Terrestrial and Freshwater Protected Sites Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Parminter
Main Page: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Parminter's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberWhere water companies do not meet our expectations, we will toughen our regulation and push them to improve their performance. This will include the Environment Agency conducting in-depth audits and reviews of water company management systems and new technologies, such as continuous flow monitoring and event duration monitoring. The results of the Environment Agency’s audits and review will help it and us to target enforcement action appropriately.
My Lords, water pollution is a key cause of the decline in conditions of protected sites. All English rivers are currently failing to meet quality tests for pollution. Given that 40% of water pollution comes from agricultural run-offs, what specifically are the Government doing to get farmers to use fewer chemical inputs?
The principal tool we will use in the coming years is the transfer from the common agricultural policy subsidy system to the environmental land management system. Whereas farmers and landowners have, for decades, been incentivised to convert their land to make it farmable—in many respects grubbing out ecosystems and undermining nature—the new system will make those payments completely conditional on good environmental stewardship. It is probably the biggest bonus that nature and our environment more broadly will have experienced in the last century. Although that is not the only funding mechanism or tool at our disposal, it is undoubtedly the most powerful.