King’s Speech

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a poignant honour to attend His Majesty’s gracious Speech in this House, perhaps never more so than when it may be the very last to which I am invited. Earls of Devon have served in Parliament since the time of Queen Matilda and the ealdormen of Devon supported our Saxon monarchy long before then. It will be sad day, if and when we do say farewell. Some may say that 1,000 years’ service is quite enough, and they may have a point.

Given that this debate’s focus is upon sustainability, the environment, communities and local government, I should note that sustainable local community service is literally within my DNA and that of most of our hereditary colleagues. The loss of multigenerational, regional and apolitical counsel that will result from the final abolition of hereditary Peers can only encourage the short-term politicisation of your Lordships’ House and increase the governance for votes and for profits that has so decimated the green and pleasant land that we steward for generations to come. I will not go meekly, so I am glad that His Majesty has set forth such an extensive legislative agenda, albeit there are surprising omissions. I look forward to improving, as best we can, the legislation proposed, and I will aim to do so for the benefit of Devon in particular, the county in which I live and work, and whose interests my family has long championed.

The Labour Government are to be congratulated upon their electoral success, turning a surprisingly modest share of the vote into a remarkable majority of seats. I hope only that they deploy the same administrative alchemy in meeting some of the immense challenges they have set, not least the navigation of our labyrinthine planning system to liberate housebuilding and infrastructure on an unprecedented scale while also enhancing food security, protecting biodiversity and the environment, and building resilience to inevitable climate change. This will be far harder than winning the election. I look forward to assisting for as long as I am permitted to do so.

I note my interests in the register as a lawyer and a heritage land manager in Devon. In particular, I note my membership of the Devon Housing Commission, which is due to publish tomorrow its report on the acute housing crisis that bedevils our county. Under the tireless chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Best, the commission has spent 12 months investigating the parlous shortage of housing for those living and working in Devon. We make many recommendations that are applicable to coastal, rural and market town communities across the country. I will not steal the commission’s thunder, but I ask that the Minister undertakes to consider the report closely when it is received. Its recommendations to the Government echo the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, including the need to fund affordable housing, the need to support regional developers, the need to develop skills and staffing in local planning and in the retrofitting of housing stock, and the crucial importance of delivering diverse and accessible housing to sustain healthy local communities.

The Government’s intentions with respect to housebuilding, infrastructure and renewable energy are to be applauded, particularly given the professed sustainability of their ambitions, but such development activity within our landscape will necessarily impact biodiversity and consume vast quantities of natural capital in the pursuit of economic growth. It is therefore crucial that the regulatory guard-rails to ensure development is sustainable are fit for purpose. Are the Government confident that biodiversity net gain is working as designed and will not be an insurmountable drag on development? How satisfied are the Government that marine net gain rules can be adequately introduced and enforced to ensure that their offshore renewable ambitions do not deplete yet further our decimated marine ecosystems? Is the Minister content that the rules for nutrient neutrality are robust and sufficiently understood to withstand the impact of the Government’s ambitious building agenda? Finally, do we have a water and sewage industry that is remotely capable of supplying fresh water to the promised millions of new homes while sustainably removing their waste?

I note the plans for yet further regulation of water companies, including the punishment of their leaders, but surely the issue is not a lack of regulation—the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, has had such success in that regard—but a lack of ambition and resource in the regulator. Driving private water companies into liquidation while discouraging anyone from taking a leadership rule due to punitive personal liability does not appear to be the solution to the problem, which is the need for capital and infrastructure investment on a Victorian scale.

As for omissions from the gracious Speech, where is reference to the land use framework? It seems foolhardy to introduce a framework only after committing to economic growth via an ambitious housing and infrastructure programme. The land use framework will be complicated and challenging to implement, but without it we will inevitably see commercial development riding roughshod over the less economic but more important imperatives of food security, biodiversity and natural capital.

The harvest started at home today, so perhaps a more ominous omission from the gracious Speech was any mention of agriculture, as we have heard. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson famously told us of the biodiversity disaster inherent in modern farming. This Government’s deafening silence on farming may be as disastrous. We are in the midst of the most substantial agricultural transition in decades. It is such an uncertain time for agriculture and the security of our nation’s food that to have no commitment on farming is simply remarkable. What are the Government’s plans for ELMS? Will they maintain Countryside Stewardship? What plans do they have for local nature recovery? Should farmers simply abandon food production and nature conservation and devote their land entirely to houses and wind farms? The Government need to be clear about what we are to do.

I note the manifesto commitment to public procurement of sustainable food, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, mentioned, and look forward to supporting this initiative, but it too was absent from the gracious Speech. The Plunkett Foundation is commissioning a review of rural food retail—which I might chair—which could provide important data to inform this initiative. I also note a recent regional project, the South West Food Hub, which explored the challenges and potential solutions to enable local government food procurement.

On local governance, the manifesto lauds regional devolution. Can the noble Baroness give any indication of the status of Devon and Torbay’s application for combined county authority status? This will be a key initiative, with particular significance for housing and planning, that chimes very well with the Government’s stated ambitions. Perhaps, once evicted from your Lordships’ House, the Earl of Devon can return to regional governance, from whence he emerged in the Dark Ages.

Finally, I touch on access to nature—one of my favourite topics—on which the gracious Speech was also quiet, surprisingly given the importance of access to His Majesty and the challenges it presents in the context of large-scale residential development. I note the manifesto commitment to nine new national river walks. Can the Minister identify where they might be located or the process by which they will be selected? On access and environmental policy, I defer to the next generation. My daughter also had the privilege of attending yesterday’s ceremony. In studying environmental science in the United States, she is reading Aldo Leopold’s iconic A Sand County Almanac, which states:

“To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs … all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish”.


I trust that His Majesty’s Government will bear this in mind as we consider access to our dwindling wilderness while so energetically developing in a quest for economic growth.