Environment Bill

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. I rise to support my noble friend Lord Carrington and to add my name to his Amendment 178. I also echo his words of thanks to the Minister for the time that he and members of his department gave us during our virtual meeting to discuss this amendment and for his subsequent letter.

While my noble friend focused his concerns on abstraction rights for arable and horticultural farmers and businesses, my concern is for licences that relate to spring chambers that are gravity fed from underwater strata. These are most often used to provide water to domestic dwellings and livestock troughs and many of these licences have been granted since the 1960s and before. Consequently, they have attached to them over 60 years’ worth of infrastructure investment, whether pipelines or reservoirs, and have become an integral property right and business asset, as my noble friend has already rightly said.

In the overview paragraph of his letter to us, the Minister says that a licence can be varied or revoked to protect from serious damage to the water environment. How this would apply to gravity-fed licences is not clear, since, after all, water appears from a spring and finds its own way to a watercourse. Where is the potential damage in that? In the paragraph dedicated specifically to gravity-fed licences, the Minister’s letter says that abstraction from springs of under 20 cubic metres a day does not need a licence at all, since at that volume they are exempt, but that over that the Environment Agency will balance the needs of abstractors and work with them to find alternative solutions if a revocation or variation is required. Frankly, I do not understand what that means, unless it refers to utilising mains pipelines, which defeats the original objective.

I am mindful of the words of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, in opening this debate that the Bill must satisfy the five Cs. If there is to be no compensation for the revocation or variation of these licences, the Bill will have failed in its defence of this category, in a manner where no environmental benefit is to be gained anyway.

During our virtual meeting, I understood the Minister’s officials to say that they did not think that gravity-fed licences would be included in revocation or variances. It is, after all, faintly ridiculous to think, King Canute-like, that water would be prevented from discharging itself from geographical fault lines. I look forward to confirmation from the Minister either that there is indeed scope for them to be excluded, or that there is scope for compensation for this category to be paid.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. She is not with us. I call the noble Earl, Lord Devon.

Environment Bill

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I have pleasure in supporting my noble friend Lord Kinnoull on his Amendment 260A.

The Government are setting ambitious tree-planting targets in their various plans, which is to be lauded, but those targets in England are not only not being met but, frankly, are being missed by a mile. Partly, this is to do with the delay in providing the much sought-after grant details associated with ELMS. More importantly, in my view, it is to do with the two uncontrolled destroyers of trees: deer and grey squirrels. I know there is a body of opinion that views these two mistily as Bambi or Landseer’s “The Monarch of the Glen”, or Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. But the reality, I am sorry to say, is that these pests have assumed the characteristics of vermin and, between them, have made the planting of trees in many parts of England a completely uneconomic proposition.

There are now more deer in the wild in England than in the Middle Ages, and climate change will only help expand their number. By way of example, in west Kent, Knole Park had a very nice deer herd. The deer fences were completely obliterated in the hurricane of 1987, and those 600 deer became the foundation of the indigenous population of fallow deer in our part of Kent. I am sure the same has been true of many other deer parks. In answer to the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about SSSIs: a piece of council land that was adjacent, that was an SSSI, was also completely obliterated in that hurricane. The council has no money to replant that, and therefore it is never going to come back as the SSSI it once was. Looking forward to 2045, I do not think it is reasonable to assume it will, to be honest.

The grey squirrel population, not indigenous but an import gone feral, has exploded in number, to the detriment of the red squirrel, all bird life—eggs and chicks—and, most importantly, trees. Until the Government contribute to taking responsibility for its control, woodland owners, whether in the public or private sector, are being asked to put good money after bad. This amendment is intended to address this. The animal protection standard, as proposed, would ensure some accountability for public funds. It would ensure that land owned by the Government, local authorities, the Forestry Commission and agencies owning or operating public roads and railways would be obliged to undertake control against deer and grey squirrels. Given the parlous state of the public finances and, in particular, the demands being placed on the funds of local authorities, this amendment would necessitate proper commercial audit funds being invested in woodland, rather than have tree planting be a palliative feel-good factor.