Agriculture Bill

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. He set out very clearly the benefits of Amendment 230, to which I was pleased to attach my name, and Amendment 231, to which I am pleased to offer my support. It is a little unfortunate that this got split from Amendment 117 on meadows, which the noble Lord kindly backed after I had tabled it, because the two fit together rather nicely. They are two hugely valuable biological and ecological resources that are to a large extent being destroyed and lost in parts of our countryside. It is undoubtedly true that the common agricultural policy was responsible for a huge amount of destruction, but the cross-compliance, or GAEC, regulations have in recent years helped to at least keep what we still have. It is crucial that under the new arrangements we do not lose that protection, and that is what these two simple amendments aim to do. I hope very much that the Government will be able to take them on board and incorporate them in the Bill.

[Baroness Quin (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the previous three speakers. I added my name to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone and I support the point that she made in moving her amendment, especially her explanation that this is about updating the regulatory framework, plugging gaps in it, bringing it into line with environmental goals and creating, as I think she put it, viable cross-compliance mechanisms.

Earlier in this Committee stage, I spoke about the need to know what we are talking about when we refer to “environmentally friendly farming” and “nature-friendly farming”. I believe that this amendment, along with others, would help to forge a proper understanding of this and avoid getting trapped in silos—a point made a few minutes ago by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch.

I also added my name to Amendment 230 on hedgerows, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I have always felt very strongly about the removal of hedgerows and about their proper maintenance in an environmentally friendly way. The debate about hedgerows goes back a long way—even to before we entered the EU. In many ways, British agriculture was a leader in hedge removal over the years, and I am very glad that the mood on this has changed greatly in recent times.

The replacement of hedges and the retention of hedgerows are very important. There is a certain irony in that originally there were grants for removing hedgerows, whereas now there are grants for replacing them. None the less, I welcome that change in priorities. When I was an Agriculture Minister, I was keen to support EU action to protect hedgerows as part of the development of the CAP’s second pillar.

I believe that many farmers are keen to play their part in the maintenance and re-establishment of hedgerows. An interesting example that I came across recently was of a farmer who had replaced a long stretch of tumbled stone wall with new hedging but then used the redundant stone to construct a series of rubble mounds to create a bespoke habitat for wheatears. It struck me that that was a good example of thinking about the environment at every stage of an agricultural project.

I agree very much with the part of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, that concerns the ban on cutting hedges from 1 March to 31 August during the breeding and nesting season. In conclusion, perhaps this is something all of us with gardens should consider carefully. Earlier today in this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I think, talked about the fact that gardeners as well as farmers use pesticides. Well, gardeners often have hedges and sometimes they cut those hedges, even savagely, during the nesting season. Obviously, action to encourage gardeners on hedges is outwith the scope of this amendment and even of the Bill. But I would ask the Minister whether encouraging gardeners to be more environmentally friendly is something that the Government are taking up with the Education Department, perhaps, to make it part of environmental education in schools.

In short, I support both amendments I have spoken to. I hope the spirit of them, even if not every word of them, will be taken on board by the Government.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, what a pleasure to follow a succession of speakers with whom one agrees almost entirely. I added my name to Amendment 231 as an expression of solidarity with all the amendments in this group, which come to the heart of one of the major problems of the Bill. Okay, we are doing away with cross-compliance from the CAP grants most farms have taken advantage of, and moving to a system where a proportion of farms—perhaps a high proportion—will take advantage of, for example, tier 1 schemes. They will be an improvement on cross-compliance if they work properly, because each one will be tailored to the specific circumstances of that farm. That ought to be an advantage, as it ought to be possible to get the best benefit from the particular and unique circumstances of every farm that takes part.

However, the main problem is that there will be some farms—we do not know how many, but they may be large, efficient farms—that decide not to take part in ELMS because they think they can make a profit in the new environment without doing so, without doing all the fiddly things the Government are insisting on through ELMS. Those are the farms where there is a huge risk of a severe loss of environmental benefit and a severe deterioration of everything good that farms give that people have been talking about—ponds, hedgerows and everything else. I do not think we have had an answer from the Government yet on how they are going to deal with that particular problem. These amendments seek to do it by setting up a system of regulation—if I have understood them properly—that will insist that all farms undertake certain basic minimum things.

The Minister has said on at least two occasions in Committee that under the new system there will be no compulsion, and everything will be voluntary. I am very worried about some of these big, supposedly efficient but environmentally inefficient enterprises that might undermine the whole thing.