Water Companies: Duties and Accountability

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord McLoughlin

Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

One of the measures that we seek to take through the five-year AMP process is to get water companies to look 25 years ahead at their water demands. There is a need for new reservoirs. One could well be built in the upper reaches of the Thames, and I recently visited an existing reservoir in East Anglia that had been increased in size. This all has to be taken into account, particularly in determining how we encourage water companies to move water from one area to another to reflect demand.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, when Carsington reservoir opened in 1992, it initially met with great opposition, but it is now very much part of the landscape. It is well used and a great provider of natural resources for the people in the Midlands.

Food and Farming: Supply Issues

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, we are. We want to encourage local food chains to operate more effectively; it is of course much healthier for the environment and the quality of the food is better. We want to disrupt highly centralised food chains where we can. We also want to make sure that we are encouraging as stable a food chain system as we can, because we rely on the just-in-time measures to get food from the field to the plate.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, we are seeing a rise in the number of farm shops up and down the country, but what is the department doing to ensure that large supermarkets sell British products?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The best pressure on supermarkets does not necessarily come from finger-wagging of the Government or measures from Ministers but from the customer. We must encourage people to shop locally; for example, if they are concerned about the effects of their diet on climate change, eating grass-fed, locally produced meat means they are probably doing more to help the environment than when buying products that have been brought from the other side of the world, under circumstances that are much below our standards in this country.

Environmental Land Management Schemes

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I was disappointed by the response of the Ramblers Association, an organisation for which I have a great regard. As set out in a Written Ministerial Statement of 2 December:

“We will also continue to pay for heritage, access and engagement through our existing schemes and we will consider how to maintain investment in these areas as part of future schemes.”—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/21; col. 437WS.]


What we were talking about was the sustainable farming incentive, which is only one of three schemes. Of course, there are many other examples, such as the £500 million nature for climate fund and the £124 million announced for the net-zero community forests. I could go on, but I would incur the wrath of the House if I did.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has just raised a number of schemes available to the public. I welcome the Government’s general direction but will my noble friend be careful to ensure that they do not overcomplicate those schemes and make them too complicated for people to have access to them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. One reason why we have done this iterative process, with tests and trials and piloting these different schemes, is because we want to make sure that they are brought in in as effective a way as possible. We have already reduced, with the sustainable farming incentive, the amount of guidance to make it as simple and clear as possible. Farmers should not be paying land agents huge amounts of money to do those schemes; they can do it themselves.