Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part three
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 47. This is the last amendment to be debated and I call it the lifebelt amendment. Since 4 pm—with a couple of breaks in between, but nearly seven hours ago—the Government have heard of all the things that are possibly wrong with this Bill. There are problems with the terms of reference; problems with the setting up of the committee; and the abdication of power by the Government to the committee. My noble friend on the Front Bench has heard expert opinions from both the legal and the veterinary side about the difficulties that this Bill could pose. The zoologists are equally concerned that the terminology in the Bill is so wishy-washy that it will be very hard for some decisions to be made accurately.

I drafted this lifebelt amendment, which proposes to give the Government time for considered thought about the Bill. Yes, my noble friend has got his Bill; he has fulfilled his instructions from on high and defeated every amendment. But having got his Bill, would this not be a sensible time to set up a committee to look at the unintended consequences, of which so many have been raised, before the Bill is enacted? This would give the Government a chance to have a look again if they were persuaded, on the evidence of the committee, that the Bill ought to be redrafted in a different way. I totally applaud the sentiment behind the Bill. We want it, but we also want one that is right, so I offer my noble friend a lifebelt at the last moment. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, this seems quite novel as an amendment—to try, once a Bill has gone through Parliament and become an Act, to judge it afterwards. It is a novelty that I find perhaps rather difficult. I share the noble Earl’s thoughts about some of the issues around the Bill, but this is probably overly bureaucratic and, if we believe in Parliament, probably not the best way to move forward on this occasion—despite the great respect I have for him.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Lucas in moving the amendment. I also listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden. I hope the Minister will read his speech with care, because what he said was hugely important to the proper functioning of our aims.

I turn Amendment 48, in my name, which would amend Clause 6, entitled “Environmental targets: review. I wish to amend subsection (3), which relates to the “significant improvement test.” The clause says the test ticks the boxes if it

“would significantly improve the natural environment in England.”

I do not think “improvement” is good enough. It is not sufficient, as it provides no condition or basis by which to judge the improvement. I take it for granted that my noble friend does not want to encourage a “trash and improve” system, but that is what is going to happen unless this amendment is accepted. An approach like that would be detrimental to biodiversity and the natural environment. Therefore, I have proposed what I think is a much more sensible and appropriate wording. Instead of “improve the natural environment,” I want to insert

“improve the maintenance, restoration or enhancement of the natural environment.”

There are many places where the natural environment is in very good condition at the moment. No significant improvement test will be met when it is in good condition now. But if it is maintained in an excellent and pristine condition, it should meet the significant improvement test.

I hope my noble friend will give more consideration to this amendment than he gave to my comments on the last amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who is dedicated to these issues. I want to speak to Amendment 34, which I put my name to. First, I offer my support to my noble friend Lord Addington, who constantly fights against silo management within government and makes sure that the health aspect is always included in these debates. I also want to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, whose comments I found particularly interesting. As he so eloquently said, the recent meeting between the secretariats of the United Nations climate change organisation and the biodiversity secretariats was a landmark one from which very important lessons can be learned.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I think we can count that as the best joke of the Environment Bill Committee so far, so I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for that. I had not intended to speak on this amendment, so all I shall say is that this is a very important issue. It is probably dealt with more specifically and better later in the Bill, but I very much support the thoughts of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.

[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.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure and a bit of luck for me to follow two such powerful speeches from my noble friend Lord Blencathra and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I agree very much with what they said. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, that this is a devolved matter. For the UK Ministers to consult but then set regulations in this Parliament would be quite contrary to any devolution settlement. I was very surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, did not pick that up as she is a stalwart defender of the rights of Northern Ireland.

I agree with my noble and learned friend about the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, that this is merely consultation. It is not—this is hard regulation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the fishers in Wick 110 years ago remember Grimsby and Yarmouth without much pleasure, as they suddenly introduced bigger and faster boats than the Wickers had. The fishing industry in Wick suffered horribly from the activities of Yarmouth and Grimsby, but that is history.

The noble Baroness who moved the amendment, which has good intentions but is very faulty, gave no real justification for why 65% should be the figure. I think she woke up one morning and thought, “That’s a good idea; we’ll try that one.” There is no justification for 65%. It made me wonder what I would I do if I were the French Fisheries Minister. I see that the Brits are now getting very protectionist; they want 65% of their catch. How would it affect our fishing fleets if the Europeans said to all their boats, “You can land your catches only in EU ports—you can’t land them in UK ports”? That would do huge damage to our fisheries, reducing their flexibility and the economic benefits that they currently produce for all our coastal towns, which we all want to see improve and provide better economic opportunities than they currently do. It is quite clear in Clause 16(1), covered by this amendment, that this relates to non-UK boats.

Another thought that struck me was: if this clause comes in, will we return to something like the klondykers of the 1980s and 1990s? When I was Fisheries Minister, I remember going up to Ullapool and seeing those big Russian klondyke boats in Loch Broom. We would potentially return to a situation where you have one big British fishing tanker taking fish from all the smaller boats, bringing that back to the UK and claiming it as the landing of the catch. That would be a retrograde step.

All my other points have been covered, but I want to stress one briefly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She said that, besides the 50% landing at the moment, there are other economic links. This amendment does not cover any other economic links. It takes out just one of the economic links that currently exist and distorts it. Huge difficulties could result from that. It is worth remembering that the vast majority of UK vessels already meet the landing requirements; I think the current figure is 99%. But, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said, it is so variable; it depends on weather conditions and on the sea—and the fishermen require that flexibility. I cannot support the amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, what interesting speeches. I get the impression that almost all those who supported us leaving the European fisheries policy would have had their speeches applauded by Michel Barnier, a previous French fisheries Minister, whom we spoke to in the European Union Committee, particularly the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I do not want to take away the fire of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on some of this, but let us go through some of the points.

First, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, asked in Committee about facilities: could we actually cope with landing more fish in UK ports? What a question. During Committee stage, one of the people I spoke to—I did not know he was coming but he happened to be here—was the chairman of the harbour commissioners of Newlyn, one of the largest fishing ports in England, although still dwarfed by the Scottish ports. He said to me, “If I had just one or two more of these foreign-owned, British-flagged vessels into my port, it would make a huge difference to me and what I am trying to achieve”. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that if we could give the UK fishing ports, particularly the English ports, that challenge, they would love to have those vessels here.

The point was made about this Bill being a framework Bill. I am sorry, but it does not say that. Surely, as parliamentarians we want to be able to affect the key issues, to make changes and to have policies that are better and amendments that improve Bills. We are not here just to have framework Bills. If we think something is of crucial national importance—and this is—then we should be able to debate those amendments and decide whether we accept them.

On devolution, yes, there is an argument there, but if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, really feels that there should be complete devolution of fisheries issues, he should have voted against the Bill at Second Reading, because the whole Bill is completely concerned with devolved issues; therefore, some of the amendments will be as well.

As for the landing obligation, yes, we have one, but what have the Government done about it over the last few years? It has not changed and there are a number of opt-outs, so some of those economic links will still be there. However, it is vital, surely, that we look at the most important ones, those that actually protect or improve our coastal communities and our fishing industry. We can ask ourselves why the fishing industry has not strongly campaigned for this. I remember going, soon after the Brexit vote, to a fisheries conference elsewhere in London where I raised this point with the main fishing trade associations, and they did not really want to discuss it. Why? Because their members are primarily owned by foreign owners, so it is not particularly in the interest, certainly in England and Wales, of the main fisheries representatives to argue this.

Let us remember that some 55%, by value, of our fisheries are fished by foreign vessels owned primarily by Spain, Iceland and the Netherlands. Those interests are there; what we are trying to do here is to defend all those people who are excluded: the coastal communities we are talking about do not have a vote and do not have a piece of the action at the moment. We are trying to improve that. That is why this amendment is so important and why I back it. In Wales, the by value figure is 85%. One foreign-owned vessel, as I understand it, has 85% of Welsh quota. This is a real issue and it is absolutely appropriate to deal with it in the Bill. What I particularly like about the amendment is that it actually says that something has to come out of this consultation—the 65% or more—but it allows the fishing authorities to make exceptions, such as where the long-distance fleet has to land, perhaps.

Interestingly, Norway has been particularly mentioned. What are the statistics on Norway? Norwegian interests own 100% of Norwegian-flagged vessels, so Norway does not have this problem; indeed, Scotland hardly has it either. In many ways—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on this—we are being global Britain: we are claiming back, as an independent coastal state, rights over our economic zone and our fish stocks. We are putting them out for sale to the world and the world is enjoying the benefits of our biomass and our marine stocks.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness [V]]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. My instinct is to support this amendment wholeheartedly, because I am a great believer in environmental sustainability, but we must also look very carefully at sustainability, because in all our discussions sustainability has rested on the three pillars: economic, social and environmental. If we change our understanding of that, it will affect not only fisheries but also every other industry.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, gave the game away completely when he said that it should be introduced to every other piece of legislation. I do not think that this House has given enough thought to that. If this amendment is accepted, it will become a precedent for the Agriculture Bill. That will mean that the son of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, will now be told that he cannot farm a certain crop because it is not environmentally sustainable in the way that people would like it maintained. It will mean foresters being told that they cannot cut down trees because it is environmentally unsustainable to cut down a tree when that will happen anyway through natural regeneration. There are huge complications that we have not considered if we alter the balance now, because this will go into legislation and become a very firm precedent for the future. That gives me great concern.

I strongly believe that the environment should be given priority, but it must be in a way that respects the other two legs of the sustainability stool. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said that, legally, this is almost impossible. We are in a real quandary here. I hope that, between now and Third Reading, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, can get together to achieve what I know they both want. We are all on common ground regarding where we want to get to, but the wording of this amendment will cause us problems.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, also mentioned the effect on coastal areas. If suddenly a report said that fishing must stop in a certain area since environmental sustainability was the prime objective, the effect on that area socially and economically would be immense, and the Government would not be able to mitigate it in the way that they could as the Bill is presently worded.

Although I support the spirit of this amendment, I cannot support it in the way that it is worded. My noble friend Lord Lansley was right to highlight the question of “fishing fleets must”, which is a wording that we are not used to in legislation. I do not see how that can be implemented. I look forward to what the Minister says and hope that we can reach a common position on this, rather than bringing into law something that we may all regret in a few months’ or years’ time.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, if I may just respond first to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, this amendment does exactly what he asks. It gives priority to environmental sustainability, but the other elements are there as well—so, bingo, we are there. We do not have a Content Lobby, but if we did, the noble Earl would need to go through it.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Cameron of Dillington, on their amendments, both of which I put my name to. The irony in this debate is that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, are arguing for the old-style common fisheries policy. What they are asking for is exactly what the CFP did. It gave a range of options to politicians—Commissioners or the Council of Ministers in that bun-fight that happened every December—which allowed fudge in decision-making about future quotas and fishing rights over the next year. They could look at some other objective or reason and decide to take an easy way out, forget environmental sustainability or put it second, third or fourth, and go for a short-term decision on fisheries.

And what was the outcome of that? We have hugely depleted stocks in our own EEZ and globally, because of all those fudge factors. Tell me an organisation that can survive with eight objectives but without anything being said about which is the most important. You cannot do that. You must have some idea of what the priorities are. None of us could run our lives on that basis; it would be impossible.

I come back to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he criticised the word “prime”. I did Classics up to O-level—pause for a “wow” from the Chamber—and “primus” means first. We know what “first” means, and it does not push the others aside. We have a first Secretary of State in the Government but that does not mean to say that the other Secretaries of State are all redundant; they are not. It is just giving a priority.

We also know, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said, that if we do not have environmental sustainability first, then everything else falls aside; it just goes away. Sometimes we have zero quotas, as I think the Minister said earlier about my first amendment, and they are dealt with by finding ways around them, either with financial compensation or otherwise. That means those stocks, the health of the industry and jobs in those coastal communities are there for the long term. That is why this is inarguable; you cannot have it any other way than that environmental sustainability has to be a prime objective. That would not get rid of the rest of the objectives; they are in the Bill for us to see.

I want to take a point that has not been mentioned: devolution. We are told by the Government that this House is not competent to amend the Bill because of devolution; we are going through this process for no reason at all because everything in it is devolved. The Government have brought a Bill to us that they may have agreed with the executives but, as I understand it, it has not gone through any of the democratic assemblies or parliaments of the nations. We have been given a Bill that we have to make decisions on. The Government cannot put a gun to our head and say, “Because we have done a deal with the other executives, the Bill can’t change at all”. If the Government hold that view, they should dissemble this Bill, bring an English Bill to this House and let the assemblies and parliaments have their own fisheries Bills. That is the solution. However, we do not have time for that because we need to get this right and we need to do it before the end of the year when we move out of the transition period. All we can do is ensure that the Bill is right and protects the industry and our marine environment for the future—for the long term as well as the short and medium terms—by making sure that the amendment is passed.