Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Lord Lucas

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

[The Earl of Devon [V]]

My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Rock. I will speak to Amendments 131 and 133 in my name. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on Amendment 131.

This turns again to the transition period—or transition chasm, as I described it earlier. Farmers are used to dealing with bad weather, but the thick fog that lies over the chasm is very foreboding. As I suggested earlier, the uncertainty is a major drag on investment and productivity in farming. Certainty and clarity are needed. My amendments seek merely to improve the clarity and certainty under the very welcome multiannual financial assistance plans.

Amendment 131 seeks more certainty by requiring plans to last seven years instead of five, permitting a greater length of commitment and avoiding the unfortunate coincidence with the election cycle. Agriculture and politics do not mix. To use a term popular in this Bill, we need to de-link them. I also note that seven years seems to be okay for the first multiannual financial assistance plan. Can the Minister state why it is not okay for the rest?

Amendment 133 merely seeks some clarity. At present a multiannual financial assistance plan is due to be laid before Parliament by 31 December of this year and will come into force the following day. That makes no sense—I do not wish to spend New Year’s Eve poring over a multiannual financial assistance plan. Parliament should have at least two months in which to review it. I suspect that farmers may want a bit more advance notice as well.

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 132 in my name. These plans are the fundamental basis for planning farming in this country. It is really not acceptable that the Government should be allowed to let a plan almost expire and then introduce a new one. How does that allow farmers to plan properly? I know that they will not get it under these circumstances, in the first iteration, but thereafter they deserve two years’ notice of changes that will be made between one plan and the next.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Lord Lucas

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I look forward to the Minister’s reply on Amendment 19. Our ability to repair the landscape is obviously crucial to getting our South Downs back in order. Kew is immensely helpful in this regard with its seed bank, which gives us some species we have long lost. We have to play an active part in getting our countryside back and not just wait for it to happen gradually over the next few centuries.

As for wider rewilding, yes, Knepp is wonderful—I have been there—but it requires fences. If you fence an area and you want nature taking care of itself, with very light-touch management, you need large herbivores and top predators. Otherwise, as in Knepp, we have to be the top predator. So, we have to accept our role in rewilding—we are the top predator. We have a role to play in a rewilded landscape. If you try to do it without boundaries, the herbivores leak; I do not think Knepp’s neighbours would be much pleased if all the Tamworth pigs started straying across their wheat crops. It is a concept that takes some very careful working out. We ought to learn the lessons of the rebellion in Wales, when the rewilding attempt failed. I encourage the Government to look in this direction, but with a good deal of scepticism.

[The Earl of Devon [V]]

My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. First, I would like to address the reintroduction of native species. Down in Devon, we have seen the relatively successful and very interesting reintroduction of beavers—ironically, in the River Otter. That has had some success but also some major challenges, not least for landowners, whose land gets flooded unexpectedly, requiring the proactive management of those beavers and moving them on.

Discussion is increasing around the reintroduction of pine martens as a means of controlling the grey squirrel population, although it is pointed out that grey squirrels live in urban centres where pine martens do not, so it would be very difficult to control grey squirrels that way. In the wilds of Scotland—the Glenfeshie Estate—the reintroduction of large herbivores is being considered. I was at a talk given recently by the brother of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, the Minister, who made reference to the reintroduction of wildcats to Dartmoor. I have resisted the urge to stray into the Dartmoor Hill ponies area, since they are so ably represented by a number of noble Lords. However, I would resist the reintroduction of wildcats to Dartmoor, if only for the dear Dartmoor pony’s sake.

Rewilding is a very complicated issue. I congratulate the Knepp Estate on its huge enthusiasm and the interesting research it is doing, but nature does not take care of itself in this landscape. We have created this landscape, we are responsible for it and we cannot divorce ourselves from that responsibility.

Rewilding is not a new concept. Three hundred years ago, the landscape around me was heavily farmed and ornately gardened. About 270 years ago, it was rewilded with the creation of a deer park, which exists to this day. That is a form of rewilding, creating a primordial, idyllic landscape with deer grazing under trees and eating conkers and acorns. It is, I agree, a fantastic landscape with remarkable biodiversity and it provides a healthy harvest of venison, but it is not profitable. It is heavily subsidised by HLS and ELS, and even then, it is not profitable. The only way we make it break even is with a series of concerts, which were so ably promoted on Tuesday by the noble Lord, Lord Mann.

Rewilding does not necessarily create a profitable and vibrant landscape, and we need to be very cautious in imagining it does. However, there are areas of the country that may benefit from it—I am thinking of marginal areas that are not profitable farmland but that should not be allowed to go completely to wilderness. They could be rewilded, but only if it can be done on a landscape scale, creating landscape-scale environmental corridors and providing remarkable benefits for all in joining up environmental and species habitats.