Queen’s Speech

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the title of this debate must have been designed as an illustration of the Prime Minister’s erroneous claim that Brexit is done, since neither Brexit nor the European Union feature in it. Are we supposed to regard the EU already as part of “foreign affairs”?

I have to recognise the reality that Brexit is happening, although I cannot and will not accept it. I think it is a terrible mistake. I will never be reconciled to it; I hope that future generations will take the UK back into the EU—not least when they find that ending free movement not only destabilises and harms EU and EEA citizens but rips from British citizens the opportunity that their parents and grandparents have enjoyed to live, work and retire on the continent.

My colleague in the other place, Wera Hobhouse, put it very well in the Second Reading debate on the withdrawal agreement Bill, on 20 December, when she stressed that her,

“passionate belief that the UK is better off as a proud member inside the EU, rather than as an irrelevant outsider, has not melted away overnight.”

She went on to describe the withdrawal agreement as,

“damaging to our economy, our security, our international reputation and our ability to tackle the global climate emergency … it will put a border in the Irish sea and threaten our family of nations. Most of all, we will lose something profoundly British: being international, and leading in the continuous fight for liberal values, human rights and a rules-based international order. We Liberal Democrats will always fight for that.”—[Official Report; Commons, 20/12/19; col. 177.]

We have seen a major illustration in recent days of the challenges Wera Hobhouse enumerated in the crisis over Iran, which also encapsulates the warning of my leader, my noble friend Lord Newby, in his response to the Queen’s Speech on 18 December, that,

“the aspiration of having your cake and eating it is about to be dashed.”—[Official Report; 18/12/19; col. 21.]

But cakeism is exactly what the Prime Minister tried to continue to enjoy in the several days that it took him to come home from his luxury beach holiday in Mustique and address the Iran crisis. The killing of Qasem Soleimani has raised tensions throughout the Middle East while the Prime Minister stayed in the Caribbean, took three days to make an official response and now, I understand, will not be updating MPs in the emergency debate.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I think the whole the House will regard those comments as unworthy of a great political party and quite inappropriate when we are discussing serious things today.

[Baroness Ludford]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, with which I profoundly disagree. Frankly, there is a crisis over President Trump’s impetuous decision to assassinate Mr Soleimani, as unpleasant a character as he certainly was. It would have behoved the Prime Minister to be rather more visible sooner.

Apart from all the other potential threats, the crisis may well endanger further the situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other Britons in Iran. What update can the Government give us in that regard? I heard Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the outgoing—and hoping to be incoming—chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, say on “World at One” that the crisis might have a silver lining in allowing a reset of relations with Iran. He may be among few in thinking that there will be any kind of silver lining.

Mr Johnson has tried to bridge supporting the so-called right of the United States to defend itself—a doubtful justification which appears to have no support in international law—and aligning with his European partners to call on both sides not to escalate into a devastating cycle of violence. There is confusion as well as recklessness in Washington, with President’s Trump’s decision on the assassination having apparently been made on the spur of the moment without any strategic plan. Apparently, the letter announcing the withdrawal of US forces sent by the US military in Iraq to the Iraqi Government was issued in error and US forces are not withdrawing. What is the situation with UK forces?

Instead of being a bridge, the Prime Minister is falling into the gap. Were Iran to respond forcefully, how would the Prime Minister choose between the more aggressive US approach and the more conciliatory EU line? When EU Foreign Ministers meet on Friday, what will Mr Raab say? Will this, by the way, be one of the last EU Council meetings a UK Foreign Minister attends or will Mr Raab attend throughout this year?

The Minister talked of strengthening global relationships but the Iran situation highlights the story and tragedy of Brexit: instead of enjoying being part of an influential organisation, the EU, we will be required to tag along with Trump and his crazy schemes as the price of a trade deal. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who I do not think is in his place—oh, yes he is—put it last night on “Newsnight”, the UK’s position is uncomfortable since President Trump will demand loyalty on Iran, Huawei and other issues as the price of a UK trade deal for the UK. He tweeted:

“I’m afraid that’s going to be one of the realities of post-Brexit Britain, constantly having to weigh our need for trade deals against foreign policy objectives.”


How and on what criteria will the Government resolve that dilemma? Another expert commented that the crisis between the US and Iran highlights how much of a lose-lose situation Brexit is in terms of geopolitical influence, both for the UK and for the EU 27.

On the economy, some Brexiters have made much of a Financial Times editorial last week about how the UK economy could thrive after Brexit. The editorial read rather as if it were drafted by a committee, or at least two people, but it had one striking conclusion:

“The UK economy will survive”.


If that is the benchmark for sunny uplands and all the amazing prospects that we are supposed to have, it is not much of an endorsement of Brexit.

Mr Johnson intends to tear us away from the EU single market and tie us to US standards and trade intentions, which many of the public are rightly wary of, from food hygiene to designs on the NHS. Even if a deal is reached, with Mr Johnson’s risky refusal to contemplate an extension to the negotiations very unwisely being written into the draft legislation, all that we are going to get, even with success, is a Canada-style trade agreement with, as my noble friend Lord Newby said in December, free trade in goods, where we have a deficit, but no equivalent deal on services, where we have a surplus. Indeed, services represent 80% of our economy. What about industries, such as the automotive industry, that rely on a long uninterrupted supply chain and on being part of a customs union with common rules of origin? What are their prospects under the Government’s intentions?

On fisheries, the Conservative manifesto promised that the UK would control its fishing waters, and the Minister repeated the pledge to take back control. That promise will definitely be broken if there is to be any prospect of the 80% of our catch that goes to the EU getting into its primary market on the continent without tariff and administrative hurdles.

The withdrawal agreement Bill includes a clause specifically about parliamentary sovereignty, stating:

“It is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign”


and that nothing in the Act derogates from that sovereignty. Not only does that contradict other clauses in the withdrawal agreement Bill and the withdrawal agreement itself since we are going to be a rule-taker—or, if you like, a vassal state—for at least a year, and for some aspects way beyond that, but it is of doubtful legal significance. Mike Gordon, professor of constitutional law at the University of Liverpool, has said that,

“it is difficult to see that it has any practical effect in terms of diminishing the actual legal status of the obligations flowing from the Withdrawal Agreement in domestic law.”

Biodiversity Duty: Public Authorities

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one problem is that the big developers can outgun the planners, and the planners are not always of very good quality? For example, in the beautiful medieval town of Framlingham in Suffolk, which I know rather well, there are two big developments. One is excellent and is by Hopkins Homes; the other is by Persimmon and is an absolute disgrace—it should never have been allowed and the developer has got away with everything.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I passed through that great town only on Friday, so I identify with what my noble friend says on the matter. That is precisely why we are going to mandate biodiversity net gain. We need to work with all developers—domestic and commercial—to ensure that there are habitats for wildlife enhancement and that we leave those habitats in a better state than they were pre-development.

Litter Strategy

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I had better check on that precisely for the noble Baroness. I will put a letter in the Library. The whole purpose of the deposit return scheme is to ensure that, in our ever more circular economy we need to recycle and reuse more, whether it is glass, plastic or aluminium. I will write to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that a much cleaner Britain ought to be a relatively easy political objective to achieve? Will he agree that one thing that is needed is more people picking up litter? As we are trying to keep people out of prison, a great deal more use could be made of community service orders to ensure that litter is picked up.

Ivory Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

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

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, the more difficult it is to register, the more difficult it is to decide what needs to be registered and the more difficult it will be to maintain the register. You cannot watch everybody doing everything. It is very important that matters are simple and can be taken on board by everybody. When I was 12 years old, my father had my portrait miniature painted on ivory. I hope it will not be caught by the Bill.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the Bill and its intentions, but it has failed the test of proportionality in many respects. I would not have supported my noble friend Lord Cormack’s amendment, because I thought it was too wide, but I support Amendment 24, in the name of my noble friend Lord Inglewood, on the need for de minimis registration. To introduce bureaucracy of that sort is quite crazy. Some of us have been fighting for years to prevent intrusion into people’s houses. I am glad to say that that has been reduced with the help of the Law Lords and happens much less now.

However, something like this is absurd. I remind your Lordships that in 1966, when there was a Labour Government and an economic crisis—they went together at that time—they introduced a statutory instrument requiring anybody who owned more than three gold coins to hand them in, but it was tokenism. People did not do it, of course. I remember various questions being asked about how many convictions there had been, and how many coins had been handed in. The answer was none.

Unenforceable law is bad law and we really must not encourage it. Some of the provisions of the Bill are so OTT that we must stand up to them, particularly as they have nothing intrinsically to do with the Bill. I support my noble friend Lord Inglewood’s amendment.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Quin has spoken eloquently on the effect of the Bill on future generations of Northumbrian pipers. Like her, we cherish musical tradition and would not wish the music played by pipers and enjoyed to cease. I pay tribute to the department for organising a visit by a member of its team to assess the instrument and thank her for meeting the society. However, as has been reported back to the department, some of the pipes have problems under the Bill. It is my hope that the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society itself can take on a role in seeing that instruments are recycled to new pipers through bequests and other measures, and that new instruments avoid the provisions of the Bill. It would be difficult to create a new exemption for Northumbrian pipes. As the House will later see, we have tabled Amendment 78 to report on the effects of the Bill on musical instruments more generally. Evidence provided through the consultation, including from the Musicians’ Union, showed that the vast majority of commonly played and traded instruments, including violins, pianos and bagpipes, comprise less than 20% ivory.

Turning to Amendment 2 and others in this group, we do not support what they wish to achieve, which amounts to a reduction in the provisions and effectiveness of the Bill, which is a commitment of both parties to introduce a ban on the sale of ivory. The Bill includes limited exemptions to the ivory trade that are sufficiently narrow to ensure that they will not contribute to the poaching of elephants. The carefully crafted clauses represent the culmination of a productive collaboration between NGOs, law enforcement, museums, art dealers and musicians. It is Labour’s view that the Bill strikes the right balance. I call on all the proposers of amendments in this group to withdraw or not to move their amendments so that future generations can enjoy living in a world with elephants.

The Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, held earlier this month in London, underlined the importance of the UK putting in place a near-total ban on UK ivory sales as soon as possible. This legislation builds on the resolution agreed at the 2016 Conference of the Parties to CITES to phase out domestic ivory markets and will give the UK greater credibility in continuing to press other key countries in south-east Asia with a history of ivory trade to commit to closing their markets and to implementing strong domestic ivory bans. China closed its ivory market in 2017. Ivory poaching is now the fourth-largest crime sector after arms, drugs and trafficking. I remind your Lordships’ House that 20,000 elephants are killed each year, or some 55 a day.

I turn to Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, which seeks to remove registration as a precondition of allowed sales of de minimis objects. The noble Lord raised concerns about proportionality and others have followed with remarks on both the registration fee and administration involved, which would necessitate photographing, measuring and examining the object for any distinguishing features before uploading the information to a database. I am sure the noble Lord would accept that photographing, measuring and examining the object for any distinguishing features would be part of any normal process of listing an item for sale at an auction house or on an online marketplace. It is our view that registration is necessary for enforcement. The proposed system places a small administrative responsibility and a small financial cost on the seller, who, in turn, will gain from the exemption to the ban on dealing in ivory. Crucially, by registering an item through the system, the applicant will be confirming that, to the best of their knowledge, all the information provided is correct and the item therefore meets the exemption. The APHA, the regulator and the police will have access to the registration system to enable them to carry out any enforcement and monitoring action necessary. The APHA will also carry out spot checks on items registered to check for accuracy and compliance. This is also a key and necessary part of the regulations.

Amendment 22 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, would remove the size criterion for portrait miniature exemptions. The noble Lord will recall from our previous consideration of this issue that the Government added the category of portrait miniatures to the list of exemptions in Committee in the other place. Emma Rutherford, a representative of Philip Mould & Co, an expert on portrait miniatures, gave evidence on how the exemption for portrait miniatures could be refined to add a size limit, and agreed that the suggestion of six inches by eight inches would be sensible. This is 320 square centimetres, which would allow between 90% and 95% to be exempt. The Government have moved considerably on many of these features and I therefore call on the House to reject these amendments.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to say, first, how glad I am that we have my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble as the Minister. He is pretty good and we are lucky to have him.

My interests are declared in the register but the only one that I shall particularly mention in this debate is that I am president of the Suffolk Preservation Society. However, I would like to refer to the fact that I spent 12 years on the old Countryside Commission. I mention that because the chairman throughout virtually the whole of that time was our late colleague Lord Barber of Tewkesbury. He died just a few weeks ago aged 99, so he did pretty well in terms of the length of his life but he also did a wonderful thing for this country. We all owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his perceptive and dedicated work as a conservationist.

There is a bit of a lesson there. In those days, I happened to be on that commission and on the Rural Development Commission at the same time, and there was also something called English Nature. Those three bodies have now been amalgamated into Natural England. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, I say to the Government that invigilation is very important. It is important to have a sensible body to advise the Government on what the pressure groups are saying. Pressure groups are quite different; they overstate their case. However, bodies such as the ones I have mentioned or indeed the Environment Agency, which the noble Baroness chaired with distinction, are there to give a balanced assessment, and that is very important. Civil servants in Whitehall are very clever and so on but you cannot expect them to know very much about these things.

One thing about having an invigilating body is that, if it covers too big an area, the people who form the council or whatever it might be—outsiders; people like us who sit on it—have too big a responsibility to be able to do it properly. If there are a dozen of them and they have a huge area to cover, they will not do it effectively. Having the Countryside Commission, English Nature and the Rural Development Commission was a better way of handling things than having one much larger quango.

We are talking here about the beauty of Britain. The countryside is one of our very greatest treasures and that is why we have to protect it. In earlier days, it could be destroyed and replaced; now, that is much more difficult—once it is destroyed and put under several feet of concrete, the danger is that it will never come back again. I remember the very wise words of one of our best Secretaries of State in that area, Nicholas Ridley, who was, I think, the uncle of my noble friend Lord Ridley. His policy was “the protection of the countryside for its own sake”. That really mattered. It stated succinctly something that we and the civil servants all followed, and it was very helpful. Conservation and protection matter to us. It is partly a matter of dealing with big problems that arise but it is partly also a matter of luck. If the old Palace of Westminster had not burned down in 1834, it might have lingered on quite unfit for purpose and been replaced, perhaps in the 1960s, with some ghastly concrete brutalism, which we would be only too glad to move out of. Let us cherish what we have.

I want very quickly to mention two or three points. The first is an example of where we can save things. One of the great achievements of the National Trust—a body of 5 million people, bigger even than Mr Corbyn’s Labour Party—is operation Neptune. Without it, we would have lost the coastline for ever. The original target was to acquire and protect 900 miles of coastline, and I think it has more than 700 miles already, which is good.

Let me give a practical example, however, of where things have gone wrong in my own backyard, the little medieval town of Framlingham. Framlingham is very important historically and in its beauty. There were three big development plans to plonk 360 houses in three different areas. One area was a genuine brownfield site, where there had been a mill. That development was done by a company called Hopkins Homes; it is not completely right, but the company made a pretty good job of it and should be praised. The other development is called Mount Pleasant. It was done by Persimmon and the results are perfectly frightful. I recommend that those noble Lords who have not done so read the wonderful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Best, when he introduced the housing debate on 11 January. The third development is in an area that has been taken over by Taylor Wimpey, which is putting in another 150 or so houses. It is a greenfield site, and the development will block the view of the castle and the church from the east side. It should never have been allowed but, sadly, the inspector allowed it. We in the Suffolk Preservation Society did our best to save it, but we did not succeed.

I hope that one thing the Government will do is ensure that the inspectors are kept well directed as to what the desires of the people and the interests of the country really are. You cannot rely on the developers: they will, understandably, do whatever they think will make them a quick buck.

Littering from Vehicles Bill [HL]

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Marlesford]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I would like to say how grateful I am for the widespread interest, help and support that I have received, especially from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, of which I was once chairman. I should declare an interest as president of the Suffolk Preservation Society, and perhaps also as chairman of Marlesford Parish Council, whose seven members have for many years been picking up litter in our village, especially from the A12, which unfortunately still passes through the centre of our community. However, we hope that Marlesford will be bypassed when the third nuclear power station is constructed at Sizewell.

We English, to our shame, are an appallingly messy nation, which is why this Bill is needed. Let me first outline its purpose. It is to support local authorities in tackling the serious problem of littering from vehicles. The Bill proposes a simple and modest change to the law to achieve this. It would make three substantive changes to the law. In brief, it would introduce a civil penalty for littering from vehicles, make the registered keeper of a vehicle from which the litter has been thrown the automatic recipient of the penalty, and require local authorities to publish details of the contracts they give relating to litter clearance. The Bill is designed to deliver behaviour change. It is primarily a deterrent and we would not expect lots of penalty notices to be issued.

The Minister, my noble friend Lord De Mauley, himself recognised the problem of roadside rubbish, as he put it, at the conference of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management in June this year. It is estimated that seven out of the 10 pieces of litter blighting the countryside are dropped from cars. In 2011, some 9 million drivers threw litter from their cars. The cost of clearing up roadside litter contributes to a bill for local councils that in 2010-11 reached £863 million, not to mention additional spending to clear up litter along motorways and trunk roads. The Bill has the support of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and since the last election more than 1,000 members have written to their MP to request action in this area. A 2012 poll showed that 75% of the members of the AA believe that roadside litter is a serious problem. The Local Government Association supports the provisions of the Bill that relate to the creation of a new civil penalty for roadside littering.

I shall now explain the Bill. Clause 1 provides that a littering contravention has taken place if a person throws litter from a vehicle, and it allows a civil enforcement officer to impose a civil penalty if this contravention takes place. It also makes the registered keeper of a vehicle the recipient of the penalty, whether or not they gave instructions or allowed the contravention to take place. It provides for passengers in certain types of vehicles to be exempted from the penalty. Finally, it provides for other matters relating to the penalty to be set out in regulations.

Clause 2 defines who the registered keeper of a vehicle is for the purposes of the Bill. Clause 3 sets out who a civil enforcement officer is for the purposes of the Bill. Clause 4 defines a vehicle for the purposes of the Bill. Clause 5 requires responsible authorities to publish yearly the names of any organisations which it has contracted to collect litter on its behalf, the amount paid to the organisation for this service, the geographical areas covered by the contract and performance monitoring data relating to the contract, including the authority’s own assessment. Clause 6 defines a responsible authority for the purpose of Clause 5. Clause 7 sets out the commencement, Short Title and extent of the Bill, which would commence on the day that it is passed and extends to England only.

The existing law, the Environmental Protection Act 1990, contains a criminal offence which allows people who throw litter from cars to be fined for doing so. The problem is that, in practice, councils have found it very difficult to use this power as it is often impossible to prove who within the vehicle was responsible for throwing the litter. In 2011, during the passage of the Localism Act, I proposed an amendment to address this problem by allowing councils to issue fines to the registered owners of the vehicle, who would then be responsible for paying the amount unless another person were nominated by the driver to pay the fine. The amendment was warmly received, including by the opposition Front Bench, the noble Lords, Lord Beecham, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Judd, two former Environment Secretaries—my noble friends Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Deben—and by the late Lord Reay. I pay especial tribute to our late colleague Lord Reay. He was a close friend and a much loved and respected Member of this House. Hugh was a real countryman and a knowledgeable and balanced environmentalist.

In response to my amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, for the Government, said that it,

“raises issues of fairness and proportionality”.

He referred to the London Local Authorities Bill, which is now an Act, which he said would allow local authorities,

“to issue a civil penalty to registered keepers where enforcement officers witness littering from a vehicle. It makes sense to learn the lessons from the application of that approach in London before moving to wider legislation”.— [Official Report, 10/10/11; col. 1370.]

Two years on, that prevarication will no longer wash. The civil penalty has now been in place in London for more than a year, since 18 June 2012.

I have listened to the Government’s concerns. The Littering from Vehicles Bill which I bring forward today takes into account the Government’s comments on my amendment during the passage of the Localism Act. It creates a new civil penalty for littering in England, which has now been in place in London for over a year, and which the Government seem to favour as much more proportionate. Crucially, it makes the registered keeper of the vehicle the automatic recipient of the penalty.

The Environmental Protection Act presents all littering offences, including littering from vehicles, as criminal offences and therefore fixed-penalty notices can be issued. In London, littering from vehicles is now a civil offence, and therefore a penalty charge notice can be issued. For the Government, the issue of proportionality between civil and criminal offence will surely need to be debated. From the analysis that I have seen from London Councils, it seems that some councils have different preferences from others. I myself declare a strong preference for using civil penalties rather than the criminal law whenever possible, especially when trying to moderate behaviour to benefit local communities.

For the recipient of a fine, the distinction is often unclear and/or meaningless; they are simply paying a financial penalty for doing something wrong. It is likely that this effective enforcement of a law, whether civil or criminal, will result in positive behaviour change, both in the recipient of the fine and in their peer group. What I emphasise is the legal change which makes the owner of the vehicle responsible for any litter from it, with reasonable exemptions applying to, for example, littering by passengers in a taxi. Local authorities should be able to issue fines against those who litter. That is the purpose of the law. At the moment, under the EPA, this is not possible as the burden of proof is too great.

More than 100 local councils, supported by organisations such as the CPRE and the Local Government Association, have campaigned for many years for the existing law to be made workable. Successive Governments have prevaricated and resisted this most logical and most necessary change. If local councils can effectively enforce the law, they can change the behaviour of litterers. If people refrain from littering, the significant economic cost of clearing up roadside litter can be reduced. If the public know who is responsible for litter clearing of particular roads, that will put pressure on contractors to do their jobs properly, which they do not always do at the moment. The Highways Agency estimates in its latest annual report that it spends £10 million annually to clear litter from our major roads. The latest annual street cleansing bill for England was £863 per year. Again, having to spend these huge and unsustainable amounts for which there is no real return, because it is unnecessary to litter in the first place, is neither satisfactory nor acceptable, especially as the roads are still not clean. Indeed, 75% of the members of the AA, who are surely most affected by the continuous rise in roadside litter levels, believe that it is a serious problem, and 94% believe that it gives a bad impression of Britain and spoils local communities.

Despite delivering on its commitment to host a roadside litter summit in 2012, Defra’s approach has not dealt with this issue in any meaningful way over the past six years at least. How can a department be content that a law designed to forward its objectives is unworkable? Why has it not responded to the clear call from local councils and their representatives to make this small change? How can a Government hope to be recognised as competent, let alone tinged with green, if they cannot, after three years in power, even tackle something as simple as our shamefully dirty roads?

Defra’s disappointing approach is exemplified by the consultation it carried out with local authorities on the changes proposed by the Bill. I have seen a copy of this consultation, which was sent by a central government official on 4 June asking for a response to questions just two days later on 6 June. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he does not suggest that this was in any way a meaningful consultation. Why was an artificial deadline set for more than a month before this debate was scheduled to take place? Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many authorities responded in the two-day window. It is a perversion of the Government’s much-trumpeted localism.

I have certain questions for the Minister. Has the experience in London thrown up any major problems that suggest that extending the powers to all English authorities would be unworkable? Does the Minister agree that, whether we have a criminal or civil offence, we must ensure that those who drop litter from vehicles can be effectively held to account? Does he share my desire to make the existing laws on littering usable for councils? How long will the Minister wait before making a decision on whether to roll out the London approach across the whole of England?

Many noble Lords on all sides of the House have expressed to me their strong support and their regret at not being able to be here to speak today. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked me to mention in particular the fire danger from cigarettes thrown from vehicles. I hope that the Minister will resist pressure to parrot the prevarications with which his officials will have sought to sustain him. What I believe will be unacceptable to the House and to the public, who really mind about litter on our roads, is any further delay. I hope that the Minister will offer political support for this modest but important measure to be enacted. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, one of the big privileges afforded to Back-Bench Members of either House is to be able to initiate Private Members’ Bills. One of the great purposes of initiating such Bills is to prod Governments into action when action is needed. There can seldom have been a better illustration of both sides of the coin than in this debate, where we have had virtually 100% support from all speakers from the Back Benches and the opposition Front Bench, and a virtually 100% negative response from the Government’s Front Bench.

I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Lawson, with his experience and the great offices he has held, challenged the Government to act on this and to do something; in particular, his appeal to the Secretary of State over the heads of the officials who have taken the line that my noble friend the Minister has so faithfully read out. I hope that some of us will continue on that track anyway.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd. He and I came to this House on the same day and we have always been close friends and colleagues. I am very glad he spoke in the way he did, emphasising the extent to which litter represents a cultural deficit and the fact that by tackling it we are improving culture.

My noble friend Lord Cormack pointed out that we do not want the Government to allow their trumpeted localism to be expressed as mere tokenism. I am afraid that we have not got very far with that, going by my noble friend the Minister’s speech.

I was very interested in the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, particularly the psychological element. Actually, picking up litter is very therapeutic. If you pick up litter, it is an enjoyable process. You can see the result. You know you are doing something not only for yourself but for other people, and it is very satisfactory. I am not a fisherman but I am always told that fishing is wonderfully therapeutic. To me, picking up litter has that role.

My noble friend Lord Shrewsbury pointed out that it is a lack of discipline which results in litter being dropped and that is something that needs to be tackled. I am very glad that he referred to Oregon and what happens in America. I know Oregon very well. I used to go there every year for many years for work purposes. It is an advanced state, from which we can learn a lot. What actually happens with its rule about litter being returnable for a small fee is that in as far as the more affluent may dispose of it, the less affluent will collect it up, so it generates income and it is a rather neat method. Oregon is an extremely pleasant state as a result. The rule has been in force for a long time.

My noble friend Lord Selsdon told us about Europe. I so agree with him. Europe is in general a great deal cleaner than the United Kingdom. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Brabazon for also taking part.

I was very encouraged by the opposition Front Bench and I hope that we shall continue to get its support. My noble friend the Minister’s argument that delay is always a good excuse for further delay is a fascinating one, if not one that I accept. Churchill once said:

“Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves”.

Of course, we can rely on officials to find the difficulties and argue frantically for them, and to look for the negative rather than the positive. My noble friend said that he backs the call to action, but the last thing he was going to take was any action.

I am most grateful to all who have taken part in this debate and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Trees: British Ash Tree

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has spoken much good sense. I declare an interest, in that I am a Suffolk farmer. I had the e-mail from the CLA on Friday and we spent the weekend having a look at our ash trees. Today at about 12 o’clock, I sent an e-mail to the Forestry Commission to say that we had found fairly extensive cases of what looks extremely like the ash disease. What is interesting is that there were unhealthy trees in hedges and woods that were next to other ash trees that were completely healthy. That suggests that there is selective immunity. I would be delighted if any scientists from the Forestry Commission want to come and look at us, but I think that in much of Suffolk there is probably a good deal of this ash disease.

I slightly wonder whether it is a new disease. The Forestry Commission produced a very good video, which I watched this morning. Others may have seen it too. One characteristic is that inside the ash there is black wood. Ever since I was a child ash trees have sometimes suffered from having black wood inside. In fact, the story goes that if you want to use white ash to make furniture, you should take ash which grows near water as ash which has its feet in water is more likely to be cleaner than other ash.

We have already heard from other noble Lords that a lot of these diseases have been around for a very long time. We know about the other diseases that have been referred to. There is a lesson for the Government here as regards the structure of government and their priorities.

I have one or two other interests to declare. I am the president of the Suffolk Preservation Society. I was a member of the Countryside Commission for 12 years, a member of the Rural Development Commission for eight years and I was chairman of CPRE for five years. I feel very strongly that there is a real place for quangos. A quango is a body of professional people who have outside people monitoring and focusing their efforts. The function of a quango is to advise government on what to do. It is not a pressure group. CPRE is an unashamed pressure group. The Countryside Commission was not a pressure group. I think it was a mistake to amalgamate all these quangos. It has been done over a period of years. The Countryside Commission, the Rural Development Commission, the NCC and English Nature are now all called Natural England. One of the reasons it was a mistake is that the governing body is comprised of part-time people and the responsibilities are too wide for them to cover them all. That means that the staff do not focus and the right advice is not given to government and therefore government does not take action at the right time. There might well be a case for reinventing or recreating one or two of these bodies which were so crucial to maintaining the countryside that we all love.

I wish to make two other points. Dutch elm disease was spread by a beetle but there is some immunity. On the whole elm trees grow to about 17 feet and then they seem to die back. However, they are still perfectly good hedge trees. I do not think that a policy of rooting out diseased ash trees is likely to work or necessarily be the right thing to do. If ash trees are cut down they make very good firewood and I do not agree that they should not be burnt in people’s fireplaces but in a field.

The other thing that worries me is that I have heard Ministers quoted as saying that people should disinfect their boots. That is nonsense. We have never had more deer in our countryside than we have now. We have badgers, birds and the pheasant, introduced originally by the Romans as your Lordships know. We have many things that can move the disease, including feet. We should remember an important fact that is pretty damned obvious but seems to have been forgotten when people talk about cutting off bits of the countryside, which is that one of the primary functions of the countryside is to produce food. Can we imagine it being possible to close down parts of the countryside? At the moment we are short of food and food production is a primary function of the countryside, so we should not take foolish, apparently populist, action. We should think carefully and hope that the body to which my noble friend Lord Selborne referred—I am delighted that it has been set up—receives some good sensible advice from farmers, countrymen and people who know about the countryside. I am optimistic. I think that our countryside will survive. We have a multiplicity of different trees. Nature has an amazing way of coping. Sad though it was to lose so many elm trees, I do not believe that our English countryside is any less beautiful than it was 40 years ago.

Flooding: Defence Programme

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the Government’s policy, as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, is to avoid unnecessary building in areas at risk. New homes are not included in the funding formula, otherwise the system would encourage housebuilding on flood plains, so I agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that while people are obviously very important, so is food production? Is he aware that in Suffolk there is a serious threat of the estuaries of the Alde, Ore and Deben rivers flooding an area which produces no less than 25% of all the vegetables grown in England? Is he further aware that local farmers are quite ready to take action themselves, and spend their own money, to improve the flood defences? Will the Government encourage this rather than leaving it all to the Environment Agency? It would save quite a bit of taxpayers’ money. I declare an interest as a Suffolk farmer, but not in the area at risk.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. Defra’s partnership funding approach provides a contribution to the economic benefits of flood and coastal erosion risk management projects, including avoiding the damage to business, agricultural land and infrastructure. It specifically allows the involvement of farmers and others from the private sector as well as local authorities. Many schemes that are justified principally on the basis of protection of households also protect businesses. Many flood management projects reduce the risk to farmland.

Agriculture: Global Food Security

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

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

[Lord Marlesford]

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

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

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

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

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I should have declared before speaking to the last amendment that I have an interest as a farmer and landowner. I also declare for this amendment that I am an ex-chair of the Countryside Agency and an ex-rural advocate. I am not sure that being an “ex” anything is a declarable interest but it probably helps if everybody knows where I am coming from.

The Commission for Rural Communities has been a surprising success in providing the evidence, speaking up on behalf of the countryside and challenging the Government to look differently at the problems of rural communities—in particular, the still unrecognised issues of rural deprivation, which continue to come very low on every Government’s priorities. The CRC has had successes with the commissioning of research which, because the results are uncomfortable for the Government of the day, would almost certainly have never been commissioned by an ordinary civil servant within Defra. The results are uncomfortable for the Government of the day because usually they throw down the gauntlet saying, “This is the situation, what are you going to do about it?”.



It is not only Defra which gets challenged. There was a report by the CRC on the depth and impact of fuel poverty in rural England. Of course, that challenges the Department for Transport. Insight into maternity services in rural England challenges the Department of Health. Reports on financial inclusion, rural social housing and village schools challenge the Treasury, the DCLG and the Department for Education respectively, and so on.

In terms of fulfilling the Government’s tests of a permissible public body, I maintain that the CRC's activities definitely require political impartiality and need it to act independently to establish the facts. I accept that the economics of the day may preclude the existence of the CRC in its current form, which is why it is being abolished, but I do not believe that the Government’s proposed successor arrangements, based on a rural communities policy unit in Defra, will result in a rural champion, even under Mr Richard Benyon MP, who has already been mentioned and whom I know and respect. Such a body could not give the independence of thought and vigorous championing of all the rural injustices needed after decades of general government inertia by all parties.

Along with others, the real question I want to ask is perhaps more important than the existence of the CRC. I regret that I have not seen the letter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. How will rural-proofing be carried out in future? The rural-proofing role of the Commission for Rural Communities and the rural advocate was an important part of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which has already been referred to. In fact, it was the essence of the rural communities part of that Act. Rural-proofing is about getting the really important big-spending departments to consider how they equitably deliver their services in the countryside, especially to the remote countryside, in the same way as they deliver to the towns.

That involves everything from health, jobseeker advice, sports facilities, education and training, and justice to business advice. I always remember that when I was rural advocate, the DTI produced a manufacturing paper. I said, “Have you rural-proofed this paper?”, and it said, “What’s manufacturing got to do with the countryside?”. I said, “Actually, there are more manufacturing industries in the countryside than there are in the towns”. The DTI seemed oblivious to that. How do businesses access training and business advice? Can we ensure that they have access to fast broadband? For that matter, under the current Postal Services Bill, how can they post parcels at their local post offices, which are getting fewer and fewer?

All too often—in fact, almost always—urban civil servants ignore or are unaware of the difficulties of delivery in the countryside. How does someone get to hospital? That question often never crosses their mind. How does someone get to court? I have frequently joked that the best way to get to court on many occasions is to steal a car. How does someone get to training or to a job? The Department for Work and Pensions is totally unaware of the fact that if it put money into Wheels to Work to help young, first-time employees get to a job, it would save itself a lot of money, but it does not support Wheels to Work schemes because it does not really understand.

My question is: who will rural-proof those departments? Who will be bold, critical and outspoken on behalf of the countryside? Certainly not departmental civil servants—the words bold, critical and outspoken do not really feature in their career path. How does the Minister envisage rural-proofing happening in future? Perhaps it could be through a Committee of this House. Believe me, you need to have expertise and you need to be bloody-minded to be a rural advocate, and I should have thought that both those characteristics can easily be found in your Lordships' House.

I recognise that there are Ministers in the current Government who understand those issues, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said: is that good enough? What about future Governments? Are the current Government betraying the countryside in the long run? All the departments and their civil servants matter; all the Ministers and their staff within all the departments need to be continuously and publicly exposed to those issues. That just will not happen without a politically independent rural advocate of some description.

I beg the Government to have a rethink, not necessarily about the CRC but about the vital role of an independent rural advocate who can ensure that all parts of government, and not just this Government but the next one, hear and understand the voice of the countryside in all their doings. As your Lordships can probably gather, I feel pretty strongly about this. It would be a tragedy if the countryside were to lose that independent voice.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with all three speeches that have just been made. I declare various interests. I am a farmer in Suffolk, but I have some background experience myself because I was for 12 years on the Countryside Commission under the brilliant chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Tewkesbury. I was for eight years on the Rural Development Commission, chaired by Lord Shuttleworth and then the noble Lord, Lord Vinson. They had different, important, functions. They were then amalgamated, which may have been doubtful. Both bodies gave independent advice to Ministers. Of course, the Countryside Agency, of which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was a distinguished chairman, fulfilled that role.

All that is left now, apart from the body that we are talking about, is Natural England, which has made the awful mistake of becoming a bit of a pressure group itself instead of being an objective adviser to government. As I tried to explain to your Lordships at Second Reading, there is a crucial difference between a pressure group and an advisory group to government. The advisory group is meant to give objective advice, particularly advice on the views of pressure groups. Pressure groups have a totally legitimate role. The CPRE was mentioned, and I was for five years its chairman; it was and is a very effective pressure group.

There is a real danger of a lack of rural interest and understanding. This was very noticeable under the previous Government. This Government are more naturally attuned, in many ways, to the countryside and rural matters. In that respect, the coalition is a particularly happy combination because Tories and Liberals have traditionally had a closer relationship to rural areas than has the Labour Party; it is just an historical fact. That is not meant to be a criticism of the Labour Party, it is just a comment on the historical evolution of our political system. It is important that this dimension should continue in one way or another. We have ACRE, which is a body arranged by counties. I was for some years the president of Suffolk ACRE. In fact, I am now the president of the Suffolk Preservation Society, which is a county branch of the CPRE.

I hope that the Minister will be able to answer some of the points that have been made and questions that have been asked. It is an important aspect of this country, and I would hate to feel that we were dependent on civil servants, many of whom are neither sympathetic to, nor have much understanding of, the issues which need to be dealt with.

[Lord Myners]

I have no interests to declare. I have never chaired a rural agency. I now understand why: the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford held most of those appointments. However, I speak as a Member of the Labour Benches and somebody with a strong association with a rural area, namely the county of Cornwall. I am disappointed that the Government are proposing to abolish the CRC, which has done a fine job in ensuring that rural matters receive appropriate attention and consideration from all parts of government. I witnessed that myself, as a junior Minister in the previous Government.

The move to urbanisation is a global phenomenon. We must address the weakening of the rural voice. We may talk about the national experience, but the issues confronting people living in rural areas are very different from those affecting metro-centred urban areas.

The Government and the leadership of oppositions tend largely to be populated by people whose relevant experience is much closer to that of the urban environment than the rural one. Moreover, quite frankly, the Minister must know that the savings to be made by doing this are minimal. I cannot believe that this proposal received any close consideration by the Government. It was simply another name added to a long list in which the macho challenge was to make that list as long as possible. I cannot credibly believe that a rural unit within Defra can possibly replicate the need which is currently being met by the CRC. We know that the civil servants working in this area recognise that they work primarily for the Government and Ministers. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, they will not show a robustness of view or a willingness to be outspoken and to challenge their senior colleagues or the Ministers in their department.

Why on earth are the Government doing this? Why on earth are a Government who, so the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, tells us, speak for the rural community allowing this to happen? Further, I am deeply disappointed that the six Members of Parliament in the other place from Cornwall—three Conservatives and three Liberal Democrats—have been completely silent on this issue. I know that the people of Cornwall will be saddened if the CRC is abolished and will not be convinced that the Government proposals can possibly represent an appropriate response to address the silencing of rural communities.