Agriculture Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

I will speak to Amendment 83 to Clause 1, in particular the work that my noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned. I will highlight the issue of catchment areas and draw attention to the fact that, while they create great difficulty in some areas of the country, they also do so in some of the most favoured areas, if I may put it that way.

The catchment areas in question are a series of spring-fed chalk streams and their seasonal winterbournes, which define the landscape around Winchester in north Hampshire. Many people know that they are famed for their world-class fly fishing for the most favoured in the rivers Test and Itchen, and for the watercress industry around Alresford. The unique landscape is a product of human as well as natural history, providing drinking water for Southampton and, at one time, pure water for banknote watermarking at the De La Rue works near Basingstoke.

In the last 50 years—certainly while I have lived in the area—more than half of all wildlife species have declined across the UK, never more so than in Hampshire’s winterbourne and watercress landscape, including its conservation areas, sites of special scientific interest and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Historically, efforts to protect rivers and their ecology focused on the channel and possibly the immediate floodplain. There now needs to be an increasing awareness that a river system is inherently linked to and affected by its wider catchment.

The water framework directive recognises this and requires a holistic view of the needs of the freshwater environment. It identified the pressures affecting Hampshire’s seven headwater chalk streams and set targets for the improvement of the chemical and ecological status of each. It also required stakeholders to be involved in local decision-making and delivery. Clearly, the quality of the water in these headwater chalk streams is critical, contributing as the streams do to the Test and Itchen river systems and the groundwater resource they share.

It therefore has to be a cause of considerable concern that recent surveys have shown that all the streams are at risk from excessive levels of nutrients, sediment and pesticides, the worst case being the River Alre, which is literally on my doorstep. The lake behind a weir, built in the 16th century to control the river waters before entering Alresford’s watercress beds, is heavily polluted with nitrates and phosphates, largely due to agricultural run-off. The Environment Agency is understood to have recently tested the water in the River Alre above the lake and found it below standard. An industrial-scale salad-washing plant is nearby and is licensed to use the river water to wash all pesticides and other chemicals from salads imported from Europe and elsewhere for distribution across the UK.

Apparently, the Environment Agency is required to negotiate with polluters over infringements rather than close them, with predictable results. The Agriculture Bill should present an opportunity to strengthen this rather toothless organisation to tackle this extremely harmful abuse. To give just one example, Salmon & Trout Conservation considers the presence of these pesticides responsible for the marked decline in Gammarus freshwater shrimp, the foodstuff of the trout of the river.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to the UK Progress on Reducing Nitrate Pollution report from the other place. Have the Government taken action to take up and recognise the recommendations made by the committee that produced the report? They will be essential to tackle this hugely damaging problem of nitrates in our watercourses, water tables and water catchments.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, as one of the silenced ones at Second Reading, I must begin by declaring my interests in the register. In particular, I point to the fact that I farm, have land and am involved in land management in Cumbria. I endorse the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and a number of other noble Lords about the condition of the uplands.

Although this afternoon should have been the second day of the Second Reading—after all, the Bill is not due to conclude until September—I do not propose to make a Second Reading speech. Rather, perhaps unusually, I intend to follow the recommendation of the Government Front Bench not to be repetitious. I have heard the various contributions made across the Floor of the House and it is clear that they run with the grain of my thinking through this discussion of the first group of amendments, many of which would improve, refine and calibrate the general principles on the Bill. It is necessary to be clear what the generalities might in turn entail.

Many of your Lordships have said that we are at a very important point of change—perhaps as important as joining the CAP or even the great radical changes of the 1940s. In fact, I suspect it is a more important change, because we have not only political and administrative changes; they are combined with very far-reaching scientific and social change and a great deal of enhanced environmental consciousness. That is why I join a number of your Lordships in saying that it is a great pity that this legislation is not being run in substantive tandem with the new environmental legislation due to come on to the statute book. The underlying reality is that many of the Bill’s provisions cannot be free-standing in their own terms. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, were particularly important in this context when he talked about the complications and importance of systems and administration.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, after the noble Lord, Lord Judd, speaks, I will call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, again.

[Lord Inglewood [V]]

My Lords, with the first group of amendments, we did the easy bit: we discussed the generalities. Now, as we move towards specifics, it becomes harder. I will not speak to a specific amendment, for the simple reason that I agree with them and I disagree with them. It is all a muddle. My starting point is very much the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lord Marlesford. After all, at the end of the war, it was clear that agriculture was coterminous with the rural economy. That is no longer the case. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Marlesford about the Rural Business Unit, merit very serious consideration and have an important part to play in the evolution of policy in this area.

As far as the immediate matters we are discussing are concerned, the crucial thing is to think about the provision of public goods. This is not a form of outdoor relief, but an arrangement for the acquisition, in the public interest, of things it is desirable for the public to have. Their acquisition divides into two separate things. First, it is an ongoing product which is essentially a function of maintaining land, but to do that, in certain circumstances it is necessary to invest capital. If you start looking at the economics of it in that way, it becomes more understandable.

The other thing that I have learned from farming is that just about all you can be certain of is that things go wrong. In this country, as we know, an awful lot of agriculture is conducted under the landlord and tenant system, but this disguises a whole range of arrangements between landlords and tenants. In those arrangements, the various parties contribute very differently and the risk is carried differently. In any event, if you are thinking about these subjects, how do you deal with the landlord and tenant system separately from that of owner-occupiers? How, in financial terms, is an owner-occupier with large borrowings different from a tenant who is borrowing “money” from a landlord? That makes it very difficult.

In addition, there is not only one form of land tenure. In the north, where I come from, there is a great deal of common land, as we have heard this afternoon. The problems with common land have caused considerable injustice in the way in which they have locked, or failed to lock properly, into environmental payments. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, spoke about conacre in Ireland, which I have heard about but never come across personally.

Furthermore, in looking at public money for public goods, we have to be clear that what is suitable in place A is not suitable in place B. Different bits of Britain are completely different from one another. I live in Cumbria, on the edge of the Lake District, but I spent a number of years in East Anglia on the edge of the Fens. They are as different as the automotive industry and the aerospace industry. We have to be very specific and careful and start by thinking about what advantage the public can gain from any particular place.

In terms of money, it seems axiomatic that there should be proper audit. This must be accounted for properly because, in any commercial transaction and wherever public money is involved, you have to be able to see what is going on and trace it properly. However, confidentiality is also important, a point which I think has been made. I am a dairy farmer; we have had our supplier on to us about security in the face of animal welfare activists.

At the end of the day, it is for the Government to work out what they want to buy under the principle of public money for public goods. As I and others have said, they are pretty vague in their own mind about what they want to do. In dealing with the consequences for the people on the ground, as much as possible—this has been touched on by a number of speakers—if it is appropriate to find an agreement between the various interests involved in the use of land, that must be a very good starting point to take it further forward.

[Lord Judd [V]]

My Lords, I return to the basic amendment for this group from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. It makes sense. It spells out more fully the range of activity which I am sure the Government intend to cover and specifies some of these areas more clearly. At this point in our economic history, which is not very cheerful, horticulture may become very much more important than it is even today. It may become an important part of our way of life and an important way of generating income for a cross-section of people. This will not be altogether a bad thing. It will lead to a better quality of life for them, frankly, than what they may have been involved in before. For all these reasons, we should be grateful for this amendment. I certainly support it.

Flood Response

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My understanding is that the property flood resilience recovery fund was part of the package following November’s flooding. The grant allows eligible local authorities, with 25 or more properties flooded in this timeframe of flooding—as in South Yorkshire and the north Midlands—to run a local property flood resilience scheme. Each eligible property under it would be able to receive £5,000 to fund changes that would help it become more resilient to any future flooding. To my knowledge, a number of insurance companies will also assist with that resilience. Having been flooded, one thing to do is to move obvious things such as the electric points. Where are they and can they be further up, particularly in areas that traditionally flood? That is why the pub in York, for instance, has its bar on the first floor.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

Does the Minister not agree that a good place to start would be to have a simple, blanket moratorium on constructing houses and other sorts of buildings in areas proven to flood? No ifs or buts; it should just be no.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I think that would mean most of London could never have been constructed. I do not mean to be facetious by saying that, but the truth is that many parts of our towns would be so deemed now. That is why we have the Thames Barrier and the hard flood defences that we do, and the Environment Agency is absolutely key to this. While I do not have the statistics in front of me, I think that very few planning applications that would be in a flood plain are permitted, precisely because of the point that my noble friend has alluded to.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard)
Wednesday 29th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, like a number of other contributors to this debate, I must begin by declaring my interests in the register. I farm in Cumbria, both in the uplands and on the lower ground, and I am now and have been for some time in receipt of basic payment scheme payments. I have received those because it was considered that what I was doing was in the public interest and should be supported.

That has been the case for a long time. For decades, not to say centuries, agriculture has been a market regulated in the public interest, but the problem now is that what I am being paid for is not thought a particularly good way of supporting me to do what I am doing, and nor is it necessarily supposed that what I am doing is in the public interest. It is thought more desirable that there should be different outputs that are produced and procured in a different way.

That seems an entirely reasonable proposition. What we are seeing today is a change which began in the 1990s and reversed a tendency that came into being at the end of the Second World War. The view that rural Britain was essentially the location of a single activity—namely, farming—is being replaced by a view that it is a place where there are multiple outputs and not a single one, food production. Let us remember, however, that food production is still important.

The hard part of this transition is the detail of where we go from here. A number of speakers today have detailed some of their concerns. I do not wish to go over that ground again, other than to say that we need also to look at the taxation system for both full-time and part-time farming, which is an equally important part of the rural economy, and at farming businesses from the perspective of sustainability. It is not desirable in the longer run for those businesses not to be able to fund reinvestment in those activities from the profits they generate.

It is also worth remembering—a point I raised in the debate on the Queen’s Speech—that rural England is similar in many ways to the north of England and the Midlands, on which the Government are placing considerable emphasis. As I said, I come from Cumbria, and I am chairman of the Cumbria local enterprise partnership. The economic condition of much of rural England is equivalent to that of the north and the Midlands, which have seen their standards of living and quality of life degraded by failure to keep up with the increased prosperity that we have seen in the south, and in particular in the south-east.

When thinking about the future of farming, it is also terribly important not to forget that we can generalise, but farms are different, random parcels of land. Many of the land uses and other things deemed desirable may well cross boundaries and it may be difficult to get people to agree on how this should be taken forward. Finally, it is very important that whatever emerges runs with the grain of land and water. We have to enlist people’s hearts and minds in the rural communities towards achieving an outcome that is considered in the national interest.

We already see cross-compliance attached to agricultural payments, and the direction of travel implies an extension and wider application of this principle. That does not seem to me remotely undesirable. Clearly, a combination of leaving the CAP and a reconfiguration of the definition of public goods means a new basis for payments. Hence the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament; hence this Bill, now to be followed by the forthcoming Agriculture Bill just introduced in the other place.

The reality of the current state of affairs is that the Government have little alternative but to introduce the Bill in front of us, and I commend and support it. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for his work on various aspects of the payments system, particularly his emphasis on the desirability of solidarity across the United Kingdom as a whole. I would add that those in the north of England, whose agriculture is very similar to that of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, feel when you talk to them that they are getting a raw deal and that they are being discriminated against. It is important that this is both recognised and acted on.

Having said that, and as a number of other speakers have said, the Agriculture Bill introduced in the other place does not really get us a great deal further. By itself, it is very little help to those who are trying to look at the framework and financial implications of a new era and want to work out where to go from here. It is important to appreciate that, looking forward, this is both a science and an art. I feel slightly conscious in saying this that I might be portrayed like one of our 18th-century predecessors, although I would not go as far as the nobleman who is reported to have commented that he was very anxious to die before Capability Brown because he wanted to see heaven before he improved it.

It is clear that, if the new regime depends on an embedded system of public money for public goods, the requirements and terms and conditions attached to it are crucial. Currently, as Professor Julia Aglionby—recently appointed professor in practice at the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas at the University of Cumbria—has pointed out, many in the uplands are currently staring into an economic black hole because there is no indication of what will happen next. This is a chasm as deep as that which separated Dives and Lazarus, lying between where people are today and a future sketched out by senior political leaders in statements of generalised policy tinged in green, painting a picture of sunny uplands a decade hence. Unless detail is forthcoming, and forthcoming shortly, I believe we shall have to come back to this debate 12 months from now and have a similar Bill to this one.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, my remarks this afternoon are based on those I was going to give the House in the debate last week on the report by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on the rural economy. Thanks to the slippage in the timetable, I was unable to give them. I do not wish to comment on Brexit because, in an era of socioeconomic change in rural Britain and elsewhere, it is more or less irrelevant to discussion of the issues, although it may become relevant to the framework by which the policies that are developed may be implemented.

I declare an interest: I farm in Cumbria, in quite a big way by Cumbrian standards, but not compared to many other parts of England. I have a range of interests in the register. Specifically, I chair the Cumbria local enterprise partnership. Both Cumbria’s independently commissioned research and the CBI reckon that Cumbria is one of the places in England that will be most affected by Brexit.

As your Lordships know, the post-war countryside in this country is synonymous with farming and agriculture. That goes back to the policies that were delivered through the mechanisms of the Town and Country Planning Acts from the early post-war period. This was not the way it was historically, and I believe we are going to revert to something that is more similar to what went before, albeit in a different way. We can see this happening in the evolution of the common agricultural policy from the Mansholt plan to the MacSharry proposals and then the Fischler reforms. In the context of the Mansholt plan, which gave the CAP a bad name because of the wine lakes and grain mountains, we sometimes forget that people were starving to death in mainland Europe in the late 1940s.

The question to ask is: what is the countryside for? What is its point now? How does it fit in with the wishes, aspirations and framework of the wider body politic? If we think about it, it is needed for food, the protection of the environment and landscape, access, wilding and housing—both for a general increase in the amount needed in this country and in the context of finding housing in the countryside for the essential workers who make it what it is. There are questions of carbon capture, forestry, conservation, the protection of the cultural landscape—that is why the Lake District was recently made a world heritage site—energy, flood alleviation, soil protection and water. It is sometimes forgotten that most of the water used in Manchester comes from the Lake District. We do not get a penny piece for that. The countryside is also needed for business, but it will be a 21st-century business rather than a 19th-century business . All this will have to be reconfigured in this country in the context of wider international trade. We need new markets in this country, but how will they interrelate to state aid rules, et cetera? I am sure that in dealing with the European Union, were Brexit to go ahead, not having qualified majority voting might be rather a nasty shock.

Equally, we have to be clear about the different types of rural countryside. It seems to me that they can be divided into two groups. The first is what I might describe as—I hope that I do not upset people—“outer suburbia” and the second is “deep rural”, or l’Angleterre profonde, which is the kind of area that I come from.

The mantra “public money for public goods” sounds very attractive but it is worth remembering that, even in the days of area payments, which still survive to some extent, there was a need in recent years for cross-compliance. We are already moving down that road. How are we going to decide how much money is required —presumably, the more public goods you produce, the more money you get—and who will allocate it? A very substantial bureaucracy will be needed to deal with all of this. The idea that we can reduce bureaucracy in the countryside while trying to do the kind of things that have been talked about seems fanciful.

Speaking from the perspective of a LEP chairman, how will the shared prosperity fund be delivered? Will local enterprise partnerships have a role in agricultural support, as has been suggested? On the other hand, I believe that Defra is very much against that. This is important. These questions need to be answered because the process of sorting out how it will be done needs to be put in hand.

In the summer—I apologise for talking about my holiday reading—I read The Cornkister Days which is about farm towns in Aberdeenshire in the period after the First World War. What is interesting about that is that in those days money did not leave the rural economy. If you had a blacksmith-made plough and a couple of Clydesdales, the money went back into the area when they were replaced. Now, if you have a new combine, the money leaves the countryside. One thing that we need to do is to get money back into rural Britain. If we do that, we will start to address the kinds of things that cause problems, such as rural housing. We have managed—in a way, despite ourselves and despite our contempt for paysans—to turn a group of people in rural Britain more or less into what we derogatorily call “peasants”.

It is interesting that east Cumbria, which includes most of the Lake District, has a far less good record on productivity than west Cumbria. The conclusion I have reached about that is that productivity does not mention things such as the area’s contribution to the tourist industry and looking after the world heritage site. We need to redefine it to represent the realities of the 21st century. All this is going to need money and proper infrastructure. In bringing that about, I think we need to bear in mind the old Turkish story of Hodja’s donkey. Hodja had a donkey, he fed it well and it performed for him, but then he thought, “If I give it a bit less food, I’ll have a bit more money”. The less food he gave it, the more money he kept, until suddenly it died. There is a real risk that, in thinking about rural Britain, urban Britain will be not merely not very generous but positively stingy, and then the whole thing will collapse in on itself. In that context, the Government should look at again at concepts such as the CLA’s old idea of rural business units. We need to think of a rural business person: someone who is partly working on the land or doing some work of that sort but may also be working partly in a market town. We should treat them as a single taxable entity.

I believe that the resurrection of the agriculture Bill is a good step forward—it is good to see it—but we need to be clear that that is the easy bit, and the devil will lie in the detail.

Ivory Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Lords Chamber

The House should be made aware that other countries use 20% as a cut-off. For example, in France, items incorporating less than 20% ivory do not need to apply for a sales certificate. Those with more than 20% need government confirmation that they were created before 1947. New York state also employs a cut-off of 20%. The amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Cormack would change the Clause 7 threshold from 10% to 20% and thus bring consistency to the new law, rendering it fairer and simpler to understand and apply, without in any way fuelling ivory markets in the Far East.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 24, 32 and 36. Before so doing, I reiterate my declarations of interest in the register from Committee stage. In particular, I am president of the British Art Market Federation. I also own a number of ivory objects, as defined in the Bill. At least as relevant as that, I begin by saying that I like and am interested in old things. I had the privilege to chair for 10 years the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. I am proud that I was appointed by the party opposite and reappointed by the party on this side of the House.

The purpose of my three amendments, which are linked, is simply to remove the requirement for registration of those items containing a de minimis amount of ivory, as described in Clause 7, prior to any possible sale. My arguments seem, in general terms, rather aligned with those of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and those concerned about musical instruments. The fundamental point is that my amendments entail no change to the substantive law being proposed, nor to the fundamental structure of the scheme around which the Bill is made.

We all know, as others have said, that we all support the underlying purpose of the Bill, which is to stop elephants being slaughtered for their tusks. The means that have been deployed to bring that about is to stamp on and out the trade in ivory that endangers elephants, graphically and appropriately known as bloody tusks.

The point behind my amendment is simple. The category of items I am looking at has no impact on the trade in ivory to the Far East that is endangering elephants. This point is recognised on all sides. The Government have spelled that out in the Bill’s Explanatory Notes. The conservation movement has specifically said the same, for example in the World Wildlife Fund’s briefing on the Bill. TRAFFIC, probably the most respected collector and interpreter of data about the ivory trade, as reported in the Art Newspaper, agrees. The art world—I draw your Lordships’ attention to a couple of articles by that respected authority Anna Somers Cocks in the Art Newspaper over the summer—is absolutely clear that these items in no way have anything to do with the demand in the east for ivory. Rather, we are talking about—as has been mentioned—inlays, shards and veneers: thin slivers of ivory, not the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Hague, saw at a London airport. The Far Eastern market likes chunks and lumps of ivory that can be carved. The kind of things that I am concerned about cannot be, because they are physically no longer capable of being dealt with in that way.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

If that happens, there is a real risk that the artefact in question will be destroyed.

[Lord Inglewood]

It is as the noble Viscount rightly says. But some will then say, as mentioned in Committee, that it is not necessary: “Selling it doesn’t matter—give it away to a charity shop”. What is a charity shop to do with it? It will want to sell it to somebody else, so it will be caught by the requirements for prior legislation. The only way that I can see this chain of argument evolving is that we may end up with refugees from other parts of the world surrounded by battered Georgian furniture, which seems a pretty surreal destination.

As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, the likely result of all this is that a significant quantity of all the items—which, let us not forget, have real cultural and historical significance for this country—will end up on the tip. In addition, let us not forget that going to the tip along with the ivory will be a lot of tropical hardwoods such as mahogany, rosewood and so on. For a country that cares about these things and tells the world how much they matter, as we do, to legislate and consign them to the tip in Britain seems ludicrous, and a sad end to the ivory and mahogany involved. If I might misquote John Betjeman:

“Goodbye to old things. We who loved you are sorry

They’ve carted you off by refuseman’s lorry”.

By no stretch of the imagination could these things harm anyone or anything. In a free country one should, as a matter of principle, be able to sell freely items of that character. You should not need a state commissar’s authorisation to do so. From what I have heard, the Government’s case for this registration is illogical, not based on the evidence, completely disproportionate, philistine and a gratuitously destructive proposal. As a consequence, I am strongly opposed to it.

[The Duke of Wellington (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 22 but, before doing so, I should like to support the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. I knew little about Northumbrian pipes until she spoke in Committee but her amendment seems entirely reasonable and I really hope that the Government will support it.

As I did in Committee, I declare an interest in that my family’s collection of works of art includes many items containing ivory but, as I also said in Committee, this is really a non-interest as I have no interest whatever in selling any of those items. However, the main point of the Bill, which I think we all support, is to try to protect elephants. I therefore completely support it and am very persuaded by what the noble Lord, Lord Hague, said in respect of Amendment 1. I agree with him that to exclude exports from the Bill would undermine some of its objectives and am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, withdrew that amendment.

However, I say to the Government that some of the restrictions on the exemptions are too restrictive. Amendment 22, which I am speaking to, has great substance and we should support it. After all, the Government have accepted the principle that portrait miniatures should be exempt. As we all know, they are painted on a tiny sliver of ivory. In no way does the value of a portrait miniature consist of its ivory content; it is in the quality of the painting or the identity of the sitter. Therefore, one really cannot pretend that it is a significant factor that so many portrait miniatures are painted on ivory.

The Government, therefore, have rightly accepted this principle. However, it is so surprising that they then restrict this to miniatures with an area of 320 square centimetres. I think I remember the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in replying in Committee, saying that this restriction would capture 90% to 95% of miniatures. I have to say to the Government that if you accept the principle of exempting miniatures but wish to capture only 90% to 95%, why not exempt all portrait miniatures? That seems logical and I cannot imagine that it creates a loophole that would give any concern to all of us who support this Bill.

That is really the main thrust of what I wanted to say. I really hope the Government will think again on the matter. I am minded to support a number of other amendments about percentage of content and other matters, which seem to make the Bill a little more flexible. It will be easier to establish that an object is exempt if we do not define the percentage of ivory content too narrowly. Therefore, I hope some of these other amendments will be put to the vote.

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Moved by

[Lord Inglewood]

24: Clause 7, page 5, line 15, leave out paragraph (d)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes registration as a precondition of allowed sales of de minimis objects containing ivory.

[Lord Inglewood]

I am very grateful to the Minister for the way in which he responded to my earlier concerns in our previous debate. I found myself almost seduced by his silver tongue. I found myself wondering whether perhaps he was right, but all along there was a niggling doubt in the back of my mind. As I said in my remarks, the scheme which is being adopted globally to deal with ivory poaching is basically the same right around the globe. The interesting thing about that is that there is nowhere else on earth where there is a registration scheme associated with de minimis exemptions. It is also interesting that in the consultation that was held prior to the Bill, there was no mention of registration. It was a matter that came into the frame—if I may put it that way—right at the last minute. That makes me wonder.

My amendment does not change the substantive law, nor does it change the scheme that this Bill is intended to put into effect. If this amendment were to be passed, two things would follow. The first one is that the very real concern of my noble friend Lord Hague—that somehow we would be outside the scope and general thrust of the international efforts to deal with ivory poaching—could not be the case. We would merely be doing what other people are doing. Equally, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made the important point that we do not want to be out of synch with other people. Indeed, you could make quite a strong case for saying that, on the basis of the facts, by including my amendment, we would actually be more aligned with other countries around the world rather than less so. I find it odd that we are being told that the right way to tackle this is rather different from the way that the rest of the world does so. It should be a matter for your Lordships to decide whether we want to be a bit different from everybody else or whether we follow the international pattern. Against that background, I would like to test the opinion of the House on this important matter.

Ivory Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 12th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having taken part in the Second Reading debate on the Bill. I was unable to do so, but, having seen the amendment put down by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I was moved to add my name. I will take a few minutes to say why I thought that that was necessary.

The aim of the Bill is well and good within itself and I support it wholeheartedly. The success of the Bill in reducing poaching will, we all hope, lead to a rise in elephant numbers and it therefore makes sense that we should also be alive to any unintended consequences that could arise. That is why I have added my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. I am most concerned about the consequences for developing communities in countries where the elephants are found.

The Minister will know—we have already heard about this from around the Chamber this afternoon—that human-elephant conflict is a real and growing issue in regions where elephants and humans live in close proximity. Indeed, the issue has its own acronym—it is frequently referred to as HEC. Smaller farms risk crops being devastated by elephants and the wrath of farmers can translate into hostility towards elephants and the granting of licences to poachers, which rather defeats the purpose of the Bill, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned. In addition, heedless large agribusiness, of the type that Africa is in dire need of, can cut swathes through traditional elephant corridors to food and water, causing major conflict.

The abhorrent practice of destroying majestic, intelligent creatures must be put to a stop, but it must be done so that it is permanently sustainable. If we are serious about the endeavour, we must be proactive in identifying areas where challenges will arise and take action to meet them. Some excellent work being done in this field has highlighted the important insights that local communities can provide, so it is crucial that those communities are involved in designing the initiatives for crop protection that will lead to elephant conservation. It is important that this is done by DfID, because it is best placed and has the best know-how and it will be able to take the lead in efforts to mitigate the impact of rising elephant numbers on the countries where elephants live and, in particular on the local communities, particularly farming communities, that may be adversely affected.

In conclusion, peaceful coexistence of humans and elephants is eminently possible through effective and sensible land management. However, we must be alive to the dangerous unintended consequences and must not neglect to give this issue sufficient attention.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the British Art Market Federation, as I did on the first day in Committee.

May I ask the Minister about the comments about resources that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, made at the beginning of his speech? On the first day in Committee I moved an amendment that the noble Lord will remember, about the requirement to register Clause 7—de minimis—exemptions. These exemptions, in the words of the Explanatory Memorandum, are there because they in no way, either directly or indirectly, contribute to the poaching of wild elephants. At the same time, the Minister told the House that government policy had been prepared with the benefit of the widest consultation, with all the relevant interest groups, including the wildlife interest groups. That being the case, having heard the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, surely it must follow, given the very small number of resources that are available to deal with the problems of ivory, that this stipulation that de minimis exemptions need to be registered is a serious misallocation of resources. The Government admit that they are not contributing to the destruction of wild elephants. Therefore, if it is an offence not to register, they are deflecting resources that could otherwise be put to better purpose. If the noble Lord says that it will not lead to any change or misallocation of resources, I will ask him what the purpose is of having that stipulation in the legislation at all, because it is conceded that it is not achieving anything.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Sandwich. I declare an interest as a longstanding trustee of the Tusk Trust, which has not just been looking to address the chronic problem of poachers and dealers but to assist in educating local communities about the importance of ecotourism. In this regard, it is important to consider an impact assessment report, which would help DfID to support local communities in their education efforts. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, that enforcement is crucial. Without enforcement the Bill would be toothless.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

If it would be helpful, as part of BEIS, OPSS does not have a legal identity of its own, as it falls under the Secretary of State for BEIS. Perhaps that is the reason why it is not named in the Bill in its own right. I will reflect on what my noble friend said, but that is the position on the matter.

[Lord Inglewood]

Having heard the Minister’s remarks, it struck me that when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, concluded, he said “This just will not do”, and he is right—it will not do. But having then heard what the Minister told us, I was unclear as to whether he will, in the period between now and Report, directly address the issues raised by the noble and learned Lord. His response struck me as being that of somebody interested in administration in reply to the noble and learned Lord, who was putting some specific constitutional questions to him.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am grateful to my noble friend for permitting me to re-emphasise that the Government will consider not only what has happened during this debate but also the recommendations of the Constitution Committee. I cannot be fairer than that at this stage, as my noble friend should know.

Ivory Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

I realise that the Minister at the Dispatch Box has little flexibility on any of these matters, but no principle is involved in the amendment. The principle of a portrait miniature has been accepted, so it seems strange that what is in effect a technical definition of size should be on the face of the Bill. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will feel able at least to say that he, with his officials, will reconsider the definition of size. If it would be helpful, I would be happy to supply details of the object I was looking at this morning.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendment I will speak to Amendments 20, 29 and 32, which are in my name. My suggestion is that the requirement to register Section 7 exemptions—that is, objects with the de minimis amount of ivory in them, which are not made of ivory per se but are ornamented with it—should be removed. I should declare that I am also the owner of a few ivory objects but, as a mere Baron, the extent and quantity of my ivory objects is probably less than that of most Dukes.

I hope that your Lordships will forgive me, but I want to go back to the Bill and look at the Explanatory Notes in particular, because sometimes we lose sight of what we are trying to do and why. Paragraph 5 states:

“The aim of the Ivory Bill is to help conserve elephant populations, specifically by reducing poaching, through significantly limiting the legal market for ivory in the UK. This is intended to reduce demand for ivory both within the UK, and overseas through the application of the sales ban to re-exports of ivory from the UK. This aim is in line with the 2017 Conservative Manifesto commitment to ‘protect[ing] rare species’”.


I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, can subscribe to that, as well as the noble Baronesses on the Liberal Front Bench and equally, I would hope, the Minister. I am confident that he can. The end of the next paragraph states:

“Finally, the ivory ban will demonstrate the UK does not consider commercial activities in any ivory that could fuel poaching to be acceptable and it sends a message that similar actions should be taken globally”.


I do not think that anybody would take exception to that either. It seems that there is a direct correlation between the sale of ivory and poaching.

Finally, the end of paragraph 16, which talks about exemptions, states:

“Strictly-defined exemptions will therefore apply where a ban on the commercial use of items is unwarranted. This is considered to be the case when it is understood that both the continuation of sales of certain categories of items would not contribute either directly or indirectly to ivory poaching, and the intrinsic value of that item is not due to its ivory content”.


Here we have an acceptance from the Government that, in certain circumstances, some items that contain ivory do not contribute in any way to the poaching of elephants. I am as enthusiastic as anyone about preserving elephants. Equally, I am interested in old things. It seems clear that this policy begins with the proposition that we should protect elephants, then says as an instrument of policy that the way in which we wish to do that is by introducing a ban on ivory that encourages the poaching of elephants. At the same time, it also spells out expressly that certain categories of items containing ivory do not do that. I am saying that the de minimis exception does not affect the market for ivory which threatens elephants.

That being the case, what is the purpose of the registration? On the Government’s own admission, this category of items does not contribute directly or indirectly to ivory poaching. Against that background, we have an embryonic system whose scope is very unclear. We have heard talk about 2 million to 3 million items, possibly more, that might fall within this category. Of course, not all of them will be sold—certainly not all at once—but we are not talking about a few rich and rare items, such as Byzantine ivories. We are talking about a very substantial quantity of, for want of a better way of putting it, household goods across the country. Given that the value of many of these items is small, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, the cost of registration will inevitably be big, relatively speaking.

I know from the Minister that the system and how it would work has not yet been finalised, but it will be expensive, time-consuming, bureaucratic and potentially iconoclastic. We have heard how items will be damaged or have the ivory removed if they are valuable. I cry no crocodile tears for the very rich man, whoever he was, who tried to sell the Chippendale cabinet in New York and found himself frustrated because it did not make as much as he wanted. If you buy works of art as an investment, they may go up or down in value, like all investments. The vandalism of that particular piece of furniture is a tragedy because, once you remove the original aspects, you degrade the inherent quality and characteristics. It is no good saying that a piece of furniture adapted in this way is the same as it was before. That is like saying that an original work of art is just the same as a photograph of it. It is not. This proposition intrudes into people’s ordinary lives. The other problem, as has been touched on, is that a lot of items in this category—such as chests of drawers with escutcheons or boxes with ivory inlay—are effectively, if not actually, the same. So, the argument for registration so that you can trace items will be more or less impossible in practice, even if it were worth doing.

Finally, you could say that at least we will know whether ivory is capable of being sold lawfully, but that is a pretty thin argument. If you can measure it once, you can measure it twice. Given the context and the fact that these items, by the Government’s own admission, do not contribute to the poaching of elephants, I also wonder whether it may be in breach of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights:

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions”.


I would have thought that being told that you had to do this to sell some of your household possessions is pretty close to a breach, if not already so. Echoing comments made on both of the main Front Benches, I am worried that a bit of collateral damage here is thought to be all right somehow. As I have said, I am as enthusiastic as anybody about preserving the elephants. I think, however, that it also matters that these items should not be indiscriminately and pointlessly put at risk and possibly destroyed or damaged. It is like a warlord saying, “We have got to take out that particular strongpoint in order to win the battle. If we happen to zap a lot of innocent civilians at the same time, it does not really matter. The end justifies the means”. I do not think that is right, and I think we need to be a bit more subtle in our thinking and sophisticated in our approach to this. This kind of “New lamps for old” attitude does not seem to fit the case of the world we are in. I would like to think that we should remove the registration requirement, not least because it seems to be a classic case of “de minimis non curat lex”.

[Lord Crathorne (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly comment on Amendment 17, from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and Amendment 18. We have heard from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, about items in his collection which exceed 320 square centimetres. That seems enormously restrictive. It would surely be better to remove that restriction so that anyone judging a miniature would have the ability to decide whether it was something worth saving and looking after. It is very restrictive to set the threshold at 320 square centimetres.

On Amendment 18, I think it is going to be so difficult to accurately assess the 10% threshold. I am at a slight loss to know why, if musical instruments may have up to 20% ivory content, it cannot be 20% across the board. As we have heard, in such countries as France, it is already 20%. I urge the Minister to perhaps give that a little more thought.

Ivory Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is intended to cover items described in Clause 7—those that contain de minimis quantities of ivory. In his remarks, he kept talking about “ivory items”. These are actually slightly different. They are not ivory items but other sorts of items containing an element of ivory which is integral to the whole. There are many more of those than there are pure ivory items.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have sympathy with the amendment. I have nothing further to add but the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has come up with a convincing set of arguments. I hope that the Minister will come up with some rather more powerful arguments than were contained in his letter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Inglewood]

My Lords, I want to make a few brief comments. When I last intervened, I should have explained that I am the president of the British Art Market Federation.

I commend the introduction in Amendment 8 of the word “religious” because there is too much religious bigotry about. It is important to respect other peoples’ views as well as thinking that your own are important. I should explain that I quite like what my children call “old stuff”. For a number of years, I had the very good fortune of chairing the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. One thing that struck me during that time was how tastes change. Can my noble friend the Minister ensure that the way in which these things are examined recognises that tastes can change? Sometimes, items that are considered of enormous global significance were more or less unrecognised even just a few years ago. That is very important to the way in which these arrangements—which will inevitably be capricious and arbitrary to some degree—are exercised.

[The Duke of Wellington (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for not being able to be present at Second Reading. Clearly, the Bill is a most important piece of legislation, as expressed at Second Reading and this afternoon. I am sure that everybody in this House supports the main objectives. I read the report of the Second Reading in Hansard, and I particularly commend the speech of my noble friend Lord Hague, who clearly, when he was Foreign Secretary, contributed significant movement to this attempt to control the undesirable trade in recently slaughtered elephant ivory.

Ivory Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in my contribution to this Second Reading debate I will concentrate on the relationship between ivory, works of art, conservation and the international art market. I declare my interests: I am president of the British Art Market Federation, which is a national umbrella body for the art trade in this country, and I was chairman of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest for 10 years. I am also the owner of a few ivory objects, of which only two—an early 19th-century ebony table, which is inlaid, and a Broadwood piano almost identical to the one owned by Beethoven—have any significant value as far as I know. I also have an interest in conservation generally, being president of the Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

Ivory is an extraordinary and romantic substance, which in days gone by was believed to have almost magical properties often associated with royalty. After all, the description of King Solomon’s throne in the books of Kings and Chronicles is witness to that, while for example, the throne of Maximianus in Ravenna, which dates from about 550, is, as anyone who has ever seen it knows, a significant and supremely moving historic and artistic object. Indeed, more recently, the ivory throne of Travancore in the Royal Collection was one of the stars of the Great Exhibition of 1851. As we all know, ivory has over the years been used for works of art of very real significance. However, what is interesting to me is that this manifests itself in two rather different ways: the object might be made of ivory, or it may be ornamented and/or embellished with ivory. The two are rather different.

As everyone speaking in this debate knows, there is a very real danger that elephants might become extinct because of the illegal activities of poachers feeding the eastern Asian market, where intricate ivory carvings are much esteemed and valued. Let us be clear: there are a certain number of these still in the United Kingdom because of our imperial past, which I understand are being exported quickly now in anticipation of the imminent ban. But we should be countering the demand of the Asian market, which is fuelled by a taste that to us seems somewhat alien and is reinforced by money—sometimes very large amounts of money.

While it could be argued that a universal ban on the trade in worked and raw ivory may not necessarily be the optimum way of dealing with this problem, it is no part of my case to argue that now. Rather, in the context of the Bill, I endorse the proposition that a ban with certain exemptions is the right way forward, since a universal ban would put us on a par with the iconoclasts of Byzantium, the extreme 17th-century Protestant reformers and today’s fundamental iconoclastic Islam. For that reason, I endorse the principles contained in Clauses 2, 6 and 9 of the Bill so long as they are actually implemented in accord with common sense and logic. I have certain quibbles about the details in respect of that.

I return to the issue of east Asian taste, which, as I have already commented, is for carved ivory which comes from chunks of ivory. As I said, much ivory here in the United Kingdom is essentially decorative and comprises inlay, marquetry and such things, which is generally but not absolutely invariably western taste. This is a form of ivory for which demand from east Asia is more or less non-existent because it is used in thin, shard-like fragments and tiny knobs for drawer handles and so on. Indeed, were this not so, so-called “brown furniture”—the market for which is currently depreciated—would be being acquired by dealers at rock-bottom prices, the ivory removed for onward sale, and the tropical hardwoods from which the furniture was made cast aside.

But this does not appear to be happening and suggests—as the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said in respect of musical instruments—that this material is not part of the international trade in ivory which we all want to stifle. As a generalisation, exemptions relating to Clause 8 —musical instruments—and Clause 7—pre-1975 items containing minimal quantities of ivory—concern items that are not in general desirable to the Asiatic market. Having said that, I am pleased because it is right that we have these exemptions, although there is a case for saying that the de minimis threshold is somewhat niggardly and outside international norms.

What to me is perverse in all these circumstances is the almost Kafkaesque process of registration outlined in Clause 10. It is particularly so in the case of Clause 7 items, where the cost of registration may well exceed the value of the item in question and the ivory elements of which are of little or no interest to the Asian market—which is, after all, the root cause of the elephant’s plight.

In the light of the consultation undertaken by the British Art Market Federation, and of the private researches I have carried out with local auctioneers I know in the north of England, it is well nigh certain that substantial quantities of antique items of considerable quality and age will end up at the tip because of a combination of the cost and trouble of registration. These items are not doing harm to anyone or anything, and simply do not merit such bureaucracy or treatment. The reality is that much or probably most of what comes on to the market of this kind now is the result of deceased estates and downsizing. The bureaucracy involved in registration is so onerous in one way or another that a fair amount of ivory and tropical hardwood is going to end up at the tip. Gestures of this kind, it seems to me, are not going to save a single elephant or preserve a single tree in the rainforest. As drafted, this measure looks simply silly, philistine and not properly thought through.

I turn finally to what has been touched on by a number of other speakers: what I might call the enforcement provisions, which I have discussed with my noble friend Lady Vere and her officials together with representatives of the British Art Market Federation and lawyers. As drafted, they appear to single out this sector for especially oppressive treatment, a view shared by a number of eminent lawyers. However, when we met she kindly agreed to review this point and engage further with it at a later stage of the Bill—something that I trust my noble friend can confirm later from the Dispatch Box.

This Bill merits general support but with a little tweaking, it could become excellent legislation which I could wholeheartedly endorse.

Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I must begin by doing two things: first, to declare my interests in the register and, in particular, explain that I am a farmer; secondly, to congratulate my noble friend Lord Lindsay on the timeliness of this debate. That is obviously partly because Brexit means that the CAP will no longer apply here, but, more importantly, because the general political and socioeconomic framework within which agriculture is set is changing around the world.

In this country, such change goes back to the Attlee Government at the end of the war. Perhaps to simplify a bit: it is now no longer the case that agriculture is the only suitable land use for the countryside and that food production is the universal presumption of farming. It has all become much more complicated and nuanced than that. After all—just to name a few—leisure, the environment, energy, carbon, ecosystem services, natural capital, flood alleviation, trees and woodland and landscape are all serious aspects of what used to be known simply as “farming”.

In this context, it is helpful to notice the recent inscription of the English Lake District as a world heritage site under the new category of “cultural landscape”. When I was a member of the then Lake District Special Planning Board 30-odd years ago, this process was then under way. It was only earlier this year, under the canny leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, that it was achieved.

What was traditionally known as farming seems to be morphing in the direction of what was traditionally known as estate management. A lot of what farmers previously produced as by-products are becoming part of their primary output. In the past, much of this was not expressly paid for, but it now seems that if the rest of the community wants such things, it may well have specifically to pay for them. Much of that, I suspect, must be via the clearing house known as the Government.

Subsidies for agriculture have overtones of feather-bedding farmers, but this is not necessarily the case now, even if it ever was. They are payments for providing myriad public goods and services. After all, nobody suggests that teachers and nurses, policemen and the military should not be remunerated for providing services for the public. Equally so it seems to me that that should be the case for farmers, not least in an era of the minimum wage. For this reason, it may be fanciful to suppose that public disbursements for agriculture will necessarily go down in a post-Brexit world. They may well have to go up, if this sector is to generate enough to enable those involved to have an appropriate standard of living commensurate with what they do and for the sector as a whole to remain sustainable.

Agriculture is not a homogenous activity. As has already been mentioned, livestock farming and arable farming are in many ways very different. In reality, I cannot see bureaucracy declining, since relatively detailed individual farm plans and contracts seem an inevitable result of the changes that will happen.

Finally, as we have already heard, today is my noble friend Lord Plumb’s swansong. He has been a friend and mentor to me for more than 30 years. His is a career which, as we have heard, goes back to watching the German bombing of Coventry in the war and, as a young man, buying cattle in Scotland for his neighbours in Warwickshire. He then moved up the hierarchy of the NFU, where my father, who was then a junior Agriculture Minister, commented, “He was difficult; that is to say, he fought the corner of his members hard”. He then moved on to COPA and the European Parliament and its presidency, which I believe to be the real summit of his achievements.

These days, when it is fashionable in some circles to display self-generated malice towards anything to do with the European Union, it is worth remembering that, in the eyes of many observers, of different nationalities and different politics, he has been the best President that the Parliament has had. Throughout that career, he fought for the values and interests to which he subscribed in alliance with his political friends at home and abroad, always promoting his country’s interests as he perceived them. As someone proud to consider himself one of them, I am sure that I speak for all his friends when I conclude by saying: “Henry, you’ve done us proud”.