Farming Rules for Water

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is perhaps referring to the amount of money the Government had said they would put into the transition scheme to assist farmers in changing their system to invest in better slurry systems. After consultation with the farmers, it has been decided to do that in a different way. We have the incentive fund, which is there for farmers to access, but they have said that they want the money spent on environmental measures to be looked at much more holistically across the whole farm, and that is what we are doing.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the real emergency is giving farmers, particularly organic and livestock producers, clear and simple rules to follow? Is it not true that we simply do not know what the safe level of nutrients in the soil should be, so there should be no change to the rules or the regulatory policy statements until we have the science on which to base them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We do have a lot of science on this. If we were to indulge in many years of further scientific investigation, it would be too late for certain rivers, which—I am using strong words here—will be ecologically dead if we do not take action. The rules are there and they have been set out in the code for good agricultural practice since 1985. We are working with farmers to make sure that we apply them proportionately and to assist them in changing their businesses to deal with what is a very real and present problem.