Brexit: Plant and Animal Biosecurity
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Sadly, I was not a member of the committee, but I thank its members for all their hard work. The report has been well received and was very well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who has great experience in this area.
Biodiversity is not just a national or a European problem—it is a worldwide matter of huge concern. I congratulate the Government on their commitment to maintaining internationally recognised environmental principles, whether or not we leave the EU. Can my noble friend Lord Gardiner tell us what progress has been made on the 2020 global framework updating the UN Convention on Biological Diversity? If we get it right at a global level, we have a better chance of getting it right at a national level.
In our discussions on leaving the EU, we tend to think of EU standards as very good—but they are not always. Dutch elm disease reached us before we joined the EEC, but since then our trees have been infected with phytophthora ramorum; red band needle blight has resurfaced; and we have ash dieback, sweet chestnut blight and horse chestnut leaf miner. We are encouraged to plant more trees, and this was reinforced by the climate change committee’s recent report. What trees does my noble friend recommend that we should plant that our grandchildren might be able to enjoy? What action has there been on Action Oak, which was launched by my noble friend Lord De Mauley when he was a Minister?
There are plenty of diseases in Europe which might come our way and cause us a lot of trouble. We need to be constantly vigilant. Can my noble friend update us on the spread of xylella fastidiosa? What extra measures are we taking to prevent it coming here? Does he agree with me that planting mixed species and preferably managing woodlands on an uneven-aged basis with no clear felling is better for our biosecurity and biodiversity than the current system of planting trees in straight lines and single crop? I have been arguing that for 50 years, and perhaps my time is coming.
Disease and pests have affected not just trees. We imported the Obama flatworm from Holland, and the free movement of plants under the single market, which came into force in 1993, has been a mixed blessing. Invasive species are costing our economy at least £1.7 billion annually.
I should like to pick up quickly on two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He asked about advance notice—I suggest to him and to my noble friend that one area that could be used for advance notices is our embassies. They should be reporting regularly to us on the spread of diseases, so that in London we are fully up to date.
The committee was absolutely right to stress, as it did in the last sentence of the report’s summary:
“The need to facilitate trade post-Brexit must not be allowed to compromise the UK’s biodiversity”.
That is a point that the British Veterinary Association raised with me this morning when I telephoned. It is a major area of concern and a potential weak spot. What is being done to ensure that all departments in London and the devolved Administrations are joined up in their thinking and action on this?
Turning to animals, will my noble friend give us an update on where we are in creating a system to track stock imported and exported? Will the EU allow us to link into the trade control and export system if and when we leave? On the trade in animals, the Government need to pay as much attention to biocontainment—keeping problems at home—as to biosecurity, keeping problems at bay. We know how quick the French are to stop trading in animal products if there is a problem in the UK, and they will be even quicker when we leave the EU. Can my noble friend advise us on what actions the Government are taking with regard to biocontainment?
Leaving the EU is a unique opportunity for the Government to review our entire biosecurity structure. It is up to them to do this and to raise standards well above those of the EU as and when necessary. I believe that that is what is needed.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
Before my noble friend sits down, has he had the opportunity to see the briefing produced by the Woodland Trust identifying what it thinks is the way forward on what it calls an effective biosecurity strategy? I wonder whether the Minister has seen it. I seriously recommend it to anybody who is concerned about this subject—it sets out exactly what we should do to protect our trees.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I have seen it and I wish my noble friend was speaking in this debate.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, I would love to, but I have just had an operation and I shall not be staying for the rest of the debate. But my heart is with you.
Rural Areas: Public Services
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to be the first to congratulate my noble friend Lord Haselhurst on his maiden speech. In his non-parliamentary parlance, he was batting at number three today and he played some beautiful shots that my noble friend will have to field. He is obviously going to test my noble friend on a number of occasions.
It was quite right that my noble friend quoted from Lord Butler of Saffron Walden’s speech, because my noble friend served that constituency very carefully and well for 40 years. But that was not his first experience in Parliament, as he mentioned: he had the happy experience of being defeated at a general election and having to start again outside before coming back to Parliament. What he did not tell your Lordships was that he spent 13 years as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, serving under three Speakers. We will not ask him to put them in batting order, but I am sure that at some time, in the bar, he may tell us a few stories about them. There is another thing that my noble friend did, before I move on to the debate: he was the first British parliamentary Member to hold the position of chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association since Colin Shepherd in 1996. He will be a great benefit to the House, and I congratulate him on his speech.
I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for introducing this debate. It is the second Monday in a row that we are cantering around this course—we discussed the NERC report a week ago, which touched quite heavily on rural policies. All the points that she mentioned will be covered by the Rural Economy Committee, on which I have the pleasure to sit. Its chairman is the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, who I am pleased to see in his place paying great attention to what has been said.
As my noble friend said, rural policy is a diverse problem, and I shall break it down into three little areas. One is rural proofing, which my noble friend mentioned. This is different from rural policy: rural proofing is about getting government to think about rural policies in advance. It is hugely important, and every department is involved. For instance, why has the Department of Health stopped GPs getting payment for holidaymakers in their area? That seems to me to be something that will affect GPs in rural communities, and it should have been tackled. Then we come to the courts, which are being revised. What about access? How are people going to get there when they live in the country? The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, mentioned schools, so I shall not say anything more about that.
We were told at a meeting of the Rural Economy Committee last week that Defra’s permanent secretary, Clare Moriarty, had written to all permanent secretaries. Can my noble friend tell me when she did that? It was given to us as an example of good government policy. Noble Lords might look at it the other way: it was actually an indictment that the permanent secretary had to write to all the other permanent secretaries in 2018. It should not be necessary. As a result of this letter, can my noble friend tell me how many specialists in all the other departments are looking at rural proofing, now that they have been told that a senior official needs to be in charge of it?
I move on to rural policy, a lot of which has been covered. The key to rural policy is inevitably money. Unless one has the necessary finances, services suffer. We all get used to services when times are good; when times are not so good and services have to be cut, we all pay the price. However, that is a cyclical event; it has happened before, and I remember when rural policies were very badly funded. They have got better badly funded, but it seems to be getting worse again. In the 2018-19 provisional settlement, urban areas received from central government some £123 per head more than their rural counterparts in settlement funding assessment grant. Can my noble friend explain why that has happened and why rural residents pay, on average, 20% more per head in council tax than their urban counterparts, while receiving less in government grants? It seems there is a lack of equality here that we on the committee will certainly want to look into, but perhaps my noble friend could help to start that ball rolling today.
There is also what is called the additional unit cost, because of the sparsity of population and the longer time taken commuting as rural roads get busier and urban roads get less busy. It is the delivery times: people have to take time off work to receive a parcel that is going to be delivered either am or pm, if you can get that slot rather than the whole day. There is also the older population problem. The population in the countryside is getting older: the proportion has moved up from about 24% in 2001 to 29% now. That is going to add considerable costs to local authorities and put extra strain on old people’s services and on GPs. These are issues that have to be tackled at an early stage if they are going to be handled successfully.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh said she is the sister of a GP. I thought she produced a slightly gloomy picture of the countryside. When I lived in Caithness not so long ago, our GP was an Englishman who had come up to the north coast of Caithness for a better quality of life in the true countryside, not the urban areas of north Yorkshire. There is a huge benefit in the countryside. Bus services have been cut: Cumbria does not support any bus services now, and that is a problem. Rural broadband has been touched upon. Last year, 17% of rural premises could not access a 10 megabits per second connection, which is the minimum necessary for efficient online activities. As ever more public services require everything to be done on the internet, this is an area on which we have to continually push. I know that my noble friend is fully seized of the point, but we have to be relentless to make certain that those in the most remote areas get connected, and connected quickly.
My third point concerns research and statistics. It is something that I mentioned last week. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, mentioned the State of Rural Services report from Rural England. She will know that at the end of that, Brian Wilson, who was its author and is an adviser to the Rural Economy Committee, says how difficult it was to get accurate figures, because of lack of research. This is an area that needs looking at. Since all the changes in the way that Defra handles country policies, one of the most common complaints is about the lack of research. It needs to be tackled because one of the great things that the Countryside Agency and its successor did was to provide a database independent of outside bodies. I hope that my noble friend will agree that something like that needs to happen again.
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, it was a great pleasure to serve on the committee and I declare my interest in that I am also on the Rural Economy Committee, which meets in this current Session. Many of the points just made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans will I know be picked up by that committee, which has a very wide brief and will cover areas such as transport and schools. I believe that the right reverend Prelate will give evidence to our committee, and we look forward to that.
I thank the clerk of our committee and the committee staff. We are very lucky to have such good quality staff to enable us to produce the reports that we do. Of course, they were backed up by Professor Maria Lee and Professor Mark Shucksmith, both of whom helped the committee in our deliberations. I also thank our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market said, was very tolerant. I was a lone voice on many issues and at least he gave me the chance to air my views, even though he did not necessarily agree with them.
It was a strange time to undertake a committee of this nature because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said, many of the recommendations to which we should have got a firm answer are still in the pending box because of the changes that are going on. However, that had the advantage of allowing many members of the committee to put their views to the Government on what is happening. All of our committee proceedings were dominated by Brexit. Of course, the 25-year plan was not announced until 11 January, by which time most of our evidence had been taken, so I thank the Secretary of State for changing his diary and coming to see us personally to answer questions about the 25-year plan and other points raised from our earlier evidence. From that point of view, it was a unique experience and it was a unique reply from the Government.
Chapter 2 of the report refers to Brexit and the natural environment, and of course we do not yet know what is going to happen. However, to my mind there are two overriding objectives that cover recommendations 2 and 3 which concern the new environmental body. The first is that the legislation should underpin the promised policy statement on environmental principles in two ways. It should require all public bodies, not just the Government, to act in accordance with, rather than simply have regard to, the policy statement on environment principles. The second is that the legislation should set up a new environmental body with the necessary independence, expertise and resources, including powers to hold both of the public bodies to account for the implementation of environmental law.
When I refer to the word “independent”, I do not mean the pseudo-independence of Natural England and which we make a lot of in chapter 3. Our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, mentioned it quite often in his speech. I turn to the recommendation made in paragraph 105:
“We recommend that Natural England should be funded to a level commensurate with the delivery of its full range of statutory duties and responsibilities. This situation should be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
We were careful not to specify how much we thought Natural England should be allowed, and I know that my noble friend the Minister will say that what it is getting is absolutely right, but I should like him to ponder on the fact that when Sir John Lawton produced his report entitled Making Space for Nature in 2010, he suggested that in order to create a resilient network, between £600 million and £1.1 billion would be needed, whereas Natural England’s budget on a like-for-like basis has fallen from £177 million 10 years ago to £112 million now.
I believe that Natural England has changed significantly, and for the better. The present chairman has woken up the organisation and it is now working much more on an area basis, and that is to be welcomed. We suggest in paragraph 181 of the report that the role of Natural England will have to change again in the future, and indeed my noble friend Lady Byford spoke about that. I think that she raised this issue the most in our committee because where Natural England ends up will probably not be anything like Natural England today, if it exists at all.
However, I was alarmed by the Government’s response to that recommendation. In it the Government talk about the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and the Environmental Stewardship Scheme. The role of Natural England is going to be lost and transferred to the Rural Payments Agency. My noble friend Lady Byford also mentioned the Countryside Stewardship scheme but I would be a little firmer than she was. The scheme is a mess. It is thoroughly overcomplex. The start date for new applications has already had to be put back by a month because the papers are not ready, which means that applications will now have to be in by the end of July. Harvest will begin on some farms in the south of England in the next couple of weeks or so, and once the combine harvesters start rolling, farmers do not have time to fiddle around on their computers filling in forms that should have been completed a couple of months ago because of the inadequacies of Defra and the Rural Payments Agency.
The Rural Payments Agency is not liked by farmers and the fact that Natural England is losing its influence on this issue is a serious worry. I hope that my noble friend will take this on board. He knows that over the next three years or so, some 5,000 existing schemes will come to an end. The environment will not be as well protected because I know that many upland farmers have no interest in the new scheme. It is too complicated, it requires too much verification and there is too much bureaucracy. The slightest change in, for example, the area of a field causes the whole scheme to have to be thought through again. It means more work for the RPA, which gave the wrong figures to Natural England in the first place. I hope that the Minister will take back the message that the Countryside Stewardship Scheme needs to be thought through again and brought forward on a much simpler and more farmer-friendly basis.
I move on to chapter 4 on the biodiversity duty. It was not a recommendation of your Lordships, but I draw the House’s attention to paragraph 184 in particular, which is a quote from Dr Nick Fox in Charlie Pye-Smith’s booklet, The Facts of Rural Life. I was glad that the committee took this on board; I hope that the Minister will confirm that, as far as he is concerned, the statement is right:
“Conservation should be about maintaining high levels of biodiversity, which is the sign of a healthy habitat. Biodiversity is not just about species diversity, but the structural diversity of habitats and the range of trophic levels. It’s not about encouraging the biggest population of any one species, but ensuring that each is in balance with the habitat and the resources”.
If Defra worked on that basis, there is a good chance that our habitat would improve.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is absolutely right that planning is fundamental to the environment. We would like to know more about natural capital, which I hope will emerge in due course. I want to stress the benefit that one can get from net gain. I believe that every planning application should have net gain built into it. It does not need to be net gain related specifically to the application; it could come from elsewhere. One needs a fairly loose approach. If the Mayor of London pursues his policy of trying to build on gardens in London, we will lose a huge environmental benefit. If that policy is allowed to go through, which I hope it will not be, I hope that there will be considerable net gain elsewhere to create the green lines that our migratory birds need when they pass through London, which will be denied to them in the future.
Like others, I want to say a little bit about research. I will say less than I was planning to because it has already been well covered. I say to the Minister that we had only one, short evidence session with the Rural Economy Committee, but the one message that came loud and clear from everybody was that we lack proper statistics, based on good research. We will come back to this point and labour it, so my noble friend had better get a better brief than he has now.
Where should rural policy sit in government? This is where I was at odds with the rest of the committee. Despite a strong, powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, I remain of the opinion—contrary to what to the committee said and what I signed up to—that it should remain with Defra. I believe that it would get thoroughly lost if it moved to MHCLG. Rural affairs would become a tertiary issue. One might say, as the noble Baroness said, that it is a tertiary issue with Defra now. I do not believe that my noble friend will allow it to be so for very much longer. I went back to the days when I was the Minister for the Countryside in the Department of the Environment. I lamented the fact then that I did not have the responsibility for the agricultural side of things, which handicapped my work enormously. When I mentioned this to the committee, I was told that I was about 30 years out of date. That is true, but it does not mean that I was wrong then or wrong now.
We moved on to the challenges of delivering services for rural communities through rural proofing. Enough has been said on this by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, so I shall not add anything more.
I turn finally to a subject that none of us has mentioned. Chapter 6 deals with the eternal problem of what to do with green lanes. In Her Majesty’s Government’s reply to our recommendation about traffic regulation orders they said that the motor vehicle stakeholder working group would produce a report. What is the up-to-date situation on that? From what I have been able to garner from the internet, the two sides are as far apart as the Brexiteers and the remainers. There does not seem to be any common ground for the Government to work on. If there is no common ground, will my noble friend take matters into his own hands and come forward with the recommendation we suggested?
I hope that we will soon be able to give a big thank you to the Government for what they are doing on the environment and agriculture, but at the moment I am afraid that the applause is slightly half-hearted.
Songbirds
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to counter the decline in songbird numbers and the threat that invasive non-native species pose to such birds.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as listed in the register. As I cannot do it later, I thank all noble Lords who will be speaking. The fact there are so many is testimony to the importance of this matter.
I wish to highlight the plight of the UK’s often forgotten passerines, more commonly known as songbirds, or little brown jobs—LBJs—to the bird-watching community. We do not hear much about the problems faced by many of our LBJs, as they are not spoken of in the same hushed, reverent tones used to describe our “iconic” birds of prey, charismatic seabirds or enigmatic waders, wonderful though they are. LBJs are those that delight many of us on our back-garden feeders and nesting boxes and on farms or other landholdings. They range from the cheeky house sparrow—once a common sight wherever we chose to live in our cities, towns and countryside—and the glorious skylark with its uplifting song of pure liquid gold, immortalised by Shelley and Vaughan Williams, through to the suite of summer migrants, such as the nightingale and other warblers that fill many a wood, glade, marsh and reed bed with the glorious dawn chorus, the avian sound of spring and summer.
The numbers of many of our most cherished and emblematic songbirds have crashed or declined alarmingly in upland, farm and woodland landscapes since systematic records of their numbers began to be compiled in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As examples, house sparrows, song thrushes, skylarks, spotted flycatchers and corn buntings are all down between 50% and 90%, depending on the species. Worst of all, the turtle dove is almost certainly doomed to extinction, with 98% gone in less than two generations. Overall, our farmland bird populations have declined by 56% and our woodland birds by almost a quarter over this period.
Since the rapid decline in the 1980s, efforts have been made to arrest the trend. Over 70% of England’s farmland is under countryside stewardship schemes, 7.2 million hectares of UK land is managed to benefit wildlife, and the size of broadleaf woodlands is increasing. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on environmental stewardship agri-environment schemes, or AES, and woodland grants. This has been backed by millions of pounds of donations spent by NGOs and some tremendous work by farmers given freely. Given that, this debate should be celebrating a rise in the songbird population, but it is not. My noble friend will doubtless highlight some of the successes but he will be the first to agree that the songbird decline continues remorselessly, year on year. We must ask why this help has not delivered as expected.
Many of our farm and woodland ecosystems are currently unbalanced. In stark contrast, the results achieved by the Allerton Project—scientific research by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust over 25 years on a farm in Leicestershire—show a different and better way forward. Improving the habitat combined with good management, including sufficient all-year food supplies and targeted predator control, have not only allowed both the arable land and woodlands to be improved in condition, while remaining profitable, but benefited a whole range of wildlife, not just songbirds. The problem for farmers in England, in stark contrast to the more enlightened regime in Scotland, is that the current AES cover only habitat. The project has demonstrated conclusively that good management is needed as well.
In the absence of the apex predators, which mankind eliminated, it is our duty to intervene to maintain balanced ecosystems and accept responsibility for managing wildlife, just as we did successfully until the latter part of the 20th century. Such a policy still works well in other countries, and the Government and NGOs have recently employed it to good effect in South Georgia. The results of the project are a winning blueprint for farming, wildlife and the environment, and thus for us. Will my noble friend use this template when bringing forward proposals for the new farming regime that is needed soon?
In urban areas, our gardens are habitat havens for all-year resident LBJs, as well as for migratory and seasonal visitors. With the huge pressure for new homes, will the Government ensure that detrimental proposals such as the Mayor of London’s “grab a garden” for development planning guidelines, which have so little thought for wildlife, are blocked? While on planning, has my noble friend pressed MHCLG to impose a buffer zone of 400 yards against any new development around sites where species of conservation concern nest, to protect them from irresponsible humans, their dogs and especially cats? I have spoken twice recently about cats. I merely add that, of the 29 predators of songbirds, cats are the worst, killing about 55 million songbirds annually, but should be the easiest to control. I merely say that I thought my noble friend’s recent letter to me on this was peely-wally. There is scientific evidence that predation by cats is having a real impact on bird populations. The very least the Government should do is proactively support the efforts of charities such as SongBird Survival, which is working to mitigate it.
I welcome and have encouraged the planting of more broadleaf woodlands. However, as Robbie Burns wrote,
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley”.
Due to poor management, they have become safe havens for our already too numerous predators and inevitably have provided more trees for grey squirrels—a non-native invasive species—to gnaw. As broadleaf woodlands can support some eight to 18 squirrels per hectare, we have helped them considerably. In addition, they are very bad news not only for our native red squirrels but also for our nesting songbirds. Ring-necked parakeets outcompete native songbirds and other hole-nesting birds for nesting spaces and at garden feeding stations. It is a sad indictment that the most commonly encountered mammal in our royal parks, just a few hundred yards from here, is that destructive grey squirrel, and that the dominant birdsong and call heard there is that of the domineering ring-necked parakeet. They are both overabundant, oversexed and over here.
Returning to habitats for birds, rhododendron ponticum growing wild is a particular issue for ancient and native woodland. It results not only in the loss of native plants and a decrease in bird diversity but also in reduced populations of woodland species. Muntjac and fallow deer destroy the understorey and vegetative layer that the threatened native nightingale, wood warbler and other nesting birds rely on.
In 2010, the estimated annual cost of alien species to the British economy was £1.7 billion per annum. For comparison’s sake, that is about the same as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s budget for that year. On page 63 of their report, A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment, when referring to non-native invasive species, the Government state:
“Where it is not feasible to eradicate these species because they are too widely established, we will seek to neutralise their threat by managing them effectively”.
What policies does my noble friend have in mind for these species and, just as importantly, what are his policies to mitigate the arrival and establishment of other species? Page 57 of the same document states that HMG will,
“support nature’s recovery and restore losses suffered over the past 50 years”.
That must apply particularly to songbirds.
We are an urban-oriented population, much of whose knowledge comes from books, the internet and television rather than from hands-on experience. If the Government are serious about protecting our environment, which includes the songbirds, they must heed more the advice of farmers and landowners, and the AES should be based on the Scottish model. Furthermore, would my noble friend agree that a substantial programme of education is needed, including active support for those NGOs already working in this field, as too many wildlife programmes are tainted by the syrupy anthropomorphism of celebrity presenters who deny the reality of rural life?
Domestic Animals: Welfare
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward this debate. I declare my interest as a former cat and dog owner. Promoting and improving the welfare of domestic animals has a simple solution—and the solution is us human beings. We class ourselves as a nation of animal lovers, but the evidence does not prove that. If one studies the PAW report of 2017—a very good document indeed—one will find that a significant minority of animal owners are thoughtless, irresponsible and inconsiderate.
People are thoughtless, in that 98% of cat owners have no idea of the costs of keeping a cat before they have one, which should be a primary consideration. Nearly one-fifth of dogs in the UK are left for five hours or more in a typical weekday; 93,000 dogs are never walked at all. They are irresponsible, in that animals are not receiving primary vaccination courses; 36% of cats are not receiving them, up from 28% in 2011. Some 25% of dogs are not receiving them, up from 18% in 2011, and 55% of rabbits are not receiving them.
People are inconsiderate to their animals—in their diet, as my noble friend mentioned, and in their lack of knowledge of animal laws. Some 15% of owners have not registered their pets with a vet. They are inconsiderate to their neighbours, because poor care of an animal leads to behaviour problems. Some 66% of dog owners would like to change their animal’s behaviour, but they had better change their behaviour first before they can change their animal’s behaviour. They are also inconsiderate to other animals: free-ranging and feral cats kill about 55 million wild birds and a further 220 million small mammals, reptiles and amphibians each year. Cat predation is a national problem. It is estimated that UK cats kill songbirds at 10 times the rate that illegal hunters in the Mediterranean kill migratory species. Researchers at the Universities of Reading and Exeter have reported on the widespread ignorance of that fact by many cat owners—and it is difficult for charities such as the RSPB, because they rely on legacies from cat owners. However, SongBird Survival is working with the University of Exeter and cat owners to get better information and to minimise the adverse effect of pet cats on native wildlife while enhancing cat welfare. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to help that project—and if they are not helping, why not?
I have some quick questions for my noble friend. What steps are the Government taking to minimise the adverse effect of cat owners’ pets on native wildlife? Will they press the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to include provisions in planning policy so that, as urban areas grow, a buffer zone of 400 metres is imposed around any new development to help to mitigate the adverse ecological consequences of cat predation, where species of conservation concern nest? Will my noble friend give domestic cats the same legal status as dogs?
Environment: 25-year Plan
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I give a very warm welcome to this plan, prepared by my noble friend and others. It outlines great aspirations with which it is hard to disagree and provides a good template for the future. It is welcome news that it has been welcomed by some of the more sensible environmental groups, which are acting more in concert with the farmers than as political lobbyists, as in the past. That is a welcome move.
To an extent, we have already travelled down some of the road of the improving natural environment. I give as an example Sir John Lawton’s report in 2010, Making Space for Nature. For many years, Governments of all persuasions have said that they wish to improve the environment and biodiversity, but each year that has got worse.
So why could it be different this time? There are a number of reasons. First, we are going to leave the EU and the common agricultural policy, and that gives a huge opportunity. There is also a change of mood of appreciation of the environment. Despite that, an overwhelming majority of people now live in urban areas. In the UK, nine out of 10 people must go back at least five generations before they find an ancestor who worked on the land. It is important to work not only with those who live on the land, like the farmers, but with everybody involved who wants to improve nature. Working with farmers is easier now, because they are going to be able to do what they so often want to do—improve the environment. Organisations such as the Nature Friendly Farming Network are already acting in that way.
We also need to connect with people and the environment, as Chapter 3 outlined well. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and my noble friend Lady Byford majored on this. However, Defra has a difficult task ahead. It has to reduce its budget by £147 million and, as at 30 November, had to recruit for 400 or so full-time posts. How is that going? Perhaps some of those posts could be apportioned to work on replying to debates in this House. I have received no replies to the questions I asked in my debate on 7 December.
I agree with what my noble friend Lord Selborne said about natural capital, but that is only one tool in the box. It must not be the only one which the Secretary of State uses to improve our natural environment. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, I too want to talk about biodiversity. Charlie Pye-Smith, in his excellent book, The Facts of Rural Life wrote that Nick Fox, another scientist, farmer and conservationist, told him:
“Conservation should be about maintaining high levels of biodiversity, which is the sign of a healthy habitat. Biodiversity is not just about species diversity, but the structural diversity of habitats and the range of trophic levels. It’s not about encouraging the biggest population of any one species, but ensuring that each is in balance with the habitat and the resources”.
That is one of the best descriptions I have read: it should be taken as the Government’s aim.
This plan has shied away from discussing tough issues such as wildlife management, and these have to be confronted. We know that we need good habitat and sufficient food supplies all year round but we must also accept the truth—uncomfortable for some—of predator and species control. There is a little objection to the culling of deer in Richmond Park that is happening now. Transpose the lack of that control to Dartmoor, for example, and one finds a biological desert compared to some well-managed grouse moors. I hope the Government will make species predator control part of any agreement involving wildlife and biodiversity management.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, mentioned the threat to trees and ancient woodland and I sympathise with her, but she did not speak about the threat to those woodlands of the grey squirrel, the muntjac deer and overstocking of deer. On page 60, the plan says:
“We will encourage dynamic management of nature”,
which hints at wildlife management without spelling out what it means. When will we be told more about this? For example, the plan suggests that hen harriers,
“when carefully planned and managed”,
can enrich our environment. There is indeed a Defra hen harrier action plan, but it is not mentioned in the report and it is not put into action because of the obduracy of the RSPB, which refuses to accept the scientific evidence. We could have had many more hen harriers by now. I like the idea of the 500,000 hectare nature recovery network and am glad that Defra is learning lessons from the nature improvement areas and farm clusters: again, it is working with the grain.
Turning briefly to tenant farmers, who will receive the financial benefits from public money for public goods? It is no difficulty for owner-occupiers and landowners, but what about the tenant farmers? Should landlords such as the Elan Valley Trust, a charity owning 47,000 acres, encourage their tenant farmers to farm in a more environmentally sensitive way and then take part of what the farmer gets in rental? There is a huge principle here. I gather that the RSPB will follow the Elan Valley Trust’s example with its new tenancy agreements. The Government need the support of tenant farmers to achieve their aims.
I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, said about green infrastructure in urban areas and welcome what the report says. However, we have a clash in urban areas between a demand for more housing and the existence of gardens. Will the Government look at all local authority plans, including that of the Mayor of London who wishes to build many new houses on suburban gardens? There is a clash there to be resolved.
I repeat what I said on 7 December: it is up to all of us to participate in the changes that are necessary to improve our environment.
Plans to Improve the Natural Environment and Animal Welfare
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
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The Earl of Caithness
That this House takes note of Her Majesty’s Government’s plans to improve the natural environment and animal welfare.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register, and that I serve on the committee looking at the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. The committee is still taking evidence, and the views I express are entirely my own.
Life on this planet depends on air, water and soil. Ours is the first Government to make a firm commitment,
“to leave the natural environment in a better state than we inherited it”,
so they need to take action on these three fundamentals.
In England, in addition to Defra, Natural England and the Environment Agency are the statutory bodies protecting the environment. Natural England has the general purpose of ensuring that the natural environment is conserved, enhanced and managed for the benefit of present and future generations, thereby contributing to sustainable development. The Environment Agency is responsible, inter alia, for regulating major industry and waste and water quality and resources. It is extraordinary that there is no duty on the Environment Agency to report on how it is improving the natural environment. Will the Government ensure that all public bodies have that duty in the future?
Clear, transparent, scientific-based evidence is vital so that the right policies are put in place. It was on such evidence that Mrs Thatcher was the first to lead the world in the campaign against hydrofluorocarbon greenhouse gases. I was delighted to read that the Government are continuing her policy, and recently we became one of the first nations to complete ratification of the Kigali amendment to the UN Montreal protocol.
About 70% of the surface of our planet is water, of which over 96% is salt water. The environmental quality of our oceans is essential and a very real concern. Overfishing is certainly one problem; pollution is another. Oceans are the dumping ground for the run-off from our rivers and what we put in them. Plastic, one of our great inventions, is also one of our worse pollutants. Plastic litter has more than doubled on our beaches since 1994. One in three fish in the English Channel contains pieces of plastic and, by 2050, the oceans will contain more plastic than fish by weight. The environmental charge on plastic bags and the promised action on microbeads are welcome actions by the Government.
In comparison to air and water, nothing has been done about that other fundamental asset—soil. We know that 95% of food production relies on healthy soils. Antibiotics come from soil, as does a quarter of the world’s biodiversity. The red warning light is blazing at us. Loss of topsoil and agricultural land is a problem across the world, especially at a time of rising populations.
Over the last 200 years, we have lost 84% of our fertile topsoil in East Anglia. It is estimated that what remains could be eradicated in the next 30 to 60 years. In the lives of our children and grandchildren, the bread-basket of the UK could become an infertile wasteland, with few farms and very limited biodiversity.
On average, soil degradation costs the economy of England and Wales £1.2 billion every year, and that will rise. Soil has to be a top priority from now on, and we need an action plan quickly. Farming, especially arable farming, will have to change.
Fortunately, for the last 25 years, the Allerton farm project run by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has carried out detailed science-based work and research which demonstrates conclusively that commercial farming can be undertaken, and the land managed, in alignment with ecological needs. As it fits intrinsically with the need for our farms to be more productive while restoring the soil, will my noble friend the Minister use this project as a template for the whole country in the proposed environmental 25-year plan, and when will it be published?
I hope that conservation covenants will also be part of that plan. No farmer should receive taxpayer support unless the farm is in a conservation covenant or is part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. It is positive news that Natural England is working with the Rural Payments Agency to overhaul delivery to make that scheme simpler and more effective.
In our lifetime, our biodiversity has continued to decline, as have the numbers of our songbirds. The latest State of the UK’s Birds report was released on Tuesday and makes depressing reading. I know that the CAP has contributed to that but nevertheless, for Natural England and the many NGOs involved, these are two glaring failures. Natural England’s policy document of last year, Conservation 21, presents an opportunity to improve the situation in the future, but more needs to be done.
Again, the Allerton project has scientifically demonstrated what to me was obvious. Our wildlife needs our support to flourish. If we provide the right habitat, a better food supply and sensible control of predators, then all wildlife can and will flourish. Without all three of these actions, bird numbers decline. In this country, we have wiped out the apex predators, which has helped lead to a massive increase in the numbers of the mesopredators. To keep the balance, humans have to take over the role that apex predators have played. A good example of predator control policy success is in South Georgia, one of our Overseas Territories. As a result of this project, the most southerly songbird in the world, the South Georgia pipit, nested again on the mainland of South Georgia in 2015 for the first time in living memory.
We are told that the curlew in the lowlands of England will be extinct within eight years. SongBird Survival and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust accept that there should be robust, properly targeted predator control. Other NGOs should do the same or accept responsibility for the continued decline and extinction of some species. Will the Minister instruct Natural England to follow the Scottish Government’s example and introduce a predator control option in future agri-environment schemes?
I hope that natural capital will also feature in the 25-year plan, as it can help make the change from the current inefficient support to farmers to one where landowners and land managers receive public money for public goods. In itself, it is not a cure-all remedy, but it should be a part of Defra’s toolkit of measures to ensure that there is always a net gain for the environment.
Any Government must be held to account against a clear set of environmental standards. In previous debates, I have called for such a body when we leave the EU, so I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on 12 November that a new, independent, expert and adequately resourced body is planned to do this and that there will be a consultation in the new year.
Private gardens in the UK, especially in urban areas, are an essential part of the green lungs of the environment and equate to the size of the county of Somerset, bigger than all of the country’s nature reserves put together. Research shows that, in Greater London, gardens equivalent to the size of two and a half Hyde Parks are lost every year. This continuing loss of habitat is putting biodiversity and wildlife at even greater risk. Where is the line to be drawn, and are the mayor’s plans further endangering our urban environment?
This leads me to the important question of the rural-proofing of central and local government policies. There has been an improvement, but there is still a long way to go before it is truly embedded in every policy decision, especially planning. Our planning system is letting the environment down. Planning should be altered to ensure a net gain for the environment, as that offers the chance to reverse the dynamic of development versus the environment. Obtaining permission to plant 600,000 trees in Northumberland has taken more than two years and cost more than £100,000. I hope that my noble friend will agree that that is too long and too expensive, and deters those who might want to introduce similar schemes; and thus I hope he will take action.
I turn now to the second part of my Motion, on animal welfare. I congratulate the Government for confirming that they are committed to the very highest standards of animal welfare and that animal sentience will be properly and legally recognised when we leave the EU. The Government are going to modernise statutory welfare codes and increase the maximum sentence for animal cruelty offences. I also welcome CCTV in slaughterhouses, but can the Minister confirm that, in the UK, all animals are properly stunned before slaughter?
High standards are also being encouraged by the farming industry. Although other countries have assurance schemes, none of them is audited to the same degree or to the same standard as farming’s red tractor scheme. A key factor in achieving good animal welfare is having well-trained staff. It is reassuring that red tractor standards require that certain tasks that might affect animal welfare, such as giving injections, are only performed by staff who have been properly trained and deemed by a vet to be competent to carry out the procedure. Should some of these schemes be made compulsory for all farmers? I admit to injecting sheep when I was a jackaroo in Australia. I certainly was not trained to do it, but I wish I had been; it would be better if we all were.
Food cost as a percentage of the average UK household budget has remained steady for over 15 years but is likely to rise as we build in even higher standards than other countries. However, this might put our farmers at a competitive disadvantage in our new trade deals. Are the Government aware that not just trade but fair trade is required?
We in this country are fortunate to be able to have this debate. The environment is an expensive mistress and not many countries have the resources available to spend on it that we do. We want and need secure, sustainably produced food; clean waters in our aquifers and rivers; restored soils with natural fertility created by healthy biota; a resilient, diverse countryside teeming with wildlife, actively managed, accessible to all, supporting health and well-being for everyone. Such a biologically healthy landscape, resilient to disease and one that can adapt to and mitigate climate change through its ecosystem restoration is also one from which we can all benefit.
However, we cannot achieve our aims by just letting Governments simply impose and police rules and regulations. For real and lasting change, the behaviour of all of us, as individuals, needs to alter. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, the terms of my Motion made this a very wide debate. Early this morning, I had a 30-minute lecture to give your Lordships, and I am therefore extremely grateful to each and every noble Lord who took part in this debate and covered the points that I had to omit from my speech. I am also grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his reply, which he took at a good canter that we could all keep up with and not at a flat-out gallop.
One thing that I wanted to raise which must now be for another time was invasive non-native species. I mention that now because one of them, the grey squirrel, handicaps every forester’s desire for our broad-leaf woodland. Without control of the grey squirrel, we will not get the trees that we all want so much. As we all line up ready to sign my noble friend Lord Lexden’s cats manifesto, I hope that the cats in turn will sign up to a self-denying ordinance to stop killing 55 million songbirds every year.
The Government have to take action at the international, national, regional and local levels. This evening, we have seen those who see this as a gloomy challenge but also those who see it as an opportunity and are optimistic about the future. I sit firmly in the latter camp. We have all been gloomy in the past only to be proved wrong. I repeat what my noble friend the Minister said in ending his speech, that this is not just about government; it is up to each and every one of us to change our attitude to the environment. I beg to move.
Farm Support
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this important debate. It is so good that agriculture has been debated more regularly in this Session than, I think, during the combined past three Sessions. It will continue to be debated because it is a key industry—probably the most affected industry, for those involved with it, when we exit through Brexit.
Although I voted to remain in the EU, Brexit cannot come soon enough for our environment and our farmers. The sooner it comes, the better. The common agricultural policy has been bad for the environment: birdlife on farms has halved since we have been in the CAP, and biodiversity is in constant decline. The common agricultural policy also made the fundamental mistake of separating farming from the rest of the environment, and it has been bad for taxpayers’ money because that has been untargeted. It has been bad for farmers because it has given them the wrong sort of support, restricting their ability to innovate and their opportunities. It has also kept bad farmers in a living when they should have gone, and put the future of our grandchildren at risk.
I say that because farmers need three key ingredients; air, water and, most importantly, soil. It is soil that has not had enough attention. In the UK, we have lost 84% of our soil since 1850. There are, at the most, 100 harvests left. We are losing at the moment between one and three centimetres of topsoil every year, and it takes 1,000 years to create three centimetres of topsoil. If we continue with the way we have been farming under the CAP, there will be no farmers—not even, I say to my noble friend, in Yorkshire. There will not be any in Caithness even with global warming, which is not going to help them. We will have to look at other models.
The recent Chatham House report, published earlier this month, sets out four models. The first is the sector protection model, which has trade barriers and subsidies. This is the model employed by Japan, Norway and Switzerland. The second is the decoupled subsidy model, which is the disastrous EU model that I have referred to. The third is the insurance model, where payments are made to farmers if prices or incomes fall below a certain level, which is the policy employed by the US and Canada. The fourth is the market-oriented model, which is low in subsidies and in barriers to imports. That is the one employed by New Zealand and Australia.
I do not advocate fully that last model, although it has been touted by some. My reason is that it does not take long for the farmer to go from being the hero to becoming the villain. That is the case in New Zealand, where the mistake the New Zealanders made—which I hope we will not make—was to divorce farming from the rest of the environment. The farmers, who were widely praised for improving their productivity, as we need to do, and for competing on the world stage, as we need to do, forgot the environment. The pollution from the farmers has now made them the enemy of the people.
We are hugely lucky in this country that we are 75% self-sufficient in our indigenous foods, which is a great bonus. My noble friend is lucky to have that as the backdrop to producing the 25-year environment plan. I would say to him: please tell us that the plan will include farming and other rural matters. The whole lot is integrated and farmers cannot be looked at on their own any more.
The big question my noble friend and the department are facing is the balance that is needed to have an agricultural sector which operates at world-class standards of productivity and world-class standards of animal welfare and transport, as well as protecting the environment. Behind all that is the old adage coined in 1906 by Alfred Henry Lewis, which was used by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, the other day:
“There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy”.
Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I wish that this was a five-hour debate rather than a three-hour one, but to have a debate at all is better than not on this very important subject. I offer many thanks to my noble friend Lord Lindsay for introducing it.
Mr Plumb first came into my life in 1970 when I was sitting behind a desk at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. The agricultural tutor said to me, “Mr Plumb says …”—and Mr Plumb has been saying, for at least 50 years that I know of, that farming is important. We have all benefited from his words of wisdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said earlier, he has been a life force in the farming industry, not only to those on these Benches but to those on other Benches. I agree with him that he has not always been right, but he has been 99% of the time, and those who did not listen to him are worse off.
If there have been vast changes in agriculture during my noble friend’s lifetime, they will be as nothing compared with the changes of the next few years. It will be a big experience for farmers. The common agricultural policy has benefited farming to some extent, but it has been very bad for the environment. Thank goodness we are getting out of the EU on that score alone; it offers us huge opportunities.
I want to highlight two groups who are bad for the countryside: bad farmers and some dogmatic environmentalists. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, said that people on the land needed more education. I am concerned about the huge disconnect between people in urban areas and those who live on the land, as well as how those who live on the land work and have to exist. Education is needed just as much in urban areas as in rural ones.
What are the opportunities? We need to work together with regulation that suits everybody. I know that is easier said than done. We need to deliver goods in the public interest, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said. Those of us who sit on the NERC Committee have found that the Government really lack concise data, agreed across the board. Data will be hugely important if we are to produce benefits for farmers producing public goods.
As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron—I call him my noble friend because we are fellow Scots who have known each other all our lives—said, we need a flexible and dynamic land-based sector for the future, which works not only for humans but for everything in nature. One way we can do that is by following what the NFU suggested with farm clusters—farms working together to identify improvements in nature for their own good. Never talk down to farmers; work with them and bring them along.
The CLA has recommended an excellent idea: land management contracts. I am all for that. I think that could very well be part of delivering public goods. Let us never forget that private landowners are the best and most excellent preservers of our landscape and environment. They are the people we need to support.
We must take a holistic approach to the environment and the countryside in future. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lindsay for mentioning forestry. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that you cannot divorce farms from forestry because so many farms include bits of woodland. That is one of the mistakes of CAP. For goodness’ sake, let us have an integrated policy, because that will help the environment—and let us get control over grey squirrels to get our broadleaf woodlands back.
We had a recent debate on air and water quality, but soil quality is hugely important. The red light is flashing for soil. If our soil quality decreases, there will be no farming, no landscape, no natural environment and no tourism. The countryside will be poorer.
My third point is that, because we are coming away from CAP and the devolved Administrations, we need a holistic approach on the environment and farming. We also need to let the devolved Administrations get involved. That will be a tricky hand for the Government to play—but if we are united we will have a much better environment than we do now.
Air and Water Pollution: Impact
Earl of Caithness Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful, as we all are, to the noble Baroness for securing this debate. It is the second time that we have discussed air pollution in a few months; the last debate, on 3 July, was introduced by my noble friend Lord Borwick, who I am glad to see in his place. I am particularly grateful that the noble Baroness included water in this debate, which is important. However, I would say to her that I was sad she was a little negative. There are plenty of positives to be taken from what has happened, which I shall mention.
To me, pollution is anything that is toxic, harmful or a nuisance. As a result, pollution is not a simple problem, but a number of different ones. It is an international, a national and a local issue, and not a simple problem to address. It is hard to tackle because its effects, which may be long-term and subtle, are often difficult to trace to a particular cause and that makes coming up with a solution very difficult. We cannot eradicate pollution. Even if we can trace the cause, a solution might be hard because it might have been caused by human error, thoughtlessness or incompetence. Our constant challenge therefore is to mitigate the chances of pollution happening. Air and water are essential for life but, as the noble Baroness rightly said, pollution can kill.
Most of the damaging effects of air pollution occur across the life cycle and can begin at conception. The effect can range from premature birth to declining lung function, especially in later life. In the UK, air pollution costs businesses and healthcare services over £20 billion annually and is estimated to result in about 40,000 premature deaths—what a waste. In addition, air pollution causes a reduction in agricultural yields, irreversible damage to ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as damage to historical buildings and monuments—just look at this place. The effect of pollution on plants and ecosystems has been well noted for many years and I am reminded of what the great Scottish gardener WW Pettigrew, who did so much to create the beautiful parks in Cardiff before he moved to Manchester, wrote about pollution in 1928—some 90 years ago. I therefore support what the Minister said when he wound up the debate in July. He said: “The need to improve” our,
“air quality is of paramount importance”.—[Official Report, 3/7/17; col. 774.]
I hope he will give water the same high priority.
Despite the current problems, substantial improvement in air quality has been delivered. UK emissions of nitrogen oxides fell by 70% between 1970 and 2015 and almost 20% between 2010 and 2015. In February this year the UK was compliant with all current EU and international emission reduction targets, which have been applied since 2010. I take the completely contrary view to the noble Baroness: the EU has let us down, particularly on emission standards. EU businesses, German car-makers and the Commission have been very poor and have not helped anybody on the European continent. New targets have been signed up to and I have little doubt that, whichever Government are in power, every effort will be made to meet them. These new standards will affect business decisions vital for this country’s growth, such as the new runway in the south-east. But it is right that such issues of natural capital are included in the planning stage.
Even if we had no air pollution from within the UK we would still have air pollution because, at times, over half our air pollution comes from abroad, bringing with it in many cases diseases which are damaging both to us and to the environment. Whether we are in or out of the EU, we will have to work with international partners to improve not only their standards but also the measuring of those standards, and the uncensored publication of the true situation.
Being an island does not isolate us from incoming air pollution, but it helps us hugely with water. Our rivers are our own and do not contain another country’s pollution. As with air, water quality is a success story. In the early 1990s just 28% of bathing waters in England met the highest standards. Now it is 93.2%, with even tougher standards being implemented. In 2016, compliance with the EU drinking water directive was 99.96%. The public supply in England provided for a population of over 54.5 million people and came through 313,000 kilometres of mains pipes. Water companies carried out nearly 4 million tests of which only 1,132 failed to meet the necessary standards—that is impressive. We are truly spoilt in this country and take what we have very much for granted.
It is easy to think of polluters as industry and businesses. Those are the easy targets. It is much more difficult for us to acknowledge our contribution as individuals. I mentioned gas boilers in our previous debate, but a recent study in America shows that gas ovens are increasing internal NOx and carbon emission pollution by anything between 20% and 40%. This is mostly due to bad ventilation. When it comes to water, we as individuals pollute through such items as sewage, wastewater, soaps, washing detergents, oil poured down the drain, high rain street run-off, particularly from our cars, and litter. There is to be a 25-year plan, and that needs to involve individuals and resonate with them, because it is often the poorest and most vulnerable who are affected by pollution although, as I said, they also contribute to the problem.
Post Brexit, we have a huge opportunity to improve our position. I suggest to the Minister that it is the Government, their agencies and local authorities which should continue to set the standards, but let us go back to something like Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution—not subject to ministerial control, as it was in my day, but totally independent, so that the Government set the standards and we take away from their agencies the enforcement thereof. Let us have an independent inspectorate.