Agriculture Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received requests to speak after the Minister from four noble Lords: the noble Baronesses, Lady Gardner of Parkes, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Boycott, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I call first the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on her speech. which covered most of the points I wished to make. However, I want to emphasise the importance of Amendment 75. The Minister drew attention to the improvements that have already been made. The detailed categories are set out in this amendment, but I believe they would benefit all. Public health outcomes must be borne in mind all the time. Our present virus situation has made us all much more aware of the need for this protection of the public. Allying that with improvements in the agricultural world is good. I do not wish to take up more time because this has been a very interesting and complete debate, but I support Amendment 75.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I note my noble friend’s comments. I think she probably meant to refer to Amendment 73, which is in this group. I thank her for her comments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, will speak after the noble Earl, Lord Devon.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, and to note that she is reflecting the support that is to be found on all sides of your Lordships’ House for the inclusion of the climate emergency in the Bill. I thank the Minister for her responses thus far. She brandished the “we have legally binding targets” stick that the Government very much like to bring out. I point out that we also have a Fixed-term Parliaments Act which supposedly sets the date of elections every five years—and we have had three elections in the past five years.

What we need is action. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, pointing to the report that has just come out from the independent Committee on Climate Change, we have not had, and do not have in mind, anything like the action that we need. The Minister quoted a 2019 report from the same committee pointing out the difficulties of making agriculture net-zero carbon. But the National Farmers’ Union, which is representative of many farmers in this country, particularly the larger ones, has set that target for itself. It is therefore surprising that the Government are lagging behind the farmers and are perhaps in conflict on yet another subject with what might traditionally have been seen as their natural constituency.

There are a number of amendments in this group, but it will not surprise your Lordships’ House to know that my favourite is Amendment 274, which was tabled by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and is backed by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. This amendment goes furthest and says that we must ensure that we meet our legally binding target under Paris and that we need real action in six months’ time. I also commend the elements in Amendment 272 about working with the devolved Administrations. That is a very strong element that I hope the Government will also take forward.

When we were last in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said that politics,

“is not the stuff of fundamental legislation but for the political hustings.”—[Official Report, 14/7/20; col. 1626.]

I am not sure whether the noble Lord would consider tackling the climate emergency—the existential threat that is facing us all—politics, but it is crucial to this Agriculture Bill and it has to be there.

I very much hope that we will hear in coming days and weeks a more conciliatory approach from the Government on this. They often talk about following the science; the science is that we need action. We have a special role as the chair of the—

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I can confirm that we are absolutely confident that we are doing everything in legislation and encouragement in order to achieve that end.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

After the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, I will call the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, who has requested to speak.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend on being the only person in this debate who has raised the question of whether the net-zero target for agriculture is feasible. Does she agree that probably the most realistic assessment of realistic steps to achieve net zero is the report Absolute Zero by the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Nottingham and Strathclyde, and Imperial College, which said that even a massive expansion of forestry will have only a small effect? It therefore concludes that to achieve zero emissions from agriculture would require,

“beef and lamb phased out by 2050 and replaced by greatly expanded demand for vegetarian food.”

I hope she will make it clear to the House that if we accept these amendments we are mandating the end of lamb and cattle farming in this country.