Recycled Plastics

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports that a global oversupply of petrochemicals has led to recycled plastics failing to compete with new, and whether they plan to take any action in response.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, we are aware of the oversupply of petrochemicals in the global market, but this is a matter for industry to lead on. It is estimated that businesses which are members of the UK Plastics Pact have, on average, increased the recycling content of their packaging from 8.5% in 2018 to 24.1% in 2023. The Government will continue to readdress the balance through measures such as the coalition and packaging reforms and the plastic packaging tax.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. However, there was, for example, three times as much ethylene produced last year as there was demand for it. As with fossil fuels used for energy, is it not time to look seriously on a global scale at restrictions on production, not just working on the demand side, particularly given that we are all bearing the externalised costs imposed environmentally and financially in terms of waste disposal and the companies are taking away profits for unnecessary products?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point. Domestically, we are seeking to increase the supply of recycled plastics and reduce the demand, through regulation and tax, for virgin plastics, but we recognise that whatever we do domestically will not help to solve this global problem. That is why we are a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. At the United Nations Environment Assembly in March, we drove through, with Rwanda and Peru, a commitment to see an end to plastic pollution by 2042.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, the Birmingham expert commission on plastics and the environment, which I chaired, recommended the introduction of a sliding-scale tax on plastic packaging. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government will introduce such a sliding-scale tax, which would greatly benefit the environment?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are looking at all sorts of reforms to our measures. The plastic packaging tax increases with inflation and has gone up to £217 per tonne this year. We are continuing to look at extended producer responsibility reforms and to see whether the work that the noble Baroness has talked about has an application in terms of how we deliver these regulations.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, we need to use less plastic and actually recycle what we do use. There is enough floating around the planet already; there is no good reason to produce more. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are going to introduce the deposit return scheme in this Parliament, and when they expect the global plastics treaty to be agreed?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On the deposit return scheme, we have a date for implementation of October 2025. Our social research found that 74% of respondents supported it and 83% of our consultation responses supported its implementation. We think that there are 3,000 to 4,000 jobs if we get this right. On the international agreement, as I said, the UK is a founder member of the high ambition coalition, we are driving it forward and we need other countries to do it as well. Some 90% of the pollution in our oceans that comes from rivers comes from just 10 rivers—eight of them in Asia and two in Africa. That is an indication of the global problem that we are facing.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, there are growing reports of the detrimental impact of microplastics in the food and water supplies, which can indirectly impact on our health. What are the Government doing to further research this problem and educate the public on this risk, and what measures are being taken to mitigate it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are human health issues related to plastics pollution and huge environmental damage done. At a recent Ospar convention, I saw a fulmar having its guts opened up for us to look at, and you can see the plastics in its guts system and its gizzard. It just gives you an idea of how many thousands—millions, even—of birds around the world are dying because of plastics pollution. We need to have a greater understanding of the impact on human health, and that is why our One Health agenda is really important in this field.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about the deposit return scheme, and said that it would be coming in in October 2025. Why has it taken so long? People are incredibly frustrated about this; they want it introduced as quickly as possible. Is the delay partly because the Government are reconsidering its scope?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, we want this to be a United Kingdom scheme. The noble Baroness will be aware of complications in Scotland, and we want to make sure that we are introducing this in conjunction, so that we do not have booze cruises from Scotland to England to buy drinks that will not fall within that scheme. We now think that we can work with this. In the context of the whole piece, with our plastics packaging tax, and recycling increasing dramatically over the last decade, we are now requiring households right across the country, uniform across the local authorities, to recycle all six waste streams by 2027. With the bag charge, which has seen a 98% reduction in the use of those, and the introduction of the banning of single-use plastic straws and a whole range of other single-use plastics, I think even the noble Baroness would admit that we are doing our best.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will be aware that Wales led the way in introducing a charge for single-use plastic bags. It was so successful that it was followed in short order by Northern Ireland, Scotland and then England. However, in respect of the ban on single-use plastics, on which, again, Wales is trying to lead the way, I am not quite so sure of the evidence. Will the Minister say what his opinion is of what the effect of banning single-use plastics might be?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our restrictions on straws, stirrers and cotton buds have had a big impact. These items used to appear on the top-10 littered items lists but no longer do so. According to estimates in our impact assessment, England used 1.1 billion single-use plates and 4.25 billion items of single-use cutlery per year, most of which were plastic but only 10% were recycled, so banning these items will have a significant impact on reducing plastic waste.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to strong public support for recycled plastics rather than virgin plastics, yet it is clear that the market mechanisms are simply not delivering the products that people can buy. Individual action will not work here. Do we not need to go much further and faster to ensure that we get to the circular economy that the Government stand for, and, indeed, the position where the polluter pays, which is the Government’s position?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Absolutely. The Government’s 25-year environment plan sets out our ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. The resources and waste strategy, which was published in 2018, sets out how we are going to achieve that ambition, mainly by creating precisely what the noble Baroness said—a circular economy. We are not the single repository of good ideas here so, if the noble Baroness has a suggestion that works with business and the end-user, particularly households, we would be glad to hear it.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in response to the question from my noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister said something about Scotland being different and that being a problem. Could he explain to noble Lords who are ignorant about these things what the problem is and what the solution might be?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not want to rake over the Scottish National Party’s grief, but it sought to have a different scheme from the rest of the United Kingdom—for whatever reason we can only conjecture. It is important to have one system across the whole United Kingdom. Many businesses and individuals were fiercely opposed to what was proposed to be introduced in Scotland, and we are glad that the Scottish Government pulled it. We can now move forward with one scheme that is effective across the United Kingdom and can really deliver. Those of us who can remember how deposit schemes worked in the past can see how it can work in the future. What was created in Scotland through certain applications of that scheme would have proved disastrous. We want to make sure that this happens properly across these islands.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I understand that some local authorities require seven different recycling bins, which threatens chaos. Does the Minister believe that the answer to our recycling challenge is to increase the number of recycling bins for us all or to make central recycling facilities work much more effectively?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord will know that different local authorities have different ways of doing this. There are technologies now that can separate plastics and other recyclable waste, but one undoubtedly needs a separate receptacle for food and various other wastes. I do not see how our proposal would lead to seven different recycling bins; it would just not work in those circumstances.

Situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, is a respected Minister in this House and I mean no disrespect to him. However, we are asking questions on a Statement about the Foreign Secretary’s activities, in the House that he is a Member of, but repeated by another Minister, it having been made in the House of Commons. The Foreign Secretary made a very significant contribution to this debate, outside this House, to the Conservative Middle East Council, on which we are also going to be asking questions of this Minister. I think it would be appropriate for the Foreign Secretary to be in this House, of which he is a Member, to take questions on speeches that he makes—especially those which could make a significant change to policy, and which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked valid questions on. We can now only go on a speech made at a Conservative Party event and an article in the Daily Mail in trying to elicit whether the Government’s policy on the recognition of the state of Palestine has changed.

If it has changed, these Benches will welcome it. We have a long-standing view on the recognition of the state of Palestine. My honourable friend Layla Moran has twice now launched her presentation Bill in the House of Commons, and in it she outlined what practical steps would be necessary if we were moving towards recognition. That was first presented before the violence in October and the Hamas atrocities, but it is even more important now. I look forward to the Minister outlining very clearly what the Government’s new approach is regarding what practical steps they will be taking to bring this about. This House has debated recognition of the state of Palestine. Is it the Government’s intention that, in government time, we will be debating this again? That would be a natural corollary of what the Foreign Secretary’s speech last night indicated.

With regard to the ICJ, it was regrettable from our perspective that the Government rather undermined the processes, but it is welcome that they have accepted what the rulings are: the recognition of the atrocities committed by Hamas and the responsibilities now upon Israel. Previously, I have asked the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, what data and information the UK Government are collecting from our monitoring, both in the skies and through other monitoring, with regard to activities. Will we be participating in the work of the ICJ now, given its ruling, to ensure that proper information is collated about the tactics of the Israel Defense Forces within Gaza? We know, even just today, from BBC Verify, of the estimate that between 51% and 61% of all buildings in Gaza have now been destroyed or damaged; that is between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings. It is estimated that 26,000 Palestinians have been killed, 70% of them being women and children. The need for adherence to the ruling is incredibly important.

On the UNRWA situation and the very serious allegations, I agree with the noble Lord that the investigation needs to be expedited and clear, and that those responsible need to be prosecuted. I welcome the Minister’s Statement that 13,000 staff are providing life-saving services for the people within Gaza. As we know, UNRWA is operating outside Gaza too. Can the Minister clarify what the UK “pause” means in reality? Have we stopped co-ordinating on the delivery of aid with UNRWA, given that, in many areas, it continues to be the only provider of assistance? Is our pause open-ended, or will it be contingent on whether the report has been made or any prosecutions carried forward?

Finally, there is now likely to be US retaliation for the attacks and the deaths of their service personnel. There is likely to be political change in the Israeli Government, depending on coalition partners’ response to the latest talks in Paris. This is a time of great volatility and concern. What role is the UK playing overall? Is it a leading role, if we are changing our position on the state of Palestine, to ensure a collective approach to not just a full bilateral ceasefire, but a regional partnership for peace, in what may be a very dangerous time ahead?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I am grateful to both the noble Lords. I agree wholeheartedly with the analysis of the current situation given by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. The whole House shares his and my horror at the impact of this war. It is 115 days since Hamas’s attacks against the State of Israel. Hamas continues to hold more than 130 hostages, and innocent Palestinians are suffering, with over 25,000 people killed. Israelis must be able to live in security and Gazans must be able to rebuild their lives.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about the latest negotiations. The United Kingdom is involved, at the highest levels, in setting up a contact group with key partners. We are in the key position of having friends across the region and being a friend to the State of Israel. We are working closely with everyone. The Prime Minister has spoken to the President of the United States at length and to a great many other people. The Foreign Secretary is not here today because he is travelling to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Lebanon, as part of a continued list of engagements in the region which he has been undertaking since he took his post. I am sure that the House thinks that is right, because he clearly has to take that role. I will come on to talk about concerns about recent comments.

We have called for an immediate pause to get more aid in and hostages out. We want this pause to turn into a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to fighting. We have identified five steps for this to happen, which answers one of the crucial questions that both noble Lords asked. A political horizon will provide a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution. We can then form a new Palestinian Government for the West Bank in Gaza, accompanied by an international support package. Key to that is removing Hamas’s capacity to launch attacks against Israel, the release of all Israeli hostages and Hamas leaders agreeing to leave Gaza.

The noble Lords asked about the ICJ ruling. The United Kingdom is a firm supporter of the rules-based order and has been for decades. We respect the ICJ ruling in its entirety. One cannot pick and mix on this. There is a question about whether it came at a time when such sensitivities were manifest in the region, but we absolutely accept this ruling.

My right honourable friend Andrew Mitchell spoke to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the day before yesterday. The inquiry that he announced goes much further than a normal UN inquiry; it is independent and we must let it take its course. I share everyone’s view that it is wrong to have people who are alleged to have been perpetrators of the 7 October attacks in this organisation. It is right to cease their employment and to investigate further.

I give the House this clear commitment. First, our contributions to UNRWA have been made for this financial year and our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support other partners, including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme and the Egyptian Red Crescent Society, in order to respond to the critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.

We will continue our support for the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. Some 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery in December. The second delivery of 315 tonnes was made earlier this year. We will continue to support the Red Crescent Society, with which we have a long-standing, trusted relationship, to make sure that this happens. But for this to happen, we need to see border crossings open on a more sustained basis. We are calling for the Ashdod port to be opened as a route for aid to reach Gaza, and to extend the opening hours and the capacity of the Nitzana screening facility and the Kerem Shalom checkpoint so that more trucks, aid and fuel can enter Gaza. This requires the Kerem Shalom crossing to be open seven days a week. My noble friend Lord Cameron has raised this at the highest levels in Israel.

I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, a complete answer today to his question about data collection. There is a variety of different sources—some open, and some requiring other forms of data. We are monitoring what is going on, and we are concerned about the scale of the tragic loss of life. We want to make sure that we are encouraging Israel to defend its borders, as it has the absolute right to do, but to do so proportionately.

The US retaliation against the attack on its base in Jordan is obviously an indication of the complexity of the problems right across the region. We are in close touch with the United States about this. We are deeply mindful of the 2,500 British personnel in the region, and we want to make sure that they are safe and that their families are assured that they are safe. Any response must, first of all, give a clear indication to Iran and its proxies that they cannot operate in this way. We are also mindful that we need to move this whole region towards a more peaceful and stable future.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that there was a very warm reaction to the reports of what the Foreign Secretary said to the Conservative Middle East Council dinner? Does this not show that the old approach to a two-state solution—whereby Palestine is recognised as a state and Israel is fully recognised by the Arabs at the end of the process—is not going to work? This is a very difficult issue. What is probably needed is a process which, from the start, makes it clear that Arab participants should recognise Israel and that all of us, including Israel, should recognise Palestine as a state. This is the only viable outcome.

Do the Government share the view of the US Secretary of State, who said that UNRWA’s ability to provide and distribute various forms of aid in Gaza was “absolutely indispensable”? This is surely covered by the ruling of the International Court of Justice that all must do their best to increase the flow of aid into Gaza—including UNRWA, even though what some of its employees have been accused of is quite horrible and must be punished following an inquiry.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord understands more than any of us how sensitive this time and the surrounding negotiations are. It is absolutely clear that Gaza and the West Bank are occupied Palestinian territory and will be part of a future Palestinian state. We support a two-state solution that guarantees security and stability for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people. Recently, I read a most interesting quote from former Mossad director, Meir Dagan. Commenting on the two-state solution, he said:

“We have no other way. Not because the Palestinians are my top priority but because I am concerned about Israel’s well-being and I want to do what I can to ensure Israel’s existence.”


That shows a real depth of understanding of the importance of working towards that conclusion.

On the noble Lord’s point about UNRWA, we are not alone in having paused our financial support for UNRWA. The United States, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all temporarily paused funding. I gave a list of other organisations that we are using. The noble Lord is absolutely right that UNRWA has the facilities on the ground and many thousands of people working in and around Gaza who have the ability to get food, fuel and all other humanitarian items to the people of Gaza. We want to be back working with it when this inquiry has worked out who precisely was involved in the attacks to get back international confidence in it as an organisation to deliver aid.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, we have been having discussions about the process which will lead to peace, but we need to start the process. In order to start the process, do we not need to recognise two things? First, the world of 8 October is a fundamentally different world from the world of 6 October. Secondly, Israel is a democracy, unlike Hamas in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That means that if we are going to be realistic about encouraging Israel to start that process, we need to recognise that, even today, well over 100 of its citizens are still being held hostage. I know the Minister has personally made significant efforts to meet hostage families and to work on that issue. If we are going to start a process to peace in the Middle East, which I would welcome as I have worked on it for as long as I can, we need to face basic political realities. Unless and until those hostages are released, the process will not begin. If we want to see peace in the Middle East after that conflict, the first step must be to get the hostages released. Does my noble friend agree?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I certainly do. That is the first step in a road out of this sorry saga that we all want to see achieved. I cannot imagine—well, I can imagine what it is like for the families, because on two occasions I have met them, and I am due to meet some more this week. Noble Lords can understand the emotion. When you meet them, it is absolutely a searing realisation of the true brutality of those events and the continuous misery for those families, including the parents of a child who is around one year old. You can only imagine what they feel about that.

On my noble friend’s point about democracy, he is absolutely right. As we can see daily in our newspapers, Israel is a vibrant democracy. There are future changes perhaps—we do not know—but we will support whoever is the legitimate Government of Israel to help to find a solution to this. My noble friend is also right that it has been 18 years, I think, since free and fair elections, or elections, have taken place in Gaza. The Hamas controlling body has no democratic authority. We want to make sure that the future of Gaza does not have Hamas anywhere in it.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, while welcoming much of what the Minister has said, will he tell the House what steps the Government are taking to ensure that the Israeli Government actually respond to the request that the UK Government and the Foreign Secretary are now making about an immediate cessation of hostilities to allow for more aid to get in, for hostages to get out and above all for the slaughter to stop with a view to turning this into a permanent sustainable ceasefire, which is demanded by more and more countries and by public opinion in this country? Has the time not come for the UK to cease trading in arms with Israel while it continues to kill thousands of civilians, as we have heard, 70% of whom are women and children, which my noble friend Lord Collins has described from the Front Bench as a humanitarian disaster?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are very concerned with the immediate days—hours, even—of this emerging saga. Whatever any Minister says at any Dispatch Box is very often out of date by the time he or she sits down. First of all, we absolutely accept that Israel has the right to defend itself against the vile terrorism that it suffered on 7 October. We have very strict rules in this country and fantastic oversight, in this place and beyond, of our arms trading arrangements. Any Government should apply those oversights to it, and we do. But it is absolutely vital that we concentrate on the immediate problem, which is getting those hostages released. I pay tribute to the Government of Qatar for their support and great expertise in achieving this. Those who have been involved in the Northern Ireland issue over the years know how galling it is when you see people that you know have done terrible things being swapped for victims of terrorism who have done no wrong. But it does require an enormous amount of courage and determination to make sure that we can get these hostages out and move forward to sustainable, lasting peace.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his remarks. I also pay tribute to workers in Gaza, particularly, and in the West Bank, many of whom are risking their own lives to provide support and medical help for the victims of the bombardments. Does the Minister appreciate that UNRWA apparently does not have enough money to see it through February, to provide aid in Gaza and in the West Bank? Will he look into, or have the Government looked into, the fact that medical facilities for victims are being denied and systematically destroyed, according to the reports coming to us from Medical Aid for Palestinians? What are the Government going to do to ensure that all the victims have access to the medical support and the help that international law says they should?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is crucial to get the right amount of medical aid and food, and all the other types of sustenance the people of Gaza require. That means more trucks, more ships and more material getting across borders. That is our priority, and there are a great many organisations that can assist with the delivery of that; I listed them earlier. But the noble Baroness is right; UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza and has provided essential basic healthcare, education, protection and vital humanitarian assistance for hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Some 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza are eligible for UNRWA support. In Gaza, it operates 183 schools and two primary healthcare facilities. We want to make sure that we can use this agency as quickly as possible, but that is not stopping the level of compassionate support that the British people are giving to the people of Gaza. We are getting that aid in as quickly as we can, but we need those border crossings to be more functional.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register, particularly those relating to friendship with Israel. Does my noble friend remember that, when the International Court of Justice announced its inquiry, Hamas pledged to honour those interim judgments? The court has asked for the release of hostages. Is my noble friend disappointed that that has not happened—that Hamas has broken its word? If we are to recognise an independent Palestinian state before there is a lasting peace and mutual recognition of boundaries, what assurances does my noble friend intend to put in to ensure the safety of Israel? Or would the British Government be content, for example, with a sovereign Palestinian state entering into a defence arrangement with Iran?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I understand my noble friend’s concerns and hope that, through the process we can now move towards, we can address the 30-year failure of the international community to support a lasting solution. In Israel we have seen rising incomes and a state that is very advanced in its security, trade and the living standards of its population, but one thing that has not been delivered to the people of Israel, and which really matters to them and to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, is security. That is what we want to achieve. We want a lasting security, and then Israel can continue to be a real force, both economically and culturally, around the world.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, no democratic country should have the mandate to mercilessly kill another nation. What advice have our Government received since the ICJ interim ruling as to whether they will also be dragged into complicity should the international court determine that there have been war crimes and breaches of the genocide convention?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The British Government have never defined what genocide is; we leave that for a court to do. However, we do not believe that this qualifies as genocide. We accept, and are pleased by, the ruling of the court in its calls for the release of the hostages and for the necessity of getting aid into Gaza.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the failure of the international community for 30 years or more in this matter. That implies that, if a two-state solution is to be brought about, as the Foreign Secretary said last night—and I very much welcome his remarks, and indeed the very balanced remarks of the Opposition, if I may say so, this afternoon—that surely implies that simply asking them to bring about a solution is not going to be enough. It requires more than just persuasion, and possibly a degree of international coercion on both sides, to bring about a solution in the wider interest. That is difficult when the Israeli Government, as at the moment, do not believe in and have rejected a two-state solution. Does the Minister have any ideas how the real problem of Hamas might be dealt with in this ongoing discussion?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

None of these solutions is entirely in our gift. We do not have the ability to wave a wand or send a gunboat or do all the things that Foreign Ministers might have done in centuries past. It comes down to really hard work and old-fashioned diplomacy. That is what my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, other Ministers, my noble friend Lord Ahmad—who has been ceaselessly working on this—and the Diplomatic Service have been trying to draw together. We think we have a thread which can lead towards a solution. We have to be positive about this. If you just think of the world as it exists—my noble friend referred to 8 October, the day after the attack—it is so bleak and depressing that you can hardly see a way forward. But there is a solution and we know it can work. It comes down to working with our partners, and, most of all, working with the Government of Israel and with sensible people in the Occupied Territories, to make sure that we can have a solution which is free of Hamas and gives lasting security to the Palestinian people and Israeli citizens.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Government assume that alternative sources of finance for humanitarian aid, which the Minister mentioned, will make up for the loss of financial aid currently going to UNRWA? Clearly, the Government are radically revising their policy at the moment and have set out these five important conditions. So far as the two-state solution is concerned, are the Government going to wait for the slowest? Will they wait for a consensus among their allies? What will they deem to be necessary before they accept a two-state solution? On the other matter, is the Minister confident that the Palestinian Authority is ready to assume responsibility for the West Bank and Gaza?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend the Foreign Secretary met the President of the Occupied West Bank Territories, Mahmoud Abbas, and will continue to talk to him to find, I hope, precisely that solution. On the noble Lord’s first point, on UNRWA, as I said, we have given to UNRWA what we were going to give this financial year, and the additional sums that we are promising will still get, in aid, to the people of Gaza through a variety of sources that I listed earlier.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister clarify his last remarks? When he said that my noble friend Lord Cameron has had discussions with the Prime Minister of Palestine, can we be crystal-clear that the United Kingdom will not recognise a state of Palestine that is led by the current Palestinian Authority and the Fatah organisation, which has been so involved in terror, and will not recognise a Gaza-led Government where Hamas has either control or power?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, and allow me to clarify. We will recognise a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution at the time that is right and with the leadership in place. We have already talked about needing a technocratic Government who will resolve the issues that exist within Gaza in particular, and we want to make sure that that Government do not have Hamas anywhere near them, or as part of them, and that they are trusted in those territories but also by the people of Israel, who want to live in peace with their neighbours.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, for as long as most of us can remember, Ministers at the Dispatch Box, of both parties, have reiterated the commitment to a two-state solution, although I have to say—and a Select Committee of this House made this position explicit not so long ago—that the possibility of that being achieved as long as the Government in Israel pursue their expansion of settlements on the West Bank is diminishing. It is only at times of awful violence, such as we have seen in the last few months, that the attention of the international community is focused on what the two-state solution actually means and whether we will work for it as soon as the violence ceases. What is new is not just that Israel has been moving towards making a two-state solution more difficult but that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made it quite clear that he simply will not accept a Palestinian state. I should like to know what steps the Government are taking to try to impress on him that there can be no long-term chance of peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians, like the Israelis, have a state of their own.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord raises the fundamental issue here. There are different voices in Israel, and we will work with whoever is in government to achieve what we, with our partners in the region and with countries such as the United States, think is the best way forward for the people of Israel and those living in the Occupied Territories. The noble Lord is right: that is very difficult to achieve, particularly when people at the top of the Government are saying that our policy is not right for them. However, there are plenty of people who believe—I earlier quoted somebody deeply involved with the security of the State of Israel—that it is fundamentally important not just for the Palestinians but for the future of Israel. It is that which we want to secure. Israel is our friend; we can speak frankly with friends, and that is what we do in diplomatic terms. We do not cut ourselves off from it just because there might be some side to an argument that we disagree with. We will work with Israel to try to achieve what we think is best for the long-term security of the region, which affects us all.

Gender Equality

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the White Paper International Development in a contested world published in November 2023 (CP 975), what steps they are taking to achieve gender equality and the autonomy of all women and girls by 2030.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, our White Paper sets the course for transformative change, including countering efforts to roll back women’s and girls’ rights. It builds on our new International Women and Girls Strategy, which commits to educating girls, empowering women and girls and ending gender-based violence. Evidence shows that these are the areas of greatest need. To deliver our ambition, we will ensure that at least 80% of FCDO’s bilateral ODA spend has a focus on gender equality by 2030.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to work with new partners to counteract the rollback that certainly has happened globally on women’s and children’s rights. Can my noble friend inform the House who the new partners are, and what the proven solutions referred to in the White Paper are? Will they help, for example, women and girls most at risk in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s inhumane policies mean that women and children there have no right to education, work and freedom of movement?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Throughout the White Paper, a theme of trying to focus our development support on women’s and girls’ projects is justified by the fact that if you are doing the right thing for women and girls, you tend to be doing the right thing across the development piece. She is right that what is happening in Afghanistan is appalling. We have repeatedly condemned the Taliban’s decision to restrict the rights of women and girls, including through UN Security Council and Human Rights Council resolutions and public statements. The UK is committed to ensuring the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, including the continued participation of female aid workers and full access of women and girls to humanitarian services.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, unsustainably high fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa—for example up to eight births per woman in Niger—lead to poverty, desertification, conflict and emigration and are surely unsustainable. I welcome the Government’s reply so far and ask the Minister to continue to ensure that the status of women is high in our priorities and that therefore, over time, this will lead to an easing of the pressures on population, particularly if we insist that women are educated for longer.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and there are some stark statistics here. But the advantage from the global perspective is that every £1 spent on contraceptive services beyond the current level would save £3 on the cost of maternal, newborn and abortion care by reducing unintended pregnancies. Over 800 women or girls die every day due to pregnancy or childbirth complications and at least 200 million women and girls alive today, living in 31 countries, have undergone female genital mutilation. These are stark statistics and underpin the determination to address this area in our bilateral aid.

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, the reality is that in many areas, the Taliban’s policies are deeply antithetical to women. However, there are also persistent efforts on the part of Afghans themselves, with support from external NGOs, to evade some of the most extreme policies. I know that the Minister is sympathetic to the plight of Afghan women and girls, but can he confirm both political and financial support for the cluster education schemes that are now spreading rapidly in Afghanistan?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an area of human courage that is almost impossible to imagine—people are defying the repulsive acts of this regime by providing education in sometimes very dangerous situations. We will look at anything that helps those groups of people. Of course, she understands the difficulties we face: we cannot take action other than multilaterally and through UN resolutions, but if we can find a way of supporting those groups, we certainly will.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, today is the International Day of Education and I agree with the Minister that education is critical to securing equality by the target date of 2030. Does he agree that it is concerning that access to education for girls, and for disabled children in particular, is getting worse? UNICEF has set an international benchmark for donor countries of 15% of their ODA being allocated to education. The UK had been at 5%; it has now fallen to 3%, putting us 22nd among donor countries. Will the Government look again at this to ensure that we are moving up to the benchmark rather than down from it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Many of these areas will be taken into such programmes by our drive to achieve the 80% figure by 2030. A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five —that is an extraordinary statistic—and girls living in conflict area states are almost 2.5 times more likely to be out of primary school and 90% more likely to miss secondary schooling, compared to those who live in more stable countries. We have to make sure that we are taking action now that means that future generations in these countries will have more of a chance. We know that that chance will be improved to a massive degree by education.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one of the most important ways to ensure that we move to equality internationally is to enable more females to become involved in public life. Will the Minister outline how we in the UK can use soft power, particularly in places such as west Africa, to ensure that more females are coming into public life, particularly peacemaking, because that is really important.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am throwing statistics around today, but it is interesting to see that peace agreements are 35% more likely to last if women are involved in the process. We are doing a great deal in this area. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s programme, sponsored by the FCDO, helped to embed gender analysis throughout all aspects of parliamentary business, support women’s political leadership and end violence against women in politics. We are giving substantial sums to a variety of organisations to ensure that we are supporting women in public life and that their contribution can feed through to a lasting peace in areas where there is instability, providing a more stable community around the world.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I return to a subject that I have raised on numerous occasions, including with the Minister: malnutrition and nutrition. He mentioned childbirth complications, and it is clear that girls and women are disproportionately impacted by malnutrition, which affects future generations and impacts on a lot of the SDGs. This Government committed at the last Nutrition for Growth summit to follow the OECD nutrition policy marker so that we can assess the impact of our interventions, particularly on women and girls. When will we hear that that has been implemented, and see how much we are spending on nutrition-sensitive policies?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are determined that there should be transparency throughout the drive towards hitting the target of 80% of our programmes being focused on such areas. That is why we are working with the OECD through its Development Assistance Committee gender equality markers, which rate the bilateral programmes as significant or principal, so that this House or anyone else can identify the value of these programmes and where they are going. The nutrition summit at the end of last year was an enormous success in bringing together a great many countries, organisations, faith-based bodies and civil society to make sure that nutrition issues are written into our development aid programmes.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, it is not only women but men, is it not, who need to be educated on and helped with contraception? When I dealt with these issues a few years ago, I talked to a woman who was under 30, who had nine children. I told her about the importance everyone attaches to contraception, but she said with tears in her eyes that her husband would not let her use it. In many parts of the world, the men need educating on the importance of contraception quite as much as the women.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, and when we talk about the focus of our aid being on trying to increase the amount for women and girls, it is vital that we address that fundamental, often cultural difficulty. I take the point she has made. It is incumbent on us to make sure, working with our partners, that the large amounts of funds that flow to medical bodies such as Gavi are focused on tackling that fundamental part of the human relationship that causes so much difficulty.

Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Regulations laid before the House on 13 and 14 December 2023 be approved.

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 23 January.

Motions agreed.

Office for Environmental Protection

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the second annual progress report of the Office for Environmental Protection, published on 18 January.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. This Government are committed to leaving the environment in a better state than we found it. The Office for Environmental Protection’s report covers the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. This includes the first two months of the 2023 environmental improvement plan and our new long-term environmental targets. The OEP’s 200-page report recognises the scale of ambition in the EIP 2023, including our challenging interim targets. We will study it carefully and respond in due course.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his response. When Dame Glenys Stacey, the chair of the OEP, launched her report last week, she said that the OEP’s job was to hold up a mirror to the Government for them to assess their progress. I am afraid to say that the view in the mirror was not a pretty sight. As was mentioned in yesterday’s Oral Question, the OEP concludes that the Government are largely failing to meet the statutory and other targets they have set for environmental improvement. The Government’s response seems to be either to reject or to reinterpret what the OEP said. Would it not be better to acknowledge what the OEP has said, recognise that things are not necessarily going as well as they should, learn lessons and try to adopt a different tack?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I absolutely concur with the noble Lord in that we treat anything that comes from the OEP very seriously. I seek to reassure noble Lords that it is not our position to dismiss it in any way. As I said in my original Answer, the report refers to just two months of the environmental improvement plan, which sets out some very demanding targets and holds the Government to account for them. The noble Lord and I are meeting next week, when I will set out some of the things we are doing as a result of the EIP and other measures. I think he will be reassured that the report that looks at a full year of the EIP’s implementation will show the Government’s ambition and how we are responding to reasoned criticism and being held to account by a very well-led organisation.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I commend the report from the Office for Environmental Protection. I quote from it:

“The current state of the water environment is not satisfactory … the pace of change has now stalled”.


Will the Minister and his ministerial colleagues consider setting up a review of the way the water companies are regulated? Regulation is currently divided between Ofwat, as the financial regulator, and the Environment Agency, as the environmental regulator. Would it not be better to have a single regulator?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Duke for his question. The report the OEP produced was for the year up to the end of March last year. In April we published our plan for water, which addresses many of the points the OEP raised. Of course, since then we have had the announcement of the large investment in water quality that we are requiring water companies to make. His point is interesting, and I have considered over many years whether we could have a better landscape of regulation of our water industry. What I want to urge is that there is an urgency about trying to tackle the problems. We have set ourselves very important targets, and if government were to indulge in navel-gazing over many months in trying to create a new body, we would miss our really important 2030 target, which Ministers are concentrating on.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, we all have huge respect for the Minister—even I do —but he keeps repeating the same thing from the Government. Clearly, the report is not happy. It says that this is deeply concerning, adverse environmental trends continue and:

“Government must speed up … its efforts”.


Are the Government going to speed up their efforts?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a real sense of urgency in the department; it does not just stop at Ministers but goes right down through the agencies that are the delivery bodies for this. We could double the size of Natural England and the Environment Agency and we still would not hit the targets if we were not weaponising the most important people in terms of improving the environment: the people who control and manage the land. Completely changing how we support farming, from an area-based system to one that is improving nature and incentivising and rewarding farmers, is just one part of what we are doing. I have great respect for the noble Baroness as well, so I say to her: come in to Defra and sit down. I will take her through the most ambitious plan for our environment that this country has ever seen.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

In answering a recent question in this House, the Minister introduced us to a very interesting category of person, and he has just done it again: the weaponised land manager. Looking at my register of interests, I think I might be one, and therefore I will put a question to him. I spent last month bouncing back and forth between officials who deal with Countryside Stewardship and the sustainable farming initiative, both worthy causes. There is a great deal of passing back and forth, confusion and lack of unity. When will we get a unified scheme so that environmental warriors such as me can actually deliver?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is a weapons-grade guardian of the countryside, and I want to make sure that people like him find it really simple and straight- forward to apply for the sustainable farming incentive. It is probably the best 20 to 40 minutes of a farmer’s year, and it compares and contrasts so well with the complications of systems in the past. It is fairer: more than 50% of area payments went to the biggest 10% of farmers; these are systems that improve smaller farmers as well. We are also unifying, to use his word, the system that allows people to apply for Countryside Stewardship and sustainable farming incentives, and the RPA is doing that today.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I recognise the Minister’s personal commitment to protecting the natural environment, but yesterday he rightly observed that you cannot meet 2030 targets if you start acting only in 2029. He has talked about important schemes that have already got off the ground, but yesterday the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, provided a lengthy list of examples of where there has been little or no visible progress. Can the Minister provide a timetable for the announcements of regulations that are going to be brought forward during the remainder of this Session, so that both this House and the OEP can see where and when this progress is going to be made?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised the issue of peat. The England Peat Action Plan committed us to restoring 35,000 hectares of peat-land by 2025—which is fairly soon—through the nature for climate fund. Through the net-zero strategy we are also committed to restoring 280,000 hectares of peat by 2050. We will bring forward legislation this year to ban the use of peat in horticulture. That is just one area that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised. I also draw her attention to our 34 new landscape recovery projects, which show that we are on track to have 70% of land in environmental land management schemes by 2028. This is progress and has real benefits to our environment on the ground.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, launching the annual assessment, the chair of the OEP said that

“government’s plans must stack up. Government must be clear itself and set out transparently how it will change the nation’s trajectory to the extent now needed, in good time”.

We do not yet have that clarity or transparency. What action will now be taken to meet the key delivery plans, the interim targets, and to implement an effective monitoring and evaluation learning framework?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Earl probably missed what I said earlier about the fact that this report covers just two months since the announcement last January—a year ago—of the environmental improvement plan. In a year’s time, he will be able to see how we are doing against that through the next report, in the summer. Through the Environment Act, noble Lords on all sides were rightly keen to ensure that there is an accurate monitoring and reporting system. These are not state secrets; this is 800 pages of data that we can share that underpin the targets that we produce in that plan. We are committed, through parliamentary processes and through the OEP, to report on those monitoring methods. We will continue to do so in an open and transparent way.

Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023.

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, this instrument contains measures to deter the Government of Iran, and groups backed by Iran, from conducting hostile activity against the UK and our partners. It was laid on 13 December 2023 under powers in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The measures entered into force the following day. The instrument has been considered and not reported by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

The Iranian regime poses a clear threat to the UK and our partners, with hostile acts ranging from assassination plots to significant support for armed groups. The new legislation provides sanctions powers to respond to this appalling behaviour. We can now introduce sanctions designations in relation to Iran’s hostile actions in any country. It could be used in response to Iranian support to Russia, destabilising conduct in the Middle East or hostile acts in any partner country. We can use these powers where acts are perpetrated by Iran or by armed groups backed by Iran.

Since January 2022, the UK has identified at least 15 threats emanating from Iran to the lives of UK-based individuals. This is totally unacceptable. Furthermore, Iran continues to destabilise the Middle East through its development and use of weapons, along with support for groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Our priority is the safety and security of the UK, the people who live here and our international partners. That is why we have taken action, using this legislation, to sanction the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, and other senior IRGC figures involved in Iran’s long-term support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. We will not stop there. For as long as Iran continues to threaten the UK, our interests and our partners, we will respond firmly and decisively. We will use this legislation as a key tool within the broader diplomatic approach aimed at deterring Iran.

Sanctions are particularly effective when imposed alongside international partners and combined with other diplomatic tools. For example, following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22 year-old Iranian woman, we sought to expose the extent of Iran’s abuses on the international stage, including at the UN Human Rights Council. This was accompanied by regular sanctions designations co-ordinated with partners including the EU, the US and Canada. We delivered a clear message of international condemnation while holding those responsible for human rights abuses to account through sanctions.

I turn now to trade measures, the other substantive addition made by this legislation. Iran continues to expand its drones programme and is sending them to Russia to use against Ukraine. We have already sanctioned a range of entities and individuals involved in the provision of Iranian drones to Russia, using the existing Russia sanctions regime. However, drones are also a feature of Iran’s hostile activity beyond Ukraine. This legislation imposes new restrictions on the Iranian regime’s drone programme, targeting UAVs and their components, which is crucial to its collaboration with Russia. It draws on knowledge of the Iranian drones deployed in Ukraine and elsewhere. The trade restrictions strengthen our existing export controls on drone components, ensuring that no UK business or person, wherever they are in the world, can facilitate the trade of these items.

This legislation also maintains existing trade measures on goods and technology that might be used for internal repression, such as riot shields and water cannons, and on goods, technology and services that may be used for interception and monitoring. This will ensure that the UK plays no part in enabling the Iranian regime’s trampling of human rights. We strongly support the right of the Iranian people to freedom of expression and assembly.

The legislation maintains our unwavering support for human rights in Iran. The regime continues to treat women and human rights defenders with contempt, executing eight people in 2023 for their participation in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. The recent death of Armita Geravand, a 17 year-old Iranian girl, after an alleged assault by the morality police shows the brutal reality of life for women and girls in Iran. Since October 2022, we have sanctioned 95 individuals and entities responsible for violating human rights in Iran. The Iran (Sanctions) (Human Rights) (EU Exit) Regulations have been revoked and designations made under those regulations are saved under the new regulations, allowing us to continue to hold the people and institutions responsible to account.

These new regulations demonstrate our determination to target those responsible for Iran’s malign activity. They maintain our commitment to human rights law, allowing us to hold to account those in Iran who fail to uphold and respect them. We will continue to work with like-minded partners to disrupt, deter and respond to threats from the Iranian regime and co-ordinate sanctions action. These regulations send a clear message to the Government of Iran and those who seek to harm the UK and our partners. I beg to move.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, these measures go beyond the human rights sanctions already in place, as the Minister has said, and are now much broader in their scope and, potentially, their depth. They address Iran’s regrettably growing internal oppression and external aggression. I support the measures and am grateful to the Minister for the clear way that he introduced them.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and I have debated Iran on a number of occasions in Grand Committee and the Chamber. The fact that its activities at home and abroad warrant debates in this House is testimony that the United Kingdom has considerable interest in ensuring the safety of our nationals, both at home in the UK and abroad, as well as that of our allies. It is regrettable that these measures need to be in place. As they are broader, deeper and country-wide and could set precedents for other areas, it is right that they be scrutinised. I wish to ask the Minister a number of questions. I fully understand if he cannot answer them today but I would be grateful if he could write to me.

As the Minister said, the context of the repression is the reprehensible persecution and oppression of women and young women in Iran by both the morality police and the judiciary, which cannot be considered free and independent. I would be grateful if he could outline the interaction between those bodies that are now open to sanctions within the police and the revolutionary guard and, as human rights measures are to be put in place, their interaction with members of the judiciary. We have seen all too frequently in Russia and Belarus how judiciaries are now completely captured by regimes and are not independent arms. Can the Minister clarify whether members of the judiciary will also be covered by these measures?

I asked a broader question at the outset about women and girls. I have raised the point repeatedly in the Chamber and to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad. There had been opportunities for those persecuted to seek refuge in the UK through asylum routes, but there is now no longer a safe and legal route for migration to the UK for Iranian women seeking asylum. This was highlighted in a Home Office report just a number of days ago. Can the Minister write to me about what safe and legal routes exist beyond that offered by UNHCR, which is not a comparable direct route?

We know that Iran often operates not alone but with other countries, through proxies or with other state entities. The Minister was clear that these sanctions will cover Iran’s activities in other countries. What are the consequences for those countries facilitating them? What sanctions can be applied to those bodies that effectively provide proxy support?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, when the Foreign Secretary made the announcement on these sanctions, we had an opportunity to repeat his Statement in the House. I do not really want to repeat everything that I said then.

We very much welcome these actions, in particular the co-operation with other states. I totally agree that, for sanctions to be effective, we must work in conjunction with others—certainly the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the EU. I have no problems with that. However, at the time, I asked that we not limit ourselves to those countries. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, what we are doing to ensure that we get broader co-operation on these sanctions, not least with some of the Commonwealth members that could have an impact here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, indicated, we have discussed and raised the human rights abuses mentioned by the Minister. One area that we are particularly concerned about is the attacks on freedom of speech and the operation of journalists, not least the impact of this on the BBC World Service and the people who work for it—including the threats that have been applied to the families of BBC World Service employees. It would be good if the Minister could mention that—in particular the activities of this rogue state in threatening our citizens, not only abroad but here—in relation to how we will co-operate across Whitehall in addressing these issues. It is important for us to be reassured on that point.

We very much welcome the regulations and their broad nature. We are certainly committed to supporting any efforts to contain Iran and counter its efforts to sponsor terrorism across the globe, not least in supporting the Houthi terrorists operating in Yemen.

There is another question. I will not repeat the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—particularly on the operation of licences, which we have raised before. I totally understand why the conventions that we are signed up to permit that but it would be good to have a detailed explanation. However, one thing I have raised is this: while it is one thing to designate sanctions and agree with other countries about designating them, they must be effective. What I mean is, what are we doing to ensure that we can see the evidence that the Government are actually prosecuting sanctions evasions? People may not realise that there are consequences for evading the sanctions but may face severe consequences, so I would be particularly keen to hear how we are supporting actions to chase people who evade or seek to evade sanctions, or even offer services to facilitate their evasion. These are really important areas.

Of course, we then have the issue of the sunset sanctions from the JCPOA. What are we doing there? These regulations are part of that but what are we doing to beef up some of the designations of Iranian targets? It would be really important to understand that. With those brief comments, I reiterate our support for these regulations, as we did in December.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for their questions and their support for this measure. I want to address the important issues that they raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked about the judiciary. He is absolutely right that the judiciary in Iran is not independent. It is an agent of the state and its members are part of the architecture of that state, which has caused some of the grossest human rights abuses. They are available to be sanctioned. We have sanctioned members of that judiciary and will continue to do so as and when we get evidence to support doing that. He also asked about safe and legal routes. We are always looking at this issue. It is obviously a responsibility of the Home Office, with which we work closely; we also work internationally to make sure that safe and legal routes exist. I am very happy to give the noble Lord a more detailed briefing on that.

The noble Lord is absolutely right about the proxies and other states, individuals and companies through which the Iranian Government operate. We work with the EU, as well as with our partners in the US, Canada and many other countries, to try to ensure that a comprehensive regime exists. The Secretary of State can take urgent action under our sanctions regime to replicate sanctions that are implemented by the US and Canada. We will certainly take that action as soon as it is required, and can do so at great speed. Very often, the information comes out in relation to a particular incident or individual, and sometimes that requires speedy action. The Foreign Secretary and the Government are happy to move quickly on that and keep noble Lords informed about what we are doing.

The issue of facilitators is perhaps more relevant to the next SI but it is absolutely right that the noble Lord raised it. Unlike Iran, we are a free country with independent institutions, such as the judiciary. However despicable an individual’s acts, whether the crime is a murder or whether, in a case such as this, an individual feels that they have been wrongly sanctioned, they must have the ability to be supported by the legal system. No one argues with that; where we have a problem is with some people who have made a lot of money out of dirty money coming into the UK. We want to ensure that they are given the full glare of publicity and are understood to have been part of the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I thank the Minister; he has been very generous in responding to our points. I am still a little unclear with regard to the issue of Crown dependencies and the overseas territories when it comes to some of the shipping aspects. I would be happy for the Minister to write to me about this. I hope that I am not correct that, while a sanctioned individual and, therefore, vessel, would be prohibited from landing in UK waters, it would be able to land in the waters of overseas territories or Crown dependencies. This would be very attractive to that potential vessel, especially to individuals or an individual’s vessels. As I said, I would be happy if the Minister could write to me to clarify that point as I was not entirely sure of his response.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely accept the noble Lord’s point. I want to give myself the clear comfort that he seeks. It is not the case that a vessel or an individual not allowed into United Kingdom waters or ports, or to receive refuge in any form, can then go to a Crown dependency or overseas territory and get access. What I hope I said was that these measures cover all our overseas territories and Crown dependencies. However, I will write to him because I want to make absolutely certain that we are being clear.

I have been seeking inspiration for that reply and have now received a note; I may be able to avoid writing him a letter. There is an overseas territory order that applies on legislation. The UK sanctions regime applies in all United Kingdom overseas territories and Crown dependencies. I think I have just saved a stamp.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister. However, I think that the exemption would be an exemption from that order because it is an exemption under this order. If there is an exception for authorised conduct in a relevant country and the relevant country is the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or a British Overseas Territory, I do not know the interaction between the exception that we are approving under this when it comes to the overall application of UK sanctions to the overseas territories. I understand that the overseas territories have that application owing to that other instrument but this is an exception to that.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I understand the noble Lord’s concerns. I am informed that he need not worry but I want to make sure that he does not worry; I will therefore put it in a letter to him.

These measures represent a step forward in our capability to respond to hostile Iranian activity and keep our people safe. The UK Government are committed to using sanctions to hold the Iranian regime to account for its malign activity, both in the UK and elsewhere.

Motion agreed.

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2023.

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

Motion agreed.

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2023

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2023.

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations amend the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. These instruments were laid on 14 December 2023 under powers provided by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. They entered into force on 15 and 26 December 2023, and 1 January 2024. The instrument has been considered and not reported on by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

These instruments contain trade and financial measures, co-ordinated with our international partners, to increase the pressure on Putin over his brutal and illegal war against Ukraine. They ratchet up the pressure on Russia’s war machine and economy as part of the most severe package of economic sanctions that that country has ever faced.

The No. 4 regulations continue the UK Government’s commitment to ban the export of all items that have been used by Russia on the battlefields to date. Building on existing extensive prohibitions, these regulations ban the export of further products that could be used by the Russian military or industry, including electronics and machine parts. The legislation also delivers on commitments made by the Prime Minister at the G7 leaders’ summit last May to ban imports of Russian metals, including copper, aluminium and nickel, by the end of 2023. It extends the existing prohibition on luxury goods to include a ban on services ancillary to their movement and use. This means that those subject to UK sanctions can no longer provide financial services and funds, technical assistance and brokering services related to luxury goods.

There are also amendments to other product definitions and coding to ensure clarity and consistency with partners. On the financial side, this includes new obligations for persons designated under the Russia financial sanctions regime to report any assets that they own, hold or control in the UK or worldwide as a UK person to the relevant authorities. A further requirement has been placed on relevant firms to inform HM Treasury of any foreign exchange reserves and assets belonging to the central bank of Russia, the Russian Ministry of Finance or the Russian National Wealth Fund.

The regulations also amend existing regulations that prohibit UK credit and financial institutions processing sterling payments that have travelled to, from or via sanctioned credit and financial institutions, in order to expand this prohibition to include non-sterling payments. The prohibition adds a new exception to enable UK credit and financial institutions to transfer funds internally in certain circumstances for the purpose of compliance and regulation.

Finally, alongside the No. 4 regulations, we have introduced a new financial sanctions licensing ground to support UK entities in divesting their Russian interests. The licensing ground will also permit UK entities to buy out investments from designated persons and the Russian state, provided those funds go into a frozen account. We will proceed with a further prohibition on ancillary services related to metals when this can be done in concert with international partners.

The No. 5 regulations deliver the Prime Minister’s commitment, made at the G7 summit last May, to tackle the revenue that Russia generates from the export of diamonds. They prohibit the import, acquisition, supply and delivery of diamonds and diamond jewellery produced by Russia. A further G7-wide ban on the import of Russian diamonds processed in third countries is expected to come into force from 1 March this year.

I should add that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has been informed of a minor drafting error in the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2023. To remedy this, we have identified another instrument where this error can be corrected; we aim to lay it this later this year, with it coming into force as soon as possible. I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, with some detail on this; it is important that I put this part of my letter on the record. We consider that the Russian regulations can stand as they are in the meantime because, although the incorrect terminology was used, the exceptions set out in Regulation 60DC(2)(d) of the Russia regulations remain clear. The Government plan to lay a separate miscellaneous sanctions amendment statutory instrument later this year, as I said. I hope that, with that assurance, I can give the Committee the absolute understanding that this minor drafting mistake does not impact on the measure.

These latest measures demonstrate our determination to target those who participate in or facilitate Putin’s illegal war. Overall, the UK has sanctioned more than 1,900 individuals and entities, of which 1,700 individuals have been sanctioned since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than £20 billion-worth of UK-Russia trade is now under sanction, resulting in a 94% fall in Russian imports into the UK—comparing one year pre invasion to one year post invasion—as well as a 74% fall in UK exports to Russia.

Sanctions are working. Russia is increasingly isolated, cut off from western markets, services and supply chains. Key sectors of the Russian economy have fallen off a cliff, and its economic outlook is bleak. The UK Government will continue to use sanctions to ratchet up the pressure until Putin ends his brutal invasion of Ukraine. We welcome the clear and continued cross-party support for this action. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome these additional amendments on further sanctions. I certainly welcome the fact that we are focusing on trying to weaken the war machine that this illegal invasion of Ukraine is supporting. I certainty welcome Regulation 5, on luxury goods, too.

In the previous debate, the Minister mentioned the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, which aims to crack down on sanctions evasion. I very much welcome that because, as I mentioned, we have seen before evidence of companies circumventing the sanctions. He also mentioned the toolkit, which will, I hope, enable us to avoid repeating some mistakes made in the past. It would be good to better engage on how we will support this new office.

One thing that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has raised previously is this: how do we ensure that Britain’s offshore financial centres are properly able to implement the sanctions? Of course, we have been extremely concerned about transparency and the need to introduce public beneficial ownership registers speedily. Without them, we will not be able to see exactly what UK firms or individuals are up to. With opaque entities, sanctions will sometimes be evaded, though perhaps not deliberately. We need to address this properly.

The Government recently updated Parliament with another timeline for the expected delivery of public registers. However, I note that the British Virgin Islands will not have its appropriate frameworks in place as late as 2025. I hope that the Minister will express the same opinion as me: that this is too late and we really need to speed things up.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis—I nearly called him Lord Putin then—mentioned frozen assets. We will certainly address them in our debate on Friday. Since we also raised this issue in Oral Questions, I note that the Foreign Secretary—the noble Lord, Lord Cameron—mentioned his belief at Davos that frozen assets are an issue that need international co-operation. Can the Minister give us a bit more detail on that?

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, also referred to the stats that were mentioned by the Minister. I have here a letter dated 19 January from Anne-Marie Trevelyan. It repeats those figures but she says that we have

“sanctioned more than £20 billion of UK-Russia goods trade, contributing to a 99% drop in UK goods imports from Russia and a 82% drop in UK goods exports to Russia”.

I do not know why there is a difference there, especially as it is so recently put. I welcome that letter because it gives a lot of detailed information. One thing that Minister Trevelyan says, in referring to metals, diamonds, oil and stuff, is what we have addressed before: the leakage that seems to happen, particularly with luxury goods. Her letter says:

“The UK, EU and US have sent joint delegations to the UAE, Kazakhstan … Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Armenia, and we have delivered senior bilateral engagement with Turkey and Serbia, yielding positive results”.


I am not sure from the letter whether we have received positive results from all of these visits.

I was in Tbilisi late last year, and I noted that there was a big increase in the import of luxury cars into Georgia. It was also reported that, since the war, trade going from Georgia into Russia has increased, despite its public position. I welcome the fact that we have sent delegations and that the Minister is saying that there are positive results, but can he tell us exactly what they are? Even from my observations, it certainly looks as though there is an ability to evade sanctions.

With those brief comments, I reiterate the Opposition’s position: we are absolutely at one with the Government in supporting Ukraine and ensuring effective sanctions against Russia’s illegal invasion. We welcome these amendments to the sanctions regulations.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I again thank both noble Lords for their interest and support for these measures. I will seek to answer all the questions raised. I will ensure that future letters go to both Front Benches; I apologise to the noble Lord for missing him out in that exchange.

Gold is a sanctionable trade. Sometimes it is harder to detect, but it is certainly an element of trade that is within the sanctions regime.

I cannot give the noble Lord a breakdown of the sectors that create the 74%. I do not know why there is a discrepancy with the letter he received from my colleague Anne-Marie Trevelyan, but I will look into it. My understanding is that there has been a 96% reduction in trade from Russia and a 74% reduction in trade in the other direction. That will have caused hardship to some legitimate businesses, and we respect that, but this is an international incident which requires the strongest possible response, and our sanctions regime has had to take this decision.

I will write to both noble Lords about the buying of frozen assets and what impact that could have if those assets were then released, say, to Ukraine, to help pay for the war. We want to make sure that we are not diminishing the amount that that country should get to pay for the damage that has been done to it.

The G7 has repeatedly underscored that Russia’s obligations under international law are clear: it must pay for the damage it has caused to Ukraine. How we ensure that Russia does so is the subject of active and urgent discussions with G7 partners. Leaders have tasked the relevant G7 Ministers to report back on progress by the two-year mark of Russia’s invasion at the end of February. The UK remains fully committed to working with allies to pursue all lawful routes through which Russian assets can be used to support Ukraine.

While these G7 discussions continue, we have taken a number of steps domestically. We were the first to introduce legislation explicitly enabling us to keep sanctions in place until Russia pays for the damage it has caused; we have announced a route by which sanctioned individuals who want to do the right thing can donate frozen funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction; we introduced new powers to compel sanctioned individuals and entities to disclose assets they hold in the UK; and we are stepping up efforts to use funds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club to support humanitarian causes in Ukraine.

The noble Lord referred to the EU’s proposal to use the profits being incurred by funds trapped in Euroclear to support Ukraine. We are looking closely at that, but this situation is unique to the EU’s institutions. We and other G7 partners fully support the EU’s efforts but we do not believe that we can replicate them within our system. However, we are looking at any opportunities to increase the pressure. As I say, the EU’s proposal is unique to its institutions and we want to ensure that we use our frozen assets regime as effectively as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Can I just interrupt the Minister on this point? It is something that I picked up from Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s letter of 19 January, where she talks about these joint delegations “yielding positive results”. I agree with the Minister that this is not about attacking the Russian people but is about luxury goods, which are certainly leaking in. I wondered what the Minister meant in her letter about yielding positive results. Do we have figures on that? Has there been an impact on the trade, which seems to be leaking?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sure that we do have figures, although I do not have them here. I will write to the noble Lord setting out what successes we are having in those negotiations and bilateral discussions.

These measures are the latest addition to our package of sanctions, which is having a damaging effect on Putin’s war machine and regime. The UK Government are committed to using sanctions to keep up the pressure until Putin ends his brutal and senseless war. We in this Committee stand resolute with the people of Ukraine and will continue to support them until they prevail.

Motion agreed.

Environmental Policies: Timeliness and Effectiveness

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, and with her permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register. The Government are committed to leaving the environment in a better state than we found it. Following the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, we have stepped up our action, including announcing our multimillion-pound species survival fund and 34 landscape recovery scheme projects. Our annual reports on the 25-year environment plan and the outcome indicator framework assess our actions to improve the environment. The next annual report will be published this summer.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is ironic that some noble Lords who would like to have participated in this Question, including my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, will be unable to do so due to disruption caused by the ninth named storm of this winter. As we adjust to a world where extreme weather events are more frequent and other effects of climate change are more apparent, there can be little surprise that Dame Glenys Stacey has warned that the Government

“needs to speed up, scale up and make sure its plans stack up”.

The positive picture painted by the Minister bears little resemblance to the OEP’s report from last week, which found that UK environmental ambitions are “largely off track”. Does the Minister accept the finding that while the Government may be good at announcing major initiatives, they are less effective at developing and delivering them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not agree with that. The report said that 25 areas were improving, 10 were static and eight were deteriorating, and we take these extremely seriously. The OEP said that the EIP targets are welcome but that scale and pace, as the noble Baroness says, have to be improved. That was reporting on the year to March 2023; our environmental improvement plan was announced only last January, so the report was only three months into that period. There is a real sense of urgency among Ministers, through Defra and across government to make sure that we hit our no-net-loss targets by 2030. You do not achieve that by taking action in 2029; you take action now, and we have been doing so over a number of years, to make sure that the multiple decades of decline of nature in this country are stopped and reversed. That is our absolute ambition across government.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that part of the reason for sewage spilling into people’s homes is that we still do not have an end to the automatic right to connect, and a greater use of SUDS? When does he intend to bring forward the consultation on Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to permit greater use of these facilities?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I have written to my noble friend to give her a detailed answer to that question, which is the same one she asked quite recently. I assure her that I asked whether we really had to consult again, and apparently we do; it is a statutory requirement under the Flood and Water Management Act. I suspect we will bring in those measures later this year.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I heard the Minister speak about the Government’s urgency, but I will make reference here to actual policies and plans that have been delayed. I will mention a few; this is not an exhaustive list. The horticultural peat ban, which was promised by this year, is not here yet. The implementing regulations for the introduction of due diligence measures on forest risk commodities are still not before Parliament. The UK chemicals strategy was promised last year, the deposit returns scheme has just been delayed until whenever, and there are the replacement protections for hedgerows, which followed the loss of cross-compliance at the end of last year. That is just five. Can the Minister comment?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On hedgerows, I refer the noble Baroness to the fact that an enormous quantity of new hedgerows has been planted, and we have 11,000 kilometres of hedgerows under new management as a result of the sustainable farming incentive. On other measures, I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness to tell her the timetable for when those measures will be brought in. On forest risk commodities, it is important that we are in step with other countries; we are absolutely determined to make sure that consumers can know whether the commodity they are buying is putting forests at risk. The UK is a leader in making sure that happens.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, the Office for Environmental Protection’s annual report shows that the environmental improvement plan, which sets out legally binding targets, is meeting only four out of 40 of them. With the OEP keeping legal action under active consideration, the Government taking almost a full year to respond to the first OEP report, and the Minister in the other place saying only that the Government will respond in due course, will the Minister give a firm date for when they will provide a formal response to this serious report?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Environment Act requires the Government to respond within 12 months, and we will respond considerably more quickly than that. I know that the noble Earl is asking me a question, but does he agree with me that this is without any measure of doubt the greenest Government ever? I am proud of that and happy to be held accountable for all these measures. We brought in a landmark piece of legislation in the Environment Act. We have brought in so many other measures that have addressed long-awaited needs in this environment, and without doubt we have the greenest Government ever.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Government not using the wrong benchmark? If they were to benchmark to, say, 13 years ago, and look at the improvements, that would be a different matter from looking at the last couple of years.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not understand the noble Lord’s position. Working off a baseline, we have to make sure that we are sharing data. We are publishing 800 pages of data so that the noble Lord, NGOs, parliamentarians and others can hold us to account on this. We use an accepted baseline in order to show an improvement. No net loss by 2030 and 10% improvement on that by 2042—those are pushing targets.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the tone adopted by the Minister is in stark contrast—180 degrees opposite—to that of the OEP report. That talks of Britain being locked in an irreversible spiral of decline of nature. We have what the Minister calls landmark pieces of legislation. Can he put his hand on his heart and say that Defra has adequate capacity to deliver the absolute flood of material that needs to be done to get anywhere near delivering what he is suggesting is needed?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think we can. We have put more resources into our agencies, particularly Natural England. We have a sense of complete determination to hit this, which comes from Ministers and goes down to the Natural England or Environment Agency individual who is dealing with a particular group of farmers. But for all the resources that we could put into government, we would fail if we doubled them. What is important is that we weaponise land managers and people who really know about this on the ground. That is why clusters of farmers working together—for example, in environmental farming groups—are the way forward to deliver an increase in abundance of species and protection of nature, which is not just an environmental or societal matter. It is an economic one as well, as the Dasgupta report proved.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

How is the programme going to provide shore power in our ports and harbours so that visiting ships do not have to run their diesel generators?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is a very good question from the noble Lord. I should always come armed with a list of marine shipping questions. I have not, but I will make sure that he gets an answer to that in due course.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, to implement effective policies, you need reliable and accurate data. For water, if an incident is reported but not inspected, or inspected too late, it becomes a category 3 or 4. The Environment Agency has reduced its responses to those categories, saying:

“You get the environment you pay for”.


With this in mind, does the Minister have confidence that the official water pollution figures are accurate? If he has doubts, what are the Government going to do to ensure better monitoring?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

When we came into government, we knew about 10% of the sewage outflows from water companies into rivers. We now know 100%, because we require them to report them. Technology is our friend here: we are able to use telemetry, which can now do the work of hundreds of people in real time, producing a message to a phone requiring an instant response. I think we are much better equipped to deal with it. Is it perfect? No.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government and my noble friend, who I know is passionate about protecting the environment and the need to do so. I support his claim that this is the most environmentally friendly Government we have had. Before 2010, no Government took this matter particularly seriously. However, will he take on board some of the issues that have been noted about resourcing, particularly of the Environment Agency? It is apparently not attending all the sewage outflows, so it could well be that significant numbers are happening without us knowing. Will he take the issue of resourcing back to the department?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. In my absolute belief in what we have achieved over the last decade and a bit, I am absolutely not complacent—none of us is. The OEP’s report is really important. We set up the OEP to hold this Government and future Governments to account on this. On the issue my noble friend raises, we have increased the number of Environment Agency officers who should and must respond to all such reports. On water quality as a whole, we have put in place, through our plan for water, the most comprehensive list of measures possible to make sure that not only water companies but farmers, home owners and others who are responsible for the quality of the water in our rivers are held to account when they get it wrong.

Storms: Weather Resilience

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and refer to my interest as vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. I know the whole House will extend our sympathies to those impacted by Storm Henk. To date, 2,185 properties have flooded, and over 81,000 properties have been protected due to the Government’s investment in flood defences. The Government’s 2020 policy statement sets out five ambitious policies and multiple actions to improve future resilience to flooding. Between 2021 and 2027, the Government will have doubled investment in flood and coastal erosion schemes across England to a record £5.2 billion.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we should be doing more between floods? I pay tribute to the Environment Agency and drainage boards for the important work they do in regularly maintaining existing flood defences and dredging watercourses. Will he seek to end the arbitrary division of funding between capital expenditure and maintenance funding that is hampering this work, as advocated in the December report from the National Audit Office? Further, will he confirm that the farming recovery grants will reward farmers for loss of crops and for the fact that their land is effectively being used not for food production but to defend downstream communities from future floods?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely join my noble friend in saying what fantastic work the Environment Agency has done in reaction to these floods, along with the ongoing work it does in between to make sure that we are more resilient to them. Its annual maintenance programme activities are prioritised and timetabled using information from inspections, maintenance standards, levels of flood risk and legal and statutory obligations. Local teams work with partners, including drainage boards, on maintenance and dredging programmes. In 2022-23, the agency spent over £200 million on maintaining flood risk assets. In 2021, we announced an additional £22 million per year from 2022-25 for the maintenance of flood defences, and details can be found in our Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Report.

My noble friend also talked about farming. The flood recovery fund will pay for the uninsured costs of preparing arable land for planting crops or reseeding grass where it has been damaged, and our agricultural transition plan has a range of measures which will support farmers in these matters.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, in the interest of helping this Government, who appear to have run out of good ideas on almost every topic, what about banning new building on flood plains?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I really want to know what the noble Baroness means by that. Does she mean that there should be no more houses built in York, Leeds, London or Exeter? It is not what you build; it is how you build and how resilient the buildings are to flooding. I entirely accept and agree with her that some appalling decisions were taken over the last half century, and houses have flooded because they should never have been built there. But we cannot ban the building of properties; we just have to make them resilient to flooding.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I remind my noble friend that when his department produced its five-year plan, in the usual range of these, the Climate Change Committee said that it was not adequate. In the light of these floods, will he look at that plan to see whether some changes should take place? The Government have done a great deal, but clearly, this will get worse and we need to look at it again.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right that these problems are going to get worse: what we are suffering at the moment is almost certainly the impact of an El Niño effect, which has meant a warmer, wetter start to our winter. This will, we hope, be followed by a dryer but perhaps colder end to it, and we can look to the future. The Government are absolutely looking to the future, and he was right in his leadership of the Climate Change Committee to make sure that all departments are being resilient to the effects of climate change. I will just say that we have achieved much more than some of our closest neighbours. We are going to reduce greenhouse gases by 65% by 2030; the European Union has a target of 55%. We are doing a lot to address this, both globally and domestically.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to pick up on an issue arising from yesterday’s Statement. In May last year, the EFRA Committee published a report on rural mental health, which found that extreme weather events and animal health crises left farmers, workers and vets dealing with mental health trauma with little support. It called on the Government to provide dedicated emergency funding to enable local areas to quickly access more resources to respond to rural communities’ mental health needs, both during and, crucially, after crisis events. Can the noble Lord explain why the Government disagree and have refused to allocate this funding?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If the noble Baroness looks at our rural proofing annual report, she will see a firm commitment in it to issues relating to mental health in rural areas. She is absolutely right that events such as this trigger severe problems for people whose homes are flooded, or who lose their business or a large part of it, and we are seeing that in the farming community. The Government are providing a range of mental health support measures for people in these communities, and I applaud the work the NFU and others are doing, with the Government, to make sure that we are accessing those in need and providing them with the support they require.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the NFU tells me that a review of the flood defence grant in aid funding is vital. The weighting towards people and property means that rural areas are unable to compete for funding, as they will never score highly enough to receive any grant. Are the Government considering altering the formula so that farmers get a fair share of this money?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is a very good question. The first thing we have done is to introduce partnership funding. At the time, the Opposition referred to it as a flood tax, but it has meant that a whole load of schemes that would never have got the go-ahead, because they did not have the value for money of schemes which defended more homes, did go ahead and have therefore been built. Approximately 40% of schemes and 45% of investment better protects properties in rural communities; and since 2015 we have protected over 700,000 acres of agricultural land, along with thousands of businesses and communities, through schemes.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister and others have naturally focused on the macro schemes that are designed to reduce the major impacts of flooding, but does he agree that micro-level interventions can have a significant impact, such as not using nonporous hard surfaces to concrete over front gardens to create hardstanding for motor vehicles? What advice are the Government giving on the appropriate use of porous materials when people want to create hardstanding at their homes?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are giving money for property-level flood resilience, and that would entirely fall within this. Software is also now available. For example, I looked some years ago at Bristol, where they had created millions of data points around the city at which they could apply different weather events and see how just a kerb being raised at a certain point, or a wall being extended, can protect a number of properties from flooding. So the noble Baroness is absolutely right: we need to look at the micro as well as the macro effect.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as listed in the register. The Minister mentioned damage to farmland. Obviously, most arable farmers will have the chance to re-drill their crops in the spring and many will benefit from the farming recovery grant. However, in the Fens, covering Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, a number of horticultural producers have suffered substantial damage to existing crops. They may well not be covered, so what advice can he give them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right: these floods will undoubtedly affect our food security. Lincolnshire and the Fens is a very important area. Internal drainage boards and managing water levels are an important part of this. I cannot say that the level of rain we experienced was unprecedented, and it certainly was not unexpected. We are going to have more of these events, and we have to be better at managing them.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Somerset Levels have flooded every winter for the last 20 or 30 years, which often stops the railway and roads. I am told it is because the Environment Agency has prevented proper dredging of the rivers, which would allow the rainwater to run away into the sea. Is this not clearly easy to do, and a quick fix that would stop this happening every year?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

People are very often free with advice. I went down to Somerset when there were floods there and somebody said to me, “All you have to do is dredge this river, cut this dyke through, and the water will flow.” I pointed out to him that that might clear the water from his farm, but it would go into people’s houses in Bridgwater. He said to me, “You are confusing me with someone who is concerned about the people who live in Bridgwater.” These things are never simple, and the noble Lord may be right.