Food Waste

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the cost of what is wasted is £470 a year for the average household, and £700 a year for the average household with children. In turn, avoidable food waste is the equivalent of the CO₂ emissions produced by over 7 million cars per year.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the results of the third phase of the voluntary Courtauld Commitment with business are due imminently. Are the Government considering asking WRAP to publish company names, or to legislate, if reductions in food waste are not secured?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the results are not published yet but I will look at that third phase. The Courtauld Commitment 2025 is already even more robust, so I am looking for progress and I shall be working with colleagues to ensure that that is the case.

Agricultural Sector (EUC Report)

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, like others, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and her committee on this report. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, I was rotated off the committee, but I have benefited from her chairmanship in the past. I thank her for that as I do for the report. There is always a bit of a delay in debating our committee reports. In the case of this one, some rather significant events have taken place in between and a whole new set of challenges has been put on the plate of agriculture that it will have to contend with.

As the committee says, price volatility is an inherent feature of farming and will remain a normal risk to be managed by farmers as part of their business strategy. What is clearly not a normal risk is whether we remain a member of the single market, given that if we leave the EU customs union trade will be subject to tariffs and that, after decades of tariff-free access, prices will inevitably rise.

If we leave the single market, UK farming will be particularly badly hit, given that farmers generally face tariffs that are far higher for agricultural produce than for any other types of goods. Most farms are small businesses operating on tight margins and some, especially in the livestock sector, are dependent on exports. Tariffs can be hefty: 47% on milk, 40% on cheese, 59% on beef and 40% on lamb. Arable producers face levies of 40% on unmilled wheat, and around 10% on fruit and vegetables. It is a huge issue for UK farm businesses, with 82% of our meat exports going at the moment to the EU, as do 75% of our dairy exports and 74% of our cereals.

This is to say nothing of the loss of the protection against cheap foreign imports from which UK agriculture has benefited through high EU tariffs and strict rules, such as those around the use of growth hormones. In particular, the UK beef industry benefits from the protection against imports from countries such as Argentina and Brazil. If we were to sign free trade agreements with other beef-exporting countries, those tariffs and rules would inevitably be in the mix.

Of course, the other major factor—in addition to whether we remain in the single market—that will affect the resilience of our industry in the future is, as other noble Lords have mentioned, the replacement for the CAP. The Government have promised to guarantee spending at current levels until 2020—but, given ministerial views, it seems unlikely that subsidies will be maintained at the same level indefinitely. For those of us who recognise the environmental issues around the common agricultural policy, of course it is time for a change. But for an industry with notoriously low margins—with Defra reporting that 70% of mixed and grazing livestock farms generated incomes below £25,000 in 2014-15—any rapid reduction in agricultural support would have an adverse impact on many farmers’ ability to survive. Moreover, any removal of subsidies would have to take into account the fact that European farmers would still receive generous state support, thereby giving them a competitive advantage.

The report makes some incredibly useful recommendations in the context of where the CAP moves next. This is still very pertinent as we look to what we in the UK determine for our own agricultural policy post-CAP. It highlights the failings of the current subsidies and points the way forward with, as my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market said, the payment for provision of public goods. It is an incredibly important recommendation that was prescient when it was made.

The report coherently argues that agriculture has a critical role in the provision of public goods, such as high food safety, animal welfare standards, environmental stewardship, woodland management and footpath management. It contends that this role should be recognised in policy and the funding framework and that the replacement of the common agricultural policy should be based mainly around the provision of public goods.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that I do not necessarily see such a tension between the provision of food security and public goods. If we are providing food for our nation that is healthy, from animals that are not routinely overdosed with antibiotics, and from land that is not subject to the overuse of nitrates, pesticides and other inputs, that is a provision of a public good: public good being healthy food as well as the other public goods around access to land, land management and woodland creation. So I would not say that there is necessarily a tension there, although I recognise that there are competing demands—to which the noble Lord, Lord Trees, rightly referred.

[Baroness Byford]

The reason I mentioned that was because, when the CAP was introduced, it was actually to encourage farmers to produce more food. Then we ended up with food mountains, and that is why the CAP’s direction changed. It really goes back to square one, because there are people who believe that we could produce food without having any subsidy and that all the subsidy, or whatever it might be, should just go for environmental development. That is why I said that, in some ways, there is a slight contretemps between the two. I do not see it as a long-term problem, but it is a real issue.

[Baroness Parminter]

I am very grateful for that response. I absolutely echo the noble Baroness’s understanding of the historical position and where the CAP came from. Equally, I agree that there are some elements in the current debate about the future of the common agricultural policy in the post-Brexit context who think that the money should go just to the environment. My position is that we have to have the provision of healthy food and we have to have environmental protection. It is about producing both healthy food and a healthy environment.

For me, one of the ways that this has to be explained to the public—and, as my noble friend Lord Teverson rightly said, there is not going to be any political will to deliver subsidies because a lot of people see farmers just as an industry in the same way as aerospace or the car industry are industries—is to say that farmers are receiving support for providing a new national health service, which is healthy food, healthy environments and access to the countryside. If we can get to a language that talks about farming support for a national health service, that is a way in which the public might be persuaded and political will might therefore be delivered, in order to guarantee the funding that farmers need to survive. As I mentioned, I absolutely agree that the idea that farming can survive without subsidies, particularly in areas such as the uplands, is cloud-cuckoo-land. As other Members asked, how and when will the Government consult on designing their post-2020 agriculture policy? I know we ask this question at every debate but it is important to keep reiterating it.

Another thing the report is equally clear on—it was just mentioned so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas—is the need to integrate the policy with the proposed 25-year environment plan. The report well makes the case that they should dovetail so that the agricultural policy can support the delivery of the 25-year plan and display a much more explicit link between outcomes and the use of public funds. To that end, will the framework for the plan be published this side of Christmas, as has been suggested? Will it contain clear targets that will go on to be enshrined in legislation for improving the quality of our air, water, biodiversity and woodlands so that the public can support the farmers in their role as providers of the healthy food and healthy environment on which we all depend?

Flooding: Defences

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that is why, for instance, more than 100 specialist flood rescue teams and associated equipment are on standby across the country, as part of the National Asset Register. It is absolutely clear that early warning is important so that the preparedness that I spoke about in my letter is adhered to. We are certainly working to ensure that as many communities as possible are well aware of flood risk.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, storing water on flood-lands and tree planting are cost-effective means of alleviating flood risk. Given our exit from the common agricultural policy, do the Government agree that in future our farmers should be paid for providing public goods, including managing land to alleviate communities’ risks of flooding?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am not in a position today to say what our domestic arrangements will be after we have left the EU. However, as I think we all know, “slowing the flow”—Pickering is a good example, as is the Defra-funded demonstration projects at Holnicote in Somerset and Upper Derwent in the Peak District—clearly demonstrates that natural flood-management measures are very important in reducing flood flow and height downstream. So, I think this is a very interesting proposal.

Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Parminter]

That this House takes note of the future of environmental and climate change policy in the light of the result of the referendum for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the European Union has produced the world’s most comprehensive body of environmental policy and legislation. It has protected our wildlife and biodiversity and has improved the quality of our water and other natural resources. It has also been pivotal in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and prompting the growth in renewable energy in our fight against climate change. As the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee concluded,

“the UK’s membership of the European Union has improved the UK’s approach to environmental protection and ensured that the UK environment has been better protected”.

So the challenge now for our Government is to continue to improve our environment as we move outside the overwhelmingly positive, collective approach to environmental policy that we have been party to in the European Union over the past 40 years.

Given the bulwark of protections provided by that body of European environmental policy, it is good that the Government have confirmed that EU law will be transposed into domestic law on the day that the UK leaves the European Union—protections such as rules that govern the use of pesticides and nitrates, ensure fewer toxic chemicals in household products, or deliver greater product efficiency standards, as well as the birds and habitats directive, the most significant and extensive system for protecting wildlife and wild places that we have. However, this does not mean that the hard-won environmental policy gains built up over 40 years are secure. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, has caveated this transposing with the phrase “wherever practicable”. The Farming Minister, George Eustice, called the birds and habitat directive “spirit-crushing” and, at a recent event that I attended, suggested that the need to designate special areas of conservation for harbour porpoises is an example of its inflexibility, despite a review by the coalition Government that showed that the directive’s implementation worked well.

We cannot allow “wherever practicable” to become a means to oust what is, to some, burdensome red tape when, in reality, that environmental policy framework has created a level playing field for companies and our farmers to trade fairly while tackling the threat of catastrophic climate change and environmental degradation. Further unpicking—as the Prime Minister herself said—to reflect UK preferences looks even more likely, given that a key plank on which all EU environmental legislation is built is that of the precautionary principle. The Government’s opposition to the precautionary principle has been all too clear, with their stance on the EU’s ban on three neonicotinoid insecticides and its approach to GM food. Moreover, this is a Government who pride themselves on championing deregulation. They refused earlier this year to reinstate the zero-carbon homes policy, arguing that it would place unnecessary burdens on small housebuilders, despite clear evidence that it would limit carbon emissions from future homes.

Let us make it clear that this House will insist on full parliamentary scrutiny of any proposed changes to environmental legislation—no using the back door of statutory instruments. I and my colleagues on these Benches will vigorously oppose any watering down of environmental outcomes of transposed EU legislation. Any changes should be made only when demonstrable environmental benefits would result.

Leaving the European Union will mean that we are no longer part of the common agricultural policy—a policy which has hugely impacted on our rural environment and natural resources, for good and for ill. The CAP currently provides much of the funding for the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity through our green environment schemes but it has also been a major driver of damage to the environment, despite reforms to green it in more recent years. Our departure presents a major opportunity for our Government to reshape our land management and agricultural policy. Liberal Democrats will contend that future policy, and the financial support allied to it, must reward farmers for the public goods that they provide, producing healthy food and protecting the natural capital of our farmed landscapes through building healthy soils, carbon storage, clean water and flood prevention.

There is no doubt that there will be political pressure to divert the £3 billion that farmers currently receive away from agriculture—who can forget the Brexit bus and its infamous promise of £350 million a week for the NHS? By allying a new agricultural and land management policy to the provision of public goods, political will to maintain farm support, which is critical to many farm businesses, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas, could be secured. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that the consultation promised within a few months on the food and farming policy will dovetail with the Government’s proposed 25-year environment plan and actively encourage public engagement, and whether the Natural Capital Committee will be formally asked for its views.

The Government committed in their 2015 manifesto to this being the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. Work on the 25-year environment plan began a year ago and we are anticipating a consultation on a framework later this month. This plan now assumes a far greater importance as we move outside the framework of the EU’s seventh environmental action plan, with its bold ambitions up to 2050. Ministers should be clear: if their environmental plan fails to set ambitious targets for our stock of natural capital and biodiversity or to place a duty on all government departments and public bodies to implement it, it will be judged a failure. Moreover, the case for legislative underpinning of this 25-year environment plan is now even stronger. Up to now, the European Union policy process has made agreed environmental measures more stable, giving public authorities and private investors the confidence to plan ahead.

As we have learned from tackling climate change, intergenerational progress is best achieved when targets are underpinned by UK legislation, with a body to help deliver progress and hold the Government to account. So we need the 25 Year Environment Plan to commit to legislative underpinning, an environment Act with overarching targets for clean air, biodiversity, water and other natural assets, and to put the Natural Capital Committee, like the Committee on Climate Change, on a statutory footing to recommend actions, meet those targets and monitor progress.

The Government have committed to put the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing to deliver the hard infrastructure we need. They should now commit to empower the Natural Capital Committee to do the same for our equally critical natural infrastructure. Nature does not respect national boundaries and some of the European Union’s major environmental successes have been in tackling challenges to shared resources such as our birds, air and water quality, and our fish. When we leave the European Union, the common fisheries policy will cease to apply. Recent reforms have started to deliver more sustainable fisheries with the principle of maximum sustainable yield and banning discards. The complexity of the transition to new arrangements will be huge and there is a real risk for fish stocks if negotiations are prolonged without a new deal and the UK falls into a default scenario for several years. I look forward to the report on this issue by the EU Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy Sub-Committee, ably led by my noble friend Lord Teverson, which we anticipate will be published shortly. But what is already clear is that it will require strong political will to improve, based on British conditions, the policy interventions that the EU’s common fisheries policy is delivering in reducing the environmental burden of industrial-scale fishing.

In a post-Brexit world, getting the right new policies in place will be critical, but so too will holding the Government to account for their delivery of environmental policy. As members of the European Union, both the Commission and the European Court of Justice are there to ensure that environmental policy is delivered, as the Government have found to their cost on numerous occasions. In December 2015 alone, there were three air pollution, two energy, two waste and three water cases active relating to UK non-compliance. Outside the EU these critical backstops will be gone and new ways of holding the Government to account will be needed if—or, more likely, when—they fail to live up to their obligations. Surely expecting individuals and organisations to fund costly judicial reviews cannot be the answer, as Dr Coffey, the Under-Secretary of State at Defra, suggested in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this week. Therefore, I ask the Minister: will the Government commit to ensure the proper enforcement of future UK environmental legislation? What mechanisms do they see replacing and replicating the current enforcement role of the Commission and the ECJ?

EU environmental policy is a mature body of work, although a less developed area is that around the circular economy—producing less waste and using our resources productively. The EU is grappling with this now and it looks likely that we will have left the EU before a circular economy directive will be in force. As someone who fought hard to persuade our coalition partners to introduce the 5p charge on plastic bags, I keenly anticipate the launch next month of the Government Office for Science report on how we should produce less waste and use our resources more productively. It should be a clarion call on the benefits of a circular economy. An early test of the Government’s commitment to improving our environment outside the EU policy framework will be whether it embeds the principles of a circular economy in their forthcoming industrial strategy.

However, environment policy cannot remain static. As our scientific knowledge and evidence grow in future, the policies must develop too. Yet not only has Defra a severely depleted number of staff in its agencies due to sustained budget cuts, it will lose access to EU institutions and funding for research programmes and the vital collaborations that come with them. So what reassurances can the Minister give about our capacity post-Brexit to continue to develop evidence-based environmental policy?

As the Liberal Democrats’ Defra spokesperson, I have naturally concentrated today on the issues around the impact on environment policy, and leave my noble friend Lady Featherstone and others on other Benches to focus on the other pillar of climate policy. In doing so, I am aware that the uncertainties and challenges in that area are no less severe. The rapid progress in ratifying the Paris climate agreement is welcome, as is the Government’s acceptance earlier this year of the recommended seventh carbon budget of the Committee on Climate Change. However, we urgently need the Government to produce their plan to deliver our emissions targets, which has been delayed. Such a plan is fundamental to giving investors and public authorities’ confidence to plan to deliver the low-carbon infrastructure we need to transition our energy supply and move to a low-carbon economy.

Post-Brexit it is clear there are opportunities for improving environmental policy and outcomes, most notably the fundamental recasting of agricultural and land management policy to replace the common agricultural policy. But sizeable threats are clear too, including the watering down of environmental legislation, finding timely responses to managing shared natural resources as well as a lack of policy capacity and enforcement mechanisms to deliver them. Strong political will is required to secure policies we need to protect our environment, and the public and private investment to deliver it. The imminent framework of their 25 Year Environment Plan will tell us whether this Government are prepared to deliver that or if, as some of us fear, outside the European Union we are about to enter a new dark age for green policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I thank all Members who have participated in this debate. Again, they have shown the breadth of expertise in this House but also, as my noble friend Lord Teverson said, the breadth of environmental issues that Defra will have to cover as a result of Brexit. I thank the Minister for the answers that he has been able to give to us today; there are clearly many unanswered questions. As we move outside the European Union, which acts as a backstop holding the Government to account, as does the European Court of Justice, we need to be that backstop. This House will make sure that we will hold the Government to account.

Motion agreed.

Single Farm Payment Scheme

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, as I hope your Lordships will understand, not only am I aware of these issues but I have great sympathy and understanding of them. The remaining claims that we have to deal with concern some very complicated commons issues, cross-border issues and issues like probate, where we have the money but there is as yet no grant of probate for people to receive those funds. There are a number of reasons why we are down to about 1,200 claims, but still I am looking for progress.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, farmers need reliable broadband to apply for these farm payments and run their businesses. Given the criticism this week from the Select Committee of BT Openreach’s quality of service, what are the Government going to do to ensure that we get decent broadband in rural areas?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that is a top priority. It is why there has been considerable government investment in this, and we need to work with a number of stakeholders to improve it. One of the greatest difficulties is the last 5%. I am very interested in this; it is where our remote rural areas are being disadvantaged, and I am very keen that in Defra and DCMS we work on this with innovation to see how we can help.