Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Cormack

Report stage
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Blencathra just said about a meeting with Historic England and indeed with English Heritage, which is responsible for a large number of important buildings up and down the land. I support all the amendments, as I did in Committee. To me, it is an anomaly and a contradiction of the phrase “joined-up government” that because something is largely within the province of another department it cannot be covered by an all-embracing Bill.

This afternoon, I will concentrate on an issue that I raised on another amendment in Committee. I do so—and I have discussed this with my noble friend the Minister—because it fits logically under these amendments. When we were debating this last time, I said, and there were nods all around the Chamber, how central and important to the manmade landscape our churches are. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to a synagogue in London, the most historic synagogue in the land, and she was absolutely right in all she said. I pray that that is not overshadowed, literally, in the way currently threatened.

Central to most of our country towns and virtually all our villages, especially in England, is the parish church. You come closest to the soul of the country in the parish church, particularly through the monuments it contains, which often tell the story of the whole community—one thinks of Gray’s “Elegy”—in that church.

We have a real problem when it comes to the preservation of species and buildings. The National Trust paper, which we have all been sent, refers to habitats, and we have got the balance very wrong when it comes to the preservation of bats—important creatures that they are, despite being a bit of a health hazard sometimes—and the preservation of those buildings that tell the story of our land. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Goldsmith; I gather he is not going to reply to this debate, but he replied to the earlier one in which I took part and we had a brief discussion this afternoon. I had a lengthy meeting with him during the recess, on the dreaded Zoom, but it was a good meeting and Professor Jean Wilson, a great former president of the Church Monuments Society, took part.

I know there is a Bats in Churches project, but it is creeping forward slowly. We have 16,000 listed churches in this country, most of them Church of England, but not all, by any means. Some of them are being despoiled and defaced—the monuments, the wall paintings, the alabasters and the brasses in particular—by bat urine and bat faeces. We have to get the balance right when we are preserving species and buildings that were not built to house bats; they were built to house worshipping Christians. We are still officially a Christian country, and the parish church means a great deal to many people, even if they do not worship in it regularly. We have to remember that the parish system in our country means that everyone who lives in England lives in a parish and is entitled to the services of the parish and priest, particularly at times of great moment in a family’s history—birth, marriage, death. It is truly important that we recognise how important these buildings are.

In his letter to me, sent following our meeting, the Minister talked about something like five churches a year benefiting from this new scheme. That is good but, measured against the overall number, it is negligible. I hope that the Minister will meet me, Professor Wilson and perhaps others again, because we must try to get the balance right. Getting the balance right is the answer to so many problems in our country, not just heritage and environmental problems, but many others. It would be wrong if, during the passage of this environmental Bill—and I agree strongly with my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale—we do not get this on the face of it. I am realistic enough to know that we are not going to get it, but we need a strong ministerial statement. This is casting no aspersions on my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, who will reply to this debate, but we need a statement from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith as well.

We live in a landscape that is mostly manmade and, where it is not, it is man-moulded. Some of the most important features of that landscape are parts of the built environment and the archaeology of which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, spoke so movingly. Can we please try to recognise the threat to our churches from the overpresence of bats in many of them and do all we can to rescue a priceless part of the nation’s heritage and an embodiment of much of its history?

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I support all these amendments. We should be proud of our heritage in this country, but I am not sure, as others have pointed out, that we have been doing enough to protect our cultural landscapes in recent years. They may vary from ancient monuments all the way up to the present day, and include the lived environment, which overlaps so much with the past.

There are two real concerns, at present. There may be more, but I will point out two. The first is the lack of local authority funding and the second is the danger of untrammelled development, particularly through the tearing up and sidestepping of planning regulations. It is a disgrace that, in a country not affected by war at home—and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, mentioned Afghanistan—we have lost one site of world heritage status, Liverpool’s Waterfront, and are in danger of losing another, Stonehenge, if that road tunnel is built. We still do not know what is going to happen.

On the lived environment, I am put in mind of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the artist Joseph Beuys, who co-founded the German green party. His work “7000 Oaks” involved the planting of oak trees, often in bombed-out sites, across the city of Kassel. This was not a simple tree-planting exercise, as each tree was accompanied by a large stone marker. As the trees were planted—and it took five years to complete the project—the pile of 7,000 stones in front of the city’s museum was gradually reduced. Beuys’s idea for this piece, which was radical at the time, was that of nature being in harmony with humanity. His ideas have been copied in America and Britain. In this context, I just mention the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. This lesson of sensitivity towards our environment is something that we all need to learn.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Cormack

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken in the debate at Second Reading, but I was unable to be here on the first day. The amendments I am supporting for the most part try to deal with the obstacles put in the way of ordinary people, both young and old, who are on holiday, working or studying abroad. These include the amendments that seek to protect the European health insurance card scheme and Erasmus+, which is the subject of the next group. I have added my name to Amendment 9, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and I have my own Amendment 205 in this group which seeks specifically to retain the EHIC scheme and to which the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Davies of Stamford, have added their names.

To focus on the holidaymaker’s point of view, I am a great believer in the EHIC scheme. Like millions of others across Europe, I carry the card with me when I go abroad, and I certainly would not travel without it. It has been a help to me personally when I had a combination of a flu-like virus and asthma in Germany. It is also clear from the stories I have heard—ranging from needing stitches after a hotel poolside fall to pulled muscles and broken legs on the ski slopes—how extraordinarily helpful the scheme has been to others, and I have even heard about a case of amnesia. All these are situations where immediate medical attention is required. In those circumstances, the last thing people want to worry about when on holiday or on a business trip is having to book the next flight back to the UK or having to claim immediately on their travel insurance. Apart from the fact that treatment is free and comparable to what one would receive at home, the scheme reduces stress. In the case of a concussion that I was told about, it meant that the person could return to the hospital for monitoring without the worry of paperwork or bills. It also gives peace of mind to the many people who have not needed to use the card but carry it nevertheless—something which cannot be overestimated.

Once you have the card, it is a simple and bureaucracy-free system for the holidaymaker. It does not replace travel insurance, but works well in conjunction with it. I realise that my speech is an unashamed advert for a scheme which saves British people thousands of pounds in bills and reduces the claims and costs of travel insurance. The fear of course is that those costs will rise steeply if we lose the scheme. A replacement scheme or schemes might do all this, perhaps through agreements with individual countries, but presently the one card covers all the single market countries, the 31 EEA countries and Switzerland. Clearly, it would not be in our interests to adopt a scheme that is less comprehensive geographically, and retaining the scheme would be the easiest and most convenient option. If we stay in the single market in some form, there should be no problem.

It is worth noting that citizenship itself is not an aspect of the EHIC scheme; rather, it is based on country of legal residence so that British people living in France or Spain, for example, can apply for a card through their health services. It should not be forgotten that the scheme works for the benefit of British people living abroad as well as those from other countries living here. It is a properly co-operative system—a two-way street.

Accusations of health tourism always ignore what we as individual citizens get out of the system. A freedom of information question in 2015 revealed that in 2013-14, the treatment of ill British tourists in other countries of the single market cost more than five times that which European visitors cost the NHS. Perhaps the one improvement we can make here in the UK is to become better at recouping the moneys we are entitled to through the use of the scheme, and last year’s Public Accounts Committee report, NHS Treatment for Overseas Patients, stated that the systems for cost recovery appear to be chaotic. Other countries recoup what is owed to them and there is no external reason why we cannot do so as well. But that does not invalidate a scheme that continues to work tremendously well for the benefit of millions of people throughout Europe, including millions of British citizens both here and abroad.

The process of leaving the EU has thrown light on a lot of the concerns of ordinary people that perhaps were taken for granted. The EHIC scheme is one of those areas. No one voted for higher travel insurance costs and no one voted for less healthcare support while they are on holiday. The Government should pledge to retain this scheme.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, no one voted for insecurity. A very strong and powerful case has been made, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. This is a simple issue. Disease is no respecter of persons, boundaries or sovereignty. In chasing this mythical beast of sovereignty we seem to be prepared to lay so many things upon the altar that we need not lay.

It has been said in the course of this brief debate that we have no obligation to opt out of the EMA. My reading would support that. So why does a party that has always prided itself, for as long as I have been a member of it—for the last 60 years—on not being doctrinaire erect a doctrine and then seek every opportunity, regardless of the consequences, to jeopardise what exists and works perfectly well? It is a nonsense. I hope that there will be no vote on this amendment—it is a probing amendment—but I sincerely hope that, if the Government cannot accept the irrefutable logic of what has been said, we will return to it on Report and be well prepared to vote on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Clancarty]

My Lords, I have added my name to both the amendments in this group. I have tabled Amendment 204, which will be discussed later in Committee, on maintaining rights and opportunities for young people, and Erasmus+ is a part of that amendment.

If we lose our programme membership of Erasmus, it will be a huge blow not just to our young people, which would certainly be bad enough, but to the whole higher education sector, which benefits from the many projects that Erasmus has to offer, including not only the student exchange scheme but staff exchanges and projects involving the institutions themselves. The exchanges also include work placements, which can provide much experience of other work environments for British students. This is of course not just about experience and learning in the narrow sense; it is about the reciprocation of ideas, the effect of cultural exchange, and the knowledge that British students gain of other cultures and of how things are done elsewhere—and indeed vice versa, as there is also an extremely important soft power element in the creation of so many UK alumni across Europe.

Student exchange schemes embody an open-mindedness—even an open-heartedness—which is a far cry from the attitudes taken by some sections of the British press, which are currently crowing about the number of EU nationals leaving our shores.

There are some who say that, instead, we should develop independent arrangements with universities further afield. The fact is that we are developing relationships further afield anyway. For example, my nephew is at Northern Arizona University for a year, where he is studying American history as part of a degree course at Swansea University, with which Northern Arizona has an agreement. In a poll two years ago, 42% of students said that they were interested in travelling to non-Anglophone countries, some outside the EU. It should not be a case of either/or. To close down or risk closing down these wonderful educational opportunities for young people on our own continent would be perverse and a giant step backwards. Nothing in Erasmus says that one thing precludes the other.

The Government guarantee our current membership only up to 2020. There needs to be something much more concrete. Jessica Cole, head of policy at the Russell group said this month:

“We are expecting the European Commission to put forward proposals for the next Erasmus programme later … this year. There is an opportunity now ... for the UK to help shape that programme ... The UK Government needs to be engaged in this important process, especially whilst we still have a seat at the table”.


She goes on to say that,

“it should be a priority for the UK Government to secure continued UK participation from 2021 onwards ... the Prime Minister should indicate whether the UK intends to negotiate participation at the earliest opportunity”.

I ask the Minister: when will this indication be made?

On the wording of the amendments before us, one thing that we need to be careful about is the status of membership. It is possible—probably very likely—that we will retain membership technically, but there is a huge difference in the actions possible between programme membership, which we have presently, and partner membership, where we will be effectively left out in the cold. The phrase “on existing terms” in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, is crucial. We need absolutely to maintain the existing level of participation.

It needs to be said that, if we do leave the single market, we risk losing our programme membership. Witness what happened to Switzerland, which was expelled from the programme membership of Erasmus and from Horizon 2020 following a referendum that allowed a policy which compromised its own free movement deal with the EU. Switzerland has now realised what it was in danger of losing, and has since re-joined Horizon 2020 and is likely to re-join Erasmus+ properly in 2021.

In this and in so many other instances, it is wrong to think only of how the EU is treating us. We have enjoyed access to these programmes through our membership of the EU—at the very least, through being part of the single market. They have been an integral part of the deal, which has always been a two-way street. We should instead be asking ourselves: do we really want to risk losing access to programmes which have been, and still are, so beneficial to our young people, the higher education sector and research development in the UK—and, therefore, to the country as a whole?

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is some 500 years since the great humanist scholar Erasmus came to this country to visit his friend, Thomas More. I always thought it was particularly appropriate that this programme, which has come to dominate today’s debate, was named after that extraordinary European. Whatever our nationality and identity, we are all European.

I should declare an interest, in that I was a visiting parliamentary fellow and have for many years been a senior associate member of St Antony’s College, Oxford. I have therefore seen at first hand how crucial it is that highly intelligent young people from different countries get to know each other. The programme has done untold good for this country, because so many from that particular college have gone back to their countries to occupy high positions in government and the civil service, and sometimes the highest position of all as head of state.

I have raised the Erasmus issue a number of times in your Lordships’ House and I have never been reassured by the answer I have been given from the Front Bench. A guarantee for 17 months is no good at all. As has been said already in this debate, those who are in charge of academic programmes, be they scientific or in the humanities, need to be able to look ahead. I have two granddaughters who are undergraduates—one will graduate this year and the other in two years’ time—and they may just benefit from this, but there is no absolute guarantee. Yet I know that their studies and their outlook on life would be immeasurably enriched by their having the opportunity to travel and to study abroad, in particular to study on our continent of Europe.

It really is important that we continually make the point that we are Europeans. No act of this Parliament or any other can alter that fact, and nor can any referendum result, be it on 23 June 2016 or on 23 June in some other year.

There has been much talk about a deep and rich partnership, and of course we want that, but we have to start now to be specific. One thing we can be specific about is this: here is a magnificent programme from which students and university staff have, over the past 30 years, benefitted enormously.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a 21st birthday dinner at the University of Lincoln, a university that has risen spectacularly in the tables. It regards its 10% of foreign students as enormously important, and the chance its students have to study abroad as enormously important.

We know that there are countries outside the EU that benefit from Erasmus: so what, in the name of goodness, is holding back the Government from saying, “We are making an unequivocal commitment to continue this”? There is no reason why we cannot; there is every reason why we should. We are in an unfortunate position at the moment, with no clarity, much confusion and contradictory statements being made by different members of the Cabinet. I am told they are at one now, following their outing in Chequers last week, and I hope that is right.

However, we could make things so much better by making a number of pledges and commitments. We are part of this and intend to remain part of it because, if this country is to flourish after Brexit, it will depend, perhaps more than anything else, upon the quality of our education and, particularly, of our university education.

Those who are Brexit orientated should particularly remember that there is no doubt that the vast majority of young people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland wanted to remain part of the EU. I deeply regret that we are not going to, but we can hang on to some of the best aspects of it, and this is one.