Bycatch Risk Prioritisation Framework

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am aware of the impacts on sensitive species. The noble Baroness outlined that very well. We recognise that different action plans can help towards progress in reducing bycatch by bringing co-ordination and structure, and targeting the species that are being impacted. It is important, however, to notice that these plans are complex. They require significant time investment to ensure that they are evidence-based and deliverable. The seabird bycatch action plan will be designed to provide a valuable template to build on for future plans. However, it is important that we ask whether we should be focusing on the action that this plan will enable us to take or spending all our time on writing different plans. We need to get this plan off the ground and working, and then we can use it as a template. On REM, we are now working towards making it a statutory requirement in the pelagic fishery. That will apply to UK and EU vessels. We are planning for it to become mandatory in other fisheries, in due course.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, when we left the European Union, we were told that one of the benefits of Brexit would be that we could manage our fisheries sustainably. However, the report from Oceana UK published last October showed that of the top 10 commercial stocks fished in UK waters, half are either overfished or in critical condition, and scientific advice on sustainable fishing is being ignored. When will the Government implement a sustainable plan for managing our fisheries that takes into account scientific advice?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am aware of the report that the noble Lord refers to. It is important to raise this, because we need to continue to work on it. Through the negotiations that we have, we always want to achieve the very best possible outcomes for the UK’s fishing industry. However, at the same time, we must recognise that we need sustainability alongside that. There are always challenges that we need to work through. We will continue to work closely with the industry to improve our scientific understanding and to have a better understanding of management measures to protect fish stocks and improve sustainability.

Environment Act 2021 Targets

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

River health is incredibly important for all sorts of reasons. Coming back to invasive species, we have issues with invasive species, such as mink, in rivers, so we need to look at it in the round. We have agriculture pollution, and there is run-off from other areas as well. We also have the issues around invasive species; Himalayan balsam, which I mentioned earlier, destroys riverbanks. There is lots of work that needs to be done. We need to get the data and information correct so that we can target resources to make the biggest difference. But if we do not get our freshwater rivers sorted out, we are not going to resolve the biosecurity issues, and we are not going to meet our targets. It is something that we are absolutely focused on delivering on.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for arranging a meeting with her officials earlier this year to discuss Defra’s Habitats Regulations General Implementation Report for the Reporting Period 2019 to 2024. The report makes discouraging reading: of the 71 habitat types covered by these regulations, only 3% are in favourable condition. These include some of the most valuable habitats in the country, such as Dartmoor, the Ouse Washes, and so on. What steps is Defra now taking to improve the conservation status of these protected habitats, bearing in mind that one of the major causes of them being in poor condition is nitrogen pollution from agriculture and other sources?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

With the interim and statutory targets that we have on habitat, a mix of groups—farmers, environmental NGOs, businesses and the public—are going to have to come together to meet them. To meet the habitat targets, we have lots of inter- dependencies, which makes it more difficult. The noble Lord is right to point to nitrogen, which is a particular problem. This comes back to the noble Baroness’s question about rivers; this is an important part of our delivery around habitats. I know that the noble Lord has been meeting officials, and we very much value his expertise in this matter. I suggest that we continue to work together, because these targets are challenging.

EU-UK SPS Agreement: Food-related Standards

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to follow up on the point about precision breeding raised by other noble Lords. I seek clarification from the Minister about precision-bred products that are about to enter the approvals process with the Food Standards Agency. I am thinking, for example, of the vitamin D-enriched tomato developed by Professor Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, whereby one tomato contains the same amount of vitamin D as two eggs; we know that one in five children in this country suffer from vitamin D deficiency, so that could have significant health benefits. I understand from Professor Martin that this product is being submitted for approval in the near future. Can the Minister confirm that approvals will not be held up because of the SPS negotiations and that the Food Standards Agency will be free to approve the product if it deems it appropriate?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My understanding is that it is business as usual and that will continue while the negotiations are going on. If I am wrong, I will write to the noble Lord.

British Farming: Competitiveness

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct that we talked in our manifesto about the importance of public procurement in supporting our food industry. The Procurement Act allows contracts for certain value thresholds also to be reserved for smaller UK suppliers. We want to look at the big suppliers and the smaller suppliers in order that we can deliver that manifesto commitment as best we can, because 50% is a large amount of our food procurement. Last year, we had a new national procurement policy statement, which puts emphasis on weighting environmental and social outcomes in government contracts. British farmers and local suppliers will be very well placed to meet those outcomes.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, one way to improve the competitiveness of UK farming is through innovation. The Government have invested a considerable amount in research and innovation in relation to agriculture and the food system through UKRI. As a result of that, the UK is at the forefront of a number of novel technologies, including precision breeding and the use of AI to detect animal diseases. In negotiating a new SPS agreement with our colleagues in Europe, will there be a carve-out for these new technologies so that we can continue to develop and use them even if we have a new agreement and dynamic alignment with the European Union?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am going to have to disappoint the noble Lord in that I am not able to discuss any specific carve-outs that we are looking at during the negotiations with the European Union. What I can say is that the innovative areas that he referred to are under discussion, because they are very important both for our scientific communities and for our farming communities, and those discussions are ongoing.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2025

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Krebs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 will deliver the targets of the Environment Act 2021.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, the environmental improvement plan sets out how the Government will meet the legally binding targets in Sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021. These targets cover air quality, biodiversity, water quality, resource efficiency and waste, woodland and trees, and marine protected areas. I will not attempt to cover all these areas in my eight minutes, and equally I will not rehearse the debate we had on Tuesday concerning nitrogen pollution, which was highly relevant.

The urgent need for an improved EIP was highlighted last year by the Office for Environmental Protection in its January 2025 progress report. Only nine of 43 targets for the environment were on track, and 20 were largely off track, including targets that covered most of the areas in the EIP. The report said that the new environmental improvement plan

“must show real intent, and focus. It needs to front load efforts to catch up and to set out clearly to all, what has to be done, by whom and by when”.

The report of the OEP covered the year up to March 2024 and therefore reflected the actions of the previous Government. Today’s Question is about whether the current Government’s plans and the new EIP will improve prospects for our environment.

The new environmental improvement plan is distinctly better than its predecessor. It sets out the specific actions that will contribute to achieving the targets and who is responsible. I very much welcome this and congratulate the Government on their intent. However, the contribution of individual actions towards the delivery of targets is not quantified, and I will return to this point later.

In the end, it is not just the targets and the processes but the actual outcomes for the environment that will be the measure of success or failure. Take, for example, sites of special scientific interest. The 4,100 SSSIs in England, covering 4,200 square miles, are among our most precious habitats. They are supposed to enjoy special protection. However, the OEP’s report of 4 December last year concludes that only a third of them are in favourable condition and that many SSSIs have not been monitored for years. This is not new news; it was highlighted more than 30 years ago by Peter Marren, and the data for the past decade suggest that there has been no substantial change—and if anything a steady decrease—in the proportion of SSSIs in favourable condition.

Does the new EIP say anything to convince us that the next decade will be different? Far from pressing its foot down on the accelerator to restore SSSIs, the new EIP delays progress. The commitment in the 2023 environmental improvement plan to have 50% of SSSIs with actions on track to achieve favourable condition by 2028 has been delayed to 2030. The target for all SSSIs to have an up-to-date condition assessment by 2028 has been deferred until 2032. I assume that these delays reflect the reality of what is achievable. Even if we accept this point that there will be delays, I would like to know what is going to change that will deliver the required improvements, given that no improvement has been achieved in the past.

The delivery plan for protected sites was published last month. It includes 10 delivery measures and a monitoring plan. I assume that there must be something in the plan that has convinced Ministers that it will work when previous plans have failed. Can the Minister tell us specifically what aspects of the new plan give her confidence that it will deliver improvements in the condition of SSSIs? For example, does the delivery plan address the four key concerns highlighted by the OEP’s recent report? How many SSSIs are on agricultural land covered by agri-environment contracts, and how many more would be needed by 2030 for the plan to be on track? About half of SSSIs are within national landscapes. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will maintain the biodiversity duty for national landscapes, bearing in mind the recommendations of the Fingleton review?

I now turn to the question of who will deliver the outcomes. Although the EIP sets out clear plans and processes, the actual delivery of the outcomes will often depend on bodies outside government. I am pleased, therefore, that the new EIP recognises that the Government cannot achieve their targets without the actions of others. As the Minister will recall, my Private Member’s Bill was designed to formalise this by placing a statutory duty on public authorities, including landowners and regulators, to contribute to the Environment Act’s targets. Because public authorities such as local councils have many competing demands on their resources, without a statutory duty, this matter will inevitably move to the back of the queue. Would the Minister therefore consider adopting my Private Member’s Bill in support of the delivery of the new EIP? If not, how will public authorities that play a key role be persuaded to prioritise this objective?

I return to the contribution of different actions to delivering the targets. One of the key targets of the Environment Act is halting the decline of species by 2030. This is part of goal 1 in the EIP: restoring nature. That goal is supported by 33 actions, four of which contain the word “deliver”; some of the others include softer actions such as “publish”, “introduce”, “build” and “review”. I would welcome clarification from the Minister on which actions in the EIP will make the largest contribution to halting the decline of biodiversity in the next four years. This is especially relevant given that the latest official biodiversity statistics for England show that many indicators are moving in the wrong direction.

My final point concerns cross-government co-ordination. The new EIP recognises that the delivery of the targets will require concerted action across government departments. This co-ordination will be achieved through a new EIP delivery board. Some activity is already under way. For example, ARIA—the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, which is a non-departmental public body of DSIT—recently launched a research programme called Engineering Ecosystem Resilience, which includes the option of gene-editing ecosystems. What role does Defra assume gene editing in ecosystems will have in restoring nature?

I look forward to the contributions of other noble Lords—we have a small but select band with us this afternoon—and to the Minister’s reply.

Nitrogen Reduction, Recycling and Reuse (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank our chair for her excellent leadership in this inquiry, our clerk and our policy analyst for their excellent work and our specialist adviser, Professor Mark Sutton, for keeping us on the straight and narrow.

Our chair’s introduction was so excellent that I am tempted to simply say two words, “I agree”, and sit down. On the other hand, now that I am standing, the temptation to carry on speaking is too great. I am going to talk about agriculture. The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, having glanced nervously at me, I am glancing very nervously at him because he actually is a farmer while I have experienced farming only at second or third hand.

Agriculture, as we have heard, is the biggest source of nitrogen pollution, accounting for 87% of ammonia and 69% of nitrous oxide released into the atmosphere and 70% of nitrate leaching into water. The evidence that we heard, as has been said, suggested that nitrogen use in agriculture is inefficient and wasteful and creates unnecessary pollution, although of course that does not apply to the noble Earl, Lord Leicester. According to one estimate we heard, 45% of fertiliser added to crops is lost to the environment.

On our visit to the Netherlands, we saw that there are simple ways to reduce nitrogen pollution from farms. For example, farmers there showed us that dairy cattle can be fed on a diet with less nitrogen in it, which does not affect milk yield but reduces ammonia emissions to the atmosphere. We were also shown how the precision application of slurry, which is mandatory in the Netherlands but not here, reduces the leaching of nitrate into fresh water. In the Netherlands, research results from Wageningen University on how to reduce nitrogen pollution are disseminated to farmers via a peer-to-peer network. For some inexplicable reason, these and other equally effective and inexpensive measures are not mandated or widely adopted in this country. I therefore ask the Minister whether she agrees that we could learn lessons from, and indeed follow, the Dutch example.

We were told that farmers pay a price for their inefficient use of fertiliser. We have already heard some of the figures—Natural England estimated the cost as between £21 and £52 per hectare, totalling about £397 million per year for the agricultural sector, while the Sustainable Nitrogen Alliance, as we have heard from others, quoted a figure of £420 million of fertiliser wasted annually—but there are also much bigger costs to society and to the economy that are not paid for by farmers, the so-called externalities. As our chair mentioned, nitrogen pollution is damaging our ecosystems and the services they provide. According to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, about 30% of the loss of biodiversity in the UK is attributable to nitrogen pollution, and 99.9% of sensitive habitats exceed the critical load for nitrogen deposition.

Secondly, nitrogen pollution is causing global warming, with all the costs and risks that result. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that is 270 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. As I have said, 69% of atmospheric nitrous oxide in this country comes from agriculture.

Thirdly, nitrogen pollution damages our health. Many of our city streets exceed WHO safety limits for fine particulate matter that arises in part from agricultural nitrogen pollution. When you step outside the Palace of Westminster and breathe in these fine particles, remember that it is estimated that between a third and a half of them result from ammonia pollution from agriculture; also remember that they will increase your chances of developing various forms of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, cancer and dementia.

All these impacts of nitrogen pollution impose costs on our economy. As a nation, we would be wealthier, as well as healthier, if we got a grip on the problem. Estimates of the total cost of nitrogen pollution from all sources vary widely, but the WWF quoted a central estimate of around £11 billion per year; agriculture contributes a significant fraction of this. To get a fix on what that looks like, I checked: it is about a sixth of our annual expenditure on secondary education in this country.

Having heard the evidence, I was puzzled. If farmers are generating unnecessary nitrogen pollution that is costly to themselves and even more costly to society in general, why do they carry on doing it? The puzzle is even greater when you learn, as we did, that applying less fertiliser appears not to reduce crop yields; this is described in box 1 of our report. Over the past 40 years, crop yields have tended to increase irrespective of the amount of fertiliser applied. Perhaps, as the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, said, many other factors—rainfall, temperature and so on—affect variation in crop yield. But when fertiliser application went down because of the price increase following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, crop yields were apparently unaffected.

This suggests that factors other than fertiliser use are limiting productivity and, therefore, that farmers are applying too much fertiliser. Why would they do this? We were told by several witnesses that at least part of the problem may be that farmers do not have easy access to appropriate and trusted advice on nitrogen management. The Government agree with this conclusion that clearer advice for farmers is needed. In their reply to our report, they say:

“Defra are developing an online, free-to-use, nutrient management planning tool for Great Britain (NMPT-GB)”—


catchy title. They go on:

“NMPT-GB will be designed to help farmers and land managers in England, Wales, and Scotland to plan and manage nutrient use on their land”.


The tool, which was launched in a public beta version last month, sounds very good but, as far as I could ascertain, it does not contain any new information about fertiliser application. Instead, it uses the pre-existing Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s Nutrient Management Guide (RB209). This guide has been available since 2017, but I was not able to find out whether it has been successful in persuading farmers to reduce nitrogen pollution from fertiliser application. I therefore ask the Minister: has there been an assessment of the impact of the AHDB guide so far?

The guide does, however, provide clear advice on how much fertiliser to apply. This is set out on page 16 of the document in a section entitled “Principles of nutrient management and fertiliser use”. The guide states the following:

“The crop nitrogen requirement is the amount of nitrogen that should be applied to give the on-farm economic optimum yield”;


this is the point at which the marginal financial cost of adding more fertiliser would not pay for itself in the marginal financial returns of increased crop yield. In other words, the advice from the AHDB is to maximise net financial gain per hectare; of course, this ignores the other costs of producing the crops, such as machinery and labour. The detailed guidance also provides recommended inputs of nitrogen and other nutrients according to crop type, soil type and rainfall. So the information is out there; it is the just the case that, apparently, farmers either do not use it or do not know about it.

However—I return to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Leicester—when we heard evidence from the fertiliser industry, it suggested an alternative metric: nitrogen use efficiency. This is the ratio of nitrogen input to nitrogen output. For me—this is the reason why I debated this measure with the committee—the problem with this measure is that it does not tell you about profitability per hectare, which is the thing in which I would have expected farmers to be interested and on which the AHDB guidance is based. Does the Minister agree with me that maximising net financial gain per hectare, as in the AHDB guidance, is a more appropriate guidance metric than maximising nitrogen use efficiency, as claimed by the fertiliser industry?

However, this is not the end of the story. As I have already mentioned, the societal cost of nitrogen pollution is borne not only by the farmer but by the rest of us. The “polluter pays” principle, which is one of the five environmental principles that Ministers should consider when making policy, suggests that these costs should be borne by those who produce the pollution. I therefore ask the Minister whether it would be appropriate to amend the guidance on fertiliser use in future to reflect not just the direct costs of the fertiliser to the farmer but the total cost to the country. Perhaps, if the costs of nitrogen pollution and fertiliser use reflected its true impact and cost to society, as well as the specific cost to farmers, we would see more judicious management of nitrogen and less damaging nitrogen pollution. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and to other contributions to this debate.

Flooding Interventions

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right. As someone who lives in a rural area that floods regularly, I am aware of the important role farmers play in managing flood risk and storing water on their land. Farmers can access payments in a number of ways, as I am sure the noble Baroness is aware. One is the farm recovery fund, in cases where damage has occurred and farmers need to recover costs. It pays up to £25,000 and can be important to farmers when they have suffered flooding. We are looking very carefully at the Environment Audit Committee’s recommendations in this area. Farmers storing water on their land is an important way of moving forward, and it is certainly something we are looking at.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, when Flood Re was set up, my understanding was that it was a transitional body that would no longer be necessary after a certain period, once other means of insuring homes at risk of flooding were put in place. Does Flood Re have a limited life expectancy, and if so, what is the estimate?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that Flood Re was set up for a certain period of time. I am doing this from memory, and I shall tell the House if I am wrong, but I think it was due to run through to 2036.

We are looking at possible alternative arrangements. Clearly, the last thing we want to do is take away households’ ability to have insurance. We do not want to go back to how it used to be—people being completely uninsurable or having excess limits of, say, £10,000. That is not the future we see for insurance. The noble Lord is right that it has been set up as an intermediate system, and we are looking at ways to move forward.

Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness mentioned the Brexit deal agreed by the previous Government, which provides de facto guarantees for EU boats to UK waters beyond 2026. What we have done is to secure a deal with the EU that ensures returns for our fishing community, including scrapping red tape and restoring shellfish exports to the UK. This demonstrates that we are absolutely committed to the long-term prosperity and sustainability of our fishing industry. On the SPS agreement, I am sure the noble Baroness knows that negotiations are due to start shortly. I cannot give any further details until we move further down the line, but we absolutely want a really good deal for our country.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister would agree that there is no point investing in our fishing industry if there are no fish to catch. The sad truth is that, according to Oceana UK’s latest report, Deep Decline, over half of the UK fish stocks are being overfished, particularly the top 10 species. What plans do the Government have to ensure that fishing quotas are set on a sustainable basis, so that the stocks can recover and provide our fishermen with livelihoods not just today but in the future?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: overfishing has been a real problem and we absolutely need to ensure that it does not happen in the future and that the fishing quotas that are agreed are sustainable. In fact, they are, in theory, sustainable at the moment, but we need to get the best data we can in order to make the best decisions in the future. Clearly, we hope that working with the EU more closely will enable this.

Waste Crime

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right to say that this is a really serious problem, and the Government need to get to grips with it. That is why we are taking specific actions to try to start making a real difference in the amount and impact of waste crime in order to genuinely start to reduce what is a terrible blight on our country. We want to crack down. As I said, we have increased the EA’s budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% this year. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime has nearly doubled in size due to the extra funding we have given. The Environment Agency has been able to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource. We are also looking for further recruitment to enable enforcement work in the new duties that they will be given. The Environment Agency’s economic crime unit was launched last year and is specifically targeting the financial motivations behind waste crime, which are often huge, so that we can bring in asset freezing and freeze the proceeds of crime actions. We are looking to do a number of things to genuinely get to the bottom of this and tackle the outcomes.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will no doubt be familiar with the case of Hoads Wood in Kent that was exposed by the BBC a while back. Hoads Wood is a site of special scientific interest in which trees were cut down and 30,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste were deposited. It took four years for the Environment Agency to impose a restriction order to prevent this continuing, and now we are faced with a £15 million bill for clean-up. The Environment Agency has said that there are six other sites like Hoads Wood where illegal waste dumping is happening on a large scale. Can the Minister please tell this House, either now or in writing, where these sites are and what is being done to clean them up and prevent continued illegal waste dumping?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I will have to write to the noble Lord and the House about exactly where the sites are because I do not have that information in front of me. When we came into government, we acted to put pressure on to get that area, Hoads Wood, dealt with, because it had been dragging on for far too long, as the noble Lord is aware. That is also why we have brought in the changes that we are making, increasing the Environment Agency’s budget and looking to do more about enforcement, because we do not want these situations dragging on. The blight on the countryside is just too grim.

Global Plastic Pollution Treaty

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness’s last point was the main point—getting everybody back to the table. If we are to make a real difference globally, we need those countries with us to appreciate that the production method of plastic has to be part of where we move forward regarding plastic in the future. You cannot solve these issues on their own; it is a global issue. I know that it is incredibly frustrating that we feel that we have stalled. As I said, we have made some progress—we are getting to a better understanding of where other countries are coming from—and we will continue to try to make the further progress that we so badly need.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

It was reported last month that the sale of single-use plastic bags in this country jumped from 407 million items to 437 million in one year, a 7% increase. This was largely driven by online shopping, and particularly by the online supermarket Ocado, which accounts for about half of the single-use plastic bags sold. Although Ocado claims that most of its bags are recycled, we know that in the waste hierarchy, avoidance of use comes above recycling, and other supermarkets, such as Waitrose, provide online deliveries without plastic bags. Could the Government engage in conversations with our major supermarkets to encourage them not to use single-use plastic bags for food delivery?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a really important point. We have to continue to reduce our own plastic use in this country. Whereas recycling is important, if you do not have to use it in the first place, that is clearly an even better way to behave. We talk to supermarkets on all sorts of issues, and the noble Lord is absolutely right that this is something that we need to discuss and tackle with them. Consumers are expected to change their behaviour, but it is also important that retailers—and that includes online retailers—ensure that their behaviour is not adding to the plastic pollution problem.