Agriculture: Global Food Security

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, we owe a debt to my noble friend Lady Byford for introducing this debate. Over the years, she has done so much to focus the eyes of British Governments on farming, especially real farming and the problems of farming. This debate is particularly useful at this time. Without any dispute, agriculture is the oldest industry in the world, and unlike many other industries it is quite certain to survive for the wholly foreseeable future. However, it will have great demands put on it and the problem will be seeing how these demands can be met.

I shall talk primarily about British agriculture, but I was very glad that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, went further and spoke about some of the terrible problems that there are. I was rather struck when he talked about the billion obese people, which is a tremendous reflection of the imbalances among human beings. Hundreds of millions of people are starving, yet a lot of people are obese. That is a big problem in Britain, which I know the Government are addressing. It is very sad. The problem is soluble in only one way and it is not by fad diets and all these other things. Very simply, one must eat less. I wish that people would recognise my own recipe, which I hand over freely to anyone; for the lives we lead, most of us need only two meals a day. You need breakfast and one other meal. You do not need three meals a day. If anyone tries that, it will work more certainly than any of the fad diets on offer.

Farming is a wonderful life. It is very demanding but it gives farmers tremendous scope for entrepreneurial management. Farm workers are having increasingly satisfactory lives because they are getting increasingly responsible lives. They have more capital at their disposal and use more highly complicated and very expensive machinery. Therefore, a life in farming is a very good life, which, not surprisingly, many people wish to continue to have.

Above all industries I can think of, farming must be based on free enterprise. The greatest case history ever to show that is collectivisation in the Soviet Union. One of the tragedies is that in Russia today that legacy lives on. Agriculture in Russia, like many other industries, has made virtually no progress since the end of the Soviet Union. I have talked to people who have been there and have looked at some of its crops, and the yields are staggeringly low. Countries in Africa put Russia to shame in what is happening. Therefore, we must never forget that farming, above all industries, is an industry for individual farmers and entrepreneurs, whatever the scale. Peasants can be just as entrepreneurial as larger farmers, but this industry must be as free as possible from bureaucracy.

Sadly, we are all dependent on a huge amount of subsidy, which is primarily a substitute for market prices. I am very glad that so many noble Lords, starting I think with the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Hereford, talked about the need to get a better balance between farming and the marketing of the products of farming. The subsidies are a curse, but they are a necessary curse at present. They cause huge bureaucracy. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who was here earlier, for what he did to improve the Rural Payments Agency. It was the most ghastly mess when he took it over and it now performs very much better. I declare an interest as a farmer and as a receiver of the RPA’s single farm payment, about which I have no complaints because I got it in full very early. The administrative system is a great deal better than it was. Further, I am glad that my honourable friend Jim Paice, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, has now taken on a role as chair of the oversight board of the RPA, which is an extremely good move. There is inevitable bureaucracy under the CAP and we must continue to try to minimise it.

Some very large-scale mistakes are being made, one of the biggest in the world being the business of growing food for fuel. Much of it started with the Americans, who were anxious to subsidise their maize producers. It has gone on increasing and it is a very bad idea. Those subsidies come from the taxpayer and they are a distortion. I suggest that for the foreseeable future what is needed is the production of food to eat, not food for fuel. It is a distortion that has been dressed up, as have so many other things, in spurious arguments about climate change. The Americans in particular are doing that. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will look very closely indeed at food for fuel, subject it to rigorous questioning, and greatly reduce it.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, would not the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, agree that recent studies in the United States show that there is actually net carbon expenditure in the creation of these biofuels because of the enormous costs of processing? It is as much of a delusion as the noble Lord has implied.

[Lord Marlesford]

It is a huge mistake; I totally agree with the noble Lord. The carbon-generating inputs to turn food into fuel are colossal, arguably sometimes almost as great as the fuel that is eventually produced, and at a considerable cost to many people who need the money. In my view, it is therefore an immoral activity.

On the technology side of agriculture, a lot of discussion about GM has reflected some incredibly Luddite views, even in this House. I am surprised by my noble friend Lady Miller, for whom I have much respect in many ways. I made a note of what she said in her remarks: “GM may have a part to play in the future”. When I was very young and enthusiastic in the early 1960s, I tried to persuade the British Government to use computers more in the administration of hospitals, prisons and so on. A very senior civil servant said to the young pipsqueak that I was then, “Mark, before we spend public money on computers, we have to be sure that they are here to stay”. I was reminded of that by the attitude that some people take towards genetic modification. Let us remember that genetic modification is something that has always happened. The business of moving from wild agriculture to organised cultivation and selecting plants is genetic modification by selection, although not under the microscope. I very much hope that we will not oppose what is probably going to be the single biggest advance in agriculture.

Let us take one example. In Suffolk, which is my part of the world, we along with others are now suffering hugely from drought. In our case, we have actually halved the estimate of the wheat yield that we are going to have this year, so serious is it. There is the irrigation of wheat, but at £25 an acre inch it is very expensive. In March and April alone we were short of four inches of rain, so irrigation is £100 an acre. It is questionable whether the yield can in fact make up that expenditure.

I hope that the agricultural policy approach of this Government will concentrate on two things. The first should be to correct some of the mistakes made, such as growing food for fuel, and the second should be to reduce bureaucracy so that farmers can make the best use they can of the land. Finally, in case anyone thinks that farming does not have a spiritual side to it, one thing farmers have in common is the care of the countryside. No one could mind more than me about the beauty of the countryside. There are very few things that we can leave behind us in this world, but one of them is a more beautiful countryside than we found.

Flooding: Defence

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I remind the noble Baroness that no schemes whatever have been cancelled. Some have been deferred, because obviously we have to make very difficult decisions about the money available. As I made clear in my original Answer, we will involve local communities in discussions, which is why we have consulted—and we are reviewing the consultation—about how we can see the money going further by allowing communities themselves to have an involvement in these schemes, and for communities themselves or for private money to come in to assist the public money that comes from Defra.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Government relate the flood defences to many other applications, such as agriculture and wind energy. As you cross the channel, you can see that all the major dykes in Holland have windmills on them. Do the Government agree that we need to move in that direction?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, it is an interesting thought whether we should put windmills on all the dykes that we have to build for flood defences. I shall certainly take that on board and consider that matter, although there would obviously be planning considerations as well as to whether you would want windmills along all the dykes to which the noble Lord refers.

EU: Common Fisheries Policy

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, no I do not think that it has suffered a blow. The important thing is that your Lordships’ committee, this House, the Government, many member states and the Commission all now believe that reform of the CFP is necessary and desirable. As part of that process, we will push for greater regionalisation in decision-making, as we think that that will lead in the end to a much better process. We are fortunate to have reached a stage where there is slightly more agreement than there has been in the past. We want to build on that.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the data about the state of fishing that were referred to in the supplementary question are much less complete than they should be? The only data on the decline of fisheries available to the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the marine Bill came from an official of the EU. I am afraid that our colleagues in Defra were extremely reluctant to give us any substantive figures, and even now many of its documents are very weak in this area. Can we be given the facts both from the UK's and the EU’s point of view, because that should be an important part of revising this policy?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we would always like more data on these matters. I will take up the noble Lord’s point with officials to see whether we can provide better data for future debates.

Queen's Speech

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the coalition on its pragmatic pro-European and pro-nuclear policy. I am still waiting to see a European flag flying over our Parliament, as it does over others in Europe—although some Lib Dems believe in that. There were many good points in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. It was a very green speech, and I look forward to seeing her influence in future.

I will comment on the points made in the Queen’s Speech about manmade climate change and economic recovery. Both are serious tasks, but there has been something missing in today's debate. I say to noble Lords that the huge government investments in the UK in the past 13 years have had a dramatic impact on the environments of the most depressed areas. That money was extremely well spent, and we should recognise that. I saw much of this in the recent election campaign in the West Midlands.

I declare my interests as a former professor of climate change, and the director of a small consulting company. As to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford—I am sorry that he is not in his place—I was a senior civil servant and I always flew economy class. Not all civil servants travel first class.

The rise in global temperatures during this century is a very serious matter. Several climate centres, including the Met Office, the Danish met office and the Chinese met office are predicting that the result at the end of the century will be nearer 4 degrees than the 2-degree target agreed at Copenhagen. It would be possible to keep to the last figure only if worldwide carbon emissions stopped growing. Because of the complexity of climate change science and policy—as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, emphasised—we must have more open discussion. Scientific and engineering aspects must be considered. The Royal Society and others now advocate that.

Policies to deal with the situation must be international and realistic. However, they probably cannot be based on a Kyoto-style global agreement, as we saw at Copenhagen. One might compare the UK's ambitious plan to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 with China, which has stated in many public remarks that while its energy may be more efficient it will double emissions by 2050. Nevertheless, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said, the UK must collaborate and trade with all countries of the world, particularly those which are rapidly industrialising. One way in which we can do that is through our development of nuclear power, and through R&D into future technology. I part company slightly with the interesting remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool in believing that future nuclear technology will enable us to eliminate waste. An article in the New Scientist explains this.

As the EEC Commissioner for Climate Change recently commented when she came to London, carbon trading is now operating as an important aspect of making industry more efficient and stimulating energy emission reduction. In China, there are about five or six centres. There are others in the north-east states of America, and on its west coast. This may be one way in which we will find practical methods for reducing emissions. These should also be complemented by policies in the cities of the world. They are the areas where there is a maximum usage of energy, and policies have begun in London and around the world. We heard last night from the mayor of Mexico City, who was visiting London, about its remarkable policies, working with other cities. Policies to reduce carbon emissions can be similar to those for reducing air pollution, which is a major issue for people living in the cities of the world.

The Government should also, in the most cost-effective way, not only negotiate with other Governments and encourage cities, but work with United Nations specialised agencies, which are continuing. They were given leave to continue by the Copenhagen meeting. The World Meteorological Organisation is monitoring the climate. The Food and Agriculture Organisation is working on forestry. The International Maritime Organisation, the other side of the Thames, is working on reducing pollution from shipping. This is very cost effective, but gets little publicity in Parliament.

I will also comment on the work of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which we have been discussing this afternoon. These three strands come together in government policies for research in industry, which the noble Lord, Lord Broers, emphasised. High-tech companies in the UK have made many comments about the importance of maintaining the taxation policies of the previous Labour Government, to provide tax relief for research in industry. Again I declare an interest as director of such a company. For example, a professor of chemistry at Cambridge explained how this had been essential for the establishment of several companies.

Another aspect of the previous taxation policy was to provide much better maternity benefits to companies through the taxation policy. This has enabled women to have much longer and more successful careers in high-tech companies. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, will approve. Finally, I again approved of other remarks that she made because they so departed from the policy of the Minister of her party in the 1990s. When I expressed the need to use government purchasing power to develop technology, a very senior Minister in the Major Government said that that was something that they did in France. I am glad that that is something that they now do in England: good luck to them.