Environment Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as a Church Commissioner, as set out in the register, and I wish to support what the noble Baroness just said: 30 years is rather a short period of time. I am grateful for the way the Minister, in proposing Amendments 86 and 88, is showing us the possibility of some flexibility in the future, but may I just tempt him a little further? What he is proposing would allow a future Government, by regulation, to change that period of 30 years—one would hope that it might go up to 50, 60 or perhaps even 125—but if they did, there would be nothing to prevent a subsequent Government reducing it back to 30 again. If we are to have a direction of travel in how long a site needs to be protected for, it should be one-way, without the possibility of going back down again. That could create a sort of planning blight, whereby somebody, particularly towards the end of a government cycle, might feel that, rather than making some land available for development, they can wait and hope that the period will be knocked back down to 30 years by the incoming Administration. Would the Minister be willing to think again so that, whatever period we set, any future changes would have to increase it rather than potentially allowing it to decrease?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of all the amendments in this group—even, in a very soft way, the government amendments. They address issues that I spoke on at considerable length in Committee, so I will, given the hour, be brief. It is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and all the speakers on this group. I think the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, really hit the nail on the head. If 30 years is all we can tie things up for, if it works, you are tying it up, one would assume, indefinitely, which 125 years serves as a figure for.

In Committee, I talked about 30 years being a blink of an eye in nature, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, set out a very nice template for us thinking about different kinds of habitats and ecosystems. I will add to this my—perhaps now inevitable—point about soil, which is about the biodiversity of the soil and producing what you might describe as a mature soil, whether it is under any of those habitats. A meadow might look quite nice on the top, but the soil is not going to be anything like a long-term developed meadow for many years. These are ecosystems that take a long time to develop to get the real richness you would need for a proper, healthy soil.

I will just note that we are strongly behind Amendments 85 and 87, which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed, but I would also particularly compliment the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on Amendment 84A. I would have signed it had I actually spotted it, but I am afraid I missed it. There has been much discussion in the media, in the public and in the environmental community about the utter inadequacy of the biodiversity metric. In this amendment, the noble Lord is going some way to finding a way forward to fix that, and I really do hope the Minister will take it on board.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. I want to comment briefly on two amendments. First, I welcome my noble friend’s Amendment 89; it is important to keep under review the amount of land available for the net gain register.

Secondly, I want to comment on Amendment 84A from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I say this to him: I do not think it is necessary. As he said, this is evolving. The metric as published by Natural England is not set in stone. It will be an evolving measure, and as further and better particulars come along, it will be changed and amended. An annual review by the Government is not needed for that to happen.

The other point I want to make is this: yes, of course, the metric could be made more complicated. Some on the Climate Change Committee condemn it, because it is just a biodiversity net gain metric. They want an environmental net gain metric, which would be an all-singing, all-dancing super one, but incredibly complicated to produce. No one is capable of doing it properly at the moment.

If we bring in lots of other factors, which would no doubt make this much better in biodiversity terms, we would be faced with an industry and builders that have not a clue how it would work. Net gain is terribly, terribly important. It will be one of the greatest improvements to planning and the environment we have ever seen in this country. But it is a completely new concept; it is innovative. For it to happen, we have to get developers on side, working with it. At the moment, they have not a clue how it works. They have a couple of years, I think, to get that right.

I am concerned that we keep this initially simple. The current metric, which is still doing a good job and can evolve and can change, will not be detrimental to biodiversity; it will be a big improvement to biodiversity. But I am certain that in a couple of years’ time or a year’s time, it may be tweaked again to improve it. As developers and Government and Natural England bed this down, I am certain it will become more sophisticated and more perfect from a purist environmental point of view.

So I say to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who is incredibly able and thoroughly knowledgeable in this matter—he is 10 times more knowledgeable than I am, though I am practical—that we have to start somewhere. There used to be an army acronym KISS: “Keep it simple, stupid.” We have to keep it simple to begin with, and we can make it a lot more complicated as we get used to it.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I have three amendments in this group. They have a common theme because they are based on the fact that, very sadly, a lot of the good intentions of this Bill are going to fail. Although I support the Bill and support the drift of where we are going, they are going to fail because they are based on, and are building on, the existing system that is already a failure.

Let me give some examples. Since 2000, Defra has spent £10.3 billion or thereabouts on biodiversity. Agri-environment schemes have cost us £8.5 billion in the last 25 years. Roughly 28% of our land is designated for nature and biodiversity, and yet we have an appalling and increasingly bad record. Why? Because the current system is failing. Let me give just a couple of examples. Because of climate change we have gone for bioenergy and we have planted more maize. That has caused huge environmental problems and been very damaging for biodiversity. We are encouraging people to plant trees on what they call unproductive farmland, but that unproductive farmland is the haven for many of the red-list species, and we are damaging those. This Bill is going to build on those failures, and I believe we need to change tack. I know my noble friend will not accept that that is the right way to go but, nevertheless, I believe it is worth putting on the record that it is the right way to go.

We have to accept that there is more to improving biodiversity than just habitats. In the last amendment, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith said that habitats were very important and that we had to improve them. Yes, habitats are important, but they are not the only thing that is important. Equally important, as I have said many times, is winter feed, early spring feed and farming practices and management, in particular predator control. I give the example of the Allerton Project, which is entirely devoted to improving biodiversity and has hugely increased songbird numbers, but it cannot get waders and curlews back because of the lack of predatory control. We need to alter our stance on that.

I have three amendments: Amendment 92A refers to “nature-friendly farming”. These are the people who are managing the land. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, is right that the local authorities have a role, but the bulk of the land is in the hands of the farmers and we need the farmers on side. We need to encourage those that are nature-friendly-oriented. Farming and nature cannot be divided or separated; they have been separated for too long and here is a good chance in the Bill to put the farmers in the position they ought to be in.

Amendment 98 relates to wildlife conservation licences. I tweak the Bill in this respect, in that I propose the use of the word “status” instead of “survival”, as effectively a single individual of a species could be considered to be survival. Population can mean anything from an individual site colony to the total number of that species in the UK. Therefore, scale comes into any definition of detrimental to survival, as reducing the population at the local level may not actually have a bearing on the overall population due, for example, to infill from the current year’s young of the species.

My third amendment is Amendment 105. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, spoke on the last amendment in support of what I have said. She feared we would be going backwards if we do not get this right. The purpose of Amendment 105, which is a sunset clause, is to allow us to take a deep breath and stop us going backward if we are. My noble friend Lord Goldsmith said on the last amendment that there would be serious trouble if habitats in 2050 are not in the state we want them to be in. The purpose of this clause is to allow the Secretary of State to stand back, take a look and say “We were well intentioned, but we got it wrong. We need to change and go in a slightly different direction for the sake of biodiversity and the environment.”

We now have binding targets in the Bill but, as my noble friend Lord Benyon, who was in his place a moment ago, said on 25 May in this House:

“We are always wary of targets”.—[Official Report, 25/5/2021; col. 890.]


I am extremely wary of targets when it comes to biodiversity, because every target we have aimed at in the last 25 years has been missed. The purpose of Amendment 105 is therefore to give the Minister a chance to stand back, have a rational look and, if necessary, take a different direction.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, whose passion for improving the Bill from the government Back Benches is evident even at this hour. I commend him for that. I declare my role as a vice-president of the LGA and the NALC.

I shall deal with Amendments 90, 91 and 94 together. Amendment 90 appears in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, while Amendment 94 is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. They all deal with the fact that the people who know best about a local natural environment are local people. We confront again, as we do in so many different areas, the fact that the UK—and England in particular—is one of the most centralised polities on this planet. That has many negative effects for people, but it also has negative effects for nature.

On Amendment 90, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said, we keep giving local government responsibilities but, through a decade of austerity we have seen fewer resources in local communitiesw available to deal with those responsibilities. We have gone through a cycle where local authorities barely have enough funds to meet their statutory responsibilities—those dictated from here in Westminster. They do not really have enough funds for that, let alone to reflect local priorities and desire for action.

The amendment signed by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb is particularly telling. We can think of so many case studies; the noble Lord, Lord Oates, gave one. I was also struck thinking about the case of the River Lugg in Herefordshire last year, where we saw trees felled, the river bridged and a reprofiling of the riverbanks along a 1.5 kilometre stretch, to the shock and horror of local people. Investigations are still ongoing, so I will not go too far into this, but the country was alerted to this through local people using social media and through the local media outlets picking up this story. Of course, it was at local level that the knowledge arose, and perhaps at local level some action could have saved some biodiversity or nature there.

I was up in Kendal a few years ago in a village that was struck by flooding, and the vehicles driving along a particular road were pushing flood water into people’s homes. The local people were shaking with anger and frustration; if they had been allowed to close that road, they could have stopped those homes being flooded, but they were told they would face police action if they did so. That is the kind of emergency situation where we need to ensure that local people are able to act, whether it is a biodiversity emergency or a flooding emergency affecting people’s homes.

I really hope that we might see some progress on Amendments 90, 91 and 94. I also want to mention Amendment 92A, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. The Nature Friendly Farming Network represents a really activist group of farmers; I have met quite a number of them. They are doing some very strong things at that nexus between acknowledging the need to produce food and looking out for nature. Here we have a very modest addition to the Bill that would acknowledge and put on the statute book recognition of, and support for, the important work of nature-friendly farming. I hope that we will hear from the Minister about that amendment.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 91 in this group seeks to give some bite to the nature recovery strategies, which are a very welcome addition into this Bill by this Government. As they stand, however, local authorities will be producing them but they will be almost irrelevant in terms of the planning process, because they would not be a material consideration. My amendment therefore seeks to ensure that local authorities have to act in accordance with them rather than just take account of them.

I am grateful for the support for the amendment from Members from all Benches, and to the Minister and his team for discussing the matter with me. I am also grateful for government Amendment 93 that has been produced as a concession, but saddened that it is still just guidance. I suppose that I should not have really expected the Government to compel local authorities to do anything. It is also a necessary step, given that the pilots for the nature recovery strategies showed that local authorities said: “These won’t work unless we get more guidance,” so the Government had to do something. However, it is a step in the right direction, and it will help local authorities to ensure that nature recovery strategies are used properly in the planning system.

I am particularly grateful for the letter that the Minister sent to Peers, which said specifically just how important nature recovery strategies would be within the planning system as a tool for protecting the environment. That is an important statement, and I am grateful for it. Clearly, we have expectations for a planning Bill some way down the road; we are not sure quite how much of it will survive, if we are to believe the newspapers over the weekend. However, there will be a planning Bill, so without prejudicing what might come in future, I accept gratefully the concession that the Government have offered. We might have to return to this issue when we see what those planning changes are, at which point, we will be happy, I am sure, to take up the cudgels again.

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[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, a note to self is to employ the noble Baroness, Lady Young, as my speechwriter.

I shall speak to Amendment 103. Before I make my few remarks, I thank the Minister and his Bill team, who met me. We had a productive exchange of views. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who have supported this amendment, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I declare my farming interests, but also particularly my interest as a trustee of the Blair Charitable Trust, which not only has substantial landholdings in the north of Perthshire but runs land on behalf of a number of other substantial landholders, and therefore is one of the largest forestry concerns in Scotland. There are no grey squirrels in north Perthshire but my gosh there are a lot of deer, so I do know about that.

I also chair the Squirrel Accord, which is the coming together of 40 organisations across the whole of the United Kingdom to try to deal with the grey squirrel problem: its killing of broadleaf trees in Britain, preventing fresh broadleaf plantations in, for the example, the south of England being made today simply because the trees will be destroyed before they reached maturity. The Squirrel Accord includes all four Governments of our country and their nature agencies, the major voluntary bodies and the major private sector bodies. No one who has ever been asked to be a part of the accord has said no, and we are a number of years old.

As I said, the accord deals with the grey squirrel problem. Therefore, I am pretty familiar with that. The problem is simply that these animals will destroy the trees before they reach maturity. Therefore, all the planting that we need to do, for admirable climate change purposes, will simply not succeed if we do not put in place a good management system so that the trees can see themselves through to adulthood. As I mentioned in Committee, the Royal Forestry Society surveyed its membership and got 777 responses this year. The grey squirrel was noted as the number one threat to the planting of trees. I meet the Deer Initiative every now and then. It is similarly trying to promote a UK-wide way of handling this.

The Squirrel Accord has a good plan for how to manage everything. It is a plan that involves plenty of science, and the major science for fertility control, which is just one element of it, is being done at Defra’s own laboratories. It is now three years into a five-year project and going well. We have good science and good connections to deliver the product of that science in various ways into the countryside of Britain to deal with the problem. However, if there are refuges then we will get nowhere, because the responsible landowners and land managers will do everything and those who are not interested will do nothing. The purpose of the amendment is to try to cater for that and to make sure that the Government not only have the powers to handle it but will exercise those powers.

At this late hour I will not make many more points, but in the meeting I had with the Minister and his Bill team there was mention that the Government felt that they may have the powers. I, with my rather elderly wig on, felt that those powers probably needed to be newly minted, but it would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether he believes that he really does have those powers, and to hear comfort that those powers will be exercised so that there can be no giant refuges and so that all the work of the Squirrel Accord and the Deer Initiative, which I hope will be reinvigorated, and the work of those up and down the land who are trying to promote the ability to plant trees, particularly our native trees again, will not go to waste.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and indeed all the speakers in this group. On Amendment 103, I have to draw to noble Lords’ attention a study published about three weeks ago by the Woodland Trust and the National Trust of a trial that found that there are practical alternatives to plastic tree guards. I note that the Woodland Trust is planning to stop using plastic tree guards by the end of this year. Given how much we have debated plastics in other parts of the Bill and much discussion of the problem of microplastics, that is very much to be appreciated, while also offering support for the need to make sure we protect young trees.

I will also briefly comment on Amendment 104, so very ably and expansively introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. I fear electronic sheep may be wandering through my dreams.