Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[George Eustice]

Q You mentioned that the rationale for an area payment might be resilience or as a risk-management tool, but it is ultimately a subsidy on land tenure or land ownership, so is it the best tool to deal with those issues? Or is it a straightforward market intervention—crisis payments when there is a slump in the market or a severe weather event, when you could intervene using the other crisis powers that are in the other part of the schedule?

Ivor Ferguson: If there were vast changes in the market for whatever reason, we would certainly need more support. This resilience payment would be much less than the payment today—perhaps 30%, 40% or at the most 50%. We have not put a figure on that yet; it is something we would have to discuss with our farmers fairly quickly now.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Q Good afternoon, Mr Stringer. In the written evidence supplied, Mr Fulton, you raise a number of issues around divergence, both now and in future. Could you say a bit more about those issues? Could Mr Ferguson also comment on divergence?

Norman Fulton: This is certainly an issue of concern to us. We have to be mindful of the fact that we now have the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol under the withdrawal agreement, which means we will need to align with the European systems, whereas those in the rest of the UK could diverge. Therefore, we would be concerned that, within what will be the single UK market, there could be different approaches to marketing standards, for example. Obviously, that is something that we will all need to be mindful of. I suppose it will be managed through common frameworks across the UK. A lot of work needs to go into thinking through how we will operate across the UK, to ensure that the UK market is not distorted in any way and there is a level playing field for all players in that market.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q That is extremely diplomatic but I am not sure how that works. You are in either one system or another, are you not? Where is the halfway house?

Norman Fulton: Well, we are very clearly in one system, so we do not have the scope to change under the protocol. In the schedule, you will see that on marketing standards, for example, we have taken the ability to set standards, but that was drafted in advance of the withdrawal agreement, so it would not be enabled. At some point in the future, if we ever left the protocol, it could be brought into play. For now, our future is pretty much mapped out when it comes to marketing standards, but that is not the case elsewhere in the UK. Although we know what our standards will be, they may change elsewhere. That will create the issue of how we ensure that there is a level playing field within the UK/GB, which remains our biggest market.

Ivor Ferguson: As Norman just said, it is our most important market. At least 50% of what we farmers in Northern Ireland produce goes to the mainland GB market, and in some sectors it is 70% or 80%. If we were to diverge and the standards were to lower in the GB market, lower standards means lower cost of production, and we would be tied to the cost of production within the EU system in Northern Ireland, so it would be very difficult for us to compete in that market. From that point of view, it would be a disaster for us if the standards changed or diverged a great deal away from where we are today.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q When you say disastrous, what do you mean?

Ivor Ferguson: Take the beef sector in Northern Ireland. All the products that we produce, or 95% of them, are produced to Red Tractor quality-assured standards. A lot of them go to the major retailers in the UK, which support us well with the Red Tractor standards. For beef production in Northern Ireland, the returns to farmers are down in the last 12 months by £36 million, so there is no profit in the job at the present time. We could not accept a lower price for product, so a lot of our farmers at the moment are finding it very difficult to stay in business. If there were a lowering of the price in the marketplace, that would be a disaster for us.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Q I repeat my declaration of interest: I was an employee of the National Farmers Union, and indeed of the Ulster Farmers Union when I was working in its office in Brussels a few years ago. I want to pick up on the points that were raised about divergence. On the point you just made about maintaining an area-based payment in case of volatility, what would be the consequence of different agricultural payment schemes operating throughout the UK?

Norman Fulton: Again, this is something that all Administrations need to be very mindful of in the choices they make. Agriculture is a devolved matter, so each of the Administrations can set their own policy direction and agenda. Under the protocol, which we will now be operating under, certain restrictions will apply in the case of Northern Ireland. We will have an overall envelope for state aid cover, but within that a percentage will have to be green box. That will put certain restrictions on the choices we make in future policy. That does not necessarily apply elsewhere in the UK. Scotland, Wales and England will all be able to set their own policy choices.

Again, we need to be careful that we do not start to open up distortions in competition, which could arise from all this. Although these matters are devolved, GB/UK is our domestic market, and we need to make sure we do not end up trying to undercut each other by using our support mechanisms to facilitate that. There is a great deal of responsibility on all the Administrations on this matter.

Ivor Ferguson: I fully agree with Norman. If we take Northern Ireland at the moment, we would like to think that we will have the same level of support. We will certainly need the same level of support. The fact that it is paid in a different way should not distort our market all that much, if there is the same level of money that comes in. We have to be mindful that our farming colleagues in southern Ireland will have a basic payment too, so we need a level playing field. We have to be very mindful of that going forward.

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[George Eustice]

Q Has the NFU done any work on what a sustainable land rent is for different land types without the land tenure subsidy that we have through direct payments?

Nick von Westenholz: I am not aware that we have looked at that sort of detail on where land rents might sit. It is an interesting question and one we probably ought to look at.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon. It is probably no surprise to you that my opening question will refer to the letter to the Prime Minister that the NFU and over 60 other organisations have written, expressing concern about the potential risks caused by imported food produced to lower environmental animal welfare or food quality standards. What needs to be done to this Bill to resolve that problem?

Nick von Westenholz: The obvious omission from the Bill, in our view, is anything around import standards. It is absolutely right that that should be in the Bill, because if the Government are trying to promote, which we would support, more sustainable production and food systems domestically in the future, which is the core aim of the Bill—to provide a support framework for farming in a high welfare, environmentally sustainable way—they will be fundamentally undermined in that objective if there is not a concurrent trade policy that prevents farm businesses from being undercut by substandard imports. A two-pronged approach in policy terms—trade policy and domestic policy—is needed to prevent undermining that sort of farming, in which UK farmers excel.

The detail of how the Bill is amended or of the terms of the legislation that can achieve that may be quite complicated and something that the Committee needs to consider as it goes through the Bill line by line, but at the core there must be a requirement that if the UK is going to import food, that imported food meets the same standards of environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety as UK producers are required to meet. Of course, the Government have been very reassuring on that point in recent weeks and have given some guarantees in that regard, but we feel that that needs to be underpinned by legislation, because there are real technical challenges in doing this that any Government, whether this Government or a future Government, are going to come up against as they negotiate trade deals and as they pursue a new role for us as an independent member of the WTO.

[Fay Jones]

Q My question is to Mr Goodwin. Are there any other means that you think should be included in the Bill that might give your members access to land—means that might increase the opportunities for young farmers and perhaps even new entrants into farming?

David Goodwin: There has been a lot of talk within our membership about support for schemes whereby we are looking at contract and share farming arrangements, particularly in the livestock sector, to enable young farmers to come on to land alongside an existing farmer who is perhaps getting a bit older and does not want to do it himself. Quite how the framework for those sorts of things fits and how you make them work has always been a challenge. I have just come back from New Zealand, and it is interesting to talk to farmers out there. There is a lot more progression on units and farmers do not seem to be so static. I think that is perhaps the other issue in UK agriculture: it is very parochial—which is traditional. It is difficult to really say how we could break that mould, but certainly from our members’ point of view, any new, innovative ways we can find to get young people on to the land—not necessarily as managers or owners, but also as good skilled workers—would be good.

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[George Eustice]

Q I want to turn to a different part of the Bill, chapter 2, and the provisions on fair dealing and transparency in the supply chain. Can you tell us which sectors suffer the most from a lack of transparency and fairness in the supply chain? Which are most likely to be price takers? What regulations or steps would you like the Government to take, under the powers in this Bill, to ensure that farmers are in a fairer position relative to others in the supply chain?

David Goodwin: I have a very quick point on that, specifically pertaining to the lamb industry. We have had quite a lot of feedback from our members about lack of transparency: under the sheep legislation as it is at the moment, we are forced to electronically tag and identify all the sheep, but currently the abattoirs and processors are not required to pass that information back down the chain or identify those carcases as pertaining to those animals. There is a perceived transparency issue with some processes. It is not that potentially we are not being paid the right amounts, but I think people would like to know what our killing out percentages are, so that we can improve performance and make better informed decisions.

Nick von Westenholz: We are working through our commodity boards, which is the way we cover the different steps in the NFU to address exactly how the powers will be used. We are pleased that those powers are in the Bill, but lots of them rely on secondary legislation to operate, so it seems that potentially there is still quite a job to do once the Bill is enacted to ensure that the powers can be used properly to do what they are supposed to do. We look forward to working with officials to work out exactly how those powers can be deployed once the Bill is enacted—that is a feature of the enabling aspect of the Bill. We certainly think the focus on improving the supply chain is a critical bit of the Bill.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Let us turn to the delinking proposals for a moment. There does not seem to be a great deal of detail in there. The intention is to bring in new people, which we would support, but are there dangers of unintended consequences? Would you like to see more detail?

Nick von Westenholz: Yes, absolutely. We would like more detail. We understand there was an intention to consult on them at some point under the last Bill, so presumably that will still happen. You are absolutely right that there are potential unintended consequences, not least because those aspects of the Bill relate to England, and there could be a very different way forward in other parts of the UK. That would potentially lead to a very different looking system between England and other parts of the UK. We need to understand the details. Some people might be attracted to the implications of delinking, superficially. Once you delink—particularly with the potential to move to lump sum payments, which is one of the reasons for doing so—you are moving away from some of the things I spoke about earlier, such as being able to manage the transition for the next few years, particularly in the volatile circumstances that might arise for farming. So yes, the long-winded answer is that we would like more detail.

David Goodwin: We tend to agree on the whole. There is a feeling of quiet optimism that it might offer opportunities for young people to come into agriculture. Without some detail to see exactly how that might work and whether it is feasible, people are keeping it at arm’s length.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Returning to the volatility/stability question, the CAP was much derided in many quarters, but I would say it has delivered some of the goals that it originally set out to achieve, including a measure of stability. Apart from changing “might” to “must”, what other things would you like to see to ensure stability for the future?

Nick von Westenholz: The main parts of the Bill that are relevant are around the transition. Currently, the Bill still has the timetable of beginning to phase out of BPS next year and going over a seven-year period. We have called, as have others, for a delay in that process. That is still absolutely right because we are unlikely to know the trading environment in which farming will operate until potentially very late this year, possibly even into next year, yet the schedule has us beginning to phase out of BPS next year. As David mentioned, agriculture works on very long timeframes.

While we do not know what the future looks like, delaying that is important, not least because this Bill, the previous Bill and the health and harmony consultation that it was predicated on, all took place in a very different political environment where the future relationship with the EU and some other aspects were envisaged very differently. Things have changed, and the Bill and the transition period should also change. We could face some very volatile times ahead and we need to be able to manage that.

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for this session. I thank the two witnesses on behalf of the Committee. We will move on to the next evidence session.

Examination of Witness

Richard Self gave evidence.

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[George Eustice]

Q Coming back to exemptions, I think most are carried forward by the Bill. Specifically on dairy contracts, for example, co-operatives were excluded from the voluntary dairy code, but if we were to introduce a mandatory code under provisions in the Bill, they might not be. Will you explain why co-operatives are a special case that should be exempt from giving farmers clarity about how the milk price is calculated?

Richard Self: It is an interesting area. I am not an expert on the dairy sector, but in milk co-operatives the first-stage processor is owned by the farmers. If that processor takes a high price, farmers will get that back at some stage; in another situation where they do not own the processor, they will not. Therefore, it inhibits them from reacting to the market, because ultimately in a situation where the farmer owns the processor, the benefits will eventually come back to the farmer because they own the business.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q In general, will the Bill help producer organisations? What more could be done? Why have we not traditionally done better in UK agriculture?

Richard Self: Producer organisations have done a good job, but I think some people would say they could do a better job if they were better organised. I think we could have made better use of them in the past—other countries have made very good use of their POs. One concern we have around POs is that they might be too narrow. We want to ensure that all types of co-operative have the chance to be a PO, and that extra hoops and barriers are not put in the way of existing co-operatives, making it more difficult for them to get to that PO status.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Why has the UK experience been different from that of other countries?

Richard Self: Other countries have taken those funds that they get through being a PO, and the help with their technology, productivity and so on, but they have also changed their business models. What is important is to get the right business model in place, where you can add value, capture it and bring it back to the primary producer. I think what we have done is just take the money for the grants, if you like, as opposed to changing the business model and the way that the supply chain works.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Will the measures in the Bill make it more likely that we go down that route in future, do you think—or not?

Richard Self: I think it can do. As I said, I think the detail will be in the secondary stage to this, and how that is built up, but the foundations are there. We can make that PO scheme work, as long as we are inclusive of all the different co-operative structures that we have got within that, and do not create extra barriers and hoops for people to jump through to get into the PO scheme.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Is there anything you would like to see in the Bill that would help that to happen?

Richard Self: There is nothing specific that I would like to see. At this stage, it is about trying to keep it as wide as possible, so that we keep our options open and look at every stage of making the environment right for co-operatives to thrive and succeed.

The UK is well behind most other developed agricultural systems in its use of farmer co-operatives. France, Germany and the USA are all developing a number of co-operatives, while the number of our co-operatives is reducing. We need to change that balance around. Our market share of co-operatives, based on my most recent figures from a few years ago, is about 6%, compared with Germany’s 17%. I think France has something like 55% and Denmark somewhere over 60%. Their market share is much greater. The value added that those co-operatives bring is returned to the primary producer.

The other advantage with co-operatives is that they make the markets less volatile. That is one of the things we are worried about in the future—volatile markets. A co-operative can help balance out that market to make it work well, so that there is less volatility in the price of goods—the primary produce. It also makes sure that the supply chains are fairer for the farmer because they are working together.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q From what you have just said, it appears that the structure of UK agriculture, with larger units, does not lend itself particularly well to co-operatives; whereas, on the continent, you have lots of small farmers who, for example, never get a fertiliser salesman on their farm for the size of their operation.

Do you think that, under the old system as part of the European Union, we have in many ways been trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, and fit what is going on here into the way that we can access funds? How do you think in future we can actually produce a system to encourage co-operatives, of the sort that would maybe work in the UK, rather than trying to emulate those across the water?

Richard Self: Generally, we have some very good co-operatives out there. The governance angle of co-operatives is the key thing. If we get that right, and get them well managed at the leadership level, that will help to address the sort of thing that we have had in the past.

We have large farmers in our country, compared with some of the others, but in fact it is the small farmers who do not tend to collaborate so much. I think the larger farmers tend to be very professional in what they are doing, and they are looking at this as a business arrangement, as opposed to the smaller farmers, who want to do things themselves. The evidence I have seen basically says that we need to target smaller farmers probably more than we do the larger farmers.

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[George Eustice]

Q I suppose the key question is: if the views and interests of a British minority, for instance, were compromised by the majority in a big pan-European cooperative because of a decision taken, should they not be able to exit with a set notice period, for instance, and have a clear mechanism for doing so?

Richard Self: I would hope so, yes. But I am not an expert in the dairy industry, so I would need to investigate that further; we are happy to look into that. I have good contacts with our dairy co-operatives and can help feed that into the system.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Earlier, you touched on some of the opportunities around data. Will you amplify on that? What support might be needed to make the most of those opportunities?

Richard Self: Increasingly, farmers will have better data on their anticipated crop yields, milk yields or whatever. They can collect that raw data, and farmers can trust their co-operative to handle it in the right way for them. That data is useful and is worth money to others in the supply chain. It is a question of how they can work together to maximise the use of that data for the benefit of the supply chains they are working in.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Is that an issue of scale, or an issue of co-operation?

Richard Self: Obviously, the more data you have across an area—information on yields, or even perhaps on the supply side, on agrochemical use and the anticipated use of crop-protection products—the more it helps you to manage supply and demand going forward, which helps improve efficiency and productivity. Co-operatives are in a really strong place because they are working on behalf of their farmer members, and they can use that data in the right way to help the whole supply chain.

[Fay Jones]

Q I have a question about risk management. I had to step out of the room, so I apologise if this has been covered. Often, farmers are at the very end of the supply chain and bear all the risk. We have a good example with the beef price at the moment, which is down very heavily at farm gate level but not so much at retail level. Could there be more in the Bill to provide more risk management support in the event of market volatility?

Richard Self: On risk management, the problem is that you put your crops in the ground or start to produce your animals well ahead, and you do not know what you will get for them. Mechanisms to control those risks against unforeseen events and so on are really important. If they could be built in, that would be very useful. Again, co-operatives have a role in that: you can pool your crops or your fertiliser payments to average out prices within a co-operative. That is the sort of thing that helps to manage risk. If you have a known price for a thing, or you get an average price over a period, you do not get hit hard if the price suddenly goes up or down.

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[George Eustice]

Yes, in the new scheme.

Jake Fiennes: We have the regulatory payment. I hear of calls for up to 30% of existing payments that farmers receive, which is about £200 per hectare. I am certainly not in favour of that, because it will not encourage stakeholders to go into the middle tier and I think you will see a great uptake in the middle tier. On the final tier, which is landscape restoration, whether it is on a catchment basis, if we are going to have sustainable, functional land use, it has to be at scale and deliver all the climate change issues and soil regeneration. All these processes will go into the final tier and, having listened to some of the comments earlier about the smaller farmers not working well together but the bigger ones working better, we are seeing a great uptake of facilitation funds and cluster groups. This whole movement is happening. I would not encourage the lower payment to be a major factor, because we would basically go back to a reverse BPS system.

Jim Egan: My way of answering that would be to look at the fact that in the majority of lowland England, if you split it that way, you will find farmers taking up more than you think, if it is properly rewarded, if it is linked in by the rest of the industry and it is linked together. You quite commonly talk to farmers now who take out anything between 5% and 15% of their land to manage it “for the environment” and also recognise the real benefits of changing what they do: introducing grass lanes to help with grass weed control and to build soil fertility, which helps with cleaner water and so on.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jake that there is a sea change coming. A lot of people stood back, because of the political uncertainty, but they are ready for that. The higher extremes you referenced, such as peat restoration, will be a focus in an area where it can happen, getting those landowners together and talking about it. It will take time. I do not think they are completely divorced and different.

On woodland, it will fit when people start to see natural capital, particularly the natural capital potential of their land, and they have choices of what to do. Then woodland will start to happen, especially where you can get people working together and you can make the links. I would be positive about that.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q I want to put to you a question I asked earlier witnesses. I think that the CPRE was one of the signatories to the letter to the Prime Minister expressing concern about the potential problems with importing food with lower environmental, welfare and health standards. Why did you sign that letter and what should be done in the Bill to tackle the issue? That is particularly aimed at Graeme.

Graeme Willis: In terms of maintaining standards, we are very concerned—I know that statements have been made about supporting high standards—that undercutting those standards through imports would undermine farmers’ incomes, as well as their ability to perform environmental management. I know that an amendment previously tabled to the Bill sought to introduce a broad requirement that any international trade agreement that was to be ratified must be compliant with UK standards. We think that is a major omission and one of the major things that needs to be addressed in the legislation. We have a common cause with the whole of the farming sector on that. The whole of the NGO environmental sector takes that view. It is a very important element and condition.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Thank you; that is helpful. Jim and Jake, you are very enthusiastic and positive about the change on uptake in stewardship. That has been a long time coming, has it not? What has changed so dramatically, in your view, to make that happen? In the transformation of ELMs, would you agree that it would have been helpful for this discussion and process to have a bit more detail about the Government’s thinking on how it will work?

Jim Egan: Regarding possible current uptake this year, I have always been positive, and I have been proved wrong, year on year, as I am often told by DEFRA’s agri-environment group. This year, in particular, people have heard for a long time that BPS will start going down. They have seen their neighbours’ farms going into the simplified scheme, although not in huge numbers. I work with a company that provides agronomy advice, and the agronomists are starting to understand it.

The weather this year in the east midlands, my patch of the country, has meant that there are farms with no combinable crops in the ground at all—not 5% or 10%, but none. That has made people think. It has made people think about sustainable income streams, support, unproductive areas and what they could do differently. There is a whole raft of different things. There is also a question of who sells it. If you sell it directly and positively, people will do it. If you are negative and you harp on about late payments and so on, the meeting will leave you. I tend to be positive about it. Perhaps that is why I have a long list of people wanting to work with it.

Jake Fiennes: When you put economically sustainable agriculture to a farmer, he may have had 47 years of being paid just to produce food, irrespective of the quality, quantity and yield he produces on his land. They must realign their business. If we see this transition period take place as of next year, some famers will lose anything from 5% to 20% of their support income.

Agri-environment helps them through the transition period financially, but it also gets them to understand. At the moment, farmers lack good agricultural environmental advice. That is what we don’t see enough of: advice on the ground. Farmers are a particularly fickle community. They are wary of individuals they do not know, so the advice has to come from individuals with whom they have had previous relationships, whether through their agronomy, because we are seeing agronomy become more open to environmental delivery, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Groups throughout the country, or Natural England, which changed the game of agri-environment 20 years ago. The advice on the ground is key.

If farmers are sold an economic reason and then have an ability to deliver the environmental goods, whatever they may be, through sound advice, we will see greater uptake. The reason we had the stop-start scenario with agri-environment was, as Jim referred to, late payments—“Am I going to get paid for it?”—or commodity prices. We have seen the volatility in commodity prices. If I am getting £200 a tonne for my milling wheat, why do I need to go to an agri-environment scheme when I have already invested in the men, the machinery and the infrastructure to deliver that crop? It is an evolving, moving process, but they are definitely coming more on board with it.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q May I press you on that point? This is a big transition that is envisaged, possibly over a compressed timeframe. Is there the capacity to provide the advice and to do the negotiation? If there is not, what needs to be done to get it in place?

Jim Egan: I think there is underlying capacity out there. There are enough people to do it. There will be a change of mindset in some sectors, but bear in mind that business is seeing some of the opportunities here as well. Jake is right: it needs to be somebody the farmer trusts—there is a wide range of advisers trusted by farmers—and the advisers need to believe in the scheme. Many advisers have not sold environmental work for the past five years, because they do not believe in the scheme; they do not want to put their name on the line when the payments are late, and when the agreement does not turn up for a year after you have entered into it.

You should not underestimate the impact that that has, because if your adviser walks up the drive and says, “I can’t put my name to that, because I can’t advise you about that future income and part of your business,” it puts people off. We are starting to get a lot of certainty now about stewardship. I know it will change and evolve, but we need that certainty of scheme and of process. The advice is there; people just need to believe in it.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Many land managers derive significant income from the sporting potential of their farms or estates—not just from the sale of game, but from the people who pay to stalk or shoot or to catch salmon in their rivers. Indeed, before agri-environmental schemes came in, the farms and estates managed in that way were probably the ones already doing what we want them to do now. How important do you think it is that any new schemes under ELM dovetail in with the way that these estates are being managed? Do we need to take particular account, for example, of grouse moors and the uplands, where we have a fragile environment that, if managed in a different way, could well revert to what some might see as a carbon sink, but others would see as a downgrading of that precious environment?

Graeme Willis: Referring to uplands, we have signed a letter to say that we want peatland burning to end rapidly, and the Committee on Climate Change has taken the same view. I want those landscapes to be managed in a re-wetted form, which might help different forms of game. It might not be the same kinds of game management.

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[Miss Dines]

Q This question is for Mr Egan. I represent Derbyshire Dales, which is a very large constituency. As well as many large estates, there are many small farms. I was interested in your answer to the Minister about the point that you made in your written statement, that funding should be available for professional advice to ensure that we maximise the environmental benefits. How could that realistically be achieved for my small farmers, who, historically, have been reluctant to take advice due to independence, or simply could not afford to? There are a lot of young farmers—between 20 and 30—in my constituency. How could that be achieved, however admirable it is? What is your advice?

Jim Egan: I think it can be achieved. The current example of facilitation funds in cluster groups is an absolute classic for that type of farming. I think that there is a facilitation fund in your constituency; there is certainly one not far away. Those farmers could come together. I am not a believer in “one farm, one advice”. If there are six people who farm together with smaller farming units who want to go into a scheme, and will achieve better environmental outputs if they all work together, we can give one set of advice to all of them.

We need to think really differently about where we are going now. It is not just about one-to-one advice; it is about one-to-six advice. It is about, when you put the scheme together, providing the training to those six to implement the measures. I think that it is completely affordable, and it works. We just need to think differently about how we put these things together.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Since the previous Agriculture Bill started, obviously the world has changed in some ways. There is a greater understanding of the climate crisis that we are facing. More work has been done by the Government’s Committee on Climate Change, including very detailed suggestions for land-use management released only a few weeks ago. Would you expect to see some of those proposals begin to make their way into a Bill such as this, and are you surprised, as I am, that there is no aspiration within the Bill to hit a net-zero target at some point?

Graeme Willis: On where those targets are expressed, we know that the Environment Bill has been laid before Parliament. The relationship between the Agriculture Bill, the Environment Bill and all the other policy instruments is very interesting, and remains to be resolved. If you had gone in the right order, it might have been that you had the Environment Bill, then the 25-year environment plan, and then the Agriculture Bill, because the main funding mechanism seems to be environmental land management, which would deliver on the kind of targets that you set through the 25-year plan. That can be established through the legislation in the Environment Bill.

I am not sure whether it is right to put a target in this Bill at the moment—it may be a commitment by the Minister—but I think there is a possibility of introducing further regulation that might address that. Obviously, there is the Environment Bill. One of the complicated issues is whether the Agriculture Bill could reference the Environment Bill, because it has not received Royal Assent. There is a question about how we address targets, and whether that is set out through the Office for Environmental Protection, for example. It is a complicated relationship.

I think that the situation has changed, and therefore what the Agriculture Bill is able to do, and the amount of funding that comes forward to deliver on those targets, is critical. Clarity about the long-term funding arrangements is therefore very important, as well as how those would seek to address the climate change issue.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q I very much agree with you about the complex interaction between the pieces of legislation, but we know that the sector produces a certain amount. Could there not be a target for the sector?

Graeme Willis: A target for the sector would be very interesting. I know that the NFU has come up with its own leadership statement of a 2040 target. It would be interesting for the sector. I would flag up that when emissions from agriculture are referenced they are land use, land-use change and forestry emissions, which relate to agriculture. Peatland use, particularly, is not mentioned, which is very high indeed—particularly on lowland peat. Those need to be factored in. It is of great concern that those do not get mentioned adequately. I think there are powers within the Bill to address those.

I suspect that if you had sector targets for agriculture you would argue for targets for other sectors. I am not sure whether those are in place. In the agriculture sector, I think that there will be ambition, given the right funding, to do a lot more on climate change, certainly in terms of locking carbon up in soils, where it belongs, rather than losing it to the air. There is great potential for that.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q I am trying to get my head around the deal in payments with respect to an early retirement scheme. When answering an earlier question, you talked about the way it could affect the value of the land. Could there be a situation in which a tenant takes the money and runs, and then the landowner is looking for a new tenant but without the agricultural support? It is difficult to attract one. How will the environment be managed if the payments that would have been forthcoming for the environmental land management schemes were not there? What would happen in practice in a situation where a tenant takes early retirement and takes the money, and then expects the landlord to pick up the pieces?

Jake Fiennes: There could be a technical mechanism relating to tenant’s dilapidations from the landlord’s perspective. The landlord could seek to recoup that if he was going to devalue the land by taking those future payments away. There is a technical mechanism that allows that to happen. That strengthens the landlord’s ability to retain that land to rent to others or to new entrants. It is important that there is some kind of mechanism within the Bill for that. Potentially there would be land abandonment because it has no value, or we would see deep intensification of land areas that have no support mechanism. Then we are trying to deliver environmental land management on a landscape scale, and we have these blackspots in between with no support mechanism. That would be my concern.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Q On tenancy issues, your organisations famously do not always agree, but on the future direction of travel for policy, do you both agree that a move from an area-based subsidy to payment for the delivery of public goods is the right way to go for agriculture policy? If you have any concerns about the development of that, what are your key concerns about what might go wrong in that transition?

Judicaelle Hammond: We would totally agree, as the CLA, that this move is the right move. We have been a proponent of moving towards payment for public good for a while now. The Bill is welcome. We also welcome the inclusion of soil quality, for example, and the consideration of sustainable food production and food security in the Bill. The fact that there is now going to be a multi-annual framework for financial assistance is also important, as is assistance for productivity improvement.

Regarding what we would want to see, there are two main aspects, as well as a number of other improvements, which I might talk about later. One is making sure that the transition is right. At the moment, we are missing information, not just about what is going to happen next year, but about residual payments for individual businesses over the rest of the transition years. We are missing the kinds of details about ELMS that will make it possible for those businesses to make decisions about where they want to take their business, and in particular, of course, about payment rates. In the absence of those details, and given the uncertainty in trading conditions, we would like the start of the transition period to be pushed back by one year without moving the start of ELMS.

The other issue that we have is about trade standards, which the NFU and others have spoken about. We certainly share their concerns.

George Dunn: I would take you back a little bit, Minister, and just say that we need to be really careful. Despite the fact that there is a great deal of criticism of the CAP, and the way in which the basic payment scheme operates and its impact on rents, we need to be clear that those payments are being received by individual farms right up and down the country that are doing the right things on the environment, animal welfare, consumer safety and all those issues. If we simply remove the BPS payment without properly thinking through the changes that we need to make, we risk the good work that we are doing. That is why we have been saying that we are making changes for a generation, and they need to be done well rather than quickly, so we support the CLA’s stance on delaying the transition. We think that we have concertinaed the work on ELMS, for example, too much to try to bring that forward into a sensible place.

Also, while we support the general move towards public payments for public goods, we see that move alongside the productivity elements, which we believe are really important as well. The Bill has a couple of lines on productivity, but we want to see much more about how that can work alongside creating resilience within farm businesses. There are also the trading elements and ensuring that we are not undercut by cheap imports from abroad, produced to standards that are illegal here; the fair dealing practices; and the issue of access to the tenanted sector. Schedule 3 goes some way towards addressing that sector, but it needs a little bit of work.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon. In general, what changes would you like to see that would improve this Bill, from your point of view? I am particularly looking at George.

Judicaelle Hammond: The main one, as I said—I will not labour the point—is the delay in the start of the transition. It also seems to us that a couple of other things would be improved if they were done differently. For example, the multi-annual framework for financial assistance is five years. I can see why it has been done like that, but that means that it is at risk of being entangled with the political and election cycles. As far as I know, farmers in the EU—which is going to be our closest competitor—will still have seven years to plan. That is closer to the business cycle in agriculture, so we would favour lengthening the period covered by the multi-annual financial assistance framework.

The other thing that could be added to the Bill is a provision on rural development and, in particular, socioeconomic funding schemes. In the new world, that is going to be done via the UK shared prosperity fund, but that is not due to arrive until 2022 at the earliest. What would happen if that got delayed, or got into other difficulties? We would like to see some provision to make sure that it is possible for Government to continue socioeconomic schemes.

Those are two important improvements. We would also want to make sure that any moneys that are recouped from direct payment, particularly in the early part of the transitions, are used for productivity and ELMS pilots and do not go back to the Treasury.

George Dunn: We agree on the issue of trade standards. We think we need to nail that wholly into the Bill to ensure that we are not undercutting our high standards here and offshoring our issues abroad.

While there have been some helpful statements from the Government, we are concerned about some of the rhetoric that appears to be emerging, particularly from the Prime Minister’s Greenwich speech, where there was an indication that we would not necessarily insist on our laws being protected in trade deals, which is rather worrying. Of course we were also promised free and frictionless trade with the EU on leaving the European Union, but we hear the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster saying today that we need to prepare for issues at the border when we end our implementation period.

On the fair dealing section of the Bill, we should nail down the fact that that should be regulated by the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The Bill leaves it hanging as to who should be the regulator. There is a suggestion that the Rural Payments Agency has a role to play; I would disagree. As the CLA has said, we need a delay in the transition period by one year, which will give us sufficient time to think about these things more deeply.

The access for tenants to schemes needs to be addressed, because schedule 3 to the Bill provides a provision only on a “may” basis. We want it to be a “must” basis that the authorities come forward with regulations. Currently, that applies only to the 1986 Act tenants, not the 1995 Act tenants. As that is half the tenanted sector in agriculture in England, we think that should be changed.

On the food security section, we want the report to be annual, not five yearly. Finally, in the financial assistance plans, the missing thing is the word “financial”. There is no commitment to say what the finances are going to be in any one year over the five-year period. That needs to be nailed into those plans as well.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Do you envisage that measures in the Bill will affect the lengths of tenancies that are negotiated?

George Dunn: There is nothing in the Bill that will affect the lengths of tenancies per se. Obviously there is the welcome inclusion of soil health within the public payments for public goods element of the Bill, which might encourage people to go for longer tenancies, depending on how the ELMS fits into that, but there is nothing specific that will do anything about the lengths of tenancies.

The Tenancy Reform Industry Group made a suggestion, because one of the things that landlords are concerned about is how they get land back if the tenant goes into breach. We are not interested in protecting tenants who are in breach. If we had easier-to-use provisions that allowed landlords to take land back if they had let for a long period of time, that might make them freer to do that.

There is also a need to look at the taxation framework, which goes beyond the Bill, but we hope that the Chancellor might say something about that on 11 March.

Judicaelle Hammond: Interestingly enough, we would support the introduction of provisions that enabled landlords, as you might expect, to get possession of the land in the case of breach. The question for us is whether there should be a threshold on that. Our answer would be that two years or more would be better than any arbitrary longer threshold. That is certainly an additional provision that we could support if there were not an arbitrary threshold.

George Dunn: Our view would be that there would be no public policy use for such a short-term clause. If we are looking at longer tenancies, we need to find a way of encouraging them, so it needs to apply to tenancies that are of 10 years or more.

[Danny Kruger]

Q It is very good to hear that you both support the direction of travel of the Bill. We heard earlier from witnesses who were explaining how, under the direct payments system, it is often possible for the landlord to simply hold the subsidy and for the tenant not to receive the benefit. Do you think that the new system will align your interests? Can you give us an example where, possibly, the landlord and the tenant might disagree about an improvement? Perhaps the tenant wants to gain some support for sequestration or planting trees or whatever, but the landlord is in disagreement. Do you think that we are setting up conflict between landlord and tenant? Perhaps, Ms Hammond, you could imagine a really bad tenant and, Mr Dunn, you could imagine a really bad landlord. What would you be fighting over?

Judicaelle Hammond: It is really important to understand that, in most cases, we would expect agreement to be found. I think the reason why we do not like one of the particular provisions in schedule 3, which has to do with arbitration in case of disputes, is that at the moment it very much looks at the interests of the tenants, who might be gaining financially quite a lot, without necessarily having a balance of the interest of the landlord.

I will give you a few examples of why landlords might withhold consent. It might be about landscape protection. For example, the National Trust will have properties where they want to make sure that the landscape continues to be enjoyed as it is. Or it might be that something does not fit with the business planned for the whole of the holding—in particular, if you are looking at other areas of the holding that are currently in hand or are farmed by somebody else, which might be better suited to planting trees, because trees cannot grow very well in all places. Or it might be about putting buildings on land in order to create new activities.

As drafted, the schedule would mean that, in the case of a dispute, it would go to an arbitrator, and then the decision is binding on the landlord. That means that there could be really long-term and possibly irreversible decisions being imposed on the landlord. We see that as a really fundamental infringement of property rights, and that worries us. It is the absence of balance that worries us.

Agriculture Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

There we have it—an Agriculture Bill that is not really about food or public good; without public voice; an open door for our food producers to be sold out in a trade deal with Trump; and English farmers put at disadvantage compared with other nations in the UK, while doing too little to tackle the climate emergency. No wonder farmers will be here in droves on 25 March. I hope that Government Back Benchers heed that last call and wake up to the problem, because the Opposition are not prepared to sell out English farmers, workers and our countryside.

Yes, of course we want public money to be used to buy environmental benefits, and we have argued for reform for decades, but the Bill needs massive improvement. It needs deeds, not worthy aspiration, and a much tougher Environment Bill alongside it to make sure that it works.

We have heard seven maiden speeches tonight, and a number of Members had the delicate task of paying tribute to somewhat troublesome predecessors. It is quite a list they had to deal with—Ken Clarke, John Bercow, Heidi Allen and Oliver Letwin—but they all managed that delicate task with great tact and grace. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) paid full tribute to her predecessor, Albert Owen, which is much appreciated by the Opposition. She invited the Secretary of State to the Anglesey show. The right hon. Lady is unable to attend, but I am sure that shadow Ministers are willing to oblige. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) had the best line of the night, about fake shoes. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) had a list of sporting heroes that any constituency would be proud to borrow, especially Cambridge United, which could do with Jimmy Johnstone or John Robertson. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) delivered a speech that was probably every Cambridge leftie’s nightmare, but we could agree on one point: we do not want the Oxford-Cambridge expressway. The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) took us on a tour of the most beautiful parts of the west country, and tactfully reminded the Government of the NFU’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2040. My near neighbour, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), highlighted the hugely important role of life sciences, and many of the wonderful institutions that abut the city of Cambridge. We have a slightly different take on the European Union, but I am sure that we can work together on the future of life sciences. Finally, the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) gave a delicate account of the status of the Cerne Abbas giant, and it was deftly delivered.

While we can all agree in the House on the need to shift financial assistance in the way proposed in the Bill towards the principle of public money for public good, particularly to help those who work our land to restore and improve the natural environment, it is worth briefly reflecting on why the CAP was needed in the first place. Historians will be well aware of the cycles of dearth and plenty that afflicted previous generations, with miserable and long agricultural depressions still living in the memory when I moved to eastern England over 40 years ago.

The CAP was intended to deliver stability of food supplies and security for farmers, and it did what it said on the tin, but it was of its time, had unintended consequences and has come at huge environmental cost. It is right that we now reshape our own agricultural systems to meet the new challenge. But there is a glaring omission, as has been pointed out. While supporting greater environmental, animal welfare and production standards at home, the Bill does absolutely nothing to prevent food products with lower standards than our domestic products from being imported in future trade deals. Without any legal commitment protecting us against that, the door is wide open to products such as American hormone-injected beef, chlorinated chicken and so on flooding our markets. Statements and manifesto commitments from the Government saying that they will not allow such lower standards are nothing but warm words. Just look at what US Secretary of State Pompeo made clear last week—the US Administration want this as part of any future trade deal.

We heard from the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that it concluded in its scrutiny report of the previous Bill that the Government should put their money where their mouth is and accept an amendment to the Agriculture Bill stipulating that food products imported as part of any future trade deal should meet or exceed British standards. There is an unprecedented coalition of agreement on this, as 62 farming and environmental organisations wrote to the Prime Minister just last week, urging him to amend the Agriculture Bill with this guarantee, and farmers are planning to rally outside Westminster to press the point. Labour simply cannot support the Bill without that cast-iron guarantee, which is why we have tabled our reasoned amendment.

There have been some improvements. Thanks to the work of farming and environmental organisations, there have been some positive changes. The inclusion of soil quality as a public good is particularly important given that our soil fertility is in decline. The reforms to agricultural tenancies and the new requirement in relation to multi-annual plans are also welcome. But in what is essentially a Bill about food production, we find ourselves asking, “Where is the focus on food?” As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made clear, the Bill contains no clear vision for the future of the nation’s food supply and no commitment to protecting the people of this country from food poverty. There is no recognition of the production of food as a public good, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) explained so powerfully.

For all its faults, the CAP was at least focused on ensuring stability of food supplies and prices. All this Bill does is require the Government to have regard to encouraging the production of food in an environmentally sustainable way. We have to ask whether the Bill actually matches up to the scale of the environmental and climate crisis that we are facing. At the moment, I think the answer is no. There is no duty for Ministers to do anything, and crucially there are no targets for the agriculture sector to reach net zero emissions—points powerfully made by my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Nottingham East. There are no provisions to secure the high baseline standards of farming and land management that we are going to need, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) powerfully stated in a particularly thoughtful speech. That is particularly important if we are going to tackle the ecological crisis that we are facing, including standards for those agricultural actors who choose not to engage with the environmental land management schemes.

By granting the Secretary of State mainly powers rather than duties, the Bill leaves farmers in the dark as to how and when the Government will implement the supply chain provisions included in the Bill that are designed to secure a fairer price for farmers for the food they produce. Where is the advice and support for farmers to help them in the transition? The Bill is silent on protections for workers, lacks overall vision for the future of rural communities and misses key opportunities to support agroecology. And then there is the question of whether the key provisions in the Bill will actually work, how quickly and successfully a new system of ELMS will be brought into operation, and the key matter of handling the devolved issues, which was raised very effectively by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). We should remember that there will be different approaches in the different nations; while England will go down one path, Scotland and Wales will take a different one.

So there we have it—the Bill is 14 months late, and there is ultimately no plan for food and no plan for public goods, and there are standards that will be unachievable if they are open to being undercut. It is a policy devised by some very clever people in Notting Hill; I think the House probably knows who they are, and, quite frankly, one has to wonder whether any of them has ever been on a farm. But the good news is that the Government can start making progress, by committing tonight to our amendment to guard against imports with lower standards. They do not even have to agree with the Opposition. They just need to agree with themselves, because the Secretary of State has made the promise and it is in the Conservative manifesto. Our challenge to the Government is: put it into law. If the Government do not want to listen to me, they can listen to the president of the NFU, the chief executives of the British Poultry Council, the National Sheep Association and the RSPCA, and the Chair of the EFRA Committee, who are all saying the same: put it into law.

I extend a welcoming hand to Government Members, and ask them to join us in standing up for the English countryside. They may not know this, but it is not just the Women’s Institute who sing “Jerusalem”; it has always been a Labour anthem. We will defend our green and pleasant land, and Government Members can help us to do it: put the amendment into law. Today is the first big post-Brexit test for the Government. I fear they are about to flunk it.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

The other clauses in the Bill mainly relate to the interpretation, extent, consequential transitional provisions and the like. The key issues, as I said, are in clause 1, which is why I spent so long on that particular clause.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I am sure the whole House is grateful to the Minister for his extended and detailed account of clause 1. It was a gentle rural ramble that suddenly finished with a sprint, so a cynic might imagine that the Government have finished drafting their statement on Huawei, but that would be a very cynical view.

The Opposition have of course enjoyed the great interest shown by Government Members this afternoon. After listening to some of the comments, I hope that there have been no misunderstandings, because I think I heard at one point a suggestion that the CAP was going to be used to pay farmers for not producing anything, when of course that is the whole thrust of this Government’s policies. I hope that Government Members will look closely at what the Government are suggesting.

The Opposition, of course, support this Bill and the direction of travel, because there is a clear funding gap between the ending of direct payments to farmers under the CAP and the Government’s considerably delayed Agriculture Bill, which will set out the new system of payments from 2021. We fully appreciate the need for financial security for farmers in the interim, but we have several continuing concerns about this Bill, because it has been rushed to make up for the fact that the Government have lost the last 14 months to delays and wrangling and have reintroduced the Agriculture Bill just days before we leave the European Union. Unsurprisingly, farmers are anxious, and of course the urgent environmental action that we need at a time of climate crisis is also being delayed.

In this last-minute rush to fill the legislative gap, there have been several missed opportunities and a number of proposals that cut corners on the parliamentary scrutiny of which they are worthy. Our surviving amendments challenge the need for Ministers to take the direct powers included in the Bill by too often using the negative or made affirmative procedure. It was a delight to hear the Minister at one point extolling the virtues of full scrutiny, and I very much hope that he will be able to transfer that thought into support for our amendments.

In clause 3(1)(a), the Government stipulate that the regulations to remedy any deficiencies in EU law being retained in the Bill will be subject to the made affirmative procedure, and so will be decided and implemented without parliamentary debate, which we think is wrong. Clause 6(1) contains a broad Henry VIII power that would effectively allow the Secretary of State to make any regulations they deemed appropriate as a consequence of the Bill—a wide approach that has been made subject to the negative resolution procedure, which allows for no parliamentary scrutiny of the decisions being made. That comes despite the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee having said that any Henry VII power included when changing primary legislation should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure to allow proper debate.

We appreciate that swift action might be needed in both cases, and we continue to be supportive, but we are simply making the argument, which the Minister made himself, that there should be the opportunity to scrutinise such further regulations properly, which of course is a legitimate role of this House.

With reference to schedule 2, amendment 8 deals with clause 3(1)(a) and amendment 10 relates to clause 6(1), to subject both clauses to the affirmative resolution procedure to allow for proper debate. Amendment 9 is linked to amendments 8 and 10. I stress again that we offer those amendments in a constructive spirit. We want the new Agriculture Bill to work to incentivise a whole range of public goods in return for public money, but the urgency of the need for this change in our farm payments system cannot come at the expense of unnecessary ministerial power grabs.

Clause 3(8) is a sunset clause, and we think there was a missed opportunity here to allow greater certainty for farmers. The key question that we ask people to consider is the Bill’s relationship with the Agriculture Bill and whether we are giving farmers sufficient certainty while we await the passage of the latter. Without prefiguring the discussions around the Agriculture Bill, we know that it will be highly controversial, because we do not see any guarantees from the Government that, in post-Brexit trade deals, they will guard against imports of food produced to lower standards than our own. That is a very big debate—many organisations stressed the point strongly in a letter to the Government at the weekend, and whether there will be a great future for British agriculture depends on the defending of standards. The matter is not likely to be resolved quickly and will likely be a protracted issue in any negotiations with the USA. One would have to be a great optimist to assume that the situation will necessarily be resolved in detail by the end of the year.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman gets to the nub of the argument about equivalence, animal welfare and general agricultural standards. Notwithstanding the fact that the negotiation will be detailed and probably tricky at times, does he take any comfort at all from the words of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Minister of State and, indeed, other Government spokesmen about the starting point from which they begin, namely that there will be equivalence and that our markets will not be swamped? I represent a very rural constituency, and this matter is a worry for me—he will remember that from previous agriculture Bill proceedings—but I am certainly taking great comfort from what those on the Treasury Bench are saying.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am sure that we will return to this issue over the coming weeks and months. We hear what the Government say, but the simple way of resolving the matter would be to put something into the Bill, which is what many people would like to see. The point in this context is that we would all agree that this is not easy. It may well take time, and it will be difficult.

Alongside the potential delays, the National Audit Office has pointed to teething problems with the Government’s planned environmental land management schemes, which are terribly important to how our rural areas will be supported in future. Added to the 14-month delay to the Agriculture Bill, the Opposition are simply not convinced that everything will be in place for the new farming payment system by the end of the year.

We want to see an urgent shift to a payment system that rewards public goods, environmental protection and welfare standards, but there is a danger of continuing uncertainty for farmers who will have to make decisions in just a few months’ time about their plans for the following year. If the introduction of the new payment system is delayed, it is imperative that a continuation mechanism is in place in this Bill.

The new Agriculture Bill proposes powers to extend direct payments in future, so we will doubtless discuss those powers at that point, but the fact remains that, as we stand here today, that Bill has not even had its Second Reading. We are starting with this Bill, and we believe it would have been wiser for the Government to have re-examined the sunset clause to allow the possibility of extending the provision of direct payments to farmers beyond 2020 in the event of any delay. That would have given confidence and, frankly, would have reflected what many of us think is likely to happen anyway.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points. As things stand, we are certain that the BPS will begin to be phased out in 12 months’ time, and there is a possibility that we will have the environmental land management scheme by 2028. In principle, he and I probably agree that scheme is a good thing but, in practice, it does not yet exist. Does he agree there is a danger that, in the seven-year transition, we will lose many of the farmers we need to deliver those public goods?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I suspect that discussion will continue, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As I said on Second Reading, we have replaced the certainty in the system. The only certainty we have now is of future uncertainty, which makes it extremely difficult for people who are planning ahead.

The Government have expressed total confidence that a further period of direct payments will not be needed. I wonder whether we will be having this discussion again in a year’s time. They are absolutely confident that there will be no further delays and, frankly, we hope they are right, but if they are not, I suspect we and others will be quick to remind them of the problems they caused by failing to prioritise safeguards in such an extension.

Another missed opportunity is the exclusion of measures to provide potential compensation to those farmers who have faced, and likely will face, delays to their payments. I cannot help noticing that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) made this point, and I am sure she will happily support us when we return to this topic in future.

Although the Government have rightly lauded the efforts of the Rural Payments Agency to pay farmers on time this year, I am afraid we are all well aware of the previous difficulties, poor performance and delayed payments in its management of direct payments to farmers.

Of course, it is not only about the Rural Payments Agency’s past performance. Look at what it is facing now: there is a real risk that it will be diverted by planning ahead for changes next year while we enter this period of uncertainty about our post-Brexit trade negotiations and the complex provisions of the Agriculture Bill. The danger is that we will find late payments building up again at precisely the time when farmers will most need financial certainty. A sensible response to that threat would have been to make provisions to enable farmers to be compensated if they suffered hardship or financial loss because of a delay in payments under this Bill. I hope the Government will duly consider a compensation mechanism for any such delays.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition on the very wide-ranging debate that we have had. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) about some of our predecessors in the shadow Front-Bench team: the former shadow Secretary of State, Sue Hayman; my good friend and near neighbour, Sandy Martin; and the inestimable David Drew. As Members may note, we have suffered a few casualties along the way, which is why I find myself at the Dispatch Box today.

Some may have thought that this Bill seemed like a warm-up lap for the Agriculture Bill, which we will be coming back to. However, we have had some excellent contributions, including three hon. Members making their first speeches in this House. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) gave a very exciting and vivid account of a beautiful constituency, speaking about the importance of tourism and farming to its economy, the huge cultural contribution it has made, and the very important contribution made by the military. We heard another moving account from the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan)—witty, but also with quite a political sting in the tail that I am sure will be noted by many.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), mark 2. I echo much of what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said in his thoughtful speech, but particularly his words about the hon. Gentleman. He was a Minister early in my time here, but he was, I think, a highly regarded Minister. Although it is not customary for Labour Members to welcome some people back, I think he knows what I am getting at. It was an excellent speech very much painting the picture of a lovely constituency.

Alongside those speeches, we had a number of very powerful contributions, including perhaps some warnings from the Conservative Benches that there are certain views about these issues, particularly the importance of producing food in our agricultural system, the difficulties around currency fluctuations, and some of the difficulties around the Rural Payments Agency. I was particularly struck by the contribution from the former Chair, and aspiring Chair, of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who spoke in his customary wide-ranging style across the whole range of issues. He made some telling points, particularly about the complexities of the stewardship schemes that the future models may well be based on, and—most importantly of all, as we heard from others as well—the issue of standards, which I suspect will dominate the debates ahead.

Looking back to the election campaign, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that, throughout, the Prime Minister described his plans as being “oven-ready”. I am not sure about his culinary prowess, but looking at this Bill, it seems that the plans have been far from oven-ready. In fact, I would say that the bird was in very, very deep freeze, if not a long way from its conception, because far from being ready to go, the very first thing this Government are doing is introducing legislation to make sure that nothing changes. All that excitement about 31 January, and nothing changes—you really couldn’t make it up.

But on this point we actually do agree with the Government; I think we can all agree on it: financial certainty for our farmers as the Government take us out of the European Union is extremely important. That is why this Bill matters and why we will be supporting it today. There is a clear funding gap between the ending of direct payments to farmers under the CAP and the Government’s only-just-reintroduced Agriculture Bill, which will introduce a new system. That Bill, as we have heard, has been languishing on the sidelines for over 14 months. The question has to be asked: why the delay? Why the 14 months of inactivity, indecision and uncertainty, with payments not set to begin until 2021? So while it may not be desirable, it is right that farmers should not have to be made to pay for this Government’s shortcomings and that this Bill be brought forward to continue CAP direct payments for this year. Of course, not much has been said to farmers about what the future is going to look like. Last summer’s five-page glossy document, “Farming is changing” was a fairly brief account, frankly, and for people who are planning on a longer-term cycle, how difficult that must be.

Before raising a few points of detail about the Bill, let me say that people across the world know that we are facing a climate emergency and environmental crisis. It may be an unfortunate add-on for some Members, but we also know that modern destructive agricultural practices are, in some cases, contributing to this. In the past year, oceans have recorded the hottest temperatures on record, and insects and farmland birds have continued to decline. The result of the Government dropping the ball on this is that we are still years away from moving to a system in the UK where farmers are paid and supported to protect our environment, and we are now legislating for another stop-gap year of the CAP, which, as has been acknowledged, was simply not designed to address these important environmental issues.

The Government could have been bolder and used this Bill to fast-forward some of the environmental land management pilots that are set to replace the CAP. But as the National Audit Office’s report, “Early review of the new farming programme”, has shown, these are far from ready to go. The Government’s plan, as outlined in the Agriculture Bill, is for a three-year pilot of the ELMs to start in 2021, but it seems that DEFRA’s ambition for the level of take-up expected has already been scaled back. It was initially planned for 5,000 farmers to sign up by the end of the first year of the pilot in 2022, but that is now reduced to just 1,250. As we have heard, there are very many questions around the environmental land management schemes to which answers will need to be found to ensure that they succeed, not least whether the reduced pilot that is being talked about will provide sufficiently robust evidence across the full range of farm types and locations to properly inform the development of the new payment system. These are all points that we will develop at the Second Reading and Committee stages of the Agriculture Bill.

We welcome the key recommendations of the Bew review, which are being applied in the Bill to address some historical inequalities that we have seen in the distribution of EU funding. That clearly disadvantaged some areas, particularly Scotland and Wales. Again, however, it is disappointing that the extra funds that the Government have found for this are not being used more quickly for environmental purposes. I draw attention to a couple of points in the Bew review. Its second wider observation was:

“Ministers should try to avoid giving farmers in any one part of the UK an unfair competitive advantage when deciding future allocations.”

That point was raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). In their response, the Government acknowledge that post-2022 funding should avoid unfair competitive advantage, but quite frankly, it is very unclear what measures they intend to take to address this conundrum. Perhaps the Minister could clarify.

It is also unclear what the Government’s answer is to the review’s third wider observation, which advocates financially recognising both

“the social value of upland farming in particular and the challenges facing those practising it”.

In their response, the Government skirt around this issue. They do recognise the

“vital role upland farmers play as stewards of the countryside and the range of social benefits that they contribute.”

Some clarity on that would also be welcome. Do the Government agree with Bew on the social value of upland farming? What do they see as those “social benefits”? Again, could the Minister clarify?

Unsurprisingly, many farmers continue to be concerned about their future funding. The CAP undeniably had many flaws, and there is no doubt that environmental degradation in the past few decades has been severe. Indeed, I dug out a dog-eared copy of Labour’s rural White Paper from November 2000—I suspect the Minister is far too young to remember it. Even then, Labour was warning that:

“Subsidies which simply reward production have damaged the countryside and stifled innovation.”

What the CAP did do over many years, however, was give some financial certainty. As the Government push forward with the Agriculture Bill and a post-Brexit trade stance still swathed in unanswered questions, that is in danger of being replaced with the certainty of constant uncertainty. For this year at least, farmers and the rural economy are being spared that because, effectively, the CAP continues.

How ironic that the very first act of the Big Ben bongers is to keep things the same. Our fear is that far from bells of liberation ringing through parishes across our countryside, the real danger is that not a lot will happen nearly quickly enough. If things prove as complicated as seems likely, and the Government do not move swiftly on the Agriculture Bill, we may well find ourselves revisiting a sunset clause in this Bill and looking at a continuation of the current CAP direct payments yet again.

In conclusion, we support these proposals, although there will be much more to say when it comes to the detail of the Agriculture Bill. However, we do see this Bill as an early warning that the Government have already wasted years, and have moved too slowly and with insufficient urgency to tackle the key climate and environmental issues that we all now face.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

Chalk streams are some of our most precious environments, so this is a serious issue. The Environment Agency is advising HS2 Ltd and its contractors on mitigating the potential impact of its work on water levels and the quality of chalk streams, including when it comes to water usage for tunnelling in the Chilterns. The Environment Agency will be reviewing any application for increased abstraction in line with the relevant abstraction management strategy to ensure that there is no detrimental effect on chalk streams. I take this matter very seriously and would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss this further because chalk streams are so important and it is important that we get this right.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, thank you for turning the pronunciation of challenging surnames into an art form in itself—although I have to say that my campaign to be called in reverse alphabetical order continues.

The River Cam is fed by chalk streams. In July this year, it fell to a third of its normal level, which has caused huge concern not just in Cambridge, but in the surrounding county. This has happened largely due to over-abstraction. What can the Minister to do to assure us that that is going to be tackled with urgency?

[Rebecca Pow]

The issue with chalk streams, of course, is that they are fed by groundwater from aquifers; they are very special areas of water extraction. There is going to be a section in the Environment Bill on abstraction licences. I hope that when that gets going and we have proper discussions about that Bill, it will include some ameliorations for chalk streams.

Restoring Nature and Climate Change

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 254607 relating to restoring nature and climate change.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and an honour to introduce the petition on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is timely because of the climate crisis we face, but also because it is a hot topic in Ambridge at the moment, for those who listen to “The Archers”. That is always a useful barometer for a certain part of public opinion.

The petition, which calls for natural climate solutions, such as rewilding, to be enacted to tackle the climate emergency, has been signed by around 110,000 people, including over 650 from my Cambridge constituency. It makes a series of important points and reads:

“Restore nature on a massive scale to help stop climate breakdown.

To avoid a climate emergency we need to act fast.

Rewilding and other natural climate solutions can draw millions of tonnes of CO₂ out of the air through restoring and protecting our living systems. We call on the UK Government to make a bold financial and political commitment to nature’s recovery.

We need to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate breakdown. To do this we need both to reduce carbon emissions and to remove carbon from the atmosphere. By drawing down carbon, nature’s recovery can help us reach net carbon zero.

We have a chance for the UK to become a world leader in natural climate solutions. Those who manage our land and sea play a pivotal role and should be supported to come together to deliver carbon reductions.”

I doubt many—or even any—of us here would disagree with much in that statement. It is a topic that chimes with the public mood over the last year. From the school climate strikes, the Extinction Rebellion protests and many more related campaigns, it is clear that stopping climate breakdown is at the top of the agenda for many people.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this wonderful debate with his magic power. More people in Huddersfield than in Ambridge signed the petition. Does he agree that we need more action from this Government and from the Opposition parties? Climate change is now. We must not put noughts on. We need the northern forest, millions of trees planted and so much more. Does he agree that this is an emergency and we have got to act now?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Strangely enough, I agree, as my hon. Friend will find as I go through my speech.

We should start with some definitions. I make an introductory caveat; I am not someone who believes that humankind is the cause of all problems, although we cause many. I have always been slightly puzzled by the term “unspoiled” that some people apply to areas untouched by human intervention. There are certainly many—far too many—places that have been spoiled, polluted and harmed, but there are also examples of glorious and wonderful buildings and interventions, where people have achieved works of great beauty.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In that recognition of where humans can enhance our environment, will the hon. Gentleman join me in paying tribute to the Sussex Wildlife Trust and the wildlife trusts around the country that do so much to support our environment with innovative and practical solutions?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I suspect that many Members around the Chamber will have worked with their local wildlife trusts and seen the excellent work they do. Just a few weeks ago I was with the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire releasing Nora the hedgehog into the wild, although Nora’s building was not one of the works of art I was about to reference in my great city of Cambridge.

Cambridge is full of fine examples of magnificent buildings and we are proud of them. They are often the work of previous generations, sometimes created in political and economic circumstances that we would not now accept. We can all point to examples across cultures and countries of magnificent interventions. My point is that we are not for or against nature, but with better scientific understanding of our impact on the wider environment, we now have the responsibility to act in a way that does no more harm and, where harm has been caused, take the opportunity to work with natural processes to secure improvement. That is my starting point.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Kent Wildlife Trust, along with others, has a strategy of greening urban areas. Will the hon. Gentleman welcome its initiatives and others, such as that at Luton Junior School, in my constituency, which plans to build a green, living wall to help absorb pollution and improve the future health of the children at the school?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady is correct; I suspect we will be hearing more examples of good work done by other wildlife trusts.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I will say a word about the role of water and wetlands. The hon. Gentleman will know the example of Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire and about the work that is being done to improve the wetlands towards Anglesey Abbey. We could do with more work like that around the country. In Hertfordshire, our chalk streams are suffering from over-abstraction. Do we not need a policy for water?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right. I am about to embark on a tour of wetlands; Wicken Fen will be one of them. This summer we have seen some particular problems with a number of streams drying up, so we need a plan for water.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that show that nature and climate crisis are inextricably linked? The IPBES report says that 1 million species globally are at risk of extinction. Does he agree that nature-based solutions are a fundamental way of stopping climate change and preventing the extinction of species?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is right; I will come to some of those points later.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. It is great that we are all paying tribute to our local wildlife trusts; I will put in a word for the wonderful Sussex Wildlife Trust. Does he agree that we need urgent action? Ministers could make a decision right now to ban the burning of blanket bog, ending the release of huge amounts of emissions that could otherwise be captured by peat. When we consider that globally peatlands can store more carbon than rain forests, we need to be doing much more and not burning them.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Only if they are wet; they have to be wet.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady is right, as is the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who spoke from a sedentary position. Later in my speech, I will make that point.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is exceedingly generous in taking interventions in this important debate. I pay tribute to the Walthamstow Wetlands—I hope they will be on his tour—and to my local authority, which has planted 5,000 trees in the last year alone in Waltham Forest.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is right when she says that we need to look at what Government can do. Many of us are interested in ideas about carbon pricing and how we can further incentivise rewilding as part of tackling climate change. Frankly, it is not enough to leave it to local communities and local authorities, which do individually brilliant things; in this time of climate emergency, we should ask national Government to incentivise rewilding. Does my hon. Friend have a view on that?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I had a wonderful day out in Walthamstow with my partner earlier this year, when we came to see some of the wonderful things that have been done there. On the point of urgency, my hon. Friend is right. The conclusion to my speech will lay down the challenge to the Minister about the degree of urgency we face, which I am sure he will respond to.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that any rewilding scheme is far more likely to be successful if it is pursued and taken along with the consent of the local community and local landowners?

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; again, I will make that point in my speech. When we work together with local communities we can achieve much more.

The petition specifically talks about rewilding and natural climate solutions, and I want to draw on a number of examples and points that experts on those subjects have raised with me. The organisation Rewilding Britain describes the issue as being about people reconnecting with nature, wildlife returning and habitats expanding, while communities flourish with new opportunities. That starts from the principle that natural processes drive outcomes, and that rewilding is to go where nature takes it, with long-term benefits for future generations. I will give some examples, beginning close to home.

There are some wonderful long-term projects such as the National Trust’s visionary project to restore wetlands around Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, which has been mentioned. That project has been ably promoted over many years by Tony Juniper, who now chairs Natural England. He is a highly regarded environmentalist. I will mention in passing that he was my Green party opponent in the 2010 general election in Cambridge. We spent a long evening at the count together after he had run a brilliant, vigorous and exciting campaign, which, sadly for him, secured only a few thousand votes, marginally behind me. I came in a disappointing third. I remind colleagues gently that election outcomes are not always exactly as anticipated. Tony has recently written extensively about the social and economic benefits of a nature-centric green new deal, which would unlock benefits such as public health improvements, both physical and mental. It is a programme that I strongly approve of.

However, it is not just land policy that attracts the attention of rewilders. We need to look to the oceans as well.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on something that is important in our approach to the debate. When we talk about rewilding and climate change, we often talk about the challenges. Would not it sometimes be better to talk about the opportunities, for jobs, the economy and the social fabric?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am slightly alarmed at the unanimity that is breaking out in the Chamber today. The hon. Gentleman is right and many of us have noticed that in the last period the green economy has survived times of recession much more effectively than the rest of the economy.

To return to the subject of the oceans, the securing of no-fish zones in oceans can allow marine habitats to recover from the effects of bottom trawling and scallop dredging. An example is the no-take zone in Lamlash bay in Scotland. That is beautifully outlined by Rewilding Britain on its website. The issues are not always straightforward. In my area, the Cambridge Independent reported last week that Cambridgeshire County Council’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions is going to be more challenging than originally thought, as peatland emissions will be included in Government calculations from next year. Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange, which strongly advocates nature-based solutions, identified—as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) pointed out—that peatland is a significant contributor to CO₂ emissions in Cambridgeshire. Adam Barnett of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds tells me that that is a crucial issue. Consequently, the RSPB and other organisations rightly want to ban the burning of peat bogs, which releases carbon and is extremely damaging to the atmosphere. I hope that we shall get a response on that from the Minister. I know that questions have been put to Ministers about it before.

I have mentioned just some of the complex range of issues that there are to consider. The staff serving the Petitions Committee were kind enough to set up an engagement event on the topic in Cambridge last week, and we had an extremely well-informed roundtable with experts in my constituency. I record my thanks to the Clerks to the Committee for their work on it. Our discussion took place at the premises of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative in the iconic David Attenborough building, a conservation campus that is home to organisations that promote the natural world, such as the RSPB, Flora & Fauna International and BirdLife International. There, I was privileged to meet Dr Mike Rands, the executive director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, and Dr Andy Clements, the director of the British Trust for Ornithology, who shared with me their insights on natural restoration. Dr Clements hammered home the point that data and monitoring of natural activity are crucial. We must know the state of affairs to be able to improve it.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend has the great advantage that I have, of having a superb university in his constituency. Are universities, in partnership, doing enough in terms of leadership? I find that many universities do research and do not share with their local communities and groups, or even local government. Could more be done? Of course, many universities, such as Cambridge, are large landowners.

[Daniel Zeichner]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important point. The University of Cambridge provides global leadership, but I occasionally point out to it that the link with the local community could be improved. Universities need to be close to their communities.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

On that point, Professor Sir David King, the former master of Emmanuel College and emeritus professor at Cambridge, who has been the Government’s chief scientific adviser on this, has been a strong advocate of carbon sinks.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Indeed, Sir David is of course one of my constituents and I happily canvassed him recently. Cambridge is a wonderful place in which to canvass, I assure the House.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is very flat.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Cambridgeshire is not as flat as all that, if you cycle around. However, in answer to the intervention of the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald)—yes; some important leadership, and extraordinary plans and ideas, are coming from such places as the University of Cambridge, about the dramatic interventions we might make to tackle climate change.

To return to the topic of data, there are many ways in which we can assess what is happening in the world. I was reminded, during the discussion we were having, of the work of immensely important organisations such as the Bumblebee Conservation Trust; its chief executive, the inspiring Gill Perkins, has pointed that out to me before. Its annual “BeeWalk” involves volunteer “BeeWalkers” walking the same fixed route once a month between March and October, counting the bumblebees seen and identifying them by species and caste where possible. That is important, and I suspect we are also all familiar with the hugely popular and important annual RSPB “Big Garden Birdwatch”. Those are just some of the ways in which we can monitor and assess what is going on. As hon. Members have suggested, such public engagement is vital. By encouraging each other to monitor the world around us, we shall, I am convinced, become better informed in our efforts to protect it.

During our discussion in Cambridge, the importance of data and evidence was further highlighted by Hazel Thornton of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. She told me that out of 337 common interventions that it had assessed, only about a third were evidence based. That is a striking statistic. I suspect that all too often we do things that we think are helpful because they are what we have always done, without really knowing whether they have the desired outcomes, or—worse—whether there is a risk of unintended consequences.

Hazel Thornton advocated Government support for open-access data and decision-making tools, which should include consideration of costs and local values. She also called for Government funding for a long-term evidence monitoring system. I have considerable sympathy because, important as voluntary efforts are, they need to be complementary to rigorous scientific recording.

Dr Clements highlighted the need to tackle the carbon crisis and biodiversity crisis together. He pointed out that in some ways the carbon crisis is simpler to communicate to the wider public. We can probably all remember the need to limit temperature rises to below 2°C, but the biodiversity crisis, which is just as crucial, is perhaps harder to explain in simple memorable terms that capture public attention.

Almost as we speak here, discussions in the main Chamber will have an impact on the ways forward. The Environment Bill and our wider future relationship with our European partners will both have a significant impact on the issues that we are debating. A point that has been much stressed in the many recent debates is that, were we to leave the European Union, that should not lead to the potential regression of existing environmental standards. Dr Clements emphasised that to me and, as Members would probably expect, there is near-universal agreement among those who are expert in the field. The combined power and influence of 28 states acting together should not be lost. It is a global climate crisis and we must tackle it collaboratively.

Sue Wells, of the Cambridge Conservation Forum, focused on the need to take oceans into account when making policy. She explained that marine issues could get left behind in comparison with terrestrial projects. Another issue that was highlighted locally was fenland projects. Roger Mitchell, of Fens for the Future, talked about the need for nature-based solutions to the carbon emissions of the fens, which we have already discussed.

All this suggests a wider picture. When developing our land for our needs—housing, transport, infrastructure —we must maintain a focus on natural capital and on nature-based solutions to carbon emissions. Whether in planning flood diversions and defences with natural solutions, or in projects such as East West Rail, which affects my constituency, and the natural capital work there, we must focus on the environment alongside any development plans.

There are good examples of where past developments can be improved. Recently, I visited Anglian Water’s sewage treatment plant in Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, with the East of England all-party parliamentary group. We were all impressed with the work that had been done to create beautiful wetlands and increase local and regional biodiversity. The restored wetland removes the need for carbon-intensive, expensive nutrient-stripping techniques, while improving water quality; it is a great project led by the Norfolk Rivers Trust.

We must keep our focus on the environment when delivering investment for the future, and we must think long term. Sarah Smith of the Wicken Fen rewilding project told me the project has a 100-year plan to extend the nature reserve by 10 miles, as I mentioned earlier.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as that allows me to put on record my tribute to the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, which runs the Eastwood nature reserve in Stalybridge. On the things that he has just mentioned, which I think we all agree with, does he agree that housing is perhaps the area that needs the biggest change? I see far too many generic, developer-led developments that have no relationship to the natural world around them. If we are serious about not just putting investment in, but changing how we do things, housing must be planned in a much better way with respect to the local environment. If we are serious about doing things such as garden villages, that could be the way, but I do not think the present approach will achieve the outcome he is quite ably describing.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend’s intervention takes us off into a different debate in some ways, but I absolutely agree with him. It is much to be regretted that the very high environmental standards for new build that were in place in 2010 are no longer there, but I am sure they can be restored—if not before Christmas, soon afterwards, perhaps.

I spoke before about long-term planning. While Wicken Fen may be looking 100 years ahead, I am not sure Parliament can look forward 100 hours at the moment, but we do need to commit to long-term natural restoration.

[Tracey Crouch]

Can we put on the record the importance and value of roadside nature reserves, which are often forgotten in the dynamic environment we live in? Many of our wildlife trusts work alongside their local authorities to keep our roadside nature reserves wild and keep those species living in that protected environment, but there is no statutory requirement for local authorities to invest in them. It is important that we remember the value of roadside nature reserves in the context of this debate.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady must be a mind reader, because that is my very next point. She makes an important point, because, as I was going to say, beyond those big long-term projects, there are quite simple things that can be done locally or individually. That was drawn to my attention by Olivia Norfolk, of Anglia Ruskin University, who said that simple solutions in urban environments to encourage nature restoration, such as not mowing road verges, can be important. However, she also argued that, while we can all act ourselves, we need urgent systemic changes to the way we run the country, and we cannot continue to export our costs overseas.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman’s exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) reminds me that when I served as Roads Minister in the 1980s, we planted over 1 million trees a year—they were not actually trees when they were planted, but many of them have grown into trees. Those nature reserves are very important, particularly if they can provide continuous habitat and corridors for animals to get around; it is not just about the foxes getting into town on the railways, but about providing a variety of planting that we do not often get in some managed forests.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful for that intervention. It must be a wonderful thing to be able to see that the trees that were planted then have now come to fruition. That is also an important point.

If we are to consider all these points alongside a future generations initiative, we need to make not only individual and cultural changes, but systemic, Government-led ones. Tom Maddox, of Natural Capital Hub and Flora & Fauna International, told me of the need to adopt a holistic approach, and in 2021—

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will just finish the sentence. In 2021, the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration starts—a huge opportunity. Let us beat the curve and adopt those radical and far-reaching changes now.

[Caroline Lucas]

I apologise for interrupting. I thought there was a semi-colon there, but perhaps there was not. I know the hon. Gentleman is concerned about an outbreak of unanimity, so in case that should happen, can I put it to him that natural climate solutions must be supported, but only in addition to, not instead of, rapid emission reductions in every part of the economy? Does he share my concern that Heathrow airport, for example, is pushing a set of ideas about peatland restoration as part of its so-called carbon-neutral growth plans, but not changing business as usual? We must not use natural climate solutions as a way to avoid real carbon reduction.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; I am sure there is no danger of complete unanimity breaking out when she is in the room. She is right that, when it comes to the issue of Heathrow, there is certainly not likely to be unanimity. That is an important point, because sometimes—I am not saying this about that particular project—it is pretty clear that there is some greenwashing going on, and we must always be mindful of that.

I turn to the Government and ask for a couple of commitments—first, clear leadership and a commitment to implementing nature restoration measures, rather than simply leaving them to the market, where simplistic short-term economic arguments too often win out. Yes, restoration can make absolute economic sense on a macro level, but individual actors need encouragement, education and direction on why they should change their behaviour. Targets and monitoring are vital there.

Secondly, as I suspect is often the way, I want to press for more ambition from the Government. The 25-year environment plan includes measures that would improve our natural environment, yes, but many would say that we should go much further. The commitment to restore 500,000 hectares, for example, is half what a single company has pledged in Indonesia. We should look at what others have pledged in the Bonn Challenge. The commitment to raise forest cover in England from 10% to 12% takes us from sixth lowest in Europe to eighth lowest, still behind Scotland and Wales. Most European countries have over one third of their land covered in forest. Belgium has a similar population density to us, but over twice the forest, so we can do more, and we can challenge ourselves further.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman pay tribute to the efforts of the Scottish Government, but does he agree that the efforts of organisations such as Network Rail hold them back? It is trying to cut down swathes of trees along the railway lines through my constituency, removing a nature corridor that is important to local people.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right and points to exactly the kind of trade-off that I was referring to. As a member of the Select Committee on Transport, I should be at this very moment questioning Mr Williams on this issue. She is right to draw attention to the many trees that are being destroyed.

Let me conclude with a voice from a future generation, because last week I received a letter from Maggie, a 10-year-old girl from a primary school in my constituency, and I would like to quote one or two of the things she said:

“Sir David Attenborough said that ‘nature recovery’ laws must be created to ensure ‘habitats are expanded and reconnected’. Please ask the Government to pass a law to protect our wildlife!”

She went on:

“Secondly, our wildlife is endangered by the plastic in the sea and us cutting down their homes. We also need to stop littering around our environment, fields and especially on the beach! To sum up, I need you to tell the government that they need to act now and my question for the government is: do you want to keep ruining animals’ lives, or do you want to save the animals and our world from climate change?”

I must say that in my political life I have rarely invoked Maggie, but today I hope the Minister will rise to the challenge of 21st-century Maggie and act to protect her, and our, future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I thank all hon. Members who have contributed. It has been a very good debate; there has been a considerable amount of agreement. I will not single out many—I know that we are possibly close to time in the main Chamber—but I will mention my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for all the expertise that she has brought to this subject over many years. I was particularly taken with her comments on the messiness of nature, which is an important point.

Finally, I strongly echo the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on tackling the climate and ecological emergencies together—they are absolutely interlinked. I was delighted to hear from the Minister a pretty strong pledge on ending peat burning. I will be able to go back to my constituent, Maggie, and tell her that he agrees with her, and I am sure she will hold him to all the promises on which she sought reassurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 254607 relating to restoring nature and climate change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

There is a range of programmes under way to encourage people to switch, both to ensure that they get value for money and to talk up the advantages of moving to a more sustainable electricity supply. I will certainly be taking a personal interest in these matters in my new role.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Improving the energy efficiency of our homes is one of the best ways to tackle climate change, yet since 2012 there has been a 95% fall in home insulation programmes. What has gone wrong?

[Theresa Villiers]

The Government have a strong record on climate change, but I acknowledge that we need to do more to ensure that people are able to insulate their homes. We will be working on that in the months ahead.

Unsustainable Packaging

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 232684 relating to unsustainable packaging.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir George.

I welcome both Front-Bench spokespeople: my good friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. When I entered this place, he was the Minister responsible for cycling, and since then he has held a number of important positions. I am tempted to say that although we might be debating single-use plastics today, there is no such thing as a single-use Minister. I wish the Minister well when the recycling period comes round soon, and I wish both him and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich success in their search for a solution to reusable packaging, which is a subject I am pleased to raise on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

Let me start by reading the petition:

“Ban the use of all non-recyclable and unsustainable food packaging. Today the Earth is at a crisis point due to our plastic consumption, and as a result, people in the UK are more willing than ever to engage in recycling. Yet so much food packaging remains completely, frustratingly unrecyclable. Let’s aim for the UK to lead the world with a 100% recycling rate. Every day we send to landfill, to decompose over thousands of years: cereal box inner bags; peel-off film (fruit and veg punnets/ready meals/yoghurt pots); almost all plastic supermarket fruit and veg packets; crisp packets; sweets wrappers; chocolate bar wrappers; Styrofoam; vacuum pack plastic, to name a few. The British public WANTS to recycle but we can’t get away from the vast amounts of waste that poorly designed packaging creates—appoint people to design alternatives and the UK will thank you!”

What an uplifting petition. The sentiment behind it speaks for itself. It has been signed by 247,048 people—nearly a quarter of a million people—illustrating the strength of feeling. That includes nearly 1,000 people from my Cambridge constituency, where this is a matter of great interest and concern. It is clear that the public mood about packaging, whether it goes to landfill or pollutes our oceans and rivers, has changed over the past few years. We have woken up. There is genuine public recognition of the climate crisis and concern about the natural destruction caused by non-recyclable waste.

Over 14 million of us watched Sir David Attenborough’s “Blue Planet II”, which revealed the impact waste is having on our seas and wildlife. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “War on Plastic” found UK plastic waste abandoned all the way in Malaysia.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which the Minister served when we had the inquiry, we heard from groups in countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand that they had UK plastic on their shores. Is it not time that we stopped exporting plastic waste and reprocessed it all here in the United Kingdom?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which I am about to amplify. He is absolutely right that we have international responsibilities. As the public watched, listened and participated, that so grabbed society’s consciousness that a constituent wrote to me saying that there should be “regular showings and reshowings” of those programmes, as they are so convincing and powerful. I suspect in Cambridge they are rewatched on a regular basis already.

Attenborough calls plastic waste an “unfolding catastrophe”, and, sadly, the evidence backs that up. A report from charities Tearfund, Fauna and Flora International, and WasteAid has warned of a public health emergency, claiming that between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year because of preventable diseases linked to mismanaged plastic waste in developing countries. These diseases include diarrhoea, malaria and cancer, all of which researchers have linked to plastic waste building up near people’s homes or being burned, which can result in damaging fumes.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that in my local authority of Lewisham, recycling rates have rapidly increased in recent years and that there will be a consultation looking at continuing barriers to recycling in the area. I am also aware that many local authorities find it difficult to find solutions for certain types of black and low-grade plastic. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government are to reach their stated target of eliminating plastic waste by 2042, the Minister would need to better regulate the type of plastic businesses are using and to do more to establish suitable sites for recycling?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I will come on to and which I suspect will be brought out in the wider debate. The black plastic issue is very real, and we need to ensure that our recycling systems are consistent across the whole country and can deal with these more difficult issues.

To return to the international significance of where our waste sometimes ends up, the reports I referred to suggest that one person dies every 30 seconds because of diseases caused by plastic pollution in developing countries. Such a statistic brings home how significant this is. What we do in our local recycling has global consequences. It is not simply waste in the United Kingdom that we must consider, and our ability to recycle.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the debate. He is of about the same vintage as I am, so he will remember fish and chips in newspaper. Does he welcome the commitment made by some chip shops and fast food outlets to focus on paper rather than plastic? That should be praised. Does he also agree that there must be more focus on packaging for online businesses and they should work with the Royal Mail to determine what level of packaging will protect goods, as well as the environment? Chip shops and fast food outlets are doing their bit, but more can be done with the Royal Mail and online packaging.

[Daniel Zeichner]

We are already diverting into a range of issues, and I will mention some examples. The hon. Gentleman gets there first on fish and chips; I am of an age that I can remember fish and chips in newspaper, so I agree with him on that. The point about the Royal Mail is not one I intended to make, so he has added an important point to the discussion.

To get back to the wider issues, it is clear to me that public pressure for action on all these issues is growing. We saw from the Extinction Rebellion protests, which have happened nationwide and are strongly supported in Cambridge, that these issues have seized the public policy agenda. The school climate strikes, which I found magnificent, uplifting and inspired, show that the next generation demands change. I am sure we all have examples in our local areas. Last Friday, I was at the Spinney Primary School in Cambridge, and I was impressed not only by the quality of the questions the young people asked but by the fact that they had held an “empathy for earth” day a week or two before, and one could see the young people’s enthusiasm.

We can see the public’s desire for meaningful change. The question is, what can we do? One area that we can start with is the food we eat. When options are given to people to avoid non-recyclable packaging, they can be popular. There are good examples of that, which we have begun to touch on.

I thank the Petitions Committee staff for their excellent work surveying more than 20,000 people on their attitudes to food packaging. For fruits and vegetables, such as bananas, apples, potatoes and onions, more than 99% of respondents said that, given the option, they would choose to buy the items without plastic packaging—that is, almost everybody. A large majority said that they would buy bread without plastic packaging—94.6%—whereas 94.9% said they would buy breakfast cereal without it, and 97.1% said they would buy nuts and dried fruit. Nearly 80% said they would choose to buy meat or fish without plastic packaging, so there is considerable public appetite for change. I will come to some issues around that later.

Last Friday, I welcomed the Petitions Committee engagement team—I thank those involved for their work—to Cambridge. We held a roundtable discussion with various organisations that are working hard to improve sustainability in how we eat and live our lives. In that discussion I heard from owners of sustainable shops, cafés and businesses, such as BeeBee Wraps, the organic reusable food wraps business; Cambridge Carbon Footprint, which promotes sustainable living, local resources and services; and Cambridge Sustainable Food, which focuses on partnerships, projects and campaigns that capture the imagination and increase the sustainability of local eating.

That was an illuminating discussion, and many complex issues arose. For example, inventing new types of potentially sustainable packaging seems to be easier than putting in place the infrastructure and processes to deal with them. There was a concern about the proliferation of new so-called sustainable packaging products and different recycling schemes. Jacky Sutton-Adam described the situation, saying

“we’ve broken all our eggs into a bowl, mixed them up but haven’t made the omelette yet.”

While the Government ought to be investing more in solutions and incentivising people to try new things, Irina Ankudinova and others believed that manufacturers should be required to show that a system was in place to deal with the waste before new packaging products were brought to the market.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about the packaging surrounding the goods we buy, but there are also the goods themselves. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the prevention of plastic waste, I note that we have weaned ourselves off natural products and fibres and on to plasticised ones. Many of our clothes and carpets are polypropylene. We are wrapping plastic in plastic, and that is a real concern. Does he agree that we need to look at the big picture and have a shift back toward both more natural packaging and more natural fibres within the packaging?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a powerful point; I will touch on it a little later, but I suspect that others will want to amplify it further. When I look around the world, there are other countries that have perhaps not gone so far down this path, and some of their lifestyles are very attractive—dare I say it, but even some European lifestyles are very attractive indeed.

On Friday, I was also able to visit the Cambridge Cheese Company, which cycles its cheese deliveries around the city and presents gifts in recycled wooden cheese boxes. I am grateful to a very helpful assistant in its shop, Jade Tiger Thomas, who showed me the amazing aforementioned BeeBee wraps and explained a scheme that allows customers to bring their own Tupperware or reusable boxes to carry cheese home, and reusable jars for olives and deli items. The company is a long-established Cambridge gem. Many hon. Members find themselves in Cambridge from time to time, and I thoroughly recommend that they pay it a visit.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. A long time ago, when I was a student in Cambridge, I remember going to the legendary Arjuna Wholefoods and buying spices measured into brown paper bags. That was happening long before it became fashionable, and Arjuna’s has proved itself a long-term Cambridge institution committed to sustainability and reducing food waste.

Buying food without throwaway packaging is becoming increasingly popular across the country. At the start of the month, Waitrose began a trial in its Oxford Botley Road store of a new “Unpacked” model, with a dedicated refillable zone of products from wine to cereals, frozen pick and mix and a borrow a box scheme. It also has refillable cleaning products and sells plants and flowers without plastic. Most of us have probably read the stories in the newspapers. It is too early to have solid statistics on the success of the trial, but Waitrose tells me that the reaction on social media to the announcement of the trial was 97% positive and the store sold out of some products within the first week of the trial. I was told that

“customers have bought into the concept readily—they arrive with their own containers ready to fill with the loose cereals, pasta, fish and more. This started to happen within just a few hours of us announcing the trial”.

That put me in mind of happy times past in my life, in places such as Venice, where the wine shops allow people to take bottles to be refilled on a regular basis. Now, perhaps, we can extend that to washing-up liquid, even if it is slightly less enticing.

When these schemes are well advertised and communicated and efforts are made to help people to get acquainted with new ideas, such as the borrow a box scheme for those who may have been unaware or do not have their own, behaviour and culture change are possible. That can also be done on a smaller scale: the University of Sheffield students’ union has its own Zero Waste Shop, which sells a huge range of spices, herbs, grains, legumes, dried fruits and nuts by weight, so people can buy as much or as little as they need. Customers simply bring their own container, buy one from the shop or use one of the recyclable paper bags.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the University of Sheffield students’ union Zero Waste Shop. That is a well-established initiative, and I join him in celebrating the groundbreaking work that it has been doing for some time now.

Will my hon. Friend also celebrate the work of the university’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which is looking at a range of approaches to eliminating plastic waste, recognising that, while we should be doing everything possible to minimise the use of single-use plastics, there will be some areas in which that is difficult? For example, we need to explore whether there is an opportunity to reuse single-use plastics currently used by medics. Similarly, the carbon emissions of recycling single-use plastic bottles could be more damaging than developing reuse. Does he agree that those areas are the innovations we should be looking at?

[Daniel Zeichner]

True to form, my hon. Friend raises the more profound points of the debate. Those are exactly the trade-offs that must be considered in depth and detail, and I will come on to some of them in a moment. He makes a powerful point that sometimes, the more obvious routes to doing the right thing might not have quite the consequences that one understood them to be liable to have.

I suppose the argument I am making is to encourage the zeal of the public to embark on this path, and the conclusion I will draw at the end is that they must be given help to ensure that they are indeed achieving the good outcomes that they are intending to achieve. This is a subject littered with potentially difficult trade-offs, and I am sure both Front-Bench speakers will refer those in the debate.

I will complete my tour of some of the great initiatives—

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

rose—

[Daniel Zeichner]

Or perhaps others might help me in that.

[Graham Stringer]

I am stimulated to get to my feet by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who is associated with the University of Sheffield, as I was some time ago, through the Sheffield students’ union. One of the things I learned at the university was that if we cannot measure it, or we do not measure it, we are unlikely to make progress with it.

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) agree that some of the Government’s statistics are extremely dodgy in this area, particularly on recycling? When waste is exported, we assume that it is recycled, but that is unaudited. The best way to deal with these things is, first, to deal with them domestically and, secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central says, to reuse things rather than recycling them—glass bottles rather than plastic being an obvious example.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, my hon. Friend introduces the gravity that I would expect of him, and he makes serious points. I am sure others will refer to the need to reduce, reuse and recycle in the correct sequence. The measurement issue is important. I am trying to adopt a non-partisan tone in today’s debate, because I suspect we are all trying to get to the same place, but he makes a very fair point about the need to ensure that the statistics on which we make decisions are reliable, and an even more important point that we cannot just export our waste and pretend that that is not having an impact somewhere else.

My final resting-point on my tour of great Cambridge places is Cambridge’s Daily Bread Co-operative, which is launching its zero-waste scheme this week. My point is that wherever we turn, we find people wanting to bring forward new and welcome initiatives. That brings me to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee; I am standing opposite its Chair, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and I am grateful to him for being in the Chamber this afternoon. The Committee is in the midst of an inquiry on food and drink packaging, which has allowed me the delight of reading through both its proceedings and its evidence.

I suspect the hon. Gentleman will want to comment on some of that, but the experts consulted by the Committee tell us that while changes can be made, we must temper our enthusiasm with realism, because there is probably no easy answer or quick fix to the problem. Packaging plays an important role in keeping food fresh, safe and affordable, so although moving away from pre-packaged foods in shops, restaurants and cafes is probably possible, the question becomes more difficult and complicated when we consider freight and production.

Despite that, it definitely seems possible to me significantly to reduce the amount that we use here in the UK, but it would be simplistic to assume that we could just transfer that way of producing and transporting food all over the world, when in some places the same level of technology is not yet readily available.

It is important to remember where the most environmental damage is done. In evidence to the EFRA Committee inquiry, Peter Maddox, from WRAP UK, explained that

“when you look at a piece of meat, a nice eight ounce beefsteak in a package with a film on top…the carbon impact of the steak is over 100 times bigger than the carbon impact of the packaging. That packaging is providing extremely innovative barrier properties, which enables that meat to last a lot longer. If you did not have it in that pack, that meat might last three days. If you have it in a really good sealable pack, it will last 10 days. You start then thinking about what consumers want, reducing food waste and the fundamental economic value of that piece of meat. You need to think about it in terms of the whole product.”

Having read through the evidence, that message comes through loud and clear. The whole product and the whole life-cycle analysis are key. We must recognise that as we continue our efforts to reduce non-recyclable packaging. There is so much we can do, but it is realistic to admit that we cannot eradicate its use completely overnight.

However, we must not lose our ambition. The Royal Society of Chemistry, based in Cambridge, highlighted in evidence to the inquiry that, although bio-derived and biodegradable plastics will play a role in addressing the challenges caused by conventional plastic waste, they should not be used to legitimise a throwaway culture; they are not necessarily more environmentally benign than conventional plastics; and their impact as a replacement for conventional plastics must be considered on a life-cycle basis. This suggests that despite technological advancement, cultural awareness and change are still crucial. The UK cannot absolve itself of responsibility for mass corporate and personal behaviour change just because technology is advancing.

At the roundtable in Cambridge last week, Seigo Robinson and others were concerned that reducing non-recyclable plastic packaging was not necessarily compatible with the drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For example, it was said that “carting around loads of refillable jam jars” would use “loads of CO₂”; we may not have been precise or measurable on this occasion, but hon. Members will get the point. Alternatives to plastic packaging, such as paper, steel, wood and glass, could sadly have far worse carbon footprints. People said that plastic pollution of the oceans and carbon emissions needed to go hand in hand, and argued that recycling ought to be a last resort; people should look at using reusable containers for many years before thinking about the need for recycling.

Continuing my spirit of generosity towards the Government—I have no idea why I am in this generous mood, but I am—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

He is a generous Minister.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Perhaps, and perhaps I have some sympathy with the Government’s current travails. However, it is fair to say that we have seen progress. The Government have looked at banning plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic cotton buds, but I fear that they have so far been rather reluctant to introduce the fiscal measures that we now know do work. The plastic bag charge was discussed over many years, and it has now taken 15 billion plastic bags out of circulation. Imagine what proper fiscal incentives and taxes could do to change the way our society considers waste and how committed we all are to recycling.

The drink stirrer announcement grabbed headlines, but we need to seize this moment to make the “rapid”, “unprecedented” and “far-reaching” transitions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report called for in October. In evidence to the EFRA Committee’s inquiry, the Green Alliance recommended moving away from piecemeal action and approaching plastic, packaging and resource use in general in a much more systemic way. This means viewing plastic as just one resource among many used in our economy, all of which have environmental impacts of some sort.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the general public need to have a good look at how they perceive foods? I am always aware of this issue when it comes to the general public buying potatoes. What they want to see in Asda, Tesco and all the big superstores is a nice wee carton of half a dozen potatoes, washed, cleaned and ready for the pot. Potatoes as I and others in the Chamber know them come in a half a hundredweight bag bought from the farmer. You know something? That is real potatoes.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful for the intervention, but I think it leads us into a slightly broader discussion about people’s view of the world. I have to say that I rather hanker after a less homogenised culture in general. In a discussion we had last week, I recalled a time when we respected the seasons. We did not expect peppers to be available for 365 days a year, which perhaps gave us something to look forward to. There is something in the human spirit that we could look into. However, the supermarkets will say that it is what people want. That is the dilemma that we face.

Returning to the Green Alliance—I am on the way home from the supermarket—its overall recommendation is, to coin a phrase, to go back to basics: reduce the amount of unnecessary plastics used, reduce dangerous chemical use and rationalise the number of polymer types that go into plastic production to improve recycling, which is really important. That is all while promoting systems for reuse and ensuring that we use recyclable and recycled materials. It argues that this requires a more strategic approach to infrastructure, not simply leaving it to the market. I suspect this is where some of the political disagreements may emerge. However, I very much agree. I wish the Government would accept that challenge and develop a framework that advocates system change.

As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said when chairing the inquiry, reducing non-recyclable waste

“is going to be quite difficult to do…but it is how far we go and how wide we go…it is down to the big retailer as well as the consumer. It is going to be an interesting education for all of us”.

I very much agree. This is the point: we must take people with us, rather than being punitive, which is why education and making change easy for people are crucial. Essentially, if we make it too much of a faff for people to change their behaviour, people will be turned off and will not do it.

I believe that people want to do the right thing—to be environmentally conscious and to live sustainably—but time and resources dictate that we have to make this the easy choice, in a socially just way, and not simply for those who can afford the time or money to change their consumption habits. I hope the Minister will tell us how the Government might go about making this happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to this interesting and useful debate, which has been conducted in a positive and constructive spirit. The contributions from all the Front-Bench speakers were very welcome. I was particularly enthused by the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and his passion for change, and I was very much taken by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and her talk of a plastic calamity or crisis.

I will conclude by returning to the petitioners. When they say:

“The British public WANTS to recycle but we can’t get away from the vast amounts of waste that poorly designed packaging creates”,

they are putting out a plea to us to get this right. When they say,

“appoint people to design alternatives”,

I am not sure who they have in mind, but if we do get it right,

“the UK will thank you!”

That is something with which we could all agree.

I will end on a slight note of difference: I do not entirely agree with the Minister that we are in exactly the same place. I suspect that in the end, the Opposition are a touch more interventionist—in fact, we are much more interventionist.

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Let me take the slightly unusual step of saying from the Chair that this subject, which is hugely important to the people we all represent, has been covered so well that I am hugely impressed. I do not think that a single word was wasted in any speech made by anybody, on whichever side of the House. It has been a privilege to chair the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 232684 relating to unsustainable packaging.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

Yes, we will. The plan will include targets to ensure that good environmental status is met for seabirds and set the indicators that we use to assess their status. Of course, we will continue to do other work such as reducing the impact of invasive species, which are damaging seabird colonies; carrying out the UK plan of action on seabird bycatch; and, as many across the House support, reducing marine litter, particularly marine plastic.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

11. Whether he plans to meet representatives of the Environment Agency to discuss the recent pay dispute at that agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

No.

[Daniel Zeichner]

That is very disappointing to hear. We have just heard praise for the Environment Agency, but its staff have seen a 20% cut in real terms over the past decade. The agency is suffering from recruitment and retention problems and, inevitably, low morale. Will the Minister think again and at least press the Environment Agency to reopen the discussions?

[Dr Coffey]

No, because it is an operational matter for the Environment Agency and it would not be appropriate for the Government to get involved in the human resources issues of an independent agency.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I had better answer this with a coat of honey. It is important that this Parliament is open to nature. We have already seen great changes through the Administration Committee and what we are trying to do about elements of plastic. The Department already has a beehive on its roof and I am keen that we should continue to do whatever we can as leaders. I am sure that my hon. Friend will also be very aware of the national pollinator strategy and how important it is to the future of biodiversity and sustainable food production.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T5. At Treasury questions a few weeks ago, Ministers boasted about how much hauliers had saved through the freezing of the fuel duty escalator. When I challenged them on the environmental impact, they looked absolutely amazed, as though the thought had never cross their minds. Should the Secretary of State be in a position of influence later this summer in a new Administration, will he be equally blinkered or will he be bold in tackling emissions from road transport?

[Michael Gove]

I am frankly amazed at the suggestion that any Minister should indulge in something as prideful as boastfulness. I suspect that my Treasury colleagues were pointing out that this Government combines economic efficiency with environmental stewardship in an unprecedented fashion, which is why we have been responsible for reducing carbon emissions faster than any other G20 nation while at the same time growing the economy over the past 20 years by more than 66%.

Environment and Climate Change

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I think we were all impressed by the passion of the children across the country who have taken action over the last few weeks and those in Extinction Rebellion who had never been involved in protests before.

We can all talk about climate change, but seeing the evidence at first hand makes a real difference. I was fortunate to visit the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge last week, where Dr Huw Griffiths, who I was paired with in a Royal Society scheme and who was just back from the Antarctic, and Professor David Vaughan showed me their extraordinary ice cores. Ice cores are dug down deep into the ice, forming a pathway back into the past, with little bubbles from centuries past captured from the atmosphere. They are able to chart the rises and falls in temperature and emissions in the atmosphere and show exactly what has happened to our climate over the last few millenniums. The chart shows temperatures going up and down, up and down, and we should be entering the cooling period, but the chart shows that temperatures are going up. That graphic representation makes it all clear.

That is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was so right last year to demand “rapid”, “unprecedented” and “far-reaching” transitions. We are not seeing that from the Government. For example, we have not seen cuts in road transport emissions, so why were the Government so pathetic in their response to suggestions that they look again at the fuel duty escalator? For goodness’ sake! It was introduced by a Conservative Government. Why was there such a negative response to Labour’s brave suggestion to restore our bus services by transferring money from vehicle excise duty? Those are the kinds of things that will make the difference—not honeyed words, as we heard from the Secretary of State, but rapid, unprecedented and far-reaching transitions. That is what we need.