Brexit: Environmental Regulation

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Well, this member of the Government is delighted to say that the United Kingdom is a world leader on animal welfare and environmental standards. We will not water down our standards as part of trade negotiations; I have said that before. We are committed to making sure that any future trade agreements work for consumers, farmers and businesses across the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, what would happen to complaints already with the Commission? Are any arrangements in place for them to be received and acted on during the interregnum?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Yes, during the period up to 31 December, under the relevant clause—I cannot remember which—of the withdrawal Bill, there would be EU oversight of all the arrangements. The point, as I mentioned, is that the OEP is due to come in on 1 January 2021. It would then take over the oversight.

National Biodiversity Network Report

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the National Biodiversity Network report State of Nature 2019.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, we are working at home and in the overseas territories to address biodiversity loss. Partnerships between government, farmers and conservationists have seen particular successes, often through habitat restoration, supported by agri-environment schemes. For example, we have supported local recoveries of the marsh fritillary and cirl bunting and the reintroduction of the short-haired bumblebee. Our 25-year plan marks a step change in ambition. The Environment Bill introduces measures to ensure that the Government are held to account against our ambitious goals.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his recognition that the rate of species decline is dire. If we leave the EU, I think it will be even more dire. How does the Minister explain what happened at Defra when the then Secretary of State, Michael Gove, said about the proposed ban on slug pellets:

“Once outside the EU, we will continue to make decisions on pesticides based on the best … science”.


The best science in this case was the Expert Committee on Pesticides, which recommended a ban because of the unacceptable risks to birds and mammals. Defra proposed a ban, the manufacturers objected and went to court, and Defra just gave up. The ban has been overturned, even though there are perfectly practical alternatives available, and now thrushes, hedgehogs and so on are dying in their hundreds again. It is also affecting drinking water. Is this the sort of approach that Defra intends to take?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

No, it most certainly is not, which is why we are bringing forward the environmental land management scheme as part of the post-CAP arrangements. It is why we have published the Green Finance Strategy and why more than 370,000 acres in England have been set aside for new wildlife-rich habitats. I could go on, particularly on the international stage. All of this is because we need to enhance the environment. We will always turn to the best scientific advice on pesticides and chemicals. Clearly, that is why we decided that neonicotinoids are not acceptable. We will take action if the science directs it.

River Ecosystems

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the figures have shown how not only Natural England but the Environment Agency and the water companies have actually produced very strong improvements in difficult times, when everyone has had to retrench. River basin management plans involving Natural England, Defra and water companies are all about improving water quality across river basins from 2015 to 2021. All of this, and a lot more, is why water quality and supply will be increasingly important.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, among the most important components of sewage that have become more detrimental to wildlife are the pharmaceuticals going down the lavatory as part of human sewage. They are causing infertility in everything from killer whales to dog whelks, because hormones are extremely damaging to wildlife in the long term. Can sewage treatment plants do anything to improve this situation?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this goes back to the products produced and the importance, with research and technology, of alternatives. It is why our ban on microbeads is tremendously important. We need to do more, both in our own products but more generally with what we put on the land. That is where alternatives and precision farming will be very important.

Ivory Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be taking part in the Second Reading of this most important Bill. The Government are to be congratulated on bringing the Bill forward, as is the Minister on his excellent and comprehensive introduction. Given how much consensus has been achieved even on the trickier issues of antiques, I will not dwell on the detail of the Bill. However, I will mention some important points around it.

With regard to the illegal wildlife trade, bans work. Before 2005, the rainforests of Africa and South America were being stripped of their bird populations. Some species were driven to the edge of extinction, macaws in particular. Initially the UK was a bit reluctant to join in but in the end it lent its vote to the EU, and the EU trade ban came in in 2005. Now, if you want a parrot, it has to be bred in captivity.

A study in 2017 by scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Porto, published in Science Advances, looked specifically at how the EU’s ban had affected the number of birds traded annually. They found that it had dropped from 1.3 million to 130,000—a drop of about 90%. Obviously 100% would be perfect but given that the trade is illegal there will always be some who flout the law, but I suggest that that is an incredibly impressive figure. Legislation in this area definitely has been shown to work.

After legislation, two sectors play a particularly important part in achieving the objective—those who work in the media and those who are in the front line. I congratulate the Guardian newspaper on its ongoing campaign in support of environmental defenders. Last year, 197 people were killed for defending land, wildlife or natural resources. In recording every defender’s death, the Guardian hopes to raise awareness of the deadly struggle on the environmental front line. This House should commend the Guardian for highlighting these astonishingly brave people who, knowing the risks, lay down their lives for wildlife. It is often about habitat destruction, which I believe is as dangerous for wildlife as the trade in the products. Certainly that would be true for elephants. If they have no habitat, it is hard for them to exist.

The Minister mentioned avarice in his opening remarks, and much of this trade is based on avarice. Some people, however, think that it is based on necessity, such as when river sand is taken at completely unsustainable rates for use in development. Others mine minerals of all sorts around the world, including copper in South America—which I have seen at first hand—as well as nickel. I went to Lake Izabal in Guatemala, where some of the last manatees on earth live. Very sadly, the Solway Investment Group, which takes something like 2.2 billion tonnes of nickel a year and claims to do environmental assessments, has put that lake under extreme threat and, no doubt, the manatees with it. We have a responsibility for the mines because they are often owned by multinationals based in the UK, Canada or the US. Agribusiness is another destroyer of habitats. It is the biggest driver of violence against the defenders I mentioned, in the drive for soy, palm oil, sugar cane and beef. There is an awful lot to be done about habitat destruction, but I realise that that is not the subject of this Bill.

The BBC has done a lot to raise public awareness. Its programme “Natural World” recently featured a beast that I really had not appreciated, the pangolin. “Natural World” did for pangolins what “The Blue Planet” did for oceans. The pangolin, a little-known, scaly mammal found in Africa and Asia, is apparently now the most poached and illegally trafficked animal in the world. The conservationist Maria Diekmann rescues and rehabilitates pangolins. It really was an extraordinary programme and anyone who did not see it should watch it on catch-up. It showed what one person working on the front line could do to build a campaign to raise awareness of the plight of an animal that most people have never heard of. What she did that was particularly powerful was to go to where the pangolins’ scales are sold for medicine—China—and join forces with a Chinese social media megastar to campaign to the Chinese people about not buying this product.

I again congratulate the Government on hosting the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in the UK in October and commend them for their lead on this. At that conference, will the Government recognise the role of environmental defenders with a memorial wall? In particular, and especially poignant this afternoon, will they recognise the role of Esmond Bradley Martin, whose ground-breaking investigations helped the fight against elephant poaching? He died after being stabbed at his home in Nairobi. Bradley Martin was a geographer by training but he brought the illegal trade to the attention of the world. He had been working on this for a lifetime, since the 1970s, looking in detail at the movement of elephant ivory and rhino horn, among other substances. John Scanlon, head of CITES, said:

“He was tireless in his efforts to protect elephants and rhinos … His research and findings across multiple continents had a real impact … He was a longstanding and highly regarded member of the Cites technical teams looking into the poaching of elephants and smuggling of their ivory. He will be sadly missed by all at Cites but his legacy will live on”.


This Bill is part of that legacy.

Bee Population

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, first I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on her very informative and excellent introduction. It is wonderful that she has such an appropriate name for this debate. She outlined really well that it is a toxic mix of habitat loss, parasites and pesticides that is affecting our bee population. The only thing to be said for the drastic reduction in some of the numbers is that it has motivated government and the public—and, indeed, industry, the farmers—into doing far more to counteract whatever it is that is affecting bees so adversely. Because it is a toxic mix, it has been very complex to establish which part of that mix, whether it is the pesticides, the habitat loss or the parasites, is responsible for the decline in which species.

The thing that continues to slightly confuse our debate is the terminology. We use the term “bees” when we mean honey bees, but we also use the term generically, as the noble Baroness said. There are 250 species of bee in the UK: 25 are bumblebees, one is the honey bee, and there are 224 species of solitary bees. Of course, the solitary bees are equally important in pollination and they have suffered something like a 50-year decline in diversity. Undoubtedly, a lot of that is due to habitat loss. Particular bees focus on particular plants, and I say to the Minister that it is important to bear this in mind when developing wildlife corridors. Wild flowers, as he knows, are not just generic. We sometimes find in seed packets in garden centres that just say “Wild Flowers”, but specific plants grow in specific geologies and at particular altitudes.

I think it is widely accepted that bees are declining—but, in fact, according to the last House of Commons research, 7.7% of species were said to be declining, 12.6% were stable and 0.7% were increasing, yet we know nothing about 79% of these bee species because the research has not been done yet. I particularly welcome the fact there is going to be research across the EU, known as PoshBee—it was mentioned on “Farming Today” this morning—looking at exactly what is affecting all these various pollinators. I congratulate the Government on endorsing the proposal to ban the outdoor use of the three sorts of neonics. Research is undoubtedly very important. We have organisations in this country, such as the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Natural Environment Research Council, all applying their minds to it.

I hope and expect that when the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, comes to speak, he will be a bit less excoriating than he has been in the past about green groups and a bit less defensive of neonicotinoids, because the fact is that research proves that there are a lot of unknowns in this area—so it is quite right that these questions are asked. I know it makes for lively reading on his blog to be dismissive of many pieces of research that have been done, but I think that probably, as somebody who has done so much work in the area of science, and exploring it, he can accept that there is a lot still to be explored in this area.

I welcome the fact that there is going to be a new Bill on a national network of pollinator corridors. We definitely need species-rich wildflower habitats. I am sure that many noble Lords speaking in this debate will have read The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy, in which he makes the very good point that we really need to engage our natural wish to nurture nature and our natural propensity to take joy in nature. That will be far more motivating to people than sustainable development policies. I am not dismissing the policies, because there is a need for government action and policies, but there is a huge need for public motivation.

For example, we could say that it is not just pesticides but herbicides that are a threat to pollinators. Weed killing can take out all sorts of the food elements that a bee will depend on. There is also the close mowing of lawns, because clover in a lawn is a rich source of nectar, as are dandelions and thistles. I am worried about the herbicides which wipe out every bit of food that a pollinator might hope to find. Lawns made of Astroturf are the final straw: they will not provide anything for any pollinator. So there is lots of action that the public can take. I have seen many designs of bee hotels, which are really interesting. I am looking forward to building one over the summer out of pellets, old flowerpots and so on.

When it comes to farmers, there is also much going on that we can welcome. The Crop Protection Association sent a helpful briefing on its BeeConnected scheme, which talks about how the responsible farmer or grower will be obliged to tell beekeepers when they are going to spray. That is a great step forward that will allow beekeepers to take the necessary precautions—what about the 249 other species that are not looked after by a beekeeper? They will be out and about, soaking up the pesticide. That is an issue on which I hope the Government and industry will work together and will think about.

In vineyards, which I know a bit about as I have one, pyrethrum use is allowed under the organic regime but it is actually more toxic than many of the modern mite-focused sprays. Again, organic regulations need to be looked at to make sure that they are as up to date and pollinator-friendly as possible.

Finally, I ask the Minister for some clarification about protection for local wildlife sites, which will be really important in this pollinator corridor work. Protection status was called into question under the new planning policy framework. When I asked a Question on this—HL7636—the Answer said that the Housing Minister had written to all Peers and MPs clarifying protections for local wildlife sites. Well, I have not had a letter. Perhaps other noble Lords have. Perhaps the Minister can say that he will make this letter publicly available and clarify that the Government do not intend to change planning protection for local wildlife sites.

Plastic Packaging

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend has said, which is why the four-point plan that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced is precisely about reducing the amount of plastic in circulation, addressing different plastics in use, improving the rate of recycling and making it easier for people to recycle. That is why we need to work with local authorities. There are some very good examples, both rural and urban, of local authorities increasing their rates of recycling, and I applaud them.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, besides local authorities, the Government need to make extra effort with producers to give them guidance about using only one sort of plastic, where that is practical, because it is the mixed plastics that are so difficult to recycle?

Agriculture: Gene Editing

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, at least gene editing does not bring with it the threat that GMO technology used to bring. Nevertheless, when the Minister uses the term “more efficiently” in relation to gene editing, I think that he means “more quickly”. However, speed can cover up some of the issues that can still arise with gene editing. Therefore, will the precautionary principle still apply?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, as I said, this is about different research into different areas, and we believe that this is a force for good for the reasons that I have articulated. It is about advancing our knowledge of pests and diseases and enhancing animal welfare. Whether it is the work at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh on diseases in pigs—for instance, African swine fever—or other research, all this work on gene editing could make a remarkable difference and represent an advance in animal welfare. Those are the reasons we think it is a force for good.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. Today, I mostly want to talk about biodiversity and measuring improvement. Of course, the aims in the plan are laudable, but how will we know that the environment is in a better state? Sure, we can measure that water is cleaner or that the air has fewer pollutants in it, and we can see some things, such as those which the author Michael McCarthy describes in his book, The Moth Snowstorm. I am sure that many of your Lordships will remember when moths used to,

“pack a car’s headlight beams like snowflakes in a blizzard”,

or the insects that used to stick to the windscreen. There was just so much insect life. Now, those moths have, by and large, gone.

Perhaps that tells us as much as a scientific calculation, but the environment plan needs to measure whether the whole ecosystem is improving. Currently, the lack of definition of ecosystem health undermines the plan’s entire approach to biodiversity. Will the return of a few iconic species be measured as success, even though many other species become extinct? Take the plan’s proposed increase in wildflower meadows. It is of course a good aim in itself, because a wildflower meadow is a lovely thing to behold, but it should be about far more than its flowers. It should support colonies of insects. Butterflies, bees and, in turn, insect-eating birds, should do well and find enough food to feed their young. In damper areas, frogs would find shelter. The meadow is cut later for hay when the seeds have mostly set and, in the meantime, hares can make their forms in the long grass for themselves and their leverets.

The picture I am painting is of a whole ecosystem, but what if the new wildflower meadows have no hedges where birds can nest? What if the meadow is next door to arable fields where there is intensive use of slug pellets? Then the frogs, thrushes and so on are likely to die of metaldehyde poisoning.

As I search the plan for definition, I found that it is only marine areas that benefit from the government ambition to be ecologically coherent. Those words are very important. I hope that the Government will develop an ambition for the terrestrial places, too, to be ecologically coherent.

The environment plan has a nod to Lawton and the need to create landscape-scale areas and wildlife corridors. It talks of the nature recovery network, and I was very excited about that. Like the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I turned anxiously to the actions listed on page 59 that would enable that to happen. As he found, they are “considering”, another “considering” and then “evaluating”. In my book, those are just thoughts about actions.

What about measuring the health of ecosystems or, as the report calls it, metrics, which is rather a dry word for its job of creating a picture of ecosystem health? In its current form, the plan will be like a 500-piece jigsaw with 250 pieces missing. The plan itself recognises this, because on page 130, it states that the Government need “better measures”. The metrics need to consider, for example, the potential value of the site, including the role that it can play in connecting habitats. Currently, the metric looks only at habitats in development sites and, strangely, does not account for the species present. The inclusion of the species metrics will be essential to the delivery of biodiversity net gain. For biodiversity net gain to be effective, it should be mandatory for all developments, which I believe is not the case currently. As other noble Lords have identified, there are no milestones for the delivery of long-term targets. This is very much a work in progress, and there is a long way to go.

I was surprised at the very strong emphasis on the reintroduction of native species. Is that really the most productive use of limited resources and effort? Why not try first to preserve what we currently have but which is really threatened, such as the curlew, the small tortoiseshell butterfly, the natterjack toad or even the hedgehog? The environment plan is very light on whether, in future, farming policy will be based on a conversation with nature or just diminishing somewhat the battle against it. I was heartened that the Minister talked about working with nature because too often there is a mistaken thought that it is a choice between agricultural productivity and an agro-ecological approach.

There is a very interesting quote from John Cherry, the farmer who started the organisation Groundswell. He said:

“It has been calculated the ‘good’ bugs outnumber the ‘bad’ bugs by a factor of 1,700:1. So the chances are collateral damage by insecticides will take out a lot of the guys looking after our wheat and controlling potential pests. Many farmers now find they are routinely applying slug pellets. Could it be they would be better off allowing ground beetles to control them? It may be coincidence, but on our farm we have found since we stopped using insecticides on wheat, our need to pellet for slugs has all but disappeared”.


That is the sort of approach that we need to see in this plan.

In my last few moments, I shall just mention a few of the things that I welcome, such as the tree health resilience plan and, maybe, the integrated pest management. I do not understand quite what the Government mean by,

“at the heart of a holistic approach”.

I hope that it means what I think it means. I welcome the national parks and AONB proposals. The Government obviously feel that they are on more solid ground there than with land with no particular designation. I particularly welcome connecting people with the environment. The Government should recognise all the work done by people like the RHS, delivering horticultural learning into schools.

I welcome the statement on illegal wildlife trade. Does that mean that the Government are committing to continue to fund and, one hopes, expand the wildlife crime unit, which is of global importance but is always having to fight for its financial future? Finally, I welcome the mention of international work on migratory species in our overseas territories. I hope that we continue to contribute to scientific work globally.

Waste: Chinese Import Ban

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Greaves on bringing forward this debate. It is not only topical but incredibly timely in view of the fact that the environment strategy was launched today.

My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, have already mentioned the BBC programme “Blue Planet II”, which has to claim quite a lot of the credit for sensitising the public to just how severe the problem is. However, credit must also go to the organisations that have been working on this issue for years. For example, the Marine Conservation Society has been carrying out beach surveys and looking at the different types of plastic and the build-up of plastic—from the little things used to clean ears, such as Q-tips and so on, through to the big plastic items that we have all seen on beaches. The work of the Marine Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace has meant that the public have become more and more aware of this issue, even before seeing “Blue Planet II”.

I think that consumers are now willing to act but they face a really confusing scenario. The Prime Minister is quite right: you need a degree in chemistry to interpret what is on the back of some packets. For example, earlier I was looking at the back of a pack of wet wipes. Some people might assume that these wipes are just paper impregnated with liquid, but that is not the case. They contain lots of plastic, which is why you cannot flush them down the loo, and presumably the time they take to degrade is similar to that of a nappy.

Industry, too, will need a big incentive when it comes to considering what to do about packaging. At the moment, the incentive is all on the side of producing packaging that is good for marketing. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: what sort of incentive can the Government consider to encourage industry so that recyclability is built into the design of products? I shall give your Lordships an example. When you buy a pair of scissors, you might find them just hanging on a hook in the shop with a price tag on them, but all too frequently they are packaged with a cardboard backing and a very hard plastic front so that you need another pair of scissors to cut open the packaging to get to them. Why on earth is that product packed in a plastic bubble?

Retailers could start to demand from industry that items come with less packaging. We must also think about online retailers. For example, if your Lordships have ever ordered a very small item from Amazon, such as a camera, they will know that it comes in a box of immense proportions. It looks as though you are going to unwrap a giant item but the box is filled with polystyrene packaging. For a start, that could be shredded paper instead, but the item could have been packed in a much smaller box and it would, I am sure, still have been quite safe. Plastic-free aisles are welcome but we will have to make sure that they do not just disincentivise getting rid of plastic from the rest of the items in the supermarket.

The Government will have their work cut out. Back in 2010 they set about a bonfire of quangos and regulations, and year on year they have cut funding to local authorities. As my noble friend Lord Greaves pointed out, local authorities do not have any slack. They cannot increase their capacity to run pilot schemes and so on with a view to improving recycling collection rates. The Government should look at why Germany’s recycling rates are so much higher than ours. Germany, South Korea and Slovenia have the highest rates. What are they doing that is so right? Perhaps the biggest blow will be the loss of the EU circular economy package as we face Brexit. That would have been very helpful, and I hope that the Government will still consider adopting it in its entirety.

My second question is: what about biodegradable plastic? I do not have a firm view on it but I understand that it is confusing the issue. On the one hand, biodegradable plastic is made from processed corn starch, but for it to biodegrade it needs to be at 50-plus degrees centigrade. Therefore, it would be ideal to go into an anaerobic digester along with the food that it is wrapping, but if it goes in with other plastics it will mess up the recycling scheme. It was the subject of a UN environment programme report in 2015, which highlighted some of these issues.

Finally, I hope that here at Westminster, and in all public buildings, we will do a few things to ensure that we do not need so many water bottles—for example, there should be more freely available drinking water. Our disposable cutlery should be made of wood, but downstairs in the canteen it is plastic, and straws should be made of paper. There are a number of things we can do. However, if this Government want to leave things in a better state, they do not have the 25 years of the environment plan in which to do so; they have just two or three years at most.

Plans to Improve the Natural Environment and Animal Welfare

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for his introduction to this debate, and for securing it. I welcomed his emphasis on matters of soil. I think that the only thing that he did not mention was the lack of soil scientists. For years, academics have not really pursued soil science, and it has really been lacking in graduates, postgraduates and professors. Could the Minister comment on that? The noble Earl mentioned private gardens. The other thing that he needs to bear in mind is what an enemy neatness is to all sorts of biodiversity and wildlife. There is nowhere for a hedgehog to shelter; a thrush cannot get a worm out of Astroturf. The obsession with neatness needs to come to an end, if we are to have any sort of wildlife in our gardens.

I do not intend to say anything more about animal sentience today, other than to ask the Minister whether he feels, having heard the sentiments around the Chamber, that the Government are storing up trouble for themselves by resisting including the concept of animal sentience in the withdrawal Bill. Is it a technical resistance, or do they think that it will have negative implications in the event of a trade deal with countries with low-welfare regimes? Surely it cannot be that the Conservative Government are still keeping one eye on a hunting Bill.

I very much like the idea of a manifesto for animals, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. He mentioned pet passports several times, and I would add to the list the fact that the Government have not resolved the issue of the pet passport yet. I am sure that all his animal voters will worry considerably that they will spend six months in quarantine in future if the matter is not resolved. Indeed, during our debate on animal welfare, the Minister was kind enough to say that it was very much work in hand. Does he have any updates to add to that?

On the natural environment, we tend to mark the turning of the seasons very much by birds—the first day of spring is the cuckoo; one swallow does not a summer make; and fieldfares for autumn. I join other noble Lords in mentioning that the most recent The State of the UK’s Birds showed terrible declines; migratory and farmland species are still under particular pressures. I hope that, despite our possible withdrawal from the EU, we will continue to be a very active member of the convention on migratory species. The UK is a signatory in its own right, as well as with the EU. Of the migratory birds that come to our shores, coastal shore birds are some of the most threatened. We must ensure that we continue to play our part in protecting their habitats. The birds and habitats directive has played a crucial role till now; we would have had even steeper declines if we had not had that. How will that be replaced? What sort of legal protection will there be for these essential feeding and breeding grounds?

I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—I am sorry that he is not in his place at the moment—and it seemed to me that it was a bit of a counsel of despair. He seemed to say that, particularly for larger farmers, it was really unrealistic to imagine that we could have much of a change and that those of us who look forward to a big change in the way that our land is used are living in la-la land.

I wish that the noble Lord had attended with me a very interesting seminar that was run this morning by the National Trust and Green Alliance with farmers. Together, they have done a tranche of very interesting work into payments for ecosystems services, especially soil and water, and how those payments could be a powerful tool to improve the environmental performance of farming. Of course this is not an original idea but what was interesting is the depth of the studies that they have done with farmers, water companies and the private sector. It involves several shifts—not drastic, radical ones—in farming methods, with increased use of cover crops, reduced application of nitrate fertilisers and a spring wheat, winter barley regime. All those put together can have a dramatic outcome in reduced costs for water companies, and so for consumers; in cleaning out nitrates from drinking water; in increased profits for farmers; in greater resilience in the supply chain, and in an improved environmental footprint for food companies. I hope the Minister will be able to look at the ideas which the National Trust and Green Alliance have laid out in their publication on protecting our assets and be able to work with them to take this further.

Another great example of a shift in thinking which has resulted in multiple benefits comes from the group of farmers who set up the pasture-fed livestock initiative. It seems such an obvious idea for an island that is ideally suited to growing grass, and it was for those farmers themselves. Livestock forage on grass. Oddly, very few animals are fed on pasture alone these days. Cereals and soya produce fatter animals faster, but with a much higher carbon footprint of course, and an undoubted loss of flavour and texture. The fact that Welsh lamb is so prized is due to its still ranging extensively on a rich mixture of grasses and herbs—unlike the bland meat that you can get from grain-fed sheep, which just does not compare. The same goes for beef.

There are also really good welfare reasons why this regime scores so highly. One example is poultry kept under trees. Farmers Weekly did a study last year and found that, as opposed to poultry kept in a bare field, those kept under trees had improved ranging, less injurious feather-pecking incidents and fewer egg seconds. So there were welfare and economic benefits. The environmentally best systems are providing better produce, better welfare and lower carbon footprints. Consumers would really like to search them out but the trouble is that they have been let down by the failure of successive Governments to get behind labelling schemes that make absolutely clear what the production methods involved are. If we exit the EU, the Government must urgently get behind an effort to label British produce accurately and properly according to its production method.