Horticultural Sector

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, on securing this important debate on the plight of the agriculture sector and its role in the environment, and on her excellent introduction. I am grateful for the many briefings that I have received from various sources. It is important to become self-sufficient in food production in the country and to eat what we produce, rather than exporting it and then importing replacements to meet the home market. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised that issue. To do this, we need a domestic skilled workforce.

Following the Covid pandemic and lockdown, many sectors of our society are finding it difficult to recruit to roles that were previously easily filled, including in the horticulture sector. Some of this is due to the reduction in workers coming from EU countries; many returned home after the vote on Brexit and have left gaps in our workforce. Efforts to recruit a domestic workforce have not been successful. Vacancies are not just for those working directly on the land but for those at medium and senior managerial levels. For the industry to remain competitive and productive, it will be necessary to provide skills and training to provide a career path for those currently working in the sector and to encourage others to join the sector.

Providing access not only to levels 2 and 3 but to level 4 and 5 qualifications is essential. The RHS qualification facilitates 12,000 assessments per year through 75 approved centres. This is vital, since apprenticeships and T-levels would not be appropriate for all, but there are others for whom these qualifications would be appropriate. Investment in skills and training is a step in the right direction.

Fostering the correct environment for our UK workforce to prosper is as important as encouraging the overseas workforce to return. However, Defra seems to believe that automation, robotics and technology will solve all our problems—the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, referred to this—and science is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, indicated. Although it is undoubtedly true that machinery, science and technology could greatly increase productivity, many functions can be carried out only by workers in the fields.

During the recent leadership campaign, the Prime Minister stated that she recognises that some jobs simply cannot be replaced by machinery, which is why she is a supporter of reintroducing the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. What progress is being made on this front? Attracting seasonal agricultural workers is important, but it is also necessary to have the correct workers available all year round. There are many instances of middle and even senior management of horticulture businesses starting initially as seasonal workers.

The removal of the SAWS in 2013, followed by the ending of freedom of movement in 2020, has seen a huge reduction in skilled workers in the horticulture sector. An integrated immigration policy is needed. This is affecting not only the large business that the Secretary of State plans to visit but the smaller, but nevertheless vital, businesses providing specialist food, plants and shrubs. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred to the importance of smaller businesses.

I turn now to the effects of the shortage of workers on what can be classed as the public realm, including parks, open spaces maintained by local government, woods and copses maintained by the Forestry Commission, estates and gardens—some maintained privately but many in the ownership of the National Trust, English Heritage and other organisations. All require skilled workers who know the difference between a weed and an attractive flowering plant, have the ability to prune correctly and know when to do so. As this sector is not involved in food production as its primary purpose, it could be overlooked by government officials, but its importance is not overlooked by the public. Everyone knows the enormous benefit that can be gained by a family visiting a nearby park or wood for a walk and a game of hide and seek. A wander around a well laid-out garden covered with beautiful flower borders where the pollinating bees are busy on the fragrant blooms is peaceful to the troubled soul. At a time when a large proportion of the population suffers from stress, anxiety and more serious mental health issues, the role of formal gardens should not be overlooked.

For those lucky enough to have one, the domestic garden can also provide relaxation and enjoyment. It also helps create and restore wildlife-rich habitats in rural and urban areas. The rise in the popularity of television garden programmes is witness to the public’s appetite for improving their gardens. The planning and planting of a border can provide relaxation and enjoyment, with many visits to garden centres to choose plants and grow seeds, all contributing to biodiversity. However, my visits to local garden centres indicate that they too are unable to recruit the necessary staff to prick out seedlings and water and tend their plants.

This brings me on to the need for the country as a whole of produce more of its own potted plants rather than import them. During the SI phase of Brexit, many of which originated from Defra, some dealt with invasive non-native species, or INNS. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, was eloquent on the need for plant passports for imported plants and the protection they would bring for the horticulture and garden centre business sectors. However, a plant passport does not appear to extend to the soil in which the plant is grown. This soil can be contaminated and harbour many INNS, such as New Zealand flatworms and Spanish slugs, both of which damage garden plants and crops. The imported plant market is worth some £1 billion each year, but the growing material is not regulated. Will the Minister say whether there are any plans to begin regulating the soil in which plants with passports are grown? I am not an experienced gardener by any means and I have no idea when doing a spot of weeding whether I am digging up an earthworm or a flatworm. I wonder whether the robin hopping around looking for a meal knows the difference; perhaps he is cannier than I am.

The Government are currently engaged in fostering trade deals with countries with which we have not previously traded. Do invasive non-native species form any part of these negotiations? Does the Minister agree that the phytosanitary requirements of the UK are currently not fit for purpose and allow any number of invasive species into our soil to destroy our crops and insect life?

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, raised the issues of a ready supply of water and gene-editing and I regret that I do not have enough time to deal with them at the moment.

Lastly, I come to the knotty issue of peat. Defra’s consultation showed that 95.5% of people support a peat sales ban. Peat, as we all know, stores 30% of all soil carbon globally. UK peatlands store more than 3 billion tonnes of carbon. Coming from Somerset, I know how important the peat moors on the levels are to the area and to the environment. Can the Minister say when there will be a total ban on imported peat? Until that happens, this issue will not have been tackled sufficiently.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, said, horticulture is capable of delivering five of the 10 key goals in the 25-year environment plan, so it is by no means a poor relation to agriculture. This has been a wide-ranging debate over a number of vital areas. I look forward to the Minister’s response.