Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I was delighted to add my name to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I congratulate her on moving it so eloquently. Given this opportunity, I just ask my noble friend when the Government will respond to both parts 1 and 2 of the national food strategy. When does he expect the Government to publish the food strategy plan and what will the timetable for its adoption be? That will be the conclusion of a fantastic debate, started by the Dimbleby report, both parts 1 and 2, on the national food strategy.

I say in passing that farming wishes to play an active role in reducing emissions and achieving net zero. There are additional ways to those outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, such as seeking to substitute food imports with home produce. Closest to home, Shepherds Purse cheese is benefiting from this, with Mrs Bell’s Blue and other of its blue cheeses competing favourably with Roquefort. That is not to say anything is wrong with Roquefort, but the food miles are less if we buy cheese closer to where it is produced, and it contributes to the local economy and provides jobs, as well.

I also echo earlier disappointment. I congratulate the new incoming International Trade Secretary, and hope this is something she runs with, but I hope the Government pay more than lip service to maintaining high standards of animal welfare in imported food and ensuring food standards of any imports into this country match the very high standards that our farmers meet. I believe this is a timely amendment, and I hope my noble friend uses this opportunity to tell us more about the Government’s thinking about the food strategy plan.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I have my name on this amendment. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on the way she introduced it and am grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for what she just said. The timing of this amendment today is particularly appropriate. It is Back British Farming Day, and I am glad that the Minister supports that. I hope that he, like me, will congratulate all the farmers in this country, who have done so much to produce good food, as well as to maintain and try to improve our biodiversity and nature. They have had severe difficulties because of what we politicians have asked them to do in the past. That is why biodiversity has been declining in some areas, but a lot of farmers have bucked that trend and, with the help of organisations such as the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, have increased biodiversity on their farms and farmed profitably.

It must be galling for a farmer to produce first-class food, only for it to be turned into processed rubbish that is fed to the processed food capital of the western world—the UK. That processing of food has undoubtedly affected the way farmers farm and if we, with the help of the national food strategy, can change our diets, it will help to change the farming system, as well. That can only be to the benefit of this country and farmers. We must never again go down the route of nature being separated from farming. I know that my noble friend is particularly keen that we get back to a more united and comprehensive approach to farming, and I thoroughly support him on that.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment came to me when we were discussing the Environment Bill last week. I know that it is not drafted as well as it should be; I apologise to the Committee for that. I say to my noble friend the Minister, “Forget about the drafting. It is the principle of what I am trying to get at that is important here”.

Most of our conservation work to improve our biodiversity and wealth of species has been habitat-based. It has not been very successful because when we were in the European Union, and since our exit, the Government have not focused on the critical issue of management. Management requires human decision. There are some fairly easy examples to make about species and how people will react to them, but when you look at pests, people’s opinions start to vary and that perception could be translated into legislation. That is my concern here. Take deer, for instance. You can have lots of photographs and everybody will look at Bambi and ooh and ah, but deer are a pest that need to be controlled. We discussed this in the Environment Bill and there seemed to be unanimity there. It would be an easy species for a committee to make an emotional, rather than scientific, decision on.

One can get into more questionable species. What about rats and wasps? If you analyse what people think about them, they have less feeling for them and are much more prepared to allow proper pest control of those species than they are of some others. That is why local authorities have pest divisions that deal with wasps—I have had to use them—mice and rats. What about bedbugs? Until recently, they were fairly common in this country, and in lots of places they are sadly still common. People’s perception of a bedbug is not the same as their perception of deer or seals. We need to have a scientific basis on which to approach this matter.

We could turn to brown hares. Brown hares are on our biodiversity action plan and are rated an important species but, at certain times of the year, in certain parts of the UK, the hare is a pest, and there needs to be the ability to control it. The ability to control pests in the most humane manner possible was a great omission from the badger Act, and we are paying the price for that with the increasing amount of predation of ground-nesting birds by badgers. We have seen it with lapwings and curlews. I have given examples in the environment committee of the destruction of lapwing at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust farm up in Aberdeenshire, where the badgers have actually been photographed destroying the nests and reducing species as a result.

During debates on the Environment Bill, we came across the conservation covenants. These will be an important part of the Government’s policy on improving our biodiversity and species number, but, again, action needs to be taken with management in view, not just the habitat.

So, what I am getting at with this amendment is whether the Minister, when he gives the brief to this Committee, will include management and pest control as an important aspect for the animal sentience committee to take into account so that the policies it comments on and the position it urges the Government to take do not contradict with the Government’s well-intentioned position on conservation, biodiversity, crop production and human health.

I have talked mostly about conservation and biodiversity, but I would like to give an example that was raised during the debate on the Environment Bill by my noble friend Lord Lucas, again on deer. It was about a wood that the RSPB looked after in Dorset. The RSPB got round the problem of the deer by fencing that bit of wood so that the deer were no longer a problem. However, that forced the deer on to the neighbour’s land —this is pretty bad management—and the devastation of the crops growing on the adjacent farmland was much more intense because the deer were not allowed into that bit of woodland.

As usual, there is a balance to be struck in all this. I hope that my noble friend will be able to make some comments on this. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity given by my noble friend Lord Caithness in moving his Amendment 35A to probe my noble friend the Minister and the Government a little bit more on the cross-departmental responsibilities of the animal sentience committee. I also want to explore what the relationship will be within Defra and the relationship between existing legislation and soon-to-be legislation in the form of the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill, the latter of which my noble friend Lord Caithness referred to. We spent some time in the first day of Committee on the amendments looking at pests—particularly deer, badgers, bats, grey squirrels and insects—and sentience. It begs the question: are insects to be treated as sentient beings within the remit of this Bill?

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the House owes the noble Earl, Lord Devon, a great debt of gratitude for bringing to our attention some of the shortcomings of the existing proposals in the Bill, with regard to this whole new concept of property law, as it relates to the land. My initial reading of it was not clear, and I obviously received a brief from the NFU and others. I am grateful to the noble Earl; his amendments are eminently sensible, and I urge the Government to support them.

I will speak at greater length. I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, to his place—it is good to see him back in person. However, I caution my noble friend the Minister most strongly against accepting this amendment for a number of reasons. I was closely involved with some issues relating to common land, particularly grazing rights on it in the part of North Yorkshire that I represented between 2010 and 2015. The role of graziers there is very important. They are granted rights, again, in perpetuity and have existed for many generations.

There are sometimes tensions with others in the hierarchy of interests, we might say, on common land, particularly with those involved in grouse shooting. I happen to have been brought up very close to two of the best grouse-shooting moors in the country, in Teesdale in County Durham, and I believe that, for the most part, the overgrazing problems, where they exist, have been managed extremely well through voluntary arrangements via stewardship schemes.

The main issue that I have is a potential hidden agenda here that it is very important to put in the public domain, appealing to the best instincts of my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in this regard. However, we need to see a balance in the countryside, and, among the hierarchy of interests, I place on record my particular concern about the plight of the small family farm. I would place that at the very top of the hierarchy, with grouse shooting and other interests perhaps towards the middle—or, in my case, the lower end. It has become of far greater economic importance than it had 20, 30 or 40 years ago. I pay particular tribute to the work of the NFU and the Tenant Farmers Association in regard to the rights of graziers to graze in perpetuity on common land. I was struck today by, and pay tribute to, the work of the Prince of Wales in this regard. He said today, on the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme, that we lose them at our peril, and I echo that.

I hope that my noble friend Lady Bloomfield will confirm that there is a role for graziers going forward and that their rights will be protected in perpetuity and will not be at the expense of other, perhaps larger, farming—or, dare I say, shooting—interests in this regard. We should have respect for existing property rights, as defined in relation to land under the Law of Property Act 1925 and other legislation. We should recognise that these rights of commoners go back as far as the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Charter of the Forest of 1217.

I welcome the opportunity that my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington— I call him my noble friend because we served together on the EU Environment Sub-Committee—has given us in this regard, but I urge my noble friend to approach this cautiously, particularly as it would potentially shift the balance in the countryside, without even meaning to do so.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee will be extremely grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for tabling these important amendments. I confess that I have not given them the attention that I should have done, and it is clear that a lot of attention needs to be given to this part of the Bill between now and Report. The fact that we are on the eighth day does not mean that these amendments are any less important than the first amendment on day 1—they need careful scrutiny.

To my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I say that I am not a landowner, but I was a land agent, and the implications of what the noble Earl said in moving his amendment fill me with some trepidation. He made a perfectly plausible case—it was not extreme—about a situation where a farmer hurriedly enters into a conservation covenant to boost his income at a time of stress, when his basic farm payments system is collapsing and he needs the money. That is not an unlikely scenario in the future, but the consequences of what he does are terrifying for the future because they are in perpetuity and binding on his successors. This could go disastrously wrong for the Government. This is the way that we will improve biodiversity, but, should it get off to a bad start and should some notorious cases hit the press, that will stop any chance of this becoming the full-blown operation that it should.

I have a number of questions for my noble friend on the Front Bench. If this a covenant in perpetuity, a farmer may enter into one on what is at the moment an outlying field but then ceases to be so, given the proposed massive housing development in this country, with the local authority wishing to develop it or use it for amenity purposes, as part of the increased use of that area. As I understand it, it will not be able to do so—but, when it has built houses all around that field, there is absolutely no way that the covenant will be able to be maintained. Is there a way in which this could be changed so that there is more flexibility?

When the noble Earl was talking, I wondered about the case of landlords and tenants. I presume it will be the landlord who enters into the covenant, and with the agreement of the tenant, but that could have serious consequences for the future letting of that land and keeping it in a tenancy. If for any reason the covenant was unable to be fulfilled, no tenant farmer would wish to take on that bit of land again in the future.

It would also affect the price and balance of farmland, because if it goes wrong and the land becomes of little value, it will upset the whole biodiversity and nature balance in that area. If one is talking of a landscape issue—for instance, a valley in the south-west or north-west where the whole area is properly managed but there is a conservation covenant in the middle of it that goes wrong—that could be utterly detrimental. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will reflect on this so that he is absolutely confident that the balance is right for the future.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am very happy to put my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment. She has moved it extremely well and there is very little for me to add, except to say that I want to go a bit further than she does. Therefore, I have also tabled Amendment 149A in my own name, which focuses specifically on supermarkets.

Noble Lords might very well ask why I am focusing on supermarkets when they have very little waste. I am focusing on them because I want supermarkets to take responsibility for their supply chains, and not just the food on their premises. To do this, we need mandatory reporting at farm level, which is currently not reported at all, and could account for as much as 25% of all UK food waste. Transparent reporting will reduce the food waste by big retailers, benefitting the environment, the climate and natural resources. A levy ought to be charged on supermarkets proportional to the food waste in the UK supply chains.

Why is mandatory reporting so important? There has been voluntary reporting, but it does not work; the firms are not reporting. Only 60 companies are reporting their data publicly, and more than 500 large companies are not reporting at all. It has to be mandatory reporting. The targets also need looking at because, under the voluntary commitments, UK food businesses have carefully achieved measurable food waste reductions of just 0.23 million tonnes between 2011 and 2018. It is estimated that between 3.78 million and 6.38 million tonnes of food waste occurs in primary production, manufacturing, retail, and hospitality and food services. The saving that has happened—which everyone will praise—is less than 1% a year. That is not satisfactory; that is not good.

The Government’s timetable is slow. It could be speeded up, and I recommend that it is. The Government have been inactive for far too long. Indeed, Tesco itself says that mandatory reporting and a speeded-up programme are absolutely vital to meet sustainable development goal 12.3. My amendment is an important addition to the one moved by my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. In conclusion, it is worth just pausing to think that Tesco makes £4 billion annual profit from food that its customers waste at home. The point of my amendment is to try to reduce that.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my noble friend and I support both him and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in the sentiments behind their amendments. In looking at the factsheet that was circulated by the department in connection with this Bill, I welcome the fact that the Government are minded to introduce regulations to, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, move food waste further up the hierarchy, so that there will be less left at the end. I particularly welcome the two amendments in this group as probing amendments, and ask my noble friend: is there not a degree of urgency that we need to do this?

I may have one point of disagreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. She and I both have family living in Denmark, I understand, and I have been immensely taken by the contribution that the Danes, other Scandinavians and Austria and Germany have made to enhancing energy from waste. I prefer to call it “energy from waste”; I know others call it incineration. I had beer poured over me once in my surgery when I was a Member of the other place; since then, I have called it “energy from waste”. This is the ultimate circular economy, because you are taking potential food waste and putting it into the system—the residual; I accept the hierarchy, and it should be the absolute minimum. The community benefits because it would go, ideally, into the local grid. There is a now a big incinerator in what was my original constituency, the Vale of York. The gripe I have with it is that it goes into the National Grid, whereas, as north Yorkshire is very cold, it should go into the local grid.

The factsheet also set out the importance of reducing the amount of food waste—as do both the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott—which is currently estimated as producing 25 million tonnes of CO₂ gas emissions every year through 9.5 million tonnes of food and drink which is wasted annually post farm gate. I take those figures as being accurate, as I understand that they are in the factsheet we received.

I press my noble friend when he sums up that there is a sense of urgency here: however we address it, we need to reduce that waste. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, not just on feeding Britain, as I think she called it, but for the national food strategy, as one of the team with its author, Henry Dimbleby. I look forward to hearing the official government response to Part 1 of that report.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I start by repeating something I said in the first day of Committee. This is a hangover from Monday, but the batting order is not satisfactory, because I want to speak to Amendment 28 and none of its proposers has spoken yet, so I cannot follow them. However, I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in her place and hope she can come in after the Minister, because few in this House know as much about the problem as she does.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, covered the problem comprehensively. I was going to raise the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, which is that we must take this opportunity not only to reduce the amount of plastic, but to curb the problem of plastic litter, which is spoiling the countryside in a way it never has before. This is particularly apparent with Covid and the pressures now on farmers, landowners and councils, because of the total disregard that a lot of people have for the countryside. They are happy just to dump their rubbish anywhere. This Bill must be used for that.

I would like to say a lot more about Amendment 28. I like that it does not attack all plastics, as they can be the right solution for the right good in the right place, but they are not great overall. We must find a way to reduce and recycle them better.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my noble friend. Like him, I think it unfortunate that we have not heard from those who have tabled Amendment 28. These three amendments have much to commend them. I also pay tribute to the work of the Government and, in particular, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, who first took an interest in this in the Quality of Life group’s report, Blueprint for a Green Economy, which he co-authored with my noble friend Lord Deben. I am pleased to see that his messianic zeal continues to this day.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the earlier speakers that this part of the Bill needs to be strengthened. I should say to my noble friend Lord Goldsmith with regard to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, why just chalk streams? I know how vital they are but any river will tell you about the environment of that area and its quality within the river.

I have a little bit of good news for my noble friend on the Front Bench. I recently spent three days in Dorset and, driving back, I had to wash the windscreen of my car to get rid of the bugs. It is the first time in many years when I have had to do that. If bugs are getting on to windscreens, it means that something is turning around slowly in nature. It is a good start and I hope that we will all be doing what I had to do on a much more regular basis. I agree that it is desperately boring to do, but it is far better to be bored doing it than not to have nature.

Virtually all land in the UK is managed. There is very little, if any, truly wild land left. When we are considering biodiversity, we must not forget that the land also has to produce food for the population. I again ask my noble friend on the Front Bench the question I asked at Second Reading, or possibly on the first day of Committee—I cannot remember. Does he agree with the figure that 21% of our agricultural land has to be taken out of agriculture and put into bioenergy fuels and trees? If that is the case, it means a 10% increase in the productivity of all the other agricultural land. That will mean a lot of intensification but it can be done if we do that cleverly with supporting biodiversity.

Here I want to talk about something that has almost become a dirty word: management—land management and biodiversity management. We could improve the biodiversity in this country very quickly if we followed the simple rules of getting the right habitat, the right species protection, proper winter feeding and control of predators. That is the four-legged chair on which biodiversity depends. I know that the Agriculture Act will address some of that but it will not necessarily address winter feed and certainly not predator control. The winter feed situation has been hugely compromised by the increasingly efficient agricultural machinery that farmers use and the height at which crops can be cut, leaving little for wildlife.

I mentioned foxes and badgers earlier. It was in that context that I felt that my noble friend the Minister had not answered my questions. What will the Government do to ensure that there is proper predator control carried out in a humane way? I am not talking about the extinction of species but getting a balance. If we are going to get back lapwing, curlew and waders, predators will have to be controlled. It is not just a question of foxes and badgers but deer. They have ruined hedgerows for ground-nesting birds and nightjars, and decimated some trees. In an increasingly urban southern half of England, deer control is becoming a major problem to undertake but if we do not do so we will affect wildlife in a hugely different way. It is not just a matter of our actions as human beings but of nature working within nature.

I know there are certain things over which we have no control, such as climate change. It is bound to affect our biodiversity in ways we do not know. As the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, will know, warmer winters and cooler summers are affecting salmon migration and its appearance in rivers. It is to be hoped that we will do something about that in long term, but it is not a short-term problem that we can solve. Nor can we solve the problem the north winds this spring have caused the bat population—that is not strictly within our hands. My friend, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, talked about the blue butterfly, which is weather-dependent. We have seen a huge increase in the red admiral thanks to a slightly warmer climate, but the other side of that equation is that we have lost a whole lot of butterflies because of the change in the climate. I wonder whether the blue butterfly that the noble Lord mentioned will suffer in the future.

In this debate, on getting an abundance target and improving biodiversity, I hope my noble friend will tell us about the practical problems that organisations are trying to solve. These organisations, such as the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Nature Friendly Farming Network, are doing huge amounts. They will need some more help and some more drive from the Government as well. Rather than just setting targets, it is the practicalities on the ground that matter.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Caithness. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing forward government Amendment 22 and all the amendments in this group. I hope he is not too disheartened by the reaction around the Committee this afternoon. Really, the Government have taken the bull by the horns.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, on his industriousness in all the positions he holds. No wonder we do not see too much of him here in the Chamber, but I congratulate him on all his work, at every level of democracy, which he outlined today. I am delighted that he talked about the plight of chalk streams, which I was heavily involved in at one stage in the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, highlighted—indeed, it is a theme of the briefing I was delighted to receive from the Green Alliance—that this is not a problem unique to this country. My noble friend the Minister outlined this when he moved and spoke to the amendments before us this evening. It is not so much that this is a new problem as that we need new solutions to be adopted, but I urge my noble friend to be slightly cautious if we go out on our own limb, as it were, and set very ambitious targets. Is it not the case that we are not the only Government who did not achieve the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010? Surely, if we are concerned about being a global leader and about biodiversity in the wider world, he should use his good offices and those of his colleagues in government to ensure that other Governments follow our lead. I was slightly disappointed that my noble friend Lord Randall did not touch on that aspect and took, perhaps, a uniquely domestic approach in the words he used.

My noble friend has set an ambitious target in the amendments in this group. How achievable is meeting those targets by 2030? Obviously, it is something we have signed up to internationally, so I would be interested to know how realistic and achievable those targets are. It is welcome that they will be subject—as I understood him to say—to the same legally binding targets elsewhere in the Bill. Will he use the species abundance provisions set out in these amendments to ensure that there will be timely and regular reviews of all the species, however the Government is going to define them? I am wondering whether we have actually defined these anywhere in the Bill, and I would be grateful if my noble friend would point to where those definitions are.

We all have our favourite species. Mine is the red squirrel, and one of the joys of visiting Denmark each summer is seeing how widespread it still is in parts of Scandinavia and elsewhere. I believe that hedgehogs are under increasing threat; I frequently lift one up and move it from the drive so that it does not make its way on to the main road, where I know that, a few days later, I will see that it is no more. Will my noble friend use this opportunity to look at all our favourite species—I would argue for red squirrels and hedgehogs—and make sure that, where they have been threatened but are now in abundance, we take cognisance of that? I think particularly of the protections that we gave to badgers in 1968. Should these now be reviewed, in 2021, along with those for all species of bats and newts?

I was taken by the arguments made by noble friend Lord Caithness about achieving a balance. He is absolutely correct, and I support him in this, that we should recognise predators such as deer. I hope that the green lobby will bear with me and that I do not get attacked like I did when I said this before: we have to recognise that TB is spread through predators such as badgers and deer and protect our herds of domestic cattle from that. I hope my noble friend the Minister will take cognisance of that balance. This may be in one of the amendments and I have missed it, but I would welcome his commitment to a review of each species, perhaps every five years, being considered. However, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and my noble friend Lord Cormack that legislation has to be precise and intelligible. If we are to take the public with us, which we need to on a Bill as complicated and as detailed as this one, it has to resonate with them, so there is a lot to be said for what my noble friend Lord Blencathra has suggested in his amendment.

However, I am slightly troubled on a couple of fronts. In answering the debate at Second Reading, my noble friend the Minister said:

“As for my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s proposal to change ‘biodiversity’ to ‘nature’, he makes an important point, but the trouble is that those two terms are not exactly the same”.—[Official Report, 7/6/21; col. 1308.]


He then gave an example about the dreaded Sitka spruce, but he did not tell us why they were not the same and what the implications were for the Bill if we were to go down the route suggested by noble friend Lord Blencathra of half the time using “nature” and half the time using “biodiversity” depending on where it is in the Bill. When he said that, I was immediately sceptical, thinking, “Here comes a lawyers’ charter. If we’re using ‘biodiversity’ in one part of the Bill and ‘nature’ in another, the lawyers are going to have a field day”. I wish my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern were joining in this debate, because he would help us.

I go instead to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who analysed this matter in some detail and came down in favour of “biodiversity”. I am sitting back on the fence where I started, because I was persuaded one way and the legal opinion has pushed me back in the other. I want to hear from my noble friend the Minister what the difference is between biodiversity and nature. If we could get that difference, perhaps we could reconcile it so that we got a Bill that was intelligible.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to participate in this debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Blencathra on being so industrious in coming up with such an imaginative way to put forward something that he obviously feels very passionate about. However, I support my noble friend the Minister, who I hope will go on to explain why we have settled on “biodiversity”. I support everything said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, about why “biodiversity” has a specific meaning. We should also look at the history of “biodiversity”. There are a number of international conventions with which I am sure my noble friend Lord Blencathra, particularly wearing his hat with Natural England, will be familiar. Is he proposing that we now try to change all the international conventions which originally referred, even more confusingly, to “biological diversity”? I would put forward “biodiversity” as a compromise between “biological diversity” and “nature” or “the natural environment”, because it has a specific meaning and we have subscribed to a number of international conventions. For those who will have to follow what is asked of them, “biodiversity” has that specific meaning, which I am sure my noble friend will explain.

I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, in saying that we need a list of species or a better understanding of what is being asked. I am sure my noble friend will explain that when he moves the series of government amendments later today. I accept “biodiversity” as a compromise, but we need greater clarification of the list of species—flora and fauna—which are to be protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, it is difficult to speak to an amendment that has not yet been spoken to by its proposer. I therefore ask my noble friend on the Front Bench whether she could make a note of this; we had exactly the same problem during the passage of the Agriculture Bill, which we finally got sorted out. The speakers’ lists should start off with all those who have amendments consequential to the first amendment. I want to speak to Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but she will speak after me. This is nonsense and it does not help the Committee—I am very glad to see some nods around the Chamber from all sides. I therefore hope that my noble friend will make certain that we get a decent speakers’ list in future.

I support what I believe the noble Baroness will say on Amendment 11, just as she supported me on my Amendment 111, which also refers to soil, so we are as one. Soil is critical to the environment. You cannot get good habitats without proper soil. Unless soil is one of the priorities, we will never get there in the first place. There is a lot more to be said about soil later, but at this stage I just want to support the noble Baroness in her amendment.

On the amendments spoken to by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, he raises some very important points but this also shows the difficulty of having targets, particularly where you have plants and species that can be affected by disease and climate change. It will be very difficult to set a target for tree health, because it can change in a matter of years, as the noble and right reverend Lord said about the ash disease. If you set a target and then have to change it, targets become increasingly meaningless. If we are to have targets, they should have a meaning. I am therefore sceptical. I understand what he is trying to do and part of me supports it, but part of me says that it has to work on the ground—we cannot just tick a box and say that we have done targets, and then keep on changing them. We changed the biodiversity 2020 targets because nobody was going to meet them. It brings the whole concept of targets into disrepute.

The noble and right reverend Lord also mentioned the tree-planting target. I have said before that it is not just tree planting that matters but the maintenance of trees. It is terribly easy to plant trees; I planted lots of trees in the year before I went to agricultural college and I hope that some of them have been clear felled by now—they should have been. However, it is disease and animal destruction of trees, and the planting up after the planting and the support for those trees to grow into mature trees, that really matter. I would rather plant fewer trees and get them all up to maturity than plant x plus 10% when 20% will die, as we end up with a minus quantity. The thrust of the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment is in the right direction, but again, it is about how it will work in practice; it is the practicalities of the Bill that will make it a success or not.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I welcome this small group of amendments. I will speak in particular to Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He has been very kind in supporting my later amendment along the same lines, Amendment 113. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I find it extraordinary that we have this omission whereby the marine environment, marine mammals, marine flora and marine fauna are excluded from the remit of the Bill. In responding to a question at Oral Questions last week, my noble friend the Minister accepted:

“In relation to the sustainability of inshore fisheries, there is undoubtedly a tension between those activities and new wind farms”.—[Official Report, 16/6/21; col. 1886.]


If we are not going to embrace and try to resolve those tensions in the context of this Bill, what mechanism will we use?

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on the evidence we took in the EU Environment Sub-Committee on the ecology of the North Sea. It enabled us to look in some depth at the cumulative impact, as I think it is called, of these rather regrettable tendencies that are building up. It was referred to as the “urbanisation” of the seas, particularly the North Sea, with this plethora of new offshore wind farms growing up in a very short period of time without any concept or research being done—we will debate that later—on what the impact will be on the other uses of that part of the North Sea, such as inshore fisheries, which I just referred to, and shipping.

Nor has research been done on the impact on marine mammals both in the construction phase, with the noise and pollution that will inevitably be caused by a major event such as the construction of an offshore wind farm, and in its operation. I find it overwhelming that there has been no research as to why we are seeing dolphins, whales and other marine mammals banking on our shores with increased regularity—even in the River Thames most recently. I am sure that it has something to do with the sonic boom sent out by these offshore wind farms. It is a constant murmur on the seabed, which must be a distraction and cause some pain to marine mammals. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will look favourably on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and that it will be added to—or else some very good reasons must be given as to why there is no recognition in the Bill of the maritime area and the contents of marine ecology.

Like other noble Lords, I support a number of other amendments in this group. Soil quality is extremely important; we will hear about that in a moment. I always offer a word of caution to those like the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who is looking to increase the planting of new trees. We must be extremely careful and approach where these trees are going to be planted very cautiously. I personally would like to see the creation of more peat bogs. It gives us a sense of the concept of time when we appreciate that it takes 200 years to create a peat bog, but I understand that the effects can also be replicated through the building of mini-dams and bunds, which should also be looked favourably upon.

For the reasons I have rehearsed before, my hesitation about encouraging the planting of new trees—they do have a role to play, as we have seen with the Slowing the Flow at Pickering pilot project on flood prevention and alleviation—is that, if grown in the wrong places, trees can actually contribute to flooding. That is a reason to be cautious. Also, only landowners and not tenant farmers can benefit from the planting of trees in any commercial way; they will therefore not benefit from this.

I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, realises that I hold her in the greatest respect and affection, but I part company with her on this attack on livestock farmers who face all sorts of onslaughts at the moment, including from the Government’s live transport provisions both domestically in this country and externally. I am sure that she and I can have a little private chat offline and reach some agreement on her amendment. This is an interesting group of amendments looking at all sorts of ways in which we can benefit, but I particularly lend my support to Amendment 6.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I warmly thank my noble friend and congratulate him on his role, as I do the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the environment, food and rural affairs next door. It may be a little late, but we have got to a very good place and I thank him for his role in this regard. I want to echo some of the concerns voiced around the Chamber. It is important that these are addressed at the next stage of the Trade Bill.

I ask the Minister to reconsider his stance, as given today, on equivalence. There is scope in the World Trade Organization for equivalent standards. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Krebs, have set out—as we have on previous occasions—why it is important to maintain our high standards of animal welfare, animal health and environmental protection.

I am extremely cautious on the role of labelling. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, in a speech in the Commons on 4 November, at col. 386, placed great emphasis on labelling. That did not help our pig producers when a previous Conservative Government unilaterally banned sow stalls and tethers in this country. Consumers went and bought—in supermarkets I must say, not in butchers—the cheaper cut. It may have been labelled as British but they bought on price.

I commend my noble friend for the fact that the role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission will be statutory, that its tenure will be extended to three years so that it becomes more permanent, and that it will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. As there will be appointments to that body, including maybe a new chairman, will he ensure that we in this place or Select Committees in the other place have a role in scrutinising them—particularly the appointment of the chairman, if there is to be a change of chairman at some point—so that Parliament has a role?

In terms of parliamentary scrutiny, which I welcome, can my noble friend clarify that 21 and 21 equals 42, so there is not a great deal of difference between the amendments before the House this afternoon and what my noble friend is suggesting? However, we ought to keep this CRaG procedure under review.

Finally, I pay tribute to the government adviser, Henry Dimbleby, who has been outstanding in his contribution to this debate. He has captured the mood of the country, and that has been reflected in the Government’s position on both free school meals and food standards, which I also commend. I thank my noble friend for his role in arriving at where we are today.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, on his determination and persistence in pursuing this amendment. He was ably backed by Minette Batters and the NFU, NFU Scotland and the British Veterinary Association, among others, but it was the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and this House who, I think, managed to shift the Government.

I said at an earlier stage that we were beating our heads against a brick wall, but, however bruised our heads are, at least the wall has cracked to some extent on this amendment. Therefore, I thank my noble friend Lord Gardiner. I have no doubt that he understood the mood of the House and helped persuade the Secretary of State that this really needed to be taken seriously.

I have no doubt that Defra would have accepted this amendment on Report if it had been in total charge of the Bill. I still have very severe reservations about the attitude of the Department for International Trade on this matter. We have not seen the amendments to the Trade Bill that will be brought forward. I sat in Committee with the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, when we discussed the agriculture side of it and we met a very strong brick wall on that occasion. Let us hope that at long last there is a bit of light in another department, because the attitude so far has damaged Defra’s reputation with the farming community. Defra will always get blamed for anything relating to agriculture, even though it did not have ultimate control of this issue.

I strongly welcome the fact that the TAC has been put on a statutory footing, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, it is the amendments to the Trade Bill that are key, and we will keep a very wary eye on those.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said about labelling, although I slightly disagree with my noble friend, because I think that labelling is hugely important. I do not think that it is good enough now, and that is why we had the problems with Danish pork and sausages—they were not labelled properly. Unless food is properly labelled and there is a traffic-light system for health and food safety, we will not get anywhere. That was highlighted by the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee, which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, chaired and on which I had the privilege of sitting. When we get around to debating that report—whenever that is allowed—it is no doubt a subject that I will bring up again.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned enforcement and checks, and I agree with him. I thought that everything would be all right until I saw the recent reports about the funding of the Environment Agency and how there was an increase in pollution due to farming and industry. The Environment Agency was not doing enough checks and there was not enough enforcement. If that is followed through into the Food Standards Agency, a lot of the hope that we have that things will improve will disappear. We will have to watch that. Meanwhile, I have much pleasure in thanking my noble friend Lord Gardiner for the enormous amount of work behind the scenes that he has done to get us this far.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I wish to speak briefly on Amendments 1, 11A, 17 and 17B. I have a question for the Minister on Amendment 1, to which the Commons has disagreed. In Committee and on Report, I stressed that it is extremely helpful to have some guidance on what the environmental objectives are going to be, particularly as I understand we only heard very late in the day what the interim arrangements will be from January 2021. This gives farmers quite short notice as to what the new objectives are going to be for claiming

“financial assistance during the plan period.”

Therefore, if my noble friend is not minded to support the amendment to which the Commons has disagreed, it would be very helpful if he would set out what benchmarks farmers are being asked to observe in the new payments scheme, which will be until such time as the new ELM scheme comes into effect.

I still have the difficulties that I rehearsed at earlier stages about Amendment 11B, and I hope my noble friend will clarify matters in summing up. My understanding is that all new and existing pesticides are very heavily regulated, but this amendment does not have regard to the fact that railways and many other transport systems rely heavily on the use of pesticides, which do not come close to being dangerous to human or public health. If adopted, this amendment would prevent them being used as they are. My noble friend referred to this in summing up the debate on the original amendment to insert after Clause 34 the new clause on pesticides. It would be very helpful to understand that.

The problem I have with Amendment 17B—I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has gone to great lengths with it—is the underlying assumption, also inherent to her introductory remarks, that it is farmers who are causing the problem. I would like to have much more regard held for, and tribute paid to, farmers because they are part of the solution, not part of the problem, as I think Amendment 17B indicates.

I emphasise the role that farmers and landowners can play, in a very big way, in sinking carbon under the new financial assistance schemes by rolling out projects such as the Pickering Slowing the Flow scheme. That will, I hope, have private funding from water companies as well as farmers, landowners, the Environment Agency, Defra and other bodies. I am quite excited about these new possibilities and a little conscious that this amendment seems to blame farmers rather than recognising the positive role that they play.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, In the other place, my honourable friend the Minister, Victoria Prentis, criticised some of our amendments because they were badly drafted. That shows a huge weakness in the Government’s argument. Our amendments are not necessarily badly drafted; we produce them, they are agreed by the House and, if the Government accept the principle of them, they get redrafted properly. That is the function of this House; it is not our function to be lawyers. However, the Government are being unnecessarily obstructive and intransigent on this Bill, and that is a huge sadness because they are alienating a lot of farmers and those who live in the country who see them as unnecessarily reluctant to accept any improvements to the Bill.

The Minister thanked us for our work, but our work has counted for nothing—despite the many hours we spent on this Bill, there has been just one small movement by the Minister. It seems to me that our work is not appreciated, or, if it is appreciated, it is certainly not acted upon.

My noble friend waxed lyrical about our scientists and their control of pesticides. How we miss the Countess of Mar. Many times, I listened to an Agriculture Minister on the Front Bench in this House, telling her that the scientists had said that sheep dip was safe, when clearly it was not. The Countess finally won her battle on this. So, I say to my noble friend, it is not surprising if one is a little sceptical of what the Defra scientists are saying.

As rightly mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, some pesticides, fungicides and insecticides, applied wrongly by farmers, are a hazard to health. The briefing that I have received says that the Government do not wish to accept the amendment because they have an integrated pest-management policy which will be a critical part of a future farming policy, giving farmers new tools to protect their crops. There is absolutely nothing in there about the health of human beings. I have talked to a lot of farmers who spray fields; they are not all in the same category as those on the farm of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. He made excellent points at an earlier stage, but there are those who spray in the wrong conditions, who are rushing to get a job done and not carrying out the work as they should. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is absolutely right. If the Government have these powers, why have they not been used? That is a critical question, which my noble friend has to answer.

I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, on climate change. It is not blaming the farmers. Farmers have a hugely important role to play. In fact, the Scottish Government entered into consultation today with Scottish farmers and crofters to tackle this precise issue of climate change. There are huge opportunities in the way that one can feed stock, for instance, that would reduce methane emissions. This is not having a go at farmers but wanting to work closely with them. I rather like what the noble Baroness said, asking the Government to “turn good intentions into policy”. That is all this amendment is asking; I hope it succeeds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on bringing forward a shorter amendment—I am always in favour of shorter amendments, as they leave less scope for interpretation. The noble Lord calls for a national food strategy within 18 months. I would like to see a response to the Dimbleby report before then and want to take this opportunity to urge my noble friend to produce such a response, even if it is informal.

Part 1 of the Dimbleby report has been extremely helpful in preparing for this Bill and the Trade Bill. It would be incumbent on the Government, even if it were just two departments—the Minister’s department of Defra and the Department for International Trade—to respond to the Dimbleby report in so far as it relates to obesity and the food strategy that Henry Dimbleby and his team, including the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who has played a sterling role in this regard, have set out. It would be important to hear from those two departments before this Bill and the Trade Bill left this place. I wonder whether there is any opportunity for my noble friend, even by way of a letter, to respond to the helpful conclusions of Henry Dimbleby.

I am slightly confused, because the reason that the Commons gave for disagreeing with the original Lords Amendment 9 is that

“it is inappropriate to impose a duty to publish a National Food Strategy.”

I thought that, in about 2010, the incoming coalition Government published something along the lines of a national food strategy—I forget what it was called—that was extremely well received and helpful. Is it not timely to have another stab at this within 10 years of the original?

I finish with a plea: that we do not wait 18 months from the day of passing this Bill before the national food strategy is presented. I commend the work of my noble friend’s department, Defra, in this regard; I commend the work of Henry Dimbleby. We owe it to Dimbleby and his team to come out with an interim acknowledgement of and response to his proposals.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I served on the House of Lords Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs—the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee. Many things struck me when we received evidence. Perhaps I may mention just two of them.

The first was how reluctant were some in the food and drinks industry to give us any evidence, which makes one entirely suspicious of their motives. They were reluctant to come to the table to discuss the problems and found every excuse not to co-operate. That came out pretty clearly in the evidence we received. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has just said, it is only where the Government have taken firm action that the industry has made significant changes. I say to my noble friend the Minister, who I know has advocated, supported and encouraged this industry, as I do, that a very black cloud hangs over it with regard to this issue. He will have to kick it hard to get it to co-operate in the way that it should.

The second point that struck me was the need for a cross-departmental response. We took evidence from the Minister for Health and Social Care. She—or rather the department—has been sitting on reports and consultations for some considerable months, and blamed their lack of implementation on Covid. I therefore asked the Minister what would have happened if there had been no Covid. We received the reply, “I shall have further consultations”. Let us have some action. The noble Lord and his department may well be taking an active role, but I am not at all convinced that the Department of Health and Social Care is doing so. That is why I support what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said about the need for the cross-departmental analysis to be done at ministerial level. It is all very well doing it at official level but if it can be kicked into the long grass, I am afraid that it will be. This has to be driven politically by Ministers at the highest level, and probably chaired by someone such as Michael Gove as head of the Cabinet Office. That sort of impetus is needed.

I should say to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that 18 months is too long—I agree with my noble friend Lady McIntosh on that. We need a speedy reply. My noble friend the Minister has reassured me to some extent, but he has a much more difficult job than he anticipates, given the need to take the other government departments such as health, education and the Home Office with him on this matter.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome these amendments. I have only two questions for my noble friend.

It concerns me that these amendments have been tabled at this stage. Why did we not know about this problem before? Why has it only just come to light on Report? It worries me that we might be letting other issues through.

Are there any other related programmes affecting other industries where primary legislation might be needed to cover the gap, as my noble friend is covering it for agriculture in this instance?

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend has tabled this group of amendments to clarify the legal situation in what seems a potentially vexatious area.

I want to place on record how dependent many heavily deprived rural areas have become on parts of the European rural development fund. To quote the noble Lord, Lord Mann, I want to place on record a bid to make sure that any offerings from the shared prosperity fund will include a heavy element of rural development and grants.

I also want to put a question to my noble friend the Minister. What will the natural end of these schemes be? I assume that they will be phased out. If the schemes are rolled over in the specific circumstances to which my noble friend referred, will they reach the natural end of their life by 2023? Will the LEADER programme and the other programmes that fall under the current rural development schemes—they have obviously had much funding from both EU and domestic funds—continue to benefit from the new ELM schemes? Is that the Government’s intention?

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Earl of Caithness

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the clear way in which the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, introduced this amendment. That was helpful.

I have a concern about the word “entrants” in the amendment. We are talking about a fishing industry which comprises both crew and owners. In 2018 the Seafish review put the average age of crew at about 38 and of owners at about 50. Surely we are trying to get more boats and therefore more owners, who will then employ more crew, into our fishing fleet. I particularly welcome the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, of focusing on helping boats of under 10 metres, but that will all depend on the economic viability of fishing. If fishing is not a viable, sustainable industry, there will be no owners wanting quotas and, as a result, no crew employed. That will have a detrimental effect on coastal areas, as we have already discussed.

The quota system, which is how the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is attacking the issue in this amendment, is perhaps not as beneficial for increasing the overall ability for new entrants to come into the industry as another way might be. I do not know quite what that way is, and I will rely on my noble friend Lord Gardiner to help me with that, but focusing on the new entrants will not be as beneficial because the quota belongs to the boat owner.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I am minded to support this amendment, as it addresses an issue I have raised ever since we had the informal briefing with the then Minister for Fisheries, now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am slightly concerned because, in spite of what we hear about various schemes for new entrants, I have not identified a great rush for new entrants over and above what the current provisions allow. I raised this at the informal briefing and was given an assurance on it; currently the under-10 fishermen—I had the privilege of working with them most recently in Filey, but also in other parts of the country—rely very heavily on shellfish, but, as was said previously, are given scraps of other whitefish under the table through the very complicated system of top-slicing discards which are then gathered into a pool from which the under-10s can benefit.

We were led to believe in the informal briefing that an official mechanism would be put in place to ensure a stricter, clearer, more transparent situation in which the under-10s would benefit from any remaining quota on an annual basis. My noble friend the Minister may well be able to put my mind at rest here, that that provision is somewhere and I am not immediately seeing it, but that promise was made and I invoke it here: that under the provisions of this Bill, under-10s will benefit from a higher and more regular quota going forward.