Climate Agenda
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this debate, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lilley on initiating it. I too welcome my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead to these Benches and warmly congratulate her on her formidable maiden speech. We entered Parliament together in the other place in 1997, and I served under her leadership in the shadow team for environment, food and rural affairs, so I can vouch that she is well versed in the issues before us today.
Personally, I accept that climate change is real and that we are subject to increasing extreme weather events. I would argue, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad did, that we need a global approach to tackling it, and we need to find international solutions of not just one country acting on its own but to act together with the EU, the US and the BRICS countries, which we saw meeting this week—otherwise, progress will be slow, and it could serve potentially only to penalise our own industry and households. I welcome the reality check by the then Prime Minister, my right honourable friend Rishi Sunak, who in September 2023 undertook a more pragmatic approach.
I would like to speak in particular to the impact of the climate agenda on rural affairs, and I have to say that it is not altogether a positive one. Let me take some examples from the recent Climate Change Committee progress report to Parliament. First, the ending of production of any cars other than electric vehicles by 2030 will be extremely challenging for rural areas. There is a lack of charging points in rural areas, and there is also a lack of range. Apparently, we have gone from charge anxiety to range anxiety. If a car can go only 200 miles maximum, without any heating, radio, windscreen wipers or air conditioning in the summer, we rural dwellers—in either summer or winter—will be lucky if we can go 100 or 150 miles without having to charge again.
Secondly, on the commitment to renewable energy, such energy is often generated on land in the north of England or Scotland, or offshore and brought in to coastal areas. Yet the energy created is transported across rural and coastal areas—away from the very communities that could do with that electricity more than some others—through ugly, intrusive pylons and fed into the national grid. There is a very strong argument for ensuring that, whether it is offshore or onshore wind, the energy generated serves communities close to where it is generated, which is what generally happens in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. As a result, those rural communities would be more inclined to support this type of rural energy going forward. I fear that if the Government persist with plans to criss-cross the country with even more overhead line transmission pylons, there will be a revolt. The earlier REVOLT—Rural England Versus Overhead Line Transmission—campaign, started by Professor O’Carroll in North Yorkshire, may be dormant but it will be revived if this persists.
Thirdly, the recommendations to ramp up tree planting and peatland restoration both sound like good ideas, but we should be aware that it takes 200 years to create a peat bog. Realistically, while we can bring about modest achievements such as the peat dams we created through the Slow the Flow project to prevent flooding in Pickering and North Yorkshire, it takes 200 years to create a peat bog from scratch. Tree planting in inappropriate areas can in fact be extremely damaging: it can create more floods, rather than prevent them. Also, I firmly believe that trees should not be planted on most fertile, productive farmland.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans set out, farmers have a key role to play in tackling climate change and achieving net zero. They have been the victims, particularly over the past 18 months, of the record rainfall taking large rafts of land out of production. My noble friend Lady May referred to 2023 being the hottest year on record; the last 18 months is the wettest period on record, particularly in England. Farmers would like to become more self-sufficient in energy production but, as I understand it, they are currently prevented from doing so by existing planning rules. The rules should be revisited to ensure that farmers can generate more of the energy they need, as other businesses are doing.
The rural economy provides the food we eat, and farmers are the powerhouse of rural communities. If we have learned anything from the current invasion and hostilities in Ukraine, it is that we need to boost our self-sufficiency in food, not least in fruit and vegetables, which is woeful: we are only 16% self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables. We also need to boost our food security. Food security and energy security are complementary and should go hand in hand.
The climate agenda should work just as well for rural areas as for urban ones. It should not undermine food production, jobs, growth and prosperity in rural communities, as it currently appears to do.
Procurement Act 2023
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will look into that matter and write to the noble Lord on that point.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, in their manifesto, the Government committed themselves
“through public sector targets to source locally-produced food”
to help farmers. We on this side would applaud that, but how does the Minister square that with the terms of the Procurement Act, which prevents farmers and others from bidding to be sources of food in schools, prisons and hospitals?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am not aware of any particular measures that would prevent them from doing that, but I will look into that matter and revert to the noble Baroness.
Bus Fares: National Cap
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I completely agree with my noble friend. There is no point in having a regular train service if passengers cannot reach it by bus. It is always about the consideration of the last mile of a journey. If people get into their cars, they tend to stay there. It is a very important aspect that has been picked up by looking at the bus open data service. Bus companies sharing their data has been an enormous problem—anyone in the north of England knows that that helped prevent us bringing in an Oyster-style ticketing service across the north. It is crucial that we get this right and that all companies are obliged to share the information.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Could I press the noble Baroness further? She has given a very positive answer on concessionary fares for the elderly, but her response does not actually give a commitment to continue the £2 fare. Could she give a more positive answer about the timetable and an assurance that there will be no cliff edge from 31 December this year, particularly for young people and those living in rural areas who do not benefit from the concessionary fare, which has played such a positive role in rural transport?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I hope I made it clear that the success of the scheme is well recognised. We have to look at all aspects to make sure that it is sustainable going forward and that we do not have to return to this in the future. So many people depend on this and it is very popular. Of all the schemes that have come into place, this one is very well known; the public actually know about it and this has led to an increase in patronage. People have changed their habits from using other forms of transport to using the bus. In my view, it has been a real success.