Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Take that back!

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

If I were a fisherman on one of the Dorset rivers now with the mayfly hatching, I would have caught a most wonderful trout at the end of my line.

I say to the noble Baroness that I was alarmed, because I know that, in her heart of hearts, she is very supportive of this. However, her boss Keir Starmer said that he wanted to develop on green land. As my noble friend Lord Deben has just said, our chalk streams are going through highly developed land already. Which side of the fence is the Labour Party on? I hope the noble Baroness will reply.

I will ask of both Front Benches the question I was going to ask of my noble friend the Minister. Are they prepared to give the commitment to our chalk streams that the chalk streams demand? To remedy the chalk stream problem, it is not a question of days, months or years, but of decades, and an awful lot of interests have to be tackled. Unless we can get reassurance that all the parties across the House have that commitment, our chalk streams will not be in the health they should be

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I will take this opportunity to speak to my Amendments 270A and 270B, which are amendments to the amendment just spoken to by the noble Baroness. I added wildfires because it is an area of increasing concern to which the Government at the moment are not paying enough attention. They are not the only Government in the world who do not pay enough attention to it, but I think we have fallen into the habit of thinking that we are a wet country and have a lot of south-westerly winds and get deluges of rain—and we look at the flooding. However, the other side of that coin is the question of wildfires.

We are not the only country in this position. Portugal is a country that gets considerable downpours and the Atlantic winds but suffers the highest rate of wildfires in Europe. We are in a position where it could be our turn next. It is therefore very important that the Government get their act together now in anticipation of what is coming, because we have no comprehension of the size of the coming inferno.

Some in the House may ask why we are talking about wildfires, as they happen only on peatland up in Caithness or on the North York Moors or at Saddleworth. No, my Lords: last year on 19 July, the London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since World War II because of wildfires within London. It was the occupation of all those fire engines which must cause concern, because those fire engines were then not attending to other duties. There is a compounding effect from the damage that wildfires can do. I thought it appropriate to add this to the amendment because of its importance.

It is also worth bearing in mind that, just as with flooding, with wildfires you do not know the true cost for some weeks, months or years after the event, because it affects people in different ways. If one goes back to the Saddleworth Moor fire, 4.5 million people were affected by PM2.5 or less. That is a huge number, and it degrades the life of those people who have been affected. When you transfer that to the much more urban area of east London, again the situation is compounded.

I ask my noble friend what the Home Office is actually doing on this. It is the lead department under the Wildfire Framework for England, but the Home Office did not turn up to a workshop with the Climate Change Committee in January this year, when the other government departments did, as well as the Scots, the Welsh and COBRA. It was hugely important that the lead government department was at that workshop, but it was not there. Is the Home Office fit to continue its role as lead in this area? Why did the Home Office not attend that workshop? Why has it not updated the Wildfire Framework for England, which was due to be updated last year—and we are now in April? This is not a sign of a Government who are concerned about this problem and showing a lead. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me some answers.

The year 2022 was a wake-up call for us all in the number of wildfires as a result of manmade climate change. That needs to be addressed, and I hope that my noble friend can help us with some answers on that.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Bennett, and in mine. It is such a pleasure to hear the words “manmade climate change” coming from the government Benches. It is a real pleasure, because when I first came here in 2013, I was the only person talking about it, so thank you everybody who has mentioned it today.

I support quite a lot of the amendments in this group, but I am slightly concerned about the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and perhaps he would like to clarify. It looks as if his amendments would prevent a spatial plan or a local plan from targeting net-zero carbon emissions earlier than 2050. It is not enough to achieve it by 2050; we must make sure that it is done incrementally, not all at the last moment. That would create problems for, for example, the Green-led Stroud District Council, which is targeting achieving net zero by 2030. It would be madness to try to delay anything like that. I am not sure if that is the intention, but I would like to know. Sorry, does the noble Lord want to answer me now, before I have finished?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, before I come back to my Amendments 270A and 270B, and Amendment 270 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I need to correct one small thing that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said. The noble Baroness said that she was the only person talking about manmade climate change and that made me giggle—I was talking in this House about manmade climate change before she even joined the Green Party, when I was a Minister for the Countryside.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I dispute that, but I do admit that I overstated the case. It was a struggle, and it still is a struggle, but I would like to know which date the noble Earl is using for that.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

I knew that would get a rise out of the noble Baroness.

Coming back to my amendments, I think my noble friend said that there was legislation already on the statute book to cope with the situation. Why is that legislation not being utilised and implemented? One of the key factors with wildfire is fuel load, and we are now learning more about fuel load and wildfires that we did not know before in the legislation that she made reference to. We know that at the moment we have got fires occurring in this country that the fire and rescue services cannot cope with because of the fuel load within the fire itself. What are the local authorities doing about that? If they have got the powers, why are they not using them? Why has the Climate Change Committee, in its latest report to Parliament, stressed the need for, and asked the Home Office to create and implement, a strategy to identify and mitigate the risks of wildfire? My noble friend did not answer the question I asked her about the Home Office earlier. Can she now answer these questions?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am very happy and pleased to support these amendments, which would improve the powers for police and courts to tackle wildlife crime such as illegal hare coursing. Wildlife crime is by its nature difficult to police. When I was on the London Police Authority, I asked the Met police to start logging crimes committed on farms, which they did not do at the time. The problem is that the crimes are often committed far from police stations—especially so since the Conservative Government have closed quite a lot of those police stations. They are also seen as less of a priority than burglary and even traffic offences. There is some exciting new technology that the police can use to overcome these difficulties of geography and resources, but you need the right powers and the power of sentencing.

I have a friend who culls a deer herd for a local farmer. He was out, I think last week, and all of a sudden, two police cars turned up—this was in the middle of nowhere—with their blues and twos going. The police thought that he was a poacher. As he was standing there with a gun, a knife and a dead deer it was a quite difficult argument to make, but they did finally understand and managed to speak to the farmer. My friend takes responsibility for culling deer that have been harmed by poachers and then left to die in pain.

These amendments have practical solutions so that offenders can be perhaps deterred, but certainly punished and prevented from causing further suffering. They are amendments that the Government should accept in full.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the right reverend Prelate. It might surprise your Lordships to know some of the numbers. I am grateful to the Suffolk Constabulary for the figures of incidents of illegal hare coursing. These were the incidents reported—so not necessarily all the incidents—between 1 September 2019 and 31 March 2020. There were 139 incidents reported in 230 days. That means there was more than one incident a day for the police to deal with. The penalties for this illegal behaviour are not sufficient. That is why the right reverend Prelate’s amendments must be agreed.

I want to talk a little about hares, because they have been on the Biodiversity Action Plan list almost since its formation, in 1995. I am hugely grateful, as we all are, for the work done by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, which has been monitoring hares for many years and scientifically working out what their best habitat is. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, gave us a graphic description of the horrors that farmers have to face, but, if one looks at it from the hare’s point of view, they too would like these amendments.

If the farmer has too many hares on his property—particularly on the eastern side of the country, where the illegal poaching and coursing takes place, because that is where most of the hares are—the farmer will be tempted to reduce the number of hares to discourage poachers. If the laws are not strong enough and the police cannot keep the situation under control, the only sensible option for the farmer is to legally reduce the number of hares to such that it is not attractive for these people to come and drive over their land, smash their gates and cause intimidation. I am sure that, from the hare’s perspective—as I said, they are on the Biodiversity Action Plan, and numbers have been reducing since 2010—they would welcome the strengthening of the law.

I hope that my noble friend will not bat this away by saying that Defra is going to produce something. I think we are all a bit fed up of waiting for Defra to produce things—we need action now. By accepting these amendments, there is nothing here that will cut across what Defra might or might not produce in the fullness of time.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Earl, Lord Devon, in his amendments. They are hugely important. I am a great supporter of conservation covenants and I want them to work effectively. As he just said, I have a number of amendments in this group.

I am looking at conservation covenants in something akin to a divorce situation. One can enter into marriage with the very best of intentions and it is all going very well, but then it starts going sour. Divorce can be extremely costly and brutal. A conservation covenant could be entered into with the very best of intentions, but here the situation is complicated because the parties entering it could be different parties when it comes to a conclusion. There could be very different interpretations and a great deal of costs.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, did not actually mention costs so much today as he did in Committee, but in Clause 126 the final remedy is the Upper Tribunal and that can cost £50,000 to get started. Can farmers really afford that, particularly tenant farmers? The average size of a farm in England is 87 hectares and the cash flows are bare at the most. They might be a little better with the wheat price at the moment but, sure as anything, we have seen wheat prices go up and come down. You cannot expect farmers to have that amount of ready cash to fight in the courts.

I therefore seek to spell out in some detail the sort of things that need to be taken into account. I do not expect many conservation covenants to be undertaken by tenants but, if one is, all the freeholders of the land should be signatories to that agreement. I hope my noble friend will confirm that. It is a very un-Conservative thing to deprive the beneficiary of a reversionary interest of the full value of that interest, which could easily be done if a tenant enters into an agreement which prejudices the farm at the end of the tenancy. Not only does a conservation agreement affect one property, but it could very easily affect the neighbouring properties and surrounding farms if that conservation covenant involves the re-wetting of the land, which can take many years to undo.

I hope we can get a simpler way to modify and change the tenancies. When negotiation has failed, we need a simple system. I suggest in my amendments that there is an alternative dispute resolution which is simple, cheap, and which farmers, tenants and landowners are used to. I am hugely concerned by the impact that outside bodies might have. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has just reminded us, all you need is a PO box. You could get foreign investment companies coming in, taking over these conservation covenants and making life extremely difficult for the occupier.

I very much hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. His Amendments 109 and 110 cover all the points I have raised, but I have spelt them out in a different way because they are of extreme concern to farmers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. When I first looked at these amendments, I decided to leave them well alone because I did not know what covenants were. Looking at them a little more closely, my working-class bigotry kicked in and I thought that if three hereditary Peers were dealing with this then I ought to be careful. But, in fact, I am convinced, soothed and reassured, and I will be voting for the amendment.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the very powerful arguments that have been made. I believe that what is happening with biodiversity is more of an emergency than the climate. I am not certain that I like subsections (2) and (3) of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and I do not like Amendment 21, which is grouped with Amendment 1 but is not consequential on it. That would make it harder for the Government to pursue their environmental improvement plans and 25-year plan. There would be unnecessary duplication with the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I am very happy with subsection (1) of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The purpose of this Act is to address the biodiversity and climate emergency domestically and globally. Once that is in print, it will be acknowledged by the Government as an emergency. Surely that meets the noble Lord’s point, and if my noble friend the Minister accepts subsection (1), I will be perfectly happy.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a curious experience to be standing up without being called.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has made the classic Conservative error of separating biodiversity from climate. It is all interconnected: you cannot talk about either without accepting that each has an impact on the other. Every noble Lord must understand that we have a climate emergency, and therefore this government Bill is not good enough. We all know that–it is why there are so many amendments at Report. It is our job to improve the Bill and it is the Government’s job to listen and, I hope, accept our improvements.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, before speaking to my amendments, I should just say that there is a certain underwater quality to the sound, and it has been quite difficult to follow the previous group. I think that is because somebody called John Turner has not muted. There are quite a lot of people who have not muted on the call, and I think that is giving some feedback—oh, he has now. Thank you. Let us see if that improves things.

It is my pleasure to open this debate on this group of amendments—or at least those amendments that seek to improve the committee and strengthen its functions, such as those of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. I remind all noble Lords that this was a government promise. Something has to come out of this that is positive and that the general public, who asked for this, understand as being a reasonable policy. The Minister said that expert scrutiny is needed and that policy is not static. Can we not live 100 or 500 years in the past? Can we understand that things have to move on? As he also said, animal sentience is a fast-evolving field, and we need to make sure that we are up there, aware and legislating in the right way.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trees, who signed my Amendments 27 and 41, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. She is unable to be here for this group but she will be here later.

My Amendment 20 is the crucial one because it would toughen up the committee. I am not very welcoming of Amendments 21 and 22, which seem designed to weaken the committee into total obscurity. Why any scrutiny body would be reduced to the position of seeking permission from those it is scrutinising to actually do the scrutinising is beyond me, but then there are those who believe in the divine right of kings and see scrutiny of the Government as a bad thing.

I am very pleased that my Amendment 20 would have the opposite effect. I would like to see a strong, broad-based animal sentience committee that conducts deep analysis of all government policy to ensure that its impact on animals has been properly considered. I would much rather that the committee looked at everything in the round than sporadically look at piecemeal bits of policy. The former seems the right way to go, especially when the Bill is premised on the fact that these animals are sentient beings with the capacity to feel, perceive and experience. I have confidence that your Lordships can improve the Bill and give short shrift to the wrecking amendments that would reduce the sentience of the committee to a lump of stone. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to these amendments because I have an amendment in my name, which I will come to in a minute. First, I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, when she said that she hoped the committee would look at policy in the round. That is what we all hope. However, we all fear that it will not. We need reassurance from my noble friend the Minister to convince us. We are not conspiracy theorists; we are practitioners who wish to see this operating sensibly in the United Kingdom.

The reason for my Amendment 38 is perhaps best illustrated when we look at Amendment 46, which is also in this group and is in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Hayman of Ullock. I look forward to hearing what they have to say on their amendment. I cannot detract from subsection (1) of their proposed new clause. It is quite right that, if a piece of legislation sets up a committee, that committee ought to report to Parliament to be properly scrutinised. But then we come to subsection (2), which is where I get a little concerned. First, in subsection (2)(b), the noble Baronesses propose

“an overview of the implementation of animal sentience requirements across government”.

As I read and understand this, if my noble friend the Minister is right that the animal sentience committee is all about—and I quote his words—“informing policy”, it should not be looking at the implementation of policy. That is for the Government and Ministers, having looked at whatever report comes out of the committee.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support many of the amendments in this group, and my Amendment 194A is on exactly the same theme.

I liked what the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, said on Monday and what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said on Monday about grey water. He is absolutely right, of course: there is no reason why this could not be included in every new building. Indeed, my noble kinsman and his noble friend, the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and I were involved in a project at the visitor centre at the Castle of Mey 15 years ago, and we did exactly this. It is perfectly feasible, has worked extremely well and is very beneficial for the environment.

All these amendments deal with a common theme: resilience to climate change. The Climate Change Committee has pointed out how behind the Government are on meeting the problems of resilience. The resilience needs to be improved, not only because we are building more and more roads, houses, commercial buildings and railways but because the weather is changing. The rain is getting heavier and often more localised. I refer again to the floods in the West Country 10 days ago, when whole roads were ripped up by the force of water coming down the hill. Most of that water should have been dealt with in a different way.

My amendment seeks to make surface water management more adequate. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for the amendment he has put forward but, like many others, I do not think it goes far enough. It is a good start, but on Report we need to strengthen it.

We have been quite critical of how our water has been dealt with, but one ought to just pause and thank our Victorian ancestors for building in the way they did. The fact that we can still use most of their system and get away with it in a reasonable fashion is a huge tribute to our ancestors. I hope that in 100 years, future generations will say that this generation was as good as the generation I am talking about, that of our great-great-grandfathers.

My amendment is to take away surface water, whether from new buildings or roads, from the sewage system. There is absolutely no need for it to go into the sewage system. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh said—I thank her for supporting my amendment—there is an automatic right to connect to a sewage system. The water companies are not statutorily consulted but told that a development is taking place and somehow have to meet it. If their system cannot meet it, that is where we have the floods, pollution and destruction of the environment.

My amendment is really very simple. It combines with various others to allow the Government to take a slightly different path. You cannot deal with the whole question of water unless you look at surface water. My amendment is to allow the Government to

“amend the drainage provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991 … to ensure they remain fit for purpose”.

At the moment they are not fit for purpose. There are other, better ways of dealing with it. Considering how much new development is taking place and about to take place, and how much more will take place when we get the—as far as I am concerned—dreaded planning Bill next year, now is the time to nail this problem before it is too late.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, just as in the previous group, in this group there are some really forward-thinking amendments that can go a long way to ending our devastating impact on rivers and the wider environment. Some are so good that I have amendment envy and wish I had thought of them—but obviously two Greens cannot be everywhere, although we do our best.

We all seem to agree here that we currently use water in an extremely illogical way. So much clean, drinkable water is flushed down the loo when there is a really obvious alternative: to not use it. The separation and capture of grey water should be routine, and the Government should make it a requirement in building regs, because the benefits are so blindingly clear.

I operate a grey water system at home, which means flushing the loo with my washing-up water. It is very sophisticated. I walk with the bowl from one room to the other, and it works extremely well. The water out of our sinks is likely contaminated with eco-friendly soap, perhaps dirt from our hands, bits of food and things like that, but it is fine for washing our toilets, watering our gardens, even washing our cars—if you have one—and doing a whole host of other things. This relatively simple system will of course hugely cut down on our water usage and the stresses placed on the sewage system, because we automatically cut down our wastewater by almost half.

When we combine this separation and reuse of grey water with the separation of sewage from drainage, we have a much more sustainable water system. I hope that not very long into the future we will look back on the idea of using clean water to flush our toilets and then mixing it with rainwater, before spending huge amounts of money getting the sewage back out, as almost as illogical and disgusting as throwing our toilet contents out of the windows into the open streets, as used to happen a couple of hundred years ago. In truth, we have actually just made it a bit more complicated and put the sewers underground, but in essence it is the same: we are throwing our sewage into our streets.

This should be a priority for the Government, both at home and around the world. The same solutions that will clean up our sewage system in the UK will help clean, safe water systems elsewhere in the world. We have a responsibility to make sure that other countries have safe water supplies. This does all sorts of things, including reducing the risk of disease for millions of people in other countries. Of course, it also significantly reduces our disastrous impact on the earth’s rivers, lakes and seas.

I keep raising the issue of COP 26 but, quite honestly, we have to have something to take there that we are actually proud of. The rest of the world will be watching. It will not be like the G7; it will be a completely different situation in which other countries will judge us on what we are doing here, and I just hope we can measure up.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Lindsay’s amendments. They help to clarify the purpose of the Bill—which I welcome, as I said at Second Reading. I like the drift of the Bill, but it needs to be strengthened in more than one area. At the moment, it is not going to tackle the problems that we all face.

I like subsection (2) of my noble friend Lord Lindsay’s Amendment 1, where he sets out that the aim is to achieve

“a healthy, resilient and biodiverse natural environment”.

We all want that, and we have failed in the past. There have been all sorts of attempts to get this right but, as I said at Second Reading and will stress throughout Committee, this needs management—it is the people on the land managing nature in its widest sense who will result in an increased and better performance than we have had to date. I want to focus on those people; they are basically landowners and farmers. At the moment, they have very low confidence in what the Government are doing. They are moving from one farming regime to another; they know nothing about the second farming regime through ELMS, and yet their money is being substantially cut. That might be all right for some owner-occupiers, but it is proving a very serious problem for tenant farmers.

Subsection (2)(b) of Amendment 1 goes on to say that the environment must support

“human health and wellbeing for everyone”.

Yes, and I am a great believer in a good footpath system, because I now rely on that for my exercise. But if you talk to any farmer now, they are not in a good position mentally because of the amount of rubbish and harassment they get from people who visit their land. This is a two-way street. It is all very well to encourage people to go to the countryside, but the sad thing is that there is a quite substantial minority abusing that countryside. Anybody who has read the papers or the news recently will know the problems that farmers have had to face, with blocked driveways, blocked entrances to gateways, rubbish, litter, barbecues and wildfires. How are the Government going to help farmers deliver the intentions of the Bill?

Does my noble friend agree that in order to get a good and diverse natural environment in this country, some 21% of agricultural land will need to be planted to trees or bioenergy crops? The counterbalance to that is that there must be an increase of 10% in the productivity of all other agricultural land, otherwise in 10 years’ time we will say, “Yes, we have done something for the environment, but we have done nothing for our food”; our food prices will be going up, and the poorest will be the ones who suffer.

This is a balance; it is an equation that has to be got right. Although I thoroughly support the necessity of the amendments proposed by my noble friend to set the remit of the Environment Bill, we also need to be very careful when discussing it to get the balance right, so that the people who will produce that improved environment are taken with the Government and can also make a living off the land which they farm and manage.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I feel it is only fair to warn your Lordships that you will see quite a lot of the two wonderful Green Peers over the next few weeks. I am sure your Lordships understand that this is a particularly important Bill for us. We have waited a long time, and it is an issue that we both care very deeply about. Having said that, we care about a lot of other issues as well, as noble Lords will have seen.

Of course, a huge amount hinges on this Bill. As I so often do—surprisingly—I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who said that the Bill has to be right. To do that, it has to be amended here in your Lordships’ House. If we get this Bill right, it will mean that we can get a lot of other things right: our farming, our food production and food growing, clean air and clean water supplies, our health and well-being, and our economy. A good Bill will mean no trade deals with countries like Australia—sorry, Natalie—with its awful farming practices, which have been banned here for years, and none of the ecologically and economically illiterate long-distance swapping of lamb and beef when we can buy UK-produced meat right here from our own farmers with higher welfare standards. A good Bill will offer more tech opportunities and more jobs in sustainable industries. A good Bill would be this Bill, heavily amended by your Lordships’ House.

Moving on, this is a perfect group of amendments. I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, for such a brief introduction; his amendments are incredibly valuable and go to the heart of why the Bill exists. Personally, I think that if we get this right, it will be as big and important a piece of legislation as the Human Rights Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the late Lord Ridley of Liddesdale would be as disappointed as I am that, last year, no English river met the highest chemical standards and only 15% of UK rivers were rated as having good ecological status. That was not the intention when we privatised the water companies in the 1980s. But the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, was absolutely right to say, notwithstanding what I have just said, that the rivers are in a great deal better condition now than they were 30 years ago—and the water Act of the mid-1980s was responsible for that. The rivers would be of better quality now if the National Rivers Authority had continued in existence by itself and not been merged with the Environment Agency. That part of the Environment Agency has not been nearly as effective as it was when it was a single authority.

This is a hugely important issue, and we shall come to it in some more detail. I totally agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. The issue of water is much wider than just water quality; it includes the whole water environment, abstraction and pollution. To prioritise water, as this Bill does, and then to talk particularly about water quality, defeats the object that the Government are trying to achieve, which is to raise the quality of water across the board. Therefore, although I support the principle of what the noble Duke is trying to do, I hope that it will be dealt with at a later stage rather than at this stage.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I take everybody’s point about the fact that this amendment does not quite measure up to everything that we want from it, but it is a really good start. And I think that this is an issue that we will defeat the Government on. In all my talks with Conservative Members of your Lordships’ House, they have mentioned how concerned they are about rivers; a lot of landowners are massively concerned.

I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, about sewage and water companies. It does her credit that she is so sympathetic towards them but, quite honestly, they make a lot of money and they should be clearing up their own mess. If they cannot take on these contracts, they should not take them on—or they should dig bigger holes to bury the sewage, or whatever it takes. When it comes to cost, we should look at the businesses that make money out of our rivers and our sewage, and we should make them pay.

I shall go back to my speech now. Basically, the issue of water pollution is very much underserved by this Bill at the moment, so I urge the Government to pick this up and run with it, because it is something that they will lose on. The truth is that many of our rivers, lakes and water courses in this country are still filthy and polluted. It is something that the European Commissioner rightly took us to task on—the Government have repeatedly lost legal challenges on the issue. For that reason, it is also one of the big environmental risks of leaving the EU system of environmental laws. The Government could have a convenient opportunity to quietly end their long tradition of losing court battles on water pollution simply by ditching those rules altogether or subjecting them to the jurisdiction of a toothless regulator.

We know that water is life. We cannot do without it and, if we pollute it, many things die, including humans. Water pollution has a long-lasting and pervasive impact on our lives and the natural world around us—it is not always easy to clean up. Most people do not even know how polluted our water is. I have had gastroenteritis from swimming in the Thames; I thought that I was high enough up the Thames for it to be clean but, apparently, it was not.

The Government have to understand that it is not just about chemicals that we should not drink going in; that is only a tiny part of the picture. For example, the River Thames floods with human sewage multiple times a week and also has some of the highest recorded levels of microplastics in the world. It is long overdue for the Government to get a grip on water pollution. Quite honestly, this amendment is a good little start, and I congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on this. I look forward to him toughening up future amendments on sewage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is like some sort of dream list that any environment Bill worthy of its name should contain, so I very much hope that the Government will listen to all noble Lords on this. I will speak on only two amendments. First, I signed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on marine, which he explained extremely well. All I can say, in less parliamentary language, is that it is plain daft not to include it. How can you not include another biosphere that is so important, not only for fishing and other things but generally for the well-being of anybody who ever goes down to the seaside?

I will speak specifically to my Amendment 32, which is about the controversial issue of reducing meat and dairy consumption. I eat both, so I am well aware of how difficult it is, but I have tailored my diet to reduce substantially my intake. I have also tabled this amendment because it was a clear recommendation from the Climate Change Committee to make a significant reduction in our carbon footprint. Sadly, and proving yet again the inadequacy of the scrutiny bodies in having any binding power over the Government, the recommendations have been ignored. Farming accounts for 12% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK and, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said in publishing the committee’s report:

“Changing the way we use our land is critical to delivering the UK’s Net Zero target.”


Looking globally, the UN predicts that global red meat consumption will double by 2050, which will be a disaster for the climate and ecology. Animal husbandry can be part of the solution to climate change, as good-practice grass-fed livestock can be an important part of building soil health and sequestering carbon. However, the levels of meat currently demanded in our western diets are simply incompatible with these sustainable practices. It is time for the Government to be quite brave and bold and start facing up to this reality. The Prime Minister should use his political capital—however much he has left—to begin this conversation and start this road to a more sustainable diet. It will be a test: is he really the skilled communicator that he and his allies believe? If so, I would like to set him a challenge: persuading the public that modifying our diets is an important step towards net zero.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, it is difficult to speak to an amendment that has not yet been spoken to by its proposer. I therefore ask my noble friend on the Front Bench whether she could make a note of this; we had exactly the same problem during the passage of the Agriculture Bill, which we finally got sorted out. The speakers’ lists should start off with all those who have amendments consequential to the first amendment. I want to speak to Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but she will speak after me. This is nonsense and it does not help the Committee—I am very glad to see some nods around the Chamber from all sides. I therefore hope that my noble friend will make certain that we get a decent speakers’ list in future.

I support what I believe the noble Baroness will say on Amendment 11, just as she supported me on my Amendment 111, which also refers to soil, so we are as one. Soil is critical to the environment. You cannot get good habitats without proper soil. Unless soil is one of the priorities, we will never get there in the first place. There is a lot more to be said about soil later, but at this stage I just want to support the noble Baroness in her amendment.

On the amendments spoken to by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, he raises some very important points but this also shows the difficulty of having targets, particularly where you have plants and species that can be affected by disease and climate change. It will be very difficult to set a target for tree health, because it can change in a matter of years, as the noble and right reverend Lord said about the ash disease. If you set a target and then have to change it, targets become increasingly meaningless. If we are to have targets, they should have a meaning. I am therefore sceptical. I understand what he is trying to do and part of me supports it, but part of me says that it has to work on the ground—we cannot just tick a box and say that we have done targets, and then keep on changing them. We changed the biodiversity 2020 targets because nobody was going to meet them. It brings the whole concept of targets into disrepute.

The noble and right reverend Lord also mentioned the tree-planting target. I have said before that it is not just tree planting that matters but the maintenance of trees. It is terribly easy to plant trees; I planted lots of trees in the year before I went to agricultural college and I hope that some of them have been clear felled by now—they should have been. However, it is disease and animal destruction of trees, and the planting up after the planting and the support for those trees to grow into mature trees, that really matter. I would rather plant fewer trees and get them all up to maturity than plant x plus 10% when 20% will die, as we end up with a minus quantity. The thrust of the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment is in the right direction, but again, it is about how it will work in practice; it is the practicalities of the Bill that will make it a success or not.

Trade Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Motion A1. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on his introduction, because I thought it was very calm, considered and thorough—and, above all, it was reasonable, which is something I care very much about. The Government’s attempt to throw out all our amendments epitomises the problem that we have. This is not a democracy. The Minister is very well respected and extremely honourable, but his speech made me laugh out loud. The Government have enhanced their transparency, he said. In what world have they done that? He was good enough to remind us of the rule that we should not overrule the elected Chamber and so on, and the will of the other place. But let us face it, with an 80-plus majority the Government just decide what is going to happen and stamp on those Members of the other place who choose not to follow the party line. What the Government are trying to do is to limit scrutiny of this.

There was something else—oh yes, the Minister said that this Motion would limit the Government in getting the best deals. Judging by the way in which they have handled the deals that they have done so far, I would argue that they are not very good at getting the best deals anyway. Perhaps they would benefit from your Lordships’ House getting involved in giving scrutiny to their so far abysmal deal-making.

I strongly support this Motion and hope that the Government can see sense about it. It is not a democracy when you have two Chambers but the second Chamber is left not to comment when, let us face it, the other place does not have the time to scrutinise in the same way as your Lordships’ House does. We have the time and the expertise to scrutinise things, and that is what we should be allowed to get on with.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, before I comment on the amendment, I join the growing list of people who are very concerned about the procedures of the House. In the last week, we received a letter from the Clerk of the Parliaments, telling us to stay at home, and we had another missive from the Lord Speaker telling us to stay at home, yet the Procedure Committee insists that we break all the rules that the Government want us to obey to come here to speak on an occasion like this. I hope that the Lord Speaker, when he returns tomorrow after his birthday—and I wish him many happy returns of the day—comes back reinvigorated, with the determination to persuade the chairman of the Procedure Committee to bring the rules up to date, although I know that he himself is not in charge of that committee. It is ludicrous that we are put in this position.

I am very happy to support my noble friend Lord Lansley. Modern trade deals are much more complicated than they used to be and cover huge areas of public policy—areas of concern to all of us. It is a different world from when we used to do trade deals, before we went into the EU. My noble friend the Minister, in typically emollient fashion, put forward a good case, but it was not good enough. He said that it was the first opportunity for the UK to decide its own trade deals for 45 years. Yes, that is true, but it is not the first opportunity for Parliament to have a guaranteed say in what is going on. Surely my noble friend the Minister has absolutely nothing to fear from Parliament. I take a different view from my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I think that the Government’s trade deals are very good, and I am confident that they will get even better, so my noble friend has nothing to fear, if he continues to produce good trade deals.

It is perplexing to many of us that there is no guaranteed vote by the House of Commons on a trade deal, whereas there is for the Parliaments of America, Japan and the European Union. We are portrayed as undemocratic, which is a sadness. This is a great opportunity to enhance the role of Parliament and the House of Commons, and one that ought to be seized with both hands. As I said, my noble friend the Minister has nothing to fear.

My noble friend Lord Lansley has moved considerably to try to meet the Government’s concerns on this issue. He has listened and adapted his amendment and I hope that your Lordships will support him, to give the other place a chance to look at a different amendment and a hugely important one for the way in which our constitution works.