Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I believe that the Government and my noble friend are in agreement on the criteria for selecting a responsible body, whose main purpose or function must relate to conservation. I would be delighted to include him in a future meeting with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and officials and perhaps we could address some other concerns at that meeting.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated and voiced, in general, considerable support for the amendments that I have proposed. It is particularly pleasing to hear support from the Green Party—despite the aristocratic proposer of these amendments—and from other Benches; it is much appreciated. I am pleased to hear that the Government take these amendments seriously and are willing to meet me; I look forward to that meeting.

A number of points were raised. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, raised the issue regarding landlords and tenants. As I read the legislation, tenants will be able to enter into conservation covenants so long as they have at least seven years left on their tenancy. Of course, what happens on reversion of the tenancy once they have converted a farming field into a bog is yet another complexity that I did not have time to get to in my hypotheticals.

I also appreciate the support from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but, contrary to him, I think there is a role for for-profit companies within this marketplace. It is an exciting opportunity for environmental land management to bring in private finance but, if we are to do that, we absolutely must control and manage it, which is what these amendments are designed to do.

I thank the noble Baroness for the Government’s reply; she suggested that covenants can be easily modified or discharged in sites in application to the lands tribunal. In response to the Law Commission’s inquiry, the Bar Council pointed out that even the most modest application to the lands tribunal costs at least £50,000, and I am not sure that a small farmer would be willing to spend that to modify a covenant. She says that, to be registered as land charges, they must be executed by deed. I do not see that in the legislation and, as I understand it, they have effect as land charges even if they are not registered, so they still have this quasi-governmental function. As I understand it, they also continue to permit the responsible body to enforce exemplary damages, whether they are registered or not. Those are very significant impacts.

I am afraid that the noble Baroness may have misunderstood my Amendment 274, because it did change. The amendment is to the provision that applies to the for-profit, non-charitable, non-local authority entities. My aim is to ensure that any entities designated thereunder have conservation as their core function because, at present, the legislation does not permit for that. It is absolutely important that, if we are to have private enterprises involved, they need to be conservation enterprises; they cannot be banks that are just seeking to make a profit in developing an ecosystems services arm.

Finally, as to Amendment 276, while it is right that conservation covenants should be preserved, the reason why large payments will be made under them is because the landowner—the farmer—has to spend a lot of money maintaining the land in that way. If no payments can be made by the Secretary of State when that person takes responsibility for the covenant, there will be income for the land to be maintained in the way that it is meant to be. If payments are not made, the conservation purposes will necessarily fall away or the farmer will once more go bankrupt. There are a huge number of issues to be dealt with here. I do not think it is enough that this can just be packed in at the back end of Committee; we have a lot more work to do and I look forward to meeting the Minister and the Bill team. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I agree with everything the noble Baroness has said about healthy land meaning healthy food. The Bill is designed to do all that we can to encourage farmers to produce healthy land. We do not have a sector-specific target for agriculture because the Committee on Climate Change advised that emissions reductions would be needed in all sectors. We know that to achieve net zero more is needed from this sector, and we are looking to reduce agricultural emissions controlled directly within the farm boundary with a broad range of cost-effective measures, primarily through improvements in on-farm efficiency and land use change.

[The Earl of Devon [V]]

My Lords, I am sorry to return to this point—I am being forced to become something of an environmental campaigner. I have a simple question which has not yet been answered. Are the Government satisfied that the agricultural transition will not slow or reverse our progress towards net zero in 2050?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I can confirm that we are absolutely confident that we are doing everything in legislation and encouragement in order to achieve that end.