Direct Payment to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022

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Monday 21st March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner, as set out in the register. I am broadly supportive of the Agriculture Act and the introduction of the new system of public funds for public goods, but I need to hear what the Government have to say about the very different circumstances that apply today from when the Act was passed.

Like other noble Lords, and this was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I am most concerned with how the Secretary of State is reported to have said that rising input prices will be matched by rising output prices. This demonstrates a lack of understanding, particularly of businesses. The consultant Andersons has calculated that, whereas the average rate of inflation for consumers is 5.5%, it is 10% for farmers, when it is recognised that their principal inputs are fuel, feed, fertiliser, seeds and labour.

The Financial Times reported yesterday that the European Union is

“reviewing the bloc’s sustainable food strategy after a concerted push against the planned reforms by national governments, farmers and the agriculture industry.”

Is this debate happening here? Surely, in the unfolding circumstances of inflation and Ukraine it would be sensible, as a minimum, to delay the planned cuts in BPS payments for this year and maybe next. This would not involve additional government funding, only a delay to the introduction of the new schemes.

The new sustainable farming incentive support is, after all, a fraction of what farmers are due to lose in the BPS. This is important for smaller farmers with weaker balance sheets, as the stronger cash flow provided by the BPS would enable them to purchase inputs, such as fertiliser, on a more timely basis.

In this country, the Food and Drink Federation is now calling for a national food security council, which could work alongside the industry to enable a collective response to supply chain disruptions caused by immediate issues such as rising energy, CO₂ and fertiliser prices. Please could the Minister give us some indication of what the Government are doing to address all these important issues?

Finally, on the regulation on lump sum payments, I believe the payment is totally inadequate to encourage farmers to retire. It is also a disincentive for new farmers to enter the industry. A payment of up to £100,000 is attractive only if the farmer owns his own house, particularly in the south of England. This excludes most tenant farmers. Nothing is achieved if the farmer rents from the landowner the farmhouse he has been living in, at an open market rent, as this could be the same or more than his farming rent.

As a means to free up land for new farmers, this scheme suffers from the basic problem that the BPS is not available any more, while the other funding that is available is much smaller. The only likely “beneficiary”—in inverted commas—both from the reduction of the BPS and from the lump sum scheme is the well-financed larger farm. From a farming, environmental and social point of view, this is not what we want to achieve.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for galloping us through these measures. The challenge for us in this Committee is not to detain him too long, so as to allow him to resume all the work he is doing. I echo much of what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said. I declare my peripheral interests; my agriculture and land are all in Scotland so I am not directly involved.

The rationale for this process of cuts is the same as when this was carried out in New Zealand. All input costs and other things—my noble friend the Minister mentioned rents—dropped in parallel with the cuts in government funding. In the current economic situation, there is no way that fertiliser companies have the slack to cut prices. They are being forced up, as my noble friend the Minister will know, by 200% or more. Will the Government be monitoring how this works out in practice and will they create powers to delay the introduction? It will stretch the lump sum payments if they are the only remedy that is available, and people are going to be forced out of business.

My noble friend the Minister has promised that there will be no reduction in payments to farmers, and I am sure he believes that, but what proportion are the Government expecting to go to conservation projects that are not related to farming? Will that considered to be part of the payment or are they going to be financed from elsewhere?

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my agricultural interests as detailed in the register, although they are not particularly relevant to the point I want to make.

I do not think the Minister was in this House when we considered the Agriculture Bill in 2019—I cannot quite remember but I hope I am right about that. During the passage of that Bill, there was quite a lot of comment from many parts of the House about the position of smaller farmers, particularly hill and livestock farmers, most of whom are marginally profitable, if at all, and nearly all of whom depend wholly or almost wholly on the public subsidy that they receive. I made a plea at that point for the Government to consider not reducing the lowest band of the direct payments because those are directed only at the relatively small farmer.

I see in the regulations in front of us that, in fact, the smaller farmers—that is, those receiving £30,000 or less—are to receive a cut of 20%. That seems rather harsh. Although I am perfectly aware that there is no possibility of this regulation being amended, I wonder whether the two Ministers here would discuss with their ministerial colleagues the state of the small farms in this country. I do not believe that this Conservative Government really want to see small farms eased out of business. I am really worried about them.

The larger farms will get by. They have efficiencies, they are usually better capitalised; they will probably be all right under changed circumstances. But the small family farms, in many cases tenanted farms and/or livestock farms, are struggling and will struggle even more with these proposed cuts. I just do not feel that Ministers are sufficiently sympathetic to the position of small farmers at the moment. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that.

Waste and Agriculture (Legislative Functions) Regulations 2022

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Tuesday 8th February 2022 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the instrument before us was laid before the House on 13 January. It makes small but crucial changes to repatriate powers to the UK and correct an error in a previous agriculture SI by restoring an accidentally omitted definition of an appropriate authority. This instrument covers two subject areas: waste management and agriculture. I shall take them in turn.

First, for waste management, this instrument transfers powers relating to several directives concerning waste from the European Commission to the Secretary of State. Where appropriate, these powers are also transferred to the devolved Administrations. The powers will largely give the Secretary of State and, where appropriate, the DAs, the ability to make regulations to set various technical standards, criteria, thresholds, and conditions. All these standards are currently operational, and we do not anticipate the need to alter them soon. However, there may be a need to amend them in future. For instance, should a superior waste treatment method be developed, without the amendments made by this SI we would not be able to make regulations to take account of the new method, which may weaken our high environmental standards.

I shall briefly outline the power, or powers, being transferred from each EU directive. Regulation 5 transfers the power to set standards for the sampling of waste going to landfill from the landfill directive. Regulations 6 to 9 transfer powers from the end-of-life vehicles directive to update and modify exemptions covering the use of certain heavy metals in vehicles based on scientific or technical progress; to specify minimum requirements for the certificate of destruction for waste motor vehicles; to modify conditions for storage and treatment for waste motor vehicles in line with scientific or technical progress; and to specify material and component coding standards for vehicles.

Regulations 10 to 11 transfer powers from the mining waste directive to modify non-essential elements such as guidelines for inspecting waste facilities and sampling methods, and to update regulations in line with scientific and technical progress. Regulations 12 to 13 transfer powers from the batteries directive to specify export criteria and to grant exemptions from labelling requirements for batteries and accumulators.

Regulations 14 to 17 transfer powers from the waste framework directive: first, powers to prescribe detailed criteria for what substances may be considered a by-product of a manufacturing process rather than a waste product, whereupon it can be sold or treated differently; secondly, powers to prescribe detailed criteria for when waste may no longer be considered waste, such as if the substance can be put to a more useful purpose elsewhere; and, finally, powers to specify the application of the formula for incineration facilities.

Regulations 18 to 20 transfer powers from the waste electricals and electronic equipment directive to update selective minimum treatment technologies for waste electrical and electronic equipment, or WEEE; to update the technical requirements for WEEE treatment and storage operations and the non-exhaustive list of products listed as falling into each of the categories specified in the WEEE directive; and to update the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol. These powers could, for example, be used to tighten treatment requirements of substances in WEEE found to be hazardous to health and the environment. The powers, apart from those relating to the batteries directive and the mining waste directive, will apply in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The powers relating to the batteries directive and the mining waste directive will apply in England, Wales, and Scotland but not in Northern Ireland.

I shall now cover this instrument’s effect on agriculture- related legislation. This instrument amends Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as it relates to the organisation of common markets and rural development measures. Regulation-making powers from that regulation were previously transferred to the Secretary of State and their counterparts in the devolved Administrations by three EU exit SIs. However, the effect of the interactions between these three SIs has resulted in Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 no longer containing a definition of “appropriate authority” in relation to the financing, management and monitoring of the organisation of common markets and rural development measures. Therefore, this instrument reinserts the definition of appropriate authority into Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 and revokes the ineffective definition in a previous EU exit SI, the Agriculture (Payments) (Amendment, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, to correct this deficiency.

No impact assessment has been prepared for this instrument, because this instrument only repatriates powers to the UK and corrects an accidental omission in a previous EU exit SI. The impacts will be considered if regulations are made using the repatriated powers.

Safeguards are provided through a requirement, in relation to the waste-related powers, to consult appropriate authorities and such other persons as the Secretary of State or the devolved Administrations consider appropriate, before making regulations under these powers. Any regulations made under these powers would receive Parliamentary scrutiny through the negative procedure, except one agriculture-related power to make regulations in the event of an emergency to make payments to beneficiaries. This allows use of the urgent affirmative procedure where it is both necessary and justifiable to ensure that beneficiaries can be paid.

I commend these regulations to the Committee and I beg to move.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for such a full explanation of the impact of this measure. Did I hear him say that this will allow the Government and the devolved Administrations powers to amend the waste regulations, presumably in their area? Does he expect the powers to vary between the different areas? On the disposal of cars, one can see that a devolved Administration could perhaps make the regulations less onerous and thereby attract cars for disposal to set up a bit of industry or activity in their area. Have the Government considered that? Is it likely to be beneficial in these areas?

Climate Change: COP 26

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Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on securing this debate; it is such a hot topic and noble Lords have already emphasised that.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I was able to attend a couple of days of the conference, as my family has a long association with Glasgow. I declare my interest as a land manager in that area. Glasgow is very proud to have been chosen as the venue for such a prestigious conference. Noble Lords will be aware that it has been on a big transition from an area dominated by heavy industry. Now, it likes to brag that in 2020 it was called a “Global Green City” and rated as the fourth city in the global destination sustainability index. This accolade could have attracted Boris Johnson but, by coincidence or otherwise, it had considerable advantages for a conference being held in the midst of the Covid epidemic. It was far enough away to reduce the number of voluntary participants and objectors, but not so far as to deter foreign visitors. As it was, there was an unending emphasis on Covid prevention. There appear to have been about 30,000 or 40,000 people attending the venue, so at times there were queues in a massive orderly scrum. All told, my impression was of a copious air of optimism, endless ambition, followed by copious promises—but no great sense that the latter would match the other two demands.

The first day that I attended, there was an event entitled “Making the global transition to clean power a reality”. There was a great parade of banks and investment institutions promising a variety of funding streams to expand renewable energy generation. There was also an emphasis that the programme in south-east Asia, let alone the rest of the world, would have to build connections to 150 million homes that are currently without electricity as part of seeing that nobody was left behind. There then was a session based around the 42 countries that are offering to phase out the use of coal in their energy mix. We learned that south-east Asia contributes 50% of world carbon emissions, mainly from coal. As we know, however, in the final agreement, India and China agree only to phase down coal.

On the second day, I attended a session chaired by my noble friend the Minister. In a great innovation for COP, delegates actively addressed forest, agriculture and commodity trade and its effect on nature. This included the promise that 75% of forest supply chains will become sustainable.

There was then a session on acceleration to sustainable agriculture. We were conscious that we will need three times our present level of food production in 40 years’ time. In the end, there were two schools of thought. One was that, if all existing promises are kept, we might be able to contain warming to 1.8 degrees. We were more familiar with the other: that we could control it to just 2.6 degrees. Can the Minister tell us how we can fulfil our ambition?

Brexit: Food, Environment, Energy and Health (European Union Committee Report)

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Monday 15th November 2021 Grand Committee

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who has covered so many of the issues, and most of the ones that I would like to touch on. I feel that the title of the debate this afternoon goes well beyond Brexit. Like many others, I offer the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, congratulations on securing a debate on this report, which was our committee’s swansong back in March this year. It encapsulated a great series of reports into every possible aspect of Brexit that our remit contained, beginning with Brexit and fisheries in December 2016, almost five years ago.

I declare my family’s interest in the rural and agricultural sector.

Throughout the process of producing these reports, the staff did wonders in summoning witnesses involved in every conceivable aspect, unravelling the many technical aspects and then hammering the findings into a series of succinct reports. The Government’s response is full of the idealism that characterised much of our approach to the whole Brexit deal. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, emphasised, there are many promises on which we are still waiting to see whether Europe can be brought to agree with our wishes—not just on Northern Ireland. Our concerns were largely due to the reliance of various sectors on trade with Europe and the perishable commodities involved.

As we negotiated, we waited anxiously until, at the last minute, Europe agreed to grant us third-country status. Then we welcomed the Government’s achievement in gaining a tariff and quota-free deal but, as our report pointed out, they got nowhere near a sensible approach to the sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

I must thank the NFU and the National Sheep Association for giving me an up-to-date position in their sectors. Another sector greatly affected has been fishing. Since January, UK agri-food exporters to the EU reckon to have lost more than £1.8 billion in income, while we have given extended grace periods to our EU competitors to sell in our market. In particular, 30% less lamb has been sold into Europe in this period. When it comes to exporting live animals for breeding, there has been a barrier due to the complete lack of border control posts with live animal facilities, to the extent that there are now sheep breeders with orders from EU farmers valued at £40,000 each who have no hope of getting a deal.

The Government laid great emphasis in their plans on a trade specialised committee on sanitary and phytosanitary matters. Has this ever been established? What sign is there of it facilitating trade between the parties?

Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I ask how much of the funding provided this year for setting up a single trade window based on electronic documents has been spent, and with what outcomes. At present, our processes are faced with between £1,600 and £4,000 of additional costs per lorry going over to Europe. The fact that we have delayed setting any further controls for goods coming in from the EU may go some way to keeping supermarket shelves stocked as we go towards Christmas, but the food production issues that we currently face are due largely to workforce availability. As a consequence, I understand that the food industry has asked for a 12-month Covid recovery visa to expand the seasonal workers scheme. Has this been fully implemented?

A couple of sections of our report were on energy and the environment, topics that occupied many hours of discussion at the recent COP 26 gathering in Glasgow. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, our committee was considerably concerned about the remit given to any Office for Environmental Protection. Given that this has now been brought into existence, it was interesting to hear the noble Lord remark that the office is fully functional. I would like confirmation on that.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the session which my noble friend the Minister chaired at COP 26, on nature and the environment. Forestry and farming were much in focus as areas where carbon sequestration measures are practical possibilities. For the last couple of years, the NFU of England and Wales has been aiming for net-zero production by 2040, and in Scotland the aim is 2045. The mechanisms and results are fairly new science, and it is not clear whether the current calculations are based on the complete, whole-farm carbon cycle. This may become even more important as we negotiate the present trade agreement with Australia. I believe that it is as yet unwilling to sign up to any climate agreements and yet it seems to think that, by its calculation, its meat and dairy production will be net zero before the dates that we are considering.

From my day in Glasgow it was obvious that, as well as the environment, agriculture and food play out on a global stage, so much emphasis was placed on the need to establish norms which will allow us to compare and learn from what is happening in Australia, New Zealand and even the United States. I was particularly interested to hear the approach of the US Secretary for Agriculture, whose stated policy at the conference was to achieve more effective use of fertilisers and a reduction in methane emissions and to look after his 200,000 farmers. At that rate, we can expect a lot more competition from that quarter. Can my noble friend the Minister give the Committee any indication of the Government’s view of how this will affect our farm production in the UK?

Environment Bill

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3rd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question—and for his advance notice of it. That has allowed me to provide an answer, which I probably would not have been able to provide otherwise.

I confirm that the Government have sought and secured the consent of the Queen and the Prince of Wales to a number of measures in the Bill that bind the Crown or apply in respect of Crown land, the Crown Estate or the Duchies of Lancaster or Cornwall. These include—in direct response to his question—provisions to give directions to waste carriers; an expansion of the powers of search and seizure to tackle waste crime; the operation of smoke control areas; changes to abstraction licences; changes to land valuation provisions for the purpose of internal drainage boards; biodiversity net gain, including for infrastructure and in the marine environment; improving the Forestry Act 1967 and provision for an ancient woodland protection standard; and conservation covenants. This is a standard process that the Government undertake for all Bills. Clause 32 of the Bill clarifies that the enforcement jurisdiction for the Office for Environmental Protection extends to all public authorities, including the Crown, and subsection (3) defines the term “public authority”.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on the breadth of this Bill, in spite of many misgivings on the extent of the Henry VIII powers that it contains.

When the House was in Committee on the Bill in June, my noble friend the Minister moved two amendments to Clause 20 to do with the requirement for UK Ministers to adhere to environmental principles. The first of them disapplied a clause of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021. In speaking to the amendments, he rounded off his speech by saying that

“this is in keeping with the devolution settlement. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that our environmental approaches work together.”—[Official Report, 28/07/21; col. 581.]

This action has provoked a flurry of objection north of the border and an added disagreement on the appropriateness of legislative consent Motions. This House has an important role to play in constitutional matters, and I think the Government should tell us whether discussions were held with the Scottish Government in relation to this action and whether there are any lessons to be learned about working together.

Environment Bill

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Report stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say that we support the intent of this amendment. Given the competing demands on land in our country, we believe it is time for a national framework. If it works in other parts of the continent and in other parts of the United Kingdom, the time has come and we would support it.

I fear the Minister will say that, for a number of reasons, he is not able to accept it. I therefore applaud the noble Baroness for her campaigning on this over many years and the fact that she has put together a proposal for an ad hoc House of Lords Select Committee on this. I certainly support that. I think it is an incredibly important initiative, and I hope other Peers will support that proposal so that this issue can be taken forward in a broader way.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and my noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the enthusiasm of the devolved Administrations for this type of approach. It would be hard to find anything more enthusiastic than the way the Scottish Government have approached it. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, must have experienced this with the various organisations she has dealt with across the border. I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister has looked at some of these other countries. In fact, in spite of all the things the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has incorporated in her amendment, the Scottish Government have gone way further than that. We need to think about how far we want to go in this type of organisation.

My noble friend Lord Carrington mentioned the drawbacks that could occur. The Scottish land use strategy has been in place since 2016. There are a whole raft of policies—a natural resource management policy to tabulate stocks of ecosystem services and use an ecosystem approach. Land-based businesses, including the Crown Estate, have trialled the natural capital protocol. They had a statement on the land use strategy, then found they needed to incorporate a national marine plan as well as a national planning framework. It overlaps into forestry as well.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking in favour of Amendment 117 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone. I feel she made a very good case for an overarching land use framework to address the acute shortage of land we know we have in the UK and the competing pressures on it. This has been a developing theme that she has very much championed throughout the passage of this Bill and the Agriculture Act before it.

Whether it is setting aside land for habitat renewal and biodiversity, identifying land for planting trees to help with carbon sequestration, providing better public access to green spaces or becoming more self-sufficient in food, all these issues have to compete with the need for more housing, hospitals and schools, and it all needs to happen on the same scarce and expensive pieces of land. As my noble friend says, it has become an impossible jigsaw.

As we pile on the pressure for more and more uses for the land, there is still no accepted understanding of what the priorities are and how all those needs can be addressed. We are virtually operating on a first come, first served basis: those who already own the land decide its future, regardless of the pressures stacking up for other, maybe more pressing, needs.

Which land should be used for growing food and which for nature recovery? We never really resolved that during consideration of the Agriculture Act. Where are the millions of trees in the tree action plan going to be planted? How can we maximise our land use to mitigate the impact of climate change and contribute to net zero? What will be the impact of the new planning laws on our desire for biodiversity net gain? Are we in danger of locking up land through conservation covenants before we have decided on its ideal use? These are all urgent questions that need to be addressed, and we believe the creation of a land use framework is an excellent way to address them.

However, I am very pleased that, since the earlier debate, my noble friend has received considerable support for her proposal for a Lords special ad hoc inquiry into this issue; I was very pleased to add my name in support. I believe this would be an excellent step forward. Undeniably, as noble Lords have said, this issue is hugely complex and not easily captured in an amendment to a Bill. Whatever the outcome of her bid, I hope she will keep raising this issue, in the planning Bill and beyond, until we can reach a settled view about how to prioritise our land use for the future. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Environment Bill

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Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I apologise for not having signed the CCTV amendment; I did not spot it. Fly-tipping is something that I do not think any of us would support. Of course, it has inherent dangers, not only to the public but to wildlife in affected areas, especially if it contains toxic materials such as asbestos. There can be damage to watercourses and soil quality from the dumped waste.

Greenpeace has some quite interesting stuff on this. It has been checking areas and samples of materials resembling topsoil, covering large areas of the ground at sites where plastic waste has been burned because people do not know what to do with it, were found to be composed of shredded plastic and not earth at all. That then just gets washed out everywhere. We all know what microplastics are doing to our ecosystem.

I shall keep my remarks brief because we are all tired, but I point out that the Local Government Association is also urging people to dispose of their waste properly, which is fair enough, using the nearest household waste and recycling centre. It has worked tirelessly to keep these open during the pandemic. It also talks about wanting furniture and mattress companies, for example, to do more to offer take-back services to reduce the amount of waste produced. That is something we have not explored enough. In places such as Germany, they take back lots of packaging and so on, and they will take back items. We are very behind on that in this country.

Amendment 41, about plastic, deals with a very complex area. A lot of the plastics that are called biodegradable, disposable and so on are actually not. We have to be very sure: what we need are definitions of what “biodegradable” and “compostable” mean. We need plastic—so-called plastic or whatever it is—to be compostable in average situations; that is, in my compost heap and not necessarily under ideal temperature- controlled conditions. I would argue that these amendments are very valuable and give all sorts of good ideas to the Government. I hope they take them up.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to join in this debate on fly-tipping, spilling over into the world of plastic disposal. I am a farmer, and the NFU has voiced its support, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, mentioned, because it is a huge problem in some areas, along with all anti-social behaviour. Around where I am, the anti-social thing tends to be people taking things away rather than bringing things along, but that is another topic. They come and chop down trees to have bonfires and so on.

Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, can tell us what she has discovered about restrictions on having CCTV. It is very easy nowadays. We have done it already. We have a movement-sensitive camera that can be set up anywhere. It will record whatever can be seen in infra-red so that you can do it at night. I do not know if there is a restriction in law that prohibits this being used as evidence, but it would be an important thing to do.

Environment Bill

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Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, in the midst of all this great technical expertise, I would like to follow up one point that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, touched on, which is how all this will be achieved. This amendment asks that a further metric be added to those already in the Bill. The Secretary of State is tasked with setting targets for the annual mean level in ambient air, and an amazing combination of statistics will be needed to get that.

Clause 17 asks the Secretary of State to prepare a policy statement, but who is actually going to produce all these measures? The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, hinted at what local authorities could do, but is the Government’s policy to pile all these tasks on to local government? Who will be blamed if the measures are not produced? Are the Government considering what the financial demands are likely to be? The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has given us some indication that they may be considerably more than is currently the case.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I think the later contributions have shown that it is vital, in this connection, for the Government to focus on changing the materials that produce this. It is one thing to say, for example, that we want to go to zero carbon by a certain date. Well, surely we should have that kind of system applied to the way this development arises. Nobody wants to kill people, yet there is a substantial amount of this trouble arising in our country, and the remedy must be focused on getting rid of the particulates as far as possible. That is a very high aim, which is not always made prominent in the literature and the policies.

Environment Bill

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Committee stage
Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to hear his expertise. I offer my support for Amendment 235, so ably addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others. I have sat with the noble Lord for a number of years, recently in our environment and energy committees, and his grasp of environmental issues and experience influenced many of our conclusions, so it is a pleasure to follow up by supporting this amendment.

The Bill would be improved if the objectives on which the conservation strategy should focus were in the second paragraph of this clause. I, like many noble Lords, would like to see the Government bring forward their own list of objectives at the next stage of the Bill, as most of us would not like to see the Secretary of State hand Natural England a completely blank sheet, as if it were the inheritors of the desired Henry VIII powers.

The Bill goes on to list the activities that Natural England will be required to fulfil in setting out its species conservation strategy. These would be clearer and more focused if the objectives were listed. Of course, any list may turn out not to be perfect and again, this spills over into what power there will be to make amendments and who will exercise it. This question is similar to that in a later group of amendments we will deal with, in which we will consider the powers a Secretary of State should have to amend regulations in the light of experience.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, is an example of the expertise he holds in this area. The House benefited from hearing from him.

My noble friend Lord Caithness has many amendments in this group, and I support him in his efforts to bring greater clarity to these clauses. His Amendment 252 relates to the clause dealing with wildlife conservation licences. When we were dealing with environmental targets, the Minister introduced an amendment that allows him to make regulations to manage species abundance. As I am sure he is well aware—other noble Lords have spoken of this—he may set the targets but, as is increasingly accepted, much of this can be achieved only by other species management. Making sure that the legislation is fully appropriate is increasingly important. In this area, management becomes a question of having feet on the ground.

Only a few days ago on the “Farming Today” programme, there was a report on an RSPB reserve—in Wiltshire, I think—which made sure that all its habitat was suitable for encouraging many endangered small birds. However, this did not happen until it began to deal with what were termed “generous predators”—I find this a rather descriptive phrase—such as foxes, all kinds of corvids and stoats. My noble friend Lord Caithness’s amendment makes sure that the issue of licences is approached in a practical way. Experience in this field will be what counts, so I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will add a few words in support of Amendment 235 in the name of my noble friend Lord Krebs and others. Of the various amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I single out Amendment 242, which seeks to give an express power to Natural England to amend, update or withdraw a species conservation strategy.

The point to which my noble friend Lord Krebs’s amendment is directed is that a species conservation strategy—the “recovery of nature”, as he put it—needs careful planning if it is to achieve its objective. Natural England, which will be responsible for producing these strategies, is well equipped to do this. It already has expertise in dealing with protected species and sites for their conservation and protection, but the strategies will have to be shared with and explained to local planning authorities. Their full co-operation is essential to the success of this strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 255 and 256 in my name, together with those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch; Amendment 257AA in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle; and the proposition that Clause 106 do not stand part the Bill, in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch.

Clauses 105 and 106 were added to the Bill by the Government two months ago without any consultation. These two clauses have important potential adverse effects that these amendments seek to rectify. First, they threaten to weaken the protection of our most valuable conservation habitats and species. Secondly, they confer considerable discretionary powers on the Secretary of State to change the rules governing environmental protection.

In order to fix ideas, I will first explain what these special sites and species are. They include more than 200 special areas of conservation protected under the habitats regulations, such as the north Northumberland coast, the North Yorkshire Moors and Ashdown Forest. They include wetland sites, such as the Humber Estuary, portions of the Essex Marshes, the Isles of Scilly and the Exe Estuary, that have been designated under the Ramsar Convention. Last but not least, they include the more than 80 English special protection areas classified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and subsequent legislation, primarily for the protection of bird species. Between them, these three categories protect our greatest natural assets. They protect many rare species, such as the lady’s slipper orchid, the marsh fritillary, the bottlenose dolphin and the lesser horseshoe bat.

Currently, the regulations require public authorities, including the Secretary of State, to comply with the birds and habitats directives, which were the legal source of the habitats regulations. But Clause 105 gives the Secretary of State powers to swap this duty to comply with the birds and habitats directives with a requirement to comply with the new objectives set out in the Environment Bill; in other words, it changes the obligation to protect our most precious conservation sites and our most endangered species.

The Minister will no doubt say there is nothing to worry about and that the Government have no intention of weakening the protection of these sites and species. He may point to the fact that Clause 105 has safeguards built in, such as the requirement in subsection (7) that the Secretary of State must be

“satisfied that the regulations do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided by the Habitats Regulations.”

He may also say that Clause 105(9) requires the Secretary of State to

“consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”,

although we should note that this is a rather vague commitment; we do not know who the “persons” are.

The Minister may also argue that the habitats regulations are overly bureaucratic and that Natural England, given the swingeing cuts to its budget to which I referred in an earlier debate, will not have the capacity to deal with both the habitats regulations and the new requirements introduced by the Bill. However—and this is the central point—there is a key distinction between the requirements of the Bill and those of the habitats regulations.

The targets in the Bill are all about improving our natural environment as a whole. In contrast, the habitats regulations and related regulations are all about protecting individual sites, populations and sometimes even individual specimens; in other words, the two forms of protection are complementary and are not alternatives. Amendments 255 and 256 would speak to this complementarity by ensuring that the current protections for particular sites and species remain in place by replacing “instead of” with “in addition to”. The amendments restrict the power of the Secretary of State to sweep away existing protections while still allowing the law to continue to evolve and cater for domestic conservation priorities.

Amendment 257AA would add an additional layer of protection by requiring the Secretary of State to make changes only if they were compatible with five international conventions. It would also replace the vague commitment to consult persons who are considered appropriate by the Secretary of State with a specific commitment to consult experts, including the statutory bodies: Natural England, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the office for environmental protection. It would also ensure that there is parliamentary scrutiny of any changes.

If the Secretary of State really means to follow Clause 105(7), these proposed amendments should simply underpin the intended outcome. If, however, the Government object to the amendments, one has a right to ask why. As a start, I ask the Minister a simple question: can he confirm that the statutory bodies I have mentioned would be consulted by the Secretary of State before any regulations were changed?

Finally, Clause 106 gives the Secretary of State power to amend Part 6 of the habitats regulations in almost any way. This part of the regulations deals with development projects. It includes rules to prevent harm to protected sites except for reasons of overriding public interest.

The habitats regulations do not stop development, but they do ensure that projects are properly assessed and that effective mitigation and compensation are in place. Projects such as the Thames Basin Heaths Partnership have shown how the habitats regulations ensure that development takes place in a way that is compatible with nature, helping to protect the remains of the UK’s vanishing heathlands while still allowing the building of many new homes. Successive reviews have found the regulations to be proportionate and effective, giving certainty to developers and environmental groups alike.

Time and again in the debates on the Bill we have referred to the conflict between conserving nature and allowing development. Time and again, we have heard that the Bill, in many ways, appears to tip the balance in favour of development and against nature. Some might even be driven to argue that the Bill is designed to protect nature provided that this does not interfere with other priorities, housebuilding in particular.

The Minister may argue, as with Clause 105, that safeguards are built in. Under Clause 106, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that protections provided by the habitats regulations are not reduced and must explain the reasoning to Parliament. But this is an entirely subjective test, left to the opinion of the Minister, rather than an effective legal safeguard. Clause 106 requires the Secretary of State only to have regard to the importance of conservation and biodiversity. It does not require the Secretary of State to consult with relevant experts, only with such persons as are considered appropriate.

At this stage, we have had no indication at all about how the powers would actually be used or what problems with the habitats regulations the Government may be seeking to address. Could the Minister give us some examples of these problems?

In my view, Clause 106 could be used to allow the Government to sacrifice our natural environment on the altar of development, sidestepping protections provided by the habitats regulations. If the Minister says, “Don’t worry, we will look after nature”, the best way to convince us of this would be to delete this clause from the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 257A, 257B and 257C. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for adding his name to them. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, so that we can debate whether the Government can be trusted to guard environmental policy and how much. In seeking to move that Clause 106 not stand part, in spite of its emphasis on conservation and biodiversity, it appears the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, would not like the Secretary of State to have any room to manoeuvre on the proposals presently part of Part 6. I declare my interests as in the register but also particularly as a livestock farmer in a national park and a member of NFU Scotland.

The Government have already passed one amendment to the wording of the habitats regulations that we were operating while we were in the EU, but it was all done so rapidly that it is not altogether surprising that they have a clause in the Bill that would allow them to modify things once the rural environment has settled down. This group of amendments is all about how far they should be able to do so as the proposal unfolds.

Noble Lords will be well versed in the Government’s 25-year environment plan, which is intended to promote a fairer society and social justice, among other things. It was published in May 2019 and outlines their proposals but still lacks many of the mechanisms they hope to be able to use to achieve this, so it remains quite difficult to predict the outcomes.

The purpose of my Amendment 257C is to remedy the fact that in neither the 25-year plan nor this piece of legislation is there a direction to the Government to consider social and economic impacts and give them due regard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I am sorry that I have raised the noble Baroness’s suspicions. I have described the safeguards that are in place, and I will not repeat them because she will have heard what I said. It is wrong to imply, as I think she did, that we are scrapping the habitats directive or that it is deemed to have no value by government—that is not the case, and I hope that I made that clear in my speech. However, it is equally wrong to pretend that it is unimprovable; clearly, it is improvable and clearly we need a better or improved set of rules to deliver on the ambition that we have set ourselves. The facts make that unarguable.

However, I will go further and say that describing what the Government are doing as a “declaration of war” against nature is very hard to reconcile with an Environment Bill that has unprecedented targets. I challenge the noble Baroness to find any other country with ambitions that come even close to those that we are setting out here in relation to peat, water, waste, species, tree planting, et cetera. I challenge her to find any other country that has as ambitious an approach in relation to land-use subsidies. Indeed, I can tell her that we are the only country to have attempted, let alone achieved, the transition from the kinds of subsidies that dominate worldwide to the subsidy system that we are replacing them with, based on the condition of the delivery of public goods. Through the Bill, we are the only country to legislate to clean up our international footprint. I believe that we are introducing a world first in net gain. I could go on with many other examples. The idea that the Bill represents a declaration of war on nature is frankly absurd.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for expressing concern for the rural economy and farming, but the only question is whether, without this amendment, it is a continuing commitment. It was interesting to hear him thread together his arguments about the habitats directive and how it is safeguarded under the Bill.

I asked about the position on permitted development rights for farmers—perhaps he would like to write to me.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Duke if I did not answer all his questions. I will scan Hansard and write to him to fill in any gaps that I left.

Environment Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester [V]]

My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests as set out in the register, specifically with the Church Commissioners—a significant owner of agricultural and development land. On matters of climate change, we are a leading edge and an awarding-winning investor, yet the Bill reminds us that climate is only part of the story.

I support Amendments 196, 198 and 199. I am grateful for the speech of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble and learned Lord, Hope, and others, who convincingly made the points that net gain must not be subject to time limits and must be adequately funded.

Back in my days as a parish priest, one church in my care had a notice in its vestry which read: “Please leave this room a little cleaner and tidier than you found it.” That was, in its small way, an attempt at net gain. The Bill offers a golden opportunity to apply that philosophy on a far wider scale. My little village church was an early adopter of a national church programme to increase biodiversity. Churchyards form a refuge from the built environment in urban areas and intensive agriculture in more rural surroundings. Setting aside an area of sanctuary in God’s acre enables wildflowers to re-emerge and small creatures to find a home. Yet churchyards are able to play this role precisely because they benefit from stable stewardship over a term far longer than a mere 30 years. Net gain cannot have a cut-off date. I am grateful to the Minister for his amendment today to extend that net gain requirement to some major national infrastructure projects. In supporting that, I echo the calls of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and others in seeking assurances that net gain here will also be robust and long lasting.

With a suitable offsetting regime in place, where gain cannot practically be achieved on site, local churches will stand at the forefront of those ready to step in. In doing so, we will be enhancing the work to which we have been long committed, both theologically and practically.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Bill is systematically revising so many aspects of the environment where former approaches have been lacking. A large slice of the area where noble Lords have been discussing improvement is in basically rural issues. I have declared my interests as a livestock farmer.

The Government have laid out their framework for dealing with overall environmental issues in Clauses 1 to 19—their targets, reviews and renewal plans and what they term their environmental principles. Do we reckon to approach people with a carrot or a stick? In my last intervention I quoted a phrase from Gulliver’s Travels about increasing the blades of grass from one to two, which gave a positive spin to an environmental principle and a vision for people to work towards.

In trying to invent something similar in its phraseology, I will borrow a phrase from Bob Geldof and say we are now asking as many people as possible to enlist to feed the world holistically, in terms of its air, water, biodiversity and people. By this, we could earn the thanks of future generations. There might be a catchier way of expressing it, but many feel that this is the sort of thing they should make an effort to achieve, even if we differ in our views of how to achieve it. The mountain in front of us is to learn to change the motives of countryside managers. That is the best guarantee of the permanence we are looking for.

This group of amendments focuses on biodiversity gain as a condition of planning permission. I listened with much interest to the Minister giving some clarification of what it intends to achieve for national strategic infrastructure projects. His Amendment 201A, at a quick glance, appears to be asking for the ultimate Henry VIII measure; it is almost saying that we do not know the detail of what we want to achieve, but want all the powers that might be necessary to achieve it. This echoes what those with responsibility in rural areas are feeling; we do not yet know what new support systems will achieve. But there is a critical difference in their case, as it comes without any power to change the terms other than as the Bill allows.

It is still possible that all agriculture will achieve some biodiversity once reliance is placed on crop rotations and restoring natural fertility. Can the Minister clarify, first, whether there will be some guidance on what level must be reached before land is considered suitable for biodiversity off-setting? In the same context, will assisting the achievement of biodiversity gain on a remote site be regarded as equal to a gain within the boundary of a significant site?

We are embarking on an unquantifiable change in the countryside. As farmers, we know that Mother Nature will respond, but with what? We cannot tell what the final outcome will be to it all. There will always be some looking to achieve a viable enterprise from the land, and we may have to adapt. That is where I cannot support Amendments 196 and 201AZB put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. She feels that 30 years is not long enough, and perhaps we all feel uneasy leaving some of this entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State. Would it make any difference to their position if the stipulation was 50 years? I heard the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, talk about 100 years.

I was looking forward to supporting Amendment 200 in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, but I gather that this is unnecessary because the Government have decided to accept it and all its implications. The only thing in my mind is whether it would be better to introduce the marine element to the main section of the Bill, as is proposed in a later group by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Would it still be necessary to mention “marine environment” in this section? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 196 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Lady Parminter and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I also support other amendments in this group, which I will mention when I come to them.

I join other noble Lords in welcoming government Amendment 194B and the new Schedule 14A, which will include nationally significant infrastructure projects in biodiversity net gain. In this context, I also support Amendment 194C, which aims to close a potential loophole by including other major infrastructure projects, such as those concentred under a hybrid Bill procedure, in the net-gain requirement.

Amendment 196, as we have heard, seeks to remove the 30-year time limit for off-site compensatory habitat under biodiversity net gain. Many Peers have spoken eloquently in support of this change, although some have said that “in perpetuity” may be too long. So there may be a debate to be had: if not 30 years, how long should it be? Still, it should certainly be for much longer than 30 years.

The Government’s argument for the 30-year limit appears to be that landowners may be reluctant to maintain habitats and lock up land in perpetuity. However, if the aim is to protect nature for future generations, it is crucial for net-gain projects to have a longevity of greater than one generation. Furthermore, the development projects that net gain seeks to off-set will often certainly last much longer than 30 years, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Hayman of Ullock, mentioned. If a habitat created to compensate for damage by a development can simply be ploughed up after 30 years while the damaging development is left standing, we will not be passing on a guarantee of nature in better condition to the next generation. This is not damage avoided but damage deferred—an asymmetry that punishes nature.

As it stands, the Bill creates a carousel of land-use changes where landowners are paid to off-set environmental harm for a while before turning the land over to some other use. Instead we need lasting habitat that will genuinely help to create a nature recovery network, even if the result is fewer parcels of habitat for sale; that is the price of restoring nature. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, rightly pointed out, we have to make hard choices about land use.

Furthermore, as others have pointed out, the creation of new habitats and the arrival of new species can often be a long, slow process. We have already heard several examples, to which I add my local RSPB reserve on Otmoor, near Oxford. It was established in 1997 by converting farmland into wetland, and it is still attracting additional new species of birds each year. A limit on the time horizon of net-gain projects will add to concerns already raised by ecologists at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, who found in a recent report that net gain is leading to large losses of green open space, off-set by the promise of better-quality habitats at an uncertain time in the future. They also found that 95% of the off-setting projects produced small disjointed areas of habitat rather than following the principles of

“more, bigger, better, more joined-up”

proposed by Sir John Lawton.

Given the shortcomings already identified in the operation of net gain, surely the opportunity in this Bill is to strengthen the protection of nature where we can, including by lifting the 30-year restriction. In other jurisdictions, such as the United States and Australia, off-sets are required to last either as long as the development itself or for perpetuity. If the Government are serious about creating real gains for nature from development then those gains need to be lasting.

Amendment 198A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, seems a no-brainer. Just as we have a waste hierarchy, we should surely have a biodiversity hierarchy: do not do harm, minimise harm and, lastly, compensate for harm.

In conclusion, the onus is on the Minister to explain to us why the perfectly sensible Amendments 194C, 196 and 198A should not be accepted. I very much look forward to his response.