British Farming: Competitiveness
Earl of Devon Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
On the India deal, we maintained tariffs on several products, including pork, chicken and eggs. That was because we had concerns about animal welfare standards and the potential impact on British farmers. That is what we will do and the position we will take when looking at trade deals with any country.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, when will the Government publish their response to the excellent Farming Profitability Review by the noble Baroness, Lady Batters? Will it focus on the farm-to-table food chain to ensure that profitability reaches the farm gate and is not consumed by retailers, wholesalers and distributors en route? In that regard, will it also take note of the model set forth in Great South West’s recent agri-food growth plan, which shows the value of regional focus, championing local farming and food production? I note my interest as a Devon farmer and a programme board member of the food security board.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
On the latter part of the noble Earl’s question, Great South West does tremendous work in this area. I went to the launch of its review, which is a blueprint for how the Government believe we should be delivering and supporting farming in our country. I commend the noble Earl for his work with and support for that group.
There are a large number of recommendations—57—in the Farming Profitability Review from the noble Baroness, Lady Batters. We are looking at those carefully but taking some actions on a number of them already so that we can deliver practical support and certainty for farmers where we can before we publish our full response. Part of that is the new farming and food partnership board, which we have announced, that will bring together farmers, processors, retailers and the wider supply chain to drive collaboration and increase the kind of fairness that the noble Earl talked about.
Large-scale Waste Crime
Earl of Devon Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The Government are committed to the introduction of digital waste tracking, and the analysis of data that this brings will enable us to provide a significant asset for regulators and enforcement bodies in the fight that we have against waste crime. Additionally, the Environment Agency is looking at other technology-based opportunities to measure the levels of waste crime. That could use the potential of satellite-type technology and machine learning. We are providing the Environment Agency with extra, targeted funds. My officials are also working with the Environment Agency and the Treasury on the implementation of the proposed Environment Agency levy, and we will be able to update on that in due course. Of course, we will also continue to work with the Treasury on the landfill tax policy and keep under continual review how best to tackle waste crime, including considerations around resourcing.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, fly-tipping is a blight to farmers across the country, with over 80% reporting to the Environment Agency that they are impacted by small-scale tipping and over 20% by large-scale offences. Ultimate responsibility lies not only with criminals but with householders who do not pay adequately to dispose of their waste and wash their hands of it. What efforts are the Government making to prosecute under the householders’ duty, and what number of successful prosecutions have there been?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Prosecutions take a long time to work through the legal system and the court system, but numbers are in line with other law enforcement agencies when we compare them with the number of interventions. Of course, prosecutions are only one part of the picture. Prevention and disruption work is just as important, because we need to intervene and stop criminal activity at an early stage or before it happens so that we do not have prosecutions coming in further down the line. It is important to say quite clearly that the Government do not believe that the status quo is working. We need to make changes because it is, as the noble Earl said, getting out of control. We are looking at the best ways that we can make changes to improve the situation.
Meat Labelling
Earl of Devon Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Obviously, it is important that any labelling is completely accurate; it has to be transparent, and any discriminatory matters have to be carefully thought through, as the noble Baroness rightly said. She mentioned CO2 gas stunning, which is used in around 90% of pig slaughters and is incredibly cruel. It is one reason why we included it in the animal welfare strategy; it is a method of slaughter that we would also like to see phased out.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, one of the biggest challenges for animal welfare in the south-west of England is the sheer distance that animals have to travel to slaughterhouses, due to the closure of many abattoirs over recent years. What efforts are the Government making to ensure that local abattoirs are supported and that new abattoirs can open across the western counties?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I have every sympathy for the noble Earl’s concerns about the closure of small abattoirs and the distances that animals have to travel. I was previously the president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, which had a specific campaign on that, so I understand the issue. The Government have provided grants to support small abattoirs from closing. There are a number of difficulties—including the challenge of having trained staff in abattoirs and people who want to do the job—but we are working closely with the FSA on how we can move forward.
Waste Crime
Earl of Devon Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise the issue of fly-tipping. A lot of people think it is just a mattress dumped in a hedge, but it can be incredibly serious and expensive and challenging for landowners to clear up. In specific answer to his question, following Royal Assent the intention is to consult. We will consult, as required by Clause 9, prior to publishing any statutory guidance. We want to make sure that any guidance that we produce and publish is as useful as it can be, and we want to hear the views of local authorities and others to ensure that it is going to be effective. Once we have had the responses and the opportunity to analyse them, we will then publish it as soon as practical—as soon as we can. The clause will be commenced ahead of the guidance being finalised.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, to continue the theme of fly-tipping, do His Majesty’s Government recognise the unfortunate link between environmental regulation, fly-tipping and the regrettable decrease in permissive access to rural areas? As regulation of waste increases, so does the cost of disposing of it and therefore fly-tipping increases, which requires landowners to fence and barbed-wire access points to nature that might otherwise be enjoyed by local communities. I note my interest in the register as a victim of fly-tipping.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Earl is absolutely right that this can be a really dreadful problem for landowners, and it can be very expensive and difficult to clear up. He may be interested to know that we are working with a range of interested parties to specifically look at these issues through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group. That includes organisations such as the National Farmers’ Union, the CPRE, the Countryside Alliance and the CLA, because we need to work with landowners on how they can prevent fly-tipping on private land. I know it is not always possible, but the better guidance people have and the more they can work with organisations, the better. We are also developing practical tools on how councils and others can then bring robust cases to court, because that is important as well. We have a large fly-tipping issue, and it is important that the perpetrators are punished.
High Seas Treaty
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, last year I chaired the Westminster conference on marine natural capital. I learned there that while there has been considerable success in designating marine protected areas in recent years, both Defra and the MMO sadly lack the resources, technology and capacity to map, evaluate and patrol the areas that have been designated. If we are to introduce increased designations as well as a policy of marine net gain, how will we ever enforce it if we cannot even audit and protect the areas already designated?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Earl makes a very good point. No law or agreement is worth anything unless we enforce it. That is why we are determined to do all that we can to achieve our 30 by 30 commitments at sea. These are challenging targets—it is important that we acknowledge that. Minister Hardy, who is responsible for this area in Defra, has confirmed her intention to continue working on this and push forward. Enforcement and ensuring that it happens are part of that important work.
Global Warming
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for calling this crucial debate. I note my interests in the register and the various capacities in which I wrestle with the challenges of climate change and nature restoration, as both a sustainable economy lawyer and a sustainable land manager in Devon. Given that climate change is so significant to future generations, I also note my interests as a father of two children whose own recent experiences of climate change warrant mention.
My kids have been privileged and challenged to spend their childhood in the south-west of two different countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the UK, they schooled at Kenton Primary School in Devon, which was inundated when a biblical deluge swept through the village on a Sunday in September 2023. The beautiful building in the middle of the village had hosted a village school for over 400 years. Given the devastation wrought by an unprecedented spate of five feet of water within an hour’s rainfall, it will never host a school again. A new school is promised on the edge of the village, but the excitement of schoolkids’ playtime voices will not be heard from the Triangle ever again.
Having moved to California to finish their education, they have enjoyed the delights of the Pacific Palisades Charter High School, replete with surf and beach volleyball teams, where my daughter is a senior and my son a sophomore. Until last week, that is, when the school burned down, victim, along with a whole community, of the Palisades fire, which still burns—it is only 22% contained. They are safe and evacuated, but over 50 of my daughter’s classmates are now homeless. They have lost everything: wildfire has taken back that whole hillside. The Apocalypse is here and it is now, and I speak today in tribute to that community and the remarkable bravery of firefighters, volunteers and public servants. While their experience is, thankfully, somewhat unusual, it will not be in the years ahead. Whatever we can do, we should have done it years ago.
Of course, it is not just these personal challenges that we need to bear in mind. Climate change’s impact on our natural ecosystems has devastated recent harvests. UK wheat production last year was 21% down due to those rains, and the Spanish fires around Barcelona massively disrupted supply of fresh fruit and vegetables. Bad weather has added over £350 to national food bills. Tree disease is rife due to unseasonable droughts, and pollinators are stressed by parasites encouraged by warmer weather. Similarly, our national infrastructure is threatened by rising sea levels, with the main railway line past my home now under constant vigil at high tide due to the threat of breach of the Exe estuary’s Powderham banks.
Nature, of course, will survive these challenges. The fires may be life-threatening to us, but the Santa Monica mountains will recover; this is their natural cycle, after all. Rewilding is not the option; the removal of productive farming and the local communities that steward the land is not the solution. That way lies hunger and increasing food insecurity. What we need to do is to listen to nature, not to fight it; to embrace it and to farm with it, sustainably harvesting our food and regeneratively intensifying production where appropriate. Around the River Exe, we should not seek to hold back the tide, like King Canute, but we should embrace its return and look to harness nature-based solutions to the challenges of coastal erosion and flooding. I have long requested that intertidal habitat play a more important role in our land management structures; thus I applaud the inclusion of this land type in the recently announced SFI options.
As a priority, the Government need to turn around their relationship with farmers and land managers. The APR inheritance tax reforms were simply a disaster for rural trust. Steve Reed recently announced fresh reforms at the Oxford Business Conference: a farming road map. I ask that the Government take care in uprooting and changing farm policy yet again. Farmers, and the soils and biodiversity on which they rely, require consistent, long-term and dependable policies, not constant chopping and changing. I echo the call by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for us to honour the work of Professor Partha Dasgupta and his The Economics of Biodiversity. I happened to meet him yesterday at St John’s College in Cambridge.
In their tireless drive for economic growth, the Government need to recognise the cost of the natural capital that that growth will inevitably consume. If we do that accurately, and accurately measure what we consume, we may turn the tide on global warming and biodiversity loss.
To conclude on a positive note, both my children are passionate about the environment and hope to study it at university. They know that nature can provide a solution to these terrible challenges, if only we treat it with the deference and respect that it deserves.
Rural Economy
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northwold. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, not only for calling this debate but for his tireless work on behalf of rural communities. At a time when the Bishops’ Benches are somewhat under assault, it is notable how much work he does. The recently retired Bishop of Exeter similarly did an awful lot of work for rural communities, and the Bishops’ voices are incredibly powerful.
I note my interests as a rural business owner in Devon and champion in this House of a very rural county which suffers from all the problems that have been identified. It suffers from being very beautiful and therefore a place that people imagine is very well-to-do; indeed, many well-to-do people own second homes there—this is Devon. It also has the largest road network in the country, and an ageing population, with all the implications of that. Due to its beauty, it has many crumbling coastal towns built in Victorian and Edwardian times, which cause all sorts of challenges and deprivations.
I also note that I am a supporter of the Great South West, which champions the interests of the rural south-west peninsula. It is focused on three themes: food security, energy security and defence security, which is a good indication of the broad range of services that the rural community provides to us nationally.
In the previous debate, I mentioned that I co-chair the Exeter Partnership. In that capacity, I see myself as a champion and a voice of the rural hinterland of Exeter, within the workings of the city. This brings me to the first point I want to make, which is that this debate and the way in which we look at rural England and the rural economy often seek to draw a line between our rural and our urban communities. I wonder whether that is really that sensible, because what I seek to do within the Exeter Partnership, and what we need to do, is to focus on how wholly dependent upon our rural hinterland is the entirety of our urban population. Perhaps by focusing solely upon rural issues we forget that the urban and the national economy are entirely dependent upon the rural economy for their well-being.
A very wise Minister said recently that
“our biodiversity is in crisis. Without nature we have no economy, no food, no health and no society”.—[Official Report, 11/9/24; col. GC 121.]
The Minister may recognise her words. Our nation is entirely dependent upon the rural economy, so for us to sit here and focus solely upon the rural economy and forget about the rest of our economy is perhaps a false distinction.
I had the privilege recently of meeting Professor Partha Dasgupta, who famously wrote about the economics of biodiversity and reminded us all that there is a vast amount of economic work inherent in the natural capital that resides within our rural communities that we simply do not value and do not identify. Therefore, when we are talking about the contributions of the rural economy to our nation, we need to insist that the Government begin to look much more closely at that natural capital—what is the value of the fresh air and fresh water? Sewage and water companies are being much considered today, with Ofwat’s announcement, but that is all being provided by our rural natural capital—the water that comes into our urban centres and the sewage that departs from them. We really do not think about that nearly enough.
The right reverend Prelate mentioned rural deprivation. On Devon County Council’s behalf, I note that the ending of the rural service delivery grant removes some £10 million from its budget, which is a vast proportion of its budget. Of course, the Government are seeking, perhaps worthily, to redirect those funds to deprived areas but, as has been identified, it is very difficult to identify deprived areas within a potentially wealthy-looking rural county such as Devon. The idea of deprivation requiring a whole area to be deprived is a fallacy; there is deprivation in the most bucolic parts of the country—it is deprivation that is simply not caught or identified by the way that deprivation is currently measured. The county council notes services such as getting children to school, fixing the vast network of roads and simply getting people to doctor’s appointments, et cetera, are incredibly challenging.
I turn to housing and planning in the few minutes that I have left. I take note of the Devon Housing Commission, which reported back in July when we had the change in Government. The provision of affordable housing within our rural areas is in crisis. I know the Government have a plan for 1.5 million new homes, but the challenges of building new homes within variously protected landscapes, the complexity of the planning challenges, the lack of staff within planning departments in rural district councils and particularly the lack of SME builders in rural areas are real limitations, and I hope the Government will look at these.
Budget: Implications for Farming Communities
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As I mentioned in my answer to the first question, most family farms will not be affected. The latest data shows that the top 7% of claims for agricultural property relief accounted for 40%. Regarding food security, we have made the largest ever investment in sustainable food production through the environmental land management schemes and are securing long-term food production through them. As part of the Budget, we announced £60 million for the farming recovery fund to support farmers affected by unprecedented extreme wet weather last winter, which the previous Government had not paid.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, UK farming suffers a chronic lack of productivity and an ageing cohort of farmers. They have been encouraged to hold on to their farms by virtue of agricultural property relief and the inheritance tax benefit of dying in situ. APR reform may therefore improve matters by encouraging earlier transfer to younger generations. However, it will unduly punish those elderly farmers who have estate-planned with APR in mind. What will the Government do to ensure that those elderly farmers who are terribly stressed by this reform and who will not survive seven years are not unduly punished?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Earl makes an incredibly important point. We are aware that this is an issue. I stress that farmers will be able to access 100% relief for the first £1 million and 50% relief thereafter. That means an effective 20% tax relief rate and that an individual can pass up to £2 million, and a couple up to £3 million between them, to a direct descendant inheritance tax free. It is important that we make that clear. However, I stress again that there is financial advice out there. Many businesses and individuals take tax advice. I encourage all businesses, including farms, to do so.
Independent Water Commission
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. Resources and enforcement are a crucial part of ensuring that any legislation is delivered.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, the Minister has indicated how quickly the Government have sought to address this issue, but they very quickly announced the intention to develop 1.5 million new homes across the country. We are all aware that there are development deserts across the country, particularly catchments affected by the nutrient neutrality rules on phosphates and nitrates. I have also heard that the Environment Agency has declined a number of major developments, including around Oxford and Cambridge, due to lack of available water to supply those new developments, as well as lack of suitable sewerage to remove waste. Will the commission focus, and how quickly will it be able to do so, on the limitations that the poor performance of our water companies is placing on the Government’s ambitious agenda for economic and housing development?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As the noble Earl heard, the commission has a very wide remit. I ask him to feed in anything like this that he feels it should be giving attention to. On housing and nutrient neutrality, we have ambitious housing targets, and Defra and the MHCLG are working together on how we can protect the environment and look at what needs to be done in the area of drainage. On water shortages, one of our manifesto pledges, and something we are very keen to work on, is the introduction of new reservoirs. We have not had new reservoirs for over 40 years in this country, and it is absolutely critical that we move forward on that.
Rural Communities
Earl of Devon Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to be permitted one minute in reply. I note my interests in rural Devon. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard, another west county farmer, to our Benches.
The reason I did not put my name down to speak today is that I was at Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire, taking part in a task force on rural retail. I will use the minute I have to emphasise the importance of community shops in rural areas and the huge stress that they are currently under. The supply of food and basic services into rural communities is really stressed. A number of the big wholesalers are no longer supplying these communities, so people who are unable to get outside the community—they may be challenged by mobility or by the cost of transport to bigger areas—are simply unable to get the basic provisions they need, and the larger supermarkets will not deliver into these rural communities. That is all I want to emphasise in my minute, and I hope the Minister can comment on it.