Environment Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

I think we really do need to try to ensure that this Bill is as all-encompassing as we were led to suppose it would be, and that it does indeed act as a protector of our environment, in its totality, through the centuries. If we are going to have a landmark Bill—and we have referred to this many time during the debates, on Monday and again today—it must be a Bill that includes all our landscape. So while I would not expect my noble friend to give a definitive answer this evening, he did make some encouraging comments in his speech on Second Reading. I hope we can have a meeting with him, and perhaps bring one or two representatives from the Heritage Alliance with us, to talk these things through. I hope that my noble friend will be able, even at this late stage in the evening, to encourage us to do precisely that, so that when it comes to Report, we can indeed have a Bill which we all feel we can be very proud of.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my environmental interests as on the register. This is a very important amendment which I am proud to support, and I urge my noble friend the Minister to agree to it, or at least to some variation of it if it is deemed to be technically deficient. What is not deficient is the concept; it is absolutely right that the cultural heritage of our landscape should be included as part of the definition of “natural environment”, as Amendment 111 seeks to do. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that his request to the Minister was very modest, in my opinion. I am fairly certain I can say to my noble friend the Minister that, when it comes to Report, unless there is progress on this, there will be quite a few loyal friends behind him who will wish to push an amendment of this sort ourselves.

The case for inclusion has been very eloquently made by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and my noble friend Lord Cormack, and in the inspirational speech by my noble friend Lord Inglewood. I have been privileged over the last 30 years to live a few miles away from my noble friend Lord Inglewood’s home and gardens, the parkland, the ponds and the well-farmed estate. It is a perfect example of the historical and cultural heritage of this country. Looking at his home, one can see how it has been changed over the years—I think the Scots had some part in changing the configuration of it at one point—and rebuilt according to different architectural styles. The land and the farm have been managed differently over hundreds of years. It is a perfect example of what this amendment is about.

I simply say that if those noble Lords who have spoken, and those who are about speak again—such as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard, who made this point at Second Reading—who are landowners, and who know all about the management of historic countryside, are in favour of this amendment, then a wise Government should listen carefully to what they say.

Rather than be a poor echo of what those noble Lords have said, I want to put before the House the most brilliant description of the English countryside I have ever read. I regard this amendment as The Road to Little Dribbling amendment—the name of the 2015 book by the American writer Bill Bryson. If Peers have not read it, then I commend it to them. It describes in witty form everything that is so special about rural England. I simply want to put on the record two paragraphs. He writes:

“Nothing—and I mean, really, absolutely nothing—is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilized—more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines—and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history. In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time, and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily-spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 88,386 square miles the world has ever known—almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is.”


So says an American writer. Is that not the most magical statement on the English countryside you have ever heard? It is also a definitive description of what this amendment is all about. I am certain that the Public Bill Office and parliamentary drafters would not allow it, but I would love to have that description added to the Bill as an amendment—I would not get away with it.

For the sake of completeness, I said that I would quote a second paragraph, so I must also give the House this one. Bill Bryson writes:

“And what a joy it is to walk in it. England and Wales have 130,000 miles of footpaths, about 2.2 miles of path for every square mile of area. People in Britain don’t realise how extraordinary that is. If you told someone in Midwest America, where I come from, that you intended to spend the weekend walking across farmland, they would look at you as if you were out of your mind. You couldn’t do it anyway. Every field you crossed would end in a barrier of barbed wire. You would find no helpful stiles, no kissing gates, no beckoning wooden footpath posts to guide you on your way. All you would get would be a farmer with a shotgun wondering what the hell you were doing blundering around in his alfalfa.”


Since I am sitting behind the Bishops’ Bench, perhaps I may be forgiven for using the word “hell”, although I do so in a non-biblical sense. I hope that it is not a microaggression to use such a word these days. And I hope, of course, that the Bishops believe in such a place as hell.

The Bill Bryson description makes the perfect case for these amendments. There is nothing more I can usefully add. I rest my case.

[Lord Carrington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a daunting task to follow the splendid oratory of not only the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale, Lord Cormack and Lord Inglewood. I will do my best.

I declare my interests as set out in the register and add that I am custodian—I use that word on purpose—while alive, of historic monuments on my land. I support the amendments in this group, commencing with Amendment 59 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale, Lord Blencathra and Lord Cormack, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I hope that I will not cover too much of the same ground that has been so ably covered by them.

My concern is the considerable lack of clarity on eligibility for, and funding of, this all-important man-made heritage. I understand that heritage is included as part of the specific goals in the 25-year environment plan, and that funding could well be part of the environmental land management schemes to be introduced under the Agriculture Act. But that is all vague, and surely we need the certainty of measurement, reporting and funding that would be achieved by these amendments. After all, a plan is just a plan, and the fact that the Agriculture Act enables heritage to be funded is not an actual promise of funding.

It would obviously help if we had some details of the elusive ELMS, but this is still perhaps two years away. But early reaction from the farming community is underwhelming, particularly at a time of respectable prices for livestock and arable crops. If this continues, and the financial viability of ELMS for farmers is not sufficiently attractive, the laudable aims of encouraging biodiversity, funding heritage, planting trees and much more will not be fulfilled. Surely that is a powerful reason for these amendments.

It might help to give a specific example. Where I live, according to the Domesday Book, there was a bloody battle between the Saxons and the Danes, currently undated, which resulted in a series of barrows—burial mounds—and ancient fortifications and a huge chalk cross carved into the hill, which was once visible from many miles away. There is also the site of a Roman villa nearby. All these monuments are in overgrown scrubland, and invisible. They all have permitted access, so there is no problem in that respect. None is an SSSI, they do not form part of farmland registered for the basic payment, and they are not within any managed woodland scheme. Hence there is no current source of funds from any relevant scheme.

For those important archaeological features, there is neither carrot nor stick available to encourage necessary maintenance. Please will the Minister tell us how those monuments, and many others like them, can be preserved and funded, without the assurance that would be given by the inclusion of heritage in the Bill, as well as much-needed clarification of the funding available through the 25-year environmental improvement plan—and, of course, the environmental land management schemes—identified by the Government for this cause?