Biodiversity Duty: Public Authorities

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

It is very important to retain veteran trees wherever we can because they are vital to our ecosystems. Obviously, if they are dangerous because they are beside roads or whatever, we have to be practical, but we want to plant a lot of new trees and we also want to have protections for our veteran trees and our wonderful landscape. Enhancing the environment is not only the intent of the environment Bill but the direction of travel for all of us.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, the Select Committee to which the noble Countess referred a moment ago heard evidence that fewer than one-third of planning authorities have access to a trained ecologist. I suspect that that is part of the reason why previous questioners’ issues are coming forward. Has the Minister done any work since that report was published to ascertain how we are going to get the right quality of ecological advice if we are to deliver the outcomes which he would like to see?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that is why we are working not only with Natural England but with local authorities. In terms of the biodiversity net gain proposals, the developer and the local planning officer clearly need to work together to ensure that the local planning officer knows precisely what is meant by “net gain”. This is work in progress.

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I join in the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who chaired our committee with great diligence and hard work and also a certain amount of tolerance, because there were some quite significant areas of disagreement within the committee on some of our recommendations.

There is always a debate about what to call these reports. In this case, I personally believe that the countryside is at a crossroads. As we know, British farming has been shaped by the common agricultural policy for 40 years now, as has pretty much every aspect of our environment. Depending on the decisions that we make in the next few years, our countryside could be very different in 20 years’ time. It is about much more than Brexit. Our overall rural policy is not, and never has been, driven by Brussels. The shortcomings in this area are entirely home grown and can be laid at the door of successive Governments. Although I have some serious reservations about rural policy-making, I want to place on record my admiration and support for the Minister, who fulfils his role as rural advocate with enthusiasm, commitment and great knowledge. Nor do I take issue with the civil servants who work for Defra.

However, pretty much all the evidence the committee took demonstrated that something is seriously wrong with rural policy-making, and that these problems are widespread and deep rooted. This has led me to believe that they are less about policy and more about culture, leadership and structure. The committee spent some time discussing the issues of rural policy-making and rural proofing. Indeed, many of our witnesses used those terms interchangeably. This did not help debate, and there is a clear distinction. Rural policy-making is about proposals aimed specifically at rural areas—housing, transport and broadband provision, for example. Rural proofing, on the other hand, is about looking at all legislation and policy through the prism of the countryside to see whether different interventions need to be made to make something better in the countryside.

I will give two examples. Last year, I was involved with the Bus Services Bill as it went through this House. It was heralded as a great breakthrough in the provision of public transport, yet it made not one mention of rural services. When it came, the draft guidance contained just a few lines. After pressure from this House, that was somewhat improved. If rural proofing is as effective as Defra claim in its response to the committee, how on earth did we get a Bus Services Bill which simply ignored rural areas?

My second example is the National Citizens Service, created by the Government last year. During the summer I went to Ipswich to have a look at how the scheme was working. It was an inspiring experience and I am confident that it was very positive for the young people involved. There is a “but” coming: the take-up from the south-west of Suffolk was very poor. Why was that? Because the whole programme has been set up to be delivered on county lines. People who live in the south-west of Suffolk cannot get to Ipswich. Cambridge is only just over the border, but they cannot use it. It is not the policy that is the problem here: it is simply that nobody thought about rural public transport when they set it up.

For rural proofing to be effective, it needs to be embedded in every department. It also needs central oversight and leadership from one department which can reach right across government activity—from health to highways and pensions to potholes. For that reason, I support the recommendation that this activity be carried out by the Cabinet Office, where a small team could build up real expertise in spotting rurality issues and work with the sponsoring departments to put them right. Rural policy making, on the other hand, probably needs to sit within one department. I have never understood why the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government does not include rural communities. Instead, rural policy sits with Defra, alongside farming and the environment, and it is not well served by that, particularly at a time when the department’s focus has to be increasingly on Brexit-related agriculture, fishing, and post-CAP and environmental frameworks.

I live in a very small village and like to look at the census. About 100 years ago, the village was about the same size as it is now. However, virtually everyone in the village worked on the land in some capacity. Now, there is not really anyone who works on the land. Important as the successor to the CAP is, its direct impact on rural communities will actually be pretty modest. Housing, social care, health, public transport and broadband are what matter to rural communities. Not a single one of those is delivered in any way by Defra. It would therefore make sense to move rural communities to HCLG, where it would sit with local government, which is responsible for delivering so much in the way of rural services. It would also be helpful to see rural areas in the context of their neighbouring towns and cities, where the jobs and services are often provided, as well as to see urban areas in the context of their rural hinterlands.

I am not surprised that the Government have rejected this recommendation, but the committee was right to make it. Who knows? It may even happen one day. But for now it puts down a marker that all is far from well. No matter how much the Government protest, if they look at the vast amount of evidence our committee received, they should admit, in private at the very least, that they have much to do if they are to restore the confidence of their key stakeholders.

As I was rereading the Government’s response over the weekend, it struck me that it is pretty much all framed in terms of inputs: how much money is going in, how many people are here, and what mechanisms exist. However, I did not see any focus on the outcomes. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has already pointed out, the Social Mobility Commission has highlighted how the limited social and economic opportunities in rural areas mean that the worst-performing areas are now rural, which we would never have believed.

The Suffolk Community Foundation has done some ground-breaking work in gathering evidence about rural poverty and inequality and the failure to get services. It has produced two reports, called Hidden Needs. I commend them, not so much out of interest in Suffolk, which I recognise is not for everyone, but because it is a good example of how getting into the nitty-gritty of communities can identify some of the problems they now face and, crucially, how you can improve them.

As we have heard, the successive reorganisations have left a gap in evidence and analysis, which is operating to the detriment of rural areas. One of the most telling pieces of evidence was from Hastoe Housing Association, which told us that communities of under 3,000 are no longer monitored for delivery of affordable housing. In other words, there is no data available for rural communities in one of the areas which is most important to their sustainability: affordable housing.

Last week there was another example. The consumer group Which? reported that cash machines are being closed at a rate of 300 per month, and rural areas are particularly badly affected. LINK, which oversees the provision of cash machines, disputes both the number of closures and the impact, but how can we know what is going on if the Government have moved away from ensuring independent analysis and evidence-gathering?

In any event, across the piece, from a wide range of stakeholders, our evidence suggests that community rural stakeholders are far from content with Defra’s performance, and government should listen.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

I start by offering a welcome to this 25-year plan for the environment, even though it is by no means perfect and has been justifiably criticised as heavy on aspiration and light on detail. The plan outlines some progress that has been made: it highlights significant improvements in water quality made in recent decades. Most of us in this House are old enough to remember that we were once “the dirty man of Europe”; bathers waded through raw sewage on their trips to the seaside. So what does success look like? Last May the European Environment Agency reported that in 2016 96% of Europe’s beaches met the basic standards and 85% met the most stringent requirements. How do you achieve such success and what can we learn from it?

It started with campaign groups making a fuss and raising awareness among the general public, leading to political pressure. The response to that was legislation that included binding targets, an enforcement regime and penalties. This changed behaviour. Pressure groups continue to act to highlight shortcomings and the whole process becomes iterative. Of course, because water quality is a cross-border issue, EU legislation such as the bathing water directive and the water framework directive were the legislative underpinning. It seems to me that campaigning groups are fundamental to holding Governments’ feet to the fire. In recent years changes to charity law have been made regarding what the Government describe as “lobbying” but is in fact the rightful campaigning role of this sector. The rules have been described as having “a chilling effect” on charities’ ability to get their concerns across, especially during election time. These groups must be able to tell truth to power.

The plan recognises that many of the proposals will need to be put on a statutory footing. However, there is already a huge body of existing EU legislation which does much of this work: around 80% of the UK’s environmental law comes from the European Union. A number of environmental organisations have expressed the view that the provisions in the withdrawal Bill simply do not provide sufficient safeguards, while constitutional experts query the legal status of retained EU law: we will continue that debate tomorrow. Many of the objectives in the plan are weak, they lack statutory force and targets remain aspirational. The Government have already missed non-binding targets for halting biodiversity decline, phasing out horticultural peat, achieving good ecological status for water and others. Some objectives are unambitious. For example, the target for water quality does not set a date for achieving good ecological condition, unlike the water framework directive, which does. Experience of climate change legislation shows that targets should include realistic delivery dates, with milestones for achieving them.

As we have heard, the plan commits to an independent environmental watchdog as a replacement for enforcement at EU level. For such a body to be effective, it must be properly resourced. We are currently seeing serious funding issues with other statutory regulators, such as the Charity Commission, Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation. This has to be a concern. Such a body must have an effective complaints mechanism and access to remedies for the whole of civil society, and should definitely be accountable to Parliament, not to government. As the Minister emphasised, cross-border working is essential to delivering the plan. A new post-Brexit framework for international co-operation must be a priority. The Defra website names 40 international agreements on environmental matters to which the UK is a signatory. Can the Minister say how many of these we are signed up to as a consequence of EU membership and how many in our own right? Are there any we would not seek to rejoin? I am sure that the House would like an assurance that the fact that many of these agreements are justiciable in international courts will not be a bar to our continued membership.

The 25-year plan must address the UK’s impact on nature overseas. We are dependent on natural resources embedded in our imports: 70% of the water consumed here comes from imports, as does about one-third of biomass. Is the Minister able to give an assurance about the important role played by European funded research projects? Can he say that every effort will be made to see that the UK remains engaged in the same way that other non-EU member states, such as Norway, currently do? This issue was highlighted in the EU Select Committee report into regional co-operation in 2015. We noted then that the economic and environmental importance of shelf seas, such as the North Sea, is four times higher than the open ocean. We found that a lot of data is collected but not widely shared or fully utilised. However, one mechanism that exists for doing this is the European Marine Observation and Data Network, so can the Minister say whether we will continue to participate in its projects? In a similar vein, the RSPB has highlighted the value of European funding for environmental projects such as LIFE and BEST, not just here in the UK but in the British Overseas Territories. Is the Minister able to tell the House the current thinking on projects such as these?

Last summer I fulfilled a long-held dream to visit Svalbard and came away with both wonderful memories and serious concerns about the rapid environmental changes which were evident even to a visitor such as me. We were given strict instructions to leave nothing behind and take nothing away. The one exception to that rule was litter, which we were encouraged to collect and take back to the ship. Among my stash, there in the high Arctic, just a few hundred miles from the North Pole, I found, washed clean by the ocean’s currents, a polystyrene burger box. It is a reminder that pollution and environmental problems know no boundaries and that we can tackle them only if we work together.

Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

I add my thanks to the noble Earl for securing today’s debate, for introducing it so ably, and for giving us the opportunity to hear the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb. Although he sits on the other Benches, I would still very much like to refer to him as my noble friend. His wisdom, experience and dedication to this industry is legendary and we shall miss him in this House. I imagine there must be a certain bitter-sweet quality for him and for others that, having fought for so long to get agriculture on to the public agenda, it has taken the result of the referendum to begin to get people talking about farming and what it means for this country.

I guess that in a sense one impact of the CAP was that agriculture was something that happened over there somewhere and that we did not have much say in the matter. There is some truth in that. So, if we are about to take back control, it is time to take some responsibility.

Around 18 months or so ago, the EU Sub-Committee on Energy and Environment, which I chaired at the time, carried out an inquiry into building resilience in the farming sector. It was in the context of our EU membership, but the challenges we identified are systemic to the industry and will not disappear after Brexit. Indeed, making progress on some of these basic structural issues will be vital if our farming sector is to survive in anything like its current form.

I guess for me that is the starting point. Do we actually want something that is the way it is now? I am not clear on the Government’s vision for agriculture, as we go forward—whether it is a Grayling-esque fortress Britain or the dream of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, of a low regulated buccaneering sector, or something more aligned to the Secretary of State’s vision where we have high environmental and welfare standards.

Taken as a whole, the agri-food sector accounted for 7.2% of the national gross added value in 2014. The agricultural workforce that same year was around 429,000, and some 71% of land in the UK is utilised by agriculture. This is an enormous sector for the well-being of this country, and its needs ought to be very high on the Government’s agenda as they negotiate trade policies, for example.

We need to reflect that farming is an industry quite unlike any other. Farmers provide a secure supply of safe food, manage the land and contribute to the wider rural economy. They cope with multiple risks such as unpredictable and catastrophic weather, the impact of political decisions such as the Russian embargo, and volatile international markets. They do that while providing public goods, such as a managed environment and animal welfare standards. Their investments are often made over a very long period. Land is often family owned and passed through the generations. Short-term price volatility, which is becoming an increasing feature of agriculture markets, is an uncomfortable bedfellow with that sort industry structure. That is why, right across the globe, we see public support for agriculture. Many countries offer short-term assistance for particular problems such as catastrophic weather because those risks are insurable, but very expensive. Government need to reassure us that the previous funds available from the EU will continue in some form after/if we Brexit.

In the long term, there is a very fine balance between providing the sort of support farmers need to smooth out short-term volatility on the one hand, and providing a permanent cushion which creates a disincentive for innovation and change of business practice. At the moment, when our farming sector is receiving between 40% and 60% of farm income in subsidy, it is difficult to see how that will be sustainable financially or politically in the long run. If UK taxpayers are expected to contribute on that level, they will expect to see much clearer outcomes in return for their money, whether it is in landscape, biodiversity, animal welfare, food security or the wider rural economy.

New Zealand is noteworthy for having removed public subsidy pretty much overnight in 1985. The committee was told that the dominance of a few key exports meant that periodically revaluing the currency was a viable way of ensuring competitiveness. That is still government intervention in my book. The US is sometimes cited as an example we should follow, but the committee was not convinced by that either. Public subsidies are still enormous, but they are entirely linked to a few crops and not at all to public goods such as the environment or landscape. The American system is also notoriously bureaucratic. Canada, Australia and New Zealand operate various schemes of support, including income equalisation and agri-investment. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister the Government’s thinking on how support for agriculture will be framed as we go forward.