Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Finally, a word of caution on the reference of the noble Earl, Lord Arran, to older males who are past their prime and excluded from their herd or group, and who can die unhappy, cantankerous and alone while trying to upset the dynamics of the group. I wondered whether he was referring to this House, but I think in the end he was referring to the animals.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, funnily enough, that is a very good note on which to start. I will come to the specific amendment in half a second. But one of the things people do not realise is that the whole thing about trophy hunting—by the way, I do not go in for it at all, but I know something about herd management from deer in Scotland; not that I manage myself, but I know people who do—is that you do not want to shoot a young male coming along because it has a magnificent pelt. You want it to develop into a full-blooded animal, and when it is just past its prime that is when you cull it, for exactly that reason: the dynamics of the crotchety old male which is causing disruption. The noble Lord is absolutely right. If you are managing the whole thing properly to improve whatever it is people wish to hunt, it will be done in a much better and more sustainable way for nature as well.

It comes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said. The essential message is financial incentive. This is what I got from the delegates from Africa who came over, whom I also met. They want to be able to manage these things in order to get the funding, and incentive and local buy-in from the low-level population to support this in order to get the conservation side right. That is the trouble: it is all very well pouring aid in from the top, but sometimes it does not get anywhere near the bottom. It is much better to have stuff coming in to give the ordinary people on the ground an incentive to try to work in an environmental and conservation way. The objective is to conserve properly: you get your herd profiles right and then you do some hunting.

The reason this amendment is so important is that it is about the unintended and perverse consequences. The Bill says that you cannot import trophies

“on behalf of the hunter”,

meaning the person who killed the thing. If you think about it, if you are managing a herd, you will have deaths at all age profiles in the herd, and people are going to hunt for meat. Many of the animals that have been taken out for meat will have horns and other bits that are useful for creating mementos for tourists. I should love some reassurance that this is not banning the production of tourist mementos which are not trophies—they are not the thing that the person paid a fortune to go to kill, but what you might call by-products of the results of it. I am afraid you will have culling going on in the herd, and there will also be animals that die, so why cannot their body parts be made useful, for greater sustainable use?

These are not plastics, poisoning the planet; they are naturally produced things. It will be much better to make all sorts of products and ornamental things from them than from fossil fuels. If one of the unintended consequences of the Bill is that it prevents all use of all animal body parts, it really should be examined again. We are just wasting a whole natural resource there, and I am a great believer that we should be using natural products, not artificially produced plastic products, which are killing the planet.

The main thing is that we have to get the financial incentives in the right place, to incentivise at the bottom level, and we also need to use all the animal stuff. This great fiction that people just go out to shoot a few trophies and that these will be animals in their prime is not really how it should work.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I can see that this could be a very constructive Bill, particularly if we got back to our manifesto promises—to refer to what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said. The manifesto pledge was to ban imports from trophy hunting of endangered animals and, when we come to my Amendment 4, that is something I will enlarge on. This Bill goes a great deal further than that and, in doing so, as my noble friend Lord Swire said, it starts to create a very inappropriate relationship with the Governments of countries where trophy hunting takes place. We ought to be working with these countries to help them conserve the wildlife which they have—and which we would be terrified to have.

We in this country cannot even contemplate the return of the lynx, never mind the wolf. As for bears, certainly not, although they used to live here—never, not allowed. The pigs that escaped in the great storm are relentlessly persecuted. We have no concept of what we are asking these people to do in living alongside elephants, hippopotamus and rhinoceros, let alone lions and the other big predators. We should have such respect for and understanding of them, and we should be working really closely with them to enable that symbiosis to continue. If they are telling us that trophy hunting is part of that, we can ask them how they can grow through this and go beyond that, as well as offer real support in getting photographic tourism going and working on how we bring that idea back to the UK—not that it is the easiest, when we are all being told that we cannot fly any more. It ought to be a process where we are working closely with African Governments, not having them come here to protest what we are doing. This ought to be a process we are in together.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, this is a well-intentioned but mistaken Bill, which tweaks the heartstrings of many people who do not live among nor manage animals in the wild. They seem to think that a wild animal will live a long, peaceful and contented life if left alone. I am afraid that that does not happen in the real world.

Wildlife must also be kept in balance for the sake of the habitat, or the habitat can be destroyed. I have certainly seen that happen in Africa, many years ago, when elephants wiped out the Maasai Mara for several years and it took some time to recover. So culling will take place: it is part of good wildlife management.

Often, older males who are past their prime and excluded from the herd, group or whatever can die unhappy, cantankerous and alone, while trying to upset the dynamics of the group. Those are the ones that one often wants to cull. They can also make for more interesting trophies, because of their age and seniority, so why not convert the cost of culling to an income and take money from rich people to help conservation?

A hunting safari will employ more local people per tourist, with its few visitors, than big national park photo tourism will ever do. It will also probably employ more experts, who need to know more about the habitat and habits of the animals being hunted. Most of that hunting money will also go straight back into the local economy, because it is being paid directly to the people who manage groups that run safaris. The suggestion is to replace it with government grant aid, which will go in at the top while administrative filters, or whatever you want to call them, leach out a lot of the money so that only a little trickles down into the local area. At least that is the experience of many places.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, mentioned quite correctly that there is already the perfectly good Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES. It has been in operation since 1975. This prevents the import of a trophy from any country where that animal is endangered. Very few species are endangered in every country; you cannot aggregate numbers across continents. In certain areas, there are problems with oversupply and other places are undersupplied. An example that was given to me was of a trophy hunter who might go to Chad to shoot something that is endangered there. First, CITES would not give them permission to import the trophy. Secondly, why would you go to Chad to shoot an endangered lion, when you can shoot better specimens elsewhere? I do not think that happens very often, but I may be wrong. I stand to be corrected.

Poaching, usually done cruelly, has an impact on the gene pool of these animals that is an order of magnitude more serious than that of a few controlled hunters. I am very surprised by the idea that trophy hunting will hugely affect the gene pool because of the number of hunters.

There are an awful lot of experts—and we have been sent this stuff, as well; there are a lot of international signatories to these things—who say that hunting purely for trophies is not a key threat. I have met several representatives from concerned African countries who do not think we should be interfering in their economies and are against the Bill.

Local population management and control is often essential, so why not allow the preservation of an interesting head or trophy? Another interesting thought occurred to me: could there be a new trade or business out there of 3D printing accurate, scanned replicas of trophies? They could then be legally imported or even sold as an NFT.

Game Birds (Cage Breeding) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but I asked whether I could quickly make a comment in the gap after listening to the debate. I am afraid that I have been abroad and did not get my name down in time.

The problem with the Bill is that it is trying to put together raised laying units and battery cages as if these were the same thing, and it is trying to trigger an emotional response in people to condemn both. I am not a game breeder myself at all, but I have read research which says that the raised laying units which are outside, have space in them and even give an enhanced environment and things like that are more hygienic and better for the birds, and you get less disease. That is a very different concept from battery cages, about which I know absolutely nothing. The least we can do in the interests of the birds is to give them the better, hygienic conditions. At the end of the day, this is not about trying to ban everything, but I think it is counterproductive if you deliberately make it worse for the birds in law. That is really all I want to say.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I first declare an interest in farming in that my family farms, but I am handing everything over.

I find this Bill woolly. Much is left to the discretion of the Minister and the Executive. I have heard it described as a paving Bill and an entry point; more legislation may follow. I am sure we will get lots of assurances from the Front Bench, but we should remember that no ministerial Statement or Government can bind the successor Governments and Parliaments that follow, so we have to be very careful; we need things to be in the Bill.

Several speakers have spoken about the Bill as being useful for protecting farm animals, but we already regulate farming in great detail—I am sure we will regulate more for things we have missed—so I presume this committee will look at wild animals. I very much like the points made just now by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, about what other things it could cross over into and mess up, when we are trying to look at the bigger pictures. If we try to make animals the pure and total focus of everything, we need to realise that we are only another animal on the planet.

One of the things that really worries me is that the composition of the committee is very open to manipulation—several speakers have mentioned this. There is nothing there about long-term balance and ensuring that it stays balanced.

Another thing that worries me is this definition of sentience. Again, I was very interested by the noble Viscount’s points about that, because there is a huge danger of anthropomorphism. Most creatures, if not all, have an autonomous nervous response to stimuli. This does not require thought, so should we really be inferring sentience from it? Or does sentience require reasoning, and in that case to what level? I do not think we go as far as the ethics, which was spoken about before.

The other thing is about pleasure and the question of whether animals enjoy working; this concerns the closing down of the circuses and things like that. I know from my personal experience that animals do enjoy doing things and working—there is no doubt about it—but some people think it is demeaning and do not like that, because they anthropomorphise what they are doing.

I just hope that this committee will understand the difficulty of balancing biodiversity. One of the biggest problems we have with a lot of things, particularly with single-issue pressure groups, is that the solution to the overpopulation of a particular animal species is to relocate it. Sometimes that just messes up somewhere else—or it may mess up the animal; it may be totally unproductive. We say, “Oh, we don’t want to hurt these animals”, which at the moment are destroying this environment that they may require for their own survival, so we relocate them over there—but that may not be any good for the animals, and they may die anyway as a result.

Another problem comes with the overprotection of certain species. I have noticed this particularly with some of the hunting species, such as badgers. There is huge overpopulation of badgers at the moment. Badgers eat hedgehogs. Why do we have a diminishing hedgehog population? No one thinks about this. They blame all sorts of things but not the badgers, one of the few creatures that can open them up and eat the things. The other thing is bumble bees. Quite a lot of species of bumble bee nest in the ground in small nests. It is just like a bar of chocolate for a badger; they love them. A bumble bee is very different from worker bees that live in hives and go out all over the place.

The trouble is that a lot of people who live in towns have perhaps done a brief course on the environment at Durham University, borrowed a pair of welly boots for a farm walk or whatever and then become experts on the environment. I do not think they really understand the breadth of things you need to understand.

Just for amusement I was thinking about anthropomorphism. I was amused by the “Lobster Quadrille” by Lewis Carroll, and I think we are going in that direction:

“‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail,

‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?”

The way we are going, I think they are about to join our human dance.

I was amused by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. I was going to suggest that maybe bear baiting has been replaced with politician and celebrity baiting. I think that is the new sport—and maybe toff baiting as well, since I seem to be counted among those by some people.

The main thing is that I agree with those who doubt the Bill’s utility. I am not sure we should waste a huge amount of time on it—but I think we will have to, to make sure it does not become dangerous.

Agriculture Bill

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I have an interest to declare as I am now running my late wife’s farm until we get probate, and maybe for a bit longer. I am very glad to see in this Bill that there will be continuing support for farmers, as many have a very low net income. People always point at the ones who are bigger and better off, but they are also probably very efficient.

Many noble Lords have spoken most eloquently about standards and their intentions are good, so I want to make some observations about the barriers that put many farmers off the environmental schemes. We have had environmental schemes here since the early pilot schemes and the stewardship schemes, so we have been doing it for a very long time. Environmental protection is important, but it must be balanced with food production. The Secretary-General of the United Nations said yesterday:

“Our food systems are failing, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse.”


That is at the global scale, but it is something we need to remember. If we get this wrong, we will not be able to feed people.

The real trouble is that compliance with rules costs money. Our producers need protection from competition from countries where they cut corners and to which we have effectively exported our consciences, so that we do not see where they are broken. We think we can do this by having strict rules on imports, but people launder import papers—it is amazing how things can move around so that they appear to be okay. Most realistically, we must continue to support our home production and underpin it in some way, as we have been doing with the basic farm payment system.

If we want to see good environmental outcomes—we all do; I do very much—we must remember that rules do not often recognise weather. They are very inflexible about certain operations, because very often they just look at one single issue of what is being protected. They also do not take account of local variations in flora and fauna and the normal behaviour of these things. Blanket provision for the whole country, from the lowlands of the south of England to the northern Scottish highlands, are often too crude—seasons move and things ripen at different times.

Inspections should establish whether a land manager is trying to get it right overall or whether they are taking the mickey. Inspectors ought to look at the environmental objective, rather than focusing on minor issues where a mistake, usually accidentally, has been made. Some rules actually hinder achieving the intended objective and we need to work out how to get around that. Inspections should be interactive, and advisory where this would be helpful.

My general theme is to get a good take-up of ELMS. It is important for systems to verify compliance work simply, too. I have been filing our cropping electronically since 2004 or 2005, when it was IAX, so I have some experience of this, and of running digital mapping. The online systems must work reliably and simply. Even now, the BPS is unreliable. It regularly loses one or two fields for us most years—I believe that they are called “parcels in the system”—and I cannot see why. The land use codes do not take proper account of the farming and environmental schemes that are overlapping one another, which can cause confusion. It is quite hard to get your EFA declarations right. Remapping is exhausting and disruptive, and causes problems between schemes, but thank goodness the helplines are very helpful.

I hope that in future the inspectors can also be helpful advisers.

Agriculture Bill: Food Production

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

Will the Government take into account, in international trade agreements that will be coming up, the fact that British farmers probably maintain much higher standards on the environment, livestock and farming as a whole than do our competitors abroad?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, we are committed to UK standards not being watered down in trade negotiations with other countries. I should say that treaties cannot change domestic law. Any changes to UK law required to implement a treaty will have to pass through Parliament. That is an important factor for us to remember.

Common Agricultural Policy and Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, far from going round the houses, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, has done us a service by going through the instruments so thoroughly and raising some really important questions—the Minister will have quite a lot to answer. I will say something about these instruments, but I do not want to forget to thank the Minister and his officials for the extremely helpful briefing they gave to opposition parties.

There are five instruments, and their titles are so confusingly similar that the only way to deal with them is the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, did—as first, second, third, fourth and fifth, which is the order in which they appear on the Order Paper. They deal with very important matters related to farming and rural communities, particularly funding issues. They are interrelated, which is why I think it was sensible to take them together.

The instruments are also interrelated with the Agriculture Bill—the elephant that is not in the room, because we do not have it yet—which interacts with these instruments in a number of respects. The Agriculture Bill gives huge and unacceptably wide order-making powers to Ministers. Some of those duplicate some of the powers exercised in these statutory instruments, so it is quite difficult to view them separately. If the Agriculture Bill ever becomes an Act, it will come into force probably in the middle of a period in which these instruments are in force, or while we are still waiting for the instruments to come into force at the end of an implementation period.

We accept that these instruments are a necessary means of ensuring that we have continuity in what would otherwise be an even more difficult situation for the farming community. They are no-deal instruments primarily; the Minister explained that they will still be necessary even if there is an agreement, but that would not be until the end of the implementation period. They would therefore lie dormant during an implementation period, and that would have to be achieved in the withdrawal agreement Bill, which would be necessary in those circumstances. Of course, we do not know when exit day will be—whether it will be next Friday, 30 June, or some other date—or indeed if it will be. By the time we get to it, these instruments will need to be amended because things will have changed, either during the delay, or during the implementation period, or both. It is hard to imagine that the form in which these instruments are now will serve all purposes in perhaps 20 months’ time, as would be the case after an implementation period.

What on earth are farmers supposed to make of all this? It is bad enough when your work is at the mercy of the weather and fluctuating market prices; but, frankly, it has been easier to forecast the weather—and even market prices—than the Government’s management of the Brexit exercise. That adds another huge dimension of uncertainty and these five instruments would at least provide continuity in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

There are a few issues I want to pick up. The Minister mentioned an intriguing point on the first instrument: the red meat levy paid on imported animals slaughtered within two or three months of import would be extended from EU states to the rest of the world. That sounds like a policy change, and a policy change ought to be dealt with differently, or at least drawn to our attention. Its significance diminishes, however, when you discover that—in the words of the Explanatory Memorandum—the amount of the levy currently collected is “probably nil”. That is a rather interesting phrase to use; perhaps the Minister can explain why it is only “probably nil”, as though nobody knows whether it has been collected at all.

The second and fourth instruments puzzled me—and officials when I asked them—for a different reason. Unlike all the others, they do not necessarily come into force on exit day, whereas most EU exit regulations do come into force on exit day—whenever that turns out to be. If the Minister chooses not to lay either the second or the fourth instrument until some later date, they will not come into force until the day after that. Why the difference, and do the Government envisage the orders not being brought into force at the same time as the others?

The third and fourth instruments abandon the mechanism known as the EU crisis reserve. That relies on deductions from the direct payment pot to create a central reserve for times of crisis in EU agriculture. It is another mechanism that has never been used; farmers have received reimbursement for the deductions in the funding scheme. It clearly makes little sense in a UK-only context—I suppose one could have a scheme for the four jurisdictions within the UK, but it makes a great deal less sense. We have to refer to a different statutory instrument, the next one in the group, to see the accountability mechanism for dealing with it.

It is also in the third instrument that we find that euros will remain the currency on which the whole system of agricultural support is calculated and accounted for. However, I understand that provision may be included in the Agriculture Bill for a switch to sterling. We need to clarify that; I was reassured when I received briefing from officials that neither farmers nor the taxpayer would in the long run be placed in a very different position by currency fluctuations because support is decided at a fixed point in the year. However, it would be helpful to have clarified the Government’s intention in relation to a later switch to sterling.

The fifth order is essential to continue the exemption of various agricultural and fisheries projects and funding streams from EU state aid rules. To the extent that state aid rules continue to have effect post exit, such an exemption is necessary. It of course begs the question of how many state aid rules we will have post exit. The Minister could perhaps clarify; there will be rules that extend because they are in the withdrawal agreement—there may be things which we decide to continue and do not remove because we want to restrain undesirable interference with the market by various forms of state aid. It left me slightly puzzled as to the extent of its impact.

The decision about the future of state aid rules is one of the hundreds of policy decisions which we will have to come to later if exit goes ahead. The battle will then be between those who thought that Brexit meant a bonfire of rules and those who see that many issues in the rules have been developed while we have been in Europe and are valuable to us and we do not want to lose them. That again creates more uncertainty for farmers, because they have been told by the ardent Brexiteers, “Oh, we’ll get rid of all those EU rules; you don’t have to worry about them”, whereas in practice, as the Government have indicated on many issues already, a lot of the things we observe in Europe are things that we believe to be right, and that we advocate and intend to do anyway.

We have had a foretaste of the problems and uncertainties with the publication of the tariff regime only two weeks before it was planned to come into force. While the sheep sector, which is so valuable in areas such as that which I come from, has retained its tariff protection but still faces the problem of potentially heavy tariffs on its exports, eggs, cereals, fruit and vegetables will have no tariff protection. Farmers Weekly called it policy devised on the hoof by a Government struggling to cling on to power.

My last point was raised the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, but it looks forward. Can the government machinery cope with the complex transfer of functions provided by these orders? The noble Baroness raised the question in the context of the Rural Payments Agency and delays to payments. The RPA and Natural England have 14,000 historic environmental stewardship payments outstanding. The RPA says that it is concentrating not on the 2018 so-called advance payments—we can hardly call them advance in 2019—but on the 2017 final payments. Its target is still only to complete 95% of them by July. Tenant farmers with rents to pay need those payments to be made in a timely fashion, and they have a big impact in rural communities on suppliers of farm machinery and materials for agriculture. The system cannot cope at present, so a series of quite complex changes gives rise to worry as to how the system will cope.

The complexity of this is illustrated by the Minister’s admission that there is a small error in one of the sets of regulations before us today. That can obviously be corrected, but one has to bear in mind that this extremely complex process is taking place in an industry that faces a great deal of uncertainty and many other complexities. It is pretty worrying.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say just a couple of things. I am married to a farmer and in the evenings I have to try to sort out some of the paperwork, mapping, basic payment systems—

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not believe that the noble Earl was here at the start of the debate and therefore it is not really possible for him to take part.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I am sorry. I was only going to make a point about the RPA workload.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Perhaps the noble Earl might speak to the Minister afterwards.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

I am sorry to intervene, but the noble Earl was sitting over there at the beginning of the debate.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Not quite; I missed the first couple of minutes.

[Lord Grantchester]

I may well bring up the points that the noble Earl intended to make, so I will hope to cover some of his anxieties. To continue, I am grateful to the Minister and his team for the very constructive way in which his department has engaged with Peers on these regulations.

By and large, the Explanatory Memorandums have commonality across the regulations, as the bundle today transfers the functions necessary to transfer the complexities of the CAP schemes, including the basic payment scheme, to the UK on the UK’s exit from the EU. Last week, the Committee examined and approved the statutory instruments pertinent to rural development that are also managed under the subject of this week’s regulations.

I certainly approve of the instruments, but it would be useful to have the Minister’s clarification and confirmation of several aspects of their provisions and some amendments give rise to the need for further explanation. I am very clear about the CAP schemes. I apologise if some of my queries go beyond the technicalities of the regulations, but to a large extent they expand on the queries already raised by other noble Lords.

The regulations have been introduced to maintain continuity and consistency and bring about a smooth transition to the UK’s new regime proposed in the forthcoming Agriculture Bill. Can the Minister confirm that the instruments will become operable in the event of no deal, whenever that might be, and, under the scenario that the UK leaves with any deal at the end of the transition period up to the end of the present Parliament, which is still expected to be in 2022, when the Agriculture Bill may be implemented?

In so far as there might be an extension of the date under Article 50, will this result in a commensurate end date for the transition period under the outcome with a deal? Would that then necessarily shorten the time when these regulations would operate before the new Agriculture Bill provisions became operable at the end of the Parliament? I assume that, because of these complexities, no end date can be written into these regulations. As further payments for the EU will continue under the extension of Article 50, will this be relevant to the £39 billion due from the UK to the EU on exit?

Turning to what the regulations mean for present practice, can the Minister confirm certain features? First, and very importantly—this might be the point that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, wished to bring up—is the Rural Payments Agency capable of administering the added totality of these schemes, bearing in mind two aspects? First, it manages the schemes already from a UK perspective so, prima facie, it should. However, secondly, whenever there have been any fresh iterations of CAP regimes, the RPA has traditionally struggled to cope, with resulting delays and confusions. It is struggling now to incorporate the environmental schemes transferred to it last year. What can the Minister say to reduce anxiety over the management of these changes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I should have at the very outset declared my farming interests as well, as set out in the register. I should probably do that at every Defra occasion because of the interconnection with agriculture, the environment, and so forth, but I think all noble Lords know of my agricultural background and all that goes with it. I am most grateful to all noble Lords; it is so nice to see the noble Lord, Lord Beith, who has a Dispatch Box before him, and my noble friend Lady Byford, who is forensic. I will endeavour to answer as many questions as I can today, but for those that are intricate, perhaps a letter would be a more fulfilling experience. Some of them go slightly off the core of the discussions on these instruments, but they quite clearly go into wider agricultural matters, which are important.

First, your Lordships have agreed that these regulations are so important to ensure payments are made to farmers, land managers and fishers, to comply with state aid rules, and to have that operability. There are quite a number of questions, so it is important that I answer as many of them as I can. My noble friend Lady Byford asked about stewardship schemes and the issue of new applicants, and, in reference to paragraph 7.4 of the EM of the first statutory instrument, how our commitment fits in with this—the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also referred to these matters. The environmental stewardship scheme in this SI is closed to new applicants; current agreement holders will continue to receive payments under the Treasury guarantee following EU exit, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. The Countryside Stewardship Scheme has replaced environmental stewardship in England; this is open to applicants and is covered again by the Treasury guarantee. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, raised this issue at Questions yesterday; indeed, I had an opportunity of raising this with the Minister of State today. We accept entirely that there needs to be an improvement in the level of payments experienced with both the environmental stewardship and Countryside Stewardship schemes. That is why we have transferred it from Natural England—rather than the EA, which was managing these matters —to the RPA because, candidly, we thought it is the organisation to deal with payments and the BPS payments following the first year of the change of CAP. We are at 90%-plus of payments on BPS and, as my noble friend said, the last few per cent are often because of probate cases, cross-border issues or inspections.

I will take back from today the very helpful remarks made at the beginning, which relate to Countryside Stewardship—I do not have to declare an interest in this particular point. I am well aware that farmers have paid money to engage in the Countryside Stewardship or environmental stewardship schemes and that they are now waiting for money. For some, that wait goes back to 2016, so I am not content about that matter. I am always prone to understatement, so I hope your Lordships will understand what I mean when I say that “I am not content” with the current arrangements.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I think I am allowed to intervene quickly. Maybe interest payments could be looked at, because real costs to farmers arise from non-payment.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I have heard the noble Earl and respect his tenacity in putting that point. I had better not say anything more on the record, but that is clearly one area where the question is how we get a better situation. That is why I assure your Lordships that the RPA is geared up to deal with this, and the Secretary of State and all the ministerial team are looking for progress.

Ivory Trade

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I do not feel well qualified to speak on this, given the knowledge that has been poured out, but I want to make a couple of points and thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for this useful debate. I have certainly learned a huge amount.

First, I agree with all the stuff that has been said about the destruction of the world’s cultural heritage. That would be a terrible thing. It would be an irreplaceable waste of hours of work and also skills that have been lost in some cases. We may not appreciate until later what skills they are. Two things really worry me. One is that it is impossible to set rules that cover every single artefact. It is often a case of artistic opinion. Flexibility will be required. We have heard how one table might require one proportion and another might require another. There are so many exceptions. In a complex world and with the complexity of the stuff out there, we must be careful not to have very strict rules—which is the opposite of what one noble Lord said earlier. They need to be highly flexible and we need to have a method of making flexible judgments.

The other trouble is that experts have their own biases, and tastes change as life moves on between the generations. Looking back, Georgian things were thought of as great and people turned their noses up at art deco and more recent things; there were times when some of the art was regarded as pretty nasty. I will be very interested to see what happens to the modern art that some people think will not be looked at in 10 or 100 years’ time and will disappear. We just do not know what will happen in future generations. I do not know whether the scrimshaw mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is regarded as something that we should preserve. I can think of many experts who would probably say that they are just little carvings of unknown sailors and ask why they are of interest.

The second thing that worries me is effectiveness. Will it work? Will it help the elephants? The whole point—with which I entirely agree—is that we are trying to preserve a great, noble species that is currently being poached out of existence in the most horrendous ways. It worries me that sometimes the cry of “something must be done” leads to things that do not quite work, because people cannot think of anything better to do and feel powerless. What will this do? Will it move markets abroad to countries that do not really care and create a market there? Will it drive things underground, so the situation does not get any better? If anything, ivory could then fall into the hands of criminals and the criminal fraternity, which would make things worse.

A typical example of that is the war on drugs, which has not worked. I will not go into that, but some of these things put things in the hands of criminals and make everything worse. That is what is happening at the moment because, by creating scarcity, we make things more valuable and expensive. Then suddenly there is an incentive for criminals to spend a lot of money on doing something with it. I wonder: is there no way of farming ivory in such a way as to create a glut on the market and push down its value so that it is not worth financing gangs of poachers? I suspect there is not, or people would have done it. But is there a way for us to incentivise local people when they own herds of elephants by giving them intense support and letting them keep the profits, thus giving them a real reason to guard their animals? Sometimes destruction is not the way to create scarcity; we often see that a glut pushes the price of things down.

As for burning ivory, a brilliant artist said to me last night that, historically, burnt ivory was one of the great black pigments and it has properties that cannot be replaced by burnt bones and other such things that have been tried since. She asked us, if we are going to burn the ivory, to at least use it to make great black pigment, so the animals will not die for nothing.

Badgers

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, with the greatest of respect, I do not think that the noble Lord’s proposition is correct. The randomised badger-culling trials showed something quite different, which was that above a certain percentage of badgers culled—indeed, the first-year trials in the randomised badger culls were in the 30s of per cent—there was nevertheless a significant effect on the incidence of TB in cattle.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, can we add the humble bumble bee to the list of animals and creatures that are being threatened by the badgers? Bumble bees nest underground, are a great source of delight for the badger to eat and are under threat.

[Lord De Mauley]

I am very interested in what the noble Earl has said because he will know that we will be launching a national pollinator strategy later this year. Perhaps we can discuss what he suggests in the context of that.

Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of points. This may be a very worthy cause but will it work? I would like to see greater flexibility in fines. I suspect that a £5 fine, a quick rap on the knuckles, might work to modify behaviour. However, in recent history, we have seen that £75 a time is infuriating people and getting them very cross with local authorities. This high level of fines is losing public sympathy because many people see this as a trivial offence.

People, particularly pensioners, are poor. We get idiotic behaviour from petty officials. A 71 year-old grandmother was given a £75 on-the-spot fine for dropping a thread on the pavement when she had not even realised that she had dropped it or, in fact, whether she had dropped it. Someone else was fined £75 after a tissue she was using to wipe her nose while running for a bus got blown away in a strong wind. Another problem is that these fines apply to any form of litter under the Environmental Protection Act. We have discovered that it also applies to bananas. In 2010, a woman was fined £50 when her baby dropped a piece of banana which rolled into a puddle. The council said that the fine was “standard procedure”.

As regards my next point, a woman was fined £75 after a bite-sized piece of sausage roll fell from her four year-old daughter’s mouth on to a street in Hull city centre. She appealed and the case was dismissed. She was lucky because a pigeon ate the sausage roll. In the end, it was not considered to be littering. However, there is a problem with appealing against these fines. Here is the trap—if you pay your fixed-penalty notice within 14 days, that is okay. No criminal proceedings can be brought. But if you do not, you could get a criminal conviction. I presume that if you appeal and the case ends up in court, and you lose, you could end up with a criminal conviction. That would show up in a CRB check. We know how some people, to cover their backside, were firing people from quite prestigious positions. For example, a schoolteacher failed to get a fishing rod licence and as a result had a criminal conviction. So we can see that, in covering themselves, various organisations are causing complications.

It will also mean that you can no longer take part in the US visa waiver scheme. So accidentally dropping a bit of litter and having someone trying to take £100 off you in the street could end up with you having lifelong problems.

Sometimes we do not look at the unintended consequences of some of these measures. They sound great up front but it is not always as simple as that. I think that a rap on the knuckles would be far more effective and I would impose £5 fines here and there. People would hate having to pay the fine, but it would be hardly worth making a fuss about and would modify behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, for introducing this Bill today. He is seeking to address a long-standing, expensive and unpleasant problem. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for their comments.

I have a confession to make. I do not smoke but I have been known occasionally to chew gum. However, I promise that I dispose of it responsibly at all times.

Over the years, in your Lordships’ House and in the other place, a number of questions and debates have been raised on this issue and we have seen legislation to deal with the problem of litter. However, still there are people who persist in irresponsibly disposing of their litter in unhygienic and unpleasant ways. All litter is bad, a point made by the noble Earl, and the cost to local authorities is enormous, as the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, said. I would like to see local councils publishing in their annual accounts how much it costs per resident for them to clean up other people’s mess. I call them litter louts, although some of them do not like that description.

As the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has said, the Bill seeks to address the two specific areas that have been targeted—chewing gum and cigarette butts. I had not realised that there is a significant industry devoted to chewing gum removal and disposal. Just a quick trawl on the internet identifies several companies selling products to businesses, councils and individuals, all to deal with chewing gum. There are disposable wrappers that can be carried in pockets or handbags; there are solutions to try to remove chewing gum from clothes, which is extremely unpleasant; there are also industrial-strength machines, to which the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, referred, that remove flattened and dirty chewing gum from pavements.

I first saw one of those machines in operation when I was Environment Minister in Northern Ireland. It was a huge expense and effort for the local authority, but it was an absolute necessity because the sight of the very dark pavements in the town centre against the dirty, off-white used chewing gum was pretty disgusting. I also recall my husband joining me on a visit to a school at which I was speaking as part of the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme, and the school was very embarrassed when he left with his trousers covered in chewing gum from a school chair. I can tell the school that I put the trousers in the freezer and managed to get it off later.

Clearly, this is a problem. It is an unpleasant and ugly problem and innovative ways are being sought to address it, and have been for many years. As early as 1959, Lonnie Donegan reached number three in the pop charts with a solution to the problem of chewing gum disposal, with the hit song, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)”. Noble Lords may not be aware that the problem goes back even further, to 1924, when the original version, “Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?” was a hit in the USA. I suspect that that chewing gum from 1924 has lost its flavour.

When the Labour Government set up the Chewing Gum Action Group in 2003, they brought together charities, government and the chewing gum industry to change public behaviour and alert people to the penalties that can be imposed. I am grateful that this Government continue to support that body. The chewing gum industry is committed to playing its part in the group and provides financial support to help tackle the problem. When it is active, it can achieve great results. In one area there was a 93% reduction in the problem. But I was disappointed to note from the group’s website that this year only 14 local authorities have signed up to it. Clearly many more would benefit from doing so.

Last year in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for an update on dissolvable chewing gum—which apparently has been invented—because,

“chewing gum is the most horrendous litter problem on our streets”.

The Minister replied that he was meeting Wrigley that very afternoon, and that he hoped that his noble friend was,

“reassured that this matter is under control and I will stick to the solution”.—[Official Report, 9/7/12; col. 903.]

It would be interesting to know what further progress has been made since then. I understand that one UK company has invented a chewing gum that can be removed from pavements just with water but I am not aware that it is in widespread use with all the companies. My one reservation about dissolvable chewing gum is that it might make some people even more reckless in disposing of it if they think it can be removed so easily.

Of course, the other problem that the Bill seeks to address is that of cigarette butts. I commend efforts to tackle this problem but there is a debate to be had as to whether the imposition of fines and such duties as suggested by the Bill is the best way forward, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, indicated. I will use an example from my own local authority, Basildon District Council. The council hired a security company, Xfor, to police the town centre and issue fines of £75—the current maximum—to those it witnessed dropping cigarette butts. Xfor charged the council £45 for every fine it issued. There was no request to pick it up, no warning, just the fine of £75. I think the idea was that immediate harsh action would be an effective deterrent. In the first three months of the scheme, 1,460 fines were issued but 495 were not paid, leaving the council £17,000 out of pocket. Obviously, the private security company could not verify names and addresses; nor could it check that the names and addresses it was given were those of the people to whom the fines had been issued. At the time the company was quoted as saying that it was trying to make it cost-neutral for council tax payers but it seemed that the more fines it issued, the greater the loss and expense to the council. My understanding is that as a result the contract had to be terminated; it just was not working. The point made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, reinforces the example I have here.

Last week a teacher in Northern Ireland was fined for throwing an apple core from his car window into a hedge because he thought it was biodegradable and would not cause the same kind of problem as throwing a cigarette packet or chewing gum out of the window.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Just because it is biodegradable does not mean that it is not litter, unfortunately. I think the noble Baroness will find that under the Act it is waste the moment that it is not being used for the purpose for which it was intended. It is therefore litter even if an animal eats it.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, the noble Earl is correct about the legislation. The point I was making is about misunderstanding: people not believing that they are committing an offence. A very responsible citizen, a local teacher, now has a fine and a criminal record.

Litter disposal points are very welcome, but we have all read, and we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, about local authorities who have got rid of many regular litter bins, in some cases citing security and in others because they cannot afford the staff to empty the bins. All across London, there are cigarette disposal units on the side of buildings—often pubs, sometimes offices, anywhere where people congregate to smoke. They are sponsored by a London-based company, but so many of them are either overflowing or damaged and the area underneath and around them is littered with stubs. That itself is a problem in disposal.

I am very fire safety aware. Many of your Lordships will have received a letter from me about your fire safety training, which I hope that every Member of your Lordships' House has undertaken. I found through trawling the internet that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said, it is possible to buy a small, almost disposable ashtray. It is a fully closeable box so that smokers can safely keep their stubs until they can get home and properly dispose of them.

The objectives behind the Bill are wise and seek to address a problem that costs us all. However, I think that more debate is needed on the effectiveness of the measures we have in place and what measures could be effective in future. It is helpful that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, is engaging with local authorities. Clearly, further debate will be helpful to find a way forward to tackle what is a nasty, unpleasant problem.