Water Industry Reform

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, has indicated his wish to speak virtually, and I think this might be a convenient time.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Seven Trent and Wessex Water told Gloucestershire county councillors that they had no plans to ever stop dumping sewage, while Thames Water said it intended to stop only by 2050. None of the companies believes that the Government’s Environment Act will change their behaviour. Is this another example of how arrogance, indolence and ignorance freeze the government machine, while our rivers are polluted with raw sewage and water companies rake in the profits? Should we not freeze water bills and directors’ pay and ban dividends until the problem is stopped once and for all?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I believe the noble Lord will find that, if these water companies think that the provisions of the Environment Act and in the statutory policy statement by Ofwat mean that they will be able to carry on releasing sewage at the current level, they have a very serious other think coming.

Food and Farming: Supply Issues

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, wishes to speak virtually. I think this would be a convenient moment to hear from him.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, how do the new trade deals with Australia and New Zealand help with the aims of maintaining Britain’s food production self-sufficiency level at 60% and creating an environment for farm and food businesses to thrive and compete in the coming years?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There is good news on a variety of different measures in trade deals, not least on the point of the noble Lord’s question. We are about to see the end of the ban on UK lamb being sold to the United States. Free trade is important; it benefits us all. We have incorporated into the two trade deals that the noble Lord talked about the absolute determination to protect our standards of animal welfare and environmental protection. That is the best protection that we can give to the high-quality produce that our farmers produce in this country.

Pesticides: Thiamethoxam

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, wishes to speak virtually. It is a good time to call him now.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Countryside Online tells us that the sugar beet industry supports 9,500 jobs, produces half of the UK’s sugar and is environmentally friendly because of the low number of miles beet travels from farm to processing plant to consumer. Mr Gove supported a total ban on neonicotinoids when he was Environment Secretary because they harm populations of bees and other pollinators. By allowing their use now, why are the Government breaking their promise to maintain high environmental standards?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, we are not. We are in exceptional circumstances, responding to an exceptional problem. We are imposing very high standards. I repeat that no flowering crop may be planted on land where this seed dressing is used within 32 months of treated sugar beet. There is a minimal effect on pollinators because sugar beet is not harvested after it has flowered. The other conditions that we have applied might well mean that it will not be used this year.

Future Farming Programme: Small Farms

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, wishes to speak virtually. I think that this is a convenient point for me to call him.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

With the reduction in help for agriculture since we left the EU and fears about unfair competition from new trade agreements, what special assistance are the Government considering so that British farms can continue to be viable and contribute to the making of—according to the British Cheese Board—more than 1,700 delicious British cheeses, including Stinking Bishop?

Trees: Ips typographus

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is aware that this is a very difficult area to get right. The beetle in question affects only mature spruce trees. It is very hard to use an insecticide on mature trees that would, first, be effective with the beetle, and secondly, not be further damaging to other species. It is part of the ongoing discussion with the Forestry Commission and its scientific experts.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, for more than 200 years trapped trees, pheromone traps, which the Minister mentioned, treated trapped trees, standing trapped trees and lure-baited fallen wood have been used to capture and reduce numbers of this beetle. Does the Minister consider this a more environmentally sound way of dealing with the beetle than spraying with insecticides? What research is being carried out to discover whether these tried and tested techniques are no longer working?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We constantly ask ourselves whether we are getting this right. As things stand, the pheromone traps are very effective in identifying the range and quantity of beetles as they move around the country, but we have this matter constantly under review.

Ivory Bill

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

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

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill to ban dealing in ivory. It is good that the UK is one of the leading countries legislating in the war against elephant poaching, along with China, Hong Kong and, possibly, the USA. I say possibly because it was reported recently that the US President’s wildlife board will permit wildlife trophies to be brought back to America. A young person told me that if this is true, we may have to change the song “Nellie the Elephant” to remove the words “Trump, trump, trump”.

We are in the midst of a global poaching crisis, which threatens decades of conservation successes as well as the survival of many species: rhinos, lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, elephants and, as we have heard today, hippos and pangolins. The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be the fourth largest transnational illegal trade, after narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, and it is worth up to £19 billion a year.

There are two elements to the problem: the market for ivory, and poaching. The big market for ivory was China, along with Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. China is now banning trade in ivory, or it says it is, but elephant populations continue to fall due to illegal killing and other human activities, notably loss of habitat, while seizures of large-scale illegal ivory shipments were at record highs in 2016. In east Africa, where elephant populations have nearly halved in a decade, illegal killing has dropped back to pre-2008 levels, and in southern Africa elephant numbers are stable or increasing. However, in central Africa illegal killing remains high.

Education remains key. I read a survey some time ago which revealed that three-quarters of people in east Asia believe that ivory is a mineral. Documentaries such as those made by Sir David Attenborough and others should be distributed worldwide, particularly to schools, so that the next generation will appreciate better that ivory comes from dead elephants and that wildlife is precious only when it is alive. If the market could be eradicated, poaching would stop, because there would be no point.

However, in the meantime, steps must be taken in those countries where poaching occurs by helping the wildlife wardens to do their job. There needs to be a tangible reward for information on poachers and their whereabouts. When park rangers, game wardens and other law enforcement agencies receive intelligence on poachers, they need to act and need training and equipping to meet the task. This costs money and a long-term commitment, although in reality the finances are marginal in global terms.

I am not in favour of the death penalty, but to stop poaching it may be necessary to eradicate a few poachers until the message sinks in that poachers are effectively on licence all day, every day, of every year, from now on. Botswana’s ministry of wildlife and tourism has a policy of zero tolerance: it does not negotiate with poachers. They are told to lay down their weapons, and if they resist, they do not resist for long.

In some countries, poachers with machine guns use helicopters in their murky exploits. They shoot elephants and rhinos, land, take the ivory or horns and take off again. This is not random poaching; as the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, said, it is highly financed organised crime. There is now hard evidence that these helicopter missions are linked to terrorism, drug money laundering and arms smuggling. They kill for ivory to fund terrorist activity or drug activity elsewhere in the world.

I favour the bazooka option for the helicopter raids. It needs only a few of these aircraft to be blasted out of the sky to ram home the message that the poachers are not going to win. It follows, therefore, that declaring war on terrorists and terrorism by removing sources of income extends to eliminating the poachers, and this could most usefully be tasked and funded from anti-terrorism budgets.

Our Government, to their credit, have ring-fenced foreign aid. It is about time we spent more of that budget on crushing the four linked crimes of terrorism, gun running, drug money laundering and wildlife poaching, perhaps using the fees for exemption certificates being brought in by this Bill. I note that we are sending more troops to Afghanistan. Perhaps they could be offered some R&R when they return, by training more wildlife wardens in areas where elephant poaching goes on. A few British soldiers armed with portable plastic bazookas should do the trick.

One shining example of where elephant populations are increasing is Botswana; I draw attention to my declared interest in that country. Botswana’s rulers pay attention to, and love, their wildlife. The country’s first President, Seretse Khama, and successive Presidents, knew and know the value of wildlife—not for its ivory and skins, but to attract visitors from around the world to see these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat. I understand that, should noble Lords wish to have elephants on their estates, Botswana will allow as many as you like free of charge; you just need to arrange the transport.

I should like to end with this personal experience. A few years ago, I was on a boat on the River Chobe near Kasane in northern Botswana. In the distance, I could see a large, dark object in the river; it was a very large elephant. As we got closer, I asked the guide why the elephant was there. “She is dying”, he said. “She is in the water to keep cool; she is the matriarch”. All around, there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of elephants of all shapes and sizes. A few weeks later, I went back to ask what had happened to the elephant. I was told that she had died, that the wildlife wardens had dragged her body on to the river bank and removed the tusks—that is what they do with dead elephants in Botswana; the Government take control of the ivory. Then, for hour upon hour, elephants had filed past her in an orderly fashion, touching her body with their trunks; they were her family, paying their respects.

Elephants are amazingly intelligent creatures with feelings, just like humans. In my view, they are far more intelligent than poachers, the organisers of poaching, those involved in the ivory trade and, indeed, the end consumers. Bad humans have caused the current crisis. It is now up to good humans to ensure the species survives by eradicating once and for all the trade in ivory, which has led to the horrible and indefensible crime of poaching. This Bill is one step along that road, and I welcome it.

Air and Water Pollution: Impact

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Miller for this important debate. We have heard a lot of figures about the number of deaths caused by pollution, but the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health estimates that 16%—one in six—of all deaths worldwide are caused by pollution. It is a worldwide problem, not just one for this country.

I will say a few words on a topic about which I have had a bee in my bonnet for many years: clean water supply. Yesterday on TV I saw an advert by the charity WaterAid. It told the story of a little girl aged about six, somewhere in Africa. Every day she gets up and has to walk for hours, carrying a large plastic container to collect water for the family. The water she fills that container with is not clean water like we get out of our taps, but water full of harmful bacteria. Instead of going to school, this little girl spends a large part of her waking hours fetching water that is positively harmful to her and her family. Every time I visit Africa I come back full of anger that we in the developed world allow so many people in poor countries to live like that little girl, with no clean water to drink.

I once went as an observer to elections in Sierra Leone. The village where I stayed had been in a rebel-held area during the civil war. Most of the buildings were damaged, many with no roof, no water supply and no communications. Every day a rusty United Nations tanker would visit, disgorging into old oil drums what they euphemistically called “water”. This “water” was either brown with green bits floating in it or green with brown bits floating in it. I drank bottled water I had brought from the capital Freetown, but the villagers had no choice. They used this substance for washing, drinking and cooking. I have seen similar conditions in other countries—Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Cameroon and Mozambique.

Yet, I met a professor of meteorology in Namibia who told me it does not need to be like this. Enough rain falls on the African continent that everyone could have access to clean water. The issue is how to store the rain and then distribute it to the people—water infrastructure. Charities such as WaterAid do what they can and should be supported, but I learned some time ago that WaterAid’s entire worldwide budget is less than what is spent by Thames Water on trying to improve the purity of the water supply in its area from 99 point something per cent to slightly more than 99 point something per cent.

We are very good at water in this country and, post Brexit, we are going to need friends all over the world. I can think of no better way to win the hearts and minds of people like the little girl with the plastic container than to help put in the infrastructure so that they can access clean water, so that she can go to school and many fewer people will die from drinking polluted water. So here is a challenge for our Government and for President Trump and our American cousins, too. Instead of threatening to destroy countries such as North Korea, why not use that money instead to help give Africa a decent water supply? Make long-term friends instead of long-term enemies.

We heard from the noble Earl that pollution is also a huge problem for animals and our wildlife. Animals are exposed to air pollutants through inhalation or ingestion or by absorbing gases through their skin. It is mostly the soft-bodied invertebrates, such as earthworms, or animals with thin, moist skins, such as frogs and toads, which are affected by the absorption of pollutants, while birds are more susceptible to air pollution by inhalation, due to their higher respiratory rates. Plants take up pollutants from the air, which are then deposited on leaves, ready to be ingested by an unsuspecting herbivore.

Just as long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and heart disease in humans, the ways in which pollutants affect these animals are diverse and frightening and include respiratory stress, physiological impairment, gross malformations of bones and teeth, birth defects, and, in birds, decreases in egg production and embryo survival. This can lead to changes in birth, growth and death rates and problems in migrating, which can have disastrous consequences for many species of birds. Of course, problems intensify when pollutants enter the food chain.

Acid rain changes the ecology of our waterways. An acidic stream or river does not make a happy home for our otters, for example, and fish-eating birds such as the osprey will need to find an alternative place to live. Pollution is destroying the environment by impairing its natural beauty, ruining its natural features and depleting natural resources. It is weakening our ecosystem and decimating biodiversity. While humans can, to some degree, protect ourselves from pollution in air and water, our wildlife simply has no defence against it.

When I discuss these issues with friends they ask, “Well, what can I do?”. Here are six things off the top of my head. Next time you change your car, buy an electric or hybrid model. Secondly, stop using insecticides and weed-killers in your garden. Thirdly, investigate using renewable energy in your home. Fourthly, recycle more, particularly plastic, which the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, told us about. Fifthly, contribute to charities such as WaterAid, which are trying, successfully, to supply more people with clean water. Sixthly, encourage your friends, relatives and local representatives—councillors, MPs, even, dare I say, Peers—to take an interest and take action themselves. Air and water: we cannot live without them.

Bees

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, of course, all public servants go through the proper procedures before they take up a role outside government after they leave government.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham]

Noble Lords may have seen a recent programme on ITV about bees, in which the Food Minister David Heath and Matt Shardlow of Buglife gave their views on neonicotinoids. Mr Heath said that there are other chemicals that are even more damaging to bees. Is my noble friend able to tell us what those other chemicals are and what action the Government are taking to ensure that they are not used? While ensuring that our Government implement the suspension of neonicotinoids as soon as possible, will the noble Lord encourage Ministers and officials in his department and scientists who advise them on this issue to take time to watch “Horizon” on BBC2 at 9 pm this Friday, when the presenter Bill Turnbull, himself an experienced beekeeper, investigates “What’s Killing Our Bees?”?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, as regards my noble friend’s second question, I am very grateful to him for resolving the thorny problem of how I should spend my Friday evening. As regards his first question, I am not absolutely sure of the chemicals to which my honourable friend referred. However, in the absence of neonicotinoids, we expect farmers to use the available products, such as pyrethroids and organophosphates, for their particular pest problems. Without something effective, the consequence for farmers could be a reduction in crop yields, potentially substantial in scope. Despite not being as effective as neonics, these other products are legal and have passed the safety tests set in legislation.

Bee Population

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on his wonderful introduction to this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Patten. I must get a lime tree from somewhere. I first became aware of the serious nature of the decline in the population of honeybees and other pollinators when a campaign began in my former constituency of Cheltenham some years ago. It was started by some keen environmental campaigners who wanted to protect a meadow from development. I went to see the save the meadow campaigners to hear their case and was impressed by their knowledge—and somewhat alarmed by what they told me. As we have heard, there has been a massive loss of wild habitat for bees and other pollinators.

According to Buglife, 3 million hectares of flower-rich grassland has been lost since the end of the Second World War, leaving only 100,000 hectares remaining. Plantlife says that only 2% of wildlife meadows and grasslands that existed in the 1930s survive, with over 7 million acres lost. I commend to noble Lords Plantlife’s Saving Our Magnificent Meadows campaign, which aims to save 75,000 acres of the most vulnerable habitat. I would be interested to know from the Minister what assessment the Government have made of the effect of loss of habitat on bee populations. The Open Spaces Society has concerns about this too. It points out that open spaces in town and country are crucial to the nation’s health and well-being. Unfortunately, it says that the Growth and Infrastructure Bill threatens people’s ability to protect their rights to land which they have long used and loved. The Bill outlaws the registration of land as a town or village green once it is threatened with development. It hopes that the Bill will be amended to ensure that people can still protect their precious open spaces. Will the Government consider protecting meadows—and indeed village greens—in any future planning legislation?

We have heard that honeybees are only part of pollination: wild pollinators are crucial, too. Hoverflies and other fly varieties, butterflies and moths, bumblebees and other wild bees all play their part in pollination. However, these species, too, as we have heard, are in decline. Buglife tells me that scientific evidence suggests that in the UK only between 5% and 10% of pollination is done by honeybees and 90% to 95% by other pollinators. Does the Minister agree with Buglife that, while important, honeybees form only a small part of the insects which pollinate crops?

Honeybees are generalists that do not and cannot pollinate many plants. For example, bumblebees and flowerbees use buzz pollination—their wings must vibrate to ensure pollination. Many wild flowers have very specific relationships with certain insects which have long tongues or corollas. Because solitary bees carry pollen loosely on their abdomens and not packed tightly in bags, they are 300 times as effective at pollinating apple flowers compared with honeybees.

There is some scientific evidence that increasing the number of honeybees reduces the fitness of bumblebees in the local area. The last thing we want to end up with is a monoculture pollination system relying on one species that has been, and will be, subject to cycles of devastating disease. Six of 25 species of UK bumblebees have declined by at least 80 per cent in the past 50 years; short-haired bumblebees have been extinct since the early 1990s; 72% of butterfly species are declining; and two-thirds of larger moth species have declined. In the past 35 years, 75 species have declined by more than 70% and more than 250 UK pollinators are in danger of extinction and are listed on the UK BAP priority list.

If these losses continue unabated, there could be the loss of up to 80% of plant species and 13% of agricultural production, which would limit future food production options and add considerable costs to the agricultural industry. In the context of a global population that is predicted to reach 9.5 billion by 2075, this is very serious.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust points out that 84% of European crops and 80% of wild flowers rely on insect pollination. Soft fruit pollination is carried out predominantly by bumblebees. The trust suggests that in the absence of bees, food prices would rise. For example, the farm gate price of strawberries would increase from a 2009 price of £2.21 per kilo to £4.06. There are many different estimates, as we have heard, of the costs to British agriculture. What assessment have the Government made of the cost of the decline in honeybees and other pollinators? Do they agree with the highest figure that I have seen, from Friends of the Earth, that the decline in pollinators could pose an annual cost to British agriculture of £1.8 billion to pollinate crops?

Let me turn to professional beekeepers and their most wonderful product—honey—for which I have a particular weakness. Noble Lords will know that honey products from around the world can be bought in British shops. Indeed, a visit to Fortnum & Mason’s will be rewarded with the opportunity to buy honey from Pitcairn Island, where the human population is around 50. The island must have the highest ratio of beekeepers in the world. My particular favourite is honey from Botswana—I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register. I believe that the beekeepers of Botswana have applied for approval to export their honey to the European Union and I hope that they are successful.

I asked Mr Chris Broad, the secretary of the Worcestershire Beekeepers, for his view on the decline in the population of honeybees. He currently manages around 350 hives and has some interesting views. His main concern is that the Government’s policy should be driven by a good understanding of the true state of affairs and he believes that in recent years there has been a lot of misinformation and spin on honeybee health. He paints what he believes to be a more accurate picture.

He says that honeybee decline has been badly misunderstood. Population has only ever been measured by estimating the number of beekeepers and the average colonies per beekeeper. Even when beekeepers lose colonies in winter they can easily double their hives in summer using the bees’ urge to reproduce.

The beekeeper population has approximately trebled in the last five or six years. This has resulted in a trebling of the measurable honeybee population. It also means the average beekeeper is inexperienced.

In 2005, for example, Worcestershire Beekeepers had 170 members. Now they have 524. The umbrella organisation, the British Beekeepers Association, has shown a similar percentage growth over the same period.

Mr Broad says that honeybee health is a different thing entirely. He is expecting poor survival statistics this winter as a knock-on effect of the atrocious summer, combined with the relatively low skill level of the average beekeeper. My noble friend Lady Walmsley told me yesterday that she had lost all her bees this summer, and I have been trying to imagine her in full beekeeper’s outfit, tending to her hive. I must also now add the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, to that picture.

There are a number of major health threats to honeybees, Mr Broad tells me, primarily varroa, nosema and foulbrood, but he believes that all these are manageable by competent beekeepers. However, he points out that we are struggling to deliver adequate training to novice beekeepers while also attempting to train waves of brand new beekeepers each year. Virtually all training is given by volunteers. Pesticides are a concern because they could potentially cause localised beehive deaths. However, Mr Broad knows of only one such incident in the last 10 years in Worcestershire and says that it would be nice to have some kind of compensation scheme in case of big kills but that practically speaking no knowledgeable beekeeper would treat this as a priority. He believes that our short-term priority should be to increase the skill level of beekeepers by any means possible. Mr Broad criticises the overreliance on the bee inspectorate—FERA—service, which in its current form acts as a very expensive crutch to inexperienced beekeepers, and could be regarded as a disincentive to them to learn to manage honeybee health on their own.

Do the Government have any plans to encourage new beekeepers, to improve training for those who have started beekeeping recently; and what measures are available, for example, on capital allowances to help those setting up and maintaining hives?

This morning Mr Broad informed me that he had received something from Defra regarding the consultation “Improving honeybee health”, which runs for two months from today. After skimming through it, he says that it looks very positive; you might say that the consultation has received broad approval. The consultation includes a list of consultees. I suggest that the Government also invite responses from Buglife, Plantlife and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, which have been very helpful to me in preparing for this debate.

We have heard a lot about insecticides from noble Lords more experienced than me. My contact at Plantlife, Adrian Darby, is particularly concerned about the effect of neonicotinoids. What assessment have the Government made of research by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health into colony collapse disorder?

In my view, the population decline of bees and other pollinators needs to be treated as a national emergency. The public needs to be more aware of the problem and encouraged to play a part in solving it.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has a section on its website where individual gardeners can assess the bee-friendliness of their current garden, and it suggests the right plants to grow. The top 10 recommendations are mahonia, pussy willow, viburnum, lavender, scabious, borage, comfrey, pink allium, bell flower, and yellow aquilegia.

Do the Government agree with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust that encouraging individual gardeners to grow particular bee-friendly plants would be beneficial to bee populations and other pollinators? In addition, do the Government have any plans for an awareness campaign to inform the public of the importance of bees and other pollinators? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.