Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to the amendment, and I support it very strongly. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will test the opinion of the House.

We have major problems with these chemicals. First, our testing regime tests single pesticides, but does not look at combinations or mixtures of pesticides. Secondly, people are required to notify local premises prior to spraying, but there are two difficulties with this: as downwind is not necessarily a short distance, these chemicals can travel very long distances, and you cannot predict the direction the wind is blowing. Another difficulty is that they sit on the land on crops, and when the sun comes out, they vaporise. Even though people might have been warned about spraying, the vaporisation means that the amount in the air goes up again and it is spread still further towards people living in the vicinity.

I have a list of references from different parts of the scientific literature which I will not go through in detail now, as it is not the time. But I point out that pesticides can cause deformities in unborn offspring, cancers, and mutations that poison the nervous system and block the natural defences of the immune system. The irreversible effects are permanent and cannot be changed once they have occurred. I have looked after an awful lot of cancer patients, many coming from farming communities in Wales. When they are young and ask me about exposure to chemicals, it is very difficult to have that conversation, because by then they, or maybe their child, is already so seriously ill or dying, that everything is irreversible. We cannot carry on doing this and polluting the environment without thinking again. Article 3(14) of EU Regulation 1107/2009 defines rural residents living in the locality of pesticide-sprayed crops as “vulnerable groups,” and they are recognised as having high pesticide exposure over the long term.

The side effects of the individual chemical agents are quite scary. When one looks at the cumulative effects long term, we cannot continue to ignore them. The effect on rural residents will go on and on, even for those living at sizeable distances. I hope that the House will reflect on the debate we had on the Agriculture Bill, when the Minister at the time, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, told the Committee that we need a population in good health to cope with the threat of infection during the pandemic. We cannot carry on having a rural community that is being poisoned by its own actions in an attempt to supply us with food which is cheap and probably underpriced for the value which should go to farmers for responsible farming. I hope that this House will support this amendment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 52 to which I have added my name, and the very important contributions, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I am of course passionate because this is a matter of great importance. As I have said previously, on both the Agriculture Bill and in Committee for this Bill, we have a history of underplaying certain risks to human health, which we only find out about later. I am thinking of tobacco, asbestos, air quality—which we have just been discussing —and various things which cause harm. It must be obvious that these chemical pesticides—because of the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff—are nothing but harmful.

I am particularly concerned about cocktails of chemicals. I am not a chemist and did not do much science at school, but I know that if one mixes certain chemicals, they have a completely different effect and can be even more toxic. Do these chemicals accumulate in the soil, and not simply vaporise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said? That is something we should be looking at.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I have received one request to speak. I call the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

I am most grateful, and I thank my noble friend for his answer. He may have said this in his reply, but I ask again because I could not pick it up. When authorisations are given for substances, is the mixture—the toxic cocktails, if you like—actually checked? I am no scientist, but I do know that when you mix certain chemicals together, they have a different effect from what they have when they are on their own. I am just wondering whether that is checked to make sure that the effects are not harmful.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, whose amendment I support. I will speak to my Amendment 147—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for adding his name to it. I also thank Women’s Aid for pointing out the problem that I aim to solve with this amendment.

Women and men experiencing domestic abuse face long-term and often lifelong risks from the perpetrator. Domestic abuse does not end when a relationship ends and research has consistently found that women are at significantly high risk when leaving the relationship. Often a woman can access safety only when she moves far away from the perpetrator. However, in recent years, Women’s Aid has seen a worrying trend in local authorities introducing “local connection” rules to tenders, with local refuges being capped on the number of non-local women whom they are able to accept. The very existence of refuges depends on these services’ ability to accept women from out of the area, as women will often need to flee from their local area to be safe. Data from Women’s Aid’s annual survey in 2017 shows that over two-thirds of women in a refuge on one day crossed local authority boundaries to access it. Women often cannot access a refuge in their local area due to the severe and ongoing risks faced from a perpetrator.

Women fleeing to a refuge rely on these services being able to accept them and their children from outside their local area, with no “local connection”. Government guidance makes it clear that locality caps and restrictions should not be written into tenders or contracts relating to domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. However, this guidance is not consistently applied across England, leading to something of a postcode lottery of access to refuges and a major risk to the safe operation of this national network of services.

Similarly, there are real concerns about the inconsistencies between local authorities across England in meeting their obligations to house those from another area fleeing domestic abuse. I agree with Women’s Aid and many other NGOs that the ban on “local connection” rules and residency requirements must extend to wider homelessness duties and housing allocations, to ensure that all survivors can access safe housing.

Homelessness teams refusing to support women who are escaping abuse because they are not from their local area must also be included. Nearly a fifth of women supported by Women’s Aid’s No Woman Turned Away project in 2016-17 were prevented from making a valid homeless application on the grounds of domestic abuse for reasons that included having no local connection to the area, with local housing teams deprioritising survivors who do not have a local connection within their housing allocation policy.

Guidance from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government currently encourages

“all local authorities to exempt from their residency requirements those who are living in a refuge or other form of safe temporary accommodation in their district having escaped domestic abuse in another local authority area.”

However, this is not a requirement and does not apply to women who have not escaped into a refuge or other form of temporary accommodation. Local authorities often use blanket residency tests in allocation schemes, without accounting for exceptional circumstances, such as for a woman fleeing domestic abuse.

The Government already require local authorities to make exemptions from local connection requirements or residency tests for certain groups, including for members of the Armed Forces and those seeking to move for work. My Amendment 147 would include a specific bar on local authorities from imposing local connection restrictions on survivors of domestic abuse when accessing refuges and, importantly, longer-term housing. This is needed to sit alongside the government department’s proposed statutory duty on local authorities to fund support in refuges and other forms of safe accommodation. This will ensure that all women and children fleeing domestic abuse can access safe accommodation where and when they need to.

Women’s Aid has given me a real example that highlights the urgency and importance of why this amendment is needed:

“A has experienced domestic abuse for the last 10 years from two partners as well as witnessing domestic abuse perpetrated by her father against her mother growing up. She has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD. After fleeing her abusive partner with three children, she moved into a refuge in a London borough to be near her mother, who was her main source of support. She was only able to find a refuge in a different borough to her mother, and after six months she was required to leave that refuge. She presented to the borough her mother lives in, but she was informed she was not entitled to be housed there as she did not have a local connection. The local authority stated she had a local connection to the borough she had been living in for six months. This is despite her being a survivor of domestic abuse, having no option other than to live in the first borough where a refuge space was available at the time of fleeing and the fact that she felt at risk from the perpetrator’s extended networks there.


The borough her mother lived in then housed A and her three children, who were all under 14, in one room in mixed-sex temporary accommodation. This was extremely distressing for her. She describes feeling retraumatised from the experience of being forced to live alongside men she did not know. She also felt scared for her children, who did not feel safe in the mixed-sex hostel. The room was highly unsuitable as the entire family lived in it and were required to cook in it, which is of course unsafe for a toddler. Another child had ADHD, so A struggled to provide them with any quiet time and appropriate support. This experience also exacerbated her PTSD, depression and anxiety, and she reported feeling low and stressed regularly due to feeling unsafe in the accommodation. She is now having to live there indefinitely while the boroughs have been assigned an arbiter to decide who has a duty.”


I would also like this to apply to victims of modern-day slavery who can equally fall foul of this problem, as I, as a deputy chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation, am only too aware. While I am aware that this Bill deals only with domestic abuse, I would ask my noble friend to look into this, whether people are the victims of domestic abuse or, indeed, of modern slavery. I ask that this should be done because housing has to be looked at seriously as a way of addressing the abuse that these victims suffer.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 146A, to which I have added my name. We know about the strong link between domestic abuse and homelessness, with access to housing often presenting as a critical barrier to survivors fleeing abuse. For example, in Wales, between 2018 and 2019, nearly 2,500 households were provided with assistance by their local authorities following homelessness caused by the breakdown of a relationship with a partner. Almost half of those relationship breakdowns were violent. In May 2020, the Government listened to the expertise of organisations across the domestic abuse and homelessness sectors, and the views of women who had experienced domestic abuse. In response, the Government amended this Bill to extend automatic priority-need status for housing to survivors of domestic abuse in England, as was already the case in Wales. This welcome amendment will provide a vital lifeline for many survivors of domestic abuse.

In Wales in 2018-19, over 300 households were owed a duty to secure settled accommodation as they were in priority need after fleeing domestic violence or being threatened with violence. However, organisations across the domestic abuse and homeless sectors have raised concerns that the government amendments will not adequately guarantee clear access to housing for all survivors of domestic abuse. Critically, it will not enable other members of a household to apply for this assistance on the survivor’s behalf, as is the case in other areas of homelessness legislation. For example, when a woman is pregnant, a partner is allowed to make the application for them. This sounds like a small distinction, but front-line services that are supporting survivors every day know that it is not always safe for survivors of abuse to make an application for homelessness assistance themselves. Allowing other household members to be the lead applicant provides a vital safeguarding mechanism which could give a vulnerable survivor a route to safety when they need it most.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge [V]]

My Lords, I shall not detain the Committee long. I have added my name to several of these amendments. I want to underline the importance of getting some of these things right—whether it is nature-friendly farming, the reduction of pesticides, the increase in organic or the agrochemicals reduction. I support particularly Amendment 117 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on meadows and grasslands. I am a member of Plantlife, as I am of Buglife.

These amendments are crucial. But the time is late. Very eloquent people are making their points and I think it is time for me to be quiet.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, today’s important debates have been greatly enhanced by the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

My Amendment 259 is in this important group. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Patel and Lord Wigley for their support. Chemical weapons were developed in the Second World War and then remanufactured as pesticides, now used in agriculture for around 75 years. In 2013 the Government accepted all recommendations from two important reports. The first was the Bystanders Risk Assessment Working Group of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. The second report was from the sub-group of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides: the Pesticides Adverse Health Effects Surveillance working group. Both were scathing about the use of pesticides and laid out the dangers. Yet, although accepted, their recommendations remain largely unimplemented.

It is a worrying indictment that 70% of our land is used for farming and almost all of it, except for the 3% for organic farming, is subjected to spraying that is not dose-controlled in any way. In 2014, 17.75 million kilograms of pesticide were sprayed on the land. Carried in the wind, harmful residues have been found several miles downwind. The dangers to health are now recognised. A 2017 report by the UN special rapporteur on the right to food found that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides was associated with several diseases and conditions, including cancers, and that those living near crop fields were particularly vulnerable to exposure.

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems report describes the unacceptable harm caused by the current chemical farming systems and the energy consumption in the manufacture of these chemicals. It exposes just some of the astronomical health costs externalised by the current system, and states an urgent and overwhelming case for action.

The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health report on global deaths and chronic diseases from outdoor air pollution, including from the use of pesticides, has the lead author saying that his biggest concern is the impact of the hundreds of industrial chemicals and pesticides already widely dispersed around the world.

I remind all involved in this Bill that the effects are cumulative, because these chemicals often sit in fat stores and are not cleared. The chemicals disrupt the internal hormonal environment; they are endocrine disruptors and make cells more susceptible to mutations, abnormalities and malignancy.

I turn briefly to one of these, glyphosate, used in the weed killer Roundup, which has a large number of tumour-promoting effects on biological systems, including direct damage to DNA in sensitive cells, disruption of metabolic processes and modification to more toxic molecules. Epidemiological evidence suggests correlations between glyphosate usage on crops and a multitude of cancers that are reaching epidemic proportions, including common cancers and lymphoma. In the US, many lawsuits have been brought against the producer Monsanto, which is now part of Bayer.

The effect on the developing nervous system and on the adult neurones is not clearly known, but we must take the precautionary principle. Rats exposed to high levels of glyphosate, their offspring and the offspring’s offspring—two generations on—developed malignancy, obesity and birth abnormalities. Neurotransmitter changes occur in rats and mice exposed to glyphosate, and mice display mood and movement changes. Increased understanding of epigenetics suggests that harm experienced by the adult may be handed on by epigenetic factors to offspring not even yet conceived.

I spoke in the previous debate on the theme of future generations and I return to that now. We cannot ignore the cumulative evidence. In my amendment, I suggest an annual report to Parliament on the safety of herbicides and pesticides, taking into account evidence from the analysis of foods that should be glyphosate-free but appear to be contaminated by windborne spray. Neurotoxic effects on pollinators and the damaging effects on human health of these chemicals cannot be ignored.

As we leave Europe, we are free to produce more of our own food for our own market and ensure that our food is safe and of high nutritional quality. We must make also sure that imported food meets our new high standards. Going forward, pesticides need to be designed out of farming systems, for the environment, for health and for the market-ready production of excellent food; hence my amendment.