Environment Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my noble friend and I support both him and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in the sentiments behind their amendments. In looking at the factsheet that was circulated by the department in connection with this Bill, I welcome the fact that the Government are minded to introduce regulations to, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, move food waste further up the hierarchy, so that there will be less left at the end. I particularly welcome the two amendments in this group as probing amendments, and ask my noble friend: is there not a degree of urgency that we need to do this?

I may have one point of disagreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. She and I both have family living in Denmark, I understand, and I have been immensely taken by the contribution that the Danes, other Scandinavians and Austria and Germany have made to enhancing energy from waste. I prefer to call it “energy from waste”; I know others call it incineration. I had beer poured over me once in my surgery when I was a Member of the other place; since then, I have called it “energy from waste”. This is the ultimate circular economy, because you are taking potential food waste and putting it into the system—the residual; I accept the hierarchy, and it should be the absolute minimum. The community benefits because it would go, ideally, into the local grid. There is a now a big incinerator in what was my original constituency, the Vale of York. The gripe I have with it is that it goes into the National Grid, whereas, as north Yorkshire is very cold, it should go into the local grid.

The factsheet also set out the importance of reducing the amount of food waste—as do both the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott—which is currently estimated as producing 25 million tonnes of CO₂ gas emissions every year through 9.5 million tonnes of food and drink which is wasted annually post farm gate. I take those figures as being accurate, as I understand that they are in the factsheet we received.

I press my noble friend when he sums up that there is a sense of urgency here: however we address it, we need to reduce that waste. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, not just on feeding Britain, as I think she called it, but for the national food strategy, as one of the team with its author, Henry Dimbleby. I look forward to hearing the official government response to Part 1 of that report.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. Like my noble friend Lord Caithness, I support the thrust of both these amendments, though neither goes far enough, in my opinion, including my noble friend’s amendment.

Amendment 149 applies only to retailers generating more than 10 tonnes of food waste and in stores of more than 400 square metres. I would reduce those sizes by half and apply them to everyone producing food waste: retailers, manufacturers and the catering industry. We have no idea of the extent of food waste in the catering industry. Today’s uneaten roast chicken should be tomorrow’s soup or curry.

Similarly, Amendment 149A in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness is absolutely right in concept, especially the idea of reducing food waste across the whole supermarket supply chain. We often concentrate on the food that is unsold in shops at closing time, but we really need to tackle the rejected misshapen carrots, the less-than-perfectly shaped tomatoes and all the other food that is thrown away before it gets to the shops or caterers. A lot of organisations, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, referred, usually charities, are seeking to use up food before supermarkets throw it away. My noble friend Lord Caithness is right to seek to reduce all food waste across the supply chain, before it gets to the ultimate shop or caterer.

In my opinion, it is wrong to set the bar at supermarkets with a turnover of £1 billion. That is too high. I would apply it to all retailers, manufacturers and catering outlets with a turnover of more than £200 million. As an aside, if I may say so—probably improperly—I hope there is still a Morrisons supermarket in five years’ time we can apply it to, after the vulture capitalists have loaded it with debt, robbed the pension fund and asset-stripped it. But that is possibly for another day.

Neither of the amendments deals with the appalling waste of food in our homes but, again, that is not a discussion for the Bill today. If my noble friend the Minister cannot accept the amendments, I hope he will stress to all those in the food supply business that at some point, the Government will be bearing down on them to drastically reduce all food waste at all points in the food supply chain and across all food outlets.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is quite right to point up food waste at home. Here in Eastbourne, we have a universal system to deal with that, and a pair of them is nesting on the roof above me as I speak: very little goes to waste here. But on the broader front, yes, we absolutely must not accept the idea of waste. This comes back to the point I was making on previous amendments: the necessity of looking at things in the round. One of the prime ways to reduce waste is plastic packaging. The less you use plastic packaging, the more food waste you generate. We need to look at things as a whole, not at little bits. Within the area of food that, however packaged, has reached or is reaching the end of its shelf life, we indeed need to make it compulsory that it is offered to people, particularly charities, so that they can distribute it as it is needed and that, if there is no market there for it, that it is used in the most efficient way possible. By doing that, we will generate efficient ways to use it.

The other day, I came across a fascinating company called C3 BIOTECH, which is using biotechnology to convert food waste into useful fuels and other materials. These things flourish because we create the circumstances in which they can. If we do not mandate that people deal effectively with food waste, it just gets thrown away and the opportunity to do better things never arises. It is really important that the Government take action in this area. I wish the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, well: if not in the detail of its drafting, very much in its spirit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we now enter the chapter in this Bill on water, which has attracted a lot of attention in both Houses and in the outside world. The first thing to say is that undoubtedly Defra and the Government have recognised the concerns across the nation about the state of our waterways and, in this chapter, have tried to put in place actions to improve the situation. So at least from my perspective, there is none of the indignation I felt when trying to sort out the set-up of the OEP.

I hope all my amendments to this chapter are as helpful as intended. I, and others, are trying to make certain that what the Government are trying to do really works for all those whose lives are touched by our aquatic environment—and that is probably most of us.

Amendment 160A is on “may” or “must”. I know the Minister, in his letter to us today, indicated that the point of the word “may” is to allow the Government to consult, but the Defra fact sheet that also came out today indicates that it has already consulted the water companies on this matter. I guess my point is that, if the idea is good and the water companies have been consulted, it must be done—and this is a good idea.

We know for a fact that some parts of England, notably the south-east, will be stretched to provide enough water for all human needs over coming decades, let alone for nature. If we are going to build 1 million new homes along the Oxford-Cambridge arc and 300,000 new homes every year, which we probably need to, if Southern Water is predicting a supply-demand deficit by 2030 equivalent to 50% of its current supply, and if we are going to get hotter summers, meaning less rain and more evaporation, we have to do some serious planning sooner rather than later, as proposed new Section 39F in Clause 77 rightly suggests we do.

I like the idea of moving water between catchments; I also like the idea of more reservoirs, probably numerous smaller reservoirs, which might be easier to plan, bearing in mind that there have been no significant reservoir constructions in England for over 40 years. I know we are coming on to abstraction later in the Bill, but this is a serious issue that needs serious long-term planning. There is no “may” about it; it quite clearly “must” be done.

The purpose of my next two amendments, Amendments 160B and 160C, is just to bring the necessity of putting the all-important wider consultation process, and the stipulation of who is to be consulted, under the “must” part of the clause as per Amendment 160A. Note that this is consultation on what the regulations should cover, not on whether they should actually be introduced because, in my view, they should all be “must”s. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my environmental interests as in the register. I support the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and his Amendment 163A, which encourages sewerage under-takers to consider nature-based solutions for wastewater treatment.

We have new and emerging threats in trying to treat wastewater. We have microplastics and increasing levels of hormones and other pharmaceuticals, as well as an increasing range of chemicals flushed down toilets to clean them. These are called contaminants of emerging concern—CECs—and the traditional approach would be to use different and even stronger chemicals to neutralise them, although I am not sure how one can neutralise microplastics. This is where nature-based solutions can play a big part. We all know that nature-based solutions near and on rivers can reduce flooding, cut down on nutrients getting into rivers and the sea and improve biodiversity. They can do the same thing before treated water even gets to the rivers.

In the next group is the new clause from my noble friend the Minister on stormwater overflows, which is long overdue. We must stop ordinary rainwater from entering the sewerage system and adding millions of gallons of clean water to wastewater, making the whole lot in need of treatment. In addition, we need a campaign to educate householders not to pour gallons of poisonous cleaners down the loo. I think we are still trapped—well, some older noble Lords might remember this—in the old Harpic advert of the 1980s, with its slogan of it being essential to clean “right round the bend”. It was a great slogan that has encouraged millions of us to use unnecessarily powerful chemicals to tackle a non-existent problem of cleaning sewerage pipes and not just the toilet itself.

In addition to reducing the amount of water which becomes wastewater in need of treatment and reducing the poisons we add to it, we need sewage treatment works to adopt, where possible, alternatives to chemical treatment. The main alternative has to be reed beds, which work exceptionally well and do a perfect job. Of course, reed beds and treatment require space and they are not the solution for many urban areas but they can be a much greater solution than they are now. Amendment 163A merely states that a sewerage undertaker in its management plan must address

“the opportunities for nature based solutions”.

As I read it, there is no compulsion, no fixed targets; it merely asks them to look at the opportunities to do it. In my opinion, that does not impose an unreasonable burden on them and I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept it, or accept the concept, anyway.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I welcome this part of the Bill. I refer to my interests as in the register, in particular that I am vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities and that I worked with the Water Industry Commission for Scotland for a number of years. I also declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Water Group. I welcome Amendments 160A, 160B, 160C as probing amendments and would like to follow up the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra.

In the regulations to which the Government refer, and as referred to specifically in the amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, it would be helpful to know who the consultees are. I wish to place on record what an enormous difference it has made since the Environment Agency became a statutory consultee to applications for major new developments. I know that at one stage drainage boards themselves would have liked to have been considered as statutory consultees in relation to similar amendments, but they are focused more now on the provisions of the Bill which relate to drainage authorities, which I personally welcome, and which we will come to later. It is essential in my view—and I do have an amendment down to this effect—that water companies be considered as statutory consultees, for reasons which we will discuss elsewhere.

I welcome the references to water efficiency in earlier parts of the Bill, and I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, referred to water moving between catchments. Catchment management control is a very positive way forward. He also referred to reservoirs. Has my noble friend the Minister had the chance to look at—and, if not, will she look at—the most recent advice given by Professor Balmforth on reservoirs? I particularly support what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said about smaller reservoirs, particularly in the context of what my noble friend Lord Blencathra said about nature-based solutions. We had an extremely successful scheme with the Slowing the Flow at Pickering pilot project, which only involved public bodies, and I am delighted to say that Pickering has not flooded since we have had this scheme in place. I pay tribute to all the partners—albeit public partners—that have been involved. We can slow the flow not just by building reservoirs, as those of a particular size do pose problems because of the current legislation, but smaller bunds and dams, and smaller reservoirs all have a role to play.

I welcome these as probing amendments to see specifically what form of consultation the Government have in mind in the context of these provisions in Part 5.