Lifeboat Services: Search and Rescue

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Anthony Mangnall

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am delighted to take part in this debate for the second year in a row. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend and neighbour, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), for securing this debate. We are of one heart and one mind when it comes to our coastline and making sure that we protect all those who are on the coastline or at sea, as well as supporting and promoting the important work that our UK search and rescue organisations do across the country.

I am always surprised that we call this a debate, because it is not really a debate. It is a moment for us to congratulate, recognise and thank those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others, to look after them and to promote the important work that, across the country, is often overlooked. I declare my interest, as I am the founder of the National Independent Lifeboat Association, which many Members have kindly mentioned.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work in setting up the charity. I wish to inform him that my own independent lifeboat association in Ferryside will be joining the organisation soon. I also take the opportunity to thank it for all the work they undertake in the Carmarthen bay area.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is particularly welcome news that his independent lifeboat is joining the organisation. As has been said, there are more than 50 independent lifeboat stations and 30 have joined the association. We would like it to be a full complement, so that every independent lifeboat station across the country has the recognition that it needs. Hon. Members across the Chamber have made a point about the important work of the RNLI. It is essential that we recognise the important apolitical nature of the RNLI and the fact that it does not ask for Government funding. The hundreds of RNLI lifeboat stations do fantastic work by raising their own money and through bequests, as well as by working with volunteers, who do an extraordinary job. The tales of their heroism are what make many of our coastal communities aware of the work of those lifeboat stations, which are part of the fabric of our community.

We are aware of the scale of UK search and rescue, which covers 2 million square miles of air, land and sea of and brings together multiple Government Departments. It brings together air ambulances, the National Coastwatch Institution, the RNLI and NILA. In my constituency, I am fortunate to have Torbay RNLI station, which is based in Brixham, Dart RNLI, which is in Dartmouth, and Salcombe RNLI which, unsurprisingly, is in Salcombe. The three stations cover more than 80 miles of coastline and have saved countless lives over the years.

The RNLI’s fantastic model has worked since 1824, saving an estimated 143,000 lives. Its work is unbelievably essential and, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said, it will only increase over the coming years. We need to ensure that that model is recognised, supported and promoted wherever we go. We also have to be extremely clear that volunteers often work day jobs as well and that their employers need to be thanked for allowing them to take on the work.

I came to the position of founder of NILA because I have an independent lifeboat station in my constituency, in Hope Cove. Far from trying to compete with the RNLI, it works in co-operation with it; they work together to help people in danger at sea. It became clear to me that many of the independent lifeboat stations were not getting the attention or awareness that other UK search and rescue organisations to which people were donating were attracting, and that we should try and do something to promote them.

The result was that we formed NILA by contacting the 50 independent lifeboat stations and having a conversation about how we could secure greater recognition for their work and ensure that we were not taking away any funding abilities from them. Each independent lifeboat station is still self-funded, but we are able to ensure that they have access to the rescue boat code, the Department for Transport, the Home Office if necessary, best practices, and training procedures; they can also buy equipment collectively if necessary.

The whole purpose was not to hurt or harm those services, but to make their operations easier. I am really pleased to say that, since we had the idea, we have managed to create it. We have had the association registered with the Charity Commission. It has been in regular conversations with the Department for Transport, which has given it recognition. It has a chairman, Neil Dalton, and a vice chairman, Sean McCarry. The secretary is Wayne Monks and the treasurer is David Harvey. Together, they are creating the management structure that is going to be able to deliver for the independent lifeboat stations, not just now, but in future years, and to protect those independent lifeboat stations that do such fantastic work.

I will explain what we are asking for and what we would like to hear from the Minister. The first thing we ask for, as has been mentioned, is recognition through the rescue boat code. We understand that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency is going through the process of reviewing the rescue boat code, so we would like to ask whether it can engage with independent lifeboats to ensure that, when the rescue boat code is revamped and rewritten, that is done so in conjunction with independent lifeboats and that they are using it to make sure it is most effective.

Secondly, we would like some clarification over VAT relief and fuel duty. I know that there is guidance out there. It is not simple; it needs to be simplified for the RNLI and independent lifeboats. The third thing is official recognition for NILA. We are waiting—the application has gone in through UK search and rescue. I would be grateful for an update on how quickly that will happen. The fourth point—I have got two more points and then I will sit down—is about support for the campaign to promote independent lifeboats and raise public awareness. There is continued support from MCA for NILA to join UKSAR’s operators group. Lastly, I call for the reintroduction of the rescue boat grant fund, which is specifically for the independents. A £5 million fund was launched. It finished in 2020. That fund was essential in helping those independent lifeboats. It was not a huge amount of money, but it made all the difference to those independent lifeboat stations.

I will end with this. We are very lucky across our coastal communities and in our inshore areas. We owe those people a debt of gratitude and of thanks. I hope we can hold an annual event in Parliament to promote the work of the RNLI and NILA.

Regenerative Farming and Climate Change

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Anthony Mangnall

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered regenerative farming and tackling climate change, restoring nature and producing nutritious food.

I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting me the opportunity to debate this issue. I also declare my interest as a Conservative Environment Network regenerative agriculture champion, whatever that means.

Farming is at a crossroads in the UK. This is a seminal moment, perhaps the greatest in 70 years, and it offers opportunities, challenges and the chance to rethink and reform our agricultural way of life in a manner that is harmonious to producing healthy, high-standard food, reaching our climate goals and enhancing biodiversity, and tackling rural issues.

To start, the method through which we subsidise and support our farmers is undergoing a complete revamp. The basic payment scheme, which rewarded farmers based on their landholding, is to be phased out and replaced by an entirely new scheme. This new Government proposal—the environmental land management scheme, known as ELMS—promises to be a fairer, more tailored subsidy initiative to help British farmers produce food at the same time as asking them to work increasingly at a landscape scale, to improve biodiversity, reduce air and water pollution, protect our landscapes from environmental hazards and adapt our agricultural ways in response to climate change.

ELMS is undeniably ambitious and what is wrong with that? At its core, it seeks to provide public money for public good. A combination of climate change and decades of intensive farming have had an impact on UK agriculture, land and environment. More frequent flood events, topsoil loss from erosion, pesticides and antibiotic resistance, and plateauing yields, despite higher inputs, are increasingly making farmers’ jobs even more financially challenging, incurring lasting damage to our shared environment. Agriculture accounts for 10% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, and it is in our interests to address that.

British farming faces a new subsidy scheme, the need to address climate change, the requirement to upskill and retrain, the need for standards to measure carbon sequestration, as well as having to ensure stability around food security. Those crossroads—that challenge—might well be described as a spaghetti junction. The complexity of what we must do is huge.

Over the past two years, since I was elected, I have been fortunate enough to spend a great deal of time with the farmers of Totnes and south Devon. In doing so, I have noted the manner, method and diverse ways in which many of them now farm. Some use the practices of the generations before them—a hyper-intensive farming regime, the “Dig for Britain” mentality, in which the land is worked and squeezed from every angle, for every nutrient, to produce food for a growing population through the use of chemicals and intensification, and where yields are a priority at all costs. Others have changed and adopted an organic farming model, where food is no longer produced at any cost, standards are raised, chemicals are reduced and, at the end, the product can display a label that denotes high quality, infallible welfare standards and, of course, a price to go with it—premium quality for those who can afford it.

It is perhaps worth remembering that there are 9.34 million hectares of agriculture landscape in the UK, of which only 489,000 are farmed organically. Then there are people who have long recognised and understood the need to return their land entirely to a more balanced and natural state of affairs—the rewilding brigade, whose efforts have been so neatly captured through the work of Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell at Knepp. They have been returning land to its natural state and making space for nature to take over, which has captured the imagination of millions.

The wide spectrum of farming methods all have their own pros and cons, but the focus for the UK has now shifted towards working with nature. We must pluck what works from these methods and encourage their use through a new initiative. In recent years, a growing number of farmers have come to rethink their operations—quite literally from the ground up—by placing renewed emphasis on the few inches of earth beneath our feet, known as topsoil. In a healthy system, topsoil holds the nutrients, biodiversity and biological matter that allows life on Earth to thrive. It is no exaggeration to say that we owe our existence on this Earth to those few vital inches. For decades, however, we have been treating it like dirt.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. He is making a very knowledgeable speech, and I support what he is saying. Does he agree that there needs to be a big cultural change in order to move away from consuming high quantities of low-nutritious food and towards consuming lower quantities of food that is more nutritious?

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is almost as though the hon. Gentleman has read my speech, because I will come on to these points. Yes, the issue is about improving the quality of the food that we produce from the soil that we use. We can meet so many of our targets on food security and environmental challenges, but also on the health of the nation, through the food that we produce.

The farms that we are talking about are rethinking their operations according to a set of principles known as regenerative agriculture. Simply put, regenerative agriculture involves producing food while restoring the land. It consists of the following five principles. First, soil should not be disturbed. Secondly, soil surface should be covered. Thirdly, living roots should be kept in the soil. Fourthly, a diversity of crops should be grown, and there should be an end to monoculture crops. Fifthly, grazing animals should be brought back on to the land through mob-stocking processes. Although those five principles are well known within the regen community, they are not so widely recognised within the farming community.

Such a method of farming moves away from the agrochemical model that relies on environmentally damaging and expensive chemicals. It provides a solution to improve biodiversity, carbon sequestration of soil and food production, to reduce inputs in costs and to create a symbiotic model that is sustainable, effective and necessary. By freeing the farmer from their dependence on the chemicals salesman, they are able to reduce their costs and take control of their finances. That becomes all the more prescient as the cushion of the basic payment scheme is reduced.

At this point, one might wonder: if it is such a fantastic method, why are all farmers across the world not upending their ploughs and moving to regenerative agriculture? Unfortunately, like many beneficial steps, it takes time. Regenerative agriculture marries old techniques with new technology. Although it is proving successful where practised, farmers are still required to take a leap of faith, both financially and educationally.