Degraded Chalk Stream Environments
Debate between Lord Benyon and Vicky Ford(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
I refer hon. Members to my entry in the register.
I have the honour and privilege to represent a large part of the Berkshire downs, which feed the chalk streams of the Kennet, the Dun, the Lambourn and the Pang. These are very special riverine ecosystems. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), whom I congratulate on calling this debate, chalk streams are hugely important not just for the area where the river flows, but for the entire catchment. They are extraordinary features of our natural world. Areas such as the Berkshire downs, and others that hon. Members have spoken about so eloquently, are the water towers of communities such as London, where we sit tonight, and they are under threat as never before.
In a brief moment of relevance in my parliamentary career, I held responsibilities not dissimilar to those held by my hon. Friend the Minister. We had had a number of years of drought, and that year we faced the Olympics and the Queen’s jubilee. The fifth largest economy in the world was literally at risk of having people in the south and south-east of England filling their water from standpipes in the street—an extraordinary moment. We were on the point of having Cobra meetings. The then Prime Minister, David Cameron, said to me in the Lobby, “Just make it rain.” That gave me powers of the divine, because you will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that, as the Queen and Prince Philip stood by the Thames, the heavens opened.
I do not take any responsibility for that, but the problem was not that it rained—that was very welcome—but that it rained for three years. All the work we had been doing in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on drought management, fantastic work across a whole range of different trade bodies, other organisations and agencies of Government, was subsumed by having to deal with too much water. We have terribly short memories in this place and in Government. I hope that what is happening now is starting to cause real concern, because if we have another dry winter my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues will be contemplating a real emergency.
Mention has been made this evening of the great naturalist and broadcaster, Jeremy Paxman. In his foreword to the river fly census, produced by Salmon & Trout Conservation, he mentions what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) referred to: insect armageddon, the really quite staggering reduction of insect life in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne made the point clearly that we have to understand where those insects come from and what they depend on. Jeremy Paxman says in his foreword:
“No-one much cares about it, because creepy crawlies find it harder to make allies than do soft and cuddlies. Ludicrously, even pests like grey squirrels have more friends.”
We in this House have to be a friend to the insects. Some 80% of species on our planet are invertebrates and the foundations of food webs.
The river fly census shows some alarming facts. Species loss in any environment indicates ecosystem distress. Across 12 chalk streams in England there has been a 75% decline in caddisfly species, a 54% decline in stonefly species, a 44% decline in dragonfly and damselfly species, and a 40% decline in mayfly species. A river in my constituency, the Lambourn, a most beautiful and precious river with overlaying European designations—a site of special scientific interest, an area of outstanding natural beauty and every conceivable designation one can think of—is effectively in crisis.
My contribution tonight is really this: the management of our rivers, particularly the fragile ecosystems that are chalk streams, needs to be perfect. There is no margin for error in how we manage chalk streams. I am therefore concerned when I read that a salad washing company in the upper Itchen, Bakkavor Salad Washing, has found itself in difficulties with the Environment Agency over its own sewage works. I gather that it has now addressed them, following discharges that were reported to the Environment Agency. The EA’s investigation, however, also exposed a potential pesticide threat. The EA has not been able to rule out damage caused by traces of pesticide present on the salad leaves used by Bakkavor, which were subsequently being washed into the upper Itchen. I understand that the EA is monitoring the situation, but that cannot be allowed to happen. In an ecosystem as precious as this, which is suffering from really low flows, there is no justification whatever for a company to be polluting an environment as rare as this.
Vicky Ford
I have heard stories from fishermen about salad washing. They tell me that the salad is not even grown in the UK, but has been brought to the UK for washing in our rivers and then packaging. If that is true, that is even more shocking, but maybe it is a fisherman’s tale.
Richard Benyon
I have heard similar stories, and I do not know the circumstances of this. I wrote to the company before this debate asking for it to give its side of the argument, but I did not hear back. I am not necessarily criticising the company, as I approached it only at the end of last week.
My point is this: in our management of these rare systems, we need not just to be getting the sort of thing I was just discussing right, but to be looking at agriculture. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire was so correct in what he said about that. Min-till—minimum tillage—agricultural systems are vital, not least because of the worms that are allowed to prosper in the soil, which affects the permeability of that soil crust so that water goes through to the aquifer, rather than running off and taking with it a lot of the topsoil. We have a wonderful, rare and special opportunity that we can now deliver through the Agriculture Bill and the environment Bill. We are talking about changes that can make sure we are incentivising farmers and working with them right across a catchment to deliver extraordinary benefits.
Foreign Affairs Committee
Debate between Lord Benyon and Vicky Ford
Richard Benyon
I will not, because I have made a promise that I am going to shut up.
I just want to say that I have huge respect for the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) as well. He and I have worked on issues relating to Russia and Magnitsky, and I know his knowledge and understanding, and his courageousness as well. For goodness’ sake, let us be a Parliament that raises ourselves above this. Let us just be a little bit mature and reflect on the fact that, even if we were talking about people who had been on the Conservative Benches, we would actually stand up for something more important than what we are talking about today.
Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress
Debate between Lord Benyon and Vicky Ford(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Richard Benyon
I am going to get my children on to that. I am a serial litter picker, to their dismay, and I think that is a fantastic initiative.
Richard Benyon
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will just make a bit more progress.
When I was discussing this issue with these young people, I was conscious that none of them knew that the UK was the first developed economy to pass a Climate Change Act. Why should they? In a way, it is a rather a processy thing to know. Nevertheless, it does show that across this House there has been a determination to act. This country has reduced its emissions by over 40%—more than any other developed G7 economy. I asked how many of them knew about Blue Belt and all their hands stayed down. Blue Belt is one of the policies in recent years that I am most proud of. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) was fundamental in driving that through despite, I have to say, a bit of institutional opposition in certain Departments, but he did it and we are now protecting an area of sea the size of India. That will shortly grow to much larger areas and we are policing that with modern satellite technology. It is an extraordinary thing that we in Britain should be proud of, particularly those of us who were swept away by “Blue Planet II”. At least we have a Government who are doing something about this.
There has been a huge leap in renewable energy. Record amounts of power are now generated renewably. The 25-year environment plan has things in it that those young people would be really pleased to see, and they would of course be right to push us to make sure that it happens. Work has been done in this House in recent months, particularly on the Government Benches—with letters to the Prime Minister and Ministers, and meetings with the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, who will respond to the debate—to move to net zero, which I think is clearly inevitable.
Why do we need that to happen? We need it to happen because the science is clear—it is staring us in the face. In October last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that there was an even chance of meeting a 1.5° target for global CO2 emissions and spoke of the absolute imperative of reaching net zero. It set forth this extraordinary challenge to policy makers all over the world: there are 12 years left to deliver that. I am really pleased that the Minister, who has responsibility for climate change, has instructed the Committee on Climate Change to do a feasibility—an impact—study on what net zero would mean and what we would be requiring our economy to do. It is no good we in this House just using terms such as “net zero” without really understanding that there will be an impact. It will affect businesses, but if we do this in the right way, first, businesses can transition, and secondly, there is an economic opportunity for Britain to continue to be a centre for green growth. That fits in with the clean growth strategy.
In the wider context, this is a key moment for the United Kingdom. Domestically, we have new legislation coming before the House on fisheries, farming, the environment and other related subjects. As a farmer, a conservationist, and someone who has been, and is, active in the non-governmental organisation movement—I am a trustee of a charity called Plantlife—I am excited by the opportunities offered to take control of our environmental agenda and to make sure we do what we have been talking about for a long time, but seem unable to do, which is to reverse the declines in biodiversity, to significantly reduce emissions from agriculture, to weaponise, if you like, the natural environment, to lock up carbon and to be a sustainable source of the necessities of life, such as clean water.