Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Lord Naseby

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support many of the worthy aims of this group of amendments, but my focus is on Amendment 22 in my name, which once more focuses on the clarity and implications of the language used.

Are uplands more important than wetlands? A wise parliamentarian recently told me, when we were discussing the addition of an individual word to this Bill, that considerable care must be taken. The addition of a single word will suggest the exclusion of others. In this clause, the inclusion of “uplands” could well suggest the exclusion of other types of land. The clause seeks to remedy this by including the catch-all language “and all other landscapes”, but this begs the question of why uplands deserve special mention. At the least, it will ensure that all future readers of this legislation will consider the promotion of uplands as more important than the promotion of those other landscapes. Consider the public servant tasked with committing funds to the protection of cultural heritage who is faced with the choice of two projects, one for uplands, one for wetlands. He or she will read this provision and undoubtedly choose the former, which would be a mistake.

Undoubtedly uplands are important, and the cultural and natural heritage therein is vital, but uplands can be no more important than wetlands; indeed, stating my interests as an estuary dweller, I argue that wetlands are considerably more important than uplands. Wetlands harbour considerably greater biodiversity than typically monocultured uplands, and 90% of wetlands have been lost since 1700. Being often near to urban centres and easily accessible, wetlands offer ready public access. Being found on or near the coast, wetlands are much more susceptible to the ravages of climate change and are at the forefront of our battle with rising sea levels. Wetland farmers, often pasture farmers, are as marginal as upland farmers and will struggle with a loss of BPS and export markets due to Brexit, and wetlands are often created and maintained by a remarkable physical heritage in the form of levees, embankments and drains.

I note by way of example the Exminster marshes. Created by Dutch engineers in medieval times, they are the site of a civil war battlefield, England’s oldest lock canal, Brunel’s amazing atmospheric railway—the great western railway—and the M5. They host the university’s playing fields, a major RSPB nature reserve and many small farms that traditionally raise England’s earliest spring lamb; this is ancient pasture-fed farming of the most carbon-neutral variety. To their west is Marsh Barton, with Europe’s largest collection of car showrooms, all of which they protect from the ever-rising sea levels. No area of landscape can be more important yet, without this amendment, they may lose out on ELMS funding to possibly less-deserving grouse moors in Yorkshire.

I trust that the Minister will clarify this issue. I am highly supportive of many of the other amendments, particularly that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, with its focus on common land. This is such an important element of ancient land tenure in Devon on uplands and wetlands. It is undoubtedly deserving of special protection.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for tabling this amendment. When I first read it, I thought the key words were

“protecting… the food security of citizens”.

I am of the generation who went through the war. We had extensive food rationing, even after the war ended in 1945; it was nearly 10 years before we got rid of all food rationing. Did we not have a reminder in the first few days of the coronavirus lockdown of just how important food supply is? I pay tribute to our supermarkets and the supply chain, particularly those suddenly putting on extra production and extra harvesting in a magnificent way.

I very much support Amendment 12, tabled by my noble friend Lord Northbrook, and Amendment 11, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the very wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. The Minister has told us in his briefing notes that he is aware that agriculture is going through a major transition stage. As we move to this new subsidy arrangement, I am confident that the Minister is aware of the challenges and is alert to them. At the end of the day, food security is vital and absolutely fundamental to this country.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Devon and Lord Naseby

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend on the Front Bench and his team. My goodness he has shown patience beyond belief and reminds me of the problems I had when I was Deputy Speaker in the other place. I am essentially a practical man. I hope my noble friend will listen carefully to the speeches made by my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Lilley, who raised some very relevant issues that we as a Government have to face.

I will only really address Amendment 270. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady McIntosh for tabling it before she knew whether there would be a Trade and Agriculture Commission. As has been pointed out, the commission and her proposals are not identical, but they are not dissimilar. I welcome what the Government have done so far.

Should the commission’s recommendations always be binding? I think not. I have listened to all sorts of advisory boards over many years across two Houses. I thank them, but they never were all binding. They certainly ought to be listened to very carefully, but they must be challenged on occasion.

Should the commission be a permanent body? I think it should, but every time we have a permanent body it is absolutely vital that we review its performance. I have noticed that the traditional review period is about five years. A bit of a drift has been going on to move beyond five years. Five years is about the right length.

I am not a farmer, but the quandary for me is that people say that farmers are being undercut by substandard producers. That raises the question: what happens if the producers are not substandard?

I always take an interest in what I suppose in the farming world are minority areas. I have long been involved with trees. I declare an interest in that I have a very modest 40 acres of woodland, approved by the Forestry Commission on a 10-year plan. We currently have problems with ash importation and with oak, partly from importation and partly from indigenous problems. There is a continuing need in that area, which I think is covered by the Bill, to ensure that we support research and development, and control of imports to ensure that they are of a proper quality for our saplings.

Where is the incentive for our farmers to improve their products so as to reduce the trade deficit? That seems a vital area. I have not noticed a lot of discussion about that in the many hours we have listened to these debates.

I take an interest in two other areas. There is a huge opportunity in horticulture. It is a small industry in the UK compared with what it was 40 or 50 years ago, but we must have joined-up government. We have a situation where one of the key restrictions on development in horticulture is the cost of power. If you have glass, you need cheap energy. We are producing good, environmentally friendly energy and more green energy as a percentage of supply than we have ever done. Lo and behold, along comes Ofgem with a proposal to reduce the profit percentage of energy suppliers—to halve it, in fact. Where will the investment come from in green energy and in the pricing of the product to help the horticulture industry? Someone must have a close look at Ofgem and ask it to stop meddling.

Finally, as I have mentioned before, viticulture is a tiny embryonic industry, but I hope it warrants at least somebody in the relevant department keeping a watch on it. It is growing fast and is well disciplined, but is competing across the world against the continent, the US, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, to mention a few places. It is a good industry, which employs people and uses land that was not particularly well used in the past. It is a very exciting opportunity.

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

I remind noble Lords of my Devon farming interests and note my American links. I join other noble Lords in thanking both Ministers and the many House and departmental staff for their efforts. I congratulate Minette Batters of the NFU and many others for their tireless work on these issues. Jamie Oliver has been a leading voice for high standards in our national diet; I thank him and his audience as well. But I remain unconvinced that protection of our national food standards is necessarily the right course. I invite the Committee to consider the unashamed promotion of our national food standards as an alternative.

It is now day seven of this Committee stage, and I am embarrassed to note that, in this wide-ranging agricultural debate, the Devon cream tea has yet to be mentioned. It is my ancestral duty to correct that and to remind your Lordships that it was my Saxon predecessor Ordwulf, alderman of Devon, who first recorded serving scones, cream and jam to the builders of Tavistock Abbey in 997 AD. As an aside, could the Minister confirm whether the Duchy of Cornwall is answerable to Parliament? If it is, Devon would be most grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Duke of Cornwall has any more ancient records of serving the cream tea. If he does not, it might settle an important local debate, once and for all.

Why is this particular piece of peninsula politics relevant? When I left California with my family, seven years ago, we served cream tea to our friends using Devon clotted cream, which was abundantly stocked in the local Santa Monica deli. When we left London for Devon some two years later, we tried the same, but could not find Devon cream in London; it was all from Cornwall. I came to realise then that the brand value of Devon cream is stronger in America than in England.

Along similar lines, we recently saw Her Majesty’s grandson Peter Phillips gamely promoting Jersey milk to the Chinese, whose appetite for meat and dairy is set to rise exponentially over the coming decades. Consider also our traditional French nickname, les rosbifs, and recall the celebration of English beef by William Hogarth and Henry Fielding, who famously wrote:

“When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman’s food,

It ennobled our veins and enriched our blood.

Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good

Oh! the Roast Beef of old England”.

We can combine this ancient heritage and global brand recognition with modern environmental science. Studies increasingly identify grass-fed meat and dairy, typical of our western counties, as offering a lower carbon footprint and higher environmental benefit than alternative confinement systems, which house livestock indoors, feeding them intensive arable crops, hormones and antibiotics. Nations around the world are beginning to set net-zero targets, following the UK’s bold lead. I note that Joe Biden recently targeted net zero for the United States by 2050, which will include carbon-neutral food and farming.

Rather than protecting our farmers from high-carbon low-welfare imports, as these amendments seek to, might we not consider placing all our efforts on promoting our low-carbon high-welfare exports and re-establishing British farming as a world leader? It is for this reason that I am concerned that the trade, food and farming standards commission could be a regressive step. I do not believe that the commission that has been agreed by the Government and launched today has nearly the mandate it needs to achieve what the industry and consumers want. The commission will report in six months with a series of recommendations, but it will have no real impact on the Government’s negotiating strategy and no binding say. It is transparently a way of kicking the agricultural standards issue into that very same long green grass on which we West Country farmers pride ourselves.

Finally, I note that the Government are conducting dual negotiations with both the EU and the US, whose experienced trade delegations have long been driven directly by their farming interests. In contrast, our trade negotiators are mere debutantes due to be ravaged by their weathered counterparts, without a farming chaperone to protect them. We are all aware of the strength of the agricultural lobby in the US. This fall, the midwestern farming states are due to reprise their enormously influential role in US national politics. Similarly, none can forget the scenes of French farmers shutting down Paris with manure, in defence of their interests. Farmers have a radical sway over politics across Europe. Here, conversely, farming interests are conservative and convivial, as is graphically illustrated by the genteel hereditary voices—included mine—that have been so vocal in this debate.

I worry that this Government are not fearful enough of our farmers. They may need to become so, if our rural interests are to be fully realised in the ongoing trade negotiations.