Plastics: Reduction in Use

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Tuesday 7th May 2019

(4 years, 10 months ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, there were quite a few questions there but I agree with the thrust of what the noble Lord said. That is why we are working internationally, as well as at home. I share your Lordships’ frustration; we need to take action, which is why the UK plastics pact is so important. One of its targets for 2025 will be:

“100% of plastics packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable”.

Others include to eliminate by 2025 unnecessary single-use packaging and to have,

“70% of plastics packaging effectively recycled or composted”.

I agree with the noble Lord and we want to take action. This Government are taking action through research, which will obviously be an enormously important point, to find alternatives to the far too extensive use of plastics.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, many consumers are now choosing to use biodegradable bags rather than plastic ones, believing these to be preferable, yet researchers from the University of Plymouth have shown that many of these bags are not in fact biodegradable. Will Her Majesty’s Government undertake to produce clear standards and guidelines so we can be sure that these are biodegradable and improve the environment, and that we are not misled?

Farming Communities: Rural Crime

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Thursday 2nd May 2019

(4 years, 11 months ago)

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Asked by
Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of rural crime on farming communities.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
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My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. Crime, wherever it takes place, has serious repercussions. Assessments through the crime victimisation survey show that vandalism and theft were the most common crimes experienced by agriculture, forestry and fishing businesses. In addition to theft of agricultural instruments and machinery, fly-tipping, poaching and livestock worrying are also particular concerns for farmers. NFU Mutual’s Rural Crime Report 2018 estimated the cost of rural crime was £44.5 million in 2017.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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I thank the Minister for his reply. I recently met with a group of Hertfordshire farmers, and among the many areas they raised with me was the problem of hare coursing, which is not only causing great damage to their land in some cases but means they receive threats of physical violence. It is a very difficult problem. The low level of prosecution shows that the current law is not making any impact on this at all, and those who have looked into it believe that some simple changes in the law could make a great difference. Would the Minister commit to looking afresh at whether we can reform the Game Act 1831 and the Night Poaching Act 1828 to bring the seizure and forfeiture powers into line with the Hunting Act 2004?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, I also last week met Stuart Roberts, the vice-president of the NFU who farms in Hertfordshire. Clearly, the intimidation and fear of gangs arriving on people’s land, often at night, is wholly unacceptable and must be addressed. I take the point that the right reverend Prelate has made about some fairly old Acts, but there is also the Game Laws (Amendment) Act 1960. What the police are doing with Operation Galileo in Lincolnshire, where there was a 30% reduction last year, is a way forward. I also commend the six forces in the east of England which have come together to share intelligence to help put an end to this devastating activity for farmers, particularly those in the eastern and southern counties.

Insect Population

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Tuesday 19th March 2019

(5 years ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, I referred to improving our evidence base: that is why we want to work with the scientific councils, which continue to fund research on insects. Our evidence base is improving because of that. For instance, the University of Bristol’s recent assessment has identified gardens and allotments as particularly good for pollinators; that refers back to the noble Countess’s question. Clearly, research is where we will learn more about alternatives to pesticides and ways to improve a habitat.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, will the Government’s environmental land management schemes specifically have a long-term strategy to address the decline in pollinators, particularly bees?

Farming: Carbon Emissions

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Tuesday 12th February 2019

(5 years, 1 month ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, clearly we want to work in partnership with the farming community, and we have supported the industry-led Greenhouse Gas Action Plan, but we are waiting to hear from the Committee on Climate Change’s advice, including setting a net zero target beyond our 2050 target. We will clearly need to work with the industry, but it is essential that we reduce emissions from agriculture.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, one point that the NFU made is that our wonderful British beef farmers are already two and a half times more efficient than the world average and four times more efficient compared with the beef from South America, so surely one of the most important things that Her Majesty’s Government could do is to put their weight behind British beef farming. What plans do they have for that sector post Brexit?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right about our impressive productivity. For example, in pork, there are 36% fewer emissions; in dairy, 7% fewer. We will continue to work with industry on breeding programmes to improve the efficiency of feed conversion in beef. Clearly, all that and the £90 million investment in the transforming food production challenge is about finding better techniques to ensure that we have great products at home and abroad.

Fly-tipping

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Thursday 31st January 2019

(5 years, 1 month ago)

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Asked by
Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact caused by fly-tipping on areas of outstanding natural beauty, following reports that the Woodland Trust has spent over £1 million on cleaning up fly-tipping over the past five years.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
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My Lords, the impact of fly-tipping is grave wherever it occurs. It blights local communities and the environment, and tackling fly-tipping is a government priority. Defra’s recently announced resources and waste strategy outlines our approach to tackling waste crime, including specific proposals to prevent, detect and deter fly-tipping. This month, we gave local authorities and the Environment Agency powers to issue financial penalties to householders who fail in their duty of care and pass waste to fly-tippers.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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I thank the Minister for his reply. Having said that, the statistics from local authorities show that over half of them have not had one successful prosecution for fly-tipping. They say that it is not about a lack of law, regulation or anything else; it is a lack of resource. They simply do not have the ability to use the powers they have already got. What can Her Majesty’s Government do to break through this impasse and address this terrible problem, which we face right across the country?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate. The fly-tipping and littering that we see in our country is unacceptable. One example is that of partnership. For instance, in his own diocese, the Hertfordshire Waste Partnership has brought together a range of organisations to agree on a common approach to tackle fly-tipping. It has seen a fall of 18% in incidents from 2016-17 to 2017-18. On local authority enforcement actions, there are over 300,000 investigations and a lot of hard work is going on. Partnership is the way that we are going to tackle this.

Brexit: Food Security

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Tuesday 23rd October 2018

(5 years, 5 months ago)

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Tabled by
Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of food security following Brexit.

Lord Bishop of Salisbury Portrait The Lord Bishop of Salisbury
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I beg leave to ask the Question in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who has been detained on other business.

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Monday 2nd July 2018

(5 years, 8 months ago)

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Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. I also express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and his Select Committee for their excellent and timely report, The Countryside at a Crossroads. Not surprisingly, many of the points that I wanted to make have already been made, so I will cut out a number of things. I will not detain your Lordships for too long but will just underline one or two points.

First, I will pick up on a subject that has already been raised by every speaker: research and data, which is then used for the formulation of policy. As someone who has been following the research and what has been going on in the countryside and in agriculture over many years, I would say that we really have gone backwards in terms of our grasp of what is happening on the ground. There was a period when I used to look forward to the annual reports that came out, when you could see consistent trends and how they were developing, and it was a crucial and essential basis for the making of policy and, indeed, for our laws.

Recommendations 35 and 36 of the report addressed the abolition of the CRC, the loss of that independent research capability on rural communities, and the impact on policy-making of a lack of detailed data for rural areas. We have already noted that Her Majesty’s Government point out that they engage actively with research. They cite the quarterly Statistical Digest of Rural England and various projects they have commissioned, as well as collaborations with academics working in this area. However, as we made clear in the response that I signed off on behalf of the Church of England, the work done on the provision of affordable housing in rural areas, for example, could not have been based on research that was really rooted in objective data. While government-funded research is recognised, it needs to move beyond the quantitative to the qualitative, listening to the most local and excluded voices, and we need to take a more open, proactive approach to partnerships with a whole range of academics, who have an extraordinary grasp of what is going on in these areas. We need to address this firm basis of research if we are to be able to produce good laws.

That leads directly on to recommendation 37, which calls for a statement of priorities for rural research. In their response, Her Majesty’s Government have agreed to produce and consult on a “detailed statement of priorities” for rural research, and this needs to involve other government departments. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the process and timetable for doing this? Unless we can put some clothes on this proposal, there is a danger that absolutely nothing will happen—it will get lost in the huge amount of work that Defra is already being asked to deliver. I do not in any way want to disparage those working in Defra. My experience of meeting people who work in the department is that they are always very helpful. Indeed, the Minister himself has been a remarkably helpful colleague with any questions that I have asked or anything that I have wanted to do, and I have been very grateful for his help. Actually, it seems to me that he is being asked to do a totally impossible job. One issue therefore is whether he will get the help that he needs, but perhaps he could comment on these priorities.

I was pleased to hear that Her Majesty’s Government are retaining the rural affairs policy team, despite the closure of the Rural Communities Policy Unit within Defra. The crucial question here is whether the team will have the staffing and funding to deliver the needs of rural policy across government. Some of us felt that the lack of integration of rural community policy in, for example, the recent Health and Harmony consultation on the future of agriculture post Brexit raised significant questions about whether there is sufficient capacity to deliver. I wonder whether the Minister might be tempted to comment on that.

Recommendation 39 in the Select Committee report suggests that responsibility for rural affairs needs to be transferred to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Her Majesty’s Government have already indicated in their response that they do not intend to change the departmental responsibilities for rural affairs. The reasons given are that the policy needs of environment, agriculture and rural communities are highly interconnected and dependent on each other, and that makes good sense. However, if that is the case, it would be good to see it reflected in the work of Defra, where currently the three elements can often feel very separate.

It seems to me that if the responsibilities are not to be transferred, a way of working more closely between at least three major departments needs to be established. First, for example, in relationships with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, particularly around housing and planning policy, rural proofing has been absent from many of the recent policy announcements. Some decisions that have been taken are, I believe, detrimental, particularly to the provision of affordable housing in rural communities. Secondly, we need to think about how connections will be made with the Department for Education, as schools are a key part of many rural communities and fundamental to rural sustainability. Thirdly, with regard to the Department of Health and Social Care, there is a need to ensure that there is sufficient funding for hard-to-reach rural areas, where GP recruitment is challenging and all services cost more to deliver than the budget accounts for. There probably also need to be informal links between other departments, such as the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but let us just start with the big ones.

The response to recommendation 40, regarding the fact that services cost more to deliver in rural areas, is to be welcomed. I know that Her Majesty’s Government have recently consulted on Fair Funding Review: A Review of Relative Needs and Resources, which proposed that rurality should be included as a common cost driver for delivery of public services. I understand that Her Majesty’s Government are currently analysing responses to the consultation, but I hope that the Minister can give us some indication, and some assurance, that rurality will indeed be identified as an additional cost factor as soon as possible.

Recommendations 41, 42 and 43 deal with rural proofing. I see from their response that Her Majesty’s Government do not intend for that to be transferred to the Cabinet Office, as the Select Committee report proposes, arguing that it should be mainstreamed into all departmental policy-making. But that is only arguing for what is presently supposed to be the case. How will that be different, when it is proving so difficult now? What is going to change? How can we get that change?

I suspect that one of the main issues is the provision of sufficient resources to do the job properly, particularly early enough in policy cycles for it to have sufficient impact to make the changes necessary. Frequently, it appears that the implications of policy decisions have not taken the needs of rural communities into account; for example, the recent changes to the schools funding formula.

Finally, I have a comment on recommendation 43. Is the Minister able to give us any more details on how Defra will have the resources and indeed the clout to request that other departments make sure that rural issues are considered as part of their annual departmental plans, so that truly effective rural proofing is in place?

Plastic: Recycling

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Wednesday 7th February 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, industry has certainly been working on this, as has WRAP. Indeed, industry has committed to bringing in by the end of this year the solutions that will enable the sustainable recycling of all black plastic packaging. Waitrose, for example, has decided not to have black plastic but to have other plastic—so industry across the piece is working on this.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, last year the Environmental Audit Committee recommended a legislated deposit return scheme for plastic drink bottles, which has proved extraordinarily successful in the US, Norway and Germany in improving collection rates and reducing littering. When do the Government plan to do the same in this country?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, the right reverend Prelate mentioned litter. One of the problems we face with plastic is that too many of us are dropping plastic, in the terrestrial and marine environments. The call for evidence on the deposit return scheme closed in November. The working group is due to provide advice to Ministers on potential incentives for drink containers early this year. We are—as I say, with an ambitious Secretary of State—looking for progress.

Recycling

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Wednesday 13th December 2017

(6 years, 3 months ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, the noble Lord is right. We need to work strongly on improving our record in recycling. That is why the Paper Cup Recycling and Recovery Group is examining this matter in much more detail; it is really important to make progress on this. I am very conscious that at Defra we now use half the number of cups that we did in 2013, and I want to do much better than that. This is all work that needs to be done very quickly.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, in the past the Minister has quoted the very different levels of recycling in local authorities. Can he tell us Her Majesty’s Government’s thinking on how to incentivise local authorities that are not performing well to improve, and how to share best practice to increase their level of recycling?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, there are very good examples of where this has gone well. For instance, the Kent Resource Partnership has increased its recycling, involving 13 local authorities, with a £67 million gross benefit to Kent taxpayers over 10 years for only £7 million up-front. We need to work harder with WRAP on extensive guidance to local authorities on recycling to increase revenue from recycled material and on cutting contamination of dry recyclables. My honourable friend Thérèse Coffey has written to the 34 local authorities with the lowest recycling rates; we wish to work with them to improve the situation.

Animal Welfare Offences

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts
Tuesday 24th October 2017

(6 years, 5 months ago)

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Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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I do have a list of 19 animals, but I will not enumerate them. Clearly, we have a desire to prohibit the use of wild animals in circuses. I am not in a position to say when parliamentary time will permit, but we wish to do this. That is why, in the meantime, the regulations we have for the two travelling circuses to look after the care of the 19 animals is so important.

Lord Bishop of St Albans Portrait The Lord Bishop of St Albans
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My Lords, in the light of the Brexit debates on agriculture and other matters, can the Minister assure us that Her Majesty’s Government will ensure that in future, after Brexit, the regulations requiring very high standards of care for animals that are being bred and transported in this country will continue to be applied to animals that are brought in from other countries with lower standards?

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Portrait Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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My Lords, I think that my Secretary of State has made it very clear that we wish to enhance animal welfare standards. That means precisely that we do not wish to see produce or animals coming into this country that are not looked after to the same standards that we would expect from our own farmers and producers.