made of wood, but downstairs in the canteen it is plastic, and straws should be made of paper. There are a number of things we can do. However, if this Government want to leave things in a better state, they do not have the 25 years of the environment plan in which to do so; they have just two or three years at most.

Plans to Improve the Natural Environment and Animal Welfare

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for his introduction to this debate, and for securing it. I welcomed his emphasis on matters of soil. I think that the only thing that he did not mention was the lack of soil scientists. For years, academics have not really pursued soil science, and it has really been lacking in graduates, postgraduates and professors. Could the Minister comment on that? The noble Earl mentioned private gardens. The other thing that he needs to bear in mind is what an enemy neatness is to all sorts of biodiversity and wildlife. There is nowhere for a hedgehog to shelter; a thrush cannot get a worm out of Astroturf. The obsession with neatness needs to come to an end, if we are to have any sort of wildlife in our gardens.

I do not intend to say anything more about animal sentience today, other than to ask the Minister whether he feels, having heard the sentiments around the Chamber, that the Government are storing up trouble for themselves by resisting including the concept of animal sentience in the withdrawal Bill. Is it a technical resistance, or do they think that it will have negative implications in the event of a trade deal with countries with low-welfare regimes? Surely it cannot be that the Conservative Government are still keeping one eye on a hunting Bill.

I very much like the idea of a manifesto for animals, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. He mentioned pet passports several times, and I would add to the list the fact that the Government have not resolved the issue of the pet passport yet. I am sure that all his animal voters will worry considerably that they will spend six months in quarantine in future if the matter is not resolved. Indeed, during our debate on animal welfare, the Minister was kind enough to say that it was very much work in hand. Does he have any updates to add to that?

On the natural environment, we tend to mark the turning of the seasons very much by birds—the first day of spring is the cuckoo; one swallow does not a summer make; and fieldfares for autumn. I join other noble Lords in mentioning that the most recent The State of the UK’s Birds showed terrible declines; migratory and farmland species are still under particular pressures. I hope that, despite our possible withdrawal from the EU, we will continue to be a very active member of the convention on migratory species. The UK is a signatory in its own right, as well as with the EU. Of the migratory birds that come to our shores, coastal shore birds are some of the most threatened. We must ensure that we continue to play our part in protecting their habitats. The birds and habitats directive has played a crucial role till now; we would have had even steeper declines if we had not had that. How will that be replaced? What sort of legal protection will there be for these essential feeding and breeding grounds?

I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—I am sorry that he is not in his place at the moment—and it seemed to me that it was a bit of a counsel of despair. He seemed to say that, particularly for larger farmers, it was really unrealistic to imagine that we could have much of a change and that those of us who look forward to a big change in the way that our land is used are living in la-la land.

I wish that the noble Lord had attended with me a very interesting seminar that was run this morning by the National Trust and Green Alliance with farmers. Together, they have done a tranche of very interesting work into payments for ecosystems services, especially soil and water, and how those payments could be a powerful tool to improve the environmental performance of farming. Of course this is not an original idea but what was interesting is the depth of the studies that they have done with farmers, water companies and the private sector. It involves several shifts—not drastic, radical ones—in farming methods, with increased use of cover crops, reduced application of nitrate fertilisers and a spring wheat, winter barley regime. All those put together can have a dramatic outcome in reduced costs for water companies, and so for consumers; in cleaning out nitrates from drinking water; in increased profits for farmers; in greater resilience in the supply chain, and in an improved environmental footprint for food companies. I hope the Minister will be able to look at the ideas which the National Trust and Green Alliance have laid out in their publication on protecting our assets and be able to work with them to take this further.

Another great example of a shift in thinking which has resulted in multiple benefits comes from the group of farmers who set up the pasture-fed livestock initiative. It seems such an obvious idea for an island that is ideally suited to growing grass, and it was for those farmers themselves. Livestock forage on grass. Oddly, very few animals are fed on pasture alone these days. Cereals and soya produce fatter animals faster, but with a much higher carbon footprint of course, and an undoubted loss of flavour and texture. The fact that Welsh lamb is so prized is due to its still ranging extensively on a rich mixture of grasses and herbs—unlike the bland meat that you can get from grain-fed sheep, which just does not compare. The same goes for beef.

There are also really good welfare reasons why this regime scores so highly. One example is poultry kept under trees. Farmers Weekly did a study last year and found that, as opposed to poultry kept in a bare field, those kept under trees had improved ranging, less injurious feather-pecking incidents and fewer egg seconds. So there were welfare and economic benefits. The environmentally best systems are providing better produce, better welfare and lower carbon footprints. Consumers would really like to search them out but the trouble is that they have been let down by the failure of successive Governments to get behind labelling schemes that make absolutely clear what the production methods involved are. If we exit the EU, the Government must urgently get behind an effort to label British produce accurately and properly according to its production method.

Brexit: Food Prices

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they expect Brexit will affect United Kingdom food prices over the next five years.

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

My Lords, food prices are dependent on a number of factors. Commodity prices, exchange rates and oil prices are key drivers of UK retail food price changes. We are negotiating a unique, ambitious economic partnership with the EU, as well as future trade deals with the rest of the world. Any agreements we enter into will need to be right for consumers and industry.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. He will be aware that food price inflation hit 4.1% today, which gives credence to predictions of the kind made by the British Retail Consortium that a no-deal Brexit would be followed by rises of up to 33%. I think that the whole House would agree that it is always the poorest households that are hardest hit, so will the Government prioritise food in trade negotiations and make sure that both affordability and quality come to the top of that deal, and that we are not faced just with cheap food such as chlorine-washed chicken, because both quality and affordability will impact on the national diet?

Air and Water Pollution: Impact

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

That this House takes note of the impact of air and water pollution on the environment and public health.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, we know that air and water pollution are killers, but the recently published Lancet commission finding that more than 50,000 UK deaths are attributable to pollution each year—now, in the 21st century—really is a shocking statistic. Of those UK deaths, more than 28,000 are linked to air pollution and over 3,000 to water pollution. As well as the deaths that pollution causes, it drastically affects the quality of life. My noble friend Lady Walmsley will no doubt expand on that.

Over recent decades, the main reason that successive Governments have cleaned up air and water is that the EU has championed a cleaner environment. The ambient air quality directive sets legally binding limits of major air pollutants that impact public health, such as particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. Despite this, the UK Government have made little effort in this area so in February 2017, the European Commission gave the UK a final warning over its failure to meet air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide. Thus, after years of inaction, the Government published their air quality plan but that delay has cost us dearly. My noble friend Lady Jolly will detail the severe costs in terms of health, heart and respiratory diseases and so on that that delay induced.

The public are paying with their health, with costs to the NHS, yet the UK Government still provide billions of pounds of public funds to subsidise the domestic production and consumption of fossil fuels—some £6 billion per year domestically and some £3.5 billion abroad, according to a report last month from the Overseas Development Institute. By contrast, the Green Alliance has found that due to renewable energy funding cuts, clean energy investment will fall by 95% over the next three years. Greg Clark has launched his green growth strategy to lead the world in fighting climate change, but at the same time the Chancellor has announced a new £5 million fund for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, hoping to find another 10 billion to 20 billion barrels of oil. That seems pretty contradictory.

Of course, car manufacturers are well ahead of the Government here. They are well on the way to planning how to phase out fossil fuel-only cars. I think my noble friend Lord Strasburger will be talking about that. I am sure he shares my frustration that the Government have passed so much of the responsibility for cleaning up city air to local authorities, without introducing in parallel a high-polluting vehicle scrappage scheme, which many city leaders have requested. I know my noble friend Lady Randerson will outline the challenges and explain what a Liberal Democrat green transport scheme would contain.

The health impacts of water pollution will prove to be much more serious than we realise. One threat is from relatively new compounds. An example is microplastic contamination, which has been found in 72% of tap water samples in Europe. I commend the Government on starting to address this matter, because it is very urgent. They intend to ban cosmetic microplastics. The Microbeads Coalition, which includes Greenpeace, has said:

“The ban announced by the UK government is world-leading in its ambition to successfully put a stop to this source of marine pollution”.


But I must say, shame on the cosmetics industry for lobbying against the ban in Brussels. I must also commend the Government on the UK signing up to the UN Environment clean seas campaign and making various voluntary commitments on marine protected areas, including in our overseas territories.

Another threat from new materials is well outlined in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s POSTnote on nanomaterials:

“Engineered nanomaterials may end up in lakes, rivers, oceans, aquatic sediments and soils. When nanomaterials enter water, they tend to aggregate together ... So far, most studies into the effects … on aquatic life ... suggest that nanomaterials can reduce growth, reproduction, locomotion, breathing and feeding”.


That is pretty much life itself. There is a caveat: that the studies so far,

“used higher concentrations of nanomaterials than current predicted exposure levels”,

but nanomaterials are a very real danger. Will the Minister tell the House what further research into this the Government are intending to do? Nanomaterials accumulate at the bottom of the food chain and food crops can absorb them, so there are a number of threats.

I now turn to the main causes of water pollution besides new materials and how we can tackle them. The first is sewage. There are still 31,000 combined sewer overflows in the UK. As soon as there is heavy rain, these sewers discharge untreated human sewage into our rivers. Failure to implement much-needed sustainable urban drainage systems has cost us and our environment dearly. A question really sticks in my mind: what do you get if you mix a gallon of sewage with a gallon of storm water? The answer is two gallons of sewage—it is fairly obvious. The question comes from the city manager of Philadelphia in the US, which has become a model of how to build green infrastructure to deal with the issue. It had old Victorian sewers too, but in 2000 it began to plan 19 square miles of green infrastructure to cope with 9 billion gallons of sewage: rain gardens, porous pavements, lots of trees, and green roofs in public and private spaces. Everyone is signing up to it. We had a presentation on that in this House, so there was a chance for the Government at that time to take up the idea, but instead they did nothing. London faced a similar issue. Storm water was washing into the Thames. It is only as a result of my noble friend Lady Ludford’s petition that proceedings have resulted in the 25 km storm tunnel which will start to deal with this issue. Our cities need to take a leaf out of Philadelphia’s book.

The second source of pollution in water is agricultural. Many products are used on farmland for good reason, for example nitrogen and phosphates, but become pollutants once they wash into water. Besides encouraging minimal input use—precision farming, organic farming and so on—what else could be done? South West Water has taken a positive approach and found that reducing pollution at source, rather than treating water downstream, has a truly surprising benefit-cost ratio of 65:1. Its upstream thinking programme supports farmers who are upstream of key water supplies with grants and advice, so that they can manage their business with clean water and a healthy natural environment in mind.

Clearly, any future farming support must be linked to a clean record, but Brexit poses a risk of actually increasing agricultural water pollution. Why? Removing slurry costs farmers about £12.50 a tonne, and if all of a sudden common agricultural policy subsidies go, farmers will be unable to afford clean-up schemes while transitioning to a more positive way of dealing with this, such as the example I have just cited. There is also a danger that any pollution may go unchecked post Brexit if the Government continue to view reporting requirements as an example of technical requirements that they want to get rid of. The impact assessment lists reducing reporting requirements as a potential cost saving. That is totally wrong. British citizens have every right to know whether the state of their environment is a source of danger to their health. I urge the Government to maintain the reporting requirements and the bodies necessary to do that.

What do we need from the Government in the short term to tackle some of these issues? Next year’s review of the national planning policy framework would be a good start. The Government could choose to introduce effective planning requirements for sustainable drainage systems that tackle the sewage situation. I am sure the Minister appreciates that a new agricultural policy whereby land is a crucial part of a newly recognised green infrastructure would be a major part of addressing this need to clean up our water. A commitment must be made to match spending on farm support, while ensuring that the public goods element of any support expands, and the idea that you just bring in some land and get support for it is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, water legislation has been knocked on to the back burner by Brexit. We should by now have had a review of the licensing system for water abstraction and permitting for sewage overflows, but they have both been heavily delayed by Brexit. Brexit leaves little time and no political space to tackle these basic, crucial issues of everyday life.

I end with a plea. If Brexit does happen, we will seek to ensure that the Government continue with environmental reporting requirements, with no cancellation of reporting as a “technical requirement” or seeing it as a cost-saving measure. We will need measures in place to ensure that we continue actually to clean up our air and water. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I warmly thank all noble Lords who have spoken—in particular for emphasising the international nature of this issue, as that is very important. While I am referring to the international aspect, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, that I can identify where the other half of the flip-flops are, because I visited Yucatán—a wonderful part of Mexico—which has been spoilt only by the number of left-foot flip-flops on the beach.

I would like to mention a couple of other themes that ran through this debate. First, I am very glad that my noble friends brought up the subject of trees, which also play a role in the world of water. My noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham mentioned frogs and toads. Of course, frogs and their ability to live in water are a bellwether when it comes to pollution. I think that there is probably further work to do with the Environment Agency on the question of the poor or low status of rivers, because I have slightly different figures from those mentioned by the Minister. However, I would love to meet the Environment Agency at some point to explore further what measures it is using and whether the health of frogs is one of them.

I am also very grateful to the right reverend Prelate for telling us about ozone gardens, which I had certainly never heard of. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Lee of Trafford for the very vivid picture he painted of what a clean river means, not only in aesthetic terms but in economic and recreational terms.

All noble Lords brought a great deal to this debate but I commend one issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch—the importance of the precautionary principle. In my introduction I mentioned nanomaterials but they are just one example. If we leave the European Union, keeping the precautionary principle as a fundamental bedrock that backs up every decision we make will be of the utmost importance.

Motion agreed.

Animal Welfare Offences

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I understand that and indeed we considered it, but we think that for the most heinous crimes we should increase the sentence from six months. It would be helpful if your Lordships knew that currently an average of three people per year have been sentenced to the maximum, which gives an indication of the numbers involved.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, if Brexit happens, will the Government ensure that it remains a criminal offence to import animals or birds captured in the wild? Before the EU brought in a ban, the UK was a ready market for people who pillaged other people’s jungles and wild places.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, it is very important that we are understanding of the importance of not importing animals and birds that we should not. Indeed, we want not only to maintain what is going to come back from European law but in many cases to advance it.

Brexit: Agriculture and Farm Animal Welfare (European Union Committee Report)

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Teverson and his committee for producing two very thought-provoking reports. I am very much looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden.

I would like to concentrate my remarks on conclusion 153 of the committee’s report on agriculture, which states:

“It may be hard to reconcile the Government’s wish for the UK to become a global leader in free trade with its desire to maintain high … standards for agri-food products”.


I think it will be not just hard but impossible. Besides the quality of our food, we can reach the same conclusion about our countryside, biodiversity, farm animal welfare, workers’ standards and almost every aspect of farming. The choice is between keeping what makes our landscape and food special or opening the door to free trade agreements that will force low food prices to determine everything. I remind your Lordships that cheap food is cheap because the environmental cost, the health cost and every other cost of producing it are hidden.

I was very pleased to hear Michael Gove say that we are,

“determined to be global leaders in protecting unique landscapes and habitats”.

To achieve that he will need to speed up the environmental plan so that there is a policy base for negotiations. I thank the Minister very much for chairing such an interesting round-table discussion on the plan last week in your Lordships’ House. I hope that it will be the first of several. Michael Gove also said:

“Our new agricultural policy will recognise the importance of improving production as well as protecting our strong food and animal welfare standards”.


However, he gives no clue as to the policies that will make this happen. I suggest a few policies that could help our farmers maintain their place in a global marketplace. I think that New Zealand has been mentioned at least twice this evening. The fact is that our farmers will not be able to compete with mass-scale, low-standard production scenarios. Britain has 700 people to the square mile and New Zealand just 46. We are a small, intensely populated island so we must plan for an agriculture that is closely and sensitively related to our communities and recognises that the health of our ecosystems is fundamentally related to the health of our cities, towns and villages. We are a relatively small-scale producer in global terms but other countries buy from us because of the outstanding quality of British beef, lamb and other products. That is a good niche to be in and is one we can expand.

I hope that post Brexit the EU will still be an important market for us. Therefore, will we try to conform to the same standards? Two current examples are neonicotinoids—I know that the Minister is responsible for the national pollinator strategy—and glyphosate, both of which are being increasingly restricted and possibly phased out in the EU. Will our Government move in parallel?

To keep and develop our quality agriculture, it is clear that we must encourage bright young people to go into farming. At the moment, scenarios of halving incomes, such as that in the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board report, are frankly very off-putting to them—realistic but off-putting—and so are the nigh impossible economics of getting a foot on the ladder because of the diminishing number of small farms, which was so eloquently laid out in the recent CPRE report. That report shows why small farms of under 20 hectares are very important. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are already thinking that public money should reward farmers for public goods rather than the size of their landholding?

Animal welfare has been mentioned this evening. I maintain that animal welfare is definitely a public good because well-kept animals, besides that being ethically important, are healthier. That is a very important public good when it comes to antibiotic usage. Other important policy areas to develop a vibrant food production sector include continuing to follow the precautionary principle with regard to pesticides and hormone-treated meat and improving food labelling schemes, which was also mentioned this evening. It is necessary to maintain country of origin labelling but expand that to include production methods, as advocated by the Labelling Matters coalition, and for all the reasons so eloquently laid out by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We need to be more open to farming methods such as agroforestry which deliver multiple benefits and multiple incomes for farmers. What are we going to do to recognise diversity of breeds and seeds? For example, diversity in seed varieties is very important. What will happen with the registration and intellectual property rights of EU-registered varieties?

Finally, there are two issues in the Brexit debate that are Defra’s responsibility but have not been mentioned recently. If Brexit happens, pets and pet owners face a sad choice: take holidays apart or do not travel. Pets will have to be left in kennels rather than enjoying France or Spain with their owners when the EU pet passport scheme stops applying to the UK, as the UK leaves the EU. Will owners returning from the EU with pets face months of quarantine? Can the Minister give any reassurance that reciprocal arrangements for pets will be reached such as those that will apply to people?

Finally, animal passports will also affect the multibillion-pound horseracing industry. Currently, Irish, British and French counterparts can, under EU law, move tens of thousands of horses a year freely in and out of each other’s countries without hindrance. What will happen if that tripartite passport scheme were to end? What discussions have been held about this issue, and is there a solution within sight?

Circuses: Wild Animals

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, these are all matters that local authorities are required to ensure are enforced under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act. Clearly, if there were any issues, Defra would want to work with local authorities because it is absolutely essential that suitable animal welfare provisions are in place. I will take back what has been said about primates—I am very conscious of that—and if I have anything further to add, I will report back to your Lordships.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, a lot of the wild creatures kept in people’s homes as pets, whether birds or any other creature, have been smuggled into this country. Is the Minister confident that the National Wildlife Crime Unit has sufficient capacity to deal with the level of smuggling?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The noble Baroness raises a very important issue. The answer is that we believe that there are sufficient resources at the border, but clearly we need to be ever more rigorous. There are all sorts of schemes under many directives. From an animal welfare point of view, it is hugely inappropriate to smuggle in animals, whether they are domesticated or wild, and this is one area I will very much look at addressing.

Brexit: Environmental Standards

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they will put in place following Brexit to safeguard environmental standards and biodiversity.

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

My Lords, we already have domestic law that safeguards the environment. The great repeal Bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary Session will incorporate EU law relating to environment and biodiversity into domestic UK law. The UK is also a party to around 30 international environmental agreements and treaties in its own right. We are bound by the obligations that they contain; this will not change on exit from the EU.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that he appreciates how much the farming policies of this country have an influence on our environment—everything from the quality of water to the state of our wildlife and our soil fertility. At the worst, can he envisage a point where we have a trade deal with the US, with all its implications for food production, and a farming scenario where we would have a countryside of prairies interspersed with feed-lots? Will the Government therefore combine their 25-year farming strategy with their 25-year environmental strategy? We have only one land area, and it would make great sense for those two to be combined.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that agriculture plays a crucial role in our environmental policy: 70% of our land is farmed, so it is very important. That is why the two forthcoming Green Papers for consultation, to which we look forward to many responses, are about enhancing and handing over a better environment than the one we have inherited, including a vibrant agricultural system. As I have said before to your Lordships, I believe that both are compatible.

Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Parminter on her absolutely excellent introduction to this debate, which she secured. Unsurprisingly, there has been great consensus in this Chamber on what we do not want to see happen as a result of Brexit.

We do not want to return to our pre-EU membership status as the “dirty man of Europe”; nor do we want to allow the dramatic decline in our biodiversity to continue. It was very speedy in the latter half of the 20th century but it is continuing due to loss of habitat. Nor, quite honestly, can we afford a continuing decline in the number of foods in which we are self-sufficient, which is coupled with a poor-quality national diet that sees too much of the population obese, unhealthy and at risk of heart disease. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, reminded us that often farmers have not been doing so well under that regime either, with low commodity prices and volatility. We have a food system that in some ways is pretty broken and a land-use system that leaves a lot of room for improvement. It is a moment of opportunity but also a moment of danger. There is one more thing I should mention before I leave what we do not want to return to: a point where low animal-welfare standards are the price paid, by the animals, for a cut-throat free-trade regime.

If we are to have Brexit, which it seems will be forced upon us, it will at least be an opportunity to redesign our policies and strategies so that we can deal with the challenges and grasp other opportunities. What sort of strategy should we aim for? We should aim for one that makes the most of our climate, rich grasslands, varied soils, temperate lowlands and dramatic uplands. We need to bear in mind the gains made under EU directives, such as otters returning to our rivers, red kites to our uplands and bitterns to our wetlands.

We will not achieve the sort of future that your Lordships have talked about this afternoon if we heed the siren calls suggesting that we should have a division in our land use. I have heard of all sorts of divisions being called different things by Defra and various NGOs. There is nature-sharing and nature-sparing, where you have intensive agriculture and then set aside some land for nature. By others it is called rewilding—a slightly different concept, where you allow dramatic areas of the landscape to rewild. It is not quite plain to me whether the public will still be allowed access to those areas. It would mean rewilding in some areas, with forest growth and so on, and intensive agriculture in others. I do not believe that is the sort of future we are trying to design because we are a relatively small island, whose centres of population like to go out into the countryside to walk and see the farmed landscape. They enjoy that as a really important part of their lives. At the same time, we need a form of agriculture that will allow our biodiversity to thrive.

Fortunately, we have some great examples of how we can achieve the sort of future that we all want, which combine a successful farming business with careful stewardship of the countryside and its biodiversity. I was extremely pleased that yesterday the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, managed to spare such a generous amount of his time to attend the event hosted by the All-Party Group on Agro-Ecology. I declare an interest as co-chair of that group. I was very grateful for the time he spent in coming to meet the farmers and NGOs at that event because, with that approach to farming and food production, we have a design of the future that we are trying to get to. I know that agroecology is a difficult word; it really means trying to work with nature, rather than suppressing it. It is not about trying to corral nature into one area and food production into another. Nature’s principal strategy is one of diversity—a healthy and diverse ecosystem—which in agriculture tends to mean mixed farms.

One example I want to ask the Minister about is that of agroforestry, which the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, touched on in her contribution. Growing trees on land that is used for livestock or, for example, horticulture can have many benefits but Defra has so far resisted that system. I believe that it could have had support under either Pillar 1 or Pillar 2 but Defra has resisted it. It integrates trees into farming systems so that they offer or help with shade, windbreaks, pollution management, pollinator opportunities, homes for a diverse range of wildlife, integrated pest management and product diversification. That one small example of an agroecological system is one that we should aim towards. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, laid her finger on it in her very thoughtful contribution: we need a comprehensive land-use strategy that integrates farming into our land use.

I shall mention a couple of other things. One is that, as we redesign our systems, I would like the Minister to bear in mind the benefits of the healthy diet that is so often talked about in debates on health. Fruit and vegetables were the poor relations under CAP support. In a post-CAP world, horticulture needs to get a much better deal for the benefit of our population’s health.

Overall, public subsidy for farmers in a post-Brexit world must be based on the output of public goods. Farming businesses produce a commodity and sell it, which is their basic business, and beyond that any public money is conditional on their producing public goods that the market cannot deliver or cannot fully deliver. Otherwise, in the longer term our urban populations will have no inclination for their taxes to support the lifestyles of those in the countryside who are not delivering for public benefit.

Finally, my noble friend Lady Parminter mentioned the EU directive on the circular economy. In a farming context, it is particularly important because we should not be growing bioenergy crops, such as maize, for feedstock for our digesters. We should be moving to a scheme where farm waste is the resource and the Government encourage small, rural anaerobic plants. That feeds into the question of energy.

We could design a very exciting future for our rural areas and for our population’s diet if we make the right linkages, but unless we join farming up with the environment and do not keep the two strategies separate, which the Government were inclined to do before, we shall never make that more positive future.

Farming: Impact of Brexit

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, not only on securing the debate but on managing to cover such a lot of crucial questions in her excellent introduction. I must say I am relieved that we will continue to benefit from having the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, as our Farming Minister in this House, with all his long experience and his dedication to giving us proper answers to the questions we ask. I am very pleased that he is still the Minister in this House.

I would find it ironic if the remnants of the Britain that all Brexiteers so nostalgically seem to yearn for were actually exterminated for ever by Brexit. I see that as a very real danger. Think of our rural fabric. There could be no more vibrant villages with pubs, bellringers or cow-filled meadows. There could be no more bluebell woods, larks ascending, hedgerows or footpaths up to sheep-grazed uplands, which I am sure my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford will talk about. I see a very real threat not only to the agricultural sector but to rural life, our countryside and the wider environment. That is because the £3 billion that flows into our rural areas from the EU is not something that I believe the Treasury will naturally want to continue; I think it will look to that £3 billion pot to start funding its other priorities. That is a threat to the very fabric of rural Britain, not only to our home-grown food production capacity, which as we know we should be increasing, not decreasing, but to the environment, the landscape and the wildlife.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. There could be a new settlement for farmers and for our environment. It will require a total redesign of both the legislation around the environment—80% of it has come from the EU, and it has helped to preserve much of the fabric of rural Britain to date—and a new rural settlement with farmers. Quite rightly, the British taxpaying public will expect to see much more for their money. Gone will be the days of subsidies based on landholding size, no matter how few public benefits that land produces or, worse, how many long-term costs occur—for example, in soil degradation, biodiversity loss or water pollution.

Given what a relatively small and densely populated island we are, we really cannot afford to separate agriculture from wildlife and landscape. That is the first real challenge to Defra in considering what strategies it should be employing for a post-Brexit scenario. So far it has produced separate strategies for food, farming and biodiversity. That is not going to be acceptable; it is going to have to produce a whole rural Britain strategy.

The CAP did a lot of good in enabling family farms to survive. That will be another big challenge for Defra: to ensure that the sort of incentives it produces in future will encourage young entrants into farming and enable them to access the finance in order to share some of the machinery and capital investments necessary, particularly for some of those smaller family farms. We cannot expect farmers to manage, say, footpaths, dry stone walls and hedges for nothing. The public enjoy the benefits of the countryside and they will want to continue, so we must pay our land managers—the farmers—properly for that.

Lastly, there are issues such as flood risk. A very good publication came out on Wednesday, the Wildlife and Wetland Trust report Rich in Nature, which was about making space for nature, which also brings enormous other benefits and a great return on investment. The report’s introduction explains that for every £1 invested you can expect at least £6 in return. If the Treasury plans on a post-2020 investment in rural Britain of £3 billion, with the right policies and strategies in place it could expect a return of £18 billion and an enviable level of food security.