Agriculture Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

If, as a result of a land-use strategy, there were to be multiple applications for housing development on what had been farming land, which had become available because of retirement or on other occasions, planning authorities would bless the day that they had a land-use strategy as part of their statutory obligations. Some of these issues will, of course, be resolved by a constructive approach to land banks. I know that that is not part of our considerations and that we have been promised details of a policy document in due course, but I just want to say, from some professional experience, that if we can find a way of using land that is currently banked, the pressure on the countryside will be very much reduced.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. He has a barrister’s brain and an Olympian’s frame. Mark Twain said, “Buy land, they aren’t making it any more”. Although he did not see the Dutch project of polderisation, he certainly had a point, which goes to the essence of the amendments in this group. What has connected every speaker so far is a simple point of coherence. It makes coherent sense to have a land-use strategy. Anything else would inevitably mean competing interests, with land often going to the highest bidder or the largest voice. I support, in particular, the comments of my noble friend Lord Caithness, and, in essence, I support the amendments in this group.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 227, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. England—not Britain, but England—is the fifth most densely populated country in the world, from a list that includes the city state of Singapore. The south-east of England, with London at its commuter heart, is obviously very crowded, but so too are the Midlands. For instance, the Peak District National Park has 21 million people within an hour’s drive of it. That is a staggering number of human beings.

The second fact to note is that, as Bill Bryson once said, the unique feature of the English countryside is that its citizens love it to death. We all feel it belongs to us. Furthermore, most of us want to live in it and to have a home there. A survey in the 1990s showed that more than 80% of those living in southern England wanted to live in the countryside, where less than 20% currently live, so there are immense pressures on our countryside, even before we start to plan our nation’s food production. There are demands for leisure, housing, transport, energy, forestry and business property, as well as our obligations in relation to biodiversity, landscape and climate change.

How do we deal with all these pressures? At the moment, the way our countryside produces all those services and goods is a matter of haphazard chance. There are, of course, myriad strategic and neighbourhood plans, guided by the national planning policy framework, but there is a difference between what people need to get planning permission for and how we actually want to use the land on the ground.

At the moment, most of the usage is dictated by the marketplace and responded to—admirably, in a way—by a new generation of young, entrepreneurial landowners and others who look for whatever possible use the land might be suitable for. But we have already decided in this Bill that the marketplace cannot and should not drive all land usage. With the powers in the Bill, the state is going to step in with large amounts of money—£3 billion per annum is promised—to buy land uses that the market does not cater for.

This brings us to the question of what we should use our land for, and where. The answer may be that we need a plan, or rather a framework or frameworks, possibly at different levels—we possibly need a national framework and a regional framework. Personally, I would avoid local frameworks as I fear they might encourage too much nimbyism, which could destroy the innovation we so badly need for our future land use. The one thing we do not need, of course, is a Soviet-style plan that knocks local enterprise on the head.

Although I think a land use strategy is a good and useful idea, I strongly support the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in his wish to have a one-off Select Committee in this House to really examine how best we could set up and implement such a land use strategy. There are now many new variables to go into the mix, including the need to plant more trees to absorb CO₂, maybe the need for more domestic tourism venues now that overseas travel has taken such a hit, and maybe even the imminent arrival of lab-produced meat and milk, which could dramatically change our farming landscape and what we want from our land. I strongly believe that this is just the sort of issue that a Lords Select Committee could get its teeth into to produce an illuminating and compelling message for government.

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[Baroness Worthington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly in support of this group of amendments. I would have added my name to Amendment 297 had I got there in time. A key feature mentioned by a number of noble Lords is that the shift towards a system of payments for public goods will remove a layer of regulatory protection from our countryside that we must address. We must ensure that a strong regulatory floor is created so that people can be rewarded for doing additional good work for the countryside. If we shift to a world with no regulatory standards so that everything is expected to be paid for, we will find a huge pressure on the public purse and we will see the potential for backsliding from the standards that we enjoy today.

I particularly wanted to add my name to Amendment 297. Although it appears to be technical in nature, it is an important and significant one in terms of protecting the current standards from the climate change perspective. The amendment would do two things—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will articulate this far better than I when she speaks. It would introduce a requirement for environmental permitting to cover the keeping of livestock in intensive fashion. It would add beef and dairy and outdoor pig farms to the environmental permitting process. Adding intensive farming facilities, which can be very significant sources of methane and ammonia emissions, to environmental permitting would ensure that we do not waste public money on reducing those sources of pollution if we can continue to use the existing regulatory standards that do the job for us.

Amendment 297 would also reintroduce a requirement that would be lost through the loss of cross-compliance on farmers to take reasonable steps to maintain soil cover and to limit the loss of soil through wind erosion. These again are sensible standards that we would expect farmers to abide by in order to preserve our soil stock. Soil is a vital element of a healthy, functioning farming system and of our countryside. I will leave my comments there, but I am grateful to make a short contribution to this debate. It is hugely important to ensure that we do not allow any loss of regulatory standards as we shift to the new regime.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge. Dr Pangloss found the hedge a perfect place for him to do his experimentation. Hedges and ponds are not only items of beauty for our countryside; they are the bedrock above the ground of the countryside. There is no negative impact, except for pursuit of profit, to getting behind these two amendments. In support of them, I ask my noble friend whether the Government will support them; we would not then have to be Panglossian in that respect.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of Amendment 230, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. Hedgerows are much more than boundaries and a way to manage animals, as a recent story in my local newspaper, the Halesowen News, illustrated. Local residents in Halesowen were furious when the council “butchered” their local hedgerows. The residents recognised that the hedgerow blocked noise and reduced pollution and they also welcomed the fact that it provided a habitat for many species of wildlife, including nesting birds and small mammals such as hedgehogs, and contained many flowers and fruits essential for the bees.

Hedgerows are an essential component of the local agri-eco system; that is why Amendment 230 is so important in making sure that we continue to give hedgerows the protections that they need. They also play a vital role in reducing the rate of climate change through carbon storage, they regulate the water supply for crops and reduce soil erosion. Animal health can also be improved by hedgerows: a thick stock-proof hedge can prove a barrier to the spread of disease and can provide shade and shelter and reduce wind speeds. Recent research has shown, for example, that lamb survival rates are increased by hedgerows reducing the chilling effect of the wind.

Where there are gaps in the law after we leave the EU, we should take the opportunity through this Bill to ensure that they are filled. Amendment 230 makes sure that hedgerows are not overlooked by the Bill. We cannot let some areas of nature be overlooked, and I hope that the Government will accept this amendment. If the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, cannot accept it, can he set out in some detail for the Committee how the protection that this amendment seeks to put in force will be delivered?

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 248, 250, 251, 252, 254 and 266 in my name, some of which are supported by my noble friend Lord Holmes. I will speak also to Amendment 256 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

Agricultural products, especially animal products, should all be raised to and maintained at the highest possible standards. While the Government prefer to leave so much to consumer choice, good and informative product labelling on foods is absolutely essential. People deserve to have reliable information about the food they are eating that is rigorously tested and independently verified, and there should also be appropriate fines for misleading labelling.

Too much greenwashing and misleading information is put out by big companies and trade bodies, which trick consumers into thinking that things are healthier, happier or fairer than they actually are. This needs to be sorted out so that truly great producers thrive without false competition.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 250, 251 and 252 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and Amendment 253 in my name.

As the noble Baroness said, there is tremendous and as yet largely untapped potential in labelling, not least in the use of QR codes. With technological advances, such codes contain so much information and have such positive uses for producers, consumers and indeed everybody in the chain. This takes me to the purpose behind my Amendment 253. It is in the marketing section of the Bill but is about more than that. It is about what we can do in agriculture and horticulture for all the products in this Bill, and speaks to products way beyond it in terms of the digital opportunity to drive efficiency and information for all in the chain.

When I speak of digitisation, I do not mean what is all too often the case, where a form gets put on to a database and that is called a digital transformation. That is doing nothing different; it is merely taking something on paper and putting it into electronic form. We need to consider what data is required, whether on welfare, provenance, ingredients, or the type of soil where the product was grown. What do we need, how can we then best collect it and at what stage of the production or supply chain can it be best provided?

Amendment 253 relates specifically to VI-1 forms for wine products to give a specific example but also to underscore the point that this is about all agricultural and horticultural produce. Indeed, it is about all goods and services. It could not have more resonance for the autumn and winter that we are about to go into. Currently, wines coming into the UK from Europe do not have to go through the VI-1 process or have lab tests. Given that 55% of the wine coming into this country comes from Europe, come 1 January, this is absolutely what will be required.

I am grateful for the background notes from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, which makes these points extremely clearly. It should be noted that the British wine trade is worth some £19 billion and provides 130,000 jobs. In fact, wine is the UK’s sixth-biggest export in the food and drink classification. We are a world hub for wine import and export. With this amendment, rather than just going for a form that would impose extreme levels of friction on the process, we have the opportunity for a digital solution: digital passports for wine coming into the country, leaving it and going anywhere in the world.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister. I call Lord Holmes of Richmond.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond [V]]

My Lords, I have two quick points for clarification, if I may. First, could the Minister confirm from the Dispatch Box that GI schemes have not already been wittingly or unwittingly traded away in the EU deal? Secondly, on the VI-1 forms, it seemed to me that he was saying that we will not be looking to impose a VI-1 paper-based regime come 31 December. Is it right that we will not be seeking to have such a scheme when we leave?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I have been very clear that the Government are determined to work in support of all the 88 geographical indications from the UK, which will remain protected after the end of the transition period. I will have to let my noble friend know about VI-1 forms, but there is scope to replace them and that is covered under retained EU law. I am afraid I do not know the timing of that matter.