Agriculture Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Also, will there be any financial assistance for events such as county shows? They are in jeopardy of falling by the wayside and giving up because they have not been given the attention they deserve. I hope my noble friend can comment on both those points, because I know he has lauded county shows in the past in this House. I support him on that. Defra would be a poorer department if it did not have the help from county shows in educating us the way they do.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name to these amendments on a very simple principle: if you are asking people to change how they go about their business or the way it happens, you will need some advice or guidance to get you through. If you have not done it before, you will need to be given some guidance, some advice or pathway, on how to get through so that you can do it correctly. Also, if you are giving assistance, you need to be told what you are expected to do for that.

This will be a very complicated mesh—two speeches have been made already and I cannot think of anything I disagree with. If you are trying to do this, you will have to give guidance through very different pathways which will change in every type of landscape you come across. The South Downs, the North Downs where I live, and the fields of East Anglia where I grew up will all need different structures. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, brilliantly said in introducing this, you must allow for, if not failure, then less successful schemes to be tried to see how long they take to develop.

We will need this to make sure that the Government’s actions work. It might well be that the Government will not smile on these amendments, but could the Minister embrace the principle here and tell us whether the Government expect to be a place where good information is brought together and passed on? Could he also say what is unacceptable—what will not be supported, financed and encouraged? That would also be beneficial.

The Government are changing stuff. They are basically creating a new rulebook. It would help if everybody could read it before we start.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

Lord Marlesford, you suggested that you were going to speak on only one group today. Do you want to speak now?