Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations, which were laid before the House on 16 October 2023, be approved.

This instrument adds a new substance called perfluorohexane sulfonic acid—PFHxS for short—including its salts and related compounds, to the retained persistent organic pollutants regulation in response to the listing of this substance under the United Nations Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The UK is a party to the convention and is therefore obligated to reflect in UK law the listing of POPs under the convention. This legislative change is permitted by use of the powers available within article 15 of the retained EU regulation on POPs. We have worked with the devolved Administrations on this instrument. These regulations are needed to implement the UK’s commitments under the United Nations Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. POPs are substances recognised as particularly dangerous to the health of humans, wildlife and the environment. This SI preserves and adds to the current regime for managing, restricting or eliminating POPs in the UK.

Let me turn now to the details of the instrument. At the 10th meeting of the conference of the parties last year, PFHxS was added to the list of substances for global elimination under the convention. This decision was communicated to parties and observers by the UN depository in November 2022. The SI adds this new POP to the list of substances prohibited by law from being manufactured, sold and used in Great Britain.

Secondly, the instrument provides some exemptions from the prohibitions by allowing the unintentional presence of PFHxS at trace levels. These limits define the concentrations at which PFHxS can lawfully be found in a substance, article or mixture, where they are unintentionally present and found in minimal amounts. The SI includes two general limits and one that is specific to its presence in firefighting foams.

This instrument was not subject to consultation because, although it represents an update to existing legislation, it implements an international obligation that the UK is required to put into place in law. There were opportunities for UK stakeholders to feed into earlier engagement, both UK and convention led, at various stages before PFHxS was adopted for elimination under the Stockholm convention. The Government have also initiated public calls for information and opportunities to comment on draft evaluation documents for this substance. We received no evidence to suggest that exemptions or derogations were required by industry in Great Britain. Following that previous engagement, a recent Defra-led consultation on other potential amendments to the POPs regulation stated our intention to list PFHxS in annexe 1 of the POPs regulation in order to meet the UK’s obligations under the Stockholm convention.

A de minimis impact assessment was carried out. It concluded that there is no indication that PFHxS chemicals are intentionally produced or used in Great Britain. As such, this SI is not expected to have an impact on businesses, beyond one-off familiarisation costs. It is also not expected to disproportionately burden small businesses.

The Environment Agency is the delivery body for the POPs regulation for England, and Natural Resources Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency are the delivery bodies for Wales and Scotland respectively. They have been involved in the development of this SI and have no concerns in relation to implementation or resources.

The territorial extent and application of this instrument is Great Britain. Under the Windsor Framework, the EU POPs regulation 2019/1021 applies in Northern Ireland. The devolved Administrations in Wales and Scotland were engaged in the development of the SI and have consented to it being made on a GB-wide basis.

In conclusion, I emphasise that the measures in this SI are needed to implement the requirements of the Stockholm convention by adding the new POP PFHxS, its salts and related compounds to the list of substances prohibited by law. The Environmental Improvement Plan for England has made clear our commitment to support and protect the natural environment, wildlife and human health. This includes our commitment to manage and reduce POPs in the environment. The draft regulations will allow the UK to continue to meet commitments relating to POPs and to continue to implement the Stockholm convention requirements to prohibit, eliminate or restrict the production and use of POPs. I hope noble Lords will support these measures and their objectives, and I commend the draft regulations to the House.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the information he gave, and I convey the apologies of my noble friend Lady Bakewell, who is unable to be here today—I am standing in her place. The Minister spoke about PFHxS, but I was under the impression that we would be speaking about PFOAs and the extension of the deadline from July 2023 to 2025. I may have got it completely wrong, but that was the brief I was given.

I listened carefully to what the Minister said. These POPs are very toxic substances, with a long lifetime in the environment. It is not for nothing that they are called “forever chemicals”. So I am pleased that the Government have taken this firm line and will make sure that they are banned—and I am pleased that they are not being produced in the UK.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, it falls to me to thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. The pedant in me needs to point out that we are invited to consider these regulations, not approve them.

The Minister will be relieved to hear that we support the passage of this statutory instrument, which, as he outlined, implements a June 2022 decision on the Stockholm convention, to which the UK is a party, to list PFHxS, its salts and related compounds as prohibited persistent organic pollutants—POPs. The Explanatory Memorandum notes that PFHxS is

“one of the most frequently detected and predominant PFASs in human blood”.

Although not all PFAS chemicals are POPs, it is worth acknowledging the significant threat posed by many PFASs. These forever chemicals degrade incredibly slowly, bringing a risk of large-scale health and environmental effects. From the debate in another place, I understand that more of these chemicals are due to be listed as POPs under the Stockholm convention in the near future. Is the Minister able to provide any timeline for the designation of these additional chemicals? Will the Minister commit to bringing forward further statutory instruments as quickly as possible?

As my colleague, Ruth Jones MP, noted, this instrument represents

“a very good example of common sense alignment with our neighbours”.—[Official Report, Commons, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 13/11/23; col. 5.]

Close cross-border co-operation on environmental and chemical threats is vital. It is for that reason that we were puzzled by the Government’s decision not to seek an ongoing relationship with the EU’s REACH programme —the system for the recognition, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. The replacement UK REACH scheme is still very much in its infancy, with worryingly little information about how it will work in practice. Recent media reports suggest that the department will require less hazard information from chemical companies when they register substances in the UK. Can the Minister confirm whether that is the case and whether an impact assessment will be made available in due course?

While this SI keeps us in step with international partners in relation to POPs, there is a perception that the UK is falling behind on broader chemical regulation. That flies in the face of promises made by a variety of Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and Ministers. While we support the passage of this instrument, I hope the Minister will accept that the Government have work to do to convince colleagues that the necessary steps are being taken to preserve the health of the population, wildlife and the natural environment.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. The regulations debated here today ensure that existing legal provisions for the prohibition and restriction of the manufacture, placing on the market and use of POPs will be extended to the new POP substance PFHxS, following its addition to the list of POPs for global elimination under the Stockholm convention. This will contribute to the protection of the current and future health of the population, wildlife and the environment of the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.

I greatly appreciate the remarks made by the noble Lord about co-operation. We are seeking to fulfil our commitments to the Stockholm convention and to make sure that business understands that we are aligning with our closest trading partner, the EU. Of course, this has implications for the Windsor Framework and will ensure that there is a single standard on this chemical across the EU, Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

The noble Lord raised important points about REACH, and I will seek to cover them now. This instrument is about the management of POPs, which sits outside the REACH regime, as he understands. The POPs regime differs from the REACH regime in that there is no requirement on businesses to register POPs chemicals. The 2023-24 UK REACH work programme will be published by the Health and Safety Executive in due course, following approval by the Secretary of State and devolved government Ministers. It is worth noting that this instrument is now, as I said, outside the REACH programme.

We are developing an alternative transitional registration model for UK REACH. The aim is to maintain or improve existing human health and environmental protections in line with our international commitments, as we are doing with this measure, while reducing the cost to businesses transitioning from EU REACH to UK REACH. On Thursday 9 November, we announced the outline for the transitional registration model, including refining what information registrants will need to provide on how their chemicals are used in Great Britain and what that means for exposure for people and the environment. This will ensure that we reduce to the essential minimum hazard information required for transitional registrations for chemicals that were already on the market at EU exit. This will mean that UK REACH registrants will not generally need to access and pay for data packages held by EU industry consortia. It will also ensure that we improve regulators’ powers so they can require and receive data from registrants quickly for regulatory or risk prioritisation purposes, ensuring that we can respond to new and emerging risks. A consultation on the proposals will be published early next year.

This is a very important issue for a number of noble Lords on all sides of the House. I understand the points that the noble Lord made. Defra asked the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive to examine the risks that PFAS posed and to develop a regulatory management options analysis. This makes recommendations for risk management measures for PFAS and was published in April this year.

Ministers accepted the recommendations, which include work under UK REACH to reduce PFAS emissions by developing UK REACH restrictions, beginning with restrictions on PFAS in firefighting foams. Defra is taking forward the recommendation to bring together work on PFAS strategically through development of a cross-government chemicals strategy and the creation of a working group on PFAS. Aspects such as drinking water standards and F-gases review will be considered within this overall policy development and subject to further ministerial engagement. I hope I have convinced the noble Lord that we are taking this matter extremely seriously. Business wants clarity, and we are working hard to achieve that.

As I have outlined, the changes introduced by this instrument will ensure that the UK can continue to implement its obligations under the Stockholm convention, which aims to protect the health of populations, wildlife and the environment from harmful persistent organic pollutants. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Storm Babet: Flooding

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government acknowledge the terrible impact the storm has had on householders and businesses, and sympathise with those affected, particularly the friends and families of those who have so tragically lost their lives in recent days. I thank the noble Baronesses for raising the tragic circumstances of this storm.

I, too, thank the emergency responders, local authorities, volunteers, Defra and the Environment Agency for their tireless efforts to help communities across the country. So far, 1,375 properties have flooded during Storm Babet, and more than 62,000 properties have been protected by existing flood defences. More than 900 Environment Agency staff have been working tirelessly to protect communities, with 451 people on the ground and 473 in incident rooms across the country.

The areas impacted worst by the storm were in Suffolk, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and south Yorkshire, where major incidents were declared. There was also disruption to road and rail networks. The UK’s topography has evolved towards predominantly westerly weather patterns but, in this case, the direction of the weather meant that east-facing and south-east-facing slopes took the brunt of the rainfall. This was further complicated by a band of high pressure over Scandinavia that trapped rainfall over the north of England and Scotland.

The Flood Forecasting Centre notified the department of the approaching storm on Monday 16 October. A cross-government meeting was held last Wednesday to inform preparedness action. Defra also activated its emergency operation centre to co-ordinate the national response, bringing the United Kingdom Government together with the Scottish and Welsh Governments. This action enabled the Environment Agency and local responders to increase the readiness of flood defences and the clearing of potential blockages. Equipment was transferred from different parts of the country to areas that were forecast to be affected worst; however, we know of some areas where assets were overwhelmed, having not been designed for such rare, extreme levels of rainfall. As the Secretary of State for the Environment noted in her evidence to the EFRA Select Committee yesterday, we will do a rapid review of our response—as we do on all such occasions—working with the Met Office to identify any learning.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for raising the issue of farmers. I thank them and land managers whose land is used to protect communities from the devastation of flooding and coastal erosion. They have an increasingly important role to play in reducing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion as we adapt to climate change through measures such as natural flood management.

As we move into the recovery phase, the Prime Minister announced today a significant package of support that will be available to areas in England that have experienced exceptional localised flooding. The support will be made available through a scheme known as the flood recovery framework, which is used in exceptional circumstances to support councils and communities following severe flooding.

Turning to the issues raised, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that the frequency and prevalence of these incidents will be a regular feature of our lives. We are rightly planning for that and trying to adapt our infrastructure to support communities. Dr Neumann is right, which is why we are helping households across the country by incentivising them to protect their homes, as well as protecting them through different types of flood measures. Some of those measures are hard—concrete and steel—and some are nature-based solutions, which we are learning much more about and which can have a huge, much more cost-effective impact on protecting people.

There is absolutely a plan for increasing the amount of spend on our infrastructure and making sure that we are protecting as many homes as possible. We have a clear plan for that. Many properties that were in danger of flooding have been taken out of danger by the investment that has been spent and by a greater understanding of data. Many years ago, as the Minister responsible for floods, I visited Bristol and saw that it had a system with millions of data points around the city. It could put all sorts of different weather events on to that software and predict, right down to household level, the risks that may be faced. Sometimes it is just about raising a kerb or building a wall, and sometimes it is about a much bigger system. That is what we have done in response to the Pitt review following the devastating floods of 2007.

With our national flood response centre, we have the best system of dealing with this. It is an evolving system and, whether you call it COBRA-style or whatever, it works and reflects the finding of the Pitt review that we needed much more emphasis on local resilience. That is what this delivers, but it draws it together on a national level, working with our devolved partners. The game-changer on this has been partnership funding, which has seen many more flood protections delivered. It is a measure that I introduced—with opposition at the time from the Labour Party, which called it a flood tax. I predicted then that the Labour Party, if it ever got into government, would not change partnership funding. I do not know whether that will ever happen, but partnership funding is a way to deliver a massive increase in protection of homes.

What we are facing is a result of a changing climate, and our climate change mitigation measures are vital. Our adaptation is vital. The Climate Change Committee is right, and I am proud that we are a leading country in decarbonising our economy and playing our part internationally by assisting other countries in decarbonising their economies.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about our early warning system. We have tested this. We had the largest civil contingency exercise ever, a tier 1 contingency exercise, Watermark. That was followed last year by Floodex 2022, which was exercised around the Trent, one of the rivers that was affected this year. Our system of warning people has improved. It is not perfect—nothing ever is in these circumstances—but our flood defences are maintained at a point where 94% of them are at target condition. We want to see that increased to 98%. I would like it to be 100%, but 98% is a realistic target.

We have doubled spending. It was, as the noble Baroness said, £2.6 billion; it is now £5.2 billion. That is a flood and coastal erosion budget. I entirely accept what she says about flood forums. I have seen them in action. They involve local people in a way that we never saw before 2007. They were a product of a number of changes that were made. They have involved communities at a very local level and seen real benefit and change. I too pay tribute to the RNLI. One lifeboat in Scotland was at sea for 18 hours saving people from a trawler in the teeth of the storm. The courage of the RNLI is second to none. I am not aware of the helicopter issue but will certainly discuss it with my colleague in that department.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing forward this Statement. My thoughts are with the victims—those who died and lost their lives, and all those who were flooded in such extreme circumstances. During the debate on the levelling-up Bill, regarding the amendments on increasing flood protection, we established—and my noble friend will recall this because at the time we were on the shadow team for the precursor to Flood Re—that any house built after 2009 is not insured if it is built on a flood plain. Through the course of the debate on the amendment, we understood that mapping the divisions between zones 3a and 3b, which determine which flood plains can or cannot be built on, is the responsibility of local authorities. Will my noble friend explore to what extent this mapping is taking place so that planning authorities know where these houses can or cannot be built, and will he use his best offices to tackle surface water flooding? We are awaiting the implementation of Schedule 3 to the 2010 Act.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her continued interest in this matter. She has reminded me that I did not respond to the point that the noble Baroness asked about building on flood plains. If we said that no more properties were to be built on flood plains—I know that this is not what she or my noble friend would say—we would be saying that there should be no more houses built in York, Leeds or even London and a great many other communities. What we want to see is flood-resilient homes being built, and there are plenty of examples in this country and around the world where you can build, in certain circumstances, flood-resistant housing on flood plains. But, by and large, we do not want to see this. The National Planning Policy Framework is very clear about this, and we have underpinned that recently.

My noble friend is right that Flood Re relates to houses built before that date, and that is one of the levers we are trying to apply to prevent the wrong kind of houses being built in the wrong place, but I will certainly look at the point she raises. Prior to Flood Re, 9% of policyholders with a prior flood claim could obtain flood insurance quotes from two or more insurers, and no one could get quotes from five or more. Following the scheme’s launch, most customers can now get more than 10 quotes. It has been a resounding success in supporting people for whom the fear of floods was dramatic; we would all like to see it extended. I point out that the Build Back Better scheme gives an added value of £10,000 to a household not just to restore a house after flooding but to make sure that it does not flood again. I note her point about Schedule 3, which she constantly raises. She knows that we are consulting on it, and the Government have given a clear commitment to bringing that into force.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I send my respects to all those who so tragically lost their lives in Storm Babet, and to those who face such enormous challenges in rebuilding their lives. I thank my noble friend Lady Hayman for her outstanding response to the Government’s Statement. As well as thanking the Minister, I will ask a general question about flood defences in all areas of London, particularly the Thames Barrier. I heard some reports about it during the discussion of Storm Babet, and I want to understand what assessment the Government have made to ensure the barrier is safe and strengthened given, as he said, the extreme rain we have experienced of late.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

In the wider context, the Government are investing £5.2 billion to build flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities, and almost 60,000 properties are better protected. We tend not to tell the story of the houses that are not flooded; for obvious reasons, we concentrate on those that are. Some 314,000 properties were better protected through the Government’s £2.6 billion investment between 2015 and 2021. The Thames Barrier is vital to the security of this global city that we are in now, and some long-term work is going on around future-proofing it to adapt to rising sea levels and the constant improved data we have on east coast tidal surges. We have had some narrow misses in some communities up the east coast in the past. The Thames Barrier has worked, is regularly reviewed and is expertly managed, but in time, unless we can contain this planet to 1.5 degrees of warming, we have to look at that kind of infrastructure as something that we will need to modify and possibly replace with a larger scheme further on down the estuary.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the flooding in Suffolk, and I absolutely agree with what he said. Parts of Norfolk were also very badly affected. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, the first priority is the victims who tragically suffered death and injury in these floods. The next priority would be the quite dreadful damage to property —to homes, farms, livestock and infrastructure. But the third priority, down the list of priorities, is the widespread discharge of sewage from storm overflows. I gather that this was really severe in many areas. The sheer volume of water is going to mitigate that, to some extent, but there will be lasting impacts on local river habitats in some areas. What more are the water utilities going to do and how will the Government work with them on this agenda?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. This is an absolute priority for the Government and we are putting in record sums. We want to see £52 billion spent by water companies on upgrading their sewage systems. I will give my noble friend an example: there are eight villages up a small chalk stream close to where I live. Every one of those villages has increased in size by between 15% and 30% more households over the last few decades. While some attempts have been made to improve the sewage infrastructure up that river system, a lot more needs to be spent on it. It is now being spent on that and many other rivers, but we need to make sure that we look at this in the context of the vital necessity to protect the environment and the rare and wonderful chalk streams and other rivers that exist, including those close to where my noble friend lives. We also need to make sure that we consider the ability of that infrastructure to withstand the impact of storms, and that those are not just seen as an excuse, by some, to release more sewage into our environment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join many others in offering my deepest sympathy to the families of those who tragically died in Storm Babet and those whose businesses and homes were torn apart by the flood-waters and the storm.

I am sure the Minister will join me in regretting another impact of the storm that was very visual on social media—the loss of fertile topsoil. To cite one example, a farmer in the east Midlands, Sarah Bell, posted a video of storm-water rushing down the lanes around her property. It was a very deep brown colour taking, as Sarah said, “precious” topsoil with it. This raises the point that time is passing by. Many times in the past, the Minister and I have discussed the protection of our soils and he has pointed me to the 25-year environment plan, which says that our soils must be sustainably managed by 2030. Looking at how much soil we have lost from erosion in just the last few days, can the Minister tell me what progress has been made in the past few months to get to a sustainable management of soil by 2030?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Like the noble Baroness, I saw that clip—at least I think it was the same one—and it is horrible to see this natural capital being swept into a river system, where it can clog up that environment or just disappear out to sea. What are we doing about it? These events will always happen and there will always be some movement of soil when a month’s rain falls in one and a half days, as happened in some areas. But we are working hard to make sure that we fulfil our commitment on sustainable soils. One example of the many that I could give is the new actions we have announced under the sustainable farming incentive, which will see farmers rewarded for planting species of deep tap-rooting legumes and certain grasses to make sure that they stabilise soils and get them to function like the proper ecosystems they should be. Farmers are being rewarded for moving to a regenerative system of agriculture that protects topsoil.

Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid in draft before this House on 4 September 2023. Fluorinated greenhouse gases, also known as F-gases, are powerful greenhouse gases used mainly in refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment, as well as for other uses such as medical inhalers. The most commonly used F-gases are known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.

The purpose of this instrument is to correct a technical error in Regulation 517 of 2014, on fluorinated greenhouse gases, known as the F-gas regulation, which is retained EU law. The correction will ensure that annual quotas, which limit the quantity of HFCs that can be placed on the market in Great Britain each year, are calculated as intended. Pursuant to the Windsor Framework, separate EU F-gas legislation and systems apply in Northern Ireland.

For Great Britain, the F-gas regulation has provisions to phase down the amount of HFCs placed on the market for the first time. This is implemented using a quota system. Importers and producers may place on the market only up to the amount of the quota they hold. The regulation sets out a phase-down schedule, with the starting point being 2015. Every three years, the amount of quota issued to businesses is reduced, thereby driving a move to lower carbon options, while giving industry time and flexibility to choose how to transition to them.

The F-gas regulation provides for a 79% reduction of HFCs placed on the market by 2030. We have already reduced HFC levels by 55% since 2015 through quota limits. Annual quota amounts allocated to businesses are calculated based on reference values. Article 16(3) provides for recalculation of the reference values by the appropriate regulator, based on the annual average of HFCs placed on the market by a business from a specified start date.

This statutory instrument corrects a technical error made in previous amending legislation relating to that start date. The start date should have been January 2015 but was erroneously changed to January 2021. If the error is not corrected, it will result in too little quota being issued to businesses. This was not the intended outcome when the F-gas regulation was retained and amended as part of the UK’s exit from the European Union. The intention was to retain the substance of the regulation, including the calculation of reference values and pace of phase-down of HFCs. Issuing too little quota to businesses would cause significant problems for HFC supply into Great Britain, disrupting sectors across the economy and business confidence.

The territorial application of this instrument is England, Wales and Scotland. The Environment Agency performs the functions set out in Article 16 of the F-gas regulation as the appropriate regulator for England and, under directions from Scottish and Welsh Governments, for Scotland and Wales. A GB-wide F-gas regime currently operates under the regulation. There is an F-gas common framework in place through which the UK, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Administrations collaborate, including on the application of the GB-wide F-gas regime. Using the common framework working arrangements, devolved Administrations were engaged throughout the development of this instrument, and agreement between officials on its provisions was reached. I am pleased to say that ministerial consent has been provided by the Welsh and Scottish Governments. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee considered this instrument and cleared it without reporting it to the House at its meeting on 12 September.

In conclusion, making this correction is essential to ensure that our ambitious and world-leading phase-down is not undermined. We have already reduced HFC levels by 55% since 2015, through the F-gas regulation. To meet our international obligations, we also remain committed to reducing HFC consumption by 85% by 2036. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these regulations. At first glance, this seems like a very minor matter, a mistake having been made in the date of implementation of the regulations, 2021 having been substituted for 2015. That technical error does not appear to have been picked up quickly, despite annual quotas for HFCs being set and their importance to a range of essential products, including refrigeration, air conditioning, medical inhalers and fire extinguishers.

HFCs are regulated by quota, which, had the original date of 2021 been adhered to, would have resulted in businesses receiving too little quota. However, levels of HFCs have been reducing since 2015 by 55%, as the Minister has said, so progress is being made towards the 79% reduction required by 2030. I assume that the error was picked up only when the phase-down and three-year recalculation took place. The next recalculation is due in January 2024, and the deadline for its submission is 31 October, so it is a very tight timeline to correct the calculation error.

Although the recalculation does not affect technical operability, not having a consultation is interesting. The businesses that would have been adversely affected had this error not been identified and corrected would, presumably, have suffered at least a disadvantage to their operation, and I would have expected them to have a view on this and to have been consulted. There is also no impact assessment; it has been deemed unnecessary as the instrument corrects a technical error, but that error relates directly to the level of HFCs that can be used in the various products dependent on them.

Should the other place and this Committee refuse to endorse these regulations, there would be an impact on a number of particularly important businesses. However, I understand completely that, at the time of Brexit, the sheer number of SIs passing through Defra was enormous and some errors were unfortunately made. My only surprise was that this one took a while to surface. Nevertheless, I accept the importance of this SI and am content to support it as it stands.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his overview of the regulations before us. As has been stated, this is an unusually straightforward statutory instrument as it seeks solely to correct a date error in a piece of retained EU law relating to fluorinated greenhouse gases. Therefore, I plan to keep my contribution short.

However, to reiterate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, it is clear that the technical error, as outlined in Paragraph 6.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which changed the baseline date for the annual quota system from 2015 to 2021, would have a detrimental impact on the businesses affected and make compliance challenging. It is also contrary to the policy intent. However, it is concerning that the SI is before us only today, when the deadline for recalculating the underlying reference values is 31 October. In other words, the dataset needs to be calculated next week, yet His Majesty’s Government have put this before us only seven days before the deadline. When was the error identified? Could the department have brought forward the instrument earlier to give assurance and clarity to business? Can the Minister also confirm that this is the last example of this error, and that we should not expect to see any more SIs of a similar nature in the coming weeks?

While I have the Minister’s attention, Paragraph 14.1 of the EM notes that a wider review of the F-gas regulation is under way. Can he update your Lordships’ House on the timelines for the review? I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their interest in this matter and their contributions to the debate. I reiterate that the amendment made by this instrument relates to the correction of a technical error in the F-gas regulation. The amendment will meet the original intended objective of retaining the substance and phasedown set out in the EU regulation when that regulation was domesticated following our EU exit. This correction will ensure that the Environment Agency recalculates the reference values correctly by the statutory deadline date of 31 October, as noble Lords have pointed out.

On why this has been laid so close to the 31 October deadline, the instrument uses the power in Section 14(2) of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. The Act received Royal Assent only on 29 June, meaning that there was no time to lay the instrument until now.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked how this technical issue arose. The error occurred when we implemented the amending legislation to retain the EU regulation in UK law during the EU exit. Consequently, the error was identified after that period had passed. We did not consult, although we have consulted industry informally and we are responding to what is demanded by these companies. Devolved Administrations were also engaged throughout the development of this instrument and agreement between officials on this provision has been reached. Ministerial consent has been provided by Wales and Scotland. Wider consultation was not deemed necessary, as the amendments introduced by this instrument relate to technical operability and there is no change in related existing policy.

A full impact assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because there is no impact as a result of its implementation. The instrument corrects a technical error that occurred when direct EU legislation was retained and amended as part of EU exit. The changes that it makes will meet the objective of retaining the substance and phasedown pace of the EU F-gas regulation and there is no change in the related existing policy. I think that noble Lords’ points have been covered and I commend the instrument.

Motion agreed.

Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for a truly comprehensive debate. Given the detail of the contributions and that these issues have been considered in depth during this debate and during the consideration of an associated statutory instrument prior to the Conference Recess, I will keep my contribution short.

We consider this legislation to be vital to the implementation of the Windsor Framework and, as we have consistently stated, we support a negotiated outcome with the EU. While the Labour Party does not believe that the Windsor Framework is perfect, it is a substantial improvement on what came before. Although it may be to the disappointment of some, the core tenets of the Windsor Framework are now in operation. While this regret Motion would not undermine it in legislative terms, supporting it—whether at this Dispatch Box or in the Division Lobbies should the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, decide to test the opinion of the House—would suggest that we believe that there is a viable alternative. We are unable to say that and therefore cannot support him.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not a wholehearted endorsement of what the Government have achieved because important gaps remain, as we have heard. However, it reflects our belief that a negotiated outcome is preferable to threats or unilateral action and that once a deal is translated into an instrument of international law, it must be respected and upheld. Successive Conservative Governments have, at times, fallen short in this regard. We welcome that, on this occasion, Ministers are doing things by the book.

As I have said, the Windsor Framework is not a comprehensive framework and not every issue with the protocol has been fully resolved. There are several important changes to GB-Northern Ireland trade which strengthen the internal market, but there is still work to do. The Motion tabled by the noble Lord cites concerns around the speed of implementation and lack of public consultation. While we accept the public interest in, and general business support for, moving swiftly, I hope that he remembers my previous comments in relation to the consultation: stakeholders may have been able to make submissions to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, but that is no substitute for a more formal process.

I have a few questions for the Minister. He will know that in recent days his noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe provided a written update on the switch-on of the Windsor Framework arrangements. Can the noble Lord the Minister elaborate on the recent changes and confirm how businesses can provide feedback on their operation? We have just returned from the Conference Recess. Many of us in your Lordships’ House would have welcomed the comments from Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the DUP, which suggested that progress was being made in discussions around the Windsor Framework and the all-important restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive—a sentiment he also alluded to in the other place today. On that note, can the Minister provide any update to the House on the DUP’s proposal for the establishment of an east-west council to deal with issues relating to GB-Northern Ireland trade?

It is imperative for all of us to make this work. While we support the negotiated settlement reached earlier this year and hope that it will lead to a marked improvement in the experiences of Northern Ireland businesses and consumers, I sincerely hope that moving forward, whether on the Windsor Framework or other issues, His Majesty’s Government make a renewed effort to work with and listen to parties and communities in Northern Ireland, rather than imposing policy and legislation on them. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, for tabling this Motion, and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate today. I pay great tribute to him and his colleagues. I entirely understand the passion that underlies their concerns about this. All of us who have had knowledge and understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland over a great many decades appreciate the underlying emotions that exist on issues relating to this. Trade is so important to every person in Northern Ireland for all of us who care about the union.

We have before us two key pieces of legislation, the Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme) Regulations 2023 and the Windsor Framework (Plant Health) Regulations 2023. Both play a pivotal role in the implementation of the Windsor Framework. I am pleased to announce that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, has said, the schemes are now live and trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is once again on a more stable and long-term footing. It is our fervent wish to successfully restore the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market and safeguard Northern Ireland’s place in the union.

First, I would like to provide some background on the retail movement scheme regulations. The scheme establishes a robust and sustainable legal framework for the movement of pre-packaged retail agri-food goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. This framework offers traders a unique set of arrangements, reducing barriers to trade by facilitating the movement of consignments based on a single certificate, compared with hundreds of vet-signed certificates for individual products needed under the old protocol. One of the key benefits secured by this scheme is the disapplication of over 60 pieces of EU legislation for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, ensuring a consistent approach across the entire United Kingdom. This means that goods which meet British public health, marketing and organics standards will be able to move to Northern Ireland.

We have a long-standing commitment to ensure that Northern Ireland’s businesses have unfettered access to their most important market, Great Britain. The Northern Ireland protocol guaranteed unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the GB market. This was legislated for in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and is reflected in the border target operating model. Furthermore, it has been raised in this debate that the instruments are contrary to the objectives of the Northern Ireland protocol listed in Article 1(2) of the Windsor Framework. In response to that assertion, I assure noble Lords that the Windsor Framework restores the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by removing the unnecessary burdens that have disrupted east-west trade. We are now able to achieve the long-standing UK government objective of restoring the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by pursuing a green lane for the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, supporting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. We are confident that the Windsor Framework upholds our objectives to ensure that Northern Ireland’s place in the union is protected. Specifically, the framework allows for goods which meet British standards to be available in all parts of the UK, ensuring that consumers in Northern Ireland have access to the same goods as those elsewhere in the UK.

The plant health regulations pave the way for the smooth movement of plants and seeds for planting, seed potatoes and used agricultural and forestry machinery and vehicles between Great Britain and Northern Ireland when applying a Northern Ireland plant health label. The Northern Ireland plant health label scheme aligns closely with the current UK plant passport regime, making it familiar and accessible to all businesses engaged in the commercial movement of plants within Great Britain. This label will replace the need for plants and seeds for planting to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate, significantly reducing costs. Instead of paying £150 per movement into Northern Ireland, growers and businesses can now pay approximately £120 annually to be part of this scheme, which is the same as the cost for the UK plant passport regime.

Importantly, these regulations will also allow previously banned seed potatoes to be once again available in Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK while remaining prohibited in the Republic of Ireland. This will have a significant impact on trade between Scotland and Northern Ireland, with an estimated 2,500 tonnes of seed potatoes expected to move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The EU’s risk assessment process for the movement of so-called high-risk trees, a point raised by my noble friend Lady Lawlor, is being expedited. Once approved, they will move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland with the Northern Ireland plant health label. We prioritised removing bans on the movement of plants and trees of greatest importance to industry—seed potatoes and the 11 most important British native and other commonly grown trees. I assure my noble friend that hawthorn is under that definition.

The Windsor Framework has also removed the Irish Sea border for goods remaining in the UK, providing a firm legal foundation for trade and allowing everyday goods to move efficiently between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It does so while protecting biosecurity on the island of Ireland, which has been treated as a single epidemiological unit for decades. It also safeguards Northern Ireland’s privileged access to the EU single market, which has been a clear demand from businesses to protect livelihoods. These regulations play a critical role in facilitating the seamless movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reducing trade barriers, and promoting a more efficient and cost-effective trading environment. They are essential components of the Windsor Framework; I hope therefore I can convince all noble Lords to support their implementation, as we debated before the Summer Recess.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Could the Minister clearly define “unfettered access”?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will refer to the noble Baroness’s bulbs. I do not know why the company she bought her bulbs from returned her money and did not wish for her custom, because the movement of plants, including bulbs, to consumers is possible if it is through a registered operator, including mail order and internet sales. I hope that one day bulbs from GB will adorn her garden in Northern Ireland. In direct answer to her question on unfettered access, I say that we all want is for goods—whether bulbs or anything else—to be traded within the United Kingdom in a similar way to anywhere within GB. I want to make sure that we are working towards that, and this is not perfect, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, said—nothing that we pass through Parliament is perfect—but it is a considerable improvement and one that has been welcomed by many businesses in Northern Ireland. I hope that in moving towards that goal we will see greater understanding as the schemes are rolled out.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, asked me about recent changes and the points raised by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. There has been a huge amount of engagement with business, and that will continue. We want to make sure that the east-west trading discussions continue. I also want to assure the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, that we believe that even though some of the infrastructure is not yet built, the temporary arrangements are adequate; they are not perfect, and the sooner that we can have the more formal infrastructure in place, then we will see an improvement not just for trade but for the people who work there.

The Government recognise that it is vital that we are now able to restore the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. Although our retail movement scheme protects Northern Ireland from problems caused by regulatory divergence between the UK and the EU, we are seeing problematic divergence from the lack of an Assembly. We are, for example, unable to apply prohibitions on dangerous dogs UK-wide. Outside my departmental brief, we are seeing growing divergence on health waiting lists and core public services. I echo the points made by a number of noble Lords about the need to move towards some form of local democracy, which we put in place through the arrangements that have superseded the end of the sitting of the Assembly. I really welcome the comments made by the leader of the DUP indicating why it is important that decisions are taken locally.

I am grateful for this further opportunity to make the case for a greatly improved trading arrangement and for the valuable discussion. A number of points were raised of a highly technical nature, and if I have not covered them in my reply I am very happy to take them forward with noble Lords after this debate. I really hope I have gone as far as I can to convince the mover of this Motion to Regret, the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and others to not push it to the vote.

Water and Sewage Regulation (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register and start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, and the members of the Industry and Regulators Committee, for the report. This has been a thorough and wide-ranging inquiry and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, showed, it was extremely timely, given the current focus on the water industry and the role of government. I also thank the committee for the recommendations from its follow-up inquiry, to which the Secretary of State will respond very shortly.

If the noble Lord or any member of the committee feels that our response was terse, I deeply regret that. If Defra had a fault, it was that in the past it used to indulge in reams of replies on this. We have tried to condense the points. Where something is in another document—for example, the Plan for Water—we have referred committees, individuals and others in our responses to those documents. That is perhaps a more economical way of doing this, but if people have confused it with a lack of respect for the work that has been done, I regret that.

However, I do not share the committee’s conclusion that there has been complacency or a lack of leadership from the Government on the topic of water regulation. No Government have done more to tackle the pressing issues facing the water industry. Back in 2013, as Minister for the Natural Environment and Fisheries, I set out that water companies should introduce monitoring for the vast majority of combined sewer outflows by 2020. This will be at 100% by the end of this year. The fact that we did not know where these outflows were is an example of complacency and one that we have set about dealing with. The increase in monitoring has meant that the Government and regulators better understand the scale of combined sewer outflow discharges, so that we can take stronger action to improve the situation.

I am delighted that this information is available not only to informed and determined Members of this House but to the wider public. A very good point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on monitoring. A wonderful citizen science project has been launched called the Riverfly project, which encourages people to assist the Environment Agency in monitoring. However, technology is moving very fast in our favour. It is now possible to put telemetry in our rivers that can give us, on our phones, real-time information on pollutants. We can then work with statutory bodies such as the Environment Agency to improve and deal with particular sources of pollution.

Just last month, we expanded our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, first published in 2022, to cover all overflows. We also added marine protected areas and shellfish water protected areas to the sites that are prioritised for early action. This is the largest infrastructure programme in water company history, with £60 billion of capital investment by 2050.

We have also requested action plans from water and sewerage companies on how they will improve every storm overflow in England. These will be published shortly. In April 2023, we published the Plan for Water, our comprehensive strategy to transform the water environment. The plan contains all the actions we must take to meet our water goals and transform the water system, and provides the leadership and long-term thinking that the noble Lord’s committee and others in this debate say is required. These are but a few examples of the comprehensive action that this Government have taken on water, and I will take the opportunity to address some of the specific points raised by noble Lords.

First, the committee raised crucial points about investment in the sector and the impact on consumers. This October, the water industry announced a planned £96 billion of investment between 2025 and 2030. This represents the largest investment in infrastructure ever made by our water industry, and an 88% increase in investment compared with the current five-year price review period. It shows that the sector is responding to the actions of this Government to clean up our rivers and seas, drive more investment and jobs in the UK, and ensure stronger regulation and tougher enforcement to achieve a step change in the water industry.

This investment comes at a cost. Noble Lords will have seen estimates from the water sector suggesting that water bills will rise by an average of £156 a year by 2030 to fund the increased investment. It is important to stress that these are not final figures; they are an opening pitch. It is important to remember that the current average water bill in England is lower than that in many European countries such as Spain, France and Norway.

For many years I have been talking to members of environmental NGOs and to parliamentarians from all sides who have told me that water bills need to rise. I have said to them, “By how much?”—and I get a prominent, audible silence from them, because nobody is prepared to say how much water bills should be. For just over £1 a day, households in this country receive all the water they need and have all their dirty water taken away. I know that all Members of this House are very mindful of the cost of living crisis for some communities. We have to balance that with our bills. But, if people are to tell Ministers and policymakers privately that bills should rise, they need to say by how much and show how they are going to reduce the impact on hard-pressed families.

Examples of the kinds of support and innovations that my noble friend Lord Agnew raised are there to be seen. I do understand the points he made; there are some wonderful schemes that are now receiving Ofwat’s approval and driving innovation in the sector. For example, Southern Water has £35 million to explore innovative options and pilot sustainable interventions to reduce storm overflow spills by, for example, building and constructing wetlands. I will come on to talk about that key point, which was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell.

Ofwat will now undertake a robust scrutiny process to ensure that these plans meet statutory requirements and government targets, to check that families are not paying for what companies should already have done and to give customers the best value for money. The Government are mindful that this announcement will raise concerns from consumers about their bills. In developing their business plans for 2025 to 2030, water companies have considered the impact of increased investment on customer bills and developed schemes that best suit the needs of local customers.

I was pleased to see Anglian Water proposing a new medical needs discount to provide direct financial aid to those whose medical needs require more water. This will be funded by the company owners and will help to support the most in need without adding to customers’ bills.

Therefore, while I note the committee’s disappointment in the Government’s decision not to proceed with a single social tariff scheme, it should be confident that this Government continue to work with industry and consumer groups to protect those struggling to pay.

Moving on to the topic of securing the investment needed to deliver our plans, I would gently challenge the committee’s view that the water sector will not be able to raise the required investment to meet our ambitious targets—a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and others. The water sector continues to attract international capital and there are examples of companies that have already secured additional finance to deliver their 2024 price review business plan. For example, Severn Trent Water announced on 29 September it had raised £1 billion of new equity from its investors. Investors have made clear that a reset is needed in the water sector, and the proposed £96 billion investment presents a clear step forward in that direction. It is now for Ofwat to review plans to ensure they strike the right balance of pace, while protecting customer bills. Companies must deliver value for money. Any increase in customer bills must be justified, efficient and deliver significant improvements in river quality and water resilience. Customers should only pay for new investment, not for companies’ past failings.

I will address very quickly some of the points raised in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Hollick, in moving this debate, talked about dividends, as did others. The average dividend payment represents 3% to 4% of the gearing and I think that is not exceptional—that is why it is attractive to pension funds—and I welcome the investment of organisations like international sovereign wealth funds and others. A dividend rate of 3% to 4% is not the kind of figure that many would see as greedy, or usury, in terms of the investment.

The noble Lord, Lord Hollick, also raised the issue of water demand, as did others. Current water usage is around 145 litres per person. In the environmental improvement plan, we have a target of 122 litres per person by 2037 and 110 litres by 2050. Those are tough targets to hit, but we have set out a process, working with the regulators and water companies, to hit them.

The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, spoke about the figure of £350 billion to £600 billion—a very wide bracket—which he said is the required investment to solve the problem of pollution. It is actually the cost of separating clean and dirty water and retrofitting that into the millions of houses in this country. That is, frankly, not feasible or possible to do. I like his scheme of water butts, and other schemes, and there are plenty that are working, and we want to see them rolled out. There are agri-environment schemes that are taking on flood management and using farmland to store water.

We are seeing a massive increase in interest in the creation of new wetlands, and I challenge the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who said that the Government are obsessed with concrete and steel. That was the case when I was Minister for water in the coalition Government and I found that Ofwat was sceptical of nature-based solutions, because it could not measure them. It liked concrete and steel because it could measure the quality of the water coming in and out and see whether the asset was working. Nature-based solutions are more complicated, but we managed to convince Ofwat to let a thousand flowers bloom. Some of them might not work, but to say the Government do not like it is 180 degrees in the wrong direction; we love nature-based solutions, we want to see more of them, we are funding them through our natural environment investment readiness fund, we want to see biodiversity net gain and private sector ESG green finance being used for this, and we want to make sure that happens soon.

I would love to debate longer and harder about whether we should renationalise our water industry. It is a very dated and slightly binary argument, but I just feel that it is fundamentally yesterday’s argument. I hope we can move forward and see that the model has been independently assessed as having seen water bills less than they would have been if it had not happened, and investment greater. The Social Market Foundation believes nationalisation would cost £90 billion, and I think there are better uses for that money. I want to see it ploughed into out natural environment and water companies investing in—

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister. Since he referred to nationalisation, could he explain why is it acceptable to the Government that entities owned by foreign Governments can own utilities here, while there is no government-owned entity here that owns the utility? In other words, the privatisation that he referred to is a bit of a sham, is it not?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think it has been wonderful to see pension funds invest—perhaps those paying the pensions of those of us in this Room. I totally welcome the fact that people want to invest in the regulated utility sector in this country, whether water, energy or any of the other sectors. It has seen a step change in investment and has helped keep bills down.

I was interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, who talked about our ability to do big infrastructure projects. I was involved in trying to persuade a lot of sceptical people, within government and outside it, of the importance of building the Thames Tideway tunnel. There was opposition from the Liberal Democrats, from Members of my party in both Houses, and certainly from the Labour Party. There was a belief that it would not work and that it would put up bills by £85 in the Thames Water area. It will actually put up bills by around £22. It is being built and it was the right thing to do. The Government stepped in as the guarantor. It is an example of a very large investment in one piece of infrastructure. There are many others that are much smaller that have—

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Either the Minister is agreeing with me or perhaps I was not clear. My concern is whether the water companies have the competence to implement these sorts of infrastructure projects. He has given a very fine example of a non-water company implementing the Thames Tideway. Will there be more of that? It seemed very doubtful that Ofwat had confidence in the water companies delivering these multi-billion pound infrastructure projects.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Multi-million pound infrastructure projects are being done by water companies; I will come on to talk about reservoirs. Some are doing them better than others; it would be a very strange world if they were all the same. The Government watch this matter very closely. We require investment and we want it done in the right way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who is shaking her head before I have even said anything, said that water companies should be fined; they are being fined record fines. One was fined £90 million last year.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Perhaps the noble Baroness would allow me to finish. We passed more legislation in the Moses Room just the other day to ensure that unlimited fines can be imposed on water companies. I do not know where she has got the idea from that we do not.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his response. My point was that water companies can pay those fines very easily; they just pay and they do not care. We should assess the amount of the fine and then take shares from the company to that amount. That would make much more sense.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We make sure that the money comes not from customers but from shareholders so that it is fair.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

Further to the noble Baroness’s point, since 2010 Thames Water has been sanctioned 92 times and fined £163 million, yet it remains a leader in unplugged leaks, sewage dumping and financial engineering. What did that fine actually achieve?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I hope the noble Lord heard me say that we have changed the rules. Fines by the Environment Agency are no longer capped at £250,000. They can be unlimited and there can be criminal sanctions for companies that break the law.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said that £82 billion was paid. I might have misheard him. My understanding is that Thames Water paid its parent company £82 million to finance its debt, but it has not paid dividends to its shareholders in the last six years.

I will move on to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. His recommendation for a changing landscape of regulation may well have its time. We need to review these things now and again. It is above my pay grade, but perhaps over time we should think about it.

To those who say that we are not resourcing the Environment Agency, I say that we have increased its annual spend by £2 million a year. That has produced nearly 50 enforcement officers looking at the quality of water. We want to see leaks reduced by 50%, which is an enormous number of litres of water, and have set out very demanding roles for that.

I come to the responses from the Front Bench. I have made my point about nature-based solutions and I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, understood that. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that we will continue with this work. It is continuous; this is not an issue that is of a single moment in time. Our strategic policy statement to Ofwat showed an absolute step change in how we saw the regulatory framework for water companies. I suggest that she was slightly confusing Ofwat and the Environment Agency on enforcement. The Environment Agency is the organisation that enforces water companies; Ofwat sets the parameters and is the regulator.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I was suggesting that some of the money given to Ofwat could be given to the Environment Agency for enforcement.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will take that away. I think that they are both funded properly. I want to make sure we continue to do so and allow them to carry out the work the Government require of them.

I will just touch on the reservoir issue. The draft plans contain proposals for multiple new supply schemes, including nine new desalination schemes, nine new reservoirs including an addition to the Havant Thicket reservoir that is being built, 11 water recycling schemes, and many new internal and inter-company transfers to share resources.

It is not just water companies that need to take action to protect our water supply—it is every single one of us. That is why the Government’s Plan for Water sets out clear action to reduce demand. The game-changer in the Plan for Water makes it easier to build reservoirs. The new water resources—through the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development, known as RAPID—and securing planning consent through the DCO process, including having water resources infrastructure as a national asset, are certainly making things better on that front. I hope we will see an easier process. The noble Baroness quite rightly raises Abingdon reservoir; that has been going on for more or less as long as I have been alive. I want to make sure that very important structures like that are built. We cannot just go through a circular process of planning inquiries, with very smart lawyers who delay getting important assets built.

With that, I think I have covered most of the points raised. In conclusion, I again thank the noble Lord and his committee for their detailed work on these important issues. I welcome the opportunity to debate these matters in the House. I have confidence that the plans that this Government have put in place will deliver the greater investment, tougher regulation and stronger enforcement needed to transform the water industry and ensure that the clean and plentiful water we need is available for generations to come.

Farming: Net Zero

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister 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. Farmers are central to delivering the Government’s environmental and climate targets, alongside their core role as food producers. The net-zero growth plan, government food strategy and environmental improvement plan set out a range of specific improvements to support farmers on their journey to net zero. Environmental land management is the foundation of our new approach. Our schemes will pay for sustainable farming practices, which are an important step towards achieving our net-zero goals.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and I appreciate the progress being made, but years on from the passing of the Agriculture Act and the Environment Act, farm owners and landowners are constrained by the absence of many of the basic details on the new schemes. Despite many questions and consultations, we still have no decisions on the tax implications for income tax, VAT and inheritance tax. Current uncertainty over the taxation impacts of ELMS, biodiversity net gain and carbon farming in general is a major obstacle for farmers to take up these schemes. This is exacerbated by the need to commit to 30 years or more for BNG. In successful farming, timeliness is godliness. Will the Minister introduce this mantra to Defra and its dealings with the Treasury, and announce the policy?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. We are doing a lot with farmers to encourage them to farm sustainably, in a way that locks up carbon and rewards them for doing so. I refer him to Nature Markets: A Framework for Scaling Up Private Investment in Nature Recovery and Sustainable Farming, which shows land managers precisely how they can access high-integrity carbon and biodiversity credits markets, which will provide income for them and do what we want; and to our environmental land management schemes, which will lock up carbon. The noble Lord asked a specific question on tax. We have resolved some of the issues and have ongoing discussions with the Treasury. It is vital that we incentivise farmers in every way to help them hit net zero and help us as a society.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to Minette Batters, the current president of the National Farmers’ Union, who is in her last year in that post. The challenges of the farming industry have been enormous in recent years, not only in relation to net zero but much more widely. Can the Minister therefore say today that assistance will be given whenever necessary to encourage more people to enter the farming profession, and to help those farmers who meet these challenges day in, day out?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I second my noble friend’s kind words about Minette Batters; she has been an extraordinary leader of the farming sector. In a single act of great courage and determination, she committed English farming under her leadership to get to net zero by 2040. That is a challenge for the Government and for her members, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that the NFU’s ambition and the Government’s align.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

The basic payment scheme is due to be wound down next year and, as I understand it, the cross-compliance rules, such as not maintaining hedgerows between 1 March and 31 August to enable nesting birds and other wildlife to thrive, may go. Can the Minister tell us which, if any, of these cross-compliance rules will be retained? Does he agree that there is little point in chasing carbon goals if our countryside is dead and silent?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness says something is so when it is not. There are so many rules to prevent farmers removing hedgerows. There are cross-compliance measures within ELMS, which will replace the basic payment scheme. I do not know where she got that information, and I wish other members of her party at the other end would stop saying this because it is not true.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I, too, pay tribute to Minette Batters. She has been an extraordinary leader, and these Benches support all the work she has done to bring farming towards net zero. We know that the use of smart technologies and more efficient equipment can help farmers reduce their environmental impact, whether that is through reduced emissions, improved yields or reducing damage to natural habitats. However, many farmers are struggling to make ends meet and the cost of borrowing has increased greatly in recent times, which makes new equipment out of reach financially for many farmers. What assessment have the Government made of the potential role for farming co-operatives in acquiring and sharing such equipment, and what role would the Minister see for his department in this area?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There has been a great increase in machinery rings, whereby farmers work together to share equipment. That has reduced their fixed costs and assisted with their working capital. Defra is assisting farmers through our £270 million Farm Innovation Fund, including £15 million to assist farmers in putting solar panels on their barns. However, there is much more we can do to help innovation. Earlier my noble friend made a point about encouraging younger people into farming, who understand the technologies that are available and embrace them. They need to feel that they are assisted by government and the agricultural education sector, and that there are grants available to help them work together to use innovations that reduce their carbon footprint but also help with their bottom line.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)]

My Lords, I want to ask a specific question of detail on carbon. I am increasingly receiving messages of concern about the lack of a national standard in the calculation of carbon. Different farming systems and different models are producing different results. The industry is crying out for clarity. We need a national standard for the calculation of carbon on different livestock systems but also for the calculation of soil carbon. What is the department doing to try to resolve this dynamic?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord has great experience in this field. He is right that there are a great many tools available for use by farmers and their advisers to support on-farm calculations and audits. The Government and I share his concern because a number of those tools differ widely in their complexity and underlying methodology. We are therefore working at pace to find the most credible and consistent on-farm tools to assist farmers to understand their baselines and thereby to prove additionality, so that they can actively seek carbon credits and biodiversity credits, which will help them to hit net zero and their income accounts.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, everyone, including farmers, has to be committed and involved in attempting to achieve net zero. This year the Government turned away farmers from their higher-tier countryside stewardship and landscape recovery schemes. Those farmers were ambitious to cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore nature to the land. In future, is Defra likely to encourage farmers, rather than discouraging them from playing their part in cutting GHG?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not know where these stats come from. We have doubled the number of farmers in countryside stewardship. When we increased the rates two years ago, the number of farmers entering countryside stewardship doubled. I do not know where the noble Baroness is getting these figures.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, farmers up and down the land, along with a lot of other people, will be breathing a sigh of relief because, apparently, later on today we are going to look again at the policies on net zero and, hopefully, will remove all those nonsenses from it and try to make some sense of it, which has not been done so far. When the Minister talks to farmers, could he please ask them to keep growing barley, not bulrushes, and remind them that, as well as keeping up conservation, as they must, their first job is to make sure that the nation is fed?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I agree. There is no dichotomy here at all. As the food strategy shows, on the poorest fifth of land we produce less than 1% of the calories we need. So there is plenty of room out there to do what is necessary to restore nature, which is depleted to historically low levels, which we want to see reversed by 2030. We want farmers to get to net zero, which is fundamentally important. We should all be proud that this country is a leader in promoting net zero by 2050 and passing a Climate Change Act. There are plenty of possibilities for farmers to continue to produce food off land that is productive, as well as to restore nature and to get to net zero using the land that is less productive.

Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 4 September be approved.

Relevant document: 51st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument). Considered in Grand Committee on 19 September.

Motion agreed.

Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations and Order laid before the House on 28 June and 12 July be approved.

Relevant documents: 47th and 48th Reports from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 13 September.

Motions agreed.

Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023.

Relevant document: 51st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023, which were laid before the House on 4 September, be considered.

The purpose of the instrument before the Committee is to implement arrangements agreed under the Windsor Framework, which was announced by this Government in February this year. This framework fundamentally recasts the old Northern Ireland protocol to restore the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market, safeguard Northern Ireland’s place in the union and address any concerns over a democratic deficit. Importantly, this instrument does not establish those arrangements themselves but provides Northern Irish authorities with the powers to ensure their proper functioning. This guarantees protection for Northern Irish consumers in line with that in the rest of the United Kingdom.

First, the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme establishes a new sustainable, long-term legal framework for trade in retail agri-food goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The new scheme will allow traders moving agri-food goods destined for the final consumer in Northern Ireland to benefit from a unique set of arrangements. These arrangements enable consignments to move based on a single certificate without routine physical checks. This will be on Great British public health, marketing and organics standards, as well as catch documentation requirements for certain species of fish.

In total, the Windsor Framework secures the disapplication of more than 60 EU regulations on goods moving to Northern Ireland via the scheme. The application of GB standards to these goods ensures a common approach across the UK. The scheme will be available to all such traders, including retailers, wholesalers, caterers and those providing food to public institutions such as schools and hospitals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a genuinely fascinating debate and, as ever, shows the complex nature of every issue when we look to our post-Brexit environment. I thank the Minister for his overview of this statutory instrument and for the correspondence I received from his fellow Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.

This legislation is vital to the implementation of the Windsor Framework and, as His Majesty’s Opposition made clear in the other place, we support a negotiated outcome with the European Union. For the avoidance of doubt, while the Labour Party does not believe that the Windsor Framework is perfect, we do believe it is a substantial improvement on what came before.

His Majesty’s Opposition supported this instrument when a vote was called in the Commons. Again, this was not a wholehearted endorsement of what the Government have achieved—as we have heard today, important gaps remain—but a reflection of our belief that these issues must be resolved through negotiation rather than threats or unilateral action.

This is why I am so grateful to members of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, including my noble friend Lady Ritchie, for their reflections on the recent set of Windsor Framework SIs, and for consistently considering the views of colleagues with divergent opinions. As well as key stakeholders, different organisations and political parties may reach varying conclusions on the Windsor Framework, but we should all be able to feed these into the process and have our views heard.

The Windsor Framework was announced in February and many of the changes within it will be operational in just a couple of weeks, so it is concerning that these instruments have been brought forward for consideration only in this short September sitting. I fear that this is something of a pattern, not just in relation to the Windsor Framework but more generally in the tabling of SIs. Can the Minister advise on why this process has been so delayed in both Houses?

In the debate in another place, my right honourable friend and colleague Hilary Benn asked a number of questions and Minister Spencer committed to following up on a number of points in writing. Does the Minister have a copy of this correspondence, and does he wish to read any of its contents into the record? If it has not yet been sent, can participants in this debate be included in the correspondence?

Northern Irish consumers will soon enjoy access to a greater number of goods than was possible under the old protocol. The lifting of restrictions on seed potatoes and certain pre-packed meat products is especially welcome as that is important for farmers and producers on both sides of the Irish Sea. But it is important to note that restrictions remain on some items, including a number of shrubs and trees, many of which are still under review, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds. Can the Minister update us on the timing of the review and when we can expect additional trees and shrubs to be added to the green lane?

This instrument deals with enforcement powers, aiming to provide what paragraph 7.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum describes as

“the pragmatic and proportionate enforcement of GB public health, marketing and organics standards in NI for goods moved”

under the new schemes. His Majesty’s Government insist that there will be

“no impact on traders who abide by the terms and conditions and regulations that govern the scheme”.

Does the Minister really endorse that statement? There may be no enforcement impact, but there is a practical impact on businesses, which have to adjust to new procedures as well as covering new and different costs.

Also, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee notes and as my noble friend Lady Ritchie raised, there has been no formal consultation on these measures, although there has been informal engagement with a range of stakeholders. Given the lack of formal consultation prior to the changes, can the Minister confirm whether there will be any post-implementation review? If so, when? How will that process work?

It is imperative for us all to make this work. While we support the negotiated settlement reached earlier this year and hope it will lead to a marked improvement in the experiences of Northern Ireland businesses and consumers, I sincerely hope that, moving forward, whether on the Windsor Framework or other issues, His Majesty’s Government will make a renewed effort to work with parties and communities in Northern Ireland, rather than imposing policy on them. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. A number of questions have been asked; I will endeavour to answer them all. I will start by answering the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, just raised. We want power-sharing to restart and decisions about the lives of people and businesses in Northern Ireland to be taken by people in Northern Ireland. We really do want to see that happen as soon as possible, of course.

I will tackle the points more or less as they were raised, but I apologise if I mix them all up. The Windsor Framework achieves a long-standing UK government objective to restore the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by pursuing a green lane for the movement of goods from GB to Northern Ireland, supporting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. It restores the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by removing the unnecessary burdens that have disrupted east-west trade. At the same time, the Windsor Framework recognises the need to protect the biosecurity of the island of Ireland, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, pointed out, has been treated as a single epidemiological unit for decades. It is the case that some checks, such as those on live animals, were required from GB to Northern Ireland prior to EU exit and before the old Northern Ireland protocol was implemented to protect the integrity of this single epidemiological unit. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, that this is about achieving unfettered access for Northern Ireland to Great Britain in trade terms, but this SI is about Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

A number of noble Lords asked about the practical consequences, so let us discuss what would happen if this SI were not taking place or if it were not approved by Parliament. The consequences would be the UK failing to comply with its legal duties and international obligations under the Windsor Framework. This statutory instrument forms part of the Defra Windsor Framework legislation that must be in force by 1 October 2023. It is therefore also required to establish, maintain and support the arrangements agreed under the Windsor Framework.

Specifically, this SI in Defra’s legislative package is required to enable the necessary enforcement of GB standards for goods moving under the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme when placed on the market in Northern Ireland. To protect public health and ensure food safety in Northern Ireland, authorities in Northern Ireland will be able to check and remove non-compliant goods from sale. That will ensure that consumers in Northern Ireland are protected by the same high standards as those in Great Britain. The risk of not proceeding would be insufficient public health and food safety protections for consumers in Northern Ireland, meaning that Northern Ireland consumers were less well protected than those elsewhere in the United Kingdom, severely undermining consumer confidence in the Northern Ireland food system. That risk is significant, and any non-legislative alternatives fall short of addressing it.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

Is the Minister implying that until the moment when the checks will be done, Northern Ireland has been at grave risk for many decades as GB goods and agri-food produce flowed into Northern Ireland? Is he saying that for all those years we were at terrible risk?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, of course not, but we want to have the same measures in place in Northern Ireland that people in Great Britain have. It will also ensure that for certain plants and other objects, which I have already discussed, moving from GB to Northern Ireland under the Northern Ireland plant health label scheme sufficient enforcement powers are available in GB and Northern Ireland. Without those enforcement powers, there would be a risk that biosecurity concerns related to non-compliance with the Northern Ireland plant health label scheme would be insufficiently addressed.

Consultation was raised by a number of noble Lords. Due to the timescales for the introduction of this statutory instrument, as conferred by the legal text of the Windsor Framework, to which the UK is a committed signatory, and the urgency of ensuring effective enforcement provisions are in place, it has not been possible to consult on this document. However, the arrangements agreed under the Windsor Framework are based on extensive engagement with industry and stakeholders in Northern Ireland over the past two years.

Defra continues to engage with businesses through regular forums, including the weekly NI-GB Food Supply Chain Forum, frequently attended by over 200 representatives of organisations across the supply chain, alongside ad hoc engagement. In addition, we have published detailed guidance regarding the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme online and are running a series of training sessions for businesses on how to move goods under the Windsor Framework arrangements. We responded to concerns that were raised through this process and we continue to have engagement with businesses, including sharing early versions of guidance with key retailers and consulting businesses wherever flexibilities regarding the scheme, or pragmatic solutions to challenges, are forthcoming. We continue to build our offer to businesses, including: running a fortnightly whole supply chain forum that is regularly attended; a weekly engagement call with retailers; weekly webinars; training sessions; guidance published on GOV.UK; the circulation and regular iteration of a new frequently asked questions document; a dedicated inbox traders can direct their questions to; and, as I say, more engagement besides.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and a number of others talked about the impact assessment. A de minimis assessment has been completed for this statutory instrument, in line with standard practices and thresholds for the evaluation of impacts where these are expected to fall under £5 million. The overall impact of the Windsor Framework is positive, as it aims to ease the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and this statutory instrument is a necessary part of implementing the framework. We have evaluated the specific impact of this SI. There are no significant costs to businesses, no significant impact on charities or voluntary bodies and no significant impact on the public sector.

The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, raised a further point on disapplication. Disapplication and derogations from EU law agreed under the Windsor Framework mean that the EU has to change its law, which of course it has to do under EU regulations. This is none the less implementing the bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU. The Windsor Framework takes effect through a range of mechanisms, including amendments to the text of the framework formally known as the Northern Ireland protocol, unilateral and joint declarations, and new UK and EU legislation. The EU has made new legislation to implement its obligations under the bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, asked about the SPS veterinary agreement. We have always been clear that the UK Government could not accept a veterinary agreement that is based on dynamic alignment with EU rules in perpetuity, and the EU has only ever proposed a veterinary agreement that is based on dynamic alignment. Through the Windsor Framework, the UK Government have committed to the construction of SPS inspection facilities. The Secretary of State for my department took powers earlier this year to progress construction of SPS inspection facilities. Permanent facilities will be ready by 1 July 2025 and an additional, temporary product inspection facility at Belfast port has been constructed and will be ready to conduct additional sanitary and phytosanitary checks from 1 October 2023 as the new schemes go live. I know there has been consultation between DAERA and the EU: that was happening last week and I know there was some involvement in that.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, asked why this SI was not laid earlier and why additional scrutiny was not possible. He mentioned the parliamentary Recess. I just say that it was not possible to lay these regulations earlier. The Windsor Framework was agreed on 27 February. Since then, detailed policy development and further engagement with the EU and with devolved Administrations has been required to finalise the arrangements. As this SI implements these arrangements, it was not possible to lay this SI before finalising the details. Some provisions within the Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme) Regulations were required to take effect on 1 September. This was to ensure that traders have sufficient time to register for the scheme ahead of it taking effect on 1 October.

A number of noble Lords mentioned seed potatoes. The Northern Ireland plant health label scheme means that previously banned seed potatoes will once again be able to move to Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK, while remaining prohibited in the Republic of Ireland. The movement of seed potatoes is permitted using a Northern Ireland plant health label, rather than a costly phytosanitary certificate. Great Britain seed potatoes can be moved between professional operators for commercial growing in Northern Ireland. Once seed potatoes have been planted and grown into potatoes for consumption, they can be sold, including into the EU. If the seed potatoes are grown to produce further seed potatoes that meet the requirements of Northern Ireland’s classification scheme, the harvested seed potatoes will be eligible for sale and marketing to consumers and businesses in Northern Ireland and the EU.

The Government are committed to ensuring that the Windsor Framework’s benefits are realised for the benefit of businesses and people in Northern Ireland and across the UK in a manner that meets our international obligations. Therefore, we continue to take forward work to implement the Windsor Framework and engage with Northern Ireland parties as part of those efforts.

A number of noble Lords mentioned trees. The EU’s risk assessment process for the movement of so-called high-risk trees will be expedited. Once approved, they will move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, within the Northern Ireland plant health label. We prioritised removing bans on the movement of the plants and trees of greatest importance to industry: seed potatoes, which I have already mentioned, and the 11 most important GB-native and other commonly grown trees. Since the signing of the Windsor Framework, eight dossiers have been approved, with the ban on movement lifted on privet, hawthorn, apple, crab-apple and four species of maple. Another three dossiers, covering English oak, sessile oak and beech, are going through the process, with votes due imminently. We will continue to work with industry to make the case to lift the ban on other species, where there is a demand to do so. As dossiers are approved, they will be published on the plant health portal.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others talked about whether this new arrangement was more burdensome than the STAMNI. The STAMNI was designed and implemented as a temporary measure to give retailers time to adapt to the requirements of the protocol. The Government have taken action to secure a sustainable, permanent exemption from these requirements for retailers. The Northern Ireland retail movement scheme provides a much broader scope than current arrangements in both the businesses that can benefit from these facilitations and the products eligible to move. For example, goods that meet GB public health, marketing and organics standards can move into Northern Ireland under the scheme. Goods that have been subject to additional certification, including certain chilled meat products such as sausages, will now be able to move under the single, per-consignment certificate.

Membership of the scheme is broader, too, covering hospitality, those providing food to the public sector and wholesalers supplying smaller retail outlets in Northern Ireland. Scheme membership can be easily updated, with businesses able to join and leave the scheme as their supply chains evolve.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

These are important matters of detail. Can the Minister set out the trees and plants that are banned after the 11 dossiers have been fulfilled and all the rest of it? This is important because, as the Minister may be aware, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland gave fairly fulsome assurances publicly on television, even when challenged by journalists, that all these matters would flow smoothly and there would be no inhibitions for plants, trees and so on coming to Northern Ireland. I would be grateful if the Minister set out in writing to me and other Members of the Committee what is allowed and what is banned; what may be sold through garden centres commercially and what may be sent to individual consumers.

On seed potatoes, I think the Minister said that professional companies could sell to other organisations. What is the position with selling directly to consumers so that people can buy these things at garden centres and so on? I know that he has set out some broad-brush things, but it is that sort of detail that really matters to people on the ground.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely understand the need for detail; I want to get the detail right and, therefore, I will write to the noble Lord giving that absolute clarity.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about fish. This SI simply ensures that the marketing and labelling standards for fish products in place in Great Britain are also in place and enforceable in Northern Ireland for products moving through the Northern Ireland retail scheme.

I think I have covered as many points raised by noble Lords as I can. I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

Motion agreed.

Combined Sewer Overflows

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had discussions about sewage discharges over a number of years now, including several extensive sessions during the relatively recent passage of the Environment Act 2021. Everybody is clear that, under the law, sewage should be discharged only in exceptional circumstances—everybody it seems but the Government, the arm’s-length bodies their Ministers are responsible for and the water companies those bodies regulate. In the OEP’s view, Ministers and regulators are guilty of

“misinterpretations of some key points of law”.

That is extremely worrying. We also think it is worrying that the Environment Secretary has chosen to disagree with her own environmental body, in one of its first major investigations of government conduct.

During the passage of the Environment Act, colleagues across your Lordships’ House voiced concern about the OEP’s lack of enforcement powers. Regardless of one’s views on the European Court of Justice and the European Commission, the previous situation was clear: if the Government were found to have acted unlawfully, there could be fines or other enforcement action. Could the Minister confirm today that, if the OEP recommends legislative or regulatory changes, or seeks to take enforcement action against Defra, his department will comply? Does he regret that this question even needs to be asked, following the adversarial approach adopted by his Secretary of State?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I suggest I have a different understanding of how an OEP investigation works. Let me be absolutely clear about this: the OEP has not satisfied itself, on the balance of probabilities, that Defra has failed to comply with environmental law; rather, the OEP believes it has reasonable grounds for suspecting the Defra has failed to comply with environmental law and has asked us for more information to help it make its decision, and of course we are complying with this process. Her allegation is that this is a done deal; the OEP’s concerns that the Government have somehow broken the law is under discussion. We now have two months to reply, and the OEP then has two months to adjudicate.

The aims of the OEP investigation are to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the public authorities—Defra, Ofwat and the Environment Agency—and to determine whether they have failed to comply with their respective duties. The OEP will consider the responses from all three public authorities in detail before deciding next steps. We should not prejudge its conclusions. The OEP’s press release clearly states that:

“If the response changes the OEP’s view on whether there has been a failure to comply with the law, or sets out steps the public authority intends to take to rectify the failure, then the OEP may decide not to take any further action in relation to the alleged failure(s).”


My answer to her final question is: yes, of course we will comply. We have created the OEP to try to find the best possible way to hold government to account on environmental policy following our leaving the European Union, where we were subject to infraction fines if we had broken the law. Through the Environment Act, we wanted to create something that held government departments to account. We believe in the OEP and what it does, and we will certainly comply with its findings.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, in its statement on Tuesday, the OEP identified serious breaches of environmental law. Despite what appears to be heavy investment to combat combined sewer overflows, Defra is accused of breaking Sections 18 and 94 of the Water Industry Act 1991 and other water regulations in deliberately allowing sewage overflows to continue when there has been no rain. Given yesterday’s debate on nutrients, are the Government really serious about protecting the environment as set out in the Environment Act, or are they only paying lip service?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I know the noble Baroness well enough to know that she does not really believe that. We sat through hours and hours of debate on the Environment Act, the Agriculture Act and the Fisheries Act. She knows that this Government have done more to protect the environment and deal with the unacceptable problem, which has existed for centuries, of sewage going into our rivers. She knows that we are investing in monitoring. The previous Government did not have a clue: they knew of 7% of sewage outflows. I started that change in 2012, and we now know of 91%; by the end of this year, we will know of 100%. That light of transparency is helping resolve this problem.

We have a record investment programme of £56 billion to deal with the problem. We have tougher regulation: there was a debate on nutrients yesterday and a debate in the Grand Committee on increasing penalties for breaches of rules from £250,000, where they are capped, to unlimited amounts. That is an example of tougher regulation that we are bringing in. At the moment, we have the largest ever criminal investigation by the Environment Agency into this matter, and we have a very serious civil investigation by the regulator Ofwat. We are absolutely committed to dealing with this, and we are doing more than any other Government have done previously.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will focus on the positive going forward, which is that the water companies are going to find the money to tackle combined sewer overflows. Is my noble friend confident that the level of expenditure can be found in the context of the current price review, which becomes effective on 1 January 2024? Also, does he not think that it is grossly unfair on water companies to be expected to connect to inadequate Victorian pipes that cannot take the effluent coming from these new housing developments? They are being forced to because of the current legislation.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend knows that there is a major investment in infrastructure, the largest ever, which is seeing many of those thousands of miles of Victorian pipes being replaced by modern ones. It is absolutely vital that any developments take into account the sewage infrastructure. That is why we are insisting on the entire impact of those, and any, developments being reflected in investment, and why we are front-loading a lot of the expenditure. We are requiring water companies to do a lot, but that is what their customers and the people of this country want. We have the right system by which to make that happen, and we want to encourage that expenditure to happen as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the current system of private monopolies dates back to 1989, when Margaret Thatcher sold off the publicly owned water and sewage industry for £7.6 billion, debt free. Since then, average household bills have risen 40% above inflation, the companies are now £54 billion in debt and have since paid out £66 billion in dividends to shareholders. Of the bills that people are paying today, 20p in the pound is going to shareholders or to cover that debt. Given that the regulation of these companies and the economic situation are clearly failing, surely it is now time for the Government to at least set up the process of looking into how we can bring these companies back into public hands and run them for public good.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness, but I have certainly had it put to me in this Chamber that, when this system of private ownership was put in place, it was somehow an ideological Conservative Government that was doing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was done because we were the dirty man of Europe: our rivers were stinking, and a very small percentage of our beaches were compliant. Now, we have nearly 93% of our bathing waters in good or improving conditions. I am not naive; I know that there are serious problems. But if the noble Baroness is really suggesting that the way of dealing with this is to completely change it and require the taxpayer to pay billions of pounds to purchase these companies back, which would see investment in this country into the regulated utility sector fall off a cliff, that is very dangerous not just for our water industry but our energy companies and every other regulated utility.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, while entirely accepting the thrust of what my noble friend just said, there is continuing concern, as he well knows, not just about sewage but, as I have raised many times before, the terrible state of one of the loveliest rivers in the kingdom, the Wye. When can we expect to see proper improvement in those ghastly situations?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The Secretary of State held a meeting in the Wye Valley with all partners concerned. Out of that have come a number of actions. What is frustrating is when local authorities, for example, do not allow planning permission for measures such as biodigesters, which would deal with the chicken manure that is causing the nutrients to flow into the river, which results in large parts of the River Wye effectively becoming ecologically dead at certain times of the year. We need joined-up thinking not just between government and regulators but between local planners and farmers, and an understanding that, when a producer company vertically integrates its supply chain and we do not understand its impact in planning, it takes years to get right—but we are absolutely determined to do it.