Biodiversity and the Countryside

Baroness Willis of Summertown Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to join this debate: it is always wonderful to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young. It is something close to my own research expertise, but, before I join this debate, I must declare my interests as noted in the register, specifically my role as a non-executive director and founder of Natcap Research.

I want to start with the baseline facts. According to Defra in 2024, only around 7% of England’s land meets the protected status we need in order to achieve 30 by 30. As reported by the House of Lords Climate and Environment Committee in 2023, England therefore needs to find an additional 3.4 million hectares of land to meet this target. I want to approach this debate from perhaps a slightly different angle to ask, first, who owns the land on which we are looking for nature to recover? Secondly, how much land are we discussing? Lastly, are the scale and scope of government legislation and incentives sufficient to persuade land managers and other affected parties to make the necessary changes?

In terms of who owns the land, despite rumours that the vast majority is owned by the Crown, the public sector or the Forestry Commission, actually those are tiny percentages. The largest amount of land is individually owned by private landowners and by companies and trusts. That accounts for 70% of England’s land.

What government policies do we currently have to persuade these land managers to do the right thing for nature? First, there are the builders and land managers, who manage for builders and developers. We have heard before that we have biodiversity net gain targets to improve both onsite and offsite biodiversity and increase biodiversity by about 10% in biodiverse habitats. This is very much in line with the 1.5 million houses to be built by 2030. But, even if we include that, and all the debates we have been having, that still accounts for a really small percentage of the land.

Secondly, there are land managers tasked with offsetting their CO₂ emissions through tree planting and peatlands. Again, that is a really small amount of land, even if it reached 100%. Thirdly, there are the farmers and land managers, who until recently have been incentivised by ELMS and the like. This represents the largest percentage of land that could be converted or could be surplus to food production.

If you add all this up on the back of an envelope, as I did, if everything is reached by 100%, this comes to around 1.4 million hectares, which means we are still 2 million hectares short. There are many caveats in that. The first is that there is double-counting. Many of these commitments that talk about BNG, ELMS and other things overlap. In addition, particularly with BNG, we are finding that developers are doing onsite enhancement rather than offsetting. So this is a really big undershoot in terms of the amount of land we need.

We have this very large shortfall, so what should we do about it? We now need to move beyond who owns the land, and instead ask: who are the big actors determining how the land is managed in England, and what incentives and structures are there to improve the impact on nature? This is not something we normally consider, but I believe we must, because the top five UK supermarkets’ food-supply chains are linked to between 4 million and 7 million hectares of land in England. Compare that with something we have debated at length in this House—namely, the water utility companies—which account for only 140,000 hectares. What changes are needed, then, to persuade these actors, particularly the large supermarkets? For these large companies, it is not the incentives associated with ELMS, BNG or carbon offsets that are needed. We need instead to demonstrate to them why nature is important to their balance sheets and risk registers, and ultimately boards and shareholders.

This is what some of our supermarkets are now doing. Tesco, Unilever, McCain and Waitrose are already starting to look at the land they manage in England through this lens; for example, adopting regenerative agricultural practices. They are doing so not because they want to be seen to be doing the right thing for nature, but because by adopting these approaches they reduce the risk of soil erosion, improve soil quality and enhance biodiversity and carbon sequestration. At the same time, they are achieving similar, if not higher, yields in their crops. So it is a win-win situation for nature and agriculture.

If regenerative agriculture were to become widespread for all farmland in the UK, we could—and, I believe, would—start to see widespread recovery for nature, and we would get to 30 by 30. But—and there is always a but—to do so we need proper incentives and support for the transition, and for the Government to set the right level of audit to adopt to ensure that there is a level playing field for all people working in this space. Such a framework does exist: it is called the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures—TNFD—which identifies economic risks and opportunities. The International Sustainability Standards Board announced last week that it will begin standard-setting on nature-related risks and opportunities, drawing on the TNFD’s disclosure framework, and highlighted its value. Many countries have made TNFD mandatory, but it is still voluntary in the UK. Perhaps the Minister could address this in her response. Are there plans to mandate this in the UK?

If we really want to see a rapid change in land use—and have any chance of reaching 30 by 30 and reversing species decline—we need to think about not just who owns the land but the people who manage it. How do we give them the incentives and structures required to ensure that the outcome that we all desire is achieved?