Land Use in England Committee Report

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, the Land Use in England Committee produced its report Making the Most Out of England’s Land in December 2022. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, highlighted that one of the main recommendations was the creation of a land use commission and gave the example of New Zealand, which has a national spatial planning unit. The committee took evidence from a variety of institutions including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Natural England, the National Farmers’ Union, the Country Land and Business Association, the Woodland Trust and the Ramblers. I congratulate the committee and the noble Lord on leading this debate. I wish the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle all the very best and thank him for his 10 years of service to our House.

My wife, Heather, is South African and comes from a farming family. For many years, I was heavily involved in the family farm in the Free State and learned a great deal about farming. In 2021, on Report on the then Environment Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, set out the need for a framework for England. She that the pressures on land were growing and gave examples of the requirements for land:

“the need for more land for carbon sequestration, for food production and increasing our food security, for tree planting and for forestry, to reduce our reliance on imported timber”—

as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, outlined—

“to halt and reverse the decline in biodiversity, provide green open spaces post Covid and help communities and people protect their health and their mental health”.—[Official Report, 15/9/21; col. 1445.]

She argued there would be increased pressure for housing from an increasing population and, of course, this is another challenge for the Government. Is 300,000 houses per year their target? Is there a target? Is there no target? I believe that there should be. To meet all society’s need for land over the next two decades, we will need one-third more land than we have.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made an important point about the need for metrics. Does the Minister agree that we need metrics, because what gets measured gets done?

The Covid pandemic and the sad war in Ukraine have had a huge effect on the supply chain, including in every area of our lives. When I was president of the CBI in May last year—I finished my tenure in June last year—it was brought to my notice by the Ukrainian ambassador that the port of Odessa was being blocked. At the B7 before the G7, I was able to take this forward with the German Chancellor when Germany was chairing the G7, and after that the UN, with Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, got the port unblocked and we had that grain flowing. Now we have heard that that deal has stopped, sadly. This has had a huge effect on food supplies around the world, particularly in developing countries desperately needing that grain coming from Ukraine.

The Dasgupta review, which I will come to later, speaks about “the soils”. It says that

“if soil biodiversity were lost completely, the land-based food system would cease to function”.

My noble friend Lord Devon spoke about acronyms, and here is one: SFI, the sustainable farming incentive. It has arable and horticulture and soil standards, an improved grassland soil standard, a moorland standard, as well as nutrient management, integrated pest management, hedgerow and low/no input grassland standards.

In my role as Chancellor of the University of Birmingham last year, I had the privilege of hosting one of India’s most famous spiritual leaders, Sadhguru. It was an amazing event, organised in conjunction with the Indian High Commission. He set off from here—we flagged him off in Parliament Square—on a journey to India to raise awareness to save the soil. His simple message was this: we need a minimum of 3% to 6% organic content in soil. Is that something the Government are aware of and, if so, do they think it should be pushed in the way that Sadhguru did very successfully last year?

I had the privilege for some years of chairing TIGR2ESS, a University of Cambridge initiative led by Professor Howard Griffiths, a famous scientist. I put it to the Government that we should consider that TIGR2ESS was so successful because it was multi-disciplinary, multi-university, between the UK and India, and included organisations such as ICRISAT for crop research in arid zones, to increase crop yields in India, leading to almost a second green revolution and produce such as millet. We should have much more cross-functional, cross-border research, which would help make the most of our land in England. Does the Minister agree?

The Dasgupta review refers to genetically modified crops. It says that “GM crops remain controversial”, even though prominent scientific bodies such as the Nuffield Council on Bioethics continue to affirm their salience in a world with growing food needs. There are numerous examples of how classic genetic modification and the newer, faster and more precise techniques of gene editing have conferred desirable traits on crops. One important example of transformational crop change through genetic engineering relates to rice, changing its primary metabolism to increase yield dramatically. Because rice makes up 20% of global calorie intake, improvements with growth efficiency have far-reaching consequences. What is the Government’s position with regard to genetically modified crops and their benefits?

Many people have covered the area that we are talking about. The Green Alliance stated that over 70% of the UK’s land surface is farmed—the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, mentioned 64%, which you could round up to 70%. The Green Alliance also states:

“By contrast, the projected expansion of housing, solar or wind energy will occupy two per cent, 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent of land area respectively by 2050”.


Agricultural land use accounts for approximately 12% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The world will need to produce 30% to 60% more food by mid-century to meet the demand of a growing and wealthier global population. Demand for food is likely to rise in the UK but by a smaller amount. The exact figure depends on, among other things, future diets and reducing food waste. I will come to this later as well.

The good thing about this country is that we were one of the first countries to legislate for net zero by 2050. As president of the CBI, I was very proud that, as one of my achievements, over two thirds of our FTSE 100 companies committed to net zero by 2050.

On the other hand—I sound like a stuck record here—why are we not setting up small modular reactors? Rolls-Royce says that it can produce reactors producing 500 megawatts for just under £2 billion. These would provide power for about a million people, versus an example such as Sizewell C, which costs £22 billion and produces 3,200 megawatts. Why is there a delay? Rolls-Royce says that it can produce 16 of these clean, sustainable, low-cost, repeatable and scalable SMRs. Can we start these as soon as possible? I was talking with India, which is going to be hosting the G20, and I will be attending the B20. If Rolls-Royce gets permission to produce one of those reactors here—just the first one—that would open the door to exporting them to countries such as India. Rolls-Royce cannot do it until it gets at least one over here in the UK.

The Royal Society produced a fantastic report, Multifunctional Landscapes, which has been covered by many noble Lords in this debate. It clearly lays out the benefits of multifunctional landscapes:

“Land-based mitigation could provide up to 30% of the UK’s planned net emissions reductions needed by 2050. Land management is also central to preventing and reversing ecosystem loss”.


However, it goes on that say that:

“A core element of driving up land productivity is to explore the use of land for simultaneously delivering more than one ‘function’”.


This multifunctional approach will be absolutely superb. Of course, my noble friends Lord Cameron and Lord Devon mentioned this as well.

Another of the acronyms used by my noble friend Lord Devon was BNG: biodiversity net gain. This is the Government’s strategy to develop land and contribute to the recovery of nature to ensure that habitats for wildlife are left in a better condition than before they were developed. This is where I come back to the brilliant report by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta of the University of Cambridge, in 2021. He describes nature as “our most precious asset” and finds that humanity has collectively mismanaged its “global portfolio”.

Our demands far exceed nature’s capacity to supply the goods and services that we all rely on, and the last few decades have taken a devastating ecological toll. The review highlights that recent estimates suggest that we would need 1.6 earths to maintain humanity’s current way of life. Professor Dasgupta said:

“Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them”.


Since 1970, there has been an almost 70% drop, on average, in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Some 1 million animal and plant species—almost a quarter of the global total—are believed to be threatened with extinction. Protecting the environment for future generations should be at the heart of any economic vision for the UK.

A point that has not been mentioned is the circular economy, where resources are used efficiently. I can think of no better example than my own industry. When we brew and manufacture Cobra Beer, it is a perfect example of the circular economy. Of the grain used to brew the beer, the waste grain is used for cattle feed; the waste yeast is used to make marmite; the water is treated through effluent treatment and is reused; the carbon dioxide used is captured and reused; the glass in the bottles is used to make new glass bottles as well. The circular economy is absolutely crucial.

As we address the challenge of reducing carbon emissions, we need to think about biodiversity. We need business and government to work closer together and to prioritise national policies which support the development of the markets that value biodiversity and the natural environment—for example, natural carbon sinks and nature-positive business activity. Biodiversity loss is occurring worldwide, and the decline is set to continue under business-as-usual patterns of activity. The World Economic Forum estimates that over half of global GDP is threatened by nature loss. Preserving nature is central to a sustainable future. The OECD speaks about natural capital underpinning all economic activity.

I conclude by quoting one of my heroes and the individual who wrote the foreword of the Dasgupta review, Sir David Attenborough, the famed Cambridge alumnus. He welcomed the Dasgupta review, saying that it is

“the compass that we urgently need”.

He said:

“Economics is a discipline that shapes decisions of the utmost consequence, and so matters to us all. The Dasgupta Review at last puts biodiversity at its core … This comprehensive and immensely important report shows us how by bringing economics and ecology face to face, we can help to save the natural world and in doing so save ourselves”.