Hedgerows: Legal Protection

Debate between Tim Farron and Daniel Zeichner

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this morning, Ms Elliott. I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), who made a fantastic speech, and others who have spoken commendably in the debate so far, especially the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby).

There is feverish political speculation at the moment, with all sorts of discussions about demographics, electoral movements, and blocs in the countryside or around the country. There is talk of how people will vote—red wall, blue wall—but we are very much focused on the dry stone wall where we come from. That is a particular Lib Dem demographic.

I am grateful to my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who raised an important point. People think about the lakes, the dales and Cumbria and they think of dry stone walls. Those walls are not all in open landscape. Many are historical, many are ancient and many are in the midst of what was once pasture but is now quite mature woodland. There is an awful lot of that around the Kent estuary near where I live, for example. Huge biodiversity benefits come from dry stone walls and they are also incredibly important to our cultural heritage, as has already been said. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that we still have miles and miles of hedgerows in Cumbria, which are of enormous significance.

I have been involved in judging hedge laying competitions at Arnside and Stainton, where I assure you, Ms Elliott, that I was guided by people who actually knew what they were talking about, as well as considering just what seemed nice to me. Also, the Westmorland County Showground regularly has national and international hedge laying competitions, so it is a major part of our culture, as well as being part of the agricultural skillset that it is so important we protect, export and maintain.

There can be no doubt that hedgerows are of enormous significance to our country and our nature. They are teeming with life and are vital. I will focus most of my words on hedgerows in agricultural areas. As the hon. Member for Copeland said, 70% of England is agricultural, so the land on which we farm will be a huge part of protecting, maintaining and expanding our hedgerow network. It is also worth bearing in mind, however, the importance of residential hedgerows in built estates, in people’s gardens, and in public spaces, parkland and so on. We need to make sure that we have planning laws and regulations that support and promote those, and I might come on to that subject if I have time towards the end of my relatively few words.

If we think about the scale and size of Britain’s hedgerows—there are more than half a million miles—they would stretch to the moon and back. They are of great significance, bearing enormous biodiversity. They are an important wildlife habitat in their own right and the most widespread semi-natural habitat in the UK. They support a large diversity of flora and fauna and make a great shelter for animals and flowers. Their berries and nuts are a vital source for what are believed to be 1,500 different species of invertebrates in the UK that have their homes in our hedgerows. I think of the Government’s biodiversity action plan and the 130 species that are closely associated with hedges, including lichens, fungi and reptiles. Many more use those structures for food and shelter, at least during some point of their life cycle. Bank voles, harvest mice and hedgehogs all nest and feed in hedgerows, alongside birds that include blue tits, yellowhammers and whitethroats, while bats use them as what we might call “commuter routes”. We talk about nature corridors—they are so important.

There are many things we can say, and I will say, about the transition to the new ELM schemes. For those who have been able to get into them, there is the prospect of local nature recovery. Many farmers and landowners are involved in the project from Kendal to Penrith, which will potentially provide a continuous corridor, much of which is based upon the extension and maintenance of hedgerows. It will bring huge benefit to our biodiversity, by tackling climate change, and by providing an improved home for nature. Let us be honest, they are important boundary structures and really effective for efficient land use.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome set out so well, the loss of cross-compliance is really key. Like a lot of the current transition, a foreseeable mistake has been made. Alongside all sorts of other legal obligations, until last year every single one of the 85,000 farmers who receive basic payment also had an obligation through cross-compliance to maintain their hedgerows and do other environmental goods. I am not defending the direct payment schemes, but I will push back a little against those who said they were universally awful. They were not without environmental gain, and that was achieved through cross-compliance. I support the transition, but I think it is being done badly.

Under cross-compliance, 85,000 people were obliged to maintain their hedgerows, and 5% of them would have received an inspection from the Rural Payments Agency every year—so farmers knew it was coming. Now, barely 10% of people are in SFI. Of the 1,100 farmers in my constituency, fewer than 100 are in SFI schemes, and a minority of those will be in hedgerow options. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome set out very well, they are laudable and good, but they are also impractical, bureaucratic, and do not replace the money that has been lost. It is good that the options provided through countryside stewardship are there, but they will only be available to a very small minority of farmers, and a very small minority of Britain’s current and potential hedgerows. We are losing a lot to gain a little.

I do praise the Minister when it comes to the development and granting through Natural England of the Kendal to Penrith countryside corridor—that is a really great thing. For every one of those, however, I can name several that got turned down. The Lynster Farmers’ Group in Meathop and Ulpha bid for a scheme to protect their hedgerows from the totally avoidable flooding caused by the failure in managing the River Winster to follow its proper channel out into Morecambe bay. I would really love the Minister to look again at that, to ensure those farmers can protect their wildlife, both flora and fauna, including hedgerows.

The hedgerow options and the approach to hedgerows through the ELM scheme transition is emblematic of lots of other aspects of this transition. While they are laudable and good, they are not remotely capable of replacing a fraction of the income that farmers are losing. I was with farmers in Appleby recently. The least badly affected of them reckoned that through the various ELM schemes he could replace 60% of what he had lost. The average figure for which farmers thought they could replace what they had lost through the transition was less than 10%.

What do those farmers end up doing? Well, they go bust or their mental health ends up in a terrible, terrible state. I am truly frightened for the state of the mental health of many of the farmers in my communities—really frightened. This is not helping at all. The pressure will also lead them to make poorer decisions. If someone sees their income receding, what do they do? What do they have to intensify? They may feel against all their better instincts that they have to rip out hedges in order to maximise short-term value from the land, which I fear is happening. While these are laudable schemes, they are not even remotely attractive enough to draw people into them. They are bureaucratic and do not replace the genuine income that has been foregone, and so people are voting with their feet—like I say, 10% are in SFI. Meanwhile, my upland livestock farmers have lost 41% of their income under the Government in this Parliament.

What are farmers? Principally, they are food producers and stewards of the countryside, and they are proud to do both those things. They do not need beating over the head or to be given huge wads of cash to do things that are instinctive to them. It is really important in all of this that we do not allow people to demonise our farmers, who are doing their best with what they are given—but they are being given far too little.

I have a few words to say against those who may well be “more” culprits—our developers, who will always ask for more lax planning rules to allow them to do whatever they want. I am the opposite of a nimby, but the evidence in the lakes and the dales is that if we are really prescriptive in planning law and say what developers can and cannot do when it comes to affordable homes, zero-carbon homes and protecting and extending nature, they will grumble for a bit, but then realise that that is the only game in town, and they either build or do not build. If the Government were to give to local councils, and not just national parks, the power to be far more prescriptive about protecting and extending hedgerows, local authorities would have the power to do that.

What are the options? We can give planners and local authorities those powers, and we can extend legal protections, as the hon. Member for North Devon rightly said, but let us also think carefully about whether in the short term we need to roll over cross-compliance, so we do not lose all the good that people have done over the past few decades for the sake of a mismatched and botched transition. Ultimately, we are seeing something that is an unintended but totally foreseeable consequence of the transition. The Government can do things now to protect our hedgerows, and I pray that they will.

10.16 am

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott, and to listen to all the contributions this morning. It has occasionally felt like a DEFRA Front-Bench speakers’ reunion, but I have enjoyed all the speeches, particularly that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who helpfully contributed to Labour’s internal discussions. I can assure him that we will always be nature-positive in our approaches.

I also listened with great interest to other hon. Members’ speeches, particularly the last one. I can assure the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) that whether it is the blue wall, the red wall or a dry stone wall, Labour’s ambitions are boundless now. I listened very carefully to what he was saying about the issues around the environmental land management scheme, and I found myself very much in agreement with a lot of what he said. I also enjoyed the speeches from the hon. Members for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke).

Most of all, I enjoyed the introduction from the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). Before the debate started, I was slightly intrigued because I always wonder what it is that motivates hon. Members to bring a debate to Westminster Hall. I was wondering which of the proverbial five tribes of the Conservative party the hon. Lady sits in. I always thought of her as belonging to the more beleaguered, sensible part of the Conservative party—I am sure that that is where she sits. I was hoping that probably means the Minister has something exciting to tell us at the end of this debate—that she will produce a proverbial rabbit out of the hedgerow, and explain how she is going to deal with what is not at all a good news story for the Government, for the reasons that have been explained.

I thought that, in her normal powerful manner, but gently, the hon. Member for North Devon introduced a considerable range of quite pertinent criticisms of the Government’s record. I will go back and read her speech closely, and hon. Members may find me echoing some of those criticisms in addition to my own.

I welcome the chance for us to discuss a way forward on the agricultural transition that enshrines the necessary protection required for hedgerows, ensuring that they continue to play their vital role in our natural environment. As we have heard, hedgerows are much more than just markers that neatly divide up our countryside and farmlands. They are highways along which wildlife of all shapes and sizes flow, and home to insects that thrive on the pests that are sometimes fond of farmers’ crops. Crucially, they also store carbon and work as a natural means of reducing the risk of flooding.

Experts from the Woodland Trust tell us that two activities are particularly bad for the health and resilience of hedgerows: first, the spreading of agricultural chemicals up to the foot of the hedges; and secondly, poorly timed and over-zealous cutting—already mentioned in the debate—that physically damages the hedges and their ability to play their role as a habitat at crucial times of the year.

We have heard about the cross-compliance rules. I remember the discussions that took place during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, when some of us talked at length about good agricultural and environmental conditions, the standards of GAECs, and the fact that there were good standards under the old basic payment scheme mechanism. We all have our criticisms of those schemes, but as has already been explained, they did at least produce a structure and a system for 85,000 producers. That scheme ensured that land managers kept a buffer strip within two metres of their hedges and banned the use of pesticides in those spaces. To protect the crucial nesting period, land managers were also prohibited from cutting hedges for six months of the year, between March and August.

None of what we have heard comes as a surprise. We were talking about this during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020 some four or five years ago; the Government knew the cross-compliance rules would come to an end on 1 January this year. I have regularly reminded both the current Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), and his predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), of these points and of the benefits of cross-compliance. Despite knowing the potential consequences, the Government have dithered, delayed and failed to act. Perhaps the first thing that the Minister can do today is explain why we find ourselves in this situation.

The consultation was carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last year, but the Department has still not responded. We were told the response is to come early in 2024. Well, here we are—early in 2024. Will the Minister tell us when we are going to get that response? Frankly, it is only a response to a consultation. With no cross-compliance rules, protection for hedgerows is now substantially weakened. Does the Minister accept that point? Can she make an assessment of how much damage is likely to be done between now and when new rules are put in place? Because, although I entirely agree with the previous comments and do not expect farmers to be abusing the situation, some can, and I fear some will. What assessment has been made of the damage that will be caused by the Government’s negligence?

We are left with the Hedgerow Regulations 1997, which do offer some protection but only to “important” hedges. Sadly, the definition of “important” is so narrow that it rules out many hedgerows. The soonest we can hope to have greater protection—unless the Minister tells us something in this debate—is summer this year; that is not good enough. If the Government choose to introduce primary legislation to protect hedgerows, as some have suggested, we may have to wait until 2025 before protection is restored.

Of course, it is not just hedgerows. Cross-compliance rules on minimum soil cover, prevention of soil erosion and pesticide-free green cover near watercourses have all fallen by the wayside. History tells us that, without those protections, it is harder for us to meet legally binding targets on carbon and nature. Last week’s report from the environment watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, shows that the Government are already failing to meet almost all their environmental and nature goals. They should hang their head in shame at that report. We can scarcely afford to make the situation worse. It is interesting that the hon. Member for North Devon mentioned the Stacey review of some years ago; that was another example of things being promised and not delivered. I found myself thinking during her speech that there have been lots of targets—targets are all very worthy, but it is about delivery and action and measuring what is actually going on.

If the decline in species abundance is to be halted, the contribution made by hedgerows will be necessary. They also play a role in meeting the carbon goals that the environmental watchdog warns are in danger of being missed. Not only are they crucial stores of carbon in themselves but, as evidenced in research from the University of Leeds, the soil beneath hedgerows works as a sponge for carbon, capturing an average of 30% more carbon than intensively managed grassland parcels.

Two-metre buffer strips around hedges, which were protected by those cross-compliance rules, are also important to nature restoration. The strips host many threatened species and ensure the resilience of hedgerows. They act as corridors in what can often be inhospitable terrain for invertebrates and mammals. Significantly, buffer zones can also help stop the movement of pesticide and fertiliser away from their intended place of use and reduce run-off into our water system. Given that the Government have once again reneged on promises on neonicotinoids this year, that remains an important issue.

This is a sorry saga. The Government must act swiftly to provide clarity to the sector in the interests of land managers and nature. The first step should be finally to publish the consultation response on the future of hedgerow regulation. It is not good enough that we have yet to see it, over six months after it began. Legislation should also be brought forward at the earliest opportunity to, at a minimum, restore the protection that hedgerows enjoyed under cross-compliance rules. With support from wide across the sector for these measures, including voices such as the NFU and the Wildlife Trust, I urge the Government to move quickly on this issue. Every day without regulation risks more damage being done to these natural marvels.

Second Homes and Holiday Lets: Rural Communities

Debate between Tim Farron and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 6th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Lady makes a great point and I am grateful for her intervention. It is not just a rural issue, although it may predominantly be rural. York is clearly a good example of somewhere that suffers in a different way. I will come to the issue of holiday lets and some of the answers in a moment. It will rob communities of their very life if we do not intervene. I am not someone who is anti-market—I am anti-broken market, and this is a broken market. This is our opportunity to do something about it.

Excessive second home ownership is a colossal problem in our communities. The purpose of this debate is to shake the Government out of their demonstrable and inexcusable inaction and to take the action required to save our communities.

The crisis has become a catastrophe, and it is not just about second homes. Holiday lets are an important part of our tourism economy. In the Lake district, we argue and believe that we are the most visited part of Britain outside London. Our tourism economy is worth more than £3 billion a year and employs 60,000 people—comfortably Cumbria’s biggest employer. It is a vibrant industry and, by its very nature, a joyful one; I am proud to be a voice for Cumbria tourism in this place. Those 60,000 people working in hospitality and tourism need to live somewhere. Some 80% of the entire working-age population of the Lake district already works in hospitality and tourism. We need to increase the number of working-age people who can afford to live and raise a family in our communities, yet the absolute opposite is happening at a rate of knots.

During the pandemic, in South Lakeland alone—just one district that makes up part of the Lake district—there was a 32% rise in one year in the number of holiday lets. I assure the Minister that those were not new builds; they were not magicked out of thin air. Those new holiday lets emerged in 2021 following the lifting of the covid eviction ban. That is not to blame the ban; it was a good idea, and it had to come to an end at some point. My point is that that rise was over a tiny period of time: less than 12 months, in reality. The fact is that this time last year those new holiday lets were someone’s home.

In Sedbergh, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kendal, Windermere, Staveley, Ambleside, Coniston, Grasmere, Grange and throughout Cumbria, I have met people who have been evicted from their homes under a section 21 eviction order—which, incidentally, this Government promised to ban in their last manifesto.

Among the hundreds evicted, I think of the couple with two small children in Ambleside, who struggled to pay £800 a month for their flat above a shop in town; they were evicted last spring only to find the home they had lived in for years on Airbnb for £1,200 a week. I think of the mum near Grange, whose teenage son had lived in their rented home his whole life; they were evicted only to see their property on Airbnb a few days later for over £1,000 a week. I think of the tradesman from Sedbergh, who had served the community for 15 years; a few days after he was evicted, his former home was also on Airbnb for £1,000 a week. There are hundreds more individuals and families in the same situation right across rural Cumbria.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Back in 2018, I did some work with Gordon Marsden, the then MP for Blackpool South, looking at Airbnb and the issues of the sharing economy for the all-party parliamentary group for hospitality and tourism. We came up with a recommendation for a statutory registrations scheme for all accommodation providers. Is that something the hon. Gentleman has considered?

[Tim Farron]

I have, and I will come to some suggestions in a moment, including on how we might tackle the issue—to put it neutrally—of Airbnb. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and the need for such a scheme is huge. Undoubtedly, the ease with which people can turn a home into a holiday let is part of the problem. The consequences are phenomenal. The people I am speaking about are real human beings; I could pick dozens and dozens more to talk about. What it means for them is that they have to leave the area. This is no less than a Lakeland clearance: whole communities ejected from the places where they were raised, where they had chosen to raise their families, or where they had set down roots to live, work and contribute to our economy.

Will the Minister accept that this is both morally abhorrent and economically stupid? We have businesses in Cumbria that, having survived covid so far, are now reducing their opening hours or closing all together because they cannot find staff anymore. We have people isolated and vulnerable because they cannot find care staff. There are friends of mine in that situation, in part because the local workforce has been effectively cleared out and expelled. In each case I mentioned earlier—in Sedbergh, Ambleside and Grange—the people could not find anywhere else to live in those communities or in the wider community. They have had to uproot and move away all together. How is the economy of Britain’s second biggest tourism destination expected to deliver for Britain’s wider economy without anybody to staff it?

What about the children who have to move away, and are forced to move school, and leave behind friends and support networks? What about those left behind in our dwindling communities, whose schools are now threatened with closure? I have spoken to MPs, not just those who are here and for whose presence I am massively grateful, but from rural communities right across this House. Most of those, particularly in England and Wales, are from the Conservative party. There is a kind of private agreement that this is a catastrophe. They see it in their own constituencies: the collapse of affordable, available housing for local communities is killing towns and villages in Cornwall, Northumberland, Shropshire, Devon, Somerset, North Yorkshire, the highlands of Scotland and rural Wales, as well as in my home of Cumbria.

Our rural communities want two things from the Minister today: first, a sign that he understands that this catastrophe is happening; and secondly, a commitment not to wait for the planning Bill, but to act radically and to act right now.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Daniel Zeichner

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am sure that we will return to this issue over the coming weeks and months. We hear what the Government say, but the simple way of resolving the matter would be to put something into the Bill, which is what many people would like to see. The point in this context is that we would all agree that this is not easy. It may well take time, and it will be difficult.

Alongside the potential delays, the National Audit Office has pointed to teething problems with the Government’s planned environmental land management schemes, which are terribly important to how our rural areas will be supported in future. Added to the 14-month delay to the Agriculture Bill, the Opposition are simply not convinced that everything will be in place for the new farming payment system by the end of the year.

We want to see an urgent shift to a payment system that rewards public goods, environmental protection and welfare standards, but there is a danger of continuing uncertainty for farmers who will have to make decisions in just a few months’ time about their plans for the following year. If the introduction of the new payment system is delayed, it is imperative that a continuation mechanism is in place in this Bill.

The new Agriculture Bill proposes powers to extend direct payments in future, so we will doubtless discuss those powers at that point, but the fact remains that, as we stand here today, that Bill has not even had its Second Reading. We are starting with this Bill, and we believe it would have been wiser for the Government to have re-examined the sunset clause to allow the possibility of extending the provision of direct payments to farmers beyond 2020 in the event of any delay. That would have given confidence and, frankly, would have reflected what many of us think is likely to happen anyway.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points. As things stand, we are certain that the BPS will begin to be phased out in 12 months’ time, and there is a possibility that we will have the environmental land management scheme by 2028. In principle, he and I probably agree that scheme is a good thing but, in practice, it does not yet exist. Does he agree there is a danger that, in the seven-year transition, we will lose many of the farmers we need to deliver those public goods?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I suspect that discussion will continue, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As I said on Second Reading, we have replaced the certainty in the system. The only certainty we have now is of future uncertainty, which makes it extremely difficult for people who are planning ahead.

The Government have expressed total confidence that a further period of direct payments will not be needed. I wonder whether we will be having this discussion again in a year’s time. They are absolutely confident that there will be no further delays and, frankly, we hope they are right, but if they are not, I suspect we and others will be quick to remind them of the problems they caused by failing to prioritise safeguards in such an extension.

Another missed opportunity is the exclusion of measures to provide potential compensation to those farmers who have faced, and likely will face, delays to their payments. I cannot help noticing that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) made this point, and I am sure she will happily support us when we return to this topic in future.

Although the Government have rightly lauded the efforts of the Rural Payments Agency to pay farmers on time this year, I am afraid we are all well aware of the previous difficulties, poor performance and delayed payments in its management of direct payments to farmers.

Of course, it is not only about the Rural Payments Agency’s past performance. Look at what it is facing now: there is a real risk that it will be diverted by planning ahead for changes next year while we enter this period of uncertainty about our post-Brexit trade negotiations and the complex provisions of the Agriculture Bill. The danger is that we will find late payments building up again at precisely the time when farmers will most need financial certainty. A sensible response to that threat would have been to make provisions to enable farmers to be compensated if they suffered hardship or financial loss because of a delay in payments under this Bill. I hope the Government will duly consider a compensation mechanism for any such delays.