Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment, which has been coupled with this group. We are now moving on to Part 6 of the Bill, which involves Scotland. We have heard about all these doubts and areas that need to be cleared up, which are even more worrying for devolved Administrations.

My amendment is to Clause 143, “Requirements to consult devolved administrations”. I declare my family’s interest, as noted in the register, in that we own land in Scotland. We are fortunate; it is not a big area in Scottish terms, but it includes part of a national park, a nature reserve, a site of special scientific interest and special protection areas. As the Minister pointed out in an earlier debate, this is the section of the Bill that is most likely to affect devolved competencies. There can be no doubt that the Bill is causing much concern in the UK’s devolved Administrations, and we have just been hearing about the extent of the existing Henry VIII powers. Anyone who has spent any time in this Chamber knows that we are allergic to Henry VIII powers, and I hope that my noble friend can assuage us on the extent to which they will be included.

In the earlier debate on Clause 83, my noble friend rejected my proposed amendment. That issue only involved powers regarding planning data. Clause 143, as drafted, is a mirror of that text:

“The Secretary of State may only make EOR regulations which contain provision within Scottish devolved competence after consulting the Scottish Ministers”.


My Amendment 382 provides that, following the consultation, the Secretary of State must report the outcome and provide reasons. This is surely a necessary step for transparency and to maintain the trust between the parties on an ongoing basis. Consultation implies that all will put their cards on the table; agreement, as we all know, is harder to achieve. My noble friend may like to say that we would carry out these steps anyway. This amendment as drafted does not give any more power to devolved Assemblies but just gives them the comfort of knowing exactly where they stand.

It was further encouraging to hear my noble friend say, in his reply to an earlier debate, that

“the Government are continuing to work with the devolved Administrations to understand whether there is scope to extend the EOR powers to provide a shared framework of powers across the UK. Once those discussions have concluded, the Government will bring forward any necessary amendments to both Part 6 and Part 3 to reflect the agreed position between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations”.—[Official Report, 22/3/23; col. 1803.]

A shared framework of powers is precisely what this amendment is aiming to achieve. There is always the danger that, without achieving this framework, and with one party withholding consent, the outcome might go against any changes at all.

The Scottish Parliament’s legislative consent Motion for this measure was tabled on 27 July 2022. As I mentioned before, the main one of the three committees to give it consideration was the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. In its report, brought out on 22 December, it could see some elements of the Bill that it welcomed. But, after taking evidence, it concluded that:

“Environmental Outcome Reports would lead to a significant change to environmental assessment in Scotland. However, the UK Government has not provided sufficient clarity around how they will operate in practice.”


Similar concerns were also highlighted by both the other committees in the Scottish Parliament. After consideration, all were still not prepared to grant approval.

The Government have introduced quite a raft of amendments to the Bill already. It would be interesting to know whether some of these are the fruits of their intergovernmental discussions, but we are still a long way short of achieving an agreed framework. Can my noble friend say whether that is still their aim?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 384, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and to which I, like the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Willis of Summertown, have added my name. It is a pleasure to see the noble Lord in his place once again. He has set out his case for this amendment extremely well, as always.

Environmental outcome reports are key to monitoring our environment and the effect that we, the population, are having on it. We have had debates during the passage of the REUL Bill on the habitats regulations and the importance of ensuring that the regulations surrounding habitats are protected and would not run foul of the sunset clause on 23 December 2023, which has now, mercifully, been removed.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

If I were a fisherman on one of the Dorset rivers now with the mayfly hatching, I would have caught a most wonderful trout at the end of my line.

I say to the noble Baroness that I was alarmed, because I know that, in her heart of hearts, she is very supportive of this. However, her boss Keir Starmer said that he wanted to develop on green land. As my noble friend Lord Deben has just said, our chalk streams are going through highly developed land already. Which side of the fence is the Labour Party on? I hope the noble Baroness will reply.

I will ask of both Front Benches the question I was going to ask of my noble friend the Minister. Are they prepared to give the commitment to our chalk streams that the chalk streams demand? To remedy the chalk stream problem, it is not a question of days, months or years, but of decades, and an awful lot of interests have to be tackled. Unless we can get reassurance that all the parties across the House have that commitment, our chalk streams will not be in the health they should be

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 372ZA in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, to which I have added my name. The noble Viscount has introduced his amendment and covered the subject fully, and I agree with all his comments.

Many in this Chamber will remember during the passage of the Agriculture and Environment Acts the debates on the importance of chalk streams, so ably led by my late noble friend Lord Chidgey. If he were here, he would certainly be taking part today. No doubt he is looking down from above on our deliberations today and wishing us well.

Chalk streams are a vital environmental resource and should be protected. Those noble Lords who watched David Attenborough on the “Wild Isles” television programme recently will know that 85%—I hope I have remembered that correctly—of the world’s chalk streams are in the UK. That does not mean that, because we have plenty, we can ignore them; quite the opposite. It means we must preserve them at all costs.

A year ago, my husband and I moved from our beloved Somerset to Hampshire, partly to be nearer our family. I have discovered, for the first time, the beauty and tranquillity of the county’s chalk streams—the crystal-clear water, the soft babbling sound of the water running over the riverbed and, often, the bright green watercress growing on the edge of the water and the riverbanks.

However, this idyllic description is not the sight that meets the eye in all parts of the country. Many chalk streams suffer from pollution, as the noble Viscount has said, making the waters discoloured and smelly. There have been numerous questions and debates about the effects of foul-smelling sewage discharging into our waterways. Many chalk streams suffer abstraction on a grand scale and the flow of the river is diminished as a result. As we all know, it is often the rate of flow of a stream that helps to keep its waters clear.

While there is currently a chalk river priority habitat in place which recognises their international rarity and biodiversity, this is not protecting them from sewage discharges. However, the chalk stream strategy also has an important part to play. Today’s announcement by the water companies that they plan to tackle the problem of sewage overflows by 2030 through massive investment in sewer upgrades is to be welcomed, but I fear it may be a little while before this is effective in protecting our precious chalk streams, especially from future development pressures.

Clause 138(c)(e) is the ideal place for this amendment to be added to achieve the desired result we are all looking for. I am extremely grateful to the noble Viscount for raising this vital issue and I hope the Minister will be able to accept this amendment. All speakers have strongly supported this amendment and I agree completely with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Chalk streams are an invaluable asset and must be protected and preserved, so that future generations of children and adults can enjoy them to the full.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see the Minister in his place because it gives him the opportunity to make me gruntled again. If he is doing the next two groups, I am beginning to think I should set him a weekly target to ensure that I am never disgruntled again with any of the things he is dealing with.

To be serious, this is a critical environmental issue. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for tabling this amendment and for his excellent introduction. I also join the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, in her tribute to Lord Chidgey. He was deeply committed to this issue, and I think we should recognise that.

As we have heard, England has 85% of the world’s chalk streams, and they are at risk. They are very, very precious, and I really do not think this should be a political issue; it is something we should all be getting behind, and we should all be supporting their protection. As at the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, they are more vulnerable than other waterways. There are many reasons for that, and we have heard many during the debate: agricultural pollution; sewage pollution; the decline of native species, particularly invertebrates; the introduction of non-native invasive species; development; population growth; and the fact that we simply use and waste far too much water. On average in Britain, we use more water per head per day than most other European countries. Most pressing are the low flows and the chronic abstraction, which noble Lords have talked about. We have also had issues in recent years with not having enough rainfall to support the levels of abstraction, even though people have been given warnings about the damage that that can cause.

As noble Lords have said, we support the reform of the abstraction licensing system, which is currently allowing too much water be taken from our chalk streams. We need to look at more robust infrastructure to support that, dealing with the ongoing strain of an unpredictable climate and rising populations. We need greater investment in storage capacity, and water metering needs to be managed more and developed.

One of the recommendations of the chalk stream restoration group—it is really good that the Government are getting behind it and supporting what it is trying to do—is that chalk streams should be given overarching protection and priority status. That is the one big wish we have heard noble Lords talk about. If there is anything the Minister should take from this debate and previous debates on the Environment Act, for example, it is that the Government really must give chalk streams a status that reflects that they are not just locally precious but, as we have heard, globally unique. This amendment would provide those protections. We support it and I urge the Minister to get behind it. If the Government cannot do anything today, I urge them to bring something forward.

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[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I offer support to my noble friend Lord Randall on protected landscapes. We need to know where we are going on this. We are trampling through the devolved competencies. Luckily, Scotland is adopting green policies with even more enthusiasm than local authorities in England, but we always need to bear in mind that the original legislation was the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, and originally, and even today, some see the second part as more important, as we were hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty.

I live in a national park in Scotland, and the Scottish Government are providing millions of pounds every year to staff it and provide facilities for the public. On my land, they have just provided £800,000 to improve a footpath. When we think of the value of national parks for nature, it is worth recalling that for a body called the International Union for Conservation of Nature, our park qualified only for level V, because the only limit they had in law was to preserve the topography. We need to make up our mind what level of nature conservation we desire.

A dedicated percentage of land for conservation and marine conservation areas was announced recently, and the Scottish Government have taken it up and announced a timetable for extension of their marine protected areas. This has brought a sense of desperation, particularly to the crofting counties on the west coast, because they see it as a hammer-blow to the crofting way of life, which requires buying livestock, cutting peat, fishing, weaving and crafts. This is a whole culture which could be lost. There are areas where we want to preserve the way of life, as well as nature. I hope that my noble friend Lord Randall’s efforts will point the way.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 387 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, to which I have added my name, and to Amendment 475 in my name, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has added her name. As an aside, today seems to be the day when Conservative Peers take a pop at the Opposition Benches. Perhaps the recent election results are driving them.

However, I first address Amendment 475, which seeks to ensure that wild camping is included in open-air recreation. I tabled this amendment after hearing the news that Dartmoor National Park was banning wild camping on its land, and this ban had been upheld in the High Court—a win, apparently, for a hedge fund manager. That is a prime example of the wealthy preventing the less well off from enjoying the environment. I have since learned that, through crowdfunding, a judicial review of the decision has been mounted. I understand that the fact that a JR is in process does not prevent me from speaking on the subject.

For years, people have been enjoying outdoor activities on our national parks. In particular, Dartmoor has hosted—if that is the right word—the Ten Tors challenge each year, weather permitting. National parks are also the venue for thousands of young people embarking on their Duke of Edinburgh’s award. This is especially so at the bronze stage, when secondary children go out in groups to orienteer their way round the moors and experience at first hand the importance of working together as a team, witnessing the challenge and pleasure of wide-open spaces, often for the first time. The expedition is often the best part of the DoE award scheme for the young people. Young people involved also learn what nature is, how it behaves and how we interact with it. Hopefully, they learn that nature and the environment have not only to be appreciated but nurtured and looked after. This is something of a rite of passage for many young people, who may not otherwise have this kind of experience.

While national parks are a haven for plants and wildlife, they are also a tremendous tourist attraction, and some tourists bring their own challenges. Thoughtlessness has caused devastating wildfires on many of our heathlands and national parks. The litter left behind over a particularly sunny bank holiday weekend can be a real problem to clear up. However, there are measures that can be taken to raise awareness with the public of the dangers of barbecues, in particular, alongside notices encouraging visitors to take their waste home. That should be at the same time as providing sufficient bins for them to put their rubbish in—unlike in one of the country parks in my previous district council area, when, after one very hectic weekend, the rangers decided to remove the bins altogether. Not surprisingly, the result was even more widespread rubbish to clear up after the next sunny weekend.

Yes, there will be a lot of rubbish to clear up after a large influx of tourists, but this could be an opportunity for the community to come together to help clear it up. We were encouraged after the Coronation to take part to help out, and this included many communities going on mass litter picks. There are many ways both to alert tourists to ensure that their visit does not adversely impact others and make sure they leave the environment they have enjoyed in the same state they found it. Banning a section of them through preventing wild camping is neither helpful nor in line with the Government’s wish to see more people enjoying open spaces. I tabled the amendment in such a way as to ensure the action taken on Dartmoor does not spread to other national parks. Surely the motto should be “Use and respect”, not “Go home, we don’t want you”, which is the message being given out by some in Devon.

Returning to Amendment 387, the ethos of the amendment is straightforward. The national parks across the country, the Broads and AONBs should contribute to the country’s biodiversity targets. They are protected landscapes, and the amendments implement the key recommendations from the Glover review, which has so far not been given the prominence it deserves. I am particularly keen to see proposed new subsection (1)(e), in Amendment 387, implemented. This fits in with my comments on my Amendment 475.