Peatlands

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves, who has been assiduous in pursuing this important interest. I need to declare my interest in that my family leases to Natural England 750 acres of lowland peat bog, or raised mire as it is sometimes called, situated in south Cumbria. It adjoins one of Natural England’s oldest nature reserves, called Roudsea, which is also part of our estate. The total land involved is about 1,000 acres. Much of the remainder of the estate falls under one or other of the numerous designations that will be familiar to your Lordships.

Natural England pays us a decent rent, on time, and relations between us are mostly cordial. Whatever opinion I might venture this afternoon, let me be clear that I feel no animosity towards Natural England personnel and that I would single out the senior reserve manager, Mr Rob Petley-Jones, as being especially approachable and, I would even say, visionary. That said, while they are all experts in their field, I would argue that their field is a narrow one and it is that which contributes to the problems which I want to touch on this afternoon.

As I understand it, until the Great War there was quite extensive exploitation of these bogs; I believe a number of families had turbary rights over them. The experts agree that the integrity of the bog, which the noble Lord has touched on, cannot be restored to pristine condition but that a high enough proportion can. It will therefore be rewetted, restored and preserved in line with whatever European directive deals with matters of this sort. The directive’s authors are specific that our bog is important and merits the expenditure that, in my estimate, runs to millions of pounds.

I am not qualified to challenge this assessment of the desirability of making this bog boggier. However, when I am told something is important, I feel entitled to ask how importance is measured against other desirable things such as education, health, care for the mentally ill, the plight of refugees and much else. Plainly, no one is pretending that the well-being of a raft spider ranks alongside that of a child trafficked into slavery, but what no one can tell me is whether anyone looks at this kind of policy and this kind of expenditure with the independence of mind capable of determining where the balance of advantage lies. Is a totally committed bog buff really the right person to give the Government advice? Can such advice realistically be impartial? What mechanisms are in place to allow Ministers to challenge both policies and outcomes?

When I commented gently to Natural England in passing on the cost of its operation, I was truly shocked by the reply that I need not worry, as it was mainly “European money”. It is difficult to imagine a better illustration of the attitude of so many in the public sector to matters of financial accountability. I very much doubt that our local experts would agree with one bog owner who observed some years ago:

“Many of these sites are cultural landscapes, forged by a subtle interaction between people and nature over centuries”.

Natural England is clear with us that its intention is to obliterate that interaction. Its ambition is to eliminate trees, mainly by drowning them. Its original plan was to remove these trees by helicopter, although that plan was mercifully abandoned. I like to think that the prospect of implementing such an insensitive plan within view of hill farmers suffering the effects of foot and mouth and low farm prices might have contributed to this change of heart. Rural poverty deserves more attention than it gets. It seems to have bypassed many of those who have safe jobs in the countryside and who are more comfortable with high-vis jackets and clipboards. I see scant evidence of policymakers in Brussels losing much sleep over rural poverty in the Cumbrian fells.

The up-to-date position on our bog is that Natural England has already killed some of the peripheral trees that it promised to preserve for amenity reasons and seems very well pleased with that outcome. It is hard to see how destroying perhaps half a million naturally regenerated trees sits with a mission statement of protecting England’s nature and landscape, especially given that no one disputes the fact that Britain has too few trees rather than too many. In fact, the world has too few trees. Natural England will not tell me—it probably cannot tell me—what the impact will be of this destruction and what habitats will be lost. What will the effect be, for example, on our nightjars? How will the destruction of our unique post-war wilderness impact on the safe haven it offers to a range of species seeking refuge from ever increasing human access, dogs and noise? There is no balance to be found in the argument. Who will benefit from these policies and how? The website offers a few bland lines, which itself is a failure of accountability, given the scale of change being imposed. I even understand that the alleged value of peat bog as a carbon store has been challenged by some scientists, and it remains an uncertain field.

It is fashionable nowadays for experts to run things. Experts are wonderful people—we could not do without them—but with every year that passes, I move increasingly to the view of Winston Churchill, who believed that experts should be on tap, not on top.

My purpose in speaking today is not to target Natural England specifically—it does a huge amount of good work, which I see every day. It is just one of numerous agencies that impact on all of us who try to earn a living in the countryside. My purpose is to draw attention to the fact that most if not all quangos, often through no fault of their own, are unaccountable, hugely bureaucratic, frequently conflicted and a cost to the taxpayer. Does my noble friend plan to look at those questions?