Agriculture Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to speak to Amendment 73 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and Amendment 274. I also strongly support the other amendments in this group.

Like many, I have been listening to the many varied and fascinating debates that have surrounded the Bill in Committee. I am holding myself back and contributing only to this group of amendments. This is partly because, while this is not my area of expertise, I look at this through the lens of the need for us to take a whole-economy approach to climate change. This is therefore the group on which I thought I had the most relevant comments to make. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I speak for a little longer than others have on this group, just to articulate why it is so fundamental to the Bill’s success that we address climate change front and centre in the Bill.

The Agriculture Bill is essentially a framework piece of legislation, but the collection of measures in it lack an overriding purpose and an overriding legislative goal for which we can hold the Government to account. The function of moving from the current system of the common agricultural policy to a new set of parameters and rules that the UK can set for itself is welcome. We all know that the current system of subsidies for agriculture has had many impacts, many of them environmental but many of them social, and this has affected how we interact with our land. We now have an opportunity to set a new path, and the Government should be commended for the policy statements they have made and the signals they have given about this new change in direction. That is very timely and will be very significant for generations to come.

With that, I ask the Minister if the Government could seriously consider adding a clause to the Bill that would make it perfectly clear that it is part of an endeavour to realign our agricultural and food sector with that goal of being climate-compatible and net zero by 2050. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has eloquently made the point that this sector, more than any other, will feel the impact of a disturbed climate—a climate that can no longer be predicted, where extreme weather events impact our ability to grow food and sustain our land in the way that we have been accustomed to. It is imperative that we take action in the long term to secure a stable climate.

The other interesting fact about agriculture and food is that both are a source of climate change emissions and greenhouse gases but also a significant sink—a way of absorbing more of the excess greenhouse gases back into our soils, our forestry and our land. So the sector is in a unique position, both to reduce its own impact and to increase its ability to be a central part of the solution for getting to net zero. For those reasons, it is imperative that we make that clear in the objectives of the Bill. Clause 1 says that future payments will be tied to environmental sustainability, but that is not precise or clear enough to give the Bill the direction of travel that it really needs or to give clarity about the purpose of the Bill and this change of direction.

At the moment, when we think about tackling climate change, one of the most politically difficult issues is that of who will pay for taking actions that at the moment may cost more but that we know will be beneficial for future generations. With agriculture, we are in a unique position in that we already see large sums of public money going into the sector. There is no need to discuss how we introduce a carbon price and no need to talk about taxation. We have a system that already sees a large amount of money from taxpayers flowing into the sector. It is fully understood that that can continue through a transition period, but we will be attaching a requirement that those payments deliver a public good. That public good, as defined through the lens of climate change, would see large amounts of money being given to farmers who found innovative ways and solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our ability to store carbon in our land.

This is a huge and exciting opportunity for the Government. We have set out for this net-zero target, we have legislated for it and we have led the world in doing so, but now we really need to demonstrate that we understand what that means and we know what policies we will need to get us there. The more cost-effective those policies are, the more we can point to our success and see other countries follow that path. We have an opportunity with this redirection of public money to demonstrate that it is eminently possible and hugely exciting to achieve net zero in our agriculture, food and forestry sectors at an accelerated pace.

If the Government are able to craft their own version of this group of amendments, clearly setting out that it is a core aim and we will see net-zero provided through this sector, it will be a fantastic opportunity to provide clarity for the sector. As we approach the next conference of parties of the UNFCCC in Glasgow next year, which we are hosting, we will also be able to point to our own domestic legislation to show that when we talk about the need to drastically reduce emissions and stabilise the climate, we are not just talking about it but doing it. We are putting in place the sectoral policies and sectoral laws that will drive investment.

This will be an opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind that, as we transition from the current subsidy system to a new system, it will be greatly beneficial to have a carbon target for the sector because it will draw in investment from other parts of the economy. If we wish to reduce our taxpayers’ subsidy into the sector, what better way than to do so through private sector investment paying for the public good of carbon reduction, carbon removal and carbon abatement in this sector? It will relieve pressure on the public purse and enable money to flow into the sector from those sectors finding it harder to abate. That is a wonderful opportunity, and with a bit of thought we can make that explicit in the Bill.

To summarise, this group of amendments deserves careful attention from the Government. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply, and we hope to see the Government take this on and bring something forward. This is not just about climate change; it is an opportunity to create clarity and drive inward investment and private money into the sector. It is an opportunity for the UK to develop a set of framework legislation that we can be duly proud of and which we can announce and discuss in the global context in Glasgow next year.

I, too, pay tribute to the NFU and all the farmers who are potentially running ahead of many in government and many commentators in acknowledging that this can be done and that it is an exciting opportunity. They believe that we can get to net zero in this sector earlier than 2050. We should be giving them legislation that makes it completely clear that we as a society, as a whole, are backing them in that and want to create the right framework to enable them to do it.

I will not detain the House any longer, but I hope I have conveyed my enthusiasm for this group of amendments. It would be fantastic to see a version of any of the four of them in the Bill in its next stage. I very much look forward to the reply from the Front Bench.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is a very important amendment. It is a rather historic occasion, because I cannot recall any other occasion on which I have associated myself with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, politically, but I completely associate myself with him on this occasion. For me it is quite simple: if we will the ends, we have to will the means. It is clear that agriculture not only contributes to the problem but could be doing far more to help solve the problem. We all have to think, wherever we are in society, how we can change our ways in order to play a practical part in this urgent priority for the survival of the human race. I therefore commend the amendment and am very glad to see the other amendments in the group addressing ways in which agriculture can contribute towards the objective—not just how it can restrain itself, but how it can contribute. This is a practical priority, and I hope the Government take it very seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. He feels passionately about these issues and I enjoyed his speech very much.

I agree with others who have said that this Bill is an enabling Bill. In essence, it gives the Government a lot of power and trusts them to go off and implement what we have decided without many checks and balances. I cannot imagine that there are that many people left in the UK who actually trust the Government any more, so why should members of your Lordships’ House trust them?

The collective theme of the many great amendments in this group is that they would, in one way or another, force the Government to show their working and allow Parliament to mark their homework. I think this is something that we need to take very seriously.

Turning to the amendments to which I have attached my name, Amendments 127, 134 and 137 are important because they will tie the Bill to the Environment Bill and ensure that funding is sufficiently allocated to achieve the environmental aims. There is little written into either the Environment Bill or the Agriculture Bill —two enormous Bills—to create a cohesive framework; both seem rather to create their own stand-alone systems. It is as if two teams drafted them and they were not allowed to speak to one another but just got on and produced their own Bill. Both Bills are setting up very long-term systems that will spread their tendrils throughout huge parts of our economy, and it makes sense to bring these together now, or we will be back here in a few years’ time, trying to close the gaps.

[Lord Judd [V]]

My Lords, I am very glad to support this amendment. It seems to me absolutely crucial that at this juncture, of all times, we should be committing ourselves to making sure that proper funding is available for agriculture. It is one of these difficult situations: for quite a long time in Parliament I have been concerned about it. We have a Minister in our midst who takes these issues very seriously, but he will not necessarily be there for ever—alas—and that means that we do not know what lies ahead; nor do we know how far the Treasury and other key members of the Government share the commitment and aspirations that we know he has.

It seems to me, therefore, very wise of my noble friend to table this amendment, because it is saying that we must not allow circumstances, inadvertently or deliberately, to create situations in which the amount of funding available for agriculture decreases. This is the very time that this should not happen, and I believe that this amendment relates to other amendments, not least those by my noble friend Lord Whitty which are coming up in a moment—or at least this evening, we hope—in which he talks about smallholdings and the rest. The point here is that I think we are entering an economic phase in which land and the opportunities it offers for productive, constructive and creative activity will become necessarily more available and more important than ever. I am very glad that my noble friend has wisely tabled this amendment.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I have heard it said many times by Ministers that the total amount of agricultural subsidy to be paid in 2021 will be no lower than the amount to be paid in the current year. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s confirmation of this. However, I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is quite right in his drafting of Amendment 105, because “the total amount provided” under Section 1 in 2020 is obviously zero. I think that what the noble Lord wanted to say was that the amount to be paid is no less than the total amount, including amounts provided under the direct payment scheme and other existing schemes.

I am not sure that it is fair to limit the proportion of financial support spent on administration or consultancy. A farmer might spend a high proportion on consultancy in one year and then nothing for several years. Different farmers categorise spending on administration in different ways, and if a farmer spends all his financial support on unnecessary administration, it follows that he will not be achieving the approved purposes and will not therefore qualify to continue to receive support. I am therefore unable to support Amendments 107 and 123, but I would support Amendment 112, permitting carry- over of unspent funds—but probably only to the next year, which I think is reasonable. Amendment 128, proposed by my noble friend Lady Rock, achieves the same purpose, although, again, I suggest limiting the right to carry over to the following year only.