English Horticultural Sector (Horticultural Sector Committee Report)

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, before sowing seeds, one must have access to them and the right land on which to grow them. Of the report’s 167 conclusions and recommendations, only two relate to the seed from which all horticultural crops are produced and there is scant mention of our grade 1 land. These are serious omissions. Ironically, the remaining conclusions depend on them.

Post Brexit, the UK plant breeding sector seed suppliers are facing increased regulatory costs, delays and uncertainty. New plant health regulations have brought more bureaucracy, costs and problems in moving seed and breeding material to and from the EU; at least one breeding partnership between the UK and the continent has been cancelled.

The Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency is not fit for purpose. At least 200 new vegetable varieties are currently affected by its delays and are stalled in the registration process. In a sector that is so dependent on seasonality, such delays can have a devastating impact on individual businesses. Some breeders are not submitting new varieties for registration. These problems pose an existential threat to horticulture growers’ future access to improved varieties, which will be essential to help them to respond to a changing climate, changing pest and disease threats, demands for more sustainable farming practices and changing consumer preferences.

Most of our vegetables and salads are grown on grade 1 land. I understand that much of this land is let on one-year farm business tenancies and that the rotations being practised are accelerating its degradation and threatening our food security. On the question of whether to continue to farm or to rewet these agriculture peatlands, does the Minister agree that it is better to carry on cropping them, protect the remaining carbon and reduce the overall GHG footprint through dynamic water level management and limiting the extent of summer water table drawdown combined with regenerative farming? This would spread the environmental impact over a longer timeframe and more tonnes of produce. Total rewetting raises the question of reducing food production capacity here and the vexed issue of offshoring, possibly to where worse practices take place. Furthermore, soils that have been waterlogged that are drained and then rewetted behave differently in their emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from soils that have never been drained, so carbon emissions might be reduced at the expense of increased emissions of more potent greenhouse gases.

I will go further than some today: I would like to see a radical rethink of how we translate our world-leading position in agriculture-related academic science into farm-level innovation and sustainable farming activity growth. The UK’s applied research base in crop science is too fragmented and lacks focus on key policy objectives. We need to learn from and copy what other countries have done in creating national centres of excellence and attracting investment in public-private projects and international partnerships, such as Wageningen in the Netherlands, Embrapa in Brazil and New Zealand’s Plant & Food Research. In conclusion, I make a plea to this and future Governments: stop making promises to farmers such that made to the horticultural industry which was broken only one year later.

Sustainable Farming Incentive: Species Management and ELMS

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Caithness]

That this House takes note of the announcement of changes to the Sustainable Farming Incentive by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 4 January, and the case for including species management within the Environmental Land Management Scheme to support populations of endangered species and biodiversity in general.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, tonight is Burns Night. All around the world people will celebrate Scotland’s most famous bard and lyricist, but Burns was also a farmer whose poetry reflected his view of the natural world as a dynamic ecosystem that needed to be treated with care for the sake of us all and our fragile planet. Over the years his way of farming changed, and we ended up in 2020 lumbered with the discredited EU common agricultural policy. During that time farming gradually lost most of its vital connection with nature, which is one of the reasons why our planet is under such huge stress.

However, in 2020, with the Agriculture Act, the Government set out the new way forward for farming in England. The environmental land management scheme was to become the main vehicle for providing financial support to farmers in the future. The purpose of ELMS is to reward farmers, tenants, landowners, land managers, growers and foresters for delivering “public goods” and to make

“a significant contribution to the environment”—

something that Burns would have thought logical. The new scheme was to be phased in on a transitional basis, beginning in 2021 and ending in 2027. We are now half way through the transition period. It is therefore a sensible time to stand back and assess how it is working.

Transitions for most people are difficult and, like moving house, emotional. I pay tribute to the farming community, who are adapting to a new and evolving system, learning new bureaucratic and technological skills, while still running their businesses with many working seven days a week as well as having to coping with an increasingly changeable climate.

The transition has not been, and is still not, straightforward. Systems need to change and adapt as they are developed. The 2020 proposals of a sustainable farming incentive, local nature recovery and landscape recovery have evolved. There have been mergers of policy as well as additions and subtractions. This has added complications for farmers in joining, adapting and changing schemes: grants have been forgone and payment windows narrowed. This year farmers will receive a minimum 50% reduction of their direct payments, which for many are the only reason they are able to stay in business. To date only 10% have engaged with SFI.

There have been concerns about the speed of implementation and complexity of the scheme, the problems faced by upland farmers, the need for more clarity and certainty as to what farmers need to do, the need for tenant farmers to be able to participate fully and, inevitably, the amount of funding available. The Government have been accused of not providing adequate levels of support to farmers during the rollout of the scheme. The transition is clearly telling on some farmers, with calls to that excellent organisation the Farming Community Network showing a notable increase in stress and financial-related problems.

However, the overall feedback on ELMS has been that it is a good step and in the right direction. The Government have shown flexibility by addressing many of the concerns and further, much welcomed, improvements to the scheme were announced in and following the speech of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State on 4 January. Nevertheless, that speech did not alleviate criticism that the rollout of the new scheme has been too slow.

The Office for Environmental Protection, in its recent report on the progress of the Government’s policies for improving the natural environment in England, argued that while some progress had been made on implementation of ELMS, its rollout needs to be accelerated. The Country Land and Business Association has criticised the Government for not opening applications for the updated scheme until the summer of 2024, arguing that farm businesses urgently need more financial support now.

Getting more information and detail out to farmers quickly is a must. I join the National Farmers’ Union in wanting full details of the combined SFI/Countryside Stewardship scheme offer made available as soon as possible, along with a date for when the new application window will be open. The Tenant Farmers Association reminded me that a similar summer promise was made last year, but summer did not come until 1 September. I say to my noble friend: that is not acceptable this year. It must be much earlier than that.

It is good to hear farmers discussing how much of their output has increased and inputs reduced through farming in a more nature-friendly way. The improved payment rates for the SFI and Countryside Stewardship scheme are to be commended. However, farmers can now sign a five-year agreement using SFI payments, which give a better return than producing food but with no measurable benefit to nature. That might turn out to be a catastrophic own goal. Can my noble friend reassure me and the Nature Friendly Farming Network that a measurable level of environmental benefit will also be required in return for a grant?

The Government need to meet their environmental targets, in particular their commitment to the apex goal within the environmental improvement plan of thriving plants and wildlife. There is a legally binding target for species abundance by 2030, with a requirement to increase species populations by 10% by 2024. The Government have said that ELMS will support species recovery and management action by farmers, landowners and other managers. For the purpose of ELMS, the Government define species recovery and management as covering those actions which

“increase the abundance of particular species, including by managing other species (invasive non-natives and predators) that present a threat, and supporting rare native breeds”.

Given all the international agreements and conventions to which the UK has signed up, the additional national legislation, the increase in organisations interested in areas set aside for wildlife and the large sum of taxpayers’ money already spent annually on agri-environment schemes, this country should have a surfeit of wildlife. It does not, so one must ask: why has it failed so badly? One part of the answer is that it is widely acknowledged that there are three legs to the stool of nature conservation: providing habitat, providing good food sources, and legal predator management. The first leg has been available for some time and the second is more recent. They are options within SFI but the third is not—and a two-legged stool does not function well.

It is just too simplistic and naive to blame all the failure on farming operations. It is true that habitat provision through agri-environment schemes has produced benefits for certain aspects of the life cycle for a great many species. The provision of attractive nesting habitat, foraging areas in summer and winter, and winter food resources in the “hungry gap” has helped. The cirl bunting and corncrake are notable beneficiaries. The introduction of new premium payments for certain high-priority actions, including nesting plots for lapwing, is welcome. However, of deep concern are the many examples of the provision of habitat alone not halting decline of species, let alone bringing about recovery. I would mention puffins, Manx shearwaters, water voles, brown hares, grey partridge, black grouse, curlew and lapwing.

In 2015 and 2016, as part of the curlew recovery initiative based on the Shropshire/Welsh border, 30 nests were monitored to find the cause of curlew breeding failure in a significant local population in excellent habitat. In each year, only 1% of nests got beyond the egg stage to produce chicks. All chicks were subsequently lost. Over 50% of the egg predation was by foxes and 25% by badgers, which are protected, with crows also being a significant nest robber.

Approximately £23 million per year is spent on agri-environment options to support breeding waders on grassland, but given the poor results, one must question whether this is good value for money. Clearly, more needs to be done and there is good evidence across Europe that, where the provision of the right habitat alone has failed, the combination of habitat improvement and targeted, effective predation management can lead to the recovery of species of conservation concern.

As a result of a conservation programme led by the RSPB, Natural England, the Landmark Trust and the National Trust to exterminate the rats on Lundy Island in the early 2000s, sea bird numbers have been restored to levels not seen since the 1930s. For instance, puffin numbers have increased from 13 birds in 2002 to 375 in 2019. Despite this species management success, the RSPB still argues that management does not work. Its recent research on the response of breeding waders to predation management is arguably flawed, as it did not apply predation management to the level of intensity recommended by professional game and wildlife managers. That meant that it was always likely to be ineffective—possibly, that is what it was designed to be. It was also unethical. If one is going to take one species in support of another, one needs to ensure that one’s approach is effective. Furthermore, if the RSPB claims that species management does not work, I wonder why it is a partner in the project to eradicate stoats, which have been posing a threat to Orkney’s internationally important wildlife since their introduction there in 2010.

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, or GWCT, has proved the RSPB wrong on predation management of wildlife on farms. Thirty years of careful scientific research on its commercial demonstration farm in Leicestershire have demonstrated that numbers of songbirds, and other wildlife numbers across the farm, are significantly higher when there is proper species control than when there is not. It has followed the three-legged stool principle and, with management, songbird numbers have doubled alongside a commercial farming operation.

It is good to read reports of the water vole, better known to some as Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, returning to areas in which it once thrived. They were virtually wiped out, mostly due to predation by mink, which decimated whole colonies. Now, with the successful use of the GWCT-designed mink trap, numbers are rising again, proving that targeted management can benefit a variety of endangered species.

Given that it is so important to improve wildlife numbers, I ask my noble friend why the Government are not introducing a set of funded standards to contribute towards the cost of the management required to aid the recovery of species, especially those on the red list, when there is so much evidence to prove that it works.

The Government have set a good course for the future of farming. It is farmers and land managers who will make it work, or not, within the remit set by Defra. The recent welcome announcement makes ELMS more attractive to farmers to sign up to. However, farmers, as well as producing food, must be required to demonstrate that the taxpayers’ money they receive is producing public goods that make a significant contribution to the environment. Species management can help in that and should be added to the SFI options. If there are no public goods, the Treasury will be much more inclined to reduce Defra’s budget than to increase it. I beg to move.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I also conscious of my noble friend Lord Robathan’s remark that “less can be more”, so I will curtail quite a lot of what I might be able to say.

However, I want to pick up one point made by the right reverend Prelate. He might not be aware, but it was due entirely to the work of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Hayman, and myself that we got soil into the environmental improvement plan. It was promised through the soil health action plan. It was the pressure that we put on the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that got the Government to change their view. It is a pity that the soil health action plan was not implemented, because the OEP is having great difficulty in getting any measurement of how soil can be improved.

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend the Minister. Again, we are lucky enough in this House to have a Minister who is experienced in farming and the countryside and who understands the matter probably far more than his civil servants. When it came to his remarks about the difference between management control of grey squirrel and deer and control of other species, I thought he was dancing on a pinhead. His officials need to be kicked pretty blooming hard and told that they need a better argument than that.

The Government have set farmers legally binding targets for 2030, but they are not letting farmers have a full toolbox of measures to tackle that. There is a risk of creating perfect habitats with taxpayers’ money for a whole range of species which would just become population sinks unless there is more help for farmers in protecting those species from predators.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take two serious messages back to his Secretary of State and to No. 10. First, we need to get on with SFI schemes. It is no good just saying, “It’s going to be in the summer”; we want it as soon as possible. Secondly, we need more on predator management.

Motion agreed.

Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Trees, on securing this debate, and I welcome my noble friend the Minister to the House and the Front Bench.

The human devastation wreaked by Covid-19 has demonstrated the huge potential impact of zoonotic diseases and the need to use every scientific tool at our disposal to prevent and guard against future outbreaks. The role of science and innovation is critical in providing potential solutions.

I am glad to say the UK ranks third in the world in agricultural research. To pick up almost the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, world-leading progress is being made by UK scientists using the most advanced genetic techniques to develop animals that are resistant to many of these potentially zoonotic diseases. Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh pioneered the gene-edited trait conferring complete resistance to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome in pigs. The first PRRS-resistant pigs are expected to be approved for commercialisation in the United States later this year but not in the UK. Our scientists are at the forefront of research to combat infectious diseases such as avian influenza in poultry and African swine fever in pigs. What are the Government doing to unlock the potential of these advances for British farms more quickly?

With reference to the precision breeding Act, will the Minister reconsider the imposition of extra animal welfare hurdles in relation to precision-bred animals, which do not currently apply to conventionally bred animals, because the underpinning rationale of the legislation is that precision-bred organisms could equally have been produced using conventional breeding methods?

Infectious diseases do not differentiate between animals reared intensively or extensively, and the biosecurity associated with modern housed livestock systems is more effective at keeping disease out or keeping disease in. Thus, does the Minister agree that good intensive livestock farming may be the key to reducing the risk of future pandemics? Bird flu, for example, is spread by migrating wild birds, so the response to an outbreak is not to increase the extent of free-range systems but to keep all farmed poultry indoors. The recent news from the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency that an unprecedented and highly contagious bird flu outbreak in the sub-Antarctic has spread to mammals there is a further sobering reminder of the ability of these emerging infectious diseases to cross species barriers. Can the Minister please give the House an update on that position?

The crossing of species barriers takes me on to wild animals and plants. There are increasing calls for species reintroductions to help to meet government biodiversity and species abundance goals and to build resilience in ecosystems by reinforcement, assisted colonisation, reintroduction and translocation. The number of new pests and diseases affecting trees in the UK has increased by almost 500% over the last 20 years, and most of those have come from imported stock. Why is Defra not following best practice in vetting for disease in its code and guidance on reintroductions of plants and animals? The [ recommends that a disease risk analysis is carried out for all conservation reintroductions and translocations.

The House of Commons EFRA Committee’s recent inquiry into species reintroductions highlighted Natural England’s evidence to it that disease risk is a weakness in the current Defra code and guidance, and it recommended the need for any reintroduction or translocation risk assessment to include disease implications. Only 10 native species are subject to the Defra code. Consequently, most native species translocations, even outside their current or historic geographical range, are unregulated and the risk of the spread of disease is not addressed.

When Covid-19 struck we turned to the best available, most advanced genetic technologies for solutions, and we celebrated the scientific developments in both the public and private sectors that made this possible. We must apply the same science-based principles to the use of new genetic technologies in agriculture to improve prospects for the control of infectious diseases. That is essential for the health and welfare of animals and plants, and to reduce the risk of future pandemics in the human population. The very essence of biosecurity is that preventing something arriving is much more effective and cost-efficient than trying to eradicate it once it is here.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Caithness]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 1, at end insert—
“(A1) This section has effect in a calendar year only if, before the end of the previous calendar year, the Secretary of State has made a statement in writing to the effect that, in the Secretary of State’s view, its operation will not cause unintended and perverse consequences for wildlife conservation and for communities in areas outside Great Britain where hunting takes place.”

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill has very little effect in or on the UK, but it potentially has huge effect in every country of the world where trophy hunting takes place. As was made very clear at Second Reading, many of the reasons for this Bill are emotionally, rather than scientifically, based. The position of the proponents of the Bill is entrenched.

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee, better known as the JNCC, is a public body set up by Parliament that advises the Government and devolved Administrations on UK-wide and international nature conservation. It is very relevant to this Bill. On its website it states:

“As the UK’s statutory advisor on international conservation matters, we have a long history of experience in this area. We play a leading role in providing high-quality evidence and technical advice on the development and implementation of international nature conservation agreements, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity … the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats … and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)”.


Thus, the JNCC performs a similar role for the Government in respect of animals as does Kew in respect of plants. Crucially, it provides scientific advice to the UK CITES management authority, Defra, as to whether imports are likely to be detrimental to species survival or not. Its views are of the utmost importance and its advice should be followed, unless there is good reason not to. It has given independent advice to the Secretary of State, who has ignored it. Although she was warned it would happen, in doing so she has undermined its credibility and the standing of the UK in international conservation. If its own Secretary of State does not heed the advice of the JNCC, why should any other nature organisation in the world do so?

To me, the most striking pieces of independent advice and damning criticism that the JNCC has given the Secretary of State, and which she has ignored, are: Defra has no interest in the efficacy or the impact of legislation; the consultation on the Bill was expressly designed to create a political mandate for action; Defra and the UK will need to own the negative consequences of any ban, as well as taking the plaudits from those in favour; and an outright ban is likely to have unintended and perverse consequences for wildlife conservation and the viability of communities reliant on hunting revenue.

It is the last piece of advice by the JNCC that inspired this amendment. I am grateful to it, and to the freedom of information laws in this country which have allowed its advice to be made public. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to be advised each year about the unintended consequences of trophy hunting that the JNCC believes will occur, and to publish their judgment. If it is found that there are unintended consequences, Clause 1 would cease to have effect.

In moving Amendment 1, I confirm that I have no interest to declare. I do not own a hunting trophy and agree that some criticisms of trophy hunting, when it is not carried out to the highest standards, are justified. When it is badly managed, trophy hunting can be unsustainable. It can lead to local level overexploitation of some wildlife species and illegal killings. When it is badly managed, it can affect the social structure, behaviour and genetics of some species. It can affect other wildlife and tourism. Some benefits that should reach local communities do not, and it can engage in unethical practices which affect wildlife conservation. However, these criticisms do not apply to all trophy hunting and one should not throw the good out with the bad.

Let me mention some of the benefits of well-managed trophy hunting that justify my amendment. The most important is that as a result of trophy hunting, land is set aside for wildlife. The greatest pressure on wildlife is from human population growth, with its demand for food and the increasing expansion of agriculture and urban development in former wild areas. To avoid this pressure, the remaining wild areas must provide jobs, resources and other financial benefits.

In Tajikistan, trophy hunting conservation initiated by NGOs and the local community started in 2008, and now about 420,000 hectares of land is managed by local, traditional hunters from a community living an almost subsistence existence. Around 300 jobs have been created and 20,000 community members benefit indirectly. Sadly, all too often with human beings comes organised crime. That crime, poaching, has facilitated a dramatic decline of elephants and rhinoceros in parts of Africa and southern Asia, reversing decades of conservation achievements. Poaching is indiscriminate as to age, sex or species and in most cases leads to a painful and lingering death for the animal, whereas trophy hunting can be selective, with a clean and quick death. Poaching in the hunting areas of Tajikistan is now almost non-existent. The numbers of Asiatic ibex and markhor have increased and the decline in the population of snow leopards has been reversed. There is a much more stable food supply for the community.

In neighbouring Pakistan, in Gilgit-Baltistan, there are now more than 50 designated community conservation areas, covering more than 30% of the total land area—about 21,750 square kilometres. As a result of the community-based trophy hunting programme there, the population of Astore markhor, which is the national animal of the country, increased from 1,900 in 2012 to 2,800 in 2016. Similarly, in Balochistan, the population of Sulaiman markhor, which is an endemic sub-species that had a highly threatened status because of the Afghan war and the tribal area system—which had no solid implementation of wildlife laws—doubled between 2000 and 2011 to over 3,500. As a result, markhor were upgraded to near-threatened species by the IUCN in 2015. For anyone interested in conservation that is a remarkable success story, due to trophy hunting.

Trophy hunting helps to conserve over 1.3 million square kilometres of land in Africa, which is approximately the size of France, Germany and Spain combined. It is also a fifth more than the combined area of the national parks there. If these vast areas of land were not used for wildlife conservation, in all likelihood they would see alternative and less conservation-friendly land uses.

Another important benefit is that trophy hunting earns money for conservation. It provides economic benefits to government organisations, wildlife agencies, local communities and landowners. Trophy hunting is the major source of livelihood for the communities in the far-flung mountainous areas of Pakistan. Village-based conservancies have been formed there and the money obtained from trophy hunting has been distributed through them. Eighty per cent of the revenue generated through trophy hunting goes into local communities, most of it being spent on public welfare works, while 20% of the total revenue generated goes to government departments, which usually pay the local watchers and staff salaries from it. In the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan a total of $1.35 million has been generated between 2017 and 2020, while in Balochistan, since 1989, trophy hunting has brought in a total revenue of nearly $1.75 million, of which about $1.4 million has been given to the local communities, with almost $300,000 paid to the Government there. These are substantial sums of money, especially when one considers that the per capita income is less than $1,000.

In Mexico, bighorn sheep were reintroduced to the island of Tiburón in 1975. The island is owned and managed by the Seri Indians. When numbers grew above the carrying capacity for the island, the surplus stock was either licensed for trophy hunting or young animals were sold for translocation. Between 1998 and 2007 the Seri, who controlled the process, raised $3.2 million. The funds provided much-needed income locally and were reinvested in Seri community projects, the management of the bighorn sheep population, and the maintenance of the island in an undisturbed state.

In Canada, the polar bear hunts form part of a larger indigenous co-management system in which Inuit communities participate because they choose to. Legally, they can hunt what they want so the choice is very deliberate, because they believe in co-operation. The USA tried to help polar bears by reducing hunting through a trophy imports ban, but totally ignored the fact that local communities can legally harvest their quota of bears regardless. The result has been a considerable loss of income to the Inuit community in these small, remote areas, where there have been very limited ways of generating income.

For most hunters, bringing a trophy back is important. If one is prevented from doing that, either the hunt will not take place or, if it goes ahead, the hunter will not have to pay a trophy fee. In many places, the trophy fee makes up a significant part of the revenue and its loss would weaken the economic model of that area. Thus, the effect of the Bill will be to undermine, and perhaps stop, trophy hunting, with a consequential loss of revenue for conservation and local communities.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My noble friend talks about loss of income. One of the points put forward by proponents of the Bill is that that loss could be made up through ODA and the aid budgets of different countries. Does he agree that it would not be a good use of overseas aid to make up for the money that is going to these communities as a result of trophy hunting?

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I totally agree with my noble friend on that point. One also needs to bear in mind that the local communities do not want aid. They want actually to be able to look after themselves, generate their own income and manage their populations without being given handouts by countries. They need help but do not need the type of money my noble friend has just referred to.

Another benefit from trophy hunting is that other wildlife that is not targeted for hunting is also protected, as are the local flora and fauna. I mentioned the trophy hunting of the markhor and ibex, and I add the argali sheep. Research has shown that, because those animals are now licensed to be shot, not only have their numbers increased but the wildlife population has also grown overall. This means a greater supply of food for the snow leopards and, consequently, more are found in hunting reserves in Tajikistan than outside them. Having a greater supply of food means there is less conflict with humans and their livestock. In hunting areas in Pakistan, the number of retaliatory killings of carnivores such as snow leopards, wolves, bears and foxes has been reduced, and tolerance has increased because of the economic benefits of trophy hunting.

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[Lord Swire (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I entirely agree with him that this must be evidence-based legislation, and a lot of a misleading and mischievous false information has circulated around this subject for some time. Does he share my surprise that the Minister for Environment and Tourism in Botswana felt obliged to issue today a press release, which I think was circulated to all noble Lords, refuting the allegations made by the acting CEO of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, Dr Adam Cruise, concerning trophy hunting in Botswana? Is that not precisely the sort of misleading information—rather arrogant and high-handed to a country such as Botswana—that we should avoid?

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I am sure that the source of that misinformation will not be a surprise to him or anyone else. It is a regular source of misinformation, and it was quite correctly shot down in flames by the Botswanan Government.

My noble friend raised an important point, on which I will end. We should use the Bill to improve conservation by getting rid of bad trophy hunting practices, while at the same time keeping the good and improving standards and welfare for all. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, for bringing the Bill to the House and championing it. For the Green group, I express my strongest possible support for the Bill as it stands—and opposition to all the amendments.

I have been in your Lordships’ House for nearly four years, and I have to admit that I was rather surprised when I looked at the misnamed “grouping of amendments”. I have never seen this before: it is a list of 62 amendments in 62 groups. It is surprising that people who might perhaps regard themselves as champions of the traditions of the House have produced something that has not been seen in recent history—and I checked with someone who has been around the House for much longer. It could keep this House going for several days. Those who would champion the traditions and progress of the House appear to be heading in the opposite direction with this.

It is interesting to look at the gender balance of the names on the amendments: every single one is male. There is something to be said there. Only the other day, I had a conversation with a noble Lord about how it has often been put forward that, if we could hand over some countries in the global south to the women, and let the women run things, they would look different. That might be an interesting case study tonight.

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In summary, the Government are confident in the approach and drafting of the Bill before us. For that reason, I will not be supporting Amendment 1, nor any of the amendments tabled. I hope I can persuade the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to withdraw this amendment.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and I thank the many noble Lords for their support for my amendment.

I was particularly interested in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, because I do not think that either of them actually listened to what I said. They came with pre-prepared speeches—the usual claptrap they produce when it comes to trophy hunting. I mentioned all the disadvantages of trophy hunting and said that I was trying to improve the conservation of animals. If the noble Lord does not like my examples, well, I am sorry, but at least he has not challenged the efficacy of them. I think that would have been a more helpful and constructive approach than just spieling out the usual generalisations, which we have become use to accepting from the proponents of the Bill.

My noble friend Lady Fookes gave one of the most remarkable replies from a sponsor of a Bill that I have ever heard in over 50 years in this House. She did not comment at all on any of the information that I gave, which contradicted a lot of what she said at Second Reading in generalisations. I gave specific examples which she has not contradicted—so I presume that she accepts them but does not like them.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

May I intervene? I did not deal with any of those issues because I regarded them as a Second Reading speech. I am not going to answer that kind of thing. I hope the noble Earl will not take it that I agree with everything he said, because I do not. I was trying to keep to what I believe is the purpose of a Committee stage.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

I think we all fully accept that my noble friend will not meet anybody to discuss this Bill and will not discuss it. That is very clear.

I respect the position of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, who said that it is cruel to kill any animal. I do not agree with her, but I respect her position. I wonder whether she might just consider the very fine deer herds in this country, such as in Richmond Park. They are only fine deer herds because of culling and because beasts are shot and taken out in order to continue and improve the herd. If we did not have that, we would not have the very fine deer herds we are privileged to have in this country.

My noble friend Lord Benyon said he was disappointed that no compromise had yet been found. There is a compromise. The Government have ignored the compromise and the advice of the JNCC, which is the specialist advisory body. There is no need for an advisory board. If the Government would look again at my noble friend Lord Mancroft’s amendment as a suitable vehicle to get the benefits for conservation and for local people that can be achieved, there would be a sensible way forward. Given the support I have had, I would like to test the opinion of the Committee.

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Moved by

[The Earl of Caithness]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 2, at beginning insert “Subject to section 4,”

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very simple amendment. It makes Clause 1 subject to Clause 4, which relates to the advisory committee, which we will come on to discuss in some detail. I think it is a very flawed clause of the Bill, which needs amendment. The point of this amendment is simply to make certain that the advice will be understood and taken on board by the Government when it comes to the implementation of Clause 1 of the Bill.

It is very depressing that the Government have turned their back on and totally ignored the information from their advisory body, the JNCC. It has set a bad precedent. It has undermined the JNCC and has reduced the efficacy of the Government’s work on conservation abroad. It is a very damaging decision that the Secretary of State has taken, against normal precedent. I hope therefore that, by my simple amendment, at least the consideration of the advisory board will be taken a little more seriously by the Government than they are taking advice at the moment. I beg to move.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I have already set out the Government’s position on this matter in my response to an earlier group. I have no further comments to make, and I will not be supporting this amendment. I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw it.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for all the support around the Committee I have received on that one. In view of the brief but factual reply from my noble friend the Minister, I am happy to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

I will just add on that last point: surely we should stick to the manifesto commitment, which is on endangered species. That is what we said in the manifesto. Maybe the Minister could stand up again and answer that point. Widening it in this way in Clause 2 to the 6,200 species goes far wider than what we committed to in 2019.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, to follow that up, it seems strange that my noble friend the Minister lamented that there was not a compromise on the Bill—that was when he started his reply to me on my first amendment. The Bill as presented before us is much wider than the manifesto commitment. Surely this would be an area in which a sensible compromise, achieving the aims of those of us who wish to improve the conservation of animals throughout the world and what the Government seek to do, is a possibility. If my noble friend was serious in saying that he laments the lack of a compromise, he ought to tell us where he thinks a compromise might be.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, one of the reasons I enjoy being in this House is that we have to achieve compromises in so many things. I try to work across the House to try to get half a loaf rather than no loaf at all. Here we are trying to achieve something that is workable. Annexes A and B of our wildlife trade regulations implement appendices 1 and 2 of CITES in Great Britain. They cover species at risk from international trade, listing nearly 6,000 species, as has been mentioned. These include elephants, giraffes, rhinos, big cats, bears, primates and hippos. By covering all animal species in annexes A and B of the wildlife trade regulations, we are removing any possibility of permitting the import of a hunting trophy from these species into Great Britain. Estimates of the number of species that are trophy hunted vary, but they are in the hundreds rather than the thousands. The Bill would apply to hunting trophies from all annexe A and B species. That is clear and comprehensive, avoiding confusion about what is or is not covered. Current rules on importing hunting trophies similarly apply to all annexe A and B species.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

I wonder whether my noble friend would give consideration to answering the question I put to him.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are seeking to implement the manifesto commitment.

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[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I too will be very interested in my noble friend the Minister’s reply to this amendment. It gets to the kernel of the argument, and actually teases out whether or not this whole Bill is about conservation or something completely different.

This amendment is suggesting that it would apply to

“a species classed as threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List and”—

critically, where that list records trophy hunting as a threat to that species. It does beg the question: if it does not record trophy hunting as a threat to that species, and if the animal is not on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list, why are we gold-plating legislation which would be perfectly palatable to most of us, and at whose behest?

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, having listened to the debate so far, I think that this amendment is slightly closer to Amendments 14 and 33, which are in my name, so it might be for the benefit of the House if I say my remarks now rather than repeating them at a later stage—if such a thing happens.

The Government have not told us why the present licensing system does not work. I think it is important for us to recall and think about how the present licensing system works. If anybody wants to import a trophy into the UK from a species that is listed in CITES appendix 1 or 2, there is a requirement for an export certificate from the country and an import certificate from the UK. The issuance of these certificates is based on a science-based assessment that there will be no harm to the species—that is worth stressing. In CITES terms, this is called a non-detriment finding, or NDF.

In the UK, implementation of CITES happens domestically via the principal wildlife trade regulations referred to in the Bill. The two annexes of the wildlife trade regulations that are referred to, annexes A and B, are broadly aligned with the CITES appendices. In the UK, the JNCC, as I have said before, is the relevant public body for overseeing imports of animal species, including hunting trophies. For any species listed on annexe A, JNCC is required to determine, first, that the import will not have a harmful effect on the conservation status of the species or on the extent of the territory occupied by the relevant population of the species—this is the NDF—and, secondly, that the import is taking place for one of the purposes referred to in CITES Article 8(3): that is, for research, for education, for breeding aimed at the conservation of the species, or for other purposes that are not detrimental to the survival of the species concerned.

The JNCC has interpreted other purposes that are not detrimental as including hunting trophies—as long as trophy hunting is part of a careful species management plan that should, as appropriate, be based on sound biological data collected from the target populations; clearly demonstrate that harvest levels are sustainable; be monitored by professional biologists; be promptly modified if necessary to maintain the conservation aims; demonstrate that illegal activities are under control; produce significant and tangible conservation benefits for the species; and provide benefits to, and be in co-operation with, the local people who share the area with, or suffer by, the species concerned.

For species on annexe B, the measures are less strict since, by definition, the species on this annexe are less threatened by trade, and no certificate is required other than for six exceptions: the African lion, African elephant, argali sheep, hippopotamus, polar bear and white rhinoceros. For these species, the UK has the equivalent stricter measures that it applies to annexe A species, meaning that import permits are required—including an NDF. Thus, if a hunting trophy has been issued with an import certificate by JNCC, we can be confident that this is because due process has been followed: a non-detriment finding assessment has been conducted and the assessment has indicated there is no risk to species survival.

This Bill is about conservation and preventing the further endangerment of threatened species. The system in place under CITES already performs this function through a process that has been agreed multilaterally by over 180 countries. The Bill does not need to concern itself with those species that are not under annexes A or B. I have an amendment coming up to delete annexe B. However, the amendment before us is a better one and I would be very happy to support it should it be taken to a Division. However, if it is not, I give notice to my noble friend the Minister that I will wish to divide on my amendment in due course.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, as I said earlier, I spoke at some length on the first amendment and covered many of these points. However, to address this precise amendment, it would narrow the scope of the ban to species considered threatened on the IUCN red list. Where this assessment identifies trophy hunting as a threat, it would remove the power for the UK Government to determine species in scope, which the Bill currently does through annexes A and B of the wildlife trade regulations. This amendment contradicts Clause 2, which clearly sets out the species in scope of the import ban and would remove the power for the UK Government to determine species in scope. With that in consideration, I respectfully ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. I have no interest to declare except that I have a passion, just as great as that of my noble friend Lady Fookes, for nature, conservation and biodiversity. As I had no knowledge of what trophy hunting was really about, I sought to educate myself over the past months. What were my conclusions? First, there is far too much focus on Africa alone. Secondly, rational discussion is impossible—the sides are too embedded—but I will come back to that. Thirdly, no one really seemed to understand what we are talking about with this Bill.

As some have said today, the Bill talks about just over 600 species, but the only species that have been mentioned are lions, elephants and markhors. What we import is 0.1% of the 6,000 species subject to CITES control. It is therefore no surprise that my noble friend Lady Fookes did not wax lyrical about the tree snail, because it is extinct—it is still protected by this legislation but we are talking about a past species. Another conclusion that I came to is that canned hunting should be banned, and one good thing we could do is alter the Bill so that it reflects that wish.

During the numerous conversations I have had with both sides on this, I was sad that so many of the arguments are contradictory and how much they change as soon as facts are provided. I am in good, detailed discussions with the Born Free Foundation at the moment, and have received another letter from Dame Virginia, which is highly contradictory; I will reply to it as soon as I get time to get back to my computer. Having contradictory arguments does not help the case of those who wish to stop trophy hunting.

I will pick up some points that have been mentioned. My noble friend Lady Fookes mentioned the letter. It was very sad that the so-called experts said that the case for trophy hunting is

“promulgated by certain conservation scientists, many of whom have proven funding ties to the trophy hunting industry”.

That is not an accurate statement. Also, those in glass houses should not throw stones. A lot of the pro-trophy-hunting NGOs fund scientists. I believe that our scientists, whether they are funded by one side or the other, in large or small part, are above being influenced by that organisation.

My noble friend also talked about elephants producing smaller tusks. There are a lot of problems with the number of elephants killed—96 a day—while we import, under CITES control, about six year a year. What a huge difference.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, talked about the derisory 0.06% of GDP. That is twice what the UK fishing industry brings into this country. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister would be very happy to say goodbye to the fishing industry using the same argument as the noble Baroness.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, fell back on an argument that has been put to me so many times: that, as soon as one is challenged on fact, one relates back to an ethical argument on a moral issue. The moral issue is that there should be no shooting. When I put that argument in relation to red deer in Scotland to the NGOs, they do not want to discuss it with me.

My noble friend Lord Selkirk talked about ecotourism. Tell that to those in Tajikistan. They do not have a wildebeest migration that brings in 300,000 people a year; they do not have the roads that my noble friend Lady Sanderson thinks that one can get access to; they do not hunt in the way that you do in a tame place in Africa, where you can walk for miles and might not get a shot at all. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Hannan referred to the markhor. It is by local conservancy set-ups and hunting in Tajikistan that the snow leopard is thriving in a way that it has not done before. That is because there is now enough food for it.

We know there are three basic ingredients to good biodiversity management: habitat, feed and predation. We in this country are talking about increasing and making wild belts as the green lungs for our national parks. The hunting conservancies in parts of the world are those green lungs that we wish to establish—1.3 million square kilometres, one-fifth more than national parks. We do not want to destroy that.

Trophy hunting is not, and has been proved not to be, a major threat. Habitat and prey loss and conflict among people are much more important, and the Bill does nothing to help with that.

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[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I have been called many things in my time, but to be referred to as a neocolonialist is a new one for me. I would have thought it would be applied more appropriately those who wish to perpetuate the trophy hunting culture, but I will leave that aside because we have had a long debate. There have been wind-up speeches from the Front Benches and, of course, from the Minister, who was almost doing my work for me, so I will not detain the House too long.

However, I want very firmly to challenge the view that the revenue gained from trophy hunting contributes greatly to local communities. My understanding is that very little percolates down to them, and that is something I stand by.

I was also challenged on why I was not meeting the high commissioners whose letter appeared in the Times yesterday. They are joint signatories to a letter. One of them is the high commissioner for Tanzania. Tanzania is engaged in a bitter dispute with its own people, a Maasai tribe who are being forcibly evicted from their lands. They have even sought help by coming to Europe as a delegation and going to various European countries and the European Parliament. So if trophy hunting is of such benefit to local communities, I wonder why the Maasai are taking that action. I suggest that there are far better ways of dealing with the problems of cohabiting with animals, crops and so on. There is no time now, but there are plenty of opportunities and plenty of examples whereby careful, thoughtful management of land can get animals and people to cohabit.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

I was told on the question of the Maasai that it also involved ecotourism.

[Baroness Fookes]

I have no knowledge of ecotourism. My concern was that they were being forcibly evicted from their land in a way they did not wish. Beyond that I cannot comment.

I can see that there will be no great meeting of minds on this one, so let us be quite frank about it. I believe that the Bill has a modest and useful part to play, and I am encouraged in this by a letter I received this morning from the former President of Botswana, Lieutenant-General Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama. He writes: “My experience based on facts over 23 years as head of the Defence Force, as Vice-President and then as President, are that hunting contributes to the decline in wildlife populations as hunters in several cases also poached. They corrupted the system to obtain higher quotas of animals to shoot. They seriously undermined the gene pool of male lions, elephants and other species by only shooting the most magnificent species in each category”. He adds that he believes that photographic safaris contribute far more in the creation of employment, revenue streams and so forth. I accept that is not possible everywhere in Africa, but I think we should be looking far more to schemes which allow animals and people to cohabit.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Agricultural Tenancies

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement. I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Rock for her report. I do not agree with all of it—I expect that none of us does—but I agree with its general thrust.

I was interested in what my noble friend the Minister said about the farm tenancy forum. I am slightly worried that it will become a talking shop. How will it work with the proposal for a tenant farming commissioner? There will be a clash, and one will get a bit sidelined.

Woodland is an important but hugely tricky area. Woodland is generally excluded from an agricultural tenancy, but hedgerows are not, and the hedgerows are as good at absorbing carbon as the woodland. I hope the Government will be able to devise a way forward whereby tenancy agreements can be altered to allow tenants to have bushier, wider hedgerows and plant trees in them without breaking their tenancy agreement.

Can my noble friend explain a bit more about what the RICS exercise is all about? I declare an interest as a former agent. There are indeed some bad agents, but there are bad landlords and bad tenants, and some pretty awful politicians. It happens in every trade, and I was slightly disturbed by my noble friend Lady Rock’s generalisation about how bad agents are. Agents only do what the landlord or tenant tells them to do. This will be particularly concerning in future as more and more firms that have absolutely no interest in agriculture buy up land in order to get carbon credentials into their portfolio and instruct their agent to do exactly what they want. Some accountant in Croydon will be crunching the figures and, unless the agent performs, he will be sacked. Can my noble friend tell me a little more about that?

Underlying the whole of this landlord-tenant relationship is the worry about what a future Government would do. The Labour Party, and indeed the Government, with the levelling-up Bill, are committed to buying land from landowners at below market value. If that continues, landlords will be very wary of letting any land to tenants in future.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. One of the greatest criticisms of the Tenancy Reform Industry Group—I pay tribute to the many hours many people sat on that organisation—was that it was a talking shop. People did not feel they were being listened to, and it was a way of getting off their chest concerns they knew existed. We want to make sure that the new forum is not that; that it is executive and has a snap to it. As I have said, it will meet every quarter and the Farming Minister will be one of the co-chairs. Its remit and the determination to keep it close to Ministers shows that it will be more than that.

My noble friend makes valid points about trees and hedgerows. We have published guidance on how tenants can approach tree planting and woodland schemes such as the England woodland creation offer, and we have made sure that both the tenant and landlord will need to agree to any EWCO proposal on tenanted land. I do not think that is wrong—it is absolutely right that if a major change in land use is being promoted, the landlord’s interests matter. If they do not, it will be another incentive for landlords not to let land, or indeed to bring to an end a letting arrangement when a farm becomes available and take it in hand. We want to make sure we are still providing the incentives.

My noble friend is entirely right about hedgerows. That is why we have published our new hedgerow standard as part of the new six standards for the sustainable farming initiative. But he is absolutely right that a hedge no higher than this table does not really achieve very much in terms of carbon and biodiversity. If it is much wider, much higher and preferably has an unploughed, unfarmed cultivated headland, it will be immensely more important.

My noble friend is absolutely right, of course, that a lot of agents are excellent people—I think I was when I was one—but we should not create legislation around trying to put everybody in the same boat as the bad ones. Agents are undoubtedly advising their clients as to what is best for them to secure their interests for the future and the future generations of their family. That is why we want to see the kind of changes we are making to inheritance tax, which give the incentive to landowners, on the advice of their agents, to do the right thing and encourage that. I have received inspiration from my colleague, the Minister. I might have misled the House. He is not the co-chair but, importantly, he will attend every meeting of the tenants’ forum.

Woodland Cover Protection and Grey Squirrel Control

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for initiating this important debate.

If we want to promote and protect our woodlands, we need to get much better at forestry in this country. I have said many times that we are overall pretty bad at it. Most of our woodlands are in poor condition and not managed to the proper standard. Our foresters need much better training, especially for continuous cover, which is something that I have been promoting in this House for over 50 years—I hope that its time has come.

The control of grey squirrels should be grant funded, given their impact on the delivery of key ecosystems and services such as carbon sequestration budgets and biodiversity, as well as the loss of timbers. However, grey squirrels are not the only problem and I want to focus on some of the others.

Forestry is not easy. It is easy to say, “Let’s plant more trees”, but it is a jolly sight more difficult to do that in reality. Besides grey squirrels, there are deer and, of our six species, every single one is destructive. At over 1.5 billion deer, there are far too many in this country. They cause an estimated 74,000 car accidents a year, costing £10 million in car repairs alone. Deer kill about 20 people a year and there has been no decline in human injuries in the last 20 years. The sadness is that any deer involved in a car accident will probably die a long, lingering death well away from the scene of the accident.

Those are not all the problems; there are others. I have a list of at least 25 pests or diseases, either in this country or on our doorstep, attacking every single one of our native trees: oak, ash, birch, chestnut, spruce, pine—the list could go on. In fact, one could get quite depressed about forestry, but one needs to look at it more positively.

I turn to hedgerows. I plead with the Minister to include hedgerows in the ambit of woodland. Hedgerows absorb 30 to 80 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare. The Government need to encourage farmers to have taller and wider hedgerows. The Wildlife Conservation Trust estimates that, if a farmer planted a tree every 20 metres in half the hedgerows in this country, we would plant another 14 million new trees. Farmers need to be encouraged but also their tenancies need to be looked at, because by and large with tenancies any timber is reserved to the landlord.

Those would be amenity trees but I also have a concern about commercial timber. We have a conflict between the area where commercial timber can be grown and where ground-nesting birds are, particularly species on the red list such as curlew and black grouse. Science has clearly told us that there is an increase of predation for any ground-nesting bird within woodland. It is not only about predation; there is fragmentation of the breeding sites as we plant more and more timber. As I said about chalk streams, it is about a balance in the environment. The Minister has a heck of a job to keep everyone happy, because there will always be at least one NGO that will complain.

Land Use Commission

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not entirely sure what the noble Baroness is talking about; she might have given me some examples. It is important that a land use framework gives land managers the ability to plan into the future, knowing what is predisposed from the land, where it is best to plant trees, where we will concentrate our desperate economic and environmental imperative of reversing the declines in species, and where we will produce food. We will have a real attempt at giving land managers the understanding they need to take their businesses forward in this new and changing world.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome Defra’s appreciation of the need for land use. It has taken some years in getting there, but it appears that no other department is as keen as Defra to do this. Can my noble friend tell us a bit more about his discussions with the other departments and whether they are looking constructively at this matter?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are having very good discussions across government. You cannot have a land use framework that does not address planning—I know that we will be talking about planning later today and into the night. You cannot have this conversation without talking to that department, for example, and you cannot have net zero without talking about trees. There is an absolute link-up. I reassure my noble friend that we are very serious about our conversations across government.

Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register and as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare and as a veterinary surgeon.

I very much welcome this statutory instrument and the inclusion of cats. I also welcome the fact that there is no legal requirement in these regulations that vets must scan a dog prior to euthanasia. This matter has been of some considerable public interest, but the Government deserve credit for recognising that not only the veterinary profession but many of the dog and cat bodies—such as Cats Protection, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Dogs Trust, PDSA and others—have similarly opposed a legal requirement to scan prior to euthanasia. All these bodies have advocated that that should be a matter for professional codes of practice. Indeed, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has done so and has incorporated in its code of practice appropriate advice but ultimately gives veterinary surgeons powers to use their discretion. The reason is that a legal requirement could adversely affect animal welfare. In certain circumstances, it could deter individuals from bringing sick or injured animals to a veterinary surgeon if they thought the veterinary surgeons were essentially policing this microchipping requirement. That would be adverse for animal welfare.

One regret I have, which I think I share with many in our profession and many who are required to scan animals, is that there has been no attempt to reduce or limit the number of databases holding microchip information. I understand that currently, there are 22 different databases for dogs, which are fulfilling the Government’s current requirements to hold data. That creates an unnecessary and excessive burden, both on those required to put in chips and record the information and on those who need to recover the information from scanning. However, I note that there are now two portals to assist one in determining which database contains the relevant information for any particular animal. One is run by the Kennel Club and one by AVID, a manufacturer of microchips, but these are private initiatives. One hopes that they are maintained to facilitate the examination and identification of microchips.

I very much welcome this instrument, which makes a significant contribution to reuniting dogs and cats with their owners and, importantly, to the rapid identification and potential treatment of injured dogs and cats.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this long-overdue statutory instrument. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Benyon for introducing it. I have one specific question for him, to which I really do not know the answer. Why has he chosen 20 weeks for a cat under Regulation 3(2)(a)? A cat must be older than 20 weeks, whereas a dog must be older than eight weeks. Why is there a difference?

We do not often talk about cats—it is a long time since we have had a debate on them. I am a great admirer of those lovely animals, because there is no better animal for putting a human being back in their place than a cat. However, as I have spoken about before, I am concerned by the damage they can do to wildlife in gardens, particularly birds. That problem has been exacerbated by avian flu and by humans in the way we feed birds. Research has shown that a lot of small garden birds are catching disease because, through our very best intentions, we put out a feeder and fill it up weekly but do not clean the feeder, which is what is spreading the disease to birds. Therefore, birds will be weaker and easier for cats to catch. A responsible owner will of course put a bell on their cat; excellent research has been done on this by SongBird Survival and the University of Exeter. Can my noble friend comment on whether the department is taking any more action on this or encouraging us humans to behave better? It is quite easy with domesticated cats; feral cats are a different problem. Is my noble friend taking a different attitude towards them?

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I too very much welcome this instrument, which is long overdue. I was quite shocked when I looked up the figures for how pet theft has rocketed: in my part of the world, south-west London, Metropolitan Police figures show that between 2016 and 2021 dog theft went up by 81% while cat theft went up by 325%, which I found extraordinary. Someone must be making quite a lot of money out of this.

I welcome most of the recommendations, which are very good, but I am concerned that the Government’s review of dog microchipping found quite a few areas that needed to be addressed, which I wonder if the Minister will respond to. One is the fact that the database system is so complicated, particularly for vets. When they have a life-or-death situation where an injured animal is brought in, sometimes it is very difficult for them to contact the owner and they have to go to multiple places to find this out.

Owners also need to be made much more aware that it is not a question of just microchipping their cat or dog; they then have to update the information. The number of owners who think that, once they have microchipped the animal, they do not need to do anything else is amazing. There are huge numbers of cats and dogs and other animals that have been microchipped whose owners’ information is about 10 years out of date, because they have moved house or changed their telephone number, and there is no way of getting hold of them.

In the USA, they have an annual Check the Chip Day, which sounds like a good idea. An even better idea, in Australia, is that you have your cat or dog chipped and then get an email reminder. It is very simple for one of the microchip companies just to email everyone on their database once a year just to remind them to update their details; I would have thought that that would be a good idea.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2023

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest, as set out in the register, as president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. The statutory instrument on direct payments that we are considering today is very short, and should be straightforward, but I have tabled an amendment, as we have some reservations about how the agricultural transition is being managed. This was done with no intention to confuse farmers.

Farm businesses have been facing increased volatility, uncertainty and instability and have been expressing concerns about the phase-out of direct payments against a backdrop of huge cost inflation. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, talked about the huge extra costs being faced. According to the NFU, agricultural inputs have risen by almost 50% since 2019. It says that fertilisers are up by 169%, energy by 79% and animal feed by 57%.

During a time of fresh food shortages, it is worrying that the production of salad ingredients such as tomatoes and cucumbers is expected to fall to the lowest levels since records began back in 1985. Is Defra talking to supermarkets about the need to support British farmers? The NFU survey of livestock producers found that 40% of beef farmers and 36% of sheep farmers are planning to reduce, with input costs given overwhelmingly as the main reason.

Following the survey results, and with the SI reducing payments to farmers by between 35% and 55%, I was perturbed by paragraph 12 of the Explanatory Notes, headlined Impact, which states:

“There is no or no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”.


How can there not be an impact? I also draw attention to paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which indicates that the Government intend this to be last year of the current direct payment scheme in England. It is being replaced by the delinked payment. Will that process require a further SI, or will what is in front of us today be sufficient to make that transition?

I would also appreciate clarification of the claims in paragraph 7.2, which states that direct payments are untargeted, can inflate land rent prices and can stand in the way of new entrants to the farming industry. These are quite sweeping assertions. What is the evidence base for this and what impact has the reduction in basic payments so far had on land prices and new entrants?

As the Minister knows, we have always supported the introduction of new ELM schemes and we clearly want to see them succeed, but between 2018 and 2022, Defra struggled to provide farmers with sufficient information. This unsurprisingly led to concerns, particularly against the backdrop of changes to our trading relationship with Europe, the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis.

There has been a huge number of differing pressures and uncertainty. It is no surprise that farmers are concerned and worried about all the changes that are happening. But it was very welcome that in January this year, Defra finally published the details of the three ELM schemes and provided much needed clarity to the farming sector. As we have heard, this includes a sustainable farming incentive, an expanded countryside stewardship scheme and a further round of the landscape recovery pilots.

It is important for the different options to be attractive to farmers, enabling them to produce food while helping to protect and enhance our natural environment. We have heard that this year, Defra has increased countryside stewardship payment rates and removed the caps, so that farmers can access more capital to invest in farm infrastructure, improve air and water quality and restore habitats. This is very welcome, but we believe that Defra could go further in offering support. One way could be to increase access to the higher tier options, including for hill farmers. Currently, only about 300 to 500 farmers a year benefit from this, but it has the potential to provide a flexible, effective and more attractive offer to many more farmers. Is this something the department would perhaps consider? Defra has stated that it will manage the budget in a flexible and transparent way but has not made firm allocations to each scheme. When is that information likely to be available?

We know that the successful rollout of ELMS is critical to meeting our domestic and international commitments to tackle the nature and climate crisis we face. Following COP 15, we now have international commitments to pursue more nature-friendly farming. So, while we have concerns about the lack of long-term certainty about the future that farmers are struggling with, and we still need to know details of how all this will work in practice, we do not support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.

Analysis by the Green Alliance has demonstrated that a two-year delay to the phase-out of direct payments would halve the contribution of ELMS to the fifth carbon budget, leaving a substantial gap in the UK’s net zero plans. The analysis also found that retaining the previous EU scheme for an extra two years would mean that at least £1.2 billion—that is £770 million in 2023—would continue to be spent on the wealthiest farms in England: in other words, those already receiving more than £100,000 each in public subsidy in exchange for carrying out no public goods whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the Government have dithered for a number of years over the future of ELMS, which has been significantly delayed from the original start date of 2020. There was also uncertainty when Liz Truss even looked at axing it. So, January’s announcement was very helpful, but everything has been moving far too slowly, both for farmers and for our environment. Many farmers are also concerned about a gap in funding as they work out which schemes they are eligible to apply for.

My colleague in the other place, Daniel Zeichner MP, said:

“Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine the money that’s been lost in direct payments will now be replaced through environmental schemes. Farmers are losing thousands and thousands. Labour is committed to making these schemes work and unfortunately it appears there is no such commitment from this government”.


I know that the Minister is personally very committed.

The extra £1,000 that has been mentioned is not exactly a huge sum for struggling farmers, but this SI is part of the next stage in the transition to the “public money for public goods” approach to agricultural support. We strongly support that transition, and we want it to work. We need to move to a more environmentally friendly and nature-positive food production system, but we remain concerned that the complexity of the schemes currently proposed may hamper take-up. The noble Baroness mentioned the slow uptake of the scheme so far. In terms of food supply and environmental gain, that is something we simply cannot afford. We support the Government’s aims, but they just need to get on now with delivering what both our farmers and the environment so badly need.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting discussion so far. Both noble Baronesses talked about farmers in general, as if all farmers are struggling. That is not the case. A number of farmers in this country are doing very well at the moment because of the nature of the land. There are roughly 45 million acres of farmable land in the UK. Of that, 15 million acres constitute very good land, and its farmers are able to adapt and grow high-value crops at good yields. There are about 15 million acres of moderate land, and they are a serious problem; my noble friend and Defra are tackling it, and ELMS will undoubtedly help. There are 15 million acres of hill land, which again present a very difficult problem. The challenge facing my noble friend and Defra is sorting out the two less productive areas. The way they are going with ELMS is absolutely the right direction.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who up until today has been a great supporter of the farmers, said that the high cost of fertiliser is causing farmers a lot of problems. She is right in one way, but quite wrong in another. It is entirely due to the high cost of fertiliser that more and more farmers are putting in leys and cover crops, and hill farmers are looking, probably for the first time, at soil quality—the most important thing for farmers and for us. So the situation is not all bad.

I share some of the concerns that have been raised. One reason that there has not been greater take-up—although, as my noble friend rightly said, the Countryside Stewardship scheme has just about doubled in the past three years—is that it is quite natural for farmers to think there is a better scheme coming in the next couple of months. That is causing a lot of farmers to sit back and wait to the last possible moment. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will make as clear as possible to farmers what the situation is. If farmers know what the schemes are and what the payments are going to be, they will make a decision. They have to be moved from the position where they think that a better scheme will come in a few weeks’ time.