Environment Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I have put my name to all four amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

My noble friend the Minister acknowledged in his speech at Second Reading that heritage is a part of the Government’s vision for conservation and the countryside. He reminded your Lordships that the 25-year plan explicitly recognises the link between the natural environment and heritage and said that it is at the heart of our approach. However, if that is so, why is heritage the only one of the 10 goals contained in the 25-year plan to be excluded from the definition of “the environment” in Clause 44? EU legislation did not treat heritage buildings and archaeological features as part of the environment and, as a result, they have been underfunded for decades.

More than half of our traditional farm buildings have already been lost. As I said in Committee, I do not think it is possible to set targets with respect to people’s enjoyment of the natural environment without recognising that traditional farm buildings and other archaeological features are an essential part of accommodating increased numbers of visitors to the countryside and their enjoyment of it. Ancient tithe barns and other buildings have been or need be restored and repurposed in order to accommodate increasing visitor numbers.

On 23 June, my noble friend the Minister stated that heritage was never funded under the common agricultural policy. I am not sure that he was correct, in that, although heritage was not treated by the EU as part of the environment, I understand that it has been funded by Defra ever since the Agriculture Act 1986. Landscape heritage was one of five priorities for agri-environment scheme funding under the CAP and has received Defra funding of several million pounds a year—both maintenance and capital—for more than three decades, under country stewardship, environmental stewardship and previous schemes.

On page 42, the 2019 Conservative manifesto guaranteed that the current CAP budget would be maintained but that it would be moved from direct payments to public goods. The budget for public goods such as heritage is thus up to three times higher than it was under the CAP. Like the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, I look forward to hearing something strong and positive about this, because heritage is a great omission from the Bill.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and his excellent amendments. Like him, I regret that we did not get this on the face of the Bill. My noble friend the Minister rejected that in Committee and there is no point in trying again. However, I hope that my noble friend will pay strict attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said about making a strong statement that this funding should continue. I apologise if I am incorrect, but I think that my noble friend Lord Trenchard was right. My noble friend the Minister probably was given wrong advice when he said in Committee that it has never been funded under the CAP and that:

“It is not something that Defra has done or can do. It is very much a job and a responsibility for the DCMS.”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. 365.]


I think that is not the case and that this has been funded for some considerable time through Defra. I understand that the sums are not significant. We are talking about £10 million per annum, which has of course been used for things such as farm buildings, walls, and archaeology. It is not funding residences; it has not been funding grand estates which may be the job of the DCMS, or anything like that.

In addition to asking the Minister to make a strong statement that the funding will continue, I enter another strong plea. I do not speak on its behalf, but I understand that Historic England is deeply worried about this. It was under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that this would appear on the face of the Bill. It is now concerned that, since it will not be included, and given that my noble friend the Minister and Defra are rightly concentrating on funding the Bill’s priorities—peatland restoration, woodland planting and so on—something such as heritage might fall through the cracks. I would be very grateful if my noble friend said that either he or one of the Defra Ministers will meet with the heads of Historic England and reassure them as to their intentions. Historic England is not seeking much: it is seeking reassurances that the status quo can continue. I would be very grateful if my noble friend gave that assurance and assured the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that this will not fall through the cracks but will continue to be a small but important priority.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Blencathra just said about a meeting with Historic England and indeed with English Heritage, which is responsible for a large number of important buildings up and down the land. I support all the amendments, as I did in Committee. To me, it is an anomaly and a contradiction of the phrase “joined-up government” that because something is largely within the province of another department it cannot be covered by an all-embracing Bill.

This afternoon, I will concentrate on an issue that I raised on another amendment in Committee. I do so—and I have discussed this with my noble friend the Minister—because it fits logically under these amendments. When we were debating this last time, I said, and there were nods all around the Chamber, how central and important to the manmade landscape our churches are. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to a synagogue in London, the most historic synagogue in the land, and she was absolutely right in all she said. I pray that that is not overshadowed, literally, in the way currently threatened.

Central to most of our country towns and virtually all our villages, especially in England, is the parish church. You come closest to the soul of the country in the parish church, particularly through the monuments it contains, which often tell the story of the whole community—one thinks of Gray’s “Elegy”—in that church.

We have a real problem when it comes to the preservation of species and buildings. The National Trust paper, which we have all been sent, refers to habitats, and we have got the balance very wrong when it comes to the preservation of bats—important creatures that they are, despite being a bit of a health hazard sometimes—and the preservation of those buildings that tell the story of our land. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Goldsmith; I gather he is not going to reply to this debate, but he replied to the earlier one in which I took part and we had a brief discussion this afternoon. I had a lengthy meeting with him during the recess, on the dreaded Zoom, but it was a good meeting and Professor Jean Wilson, a great former president of the Church Monuments Society, took part.

I know there is a Bats in Churches project, but it is creeping forward slowly. We have 16,000 listed churches in this country, most of them Church of England, but not all, by any means. Some of them are being despoiled and defaced—the monuments, the wall paintings, the alabasters and the brasses in particular—by bat urine and bat faeces. We have to get the balance right when we are preserving species and buildings that were not built to house bats; they were built to house worshipping Christians. We are still officially a Christian country, and the parish church means a great deal to many people, even if they do not worship in it regularly. We have to remember that the parish system in our country means that everyone who lives in England lives in a parish and is entitled to the services of the parish and priest, particularly at times of great moment in a family’s history—birth, marriage, death. It is truly important that we recognise how important these buildings are.

In his letter to me, sent following our meeting, the Minister talked about something like five churches a year benefiting from this new scheme. That is good but, measured against the overall number, it is negligible. I hope that the Minister will meet me, Professor Wilson and perhaps others again, because we must try to get the balance right. Getting the balance right is the answer to so many problems in our country, not just heritage and environmental problems, but many others. It would be wrong if, during the passage of this environmental Bill—and I agree strongly with my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale—we do not get this on the face of it. I am realistic enough to know that we are not going to get it, but we need a strong ministerial statement. This is casting no aspersions on my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, who will reply to this debate, but we need a statement from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith as well.

We live in a landscape that is mostly manmade and, where it is not, it is man-moulded. Some of the most important features of that landscape are parts of the built environment and the archaeology of which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, spoke so movingly. Can we please try to recognise the threat to our churches from the overpresence of bats in many of them and do all we can to rescue a priceless part of the nation’s heritage and an embodiment of much of its history?