Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 264A. My noble friend Lord Swire cannot be here. He has a particular theme running through on issues regarding pylons and he would appreciate a response from the Minister in regard to what he submitted. There is a broader point on how we are unfortunately going back to prioritising climate over nature, when they should go hand in hand. We hear comments like that from Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for DESNZ, about how climate change is the number one threat to nature; I am afraid that that is not what the scientists say. It is in the top five, but is not number one. When we are considering changes in this Bill more broadly—my noble friend Lord Swire reminds us of aspects of energy infrastructure—we should have that fully in mind.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to look forward to the Government’s Amendment 346E and in particular subsection (2) of the proposed new clause, which says:

“Natural England or the Secretary of State must take account of the best available scientific evidence”.


I ask the Minister whether that is going to comprise part of the EDP.

In explaining the reason I ask that, I will refer to some of the conversations I had with the Minister on Monday’s debate and, in particular, to the email that I wrote this morning asking for a more detailed reply. In reply to my contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that she had already spoken about getting scrutiny of the EDP. She said:

“I want to clarify that, before the EDP comes to the Secretary of State, it will be subject to proper scrutiny through public consultation”.—[Official Report, 15/9/25; col. 2003.]


It is helpful to have that, but could today’s Minister please enlighten the House about how that consultation will take place? Unless the information is cited in the EDP, it is going to be very hard to challenge. One of the complaints that I have about Natural England is how hard it is to challenge it when it comes to scientific evidence, because it hides behind the legal situation and says it is a precautionary principle: “Lump it, all of you”.

On my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment, I wonder if the Minister is satisfied about the present position with regard to Natural England and nutrients. My noble friend wants to limit the EDP to nutrient mitigation, and I think that is sensible and that the current situation is working well. Natural England’s nutrient mitigation scheme was set up in 2022 using £33.5 million of public money. This was based on its proposals to the Secretary of State. Since then, Natural England has spent £17.54 million setting up its off-setting scheme to generate 10,097 nutrient credits by removing 704 hectares of farmland from food production. When a new company in the private sector put forward a proposal to provide nutrient credits without taking farmland out of production, Natural England initially said yes; it then reversed its decision, as I explained on Monday.

Natural England claims that it does not make a profit from the sale of nutrient credits as they are priced at cost recovery. However, if one examines the figures, one can contradict this, because its internal costings show that a credit in Dorset costs £1,685 and that, when administration fees are accounted for, it would cost £1,938. However, it has been selling nutrient credits on the market at a significant mark-up of £3,250, plus a 10% administration fee. This suggests to me that Natural England is making a profit of up to £1,637 per nutrient credit, representing a profit margin of 45.8%.

In the letter that I received from the Ministers this morning, to which reference has already been made— I must say I am grateful for it; I wish we had had it before we began our proceedings on Monday—the last sentence of the third-from-last paragraph says:

“Once EDPs are made, we expect them to be delivered on a cost-recovery basis, while ensuring good value for money for developers by ensuring competition and innovation in the procurement of conservation measures”.


I have just shown that the nutrient market is not being operated at cost recovery by Natural England and that it is excluding the competition. How, when you have that existing situation, does the Minister really expect the EDPs to be offered on a different basis?

--- Later in debate ---

This upfront clarity is vital for developers, especially for smaller housebuilders. When a developer chooses to use an EDP, the payment of the levy legally discharges the relevant environmental obligations. This transfer of responsibility for securing environmental outcomes derisks development, which will be particularly beneficial to SME developers, which often have less resource for consultancy and legal services. The Secretary of State, when making the levy regulations, is already required to ensure that the viability of development is considered and may set different rates for different scales or types of development as well. SMEs have been an important consideration for the Government when we have been designing this legislation, so I hope that on that basis the noble Baroness will not press her amendment. With these explanations, I hope noble Lords are content not to press their amendments.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the offer that the Minister made to join the meeting that I am going to have with Natural England. It was to be a rather focused meeting, but I am happy to widen it. I am delighted that the noble Baroness would come. That would be extremely helpful. I hope that Natural England will give us time to have a proper meeting on heather burning and fuel load, as well as EDPs and the scientific advice, and make it a broader meeting. I am extremely grateful to her and I thank her very much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

It seems to me that the Minister and the department have shot my fox, except I know the Minister is not really keen on shooting foxes at all. In fact, although they have not agreed to my amendments, the very thing that I wanted is in government Amendment 346E. I think that is right. I will blame the fact that I have new glasses and cannot read things very well, but I assume that this is the case, and that is probably enough for me to say.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, like my noble friend who has just spoken, my amendments in this group are about challenging the EDP. We spoke about that on the last amendment; I do not think there is any need for me to repeat myself. I express my thanks to the Minister, who will probably go into this in quite some detail.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 285AA is about the way in which the Secretary of State approves EDPs. As currently drafted, the Bill says:

“The Secretary of State may make the EDP”—


that is, approve it—

“only if the Secretary of State considers that the EDP passes the overall improvement test”.

The “overall improvement test” is the key test of whether an EDP is sufficient and should go ahead but the Bill does not make it clear on what basis the Secretary of State will make his consideration. If I understand it correctly, the Secretary of State who will do this part of the process is the Secretary of State at MHCLG and not Defra, unless I have misunderstood what the Minister has just said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. When a developer opts for an EDP, there will be a clear statement of the costs. But I think it would be useful to have a conversation between now and Report, so I am very happy to do that.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the full reply that the noble Baroness has given. Can I ask her just to lift the lid a little bit on the timing of the public consultation? How long a time are the Government thinking of between the Secretary of State receiving an EDP and confirming or denying the EDP? How long is that public consultation going to be?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As the noble Earl will be aware, there are standard timings for government consultations, so we would employ those principles as set out in the government regulations for all consultations. If the noble Earl is not familiar with those, I can certainly send him the details.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, given my experience with polling, I wish to focus on one particular statement made by Defra which underpins this Statutory Instrument. In the de minimis impact assessment, it says that polling commissioned by Defra, from YouGov in 2022, found that

“over half (57%) of respondents thought the use of gene editing in crops/plants for food production was acceptable, 16% were undecided, while 27% thought the use was unacceptable”.

It is a little unfortunate that, as well as initially not having published the impact assessment online but only making it available on request, the department also initially seemed reluctant to share further details of that polling. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report on this noted:

“Defra has not published the survey”,


and that remained the case even after the committee asked for information about it.

As a result, I contacted the pollster directly and pointed out that, under its own industry regulation, it appeared to be required to publish the poll, which I am glad to say that it did—and to be fair I note that Defra has since added a link to the details of the poll to the impact assessment. But this sequence suggests an unfortunate reluctance to be as transparent as possible about the evidence being used for decision-making. Why should the details of a poll, paid for by the taxpayer and being used to justify legislation being put to Parliament, be obscured in that way?

Now that we have the details of the poll, they pose further questions. In the poll, a full 52% said that they had not even heard of this technology. Moreover, of the 48% who had heard of it, only 3% said they were “very well informed” about it. As that is 3% of the 48%, it means that overall only 1.5% said that they were very well informed about the topic that they were being asked to give their views on.

The specific question which Defra cited, whose wording we now know despite that earlier reluctance, is not an awful question, by any means, but its wording is problematic, given how Defra has chosen to use its results. The question wording provides positives about PBOs without providing any mention of possible drawbacks. There is an obvious and clear risk of skewing answers, if you ask a question on a topic about which only 1.5% say they are well informed and in that question provide only benefits and mention no possible drawbacks.

I hope, therefore, that the Minister will address both these points. First, why was there the initial reluctance to publish full details of the poll? Secondly, can I press the Minister on whether a question in a poll where only 1.5% of people say that they are well informed of the topic, and with wording that provides only positives for the policy, really provides the solid evidence that the impact assessment presents it as being?

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I would briefly like to support the statutory instrument before us. There have been very many good speeches and some that I disagree with, which are fighting battles that we have already fought, discussed at length and voted on—and here we are still raising them—and then people bring in the red herring of genetically modified foods, which is not what we are talking about at all.

There has been quite a lot about labelling. I repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said. All the food that we eat now has been genetically altered. It is not labelled—there was no labelling on Golden Promise, that wonderful barley in the 1950s. That started life in a nuclear reactor subjected to gamma rays; there has been no labelling about that. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, by the time it gets into the food chain, it is a very different plant from what originally happened.

I believe that the Government have absolutely got it right and have struck the right balance. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, says that she wants healthy foods; we all want healthy foods. But the food that we are eating, which is healthy, is all genetically modified. If the noble Baroness wants really healthy food, she should go back to basics, when mankind first appeared on the planet—she would be dead of starvation. She would not have a hope.

I wish also to support the noble Lord, Lord Trees, in asking the Government to move forward on the animal front, too. These regulations are hugely important for farmers and consumers and for feeding the world’s population in the years to come.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I want to intervene briefly just to agree with my noble friend Lady Coffey and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I will not repeat their points, but I think it is important for us to ask the question of whether it is right to use a debate on statutory instruments to try to revisit arguments that were, as far as I am concerned, thoroughly discussed during the passage of the originating legislation. Likewise, perhaps the Secondary Legislation Committee should not have treated people raising concerns with the committee as a basis for asking questions to the Minister. The committee should have examined some of those questions itself.

Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I preface my remarks by thanking my noble friend Lord Rooker for his comments. They resonate so much with me in terms of how this Government have approached the farming sector, which is to be regretted. I will go on to say much in support of my noble friend here on the Front Bench.

I always remember that my father—who was not a farmer, by the way—used to say that the Treasury does its best to strangle every good initiative at birth. I very much concur with his comments.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for her explanation of the regulations before us today. I also thank her for her Answers to Written Questions on 3 April, where she laid out the Government’s plans for the reinterpretation of the sustainable farming incentive. I declare my interest as being in receipt of payments regarding a dairy farm.

However, after I submitted Written Questions to the Table Office, they were separated into distinct Questions. One became redrafted and reinterpreted and was thereby lost. However, in her Answers, which I am grateful for, she stated:

“Every penny of the reductions to delinked payments will stay within the sector”.


I know that was one of the concerns at the time of the SFI closure announcements, and I am glad she has reiterated it tonight. Her other replies on the Government’s intentions regarding SFI were extremely useful.

I have today resubmitted the Question and if I may will ask my noble friend tonight, so that it completes the picture regarding the intentions of the Government. This period of transition initiated on Brexit has been extremely long and arduous for farmers and growers. I was extremely critical of the previous Conservative Government cutting back on support payments under BPS over this transition period long before there was any clarity from government on environmental schemes ahead. That these have now been worked up and brought forward by this Government is to be welcomed.

The payment for environmental benefits has been made worthwhile and meaningful compared with the cost of the enterprise to undertake them. This has been reflected in the successful uptake of the sustainable farming incentive, leading to a full budget allocation, in contrast to the lack of uptake in the previous Conservative Government’s allocation.

My noble friend and her colleagues in the other place are to be congratulated. Now that there are meaningful programmes for environmental improvements, I can understand and appreciate that the Government wish to move ahead to these ELM schemes and hasten the change from the legacy systems of BPS in the transition. Now that there are these schemes, I cannot support these regret amendments.

However, the timing of the progressive withdrawal coincides with a pause in the success of the SFI scheme in bringing forward an oversupply of applications. It is imperative that this temporary pause is short-lived and that there is clarity on the way ahead, especially for the 3,000 to 6,000 applicants who were preparing to join the scheme.

So, my question which was overlooked and which I would now like to ask the Government is: is it their intention to maintain and continue with a universal scheme open to all farm types on an equal basis? We cannot and must not lose sight of the role of all farms in hitting environmental and sustainability targets. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the committee that any reinterpretation of SFI will continue to be available to all farms and continue to be worthwhile to bring the necessary changes and benefits to the UK’s agricultural land management?

The agricultural transition must continue to be inclusive. There has been a lot of complexity to navigate and the contemporary problems of overspend must not detract from fulfilling the promise of bringing forward a more sustainable agriculture, and I commend the department on how simple it is to enter the scheme.

Many of those in the process of an application may have been subject to the complex rules of the transition between an ELM or mid-tier Countryside Stewardship scheme, which were subject to five-year agreements, and the SFI incentive. Those farmers will need answers.

I realise that there are further dimensions around the policies that must be assessed with the forthcoming road map and the land use framework. However, I urge my noble friend the Minister and her colleagues in the department to bring forward a continuing and meaningful scheme as soon as possible.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, the present financial crisis that farmers face was an inevitability the moment we voted for Brexit—I said so at the time. It was a question only of when it was going to happen. HM Treasury knew that there was a budget set in Brussels and that it could get its sticky mitts on to it; once they did so, the farmers were going to be in trouble —and in trouble they are.

My noble friend Lord Fuller was absolutely right to say that it is a much bigger issue than the SFI and the basic payment system; it is across the board. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said that Defra’s reputation is at its lowest in living memory—that is a sad thing to have to say in this House for all the farmers.

The SFI was a victim of its own success; it was too good to be true, and it was inevitable that it had to be ended or changed. Perhaps that could have been done much better, and there should have been advance warning, but, given the way it was structured, it was inevitable that the benefits were not distributed evenly.

The basic payment system, for all its faults—here I chide the Minister for portraying the beneficiaries of the basic payment system as, I think, large and wealthy landowners—was for every farm business. There was equality; it went right across the board. That is not the case for the SFI, which is one of its faults. If you look at the figures for the SFI, you will find that there are 7,800 agreements in the south-west and 1,000 agreements in the north-east. That is not an equal distribution across the country. On top of that, one needs to remember that over half of the land in England is tenant farmed—they are not large, wealthy landowners.

The need for equal distribution is an important feature for the Government to consider when adapting the scheme. We have a great opportunity now for the Government to come forward with a revised SFI scheme, but two important changes need to be made to the current scheme: first, it must be available to all on a fair basis, and, secondly, it must benefit nature.

One of the problems of the existing SFI is that it has not necessarily benefitted nature. It benefited some farmers who got in there early and made a lot of money, but the figures that I cited for the distribution of the SFI show that there were patches where nature was going to be improved and patches where nature was not getting any benefit at all. That is perhaps the only thing that I would add to my noble friend Lord Roborough’s regret amendment. I am sad that he did not include “and nature and biodiversity”, because that was part of the SFI. Yes, the farmers were going to benefit, but it was public money for public goods, and that includes biodiversity.

I will outline my particular fear, as I think this is bound to happen. A whole lot of farmers signed up to the middle tier of the Countryside Stewardship scheme in 2020, which was to last for five years. I believe that there are about 14,000 farmers in that category—the Minister might correct me if I am wrong, because it is important to get it right. Those people were the good farmers: they were ahead of the game, and they took the difficult decision to go into something that was a new idea—and new ideas tend not to work terribly well to begin with—in the expectation that, at the end of the five years, there would be another scheme for them to go into. However, what they will now find is that the doors have slammed shut: there is no scheme for those people to go into.

You can drive around the countryside, which is looking particularly good in the spring sunshine at the moment, and look at those areas of bird seed where the drills have gone down you have bird seed, leys and areas set aside for nature. Next year, they are not going to be there because those farmers have no option but to plough up all the good they have done in the last five years, put it down to corn and put the combine in. That would be a tragedy.

Biodiversity and Conservation

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, bracken is a plant that deserves admiration. It is thought to be largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs and it has been found on every continent except, to date, Antarctica. It is found across the UK, from a garden to an almost inaccessible hillside.

Bracken supports specialist flora and fauna and is welcome as part of a mosaic of vegetation types. However, it can out-compete other vegetation due to several biological adaptations. If there is no effective management, this can result in dense monoculture stands with the loss of sensitive and diverse species—which, in comparison to the mosaic, are biological deserts. The Lake District is an example of an area which is suffering from this, but it is far from alone.

Currently, there is no reliable estimate of the area of bracken in the UK and of whether, and by how much, it is increasing. Farmers and land managers were able to use Asulox, which was an effective control method, especially as it was possible to apply it from a helicopter. With its withdrawal from the UK market, they believe the plant is spreading at a rate of up to 5% each year, and the many problems associated with bracken are mounting.

Bracken can block access for walkers. It reduces the amount of land available for livestock grazing and nature, especially for red-listed species such as curlew, lapwing and raptors. It provides a habitat for sheep ticks and tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease, which are increasingly impacting on people, livestock and wildlife. Bracken is highly toxic and there are strong links to certain types of human and mammalian cancers. The toxic exudates from bracken risk polluting water and drinking water supplies. Bracken is a source of fuel for damaging wildfires, and in the right conditions burns at a high temperature with a long flame length, producing a highly irritating deep yellow smoke with carcinogenic and cyanide properties. Limestone pavements, a priority habitat, can be damaged, as can any underground archaeology or structure, as Historic England warns us.

Successive Governments failed to grasp the problems of this pernicious weed because Asulox was available. Now an opportunity presents itself to assess all the problems scientifically and holistically. Farmers and land managers will be only too willing to help with the delivery of an approach that keeps bracken in check, and this will help achieve the Government’s goal in the 25-year environment plan of

“creating or restoring 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside the protected site network”.

However, farmers and land managers need to be given the necessary information, tools and support.

The proposed UK strategic bracken framework is welcome so far as it goes, but it risks looking at the problem only from the nature conservation angle, which is not good enough. As bracken is a hugely and surprisingly complicated subject, a cross-sector approach to its future management is essential. Only the Government will enable that. Therefore, will the Minister convene a conference of all interested groups so that the many issues can be addressed and placed in context, and an effective way forward identified?

I thank my noble friend for arranging this debate: it is hugely important. We will lose a lot of expertise on this particular subject when the hereditary Peers go, but I just ask the Government, when they consider anything to do with the environment, to please base it on sound science rather than emotion.

Global Warming

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for including climate change and nature in this debate. They are and always have been inextricably linked. I agree with the Government in describing the crises facing them as the greatest long-term challenge the world faces. It is significant that, in the Global Risks Report published by the World Economic Forum yesterday, extreme weather and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are ranked first and second over a 10-year horizon in a table of severe global risks.

This interconnection, and the policy focus on measures to address the climate and nature crises, is likely to result in increased human-wildlife conflict. The global biodiversity framework recognises the role that human-wildlife conflict and coexistence plays in nature conservation in its target 4. In taking a lead, will this Government adopt the IUCN guidelines that provide the necessary framework to address conflicts and promote coexistence? If so, when?

While nature-based solutions—known as NbS—can help mitigate the effects of climate change, there is evidence from other countries that addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in isolation will result in other environmental implications. The Grantham Research Institute reports that, in some cases, NbS

“have been employed with a short-sighted focus on rapid CO₂ removal without due attention to other environmental implications”.

To pick up my noble friend Lord Gascoigne’s point, this is a clear warning to the Government that a holistic discussion addressing the issue is needed. Does the Minister agree that NbS should be pursued alongside other measures, such as emission reductions and a concurrent focus on consumer consumption as opposed to just producer emissions?

Many NbS have long timescales and may not even achieve the ambition of the restoration of an ecosystem, such as peatlands, but rather the creation of a novel ecosystem that relates to current climatic conditions. It is claptrap to say that we can save our peatlands by rewetting, when it is estimated that only 30% of the Peak District can be rewetted as part of peatland restoration. Climate change will cause land degradation. Models of future climate projections suggest that the geographical distribution of blanket bogs gradually retreats towards the north and west. Therefore, the protection of these existing carbon sinks is vital. The question for the Government is whether the focus should be on adaptation rather than mitigation in some habitats and areas.

Wildfire is one of the drivers of biodiversity loss and is becoming a growing threat. The UK’s Third National Adaptation Programme identifies wildfire as a significant risk to forests, woodlands and peatlands, with the climate change risk assessment highlighting a significant increase in summer wildfire danger. While the risk is highest in the south and east of England, the change in risk is likely to be more pronounced in the north and west. The expected milder, wetter winters will promote vegetation build-up, and hotter, drier springs and summers will increase the risk of vegetation catching fire. This increased fuel load will be an added threat to new woodland plantations.

Some UK habitats consist of fire-adapted species such as heathlands and peatlands, but the projected increase in fire frequency and the increase in fire intensity and severity means that even fire-adapted species are at risk. Whatever the targets for habitats and biodiversity are, wildfire is just one example of where proper management is essential in ensuring that NbS are good for both climate mitigation and biodiversity. Each site or area will be unique, requiring a policy that does not take a one-size-fits-all approach. We all know how difficult that is for Governments to implement.

Proper monitoring will be necessary, for how can one judge whether a policy is successful or not without it? However, we know that Natural England and the Environment Agency are struggling with resources and that the lack of monitoring has already led to environmental problems. I therefore pose the question: do the Government have the inclination and resources needed to grasp the challenges and opportunities? We are waiting to hear how their policies will be designed to meet their targets. Sadly, they appear rudderless, with the Treasury treating Defra with disdain. They need good non-departmental bodies to help implement their policies.

I conclude with two further questions. Why is there is still an interim chair of the Climate Change Committee? The term of office of the chair of Natural England ends in April. Will he be reappointed and, if not, when will his successor be announced?

Rural Economy

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, in our short debate on the 15 October, I was struck by the positivity of most of the speakers for the rural economy and the potential that it offered. In today’s debate, the right reverend Prelate, to whom we are all grateful for introducing this debate so well and so fully, picked up on those ideas of positivity. I so agreed with the phrase that he used: it is time for a strategy for the rural economy. That was the title of the report of this House in 2019, and I was privileged to serve on the committee.

There are undoubted opportunities. The right reverend Prelate reminded us of the gap in productivity between rural and urban areas. It is worth looking at the proportion of gross value added. In England, it is only 16%, whereas in Scotland it is 26% and in Wales it is 28%. Would the Minister get in touch with the devolved Administrations and find out whether there is any potential from up there and over west that could be used in England to improve the productivity and increase the percentage of GVA?

What has changed between now and the debate we had only two months ago? There has been a very significant change: we have had a Budget. The Budget was so beautifully described by Sir James Dyson as

“an egregious act of self-harm”.

The enthusiasm and potential that I thought the rural community had for this Government has been squashed. Small businesses, which the Minister in a recent letter to me described as the beating heart of the high street, were taxed with extra costs, burdens and bureaucracy—the very things that rural businesses do not want if they are going to thrive in the modern world.

A small but very important percentage of people in rural areas are farmers. In our debate on the Budget and small farms the other day, I listed all the extra taxes that the current Chancellor had imposed on farmers. The cumulation of that is the complete lack of confidence in the Government on the part of farmers, and a reduction of the incentives farmers have to plan for the future. It must be a very difficult time for farmers.

Combine that with the fact that climate change is making a third of our clay-based soils in lowland England unfarmable and it is going to have a very large effect on the productivity of farms and the ability to feed ourselves. Food security is one of the things that the Government thought was important before the election. How are the Government going to square the circle of making our food supply more secure, at the same time as berating those who are actually producing it?

In the debate two months ago, I mentioned Project Gigabit, and the right reverend Prelate picked that up earlier. I would add a different aspect to that: the download speed for internet. In rural areas, 5% of the community cannot get a download speed of 10 Mbps, whereas this is only 1% in urban areas. With so much having to be done on the computer now, unless you have a good download speed you are in serious trouble. Could the Minister address Project Gigabit and give us a bit more detail of how she plans to increase the availability of good broadband and social media supply in rural areas?

Another question I asked in our debate two months ago was about the size of Defra staff. Yesterday, I was emailed a written reply. As it is not in the Library, I will quote the first sentence. Our report in 2019 said that there were 60 staff. The reply says:

“It is complex to place a specific figure on the exact number of colleagues in DEFRA who work on Rural policy, given the wide-ranging nature of rural policy and that rural-proofing of Government policy is a cross-DEFRA and cross-Government effort”.


Sir Humphrey would be proud of that.

As the Minister takes her train home for Christmas—I hope she has a lovely, relaxing time—and looks out of the window at all the farms, will she consider that 50% of those farmers earn under £25,000 a year, yet her train driver probably earns three times as much? As she will be on an Avanti train, will she also think, as she looks at the stock farms and the farmers who are working 365 days a year, that these Avanti workers are about to go on strike over rest days?

Farming Families

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, the Budget is notable for kicking an industry that is already stressed as it adapts to the new farming regime. It is not just the bombshell announcement of the change in inheritance tax that is causing so much anger and distress in the farming community. Besides climate change, they are having to cope with accelerated BPS reduction, costing a modest-sized arable farm between £30,000 and £40,000 a year in subsidy income; minimum wage and NI increases; carbon tax on fertiliser imports; and now the less-publicised changes to double-cab pick-up tax status. Trade deals are allowing cheaper imports of products of lower standards than they are required to meet. In September this year, average earnings were £651 a week in this country. In agriculture, the average was almost 25% less at £507 a week. While the farming budget of £2.4 billion—a reduction in real terms—was confirmed, it is only for one year, making planning for farmers that much harder.

To meet their net-zero and biodiversity targets, the Government must rely on land manager and farmer engagement. That requires incentives, consistency and trust. The Government have just shattered that and will not get it back. They clearly do not understand that you cannot farm green if you are in the red. The uplands, with their many family farms, are particularly at risk, with few options within the current ELMS. It could be that these farmers decide to sell out to carbon farming, given the payments offered, which would be detrimental to other public goods and to communities, associated employment and businesses, as well as putting food security and nature recovery more at risk.

Many good, well-run family farms, especially those on our less good land, are currently not making any return and are often living on overdrafts. The Budget proposals have already resulted in banks reducing lending facilities and increasing lending rates to farmers. As a very good farmer put it to me yesterday:

“Right now I have no wish to pass the farm down to my children. Growing food is a thankless task, every year we are taking a gamble when we put seeds in soil, and each year the odds are more and more against us. The risk/reward is just not there anymore. I tell my kids to pursue other more rewarding work, where you get paid holidays, sick pay and are reasonably certain of your income”.


The Government are sacrificing the farming industry, all in the hope of raising half a billion pounds in tax revenue—that is 0.3% of the NHS budget.

Rural Communities

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering on securing this debate on the important subject of rural communities.

I was privileged to sit on the Rural Economy Committee of this House in 2019. Our report, Time for a Strategy for the Rural Economy, is only five years old and, having reread it, I find it still very relevant today. We identified several problems that rural areas face in comparison with urban areas, many of which have got worse. It is not surprising that the evidence in the Regional Moorland Groups report, published a month ago and entitled The People’s Plan for the Uplands, shows that 97% of the people who live in these areas feel “abandoned by politicians”.

However, we also evidenced the opportunities that these areas could offer. I follow the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in highlighting the £9 billion to £19 billion in extra revenue that is available. If I were a Treasury Minister again, I would be very keen to exploit that potential.

I will identify some other key facts. In 2021, rural workers’ productivity was 82% of that of non-rural workers, which is a significant productivity gap. If trends continue, rural productivity is expected to decrease to 79% of non-rural by 2040. In 2021, the non-rural economy was six times larger than the rural economy and is projected to grow to 6.5 times larger by 2040. A 2022 report for the Rural Services Network, when reviewing the then levelling-up White Paper, showed that, if rural communities were a distinct region, their need for levelling up would be greater than any other part of the country. The cost of living is higher in rural areas. The rural fuel poverty gap is nearly double the national average.

As other noble Lords have said, there is a shortage of housing of the right type and tenure. The National Planning Policy Framework should include measures suggested by the Rural Services Network in England, which would help increase the delivery of affordable homes that meet local needs in small rural communities. Without an adequate supply of affordable housing and workspaces, it is difficult for rural businesses to flourish.

Since our report in 2019, digital infrastructure has improved, although it is still far from adequate. Can the Minister confirm that the remainder of the Project Gigabit programme will be delivered? Will she place the focus on rural areas, which are still losing out, and redouble efforts to ensure the rollout of networks that will give the full fibre or gigabit capability of broadband connectivity? Without good connectivity, rural communities are being discriminated against and businesses are being made unprofitable.

Many reports have highlighted the unique challenges faced by rural communities and businesses. There is no lack of evidence. What is important for the Government to understand is that businesses, people and communities in rural areas are faced with the aggregate multiple impacts of all these issues. It is this that makes me stress the importance of our report’s first recommendation and title: the need to have a comprehensive rural strategy.

Will the Government commit to developing a specific, tailored rural strand within the Government’s economic growth strategy, with buy-in across Whitehall departments, including the Treasury? Such a strategy should include measures that will help diversify rural economies, raise productivity and attract quality job opportunities. Such a strategy will be more effective if all government legislation is thoroughly rural-proofed and has a place-based approach to reflect the diversity of the countryside and the capabilities and knowledge of those who live and work there.

I end with three further questions for the Minister. Given that farming is still an important component of our diversified rural areas, when do the Government intend to publish their land use strategy? In 2019, Defra’s in-house rural policy team comprised about 60 staff. What is the number today? Finally, can the Minister tell us what rural areas, if any, will benefit from yesterday’s inward investment summit?

Flood Prevention: Farmers

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, as we have just experienced the wettest 18 months since records began in 1836, we are all grateful to the right reverend Prelate for raising this matter and giving us the opportunity to debate flooding and farming. Agricultural land in England is increasingly at risk of severe flooding, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, just told us from personal experience. Currently, 74% of our total flood plain area is agricultural land, including 60% of our best and most versatile land. Last winter, the number of flood warnings on England’s best farmland hit a record high of over 1,000, exceeding the previous record by one-fifth.

Climate change is a significant driver of flooding. It is also responsible for increased and prolonged droughts. It is expected to make UK summers drier and hotter, and winters wetter and warmer. The hottest decade on record concluded in 2023, yet our weather is 12% wetter than the 1961 to 1990 average. So, although flooding is an important subject, we must be aware how interlinked the environment is and be conscious that, in proposing a solution for one thing, we do not adversely affect other problem areas. Currently, it is easy to forget that the south and east of England, where much of the water-intensive horticultural industry is located, is under most pressure from drought. It is predicted that we will use 5 billion more litres of water a day in 25 years’ time than now. Can the Minister confirm that the Floods Resilience Taskforce will also consider droughts, which are more damaging environmentally?

Both flooding and drought represent huge risks for English farmland and are likely to become more regular and severe, increasing the pressure on agricultural land. Both are part of the bigger problem of providing a sustainable drainage and water resources management system in this country. The Government, through ELMS, are supporting farmers, but the Minister will not be surprised that I recommend that more urgent attention should be given to soil, and in particular soil organic matter, which can be part of a solution to both problems. A 1% increase in soil organic matter per hectare adds 200 tonnes of water storage per hectare on average, but of course this will vary by soil type. This is because organic matter can hold 10 to 20 times its weight in water. This also increases a soil’s resilience to drought by allowing it to hold more water. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Allerton Project has estimated that the around 18,000 cubic metres of water storage provided by 27 leaky dams located in optimal locations across 1,100 hectares could equally be achieved by increasing soil organic matter by just 1% across only 80 hectares.

Although arable land presents the greatest capacity for improvement, the value of grassland to flood risk mitigation, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling and biodiversity should not be overlooked. Grass leys, especially deep-rooted cultivars, introduced into arable rotations can improve soil quality and therefore have the same benefits. They do not need to be grazed, given the associated costs of having livestock on a holding if it is not already present. Indeed, research has suggested there are greater benefits from an ungrazed simple grass and clover ley. Permanent pasture has a higher organic matter content than arable land, which could be optimised in some locations through the adoption of an agroforestry system based on about 80 trees per hectare. It should be noted how important it is to get the stocking rates at the right level, as they are key to avoiding compaction and minimising soil organic matter loss. Research has also suggested that mixed grazing with cattle and sheep can be more beneficial than cattle or sheep alone. Mixed grazing improves sward quality due to diversity of height and species.

If the Government want farmers to help solve drought and flooding problems, the solutions not only need to be balanced with their possible consequences for food production but must pay farmers for storing water on their land, as it is a public good. Furthermore, if policy requires changes in farming practices, it will involve a learning process and planning. The costs and challenges of transitioning to new methods of farming should not be overlooked. If support is insufficient to encourage adoption then farmers will consider alternative ways to survive, such as intensifying production or, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said, growing the wrong crops on the wrong land. In most cases, that will result in poor outcomes for the environment.

Given the critical role of finance in funding solutions, can the Minister confirm whether her department will return unspent money to the Treasury? I asked her this previously and got no reply. Does it intend to restore to real-terms levels, and preferably increase, the nature-friendly farming budget? I join others in asking what has happened to the expanded farming recovery fund announced by the Conservative Government. This was supposed to deliver support payments of up to £25,000 to help farmers recover from flooding earlier this year. Who is eligible? When can farmers expect a payment? Dragging their heels, as the Government are on this, does not give farmers any confidence that they have any thought for them or care about them.

Wild Atlantic Salmon

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, the statistics given by my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller are horrifying. We are now at the point where every fish needs protection. There are a number of issues here and I want to focus on just one, which is by-catch.

Regrettably, this iconic fish is currently not listed on the ICES working group on by-catch of protected species road map. We know that some salmon are caught in commercial fisheries and that there is risk of potential significant damage, but because of the lack of by-catch monitoring for salmon, it is difficult to quantify the actual damage being done and how significant it is. However, it is known that most by-catch comes from pelagic and gill-net fisheries. Sadly, to date there been no attempt to quantify the by-catch of wild salmon by these fisheries.

This Government, working with the devolved Administrations, must push as a matter of urgency the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, ICES and the regional fisheries management organisations, first, to access fishing effort data from pelagic fisheries and gill nets provided at fine temporal and spatial scales; secondly, to increase monitoring at sea and onshore, with specific requirements for minimum data collection; and, thirdly, to recognise the importance of different species. These can be difficult to identify, especially when a specimen may be a small, immature salmon crushed in among hundreds of tonnes of a target species. To address this, environmental DNA data collection should be mandatory to improve the detection of salmon in by-catch and expand our understanding of their migratory pathways.