English Flood Defences

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness says, we have put record amounts into flood protection through the Environment Agency—£5.2 billion from 2021-27, which is a doubling of the investment. Additionally, there is an extra £200 million on maintenance, a £22 million increase in the maintenance fund this year and the Environment Agency is conducting a review, expecting around 69,200 high-consequence assets, of which 63,700 are at the required condition. We are not complacent. We recognise that there is an increased threat from flooding, as there is from a variety of extreme weather conditions. We have made this a priority for government and will continue to support the Environment Agency with what it needs to keep our homes safe from flooding.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I will follow on the Minister’s answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. Given that we already have houses built on flood plains and that there will probably be more, what are the Government doing to mandate resilient design—he hinted that other countries have done that—and to retrofit houses that have already been built there? Things can be done, such as laying concrete flooring and raising the level of the electricity circuits. Will the Government ensure that this sort of design is built in when it becomes necessary to build new houses on flood plains?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I totally agree. Through our conversations on housing design and the incentives and financial support that we give to householders to retrofit, we are seeing those householders protect their houses themselves. In flood-risk areas, where you put the plug sockets can make a difference if a house floods, so recovery funding must also drive that. We must listen to the Environment Agency when it says that developments should not take place, but if the developer, working with the local authority, and the Environment Agency, says that these mitigation measures have been put in place, we will copy what goes on in places such as the Mississippi basin and the Netherlands, where there is intelligent building in flood-risk areas.

Nutrition for Growth Summit 2024

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We think that the nutrition for growth dialogue on an annual basis, holding ourselves to account, is really important. We co-hosted the global food security summit, which was held last week in Lancaster House, with Somalia and the United Arab Emirates. The nutrition for growth proposal is that the next meeting should take place in Paris. We are working very closely with the French on this. My colleague, Andrew Mitchell, has met with them and with the director general, Melinda Bohannon, to try to work out how we can make this next phase really effective. In the short time that I have been in the department, I have seen how transparent we are in the quantities that we give and how we explain it. I hope that noble Lords will look at the White Paper and see how we are working with so many other different parties, particularly civil society, in achieving this.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the good work being done by Gavi on vaccination across the world. However, is he aware that Gavi is now aware of the link between vaccination effectiveness and nutrition in children? Undernourished children do not have as beneficial a response to the vaccination as they should. That is why Gavi has now linked the two things in its campaigning. Will the Government support that?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness says much more eloquently what I was trying to say earlier. If you deal with various other health outcomes, you have a much better chance of getting a sustained improvement, for children in particular. I absolutely agree with what she says and I am very happy to work with Gavi on this.

Food and Biological Security: Agricultural Fungicide

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for introducing this important but niche subject. As a botanist, I have always felt that fungi are often underestimated and largely ignored, yet they play a major role in the natural environment, in particular in the soil ecosystem, where they break down organic matter and make it available to plant roots through the miles of mycelium under our feet. Without the fungi in a healthy soil, our crops would fail and our food security would be affected. However, as we heard from the noble Baroness, some fungi are regarded as pests that infect food crops and reduce the harvest, or even make the food inedible. The challenge is to control the one without damaging the other or, indeed, insect pollinators and our wild bird population.

The major tool for the challenge of these fungal pests is fungicides, controlled by our plant protection products—PPP—regime, now independent since the UK left the European Union. I am glad to say that it is true that the use of fungicides has fallen in recent years, partly because of more sensible and economical use of fungicides—what farmer does not want to save money on unnecessary spraying?—and partly through the development of resistant varieties of crops, in particular wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

What support are the Government providing for research to develop disease-resistant varieties of crops? What damage has been done to such projects since the Government’s protracted negotiation about joining the EU Horizon scheme, from which UK scientific research benefited so much for so many years?

I do not deny that there is a role for minimal pesticide use if we are to feed our country as much as possible from our own limited land area, on which there is so much pressure, and I look forward to the Government’s long-awaited land use strategy. However, there are other ways of skinning the cat, and sustainable farming methods can be just as productive and better for our damaged biodiversity. Practices that protect soil health and pollinators will give just as much benefit as widespread use of pesticides of all kinds, if not more, and still give farmers a living.

However, the briefing we received from CropLife UK, which made the case for the controlled and legal use of pesticides, noted that:

“The UK has one of the most rigorous regulatory regimes for PPPs in the world. Active substances and products must be safe for the environment and pose no unacceptable risks to human health”.


I underline that last phrase.

This brings us to the point of the noble Baroness’s debate today, for she and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, which also briefed us, believe that we are in danger of just such a risk unless action is taken. The same fungi that affect crops can also affect humans, as she said, and are very dangerous to the most vulnerable patients. Nature is endlessly inventive, and clever fungi have developed resistance to the fungicides that farmers commonly use. But the researchers in bioscience are also very clever, and have developed a very effective treatment for humans. There is also a new treatment, developed by the University of Manchester, which is effective against the new antimicrobial-resistant strains of fungi when they affect humans.

So far, so good. However, a new product approved by the FDA in the US has now been developed for agricultural use and is effective against the antimicrobial-resistant strains of Aspergillus in the field—I will not try to pronounce the name, as the noble Baroness has already done so. You can therefore see the attraction to farmers. Yet there is a risk to human health because it uses, as the noble Baroness said, the same molecular mechanism as the effective human treatment. Scientists believe that, if it came into general use, it would both stimulate the development of more resistant strains of fungus in the field and jeopardise the effectiveness of the new treatment currently undergoing clinal trials.

I therefore support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, in asking for a pause and a risk assessment before this product is licensed for use in the UK. If we do not do this, we will be constantly chasing our tails as nature develops resistance to our chemicals, and we then have to develop more and more chemicals to protect humans. Nature will always win in the end. That is why I support the further implementation of low-pesticide agricultural practices to protect our soils and reduce environmental selective pressure, which undoubtedly leads to more resistant strains emerging. Can the Minister therefore outline the environmental land management payments that are relevant to this sort of agricultural practice? Can he also say how successful uptake has been among farmers of all sizes, including tenant farmers?

Climate and Nature

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion of the recent editorial by over 200 global health journals in The Lancet of 25 October, that the climate and nature crisis is “a global health emergency”; and what plans they have to address this.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK recognises that climate change, biodiversity loss and risk due to zoonotic diseases are intrinsically linked. This is why we advocate for a multi- sectoral, one-health approach to global health, to protect nature and deliver climate-resilient and sustainable healthcare systems.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

As the Minister has indicated, the relationship between climate change and health is complex. I ask him, however, about action on heat stress here in the UK. The Lancet’s latest report on the issue indicated that heat stress deaths are predicted to increase by 370%. Here in the UK last year, heat stress deaths increased by 42%. Can the Minister say what action the Government are taking to ensure that the design of new homes includes ensuring that homes do not overheat? What action is being taken to ensure that public buildings also do not overheat?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

Well, I know briefs go widely, but I think it would be best if I first give a personal anecdote. I absolutely get what the noble Baroness is saying. This summer, when homes are meant for insulation, I think we all felt the challenges and I think we need to look specifically at how we design homes, particularly in the community, and how we design offices. As someone who sits in a rather grand building not far from here, quite often the challenge, when the heat is on outside, is that it is extremely hot inside, and when it is cold outside, the heat does not come on—so there are some fundamental challenges in your Lordships’ House as well. I will revert to the noble Baroness when I have talked to colleagues in the department for levelling up, because I think they will have a sense, but I can assure her that the Department of Health, Defra and the FCDO are working together, looking at a one-health approach encompassing the very issues she highlighted.

UN Biodiversity Conference: COP 15

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, for introducing this debate. I assure him that I and the 100,000 little worker bees I have at home in my hive will continue to do our bit. However, while it must be accepted that the UK has shown a considerable lead on biodiversity protection internationally, it must be acknowledged that we have lost half our biodiversity since the Industrial Revolution. We are now ranked in the bottom 10% of the world and are the worst of the G7 nations for biodiversity. From this challenging starting point we embark on our response to the agreement into which we entered at COP 15.

These Benches are delighted that the UN Biodiversity Conference COP 15 saw a significant agreement, with 23 action targets to halt and restore biodiversity loss. One of the key targets was target 3—to manage 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. The best way we can show leadership in this respect is to achieve that target ourselves.

The UK Government adopted 30by30 two years ago to great headlines—that is leadership—but progress since then has been very limited. We were starting from a very low base. Only 3.22% of England’s land and 8% of our seas were effectively protected in 2022. This means that we need a tenfold increase in the protection of land habitats and a fourfold increase in maritime protection by 2030. However, between 2021 and 2022, there was an increase of only 0.22% in land protection and 4% in sea protection. At this rate, we will not get anywhere near our target by 2030. The big question for the Minister is how the Government plan to up their game.

The wording of the COP 15 agreement is very specific:

“to ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed”.

The crucial words here are “enable” and “managed”. That means action now and ongoing sustainable action into the future.

The implementation mechanism is a crucial part of the agreement. It is meant to underpin the framework with a clear agreed structure for how countries will make national plans and monitor, report and review their progress. We were therefore disappointed that the Government failed to produce new environmental targets on time last year. However, when they were published there were glaring omissions, including missing targets to protect and improve water quality and important natural sites.

Water companies in England have dumped sewage 772,000 times over the past two years, lasting for almost 6 million hours. Last summer, beaches across the south coast were closed because of sewage dumping, impacting both domestic holidaymakers and our international tourism business. National parks such as the Lake District have not been spared such spills. River pollution is now so bad that no river in England and Wales is free from pollution, but what have the Government done? They have pushed back targets to clean up the majority of England’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters by more than 30 years to 2063, yet the water companies continue to pay their managers massive bonuses for this failure. What is really needed is massive investment in infrastructure to separate rainwater from sewage water, and to improve treatment facilities and water use efficiency measures.

To achieve the clean water objective, we on these Benches would halt sewage discharges by mandating major sewage infrastructure upgrades as well as reducing other river pollution by reforming the planning system to ensure that decisions are compatible with nature recovery and climate change mitigation, while designating more areas for wildlife. Along with many others, we believe that tackling the nature crisis must go hand in hand with tackling the climate emergency, but, while we support investing in new technologies, we understand that a healthy, biodiverse ecosystem offers us the surest means of storing carbon and reducing emissions. That means that, as well as investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency, there must be large-scale investment in restoration of peatlands, heathland, native woodlands, salt marshes, wetlands and coastal waters, helping to absorb carbon, protect against floods, improve water quality and protect habitats. Of course, it also means tree planting. The second report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, on nature-based solutions to net zero, published on 27 January 2022—an inquiry on which I had the honour to serve—made numerous recommendations about this.

Our farmers can be key allies in enhancing nature and tackling the climate emergency, and target 10 of the COP 15 agreement covered agro-ecological approaches. As the Select Committee emphasised in the report, a shift to sustainable agriculture will be key to addressing climate change, ensuring a healthy and secure food system and a restored natural environment, as well as bringing economic benefits.

It is vital that the new farm payment system gives farmers confidence to predict the future profitability of their businesses while ensuring they can continue producing good homegrown food for our tables. I hear that, under the new regime, the Government now plan changes to the ELMS farm payment system, which has already been announced and under which farmers have been planning their businesses for at least two years. Some of them are now withdrawing their co-operation with sustainable farming initiatives because of uncertainty. How does this help? Can the Minister say how the Government’s new environmental land management schemes will encourage farmers to co-operate on achieving their objectives under COP 15?

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 was game changing in the protection of our important habitats, protecting sites of special scientific interest, which became known as SSSIs. I well recall this important legislation and noted that one of the earliest sites to be designated was the sandhills where I played as a child on my summer holidays. While the network of SSSIs is crucial to the protection of biodiversity, it is only a representative sample of priority habitats, and many existing sites are not in a good state. Indeed, too many are regarded as being in a poor state and therefore not protecting biodiversity very well. It is therefore essential, if we are to achieve our 2030 target, that we both expand the area of priority habitats protected under the SSSI legislation and improve the management of existing sites. As with much other legislation, it is all very well creating a new law, but its success lies in both initial implementation and sustained monitoring and management to ensure that the original objective is achieved for posterity. It has been proposed recently that in order to achieve the COP 15 objective we need to create 100,000 hectares of new SSSIs by 2030. The Government have not accepted this target, which is a pity, because it would create green jobs as well as protecting nature and helping to mitigate climate change. However, only 3,000 hectares of new SSSIs are created every year. At this rate, we would not achieve the 100,000 hectares until 2056. Will the Minister say whether the Government plan to accept the proposed target and what measures will be put in place to achieve it?

I mentioned earlier that the word “managed” was crucial in the COP 15 agreement. What I had in mind was the state of management of many of our SSSIs. The Environment Act 2021 is an opportunity to set in legislation ambitious and indeed essential targets to bring the management of SSSIs up to scratch. Nature NGOs have proposed a target of 75% of sites being restored to a favourable condition by 2042, with five-yearly interim targets to track progress. If we create a lot of new SSSIs and then allow them to go to wrack and ruin, we are wasting both the time and the cost of their original creation. Will the Minister therefore accept this target for restoration and renewal of existing sites?

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, currently going through Parliament, presents a major threat to other measures already in place to protect nature. I hope that the Minister can tell us that something will be done about that.

Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the thanks and congratulations of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to the Front-Bench speakers, who all spoke so eloquently and movingly for us today. I have no wish to duplicate or repeat what they said; I just want to add a few remarks of my own.

Very few of us will be lucky enough to pass away in the place that we love the most, but we saw this week, after such a life of service, our Queen deservedly pass away in a place that she loved perhaps more than any other. That must have brought her, her family and her staff incredible solace. Balmoral was a very special place to the Queen. It was a place where she not only conducted official duties but was able to relax and have fun with official visitors and with family and friends.

Like the most reverend Primate, some of us have had the incredible privilege of enjoying those barbecues—not at Sandringham, in my case, but at Balmoral, where she would pretend to race with her staff up through the hills to the cottage where the barbecues took place. She was jokingly racing—she would always say to me that she knew that they were never going to try to pass her, but she had to pretend to be part of the race anyway and get there first. She would roll up her sleeves and help set the fire, set the table and clear up afterwards. It was somewhere where she really felt at home. As First Minister, I enjoyed those moments more than I ever expected to. My nerves went after the first year and, as the years went by, we enjoyed sharing stories and experiences.

I recall in particular when the Queen told a story about two American tourists, who had been on a bus trip and had wandered round the back of Balmoral to the rose garden, where she was tending the roses with her headscarf and sunglasses on. Of course, they did not recognise her. They broke into conversation: they asked her what it was like to work for the Queen and whether the Queen never tended the roses herself. She played along with it for five minutes or so, and they were very grateful for the opportunity to hear so much about the life of the Queen from one of her staff. They went back round to the bus to leave Balmoral, and she very quickly nipped into the kitchen, took her headscarf and sunglasses off, went out the front door and waved goodbye to the bus, only to see these two American tourists looking out the window, nudging everybody and saying that they had just spoken to her in the garden. That great sense of humour and fun was remarkable, and it was a privilege to have seen it up close.

I also appreciated, as I am absolutely certain previous and current First Ministers in the devolved Governments have, her interest in, and the time spent with her discussing, the way in which devolution was developing in the United Kingdom and the issues at play, good and bad, in our devolved nations.

We have heard a lot this week about consistency. Although her consistency was important, it was also very important that she was able to change and adapt with the times as society changed over the decades she served us. Her ability to embrace that change was, for me, just as important as the consistency of her values.

Her relationship with Scotland did not begin in 1999, but her relationship with Scotland informed her ability to embrace the constitutional changes that took place that year and to show real empathy, respect and support for the new institutions, not just in Edinburgh but in Cardiff and Belfast too. She met the new Cabinet in 1999 and she embodied the positive celebrations that we had in those early days. Crucially, in 2002, during that Golden Jubilee, she came to the Scottish Parliament again and reminded us of the importance of the long-term goal, helping us steady the ship after those rocky first three years and giving us a lead by saying that, if you serve the people, you will get there in the end. That made a huge difference to the Parliament and to Scotland at the time.

She understood that the UK was four nations but, more than that, she understood the Commonwealth—that tapestry of nations that she did so much to nurture and support. I was amazed to get a text today at 7 am. This time last week, I was in Maganga Secondary School in Salima, in rural Malawi—a school where none of the girls had ever visited a big city or seen a television. The head teacher sent me a text this morning which reads: “On behalf of Maganga School, staff and students, I would like to sincerely express our sadness upon hearing about the death of the Queen, Queen Elizabeth II. As a school, we are very sorry for that great loss. She was our Queen, and a great personality to us all. May the good Lord be with the bereaved family.” That is the mark of the impact that she had around the world, not just for leaders, not just for history, but right now, today, in some of the poorest villages in Malawi and elsewhere.

Finally, I want to recall her kindness to my family and my staff, and her commitment to her own family—remember, she was a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother, and her family will be grieving desperately this weekend. I thank her for her support, and know that she would want us to give full support to King Charles III; I thank her for her service; I thank her personally for those treasured moments that I have. We are poorer for her passing, but we are richer and stronger for her life.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall say a few words from these Benches on behalf of myself and my co-deputy leader, my noble friend Lord Dholakia, who is unable to be with us today.

Her late Majesty, like many women, was thrown into a difficult role at a time when she least expected it, yet, like many women, she pulled herself together despite her grief and got on with her job—or her calling, as she saw it. She did it in her own way, as I am sure our new King, King Charles, will also do, adapting her approach as appropriate over the years. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, just said, she managed to achieve a balance between consistency and flexibility, and she did it with grace, charm, dignity and dedication. She was at the heart of her family and the nation, and supported us all in good times and in bad. We will miss her among us, as she has so often been.

Everyone who met her has an anecdote about our late Queen, but I am not going to share mine today. Instead, I should like to share just a couple of things that I take away from her long life of service.

First, you always knew which side she was on. She was on my side and your side. She was on the side of all the people of our nation and Commonwealth. She wanted us all to do well. I had the impression that she particularly enjoyed the opportunity to recognise people’s achievements and contributions to the nation or their community when she honoured them at investitures and visits throughout the country. She never took sides, expect when there was a chance that her horse might win the race.

South Africa: Just Energy Transition Partnership

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister met President Ramaphosa in the margins of the G7 meeting this week. He mentioned Eskom specifically. Eskom’s ambition is to facilitate and be part of this accelerated decommissioning. We are fully aware of Eskom’s record and the sustainability issues surrounding its existing debt. I assure noble Lords that these are being dealt with in a very practical manner.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, given the time it takes to set up the enabling projects, et cetera, required to achieve the objectives of this scheme, are the Government talking to partners and other appropriate third-world countries and having early discussions about how such partnerships can be set up as soon as possible, or are they waiting for COP 27?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I assure noble Lords that we are doing exactly as the noble Baroness suggests. We are talking to other partners and I pay particular tribute to the current COP president, Alok Sharma, who has championed this issue. In recent weeks, I have also had the opportunity to visit Egypt as part of my portfolio. The discussions with Foreign Minister Shoukry, the president of COP 27, centred around how we can take our learning and experience, including new, innovative structures, to make sure that they can be practically applied in Egypt as well.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I too welcome the mention in the gracious Speech of the long-awaited draft mental health Bill, but that has been covered extremely well by my noble friend Lady Tyler and I agree with all the points she made, so I will go no further on that.

However, since the Speech, which followed quickly on the heels of the Health and Care Act, we heard at the weekend that the Government intend, with indecent haste, to backtrack on measures for which they have only just got Royal Assent. I refer to the planned restrictions on TV and online advertising of foods high in sugar, salt and fat. Before the ink is dry on the Act, the Government now want to defer implementation for a further year. Can the Minister write to me to say what representations the Government have received on this and from whom?

In Committee, I commented on government amendments to allow the Secretary of State to defer implementation beyond January 2023. I said:

“Given the notice the industry has already had about these measures and the fact that the Government have already deferred implementation, a year from now should be quite enough time. Why do the Government feel they need these further powers?”—[Official Report, 4/2/22; col. 1212.]


The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, who probably did not know what the Government were planning, said that

“the implementation dates for these restrictions none the less remains 1 January 2023.”

She said:

“Amendments 249, 252 and 254 separately introduce the ability to delay that implementation date via secondary legislation, should this be deemed necessary after the Bill receives Royal Assent. We have taken this decision to provide flexibility should emerging challenges mean that implementation from 1 January 2023 proves unworkable. However, I should emphasise that we currently have no plans to delay the introduction of these restrictions.”—[Official Report, 4/2/22; col. 1217.]


It seems I was right to be suspicious.

I ask the Minister: what sudden “emerging challenges” have made it necessary to give the industry a further year’s notice of the restrictions? I presume she meant challenges to the Government’s credibility or perhaps to the leadership of the Prime Minister. It can have nothing to do with the price of gas or a basic food shopping basket, and certainly nothing to do with the health of the nation.

I also asked the Minister some months ago if there was any truth in the rumour going around that the Government planned to ditch the ban on “buy one, get one free” offers on unhealthy foods. I was assured in the strongest terms that this rumour was untrue. Allowing someone to get two enormous bars of chocolate for the price of one will not help them pay their energy bill or buy essential healthy foods for their family. Henry Dimbleby, the author of the national food strategy, said on the radio yesterday morning that it would do nothing to address the nation’s obesity crisis. I also call in aid the noble Lord, Lord Hague, who says in today’s Times:

“These are not ‘good deals’ for our wallet or our health. The whole point of them is to get people used to buying more.”


He called the Government’s backtracking

“intellectually shallow, politically weak and morally reprehensible.”

I could not have put it better.

In the gracious Speech the Government said that they would

“fund the National Health Service to reduce the Covid backlogs.”

That is all very well, but other problems have not gone away. I refer first to the ambulance crisis. Doctors now believe that the wait times are endangering patients’ lives. The problem is the shortage of enough properly trained staff in the right places. The Health and Care Act 2022, as enacted, will not improve the planning and adequate provision of staff. The Minister may recall the all-party amendments for measures to assess and plan workforce needs properly, but the Government resisted. Figures were cited for a shortage of doctors and nurses, but today I give an example from an allied medical profession.

A hospital dietician, who plays a vital role in the treatment and recovery of patients, got in touch with me. Her pay rise has been consistently below inflation for some time. She has no other senior dieticians in her team as they are all off with stress and she is covering their work. She also has to cover for vacant junior posts. Because of savings targets, she must save 20% on her staffing budget. This will mean that she is unable to fill the posts needed for safe staffing levels. Can the Government explain why the system they have chosen for workforce planning is going to help in this situation?

Environment Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her Motion Cl and her Amendment 3B in lieu. I will be brief, because I know she will give a great deal more detail in her winding-up speech a little later, but before I go into that, may I just disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack? When I came into this House 21 years ago, I was told that our job was to ask the Government at the other end to think again. Given the way party loyalties have changed in those 21 years, and given the very short amount of time the Commons have had to debate the amendments we sent to them, I think we have every right to send some of our amendments back at least once—in fact, I know we have the right to do it more than once as long as we do not trespass on the governing party’s manifesto.

We have listened to the Minister’s objections to our earlier amendments on having greater ambitions to reduce small particulates, known as PM2.5, and have proposed instead an amendment which allows the Government a little more leeway on exactly which targets to set and when to set them. But it does hold the Government’s feet to the fire on the mean targets they can impose, aligned with the current and planned international WHO targets. I will not go into all the details of why it is so important to our health to do this, because noble Lords have heard this several times, but the Government’s net-zero strategy, published on 19 October, includes plans to phase out petrol and diesel land transport, and that is very helpful in relation to CO₂ emissions. However, it does not tackle the whole problem of the small particulates which are so harmful to health. Much of this comes from brakes and tyres, as the Minister rightly said in his introduction, and some of it comes from industry, from static generators and other diesel engines. Therefore, we need an ambitious target for reducing small particulates from all sources, which would of course drive change in these areas too.

It is all very well to decarbonise our power system and make sure that we drive electric cars, but more is needed on the demand side. The Climate Change Committee has just done its independent assessment of the net-zero strategy and I note that one of its criticisms is on the lack of emphasis on consumer behaviour change. It said:

“The Government does not address the role of diets or limiting the growth of aviation demand in reducing emissions, while policies to reduce or reverse traffic growth are underdeveloped. These options must be explored further”—


in order to, among other things—

“unlock wider co-benefits for improved health, reduced congestion and increased well-being.”

This reference to “improved health” undoubtedly refers to the microparticles in the air we breathe; that is why we need Amendment 3B and the ambitious targets for clean air that it contains. Before I sit down, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that the answer lies in the soil.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge, who has already laid out why interim targets are so badly needed. When the chairs of the Climate Change Committee stand here and tell us that this is something we need, I think we—and, more importantly, the Government—must take heed of what they say.

None of us has a clue what is going to happen in the next 28 years and 2 months before we get to 2050. Because of the very poor state of our ecosystems, these are likely to be the most unpredictable years this world—and we—have ever seen. When the Climate Change Act was drafted in the mid-noughties, the Government had foresight and created five-yearly carbon budgets that had to be legislated for. One of those was legislated for in the weeks after the Brexit referendum when there had been a change of Government and a huge amount of upheaval and political distraction. Would this have happened if it had not been a requirement? Maybe it would, but maybe not. The point I am making is that when something has to happen because it is a requirement based in statute, it happens. That is what the machinery of this Government is programmed to do.

This Government often refer to themselves as world leading. The Natural History Museum would agree with that but, unfortunately, we are going in the wrong direction. We are leading the world is in nature depletion. We are bottom of the G7 and in the lowest 10% globally, coming a long way after China. In fact, we have little over half—just 53%—of our biodiversity left. I think that frames why we have to pull every lever to stop and reverse this, something the Government are on board with, and using binding interim targets is one of those levers. Are the Government afraid of putting in more targets and, if so, why? This seems an extremely important amendment and I absolutely will vote for it.

I would like to follow up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. In this instance, I too disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I think it is the job of this House to keep going at something, and to not give in because what it faces, at the other end, is a government majority that just demands that the Whips make a few telephone calls. This is actually the important part of the debate. We cannot, for the sake of decorum or whatever, just wave our hands and let these things through. Quite frankly, the future of our planet may depend on it, even if only a little.

Environment Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support all the amendments in this group and have put my name to two of them. I just want to intervene briefly on the issue of idling. Last week, when I walked from my Pimlico flat to this House—which takes about 25 minutes, mainly down backstreets—I passed 15 vehicles which were stationary and idling: cars, vans, buses and trucks. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, had been with me, because I am far too diffident to bang on a roof and tell a driver to stop doing it—but next time I will invite her to join me.

Westminster City Council has a commendable campaign, public-relations wise, to stop idling—but it has no means of enforcing it. And even if the council did enforce it, the fine is so paltry that it is not a deterrent. This amendment would change that. It would make it easier to enforce and would make people take notice. It is a major contribution towards reducing air-quality problems in our cities and I hope that the House can support all these amendments.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, during our debate in Committee on a similar amendment to Amendment 51 the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, said that

“local authorities already have the power to set 20 mph speed limits”—[Official Report, 5/7/21; col. 1081.]

on restricted roads, so my noble friend Lady Sheehan’s amendment was not necessary. Well, yes, it is true that they have the power, and many have used it to great effect—but it is a long-winded and expensive process. Local authorities have better things to do with their time and money, so making 20 miles an hour the default would not mean that all restricted roads would end up being limited to 20. Local authorities would still have the power to make them 30 miles an hour if they considered that would be safer and better for the local community. But surely it is right that these decisions are made locally, and in as expeditious a way as possible, particularly in areas of deprivation.

In her reply, the Minister referred to something in the Atkins report. Can she now provide the House with the evidence which she claimed suggested that 20 miles an hour limits could lead to higher casualty rates, and tell us who did that research? These allegations have been widely challenged, and the Minister needs to defend them as being robust if she wishes to rely on them.

My noble friend Lady Sheehan has outlined the benefits of 20 miles an hour limits, and I have seen them for myself in both Scotland and Wales. They are safer, quieter and healthier, they address some aspects of health inequality, they protect the national grid and they are more environmentally friendly—and that is how I would describe my noble friend’s proposal. If that is not enough, 20 miles an hour areas are also very popular with the public. They address non-exhaust emissions, as well as those produced by combustions—and we do not get rid of those by moving to electric cars; I have an electric car and I still produce small particulates from my car’s tyres and brakes. The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, did not give any good reasons, in her response in Committee, why this amendment should not be in the Bill; she was not convincing.

I turn to Amendment 55, from my noble friend Lord Tope. Again, the Minister was not convincing in Committee when we covered these issues. She claimed that current regulations are adequate to clean up the emissions from non-road combustion plant—or that at least they will be by 2030. That is nine years away, by which time more people will have died from the small particulates, NOx emissions, et cetera, that are emitted by dirty generators, boilers and so on.

The powers that my noble friend proposes do not currently exist; they are voluntary and additional to what local authorities already have, but they do not have to use them. If they think, with their local knowledge, that there is no need for them—because the air is already clean or because they are happy to rely on the measures outlined by the Minister in Committee—they do not have to declare an air quality improvement area. I emphasise that the powers are discretionary. Can the Minister say what harm would be done by giving local authorities these additional, discretionary powers?

The Minister hinted in Committee that she was afraid that decisions would be made that were, in the Government’s opinion, wrong. Well that is what can happen with devolution—and indeed Governments make wrong decisions too, especially this one—so that is no good reason for failing to accept this amendment.

Amendment 56 offers the Government a very simple way of reducing or stopping totally unnecessary emissions of CO₂, NOx and small particulates. The idea that idling your engine outside a school brings a penalty of only £20 is pathetic. I have often seen parents sitting in their cars outside a school in the afternoon, waiting for their children, with their engines running as if in pole position at the start of a Grand Prix. If I had approached the driver to point out that he or she was in danger of attracting a fine of £20, I would have been laughed out of the village. Much more effective would be a fine of £100, rising to £150; I might even be persuaded to bang on the window and warn the driver, like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. If the Minister could tell me how many drivers have been deterred from doing this by this tiny fine I might reconsider my view, but, as things stand, I think that she should accept Amendment 56.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with Amendment 56 on stationary idling. It is an existing offence, and all we are being asked is to put the fine up to a more realistic level. It is certainly a problem that particularly concerns—I do not know if I should name them specifically—Uber-type drivers sitting waiting for fares.

I do not support any of the other amendments. I think it would be difficult if the House put some of these things through without fuller consideration and costings.