Global Warming

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the noble Baroness—someone, I confess, I greatly admire. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on securing this debate and his fantastic rallying cry at the beginning. Sadly—I am sure that I am not alone in this—he has stolen much of my thunder. It was a good speech. I thank all the organisations which I am sure have been in touch with all noble Lords ahead of this debate. I declare that I am a member and supporter of the Conservative Environment Network.

There are three things I would like to raise today. First, everyone knows the importance and beauty of our oceans and, sadly, the many challenges they face. Under the last Government the United Kingdom played a leading role in negotiating the High Seas Treaty and it now needs us—this country—to take it forward and to play our part. I ask the Minister: what steps this Government are taking to ratify the treaty?

There is one linked—utterly crazy, frankly—manmade thing we are allowing that is having a huge effect on biodiversity in the ocean, not to mention carbon, and which we could bring to a swift end. That is, of course, bottom trawling. Just before Christmas I met Oceana, the international organisation doing incredible work to promote ocean conservation. I asked for the meeting because I was struggling to understand why—this is not a political dig at all; obviously, this has gone on for far too long—we continue to allow bottom trawling to happen. I was blown away in that conversation to discover that it is also allowed in marine protected areas.

Let us be clear: this activity is unbelievably destructive. It is practically bulldozing entire habitats with extraordinary, ridiculously high bycatch, and it is disturbing blue carbon. As I say, this is actively happening now and in what are deemed protected areas. So urgent action is needed. What steps are the Government taking to ban this destructive form of fishing across our so-called protected areas?

The second issue, as has already been mentioned, is around forestry and rewilding. Trees play a massive role in society, in nature, in economic terms, in health and in carbon storage. What steps are His Majesty’s Government taking beyond the task force to unleash planting by the private sector to create new woodland habitats, thereby sequestering lots of carbon in the process?

More broadly, I have argued for—I am sure noble Lords have heard me bore for England on—rewilding. To me, nature is our ally on so much. It is not just about some green and pleasant land. It is not just about health. It is not the emotional attachment and the enjoyment it gives. It is not about the jobs it creates or the communities it pulls together; nor is it about the importance of restoring habitats or stopping them being lost. Nature does all this and more, especially when it comes our climate and weather.

The reason I pushed hard for nature-based solutions during our debates on the Water Bill is because those help us tackle water pollution. Often, they are far better and more efficient than manmade infrastructure. Flood plains, hedgerows and letting rivers meander, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, help tackle floods —as does our great and trusty friend the beaver. Trees, heaths and peatlands also cut gases. I say to those sceptics who say this is all nice to have but is impractical: it is not. Echoing the beautiful and moving words from the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, yesterday in her incredible maiden speech in this Chamber, nature does not stop things, including food production.

That leads me to my third area: farming. I want to raise it because the only people who can improve nature and biodiversity en masse are land managers. I am afraid it does feel as though this Government are knowingly making it more difficult for land managers to do their job. So I ask, respectfully: what assessment was done by the Government of the impact of the tax changes on farmers and, crucially, on nature restoration? If farmers leave and sell up, what will replace them?

In closing, I have a general point that again slightly echoes what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said at the beginning. Nature and the environment are not the same as net zero. They are entirely separate, albeit complementary, and I cannot help but feel that the wider Government—I respectfully exclude the two Front Benchers from this—see debates on the environment purely through the lens of net zero. I am not at all doing down the importance of green jobs or having energy diversification, and of course energy security is crucial, but so are food security and economic security. The Government, with the exception of the Minister, are broadly absent on nature. It is forced on them through the water Bill, or it is always under review, or, as we read the other day in the papers, policies are even killed off as options because they are seen as Tory policy.

By focusing solely on wind turbines and solar panels we miss a huge swathe of opportunities. You cannot tackle and mitigate the effects of climate change without recognising the limitless benefits and opportunities of nature. If we become the go-to place to lock up carbon, restore biodiversity and deliver green finance, those are the jobs of the square mile and the countryside as well as the solution to so much, not armies of civil servants or reams of legislation. Can I seek a firm commitment that the Government understand nature and the private sector’s ability to drive change? As I said, nature is a solution for so much.