Environment Agency

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider making sure that the Environment Agency and the Office for Environmental Protection consult other bodies? The huge benefits to mental and physical health from being active in the countryside, or even outside, in a non-formal way are documented. Is there, for instance, regular contact between the Department of Health and the Environment Agency or are we just waiting for this to happen by magic?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I am not entirely sure what the key question was. If it was about linking up across government, I assure the noble Lord that it takes place across all departments.

Pollution in Rivers and Regulation of Private Water Companies

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, a certain degree of nostalgia comes in as I speak in this debate because, looking around the Chamber, I see that I am the only survivor here today of the Committee that dealt with privatising our water industry. Throughout that process—I do not mean to dump this on the Minister—I was told repeatedly by a variety of individuals, most of whom are not in the House, “Don’t worry, the regulator will deal with it. It’ll jump in”. If you raised a concern, that was what you were told. We heard it so often that it almost became a joke. In those very late hours towards midnight, which were normal then, I lost count of the number of times we were told on group after group that the regulator would deal with it.

It is now quite clear from what we are hearing that that model did not work. This might be because the regulator did not expect to deal with what was going on but lots of different parties have had lots of chances to intervene here. We have known for a long time about global warming, about the fact that warmer air has more water in it and about the fact that the increased water vapour in the air comes down as rain. We have known for a long time that this was coming—we should remember that one of the last acts of Baroness Thatcher as Prime Minister was to talk about the fact that we do not own the planet but are merely leaseholders on it; I think that was the term—yet we have permitted this model for the water industry to carry on despite the fact that it does not do anything. I remember, when we finally finished that process—once again in the small hours—picking up the Times, I think, and seeing a cartoon of a classic yuppie of the era looking at a computer screen and saying, “We’ll all get filthy rich”. That was somebody who got it right.

We have known that this has been coming. It is not something that is removed from us—a dreadful problem but not one to worry about—because it is starting to affect other bits of our lives. The thing that caught me, which was suggested by some of my noble friends, is that it is affecting leisure activities on water. You would have thought that being able to canoe, fish, swim or go rowing is something that you could take as read most of the time on a river or inland waterway in Great Britain. On the River Trent in Nottingham is our national water-sports training centre. The one thing I regret about getting older is that I am becoming long-sighted, so I will put my glasses on: last autumn, 5,106 hours of training were lost to our elite centre there due to red-flag water notices—amazing. Think about that; that stretch of water has been taken so that elite athletes can use it for canoeing and open-water swimming. There have been cases recently of open-water swimming where everybody got sick. At the World Triathlon Championship, people got sick from their training programmes. We have something here which is directly affecting human health.

Some people might shrug their shoulders at sporting activity and say that it does not really matter that much—that it is only a bunch of people running around and that they can all go to the gym. But sport is a bit bigger than that. It is a representation of bringing people together and getting them outside, giving them status and—in the case of these athletes—national pride. If you cannot keep a place like that safe for activity, what other types of activity lower down the sporting food chain are going to be affected too? When news gets out, people will say, “Do we want our child, brother, sister or father to be anywhere near that water if it is dangerous?” The Government should keep that in mind.

Let us talk about another group: anglers. We are affecting our waterways. Everybody should pay attention to anglers because there are an awful lot of them. They are the biggest participation group in the country by a long way. We are damaging the environment which allows them to have that pastime. From the invertebrates to other animals and activities in water, it will all be reflected in the food chain to the angler. I suggest that, as a body, anglers do not punch their weight. I hope that they will get out there and start to put a bit of pressure on the Government. That might mean that they will have to work with the canoeists and rowers, who they do not like—they disturb each other—but I hope that someone will come in and say, “Get together and make people listen”.

The historical analogy of the Great Stink and Bazalgette’s inspiration is one I hope we do not have to get to. I hope that others can say that there is a problem coming, because there is. It is starting to affect the smaller outlets. The fact that water companies have been making lots of money but have not even done the basic function of making sure that raw sewage does not get into the water system is unforgivable. They have failed in that basic requirement. We knew that higher rainfall was coming; we knew they were making money. Why did the regulator not do something about it? I do not know if the regulator needs bigger and sharper teeth—a more powerful jaw, if you want to follow the analogy through—but I know that it needs encouragement to use those implements to make things very uncomfortable for those who pollute.

If we do not do that, this current model of ownership of water—a natural monopoly, because it is expensive and heavy, and you cannot move it around the country without huge energy costs—will fail. We must make sure that this pays. The cost to us all is a worse environment and probably worse health. Surely that is worth making sure that the regulatory function fulfils its basic duty and that those who run water companies can be satisfied with simply having a perfectly solid blue-chip investment, as opposed to something rather better.

Food Strategy White Paper

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think farming and perhaps also the Government have failed to make the argument between good meat and bad meat. Bad meat is grown on feed lots at a high carbon price to society and damages those farmers who are producing good-quality meat on grass-based systems. That is what we want to encourage. We want sustainable production of meat. We hear what the Climate Change Committee says on the amount of meat that people should eat. We want people to make their own choices but be given the right information on which to make those choices. Vegan diets can sometimes be very damaging to the climate because the materials are sometimes grown where rainforests used to be.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the strategy was supposed to be overarching. What are we doing to integrate things such as good exercise patterns into the food strategy? In particular, what are we doing about access to the countryside, which was part of the Agriculture Act? Are we ensuring that people are getting the chance not only to eat well but to exercise properly? How are we integrating that into things such as transport?

Wet Wipes: Disposal

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are many products that we were all told years ago were biodegradable but have now discovered are not, or which may be biodegradable to the eye but break down into microplastics. That is the problem with wet wipes: very often the material may disappear but the plastic is the problem and continues to cause problems in our environment. The noble Baroness is absolutely right.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the principle that the polluter will pay is actually passed down to the producers of these items and they will ultimately be picking up the bill? Would the Minister like to speculate on just how that would improve the development of acceptable replacements?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is a very similar philosophical point to that raised by disposable nappies. These are created by manufacturers but used by all of us who have children. We need to find a way of giving a clear direction to the industry that one particular type of product will no longer be allowed. Then the industry will innovate and find affordable solutions that the consumer can use. That is the perfect sweet spot to hit when you are trying to regulate against these measures. The precautionary principle is also vital. When talking about biodegradable waste, if there is uncertainty in what we are doing, sometimes we just have to take the precautionary approach.

Environmental Land Management Schemes

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend, and at her request.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. The Government remain committed to investing in access. On 2 December the Secretary of State confirmed that we will

“continue to pay for heritage, access and engagement through our existing schemes and we will consider how to maintain investment in these areas as part of future schemes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/21; col. 40WS.]

This includes environmental land management schemes. Our ongoing commitment is visible through other funds, including the nature for climate fund and the farming and protected landscapes programme, among others.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that unless you have effective co-ordination between making more footpaths and greater access to the countryside available within the existing structure, and things like public transport, you are going to underutilise any possible benefit? Would the Minister cast his eye over one of the recommendations made in the report entitled A national plan for sport, health and wellbeing? I was a member of the committee that produced it, and in it we suggest that the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities—not a very snappy title—should undertake this work to make sure there is a cross-government approach.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: we can provide all the footpaths and access we want, but it is about getting people out there to use them and demystifying the natural environment for some people. I was interested in that report, as it produced the rather worrying finding that physical activity levels in the UK have significantly declined, in part as a result of Covid. Much more can be done to join this up and it is absolutely a job across government, not just for one department.

Catchment Based Approach’s Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy 2021

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name down for this debate primarily because of a little shot of nostalgia coming past; the first major Bill I did in this House was the privatisation of water all those many years ago. Many people will say, “You should have learned your lesson by now.” That is when I heard things about phosphorus run-off, ground water pollution, and the fact we had a crumbling Victorian infrastructure for our sewerage system and how it was all going to be saved and stopped by privatisation. There is a ring of that coming through. I could go on and follow my noble friend in the details he has put forward, but I would get some of them wrong and he has covered it better than I would.

I would like the Minister, if he can, to engage in another aspect of waterways, chalk streams and fresh water in general: the fact that they are part of our recreational infrastructure or at least have that potential. We have nodded at that potential over the last year or so, particularly during the passage of the Agriculture Act, when we studied the use of land, access to land, farmers using it and the maintenance of it. We carried on with that in the Environment Bill, however it is a “granny and egg” situation if I start talking about that to the Minister.

If we are going to make sure we get the best out of the steps the Government are taking, we have to have some form of coherent plan as to how we make sure we get the best out of our natural environment. If we are talking about encouraging that thing which is of great health benefit to us, the activity that most of us can carry on doing almost to our dying day—going for a walk—rivers and the environment around them are a great encourager of that.

I could make reference to where I live in the village of Lambourn in the Lambourn valley where my noble friend in a previous incarnation had a considerable interest, it being part of his constituency. I would make anecdotes about the River Lambourn, the ultimate chalk spring-fed river that was sometimes there and sometimes not—a playground for children, horses and dogs, in my opinion.

All of these things encourage people to go out and enjoy the countryside. If you have a sterile environment and the river becomes just a muddy puddle, nobody is going to want to use it. People are not going to walk beside it, they cannot fish in it, and let us not even talk about canoeists and rowers. I do not think chalk streams are the best environment for them, generally speaking. Also, let us face it, if you talk about canoeists and anglers together, one has visions of people turning up with seconds at dawn on Hampstead Heath with loaded pistols; they do not generally play well together. But they should; they should be co-ordinated. The Government should bring these people together to work together to monitor the water we have. We have just come through an experience where people have discovered open water swimming. You cannot do that in a river that is dangerous and does not have life in it. You can turn it into some sort of slightly unpleasant swimming pool, but it will not have the same effect.

The countryside and the rivers in it are a great way of encouraging people to take on the sort of outdoor activity that is of great benefit to so much of the rest of government—not the Minister’s department directly, but the Department of Health and the Department for Education. Do the Government have a coherent plan, or at least some structure, by which they will get these bits of government to talk to each other and work together to get the best out of this? Getting people to talk together in government is always a challenge, because you can punch a hole through a Chinese wall and find another one has been built three yards down the road.

Do the Government have some idea of how they are going to co-ordinate the actions they have taken in bits of legislation recently to make rivers, as part of the countryside, accessible and pleasant? People, generally speaking, do not take exercise in unpleasant environments. Let us face it, very few people go for a casual walk around an industrial estate. If we can get the environment right, with some way of monitoring it to make it somewhere you would go that is engaging, we will encourage this. It helps tourism, the hospitality industry and everything else. Can the Government give us some idea of what their thinking is? Without it, we will have small initiatives going off left, right and centre, not interacting, not getting the benefits and lacking the necessary support and structure.

I hope the Minister will give us at least some idea that some of this is happening, and of who will be leading this. Is the Department of Health giving some suggestions about activity, or is Defra doing something to lead into it? Is the Department for Education coming through, or even the poor little sports section of DCMS, which is now effectively the department for the media? Will they co-ordinate and how will they go through? It will take that sort of pressure and constant observation to get the best out of any strategy, and that is something to which we should all be paying some attention.

UK Shellfish Sector

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness makes two important points on the improvement of our waters. The water industry has invested £200 million in improving waters. We need to work on improving our waterways and marine environments, which is part of the 25-year environment plan. Also, the £100 million scheme may well apply to depuration and facilities, but I should say that, as part of the profile of this trade there are depuration facilities on the continent, so that the molluscs are purified close to the point of human consumption. This is part of the business model, and we think that this trade is legitimate and should resume.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that this is a situation where a little bit of compromise would be advisable? Standing on principles of control is not something we should do here, because the only alternative to keep this industry going is to encourage us all to eat moules frites more frequently.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. We are seeking a pragmatic solution to this matter.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I beg your pardon: they were worth waiting for. The next speaker will therefore be the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the access part of the Bill immediately caught my eye in terms of improving people’s health and enjoyment of the countryside. “Enjoyment” may be a term that is challenged, but it surely includes healthy exercise in the country, in a controlled environment with support. The amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is not necessary, because I was assuming it was a voluntary interaction to get support; you get some funding to do support in a constructive, sensible way. I understand why he tabled it, because it is a useful piece of clarification, and we probe in Committee but clarify on Report. Hopefully, it will remove some of the, shall we say, more lurid stories we had over the summer—a quiet summer with the press.

I discovered on certain occasions that I was in favour of an unlimited right to roam over everybody’s gardens. It started with the BBC and carried on. I have to give praise to the Telegraph, which did not put anything like this out, possibly because it spoke to me first.

Anyway, as we go through this, the amendments I have down in my name are all about clarifying and, when they make reference to existing Acts of Parliament, trying to put this in context. I refer to the 2000 Act and the 1980 Act: we have something solid, so let us pin it down and find out what we are trying to do.

In the current environment, one thing we have discovered is that if your heart and cardiovascular system are in good condition, you are less likely to be a vulnerable person who is collapsing the NHS. Exercise is the wonder drug, and the best introduction to exercise if you are away from it is walking, after which you may start running or anything else. Taking exercise easily in a pleasant way is the thinking behind most of my approach. It is a pleasant experience to be outside walking.

My amendments also make it possible that the Government will fund those people who have entered into this to make sure or attempt to make sure there are paths that are useful for just about anybody, not just the convinced rambler who, armed with the right clothing and heavy boots, marches across a muddy field. They are for the person in a wheelchair or pushing a wheelchair or pushing a buggy. Can they get support to make sure that they have a hard surface that does not turn to mud at the first drop of rain? That was some of the thinking behind linking this to other Acts.

Farmers should get to it. This is very important for the simple reason that people stick to a hard path, by and large, but not to many other paths, including great paths such as the Pennine Way and the Ridgeway that get muddy. People avoid the mud and expand the path. Any biodiversity around that path is immediately destroyed by people’s size 6 and up shoes. It ruins the ground and the diversity. So the aim of my amendments that refer to other Acts is to try and make sure you can maintain a path that is usable under most circumstances.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already addressed the Green group’s support for a number of amendments in this group. I will not repeat that, but I will address a number to which I have attached my name, starting with Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, which focuses on the whole-farm agroecological and agroforestry systems. I thank him for tabling it, and the noble Earls, Lord Dundee and Lord Caithness, for supporting it.

It is clear that the age of industrial monoculture has given us the dreadful condition of our countryside that the noble Earl addressed in his speech. Its waters are polluted and its soil degraded, and biodiversity is in collapse. Yet, at the same time, we have a public with an awful diet and poor health. We need a whole new approach. Actually, agroecological farming is the only kind of farming we should see, with whole-farm systems. Agroforestry is a crucial part of that: trees sheltering animals, holding water, storing carbon, supporting biodiversity, and producing healthier food, including fruits and nuts, and healthier and more varied fodder for livestock. We need the Government to support this transformation, although ultimately that needs to be how all our land is managed.

We have already seen a significant move across most of the farming sector in its approach to soils. It has been a rediscovery of the understanding that the natural facility of soils depends on a flourishing ecosystem of microscopic animals, plants and fungi. I hope the Minister will think about this: I continue to hope that the Government will sort out the Bill’s description of fungi to make it scientifically literate—it currently is not—following the issues I raised in Committee, which are in no way political. They merely seek to ensure technical accuracy. When we focus on agroecology and, indeed, agroforestry, we need to move towards crop diversity. That is part of whole-farm varied systems. It means a system that works with nature, rather than trying to cosh it into submission.

I move to Amendment 9, to which I have also attached my name, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and backed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We have almost lost track of the fact that this is the Agriculture Bill. We are talking about environmental elements, but agriculture is also about food. We need joined-up thinking and systems thinking. There is really no point in producing more sugar, which the world has and consumes far too much of and does massive damage to rich and valuable soils. By contrast, growing fruit and vegetables is a super-policy—the kind of thing the Government should support and which they will have to, if they are to have regard to health and well-being policies.

Amendment 20, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, focuses on peri-urban land. I have probably done this myself: in the Bill we talk about the countryside, but fringe areas and patches of land in cities, towns and villages that might be quite small are crucial for environmental benefits and healthy food production. I am sure the Minister is aware of an excellent article from 2019 published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, which found that allotments and gardens often had 10 times more bees and other pollinators than even the rich environments, as we regard them, of parks, cemeteries and urban nature reserves. Increasing allotment use and food growing can be a positive sign for nature and, of course, for people.

I also express support for Amendment 6 on food security, to which Amendment 20 relates. Relying on the market to supply us with food has given us a dreadfully unhealthy diet, as the impact of Covid-19 has sadly demonstrated—one more weakness the pandemic has exposed rather than caused. However, it is also an insecure approach to rely on the market to supply food. Hundreds of millions of people in the world go hungry now not because there is a lack of food, but because of a lack of access to it. There is enormous waste in the system, particularly factory farming, feeding what could be perfectly good human food to animals.

However, we are in the age of shocks. We have just seen harvests in the US in particular be hit hard by extreme weather. Sadly, a lot more like that is on the way. The state of soils is parlous. To assume we can just buy what we need is dangerously uncertain. There is also a moral question: why should we take food out of the mouths of people in other countries when we could and should be growing our own? Those are two powerful reasons for the Government to provide direct, clear support for food security. There can be few more foundational roles for a Government then ensuring that people do not starve.

Finally, I support Amendment 48. I note the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and I agree with them.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who put their names to Amendment 9. I have a little confession: the original intention was to discuss it in the context of the part of the Bill dealing with access, because of the idea of tying health and well-being into public legislation. It is clear, as I have already said—and nobody has argued otherwise—that if you are fit and active, you tend to have better health. However, does the amendment fit in its allocated group? Having thought about it, those organising the Bill have got it right. It fits because it ties in with the general thrust of what we are saying.

What are we doing to try to improve life for the whole planet and for ourselves together? I am afraid it sounds rather meaningless when I put it like that. The idea is that it is a whole, so we are taking something on board and relating it to other activities. If one thing is done under this Bill, it should be to ensure that we look at the whole of what we are doing. The amendment sits better in this group because we have to consider people’s health and well-being and the public good when we are putting money in. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will not totally dismiss the idea that we should have better access to public spaces in order to undertake physical activity. However, that does not fit in with some of the other concerns being raised here about better diet and so on, because it is part of that whole.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has set a wonderful precedent here. Anything I would have said on this has been said by those who have already spoken, so I shall leave it by saying that I support the amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I did not inform him that the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford and Lord Greaves, had withdrawn.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, on one of the first amendments we discussed in Committee, I said that for all the other things—the environmental benefits, et cetera—farmers are “the delivery system”, and so you have to maintain farmers. This means that you have to define who the farmer is, in a way that has not happened in the Bill, so that we can go forward.

My question to the Minister is this: do we have a definition of what sort of activity is covered by government subsidy here? That is really what needs to come out. For example, forestry would almost certainly come into the same view as agriculture. It may be that I have missed it, so I am trying to get that clarification down; it might make everybody feel slightly more comfortable about this. Who are the people who are supposed to do the other interesting stuff—the access things we have already talked about and the environmental things that are coming to the fore? Who is the delivery system? I cannot see it being anyone other than the farmer and I cannot see any way of it happening other than if they are paid. There simply is not another delivery system for this. There may be a slightly different version of this, but the farmer or land manager seems to require assurance that they are the focus of the activity.

As for supporting the two amendments, I am afraid the Minister has his fate in his own hands on that one, as ever. The fact of the matter is that if we can get out of it only who the groups are, and the definition of why you are going to support them in this changed regime, that would be a useful thing to come out of this, if nothing else.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is not here, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Northover.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I also declare my interest as a member of the EU Environment Sub-Committee. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on bringing forth this amendment. As its co-signatories and others who have supported the thrust of the amendment have said, it very clearly demonstrates the link between this Agriculture Bill, establishing public benefit and financial assistance for public goods, with the provisions of the Environment Bill.

I understand the difficulty the Minister is in, having listened very carefully to the words of our noble friend and colleague, the Minister who replied to an early debate, saying that he would love to give a date when the Environment Bill might be coming but was unable to do so. I hope my noble friend will look favourably on this amendment on equating the two Bills.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions when we have to try to reference across from another piece of legislation to make a coherent whole. Environmental considerations are key if we are to achieve half of the accepted objective. That is where we are: it is accepted as something that has to happen. We have to combine the two. The entire political class agrees that, since there must be environmental improvement, they are going to have to work with sectors such as agriculture, and just about every other sector, in order to achieve that. Unless something like this is written down, we know that departments and groups of officials and Ministers will tend to go their own way. They are not good at paying attention to people you “should” talk to; they pay attention to people you “have to” talk to. I suggest that something like this would actually be a very good thing to have in the Bill.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I too support this amendment and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling it again. Farmers have absolutely no idea what the future holds and what ELMS will contain—and we have none either. We have a blank canvas as far as that is concerned. Even on the last amendment, on training, my noble friend on the Front Bench said, “We are doing schemes—we still do not really know what we are doing, but we are doing tests at the moment to see what the best way forward is”.

Having heard the debates earlier on Clause 1, and having had support across the House for nature-friendly farming, it would seem to me utterly logical to include an amendment such as this, so that any potential farmer who reads this Bill will see that there is an immediate link to the environment. Therefore, I commend the amendment to the House.

I would also point out that this amendment will not cost the taxpayer a penny. In that respect it is one of the great amendments: it merely links two bits of legislation, and in doing so might even save the taxpayer money, because farmers and land managers will have a much clearer idea of what they are supposed to be doing to try to achieve a better and healthier farming environment.

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[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a landowner, an arable farmer and a recipient of payments from the BPS and its predecessor schemes. I will be brief, as the arguments have been well rehearsed on most of the amendments, which I support.

I support the reasons given by my noble friend Lady McIntosh for seeking to delay the start of the seven-year transition rule, having heard her concerns about farmers not knowing about the first plan, mentioned in Amendment 35, until after the Bill has become law.

I also support Amendment 37, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his well-judged comments on the countryside stewardship and production grants. This amendment seems entirely sensible, in that it would stop any further reduction beyond 25% until the ELMS was available.

I also back Amendment 39, tabled by my noble friend the Duke of Wellington, the aim of which is to support small hill farmers. I wonder whether he might consider extending it to small lowland livestock farmers.

I am also sympathetic to Amendment 42, tabled by my noble friend Lady Rock. I would just like to say how good the RPA’s performance has been in recent years, and I am sure that that will be extended to the new regime.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, listening to this debate, it is quite clear that the one thing not available here is any degree of certainty or confidence regarding the future. My name appears on Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. I do not know whether he saw it, as I added it at the last moment, but it is there. For me, this amendment offers the preferred option in providing a degree of certainty. A year’s trial is probably the option that I like best. However, I am not a farmer and am not in the system.

I hope that when the Minister responds he will try to address some of the many concerns that have been expressed. The central theme running through them is that people are worried about the change and the transition. When there is that degree of concern running through a system and people feel that they cannot buy into it because they are uncertain, I suggest that something has gone fundamentally wrong. Without a degree of buy-in, it will not work.

I have already said today that the Minister is facing a challenge, but I believe that he is facing a slightly bigger one here. People in and around this industry really need to know what is going on. We have also heard people say that they do not want delays because of other schemes coming in, but if the fundamental group—the farmers—are concerned, we need something that gives them a solid basis for confidence. At the moment, it just is not there.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, a transition period of seven years is quite a long period in which to phase out old policies under the CAP and bring in new policies under the Agriculture Bill. The transition is currently planned to begin in 2021, and it will be vital for Defra to put in place the necessary support to enable a stable and just transition for the farming community. There is currently much unease in this community about just how it will be affected in the future—a point made by many noble Lords.

Farming is not something that can be changed overnight. Time is needed to adjust farming plans and to secure the necessary capital investment to make some of the changes required. A key part will be support for business advice and skills training, time-limited support for capital investment to improve productivity sustainably, and wider improvements to connectivity in rural areas, such as rural broadband.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

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

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in support of Amendment 270 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which I have also signed. I also support other amendments in this group with a similar intent.

In their joint letter to MPs and Peers dated 5 June 2020, the Secretary of State for International Trade, the right honourable Elizabeth Truss, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right honourable George Eustice, stated that, in all their trade negotiations, the Government

“will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”.

However, when asked in a House of Lords debate about trade deals that could allow imports farmed to less rigorous standards, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Treasury, stated that

“there has to be a balance between keeping food affordable for people ... to ensure that they are able to eat healthily, while not undermining in any way the quality of the food we eat.”—[Official Report, 6/5/20; col. 520.]

This second statement seems to leave wiggle room, so what is the Government’s position?

As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and other noble Lords, said, the Government are unwilling to make a legally binding commitment to not dilute standards of imported food. As my noble friends Lord Curry of Kirkharle and Lord Cameron of Dillington, and many other noble Lords, said, the Trade and Agriculture Commission will not have enough teeth or last long enough to do the job that is needed. I also note that it has no consumer representative among its members.

My concern is this: assuming that the Government do allow food produced to lower standards to be imported—which I think is inevitable—who will end up eating it? The boss of Waitrose has already said that his stores will not sell food produced to lower standards, such as chlorinated chicken. It is very likely that other supermarkets will follow Waitrose’s lead. The same will be true of the major restaurant chains, which will wish to protect their brands. So where is the lower-standard food most likely to end up? It will probably be in the small, low-end independent restaurants and in fast-food takeaways such as fried chicken shops. It will primarily be eaten by less well-off consumers. I therefore ask the Minister to unequivocally state that the Government will not allow a two-tier food system to develop in this country in which poor people eat poorer quality food produced to lower standards.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as I have listened to this debate my speech has got shorter and shorter. If ever there was a person ringing a bell and saying: “Press officer beware”, it is my noble friend Lord Greaves. I find myself strongly agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who said that the Government are getting into trouble here. Will they please do as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, said and honour their own manifesto? That is all we are really asking for, and any of these amendments would take steps towards making sure that we know the standards are there.

It is an old cliché that we trust this Minister implicitly but the one who follows him could be the devil incarnate. However, the closest we get to binding anybody to anything is to put it in to law, even though, ultimately, it can be changed. If we do not get something on the face of the Bill—and I cannot see any other bit of legislation it could go into—there is no other way of at least making the Government stand up and say: “Yes, we are changing it because …” That is what this is about.

I hope that the Minister is taking this on board. As my noble friend Lord Greaves also said, there will be ping-pong; a backhand, a forehand and the odd smash might be involved in this one. The House could get involved in a long discussion, asking the Government to honour their own manifesto commitment. I would not have thought any Government would want that.

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I share the concerns about how standards will be maintained when negotiating new trade agreements and therefore, in principle, support what many of the amendments in this group are trying to achieve. In that context, I welcome the establishment by the DIT and Defra of the new Trade and Agriculture Commission. However, at the same time, I strongly support the important point made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and the noble Lords, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Krebs, and others. A trade standards commission needs to be more than a temporary body with a six-month lifespan. It should be a permanent body with a continuing and influential role in any and all future trade negotiations, as is the United States International Trade Commission, among other examples.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I pay tribute to the restraint and brevity of my noble friend Lady Henig, with whom I had the pleasure to serve on the ad hoc Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003.

I believe that Amendment 221 is well-meaning, but it is very prescriptive. On Amendment 226, I would like to associate myself with the call for research in this area, and I urge the Minister to outline in her reply to this debate what commitment the Government are making to conduct that research. I imagine that much of the research would have been done on a cross-European basis, and I would like to know how the Government are going to make up the funding, as they are committed to do—they have said that on a number of occasions.

I also pay tribute to the work that Rothamsted and other institutes are doing, but we need to have alternatives that are technically feasible and commercially viable. I hope my noble friend the Minister will put my mind at rest as to how this will be funded going forward.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, both these amendments are very difficult to argue against. They are telling us to be careful about how we use chemicals designed to kill things. My noble friend beat me to the word “poison”, but that is what they are for: to kill the organic life that we do not want in certain places at certain times.

Having controls about where you can use such substances is fairly basic. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, describing a farmer effectively getting into a biohazard suit before using them gives a hint that they are potentially dangerous. If can think of examples just from this Chamber. I look across to where the noble Countess, Lady Mar, sat for many years: organophosphates ruined her life and she led a campaign to get rid of them.

Many people have told us that we do not know what we are talking about and to just use these substances sensibly—but we can then discover that they are lethal. Another example is DDT, and I could carry on. The fact that these chemicals cause problems when they get into ground-water is very well established. We should be more cautious and targeted about their use—there is a lot of technology which enables us to be more targeted, and we should embrace this.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on her amendment. I think that something like the study she suggests should be in the Bill. My gut reaction is to say yes to Amendment 221, but unlike the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I would like it to be more specific, so we know what we are dealing with. Such guidelines probably would depend on work that would be done under the later amendment.

There is potential risk here. We have tolerated a degree of damage to ourselves and to members of our society because we did not know what we were doing in the past. We would not tolerate that now and our standards are probably going to get tighter. Therefore, tightening up the process of observation should be encouraged.

I have one last anecdote: how many people have still got a bottle of blue slug pellets at the back of their garden cabinet which they are not quite sure what to do with? We have discovered that these destroy far more than just the slugs. I have used them in the past, and probably should not have done.

We are tightening our standards and becoming more targeted and smarter all the time with chemicals. It is about time we took this on in a more coherent fashion, and these amendments are a good step forward. I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on her amendment.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with these amendments. I like the way that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has drafted his amendment so that it is not prescriptive, because further work needs to be done.

We are used to buffer strips already: you cannot spray near a watercourse and you cannot put organic manure near bore-holes or wells. Why are human beings excluded from those same provisions? It seems to me a little perverse. I listened with care to my noble friends Lord Naseby and Lord Blencathra; yes, most farmers are good and are careful, but sadly we all know bad farmers. They are the ones causing the damage and are a major cause of the problem that pesticides create.

My noble friend Lord Naseby was right to say that “pesticide” is a generic term. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether she would consider different schemes for fungicides, pesticides and insecticides? Herbicides are probably the least damaging to human beings, but they do leach through the soil, particularly sandy soil, very quickly. The others—for example, insecticides—can be particularly nasty to human beings. It does not require much breeze for there to be quite a fine spray which goes much further than most people recognise. Even in the United States, they are beginning to clamp down on the excessive use of these sprays and have better buffer zones. I think it is time we followed suit; this is something which should be researched and then implemented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

My Lords, I was delighted to attach my name to Amendment 227, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and Amendment 228, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. I also express my support for Amendment 228A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which makes an important point about the need for joined-up thinking to ensure that what is being decided and acted on at a local level is reflected in national action. I also very much put myself behind his comments on the state of our SSSIs and the issues in that whole area that desperately need to be addressed.

When I came to think about the whole idea of a land use strategy, I started by reflecting on how many invitations I have had to conferences, how many reports I have had sent to me, and how much work has been done by a whole range of civil society actors, academics and campaign groups over recent years on how land is used in the UK, and in particular in England. There is real frustration, determination and understanding of the need for change. I will refer to a couple of these.

Back in 2014, perhaps one of the most aptly and clearly named was a report on The Best Use of UK Agricultural Land, produced by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Look at the ongoing work from what was the Royal Society of Arts’ Food, Farming and Countryside Commission—it does a great deal of exciting work, although it has now perhaps moved more towards a local level. It asked how we should, can and must use our land. I also point to an excellent report from Dr Helen Harwatt from Harvard University, Eating Away at Climate Change with Negative Emissions, which was presented at an excellent Grow Green conference that I went to.

I will not take up too much of your Lordships’ time in making a long list, but I am sure that most noble Lords taking part in this debate would be able to add a dozen or half a dozen similar to those on that list. There is clearly a real hunger for an overview or vision of what land use should look like. If we are to say how we, as the nation of England, are to form a view of what we want our land to be used for, surely the Government have to provide the place where that is coalesced. I hope that that would be in some kind of citizens’ assembly, with a consultative process, but producing the sort of outcome that Amendment 227 refers to.

Before I comment directly on Amendment 228, I stress that what I am about to say reflects my personal views. I should be fair to the noble Earl and say that it may or may not reflect exactly his intentions in placing the amendment. When I saw this amendment and decided to put my name to it, I thought of a brilliant performance which has been described as a show, a sing-along, and a TED talk-style live event: “Three Acres and a Cow”. It draws its title from campaigns over land use and access to land in the 1880s, and which we saw again in the 1920s. We have a long-term drive in England in particular—we have already seen some fruitful developments in Scotland in these areas—for people to be able to get access to land to start their own small businesses, produce food for themselves and for others, and get together in co-operatives. I point also to the excellent The Land Magazine, which describes itself as an occasional magazine about land rights and which often explores these issues.

These two amendments aim to ensure that there is a sense of direction— something which we have heard again and again is lacking from the Bill. However, I want briefly to address the comments made in an earlier debate by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, when talking about pesticides. He said that this is not the year to make dramatic changes. Respectfully, I very strongly disagree with him. ELMS is a dramatic change from the CAP, we are seeing dramatic changes in the climate, and Covid-19 is of course imposing dramatic changes on us all. We are heading in a very different direction from what we have seen for decades. The British countryside is headed in the direction of ever-larger farms, ever-greater mechanisation, and the production of fewer and fewer crops, very often with more and more expensive inputs. We are changing direction, so it is very important that we have a sense of where we are going, which is what these amendments aim to achieve.

I see from looking at the news during the break that there are hints that, over the weekend, we will see a dramatic change in the Government’s obesity strategy. The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, made reference to the drop in rapeseed plantings, which is a dramatic change that has come about through the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides—here I commend the Minister for her strong defence of that ban. Perhaps now, when we are seeing this big change in the Government’s obesity strategy, we will see a similar change in direction and great reductions in the planting of sugar beets, and the preservation of fields and very good soils by the planting of vegetables instead.

We are very much in a time of change and we need some kind of road map or guide, so that we do not flail around wildly. We cannot just say that we have a Secretary of State with the power to make decisions, while we have no idea where he is seeking to direct the use of our land, which is so valuable and so scarce.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I will try to focus on the amendments in front of us. If we are talking about land use and a land use strategy, it has to go fairly wide —a bit of lateral thought will make this stick together better.

My name is down, along with that of my noble friend Lord Greaves, on the amendment to bring the local government plan in alongside this. However, it encapsulates just about everything we have in the Bill. I spoke about many things, such as access. If I can remind the Government Front Bench about Clause 1 without them grimacing too much, all the things we have down there should be working into a strategy. A strategy is a good idea, but it has to go wide and bring things in. The exact form of that will be slightly difficult, but the idea of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is sound.

I am not quite sure how you do this without having a list that never ends. What is and what is not on the list has always been a parliamentary challenge, has it not? I like going back to the parliamentary clichés every now and again. If we are to try to get this, it has to encapsulate much more thinking. It cannot just be about agriculture but must touch on other things as well. We have established that agriculture does not stand by itself. Whether it is housing or other things, everything else has to be in there. I will be interested to hear what the Government say about this. This cannot stand alone; agriculture is not another planet.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 228, in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, talked about the need for a land-use strategy—I could not agree more—and said that Northern Ireland had a land use framework. Part of that framework is a land mobility scheme, designed to bring into farming new entrants and young people, who hitherto would not have been able to do so because they did not have access to land or were waiting on succession arrangements in their own family structure. This is a voluntary initiative between the Young Farmers Clubs of Ulster and the Ulster Farmers Union, and it gets some funding from the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

To underpin what the noble Earl was saying about bringing new entrants in, I can tell the Committee that the land mobility scheme is about helping to restructure our industry. It is about how we encourage young people into farming, and how we bring new skills, new thinking and a new generation into agriculture by matching people with opportunities and providing a service to facilitate workable arrangements. This much-needed initiative will match older farmers with no succession arrangements in place with younger farmers, and together they can develop long-term operational and financial plans for the farms in question, on an agreed basis. That is one way of bringing young entrants, and new entrants, into farming. It is a very slow process, but it is well worth examining. I recommend it to the noble Earl and to the Minister. We should see whether there are any possibilities to share experience. I suggest that something like this should be written into the Bill. That is why I support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who have both tabled amendments in this group. This is the last time that we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Randall, in today’s proceedings. He has diminished our discussions by removing himself. I have attached my name to two of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord where I could find a space: the one on hedgerows and the other about ponds.

When we think about the classic vision of farmland, it will contain hedgerows—the amendment also refers to dry stone walls. They define fields and serve as the highways for wildlife. It has already been said that ponds are incredibly important to maintain natural diversity and encouraging the newt population that is much decried by the Prime Minister. All of these things are vital to a healthy and balanced environment and they help to make up a classic pastoral setting. I hope that the Minister can at least say that the protections enjoyed under the previous regime will be transferred and that the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Randall, are recognised. As I say, that is the very least that should happen.

We should have a major framework for environmental standards, but let us leave that argument to one side for a moment and concentrate on the hedgerow and the pond. If we start with those, we will probably not go too far wrong.

[Baroness Worthington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly in support of this group of amendments. I would have added my name to Amendment 297 had I got there in time. A key feature mentioned by a number of noble Lords is that the shift towards a system of payments for public goods will remove a layer of regulatory protection from our countryside that we must address. We must ensure that a strong regulatory floor is created so that people can be rewarded for doing additional good work for the countryside. If we shift to a world with no regulatory standards so that everything is expected to be paid for, we will find a huge pressure on the public purse and we will see the potential for backsliding from the standards that we enjoy today.

I particularly wanted to add my name to Amendment 297. Although it appears to be technical in nature, it is an important and significant one in terms of protecting the current standards from the climate change perspective. The amendment would do two things—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will articulate this far better than I when she speaks. It would introduce a requirement for environmental permitting to cover the keeping of livestock in intensive fashion. It would add beef and dairy and outdoor pig farms to the environmental permitting process. Adding intensive farming facilities, which can be very significant sources of methane and ammonia emissions, to environmental permitting would ensure that we do not waste public money on reducing those sources of pollution if we can continue to use the existing regulatory standards that do the job for us.

Amendment 297 would also reintroduce a requirement that would be lost through the loss of cross-compliance on farmers to take reasonable steps to maintain soil cover and to limit the loss of soil through wind erosion. These again are sensible standards that we would expect farmers to abide by in order to preserve our soil stock. Soil is a vital element of a healthy, functioning farming system and of our countryside. I will leave my comments there, but I am grateful to make a short contribution to this debate. It is hugely important to ensure that we do not allow any loss of regulatory standards as we shift to the new regime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord De Mauley (Con) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Trees, I would like to speak to Amendment 258. On 25 June, the Government announced that they would consult on mandatory labelling provisions by December this year. This amendment builds on that verbal commitment, to mandate in legislation that the Government must report to Parliament, within six months of the Agriculture Act coming into force, how they will take forward mandatory labelling provisions, what they will cover and when regulations will be adopted. It sets a timetable of six months for the report and one year for the regulations to be laid.

At present, there is only one mandatory method of production labelling scheme, for shell eggs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said. This has been in place for 17 years and has been highly successful in driving up animal welfare standards, providing consumers with clear information on animal welfare provenance and helping British egg farmers.

In 2020, over 55% of British egg production is on free-range systems, up from only 15% when the scheme started in 2003. It is clear that, where other sectors have only voluntary labelling on methods of production —such as for chicken, pork meat, bacon and beef—consumers can experience difficulty choosing higher-welfare products, and farmers who wish to raise their standards are hindered in doing so.

This amendment would change that situation by asking the Government for a clear timetable on announcing the sectors and species they intend to bring into mandatory production labelling. Of course, this is particularly important as we seek new trade deals. Giving consumers clear information on provenance and production methods will help support UK farmers and raise standards. If imports of a product are permitted, consumers need to be able to choose to prefer or avoid certain methods of production. A mandatory labelling scheme provides this assurance and gives transparency in the market.

The six-month timescale proposed by the amendment for the Secretary of State to publish a report detailing proposals is broadly in line with present government commitments to produce such a report by the end of the year. Moving this forward swiftly would give producers and retailers time to plan for labelling provisions and allow a year before regulations need to be laid, giving them enough time to implement the provisions.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, this is a very wide-ranging set of amendments. I feel slightly sorry for the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, because I thought her amendment was a good one with good points, but it seems to have been rather left behind by the debate.

If we are to keep up standards in agriculture, there will be costs, which the consumer will ultimately have to bear. If we do anything to undermine that, products simply will not be purchased in sufficiently high numbers for many of our producers to carry on.

I am not just repeating the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, in parrot-fashion: this is exactly what happened in the past. If your production levels are left behind and your prices are too high, people buy something else. It was called the great agricultural depression when the steam ship and a free market policy opened up the prairie and the pampas to production. Look it up: most British farmland was rough grazing.

So it is clear that, if we need to keep people in production, and to keep that production going, we need to maintain standards. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, said in conversation to me that everything has been too reasonable. Well, I give her all the encouragement to be as unreasonable as she likes on this one. I hope that the Minister will take away the need for it by agreeing to make sure that standards are kept. If they are not, I am afraid that we are going to have to readdress this issue at every available opportunity.