Agricultural Land: Protection

Debate between Jim Shannon and Laura Kyrke-Smith

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I am so pleased to have the opportunity tonight to share my pride in the rural areas of my constituency of Aylesbury, to share my admiration for those who work on the land and care for it, and to set out how we can enable both our urban and rural communities, and our natural environment to thrive. I am grateful to the Minister for being present.

I bring forward this debate in part to reassure my constituents of my own and my Government’s commitment to protecting our natural environment and safeguarding our agricultural land. This is a subject of debate in my constituency, as this new Government take forward the planning reforms that are so necessary for our future growth. After 14 years of deep turbulence and decline, with damaging consequences for nature and for our communities, I will suggest a better way forward, rooted in clear principles, more predictability and a dose of pragmatism.

First, let me turn to how we protect and enhance our natural environment, and give some context relating to my constituency. We are in a beautiful part of the country, which includes the Chiltern hills and historic woodlands and waterways, where 14% of the constituency is designated as green-belt land, but under the previous Government we were subject to extensive house building—more than 13,000 new homes in the past 10 years, and counting—which has led to great pressures on services and infrastructure and also on our natural environment.

My constituents understand the urgency of addressing our national housing crisis. The statistics speak for themselves: nearly 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists, including 6,000 in Buckinghamshire, and young people under 30 today are less than half as likely to own a home as young adults in the 1990s. Equally, many of my constituents understand the need for investment in renewable energy, whether it is onshore wind or solar panels, to get us on track for clean, secure and more affordable power by 2030, but they and I are conscious of the tension between the need for planning reform, whether for the purpose of building houses, energy or other infrastructure, and the need to protect our natural environment. How do we navigate that tension? Let me make three points based on Aylesbury’s experience.

First, we need to ensure that clear environmental safeguards are embedded in planning policy, and to that end the proposed changes in the national planning policy framework are strong: for example, the emphasis on a “brownfield first” approach using previously developed land for new housing and therefore protecting green spaces; the introduction of grey-belt land, which of course needs tight definition but should ultimately enable a more strategic approach to building on certain types of green space; and the “golden rules” in the NPPF, which ensure that any green-belt building will bring benefits for nature and for community access to green space. That will be a welcome contrast to the haphazard raids on green-belt and greenfield sites that took place under the last Government. In Buckinghamshire as a whole, for example, between 2019 and 2022 11% of new residential addresses were built in designated areas of outstanding natural beauty, compared to a 4% national average. This building has been happening, and my constituents tell me that the rationale for it has not always been clear.

Secondly, we need to learn from the pockets of good practice. I can point to one example in Aylesbury: the Kingsbrook development, on the edge of town, where housing and nature co-exist well. Kingsbrook was built with the help of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and includes 250 acres of wildlife-rich open space, with hedgehog highways and community allotments. I invite members of the Government to visit it, and to learn from such examples. Where it is not possible for developments to include so much green space, we need to ensure that there is ready access to nature nearby—as a member of Aylesbury Ramblers reminded me recently, while describing his battle with the council to keep footpaths in and out of Aylesbury clear.

Thirdly, of course, it is vital that where nature must be protected we do that, and that we do not just protect but strengthen and enhance it. I have seen wonderful examples of that in my constituency. I have observed the work that the Chiltern Society does with its 700 volunteers—for example, sowing wildflowers, or clearing more than 30,000 metres of footpaths and 2,000 miles of cycle paths and bridle paths in the last year alone. In recent years, however, it has seemed as if they are working against, not with, successive Governments who have shown little regard for nature. That is perhaps best exemplified in my constituency by the release of sewage into the rivers for 3,000 hours last year alone, with devastating consequences for nature. I am pleased by the early work of our Government to review the environmental improvement plan, paving the way, we hope, for the ambitious global goal of safeguarding 30% of our land and sea by 2030, but this is just the start, and the test will be whether these safeguards are indeed in place in constituencies such as Aylesbury across the country.

Of course, the NPPF rightly contains protections for the best and most versatile agricultural land as well, but, ultimately, protecting and strengthening agricultural land means supporting the farmers who steward and manage it. I have spoken to many farmers in my constituency, for instance during a brilliant visit to Ledburn farm on the Ascott estate, a producer of the wheat for my kids’ Weetabix. I know that farmers have been under great pressure in recent years, from weather events, disease, economic volatility, Brexit, rising energy costs, rising rural crime—you name it—but I also know that they work incredibly hard to keep putting food on our tables.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I commend the hon. Lady for bringing forward this matter? She is absolutely right to highlight the issues affecting farmers. She may not be aware that my constituency is one of the few areas of rich agricultural land that can produce three potato crops a year. It is essential that we ensure that farmers can and do make the most of the possibilities—not simply in lush Strangford, but in Aylesbury and across this great United Kingdom.

Does the hon. Lady agree that we need the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to engage with grassroots farming and to support farmers, thereby ensuring that we increase food security in the United Kingdom while protecting our agricultural land? The Minister is in his place, and there is no better person to do just that.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith]

I agree that supporting smallholder farmers is absolutely essential.

There is too much to say in the time we have available tonight, but I will pull out three particularly important ways to help set up our farmers for success. First and foremost, we have to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of British farming. The environment land management schemes have been unclear, difficult to navigate and poorly tailored to different contexts—in the case of Ledburn farm, to the heavy clay land. As a result, the uptake has been low, but farmers remain in need of that support and we have to find a way to make it easier to access. Equally, farmers are forging ahead and finding ways to diversify their income, but there is much more we can do to support that—for example, by making it much easier to change the use of existing farm buildings, or to develop lower-grade agricultural land, if it creates renewable energy sources or affordable housing for farm workers.

Secondly, we have to promote and support farmers to roll out sustainable farming practices that address challenges such as soil erosion and low land productivity—for example, by supporting the farmer clusters that have become increasingly prevalent across Buckinghamshire, which bring together farmers to help explore best practice and to share ideas for enhancing natural habitats on their land.

Thirdly, we need to invest in the next generation of British farmers. This means ensuring that we give the profession the status that it deserves in the first place, and that we start educating children about it at a very young age. That means creating pathways into the farming sector—for example, through investing in specialist technical education and expanding agriculture apprenticeships. It means making it not just attractive but affordable to live in rural communities and to pursue a career in farming, particularly in places such as Buckinghamshire, where there is far too little affordable rural housing and services. As a result, the pull to towns is too strong. In short, we can put all the necessary protections in place for quality agricultural land, and I am confident that we will, but without a thriving farming sector to safeguard that land, they will have little impact.

My constituency has suffered from the absence of a coherent strategy for our land—where and how we protect it, where and how we use it, and where and how we develop it. Recent Governments have left nature depleted, farmers deeply uncertain at best and out of business at worst, and communities frustrated by haphazard house building without access to green spaces, infrastructure or services. Under this Government, the future has to look different, and we have to start with clear principles. Alongside the NPPF, the new land use framework will surely help to ensure that we get the right balance between food production, nature and economic growth.

We need more predictability. Of course external shocks will happen, but the role of the Government is to be a steadying force. It is great that we have got to work quickly on the first steps—whether planning reform or setting up Great British Energy—and I think we can look forward to a steady, focused roll-out.

Finally, we need a good deal of pragmatism and an acceptance that getting the right balance between development and environmental protection is not easy, and there will be compromises, but it is necessary. We have to find a way both to build the homes and infrastructure of the future, and to protect and regenerate our agricultural and nature-rich lands, because ultimately one cannot exist without the other.