Adapting to Climate Change: EU Agriculture and Forestry (EUC Report)

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to congratulate my noble friend Lord Framlingham—the noble Lord, Lord Lord—on his excellent maiden speech and to welcome him to the House. Besides gracing the green grass at Twickenham, he is a great sportsman because he also captained the parliamentary golfing association and has participated in many other sports. He has also done lots of other things in his life. He has great experience, which he will bring to the House, in local government, having served on North Bedfordshire Borough Council and Bedford County Council before he contested the seat of Manchester Gorton in 1979 where he got over 38 per cent of the vote, and nobody has come close to that figure since then. He was realised as a good bet for the future, and he moved from a Labour stronghold to a fairly good Conservative stronghold in Central Suffolk which later became Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, which he served from 1983 to 2010. More important than that, he brings to this House huge experience in agriculture and, particularly, forestry, and we welcome him for that especially. He graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with an MA. Presumably he played rugby for Cambridge rather than for the rather superior Oxford, which I would have supported, although I did not go there. His knowledge of forestry will be important in the future. We welcome my noble friend. We all enjoyed his maiden speech very much.

Turning to the debate, I say to my noble friend Lord Henley that I sympathise with him because he has an utterly impossible job. Far too much is expected of Governments but Governments cannot manage the climate. There is too much sensational press reporting on climate change and utter confusion in the minds of a lot of people who cannot separate climate change and manmade or man-encouraged greenhouse gases. Underlying all that, there is a huge lack of scientific knowledge. What there is is often contradictory.

The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, talked about air temperature. Just to show that we are not all on the same side, I would rather welcome a change in air temperature and a little warming in Caithness. That would be good. After all, it was much warmer in the days of the bronze age, as can be seen from archaeological evidence. My noble friend Lord Teverson will know that from Dartmoor. I know it from Caithness. It was certainly warmer when my ancestors, the Norsemen, came over to this country and benefited by integrating with the Picts.

Air circulation, an issue on which we are short of scientific knowledge, concerns me more. We are told that because air temperature is going to rise it will be more stormy. But the storms that bring the rain to this country, mostly during the winter, arise very much because of the difference in temperature between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. The wider that temperature, the greater the storms. If, as it is, the Arctic ocean is increasing in temperature, the gradient between the two temperatures is decreasing and the chances of storms are decreasing. We believe that that is what happened in the times of the Norsemen who went Viking. That could bring positive benefits but it could also mean that we will have very variable rainfall in the future. I am rather more sceptical than the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, as regards manmade climate change but I take the precautionary principle. I think that that is based on the fact that I am more of a countryman. I really believe that we have abused our planet in far too many ways.

On agriculture, the key to adaption, mitigation and changes for the future is the common agricultural policy, reform of which is essential. In her excellent introduction to the debate my noble friend Lady Sharp spelt that out clearly. However, what is more important about changing the CAP is the fact that it is the only way in which the EU will ever get close to playing a part—I hope a strong part—in feeding the burgeoning world population. I believe that to be a much more serious threat than manmade climate change. That is why paragraphs 68 and 69 of our report are so important and I welcome the Government’s reaction to that point.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Henley will work towards a reform of the common agricultural policy that is flexible because each area in Europe is different. Each area in the UK is different. Some of the solutions will need to be quite local. We have talked about the air circulation of the jet stream, which affected our weather this winter and brought on the early snow. Sutherland and Caithness are adjoining counties in the north of Scotland; one has hills and one has not. A local solution will be extremely important. Perhaps I may stress to my noble friend Lord Henley how worried some of us were about evidence that we received from the Commission, which seemed totally to lack comprehension that we are a maritime climate, unlike most of the rest of the continent. Therefore, our problems are different, particularly in the less-favoured areas.

As my noble friend Lord Framlingham said, there is a change of perception of forestry. There also is a change of perception as to how people view the countryside. That is why paragraph 150, in which we say that farmers and foresters must be compensated when they make a provision of public goods, is important. The Government gave a warm response to that recommendation. However, that is the easy bit. The difficult bit is how to value the provision of public goods. If my noble friend can say anything on that, it would be very helpful.

A point that has not been raised is regulation in agriculture and forestry. In our current report alluded to by my noble friend Lady Sharp, we took evidence from Rothamsted Research, which said:

“The disjunction between restrictive regulation in the EU and the lack of resources for agricultural research and innovation is probably the biggest threat to the long-term viability and competitiveness of EU agriculture”.

We will discuss that rather more fully next Tuesday evening, so I will not say anything more now.

I want to say a brief word about forestry, which was mentioned by my noble friends Lady Sharp and Lord Teverson. We do need more trees. That is essential not just for their significance as regards carbon but also for preventing the further degradation of soils. However, unless trees are profitable, they are not going to be planted. If they are not profitable, the taxpayer is going to have to subsidise the landowner or planter of the trees. That brings me back to paragraph 150, which I have just mentioned. Agriculture is one thing: you grow a crop and harvest it in the same year. When you plant a forest you are looking at what your grandchildren will harvest. Therefore anyone who is going to plant trees has to have confidence in the Government. As Governments change, we have seen time and time again that what one Government promise, the next may renege on. More importantly, the woodland owner has to compete with the Forestry Commission. As we discussed the other day, the Forestry Commission is both judge and jury in its own right. It controls anything a private owner can do and can set up in competition to the private owner. My noble friend faces a huge challenge in creating a climate in which people can have the confidence to plant trees for the future. It is necessary, but under the present structure with the Forestry Commission, it is not likely to happen.

I end with a brief word about innovation and research. There is no doubt that our research base, which, as my noble friend Lord Selborne said, has stood us in good stead, is now at severe risk. We were prime leaders around the world, something the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, knows far better than me. British agriculturalists did a phenomenal amount of good work in Africa and elsewhere. Unless we put more into research and allow farmers to innovate by ensuring that the resulting knowledge reaches farming and forestry people, I am afraid that we face a fairly bleak future.