Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Earl of Kinnoull

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

[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?

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Earl of Kinnoull

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, the Minister has done his usual thing of being thorough and charming at the same time—and I have now damned him with praise. However, I cannot help but feel that we should take a look at how we expect these trials to go through and see whether we can clarify that at a later stage. With that caveat, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2019

Debate between Lord Addington and Earl of Kinnoull

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will ask the Minister a few brief questions. First, what would be an example of practical co-operation on cross-border matters such as plant health or infection? What would be the practical steps? The Minister mentioned that steps would be taken for administrative connection—I think this was covered in the Commons. Could the Minister provide a little more clarity on the powers on electricity generation? There was also some discussion of this in the Commons, but exactly what sort of wood production or forestry by-products will be used in this generation? There was discussion about biomass; a little bit of clarification there would not hurt. Other than that, there is not much else to be said. The Commons took 21 minutes on this—let us see whether we can shave a moment off that.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation, and I declare my interests as set out on the register. In particular, I am chairman of the UK Squirrel Accord, a body of 35 entities—the four Governments, the four nature agencies and the principal voluntary and private sector bodies—that are trying to deal with the problem of grey squirrels killing broad-leaved trees. The problem is extremely serious and is preventing commercial forestry planting such trees at the moment in large tracts of our country.

I have two questions for the Minister, arising from the Explanatory Memorandum. First, to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I note that paragraph 7.1 says:

“Selected functions continue to operate across Great Britain including functions relating to forestry science and research, tree health and common codes and standards”.


Where squirrels and tree diseases are concerned, a line in an atlas makes no difference at all to the problems; it is vital that things continue to be co-ordinated across the border. I think that sentence means, “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, not just “Great Britain”. Could the Minister confirm that? Also, does it mean that various functions will remain at the UK level? That would be very helpful, given the necessity of moving forward on a co-ordinated basis, particularly in science.

My second question is on paragraph 7.3, which refers to Articles 3 and 4. It talks about maintaining,

“a coordinated approach to issues such as the management of plant-based pests and diseases”.

Does the Minister agree it is vital to make sure that takes place? No individual bit of Great Britain has all of the intellectual power or money—or even necessarily a research institute—to do these vital things. It is so important that things remain co-ordinated. There is pretty much chaos at the moment, and staff morale is not good in some of the new bodies which will replace the current arrangements. If I have a fear, it is this: if the ball is dropped, the net result will be a big problem in plant health and broad-leaved trees.