Soil Health

Lord Carrington Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, as part of the England Peat Strategy, and the research we are undertaking feeding into it, we are also establishing a lowland agricultural peat task force. The Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change has suggested that there is a loss of peat soils, particularly in the East Anglian fens—where there is big production of food—but I also commend Slowing the Flow at Pickering, another example of what we do in restoring the natural ecosystem and managing flooding.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer, as set out in the register. As the Minister knows, soil is in private ownership unless the land is publicly owned. Accordingly, the Government need to make protection of the soil a public benefit under the Agriculture Bill for their policies to be successful. That entails management and measurement of the actions introduced to improve the soil and the land concerned. As with the technical solutions on the Northern Irish border, farmers are not aware of any tested measurement tools that would achieve this.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, in a number of earlier replies I suggested that work on this is ongoing. A considerable number of farmers across the land are involved in tests and trials, which will be rolled out. In providing public money for public benefits, we need to ensure that they hit the optimum. Obviously, the farmers want the optimum, but in the investment of public money, we also need an optimum in terms of the restoration and enhancement of the environment.

Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [HL]

Lord Carrington Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I will not repeat the tributes made to Kew or restate the value it has given to this country. However, I warmly endorse the purpose and content of this short Bill, although it is a pity that the background information on the property portfolio affected by the Bill and the associated financial liabilities have not been fully identified and described, as to my mind this would assist Members in seeing the significance of the Bill and the likely beneficial effects on the public purse.

As in all culture and heritage matters, the importance of securing stable funding and managing cost is paramount, as institutions such as Kew Gardens—and there are many like it—nearly always rely on the generous sponsorship of the likes of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Defra, the Arts Council, et cetera. Their resources are inevitably limited, however much we may wish otherwise, so every effort needs to be made by the management and trustees of these institutions to investigate and generate other income, either from within or from benefactors.

In the case of Kew, it is clear that by offering leases of up to 150 years for residential and commercial properties under its control, it can attract substantial capital sums. The decent length of leases enables and justifies expenditure on much-needed refurbishment, which in any event becomes the responsibility of the lessee under the terms of their lease. Of further benefit to all concerned is the ability to attract mortgage and other bank finance, which was scarcely available with short-term leases. The lessee can therefore afford to pay more and to spread the financial cost over many years.

To demonstrate just how significant the effects of this Bill will be, it would have been nice to see some more detailed projections of capital receipts and deferred expenditure than the bald figure of £40 million in the first 10 years. No doubt management and trustees have this information, as it will play a large part in determining the requirement for future grant in aid from Defra, which currently appears to be £41 million or 35% of total income.

The Bill enables many of the issues identified in the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report to be satisfactorily resolved. Despite the lack of information on the property portfolio and the financial benefits provided by the Bill, I give it my warm support.

Brexit: Food Prices and Availability (EUC Report)

Lord Carrington Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer, as set out in the register. I had hoped to speak after my noble friend Lord Devon so that I could already have bathed in his wisdom, but all I can do now is wish him luck. I welcome this debate on the report but regret that it comes nearly one year after publication. Much water has passed under the bridge, therefore while I welcome the report and agree with most of its recommendations and conclusions, I will now highlight what is relevant but missing.

Much has been written, both inside and outside Parliament, on the likely impact of Brexit on food prices and availability, but to me the one thing that is obvious is that until the scope and timing of Brexit is clear, all we can do is make informed guesses. With so much outside the control of this country—third-party status, negotiations with non-EU countries, non-tariff barriers, visa restrictions and much else—the most sensible approach is to identify those areas where we have control of the agenda and do not need the approval of third parties, and make sensible reforms forthwith.

In this respect I direct your Lordships’ attention to the fact that currently we produce 60% of our food, and with improvements in technology, good husbandry, capital investment and suchlike, we could increase this percentage, particularly in fruit and vegetables. However, one of the most important factors for our producers and consumers is that we have a comprehensive food strategy and an agreed agricultural policy that enables long-term decisions to be made with a degree of certainty that the rules will not change in the investment cycle. I therefore seek clarity from the Government on when this House will be able to consider the Agriculture Bill, which appears to have become stuck on Report in the other place since September of last year. Why are we waiting, when the finalisation of that Bill will provide the certainty that farmers require and enable sensible investment that should benefit both food prices and availability?

Many aspects of this important Bill need to be further discussed and hopefully amended, but it is firmly in our hands and does not require the approval of Brussels or anyone else. Briefly, the Bill sets out the transition from area-based subsidies to payments to farmers for public goods. Personally, I have no real objection to this change, as long as food production is classed as a public good. The policy will, I hope, improve our degraded soils and fragile wildlife, but I have a concern about the scant reference to the production of all-important food. This was certainly picked up in the other place, in particular by the honourable Member the SNP spokesperson Deidre Brock, who said:

“We have a Bill to regulate agriculture that is silent on the very essence of agriculture”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/10/18; col. 171.]


As in all things, there has to be compromise, particularly when we are deciding between the balance of environmental benefits and food production. We also need to understand that currently subsidies account for between 50% and 80% of a farmer’s income. The farming industry is likely to be very financially vulnerable for some time while the necessary changes are made to its business models.

Bearing in mind that upland farming needs all the help it can get, whereas grade 1 land requires no area-based subsidy, people seem to forget that a huge proportion of farmland in this country is of pretty average quality and beauty, and its profitability has been highly dependent on the basic payment subsidy. With the steady withdrawal of this subsidy, many farmers of this land will be looking around for the best option available to guarantee that they get a steady and predictable income with as little risk as possible. The Government’s proposed new environmental land management system—ELMS—is likely to attract many, but potentially at the cost of lowering food production in this country. Growing crops will be inherently more risky because there will be no subsidy to fall back on in the event of some disaster related to commodity prices, climate events or disease.

We do not want to discourage sensible food production at a very uncertain time. People will say that the environment will benefit and the public will benefit from increased access, but we cannot eat the environment or graze ewes with lambs in a public playground. We need to study closely the clauses in the Agriculture Bill that cover the circumstances for intervention in agricultural markets and thereby provide farmers with a safety net to justify their taking additional risk rather than just harvesting subsidies. The intervention clauses are currently based on the existing common market organisation regulation—CMO—which now looks a little dated.

Surely we should be looking at other support mechanisms that are used around the world to support farmers in the event of the advent of factors outside their control. In this respect I urge the Government to look at insurance mechanisms, whereby farmers pay premiums to an insurance scheme supported by government. We could also look again at the cereals deficiency payments scheme that operated before we joined the EEC. Such schemes help to address the harmful effect of uncontrollable adverse events on producers, which is also of benefit to consumers, as it enables farmers to survive events that are out of their control and continue to produce, rather than going bust.

This is not the moment to go into the detail of the Agriculture Bill, but purely to make the point that we are wasting valuable time by not addressing domestic issues completely under our control that could have a significant impact on food production in this country. This would be a major contribution to the stabilisation of prices and availability of food.

Brexit: Farming Tariffs

Lord Carrington Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, as I have said, this country has gone further. The CAP finishes in 2020 and we have pledged to continue to commit the same cash total in funds for farm support until the end of this Parliament. If it runs until 2020—and of course no Parliament can bind its successors—that means a further two years of the same amount. This is why we are bringing forward our schemes for environmental land management, which will have the dual purpose of supporting farmers in their production of a good environment as well as good food.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I confirm my interests as a farmer. I am worried about what has been said in terms of certainties and uncertainties. There should be one certainty for farmers—that the subsidies they have been promised on schemes they have entered into are paid on time. This is not the case and I would like to know why. In particular, under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, payments of 75% were due in January and 25% are due in June. The subsidies for January have not been paid. I would be interested to hear how these things are dealt with. The farmers have made their commitments and paid the money necessary to claim under these schemes.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has said from the start that he is not happy about the manner in which payments for countryside stewardship and environmental stewardship have been paid. This is why they have been transferred to the Rural Payments Agency. Progress is now being made, but I agree that we have to do better in this area.