Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [HL]

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene, particularly after what my noble friend on the Front Bench said. I assure the House that I will not inflict a Second Reading speech on noble Lords.

I proposed the Bill kindly taken up by the Government, which has become the Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill. Therefore, in some senses, I am a guilty party. I apologise for the fact that, because the Bill was taken up at short notice, I could not be present either at Second Reading or in Committee. Having read the proceedings carefully, I express my thanks to all those noble Lords who have demonstrated their love for Kew and their concern for it and its importance as a world heritage site and a world scientific centre. The words used by Peers on all sides of the House have been wise and shown a duty of care. My noble friend on the Front Bench has been wise in negotiating and listening to come forward with a compromise, which I hope will satisfy the House.

I have been in the two buildings mentioned by my noble friend in the debate on the previous amendment. There is no doubt that they have a better longer-term purpose. Something was said about how people may construe the intentions of Parliament—indeed, those of all concerned. When I had the honour some years ago of being the leader of the local authority, I walked the grounds with Mr Deverell, the truly outstanding director of Kew. We discussed this problem and these propositions, which eventually led to the Bill. With the benefit of those private discussions over a number of years, I can assure the House that never at any stage was any intention expressed, either in private or in public, by those involved with Kew that would lead towards the kind of concerning developments rightly raised by some Members.

With that assurance, added to what I know of Kew’s intentions and the benefits that this Bill could secure for Kew, I will not trespass any further on the House’s patience. I apologise for not being present to support a Bill I proposed in my name and support wholeheartedly. I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. Let us hope that the Bill goes forward and becomes law, to the benefit of this great institution.

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, it would clearly be helpful to add the amendment to the Bill. When I chaired the trustees, Ken Livingstone was the Mayor of London. We talked with him about resurrecting river access to Kew. Of course, it is no coincidence that palaces such as Kew, Hampton Court and Greenwich are where they are; it is because of their historical connections with the river. In a way, Kew has rather turned its back on the river. Perhaps this point is more appropriate to Amendment 1 than this one, but I can well imagine a situation in future where somebody might come up with an inspired proposal to lease a landing stage, perhaps somewhere where the car park is near the river, to facilitate a sustainable way of getting to Kew. That would almost certainly require Amendment 1 not to pass; indeed, it was not agreed. Secondly, that would require oversight to make sure that there was no adverse impact on the world heritage site or the universal values at Kew. We are right to give the trustees and Defra a degree of flexibility. It is very difficult to predict the bright ideas that might come up in future; it is not for us to try to second-guess them. However, the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would be a very effective backstop.

Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [HL]

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I should first declare that I have served two separate terms as a trustee of Kew, the second as chairman.

The Minister has explained how the Crown Lands Act 1702 prevents Kew granting leases of more than 31 years. It is not often that we delve so far back in history, and I should like to put this desirable Bill into a further historical context. It was Sir Joseph Banks in the 18th century who did most to set Kew Gardens on its way to becoming an important scientific establishment. However, after his death, and for many years in the mid-19th century, there were fierce rows between the directors—first, Sir William Hooker and then his son Sir Joseph Hooker—and their political boss, the first Commissioner of Works.

The row was about whether Kew’s role was essentially as a botanic garden and scientific institution or whether it was to be a public park. The row got so fierce that eventually Prime Minister Gladstone had to intervene; wisely, he went with Sir Joseph Hooker. By 1900, the Royal Botanic Gardens were transferred from the Commissioner for Works to the Board of Agriculture, as MAFF—now Defra—was then known. Kew’s role in botanical investigations, taxonomy, plant sciences and, not least, economic botany, were promoted to underpin government policies, as well as to support farmers and horticulturists. As the Minister explained, Defra continues that legacy of looking to Kew for scientific underpinning on policy issues.

The National Heritage Act 1983 transferred direct responsibility for Kew Gardens from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to a board of 12 trustees. The first chairman was my noble friend Lord Eccles. I suspect that the director at the time found the imposition of a trust board more onerous than the occasional meetings held with Ministers and officials previously. From 1 April 1984, when the Act came into force, the funding from government sources as a percentage of total spend started, frankly, to decline. This is partly because the role of Kew has expanded as it becomes ever more relevant. Not only does the quality of the science itself attract increased expenditure and, one hopes, increased funding, but its international importance has also increased and continues to do so. One has only to read the report from the United Nations that came out this weekend to note that biodiversity will at last be on the G8 agenda. Botanic gardens around the world, not least Kew, will have an important contribution to make.

I must, in all fairness, confess to mission creep. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was the Defra Minister responsible for Kew and I was chairing the trust, he gently rapped me over the knuckles for taking on yet more commitments. This was over the mycology collection, which was going to be lost—something we felt could not be tolerated. Of course, there was no funding for it so we had to commit ourselves to raising the money. I always recognised that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was quite right to draw attention to the commitments that we were making.

This week we hear about the United Nations report on global threats to biodiversity. To meet the increased need to broaden the funding of Kew, a foundation was set up in 1990 as a charity with the sole object of raising funds for projects not covered by grant aid or self-generated money. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about how far the envelope has been pushed on admissions. I recognise her point about how difficult it is to attract people from different ethnic backgrounds when there is such a need for self-generated money.

The Kew Foundation remains highly successful in raising funding, particularly for key buildings and core projects but, inevitably, as we heard from the Minister, some buildings in need of repair cannot be described as core buildings. Considerable sums of money will be needed to maintain them adequately. A wider range of commercial options including, for example, long leases, would reduce maintenance liabilities and running costs while in no way impacting on this UNESCO world heritage site. The case has been made clearly by previous speakers, so I need do no more than say that the Bill will be of great assistance to Kew and that I give it my full support.

Invasive Non-native Species (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

In respect of the other regulations that we have coming, including the conservation of habitats and species regulations, which are clearly going through the scrutiny processes of the House, when I read the Explanatory Memorandum to those regulations, the words “limited and informal” reappeared. Perhaps I can give the Minister notice, so that we can have some better order in our discussion of these matters, that it would be very helpful if the department would publish all the limited and informal consultation responses that there have been before we have unlimited and formal debate on the regulations in the House in due course.

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My noble friend in his helpful introductory remarks reminded us that this country produced its own strategy for invasive non-native species first in 2008. That was followed in January 2015 by the EU invasive alien species regulation. When the second strategy was published later the same year, the document stated that the EU regulation,

“represents a step change in approach and requires Member States to implement a range of measures for the prevention and management of”,

invasive non-native species, from which I think we can infer that the EU regulation of January 2015 upped our act and that of other member states.

Of course, invasive non-native species, whether terrestrial, freshwater or marine, can have devastating commercial effects. The question on which we have to satisfy ourselves in scrutinising the regulation and hearing that the EU regulation is destined to be retained is: are there opportunities, now that we will be separated by Brexit—if that is to happen—because we can define the area from which we expect to be protected from invasive non-native species? We are no longer thinking just about continental Europe and this country. Rather than wait for the list to be amended in future, is there an opportunity that would not have been available under the previous administration to start looking at the list of invasive non-native species from a totally GB perspective?

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening remarks and for agreeing to a meeting with myself and the Labour Front Bench prior to the introduction of this statutory instrument, given that it is the first of what we know will be many for Defra. As might be expected in those circumstances, we on these Benches regret the necessity of these statutory instruments should we exit the EU. However, we support the statutory instrument’s intent because controlling non-native invasive species is important for those of us who care passionately about biodiversity loss, which non-native invasive species are a primary means of achieving, and the cost to the public purse.

I will touch on a number of points for clarification. First, the preamble of the invasive alien species regulation, which frames the overall intent and ecological context of the regulations as they stand and therefore guides the implication of any future policy decisions, is not included in this statutory instrument. Can the department say why? I imagine the Minister will say that it is because of the expectation of a forthcoming environment Bill, on which we have heard warm words from the Secretary of State about the inclusion of overarching environmental principles. Of course, this House cannot see that Bill at the moment and therefore cannot be assured that critical matters in the preamble to this statutory instrument, such as the precautionary principle, will be a fundamental building block in it.

That point is particularly important given a letter sent by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, to my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville—she cannot be in her place today—in which the noble Baroness said: “Policy and decision-makers are likely to want to have regard to supporting material, such as recitals and preambles, to assist them in addressing questions of how policy might be made and how decisions might be taken in future”. Therefore, we as a House are beholden to ask the Minister to explain precisely why the preamble was removed from the regulations.

Secondly, as the Minister stated, there is a clear transferral of functions from the EU’s committee on invasive alien species and the forum, both of which are independently constituted bodies for the specific purpose set up in the regulations. It would be helpful if the Minister could say a few more words about who in our domestic setting will take on those duties because they are particularly rigorous in terms of both scientific expertise and data processing capacity. I would appreciate more information about that.

Equally, the Minister kindly made it clear that there will be a ministerial duty to ensure close co-operation with European partners and other countries on non-native invasive species. As he rightly said, both flora and fauna are not singularly in our country, but are transported on the wind and via other mechanisms to and from the European mainland, so we need that level of co-operation. Critical in that is the European Union’s invasive alien species information system. Clearly, the Minister cannot say at this stage whether we will have access to that critical system, which collates information about non-native invasive species from across the continent, but the department is obliged to say what domestic route we might take to replicate that remarkable database if we do not.

Governance is also an issue. The Minister was very clear that the responsible authorities will have a duty to report, but the overarching question is: who will they report to? He mentioned the office for environmental protection, which is as yet unconstituted because it will be introduced under the forthcoming Bill, and said that the responsible authorities have a reporting duty. As it stands, that office has no capacity to hold the Government to account; therefore, the systems currently in place for the European Commission to hold the Government to account will not be replicated in the processes and procedures in this statutory instrument. Equally, as other noble Lords may comment on, we are not expecting the office for environmental protection any day soon, given that we have not even had the legislation yet. So there is a question about how we are going to manage the reporting in holding the Government to account in the meantime.

Finally, because there are not significant costs to private companies, there has not been an impact assessment for this statutory instrument. Yet the Explanatory Notes make it quite clear that there will be a cost to the Government and public bodies, although it is below the plus or minus £5 million threshold. Given that this is the first statutory instrument—there will be many—there will clearly be significant costs to the Minister’s department in delivering the new mechanisms and bodies to deliver the levels of safeguards we need for our environmental protection in this country. I hope the department has—I am sure this is not the right term—a running tally of costs, given that there is no impact assessment that we can see. It is important that we know the costs to the Minister’s department, which does not have a significant budget, and that it will have the resources in future to deliver the services that our environment requires.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my farming and environmental interests set out in the register. Like other speakers, I welcome this 25-year plan but, like the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I speculate about whether we can be confident of a successful outcome in 25 years’ time.

I want to my limit my remarks to the concept of natural capital accounting, which is central to this plan. We have to recognise that to deliver on protecting our natural capital and enhancing our ecosystems, we must first have an agreed understanding in the public and private sectors of just what we mean by natural capital, how we monitor it and how one restates one’s accounts to take it into account. We need agreement on how national, regional and local priorities, however local, for restoring and enhancing ecosystem services can be determined. They have to conform clearly to the overall strategy, as set out in this paper. There also has to be recognition that no implementation plan can succeed unless there is widespread ownership of the plan involving the managers of the natural resource in question as well as others with an interest in the outcome.

The concept of developing policy objectives informed by natural capital got a major boost under the last Labour Government when they commissioned the United Kingdom national ecosystem assessment. It was published at the beginning of the coalition Government in 2011. It provided a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural environment in this country and offered a new way of estimating our national wealth. The underestimation of the value of natural processes such as water filtration or air purification can be appreciated if you try to calculate the cost of providing these ecosystem services would by industrial means.

Since that report, there have been many helpful studies on how we should take account of the full value of ecosystem services in our decision-making, not least from the Natural Capital Committee. But as the committee itself stated in its advice to the Government on the draft 25-year plan last September, as already mentioned,

“there are significant gaps in current knowledge and a lack of joined up approaches to data collection, measurement and monitoring of the UK’s natural assets … many different agencies are responsible for the collection of data (e.g. the Forestry Commission, Environment Agency, Met Office, Natural England, and Joint Nature Conservation Commission). This leads to both gaps and duplication in the data collected and inconsistencies in approaches to analysis”.

If the 25-year plan is to benefit from using natural capital accounting and monitoring, there simply must be a concerted attempt by Defra to align all these. Defra’s job here is to knock heads together.

If the plan is to deliver in 25 years’ time, there needs to be a robust evidence base, as has just been stated. We are still awaiting definitive guidance from the Office for National Statistics on the development of national natural capital accounts, without which you cannot measure overall progress on natural capital improvement. Much of our natural capital is, inevitably, owned and managed by the private sector, so the plan will need to mobilise sustained private sector initiatives.

We have already heard much about agriculture—not surprisingly as it is the sector that manages 70% of our land, and so is clearly a highly important industry in delivery of the plan. But even the largest farms will invariably benefit from following the guidance of the Lawton report of 2010, which suggested that working in larger blocks, with neighbours, to deliver enhanced ecosystem services at a parish or landscape scale is going to be much more effective. Providing bigger, better and more joined-up habitats will deliver better results for biodiversity enhancement. As the water companies and farmers have demonstrated, as referred to in the report, you simply cannot contemplate flood control and water purification without operating at this scale and larger.

The recent development of farm clusters, a number of which have now been set up, has the great virtue of being run by farmers or land managers. The members know what it is feasible to deliver in terms of environmental enhancement and, with suitable encouragement, can select and deliver agreed local improvements to ecosystem services. I say “agreed”, because it is no good the farmers just charging off and saying, “This is what we want to deliver”. One should say in parenthesis that delivering food or timber is an ecosystem service and very desirable, but clearly we want to move on to other services.

Getting a considerable number of land managers to consult their neighbours and the relevant agencies, and to agree among themselves what programmes can be delivered, will take a bit of organising. In other words, a part-time, paid convenor is required for each cluster. Therefore, I strongly recommend to Defra that the funding of such convenors would prove a highly effective way of ensuring delivery of many of the land-based objectives in its 25-year plan.