Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Members of the House will probably know of my interest in this Bill through my family business, as listed in the register.

Noble Lords may also know that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was a sparring partner when I was a Minister in Defra and, of course, a former comrade in arms when we were in opposition together. His rhetoric always encourages me to speak, but I must challenge some of his assumptions. His view of landscape and local nature, as defined in these amendments, is principally retrospective, and I am not sure I can agree with this approach. The contribution of other noble Lords has raised similar doubts.

I do not disagree with the noble Lord’s view, as Amendment 19 proposes, that the reintroduction of native species can be laudable, but he rightly uses the word, “appropriate”. That judgment is much harder to make if its purpose is to re-create a sustainable wildlife and ecology in changed landscape scenarios. Undoubtedly, landscape and ecology in relation to place are of the essence, but this is not static, and nor is man’s interaction with it.

Perhaps, I can illustrate this. Much has been done to address the need for natural ecology even in the fens, an area of the most intensive cultivation and agricultural and horticultural production. That landscape is my home. It is a consequence of human intervention: almost perfectly flat and an acquired taste. It is none the less an important centre of commercial production; pastoral, it is not. But every aspect of that landscape—the rivers, dykes, banks, fields, roads and droves—are man-made. Some of the best-known reserves of natural habitat are situated in the Vermuyden washlands; our legacy is a consequence of the 17th-century adventurers who created them. Turning the clock back in such a situation is not an alternative.

Some noble Lords familiar with the east coast main line will see, south of Peterborough, a project stretching through the Fens, as far as Wicken Fen near Ely, to re-establish a fenland ecology. This can be achieved only by a recreative process just as complex as the original drainage itself. Meanwhile, the on-farm projects which the Bill encourages are equally studied and managed. These illustrations are not rewilding but deliberated. I support this process and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to say that this is exactly what the Bill recognises in Clause 1(1)(c).

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is not on the call, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.