Pesticides: Bees

Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the whole point of this debate is that it is quite finely balanced. That is why we are doing extra fieldwork. As to whether there is an effect on the honey harvest, it is difficult to say because we do not have categoric evidence that there is an unacceptable level of harm to bees.

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, if I may answer the previous question, this is not about the availability of honey; it is about pollinators. If these chemicals are damaging bees, they are damaging other pollinators at the same time. Is the noble Lord aware of the five principal problems that appear to be arising from the use of these chemicals: fatally late swarming activity, large numbers of virgin queens not returning to the colony after mating, failure of mated queens to continue to lay fertilised eggs, a high proportion of queens producing only unfertilised “male” eggs, and abnormal supersedure?

[Lord De Mauley]

First, I categorically agree with the noble Lord that we need to talk about all pollinators. Bees are an important pollinator, but there are several other important ones. As regards his other question, those are assertions that have come out of eminently acceptable laboratory trials. Our proposal is that what is needed, and what is lacking, is evidence of what actually happens in the field.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord De Mauley

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, my noble friend will know that a great number of professionals, scientists and experts are already involved in this process. There is also, indeed, an independent panel which will monitor the results of the cull, and we are extremely grateful for all the advice that we get.

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, there have been probably inescapable pressures on farmers to manage cattle as they do. Will the Government also look, among the options, at any evidence suggesting that the resistance of our present herds has been lowered not least as a result of inbreeding? For example, how many bulls are responsible today for our white cattle herds of Holsteins and Friesians?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I have heard no evidence that inbreeding contributes to the incidence of TB.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 6th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak, but some of the comments made require a response. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, put his finger on one point: we have had much discussion about competition for the universal service when it does not exist and, in my own judgment, never will. However, you need regulation, because science moves on and who knows what might happen?

I was interested in the intervention of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, because I was going to use as a not-too-strong illustration the supermarkets. It is very interesting that they have not come together to provide a universal delivery service; they all do it on their own. Whether they ever will, I do not know, but I think that people would be very worried if we had the system which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has just suggested, because the delivery of one’s letter in 24 hours would disappear and it would become increasingly difficult to discover who was responsible for it.

I shall move on to something more practical; the low cost of postage in this country, as has been mentioned. A couple of days ago, the Telegraph ran one of its happy headlines about the increase in the price of postage, and now utterly unrealistic correspondence is going on. I should like to put the differences on record. Despite the increase that is about to take place, we are still the second cheapest in Europe and the only country which has a mandatory access service. No other country in Europe has picked that up—not one. The new price of posting a first-class letter in the UK is to be 46p as compared with the following countries, none of which has an access requirement. In Denmark it costs 64p; in Germany 48p; in Belgium 51p; in the Netherlands 38p; in Sweden 58p; in France 50p; in Austria 48p; and in Spain, at the bottom, 30p, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has had experience of its postal service. Whichever company ultimately buys Royal Mail, it will seek to make a profit, so how can we conceivably expect a price structure to exist unless we have some regulation over it? We should be realistic, not only with ourselves but with the country, about the fact that there will continue to be increases in the price of mail in this country.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the essence of this large group of amendments concerns the balance between protecting the universal service on the one hand and allowing competition on the other. We agree that the new regulatory regime must strike the right balance between those two objectives. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed informed views from both ends of that spectrum. Satisfying all noble Lords will be something of a challenge.

The Government’s policy for the mail market is clear: competition is beneficial but must not undermine the universal service. Securing the universal service is therefore the overarching objective of the Bill. Clause 28, which gives Ofcom its primary duties for postal services, and Clauses 37 and 38, which relate to the access regime, are fundamentally important to ensuring that that objective is met.

Amendment 24GC seeks to remove subsection (3) of Clause 28, which ensures that, in performing its primary duty, Ofcom must have regard to the need for the provision of the universal postal service to be both financially sustainable and efficient. It is vital that the Bill ensures that Ofcom considers the impact of all that it does in regulating the market on the long-term financial sustainability of the universal service. None of us would want Ofcom to support the development of the market in a way that would undermine the long-term viability of the universal service. Furthermore, it is common ground that Royal Mail needs to modernise and to become ever more efficient. It is therefore also important that the financial sustainability requirement is balanced by a duty to have regard to the need for efficiency. Clause 28(3) is therefore a vital part of the new regulatory framework that we are creating.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, suggested that there will be pressure to remove parts of the universal service that are not efficient. The requirements to have regard to both financial sustainability and efficiency apply to the universal service as a whole; it is both inevitable and in the nature of any universal service that some parts of it will be profitable and will need to cross-subsidise those parts that are not. There is nothing in the approach set out in the Bill that could or would lead to every individual component of the universal service needing to be profitable in itself—although, obviously, Royal Mail would hope that they could be. The Bill seeks to ensure that the universal service as a whole is financially sustainable and that it is delivered efficiently to the requirements and standards set.