Biodiversity Net Gain

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Lord is aware that restoring marine biodiversity is very complicated. In many ways, it is more complex than restoring biodiversity on land; it is a very challenging subject. Clearly, we need to look at the marine conservation zones to see what they can do, and to work internationally on this because it is a broad international area. The Government are reviewing this at the moment.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, last harvest, the UK’s wheat production fell by 30%—from 14 million to 10 million tonnes. One of the reasons was that so much land had been taken out of production for environmental schemes. We have heard that land for BNG must be locked away for 30 years. What assessment has been made of the long-term impact on our food security of locking land away for a generation, making it unavailable for food production?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I suggest that the noble Lord looks in detail at our land use frame- work when we put it out for consultation shortly. That is one of the things we want to look at, and it is why we are doing the framework: we need to balance our need to produce food against environmental considerations—where we plant our trees, build our houses, and so forth. I look forward to a good debate on that subject.