Agriculture: Animal Feed

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, for securing this short debate on an important issue and congratulate her on the parliamentary campaign that she is waging on this issue. I am sure that we will hear a great deal more from her on this topic before too long. I also congratulate her on her very comprehensive survey of the issue and the measured way in which she has put forward proposals for change. By and large, I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with what she said.

I shall make a few more peripheral comments as I do not want to repeat everything she said about this issue. The background is that many millions of tonnes of edible food are sent to landfill in this country as well as a lot more inedible food. It is estimated by the community interest company Food AWARE that perhaps 18 million tonnes of edible food ends up in landfill. Other people have different estimates of the amount of food that is thrown away and where it ends up, but what is common to all of them is that it is many millions in all cases. Again according to Food AWARE, we are in effect throwing away £23 billion a year, a figure that is rapidly rising as food prices are going up at the moment.

The environmental damage that this creates is obvious. Landfill costs and the landfill taxes that local authorities have to pay are equally obvious. Perhaps a little less obvious is the effect on people. Many people, particularly those on low incomes, are unable to afford what is described as, and is, healthy food and end up buying cheap junk food, although the price of that may be going up too. The effect of this food policy is ironically increasing malnutrition among such social groups and at the same time there is an increasing problem of obesity in the country. People are eating the wrong food, and they are eating too much of it. They are getting fatter, but they are not getting healthier. Disposal costs are passed on to consumers in higher prices and the landfill taxes that local authorities have to pay.

The NFU, quoting research at the University of Sussex, suggests that 20 million tonnes goes in the bin from domestic use alone. I do not know where it all goes. A lot of it perhaps does not go to landfill, but many million tonnes of food are still being thrown away. The statistics across the world are fairly well known. In Europe, on average 90 kilograms—200 pounds —of food is thrown away per person per year. In North America, it is even worse. Other parts of the world are similar. In industrialised Asia, it is 180 pounds. In much poorer parts of the world it is less. In south and south-east Asia it is 33 pounds, in Latin America it is 55 pounds and in sub-Saharan Africa it is only 11 pounds.

The fact that the richer parts of the world are throwing away so much edible food is a global disgrace. There is enough food produced in the world to feed the entire global population and, in fact, the projected global population for many years. The fact is that those of us in countries such as ours are depriving people in other parts of the world of that food because of the amount that we throw away. Looking at the famous waste hierarchy, the first thing we have to do is not to talk about what we do with the waste food that we throw out but to cut down the amount of waste food that we have in the first place. Efforts are being made by supermarkets, caterers, commercial producers of meals and some households, but it is nothing like enough. Until we tackle that basic problem, all the other things are really irrelevant.

The NFU is not against what is being proposed, but quite rightly advocates caution. It points out that feeding waste from catering establishments, including home kitchens and restaurants, has been banned, even if it is only vegetable waste, ever since the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, which some of us remember with horror in our own areas.

The noble Baroness went back 9,000 years, which is a long time even for the House of Lords. Those of us who go back to the years just after the war remember when we all had pig bins in our streets in which we put our food—thoroughly smelly things they were—in order for it to be taken away and made into pig swill. We do not want to go back to that kind of thoroughly unsanitary situation, but it appears that a cautious but determined approach to using much more waste food for feeding animals, particularly pigs, which are capable of eating animal and vegetable waste food, is a sensible way forward. The NFU is not against that. It says:

“This coupled with the obvious environmental benefits of reducing the tonnage of waste disposed in landfill each year, will lead to mounting pressure on the UK Government and within the EU to re-instate food waste into livestock diets. Yet due to historical precedents, the issue must be approached with an air of caution”.

I do not think any of us can disagree with that. Studies that are taking place are being approached in that way.

In order to do anything with domestic food waste, anaerobic digestion has an important part to play. I understand the point made by the noble Baroness that ultimately anaerobic digestion puts a great deal of the CO₂ back in the atmosphere, whereas if you feed it to animals it just recycles it within the system.

Whether food waste is used for anaerobic digestion, feed to animals, generating energy or whatever, it has to be collected. There are great concerns at the moment about whether local authorities will be able to collect food waste separately in ways that allow it to be reused and recycled under the proposals being put forward by the Government and being promoted particularly by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, even though it seems essentially to be a Defra matter. His obsession is weekly collections of food waste. They are an excellent idea if the food waste is collected separately from everything else. If it is simply put into the grey bins with the residual waste and mixed up, and given the state of the technology that most local authorities have access to at the moment for the separation of the waste that has been collected, that food waste will simply end up in landfill. That would be a highly undesirable side effect of what Mr Pickles is proposing. Of course, where local authorities at the moment are not collecting food waste, it will make no difference because it simply goes in the fortnightly collections, but where local authorities are already collecting food waste separately, would like to do so or would be willing to do so, the fundamental question is whether the amount of money that Mr Pickles is offering to local authorities—£250 million in total—will be able to be put towards separate weekly food waste collection as opposed to food waste going in the grey bin.

I asked a Written Question about this recently and got a brush-off, really, which was, “We are still thinking about it”. I do not blame my noble friend the Minister here because it was not he who gave the Answer; the DCLG replied to the Question, even though it is a Defra matter. There is real confusion here and it really would help if the Minister could either answer the question or, if not, go back to his colleagues in the DCLG and say that lots of local authorities want to collect food waste separately and want to collect it weekly, but if Mr Pickles is providing all this beneficence to local authorities can he please provide it in a sensible way and not in a very old-fashioned way that just results in the stuff going to landfill?

Agriculture: Egg Industry

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, on bringing this matter to the attention of the House and look forward to the Minister’s reply. As always, I enjoyed listening to my noble friend Lord Plumb and his robust representation of British agriculture, which, as he rightly says, is in the forefront of egg production.

The changes we debate originate from a welfare of laying hens directive 1999/74/EC, which comes into full force on 1 January 2012. From that date it will be illegal to use what most people would call battery cages but, in slightly obscure Euro-speak, are now called non-enriched cage systems of 550 square centimetres—a great deal less than it sounds. The minimum requirement will be an enriched cage system with more living space per hen—at least 750 square centimetres and a nest, perching space, litter to allow pecking and scratching, and unrestricted access to a feed trough. Many of us would still find this a small cage space in which to live but it is nevertheless a very significant improvement. That is the positive side and a good example of why we need to be in the European Union and why the European Union needs to legislate on such matters. Without legislation across Europe it would be very difficult to bring in this kind of law because of the competitive pressures which, in this transitional period, we are concerned about.

This is reported as being the first piece of EU legislation to ban a specific method of food production on animal welfare grounds. I do not know if this is true but there will be and there should be more. The problem with this, to be frank, is that the implementation of it by the European Commission has been botched. The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee issued an excellent report on this matter on 2 September. The press release said:

“The European Commission is sleepwalking into a potential commercial disaster over animal welfare regulations that could result in unfair competition for UK egg producers”.

As previous speakers have said, that is the nub of the problem. It is being suggested by trade sources that perhaps one-third of European egg production on that date will not comply and will be illegal. It is suggested that half of the 300 million laying hens currently producing eggs in conventional cages in the 25 European countries do not at the moment comply and will have to change. It is a difficult position and the Commission has proposed a transitional period covering half a year but says this must be voluntary. It is absolutely clear there will be a problem, at least for a substantial part of the next year and perhaps longer. It is all a very worrying precedent for the future of animal welfare legislation in the European Union. The legislation may be excellent but if it cannot be introduced in a competent way then it will produce this kind of problem.

Can the Government of this country ban the import of eggs, processed eggs or products including eggs which do not comply? If they cannot, what action can be taken? The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee suggested in its recommendation 13,

“that the obstacles to establishing a trade ban that encompassed all products that contained egg derived ingredients produced in non-compliant cages may well be insurmountable”.

It therefore recommended that:

“Defra investigate establishing a voluntary approach under which retailers and food manufacturers”,

in this country,

“would undertake stringent traceability tests”,

—and all egg producers throughout the European Union are supposed to be registered and declare what system of egg production they are using—

“to ensure that they are not responsible for bringing products containing non-compliant egg products into the UK. We further recommend that Defra publish a list of those retailers and food manufacturers that have signed up to the voluntary approach”.

I suppose that is the “naming and praising” approach; people not on the list can be shamed. Recommendation 16 was that Defra should,

“press the Commission to bolster the powers and resources of the Food and Veterinary Office”.

Is it doing that? It further recommends that after 1 January the Government should not purchase any eggs that come from non-compliant sources. Is that government policy? Will that instruction go out and will the Government make whatever effort they can to make sure that the whole of the public sector in this country follows such recommendations?

Environment: Cockle Beds

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their approach to tackling problems resulting from illegal fishing on the cockle beds of the Ribble estuary.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, the management of local fisheries, including cockling on the Ribble estuary, has been devolved to the North Western Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority and, as such, the conservation authority leads in managing the situation in co-operation with all interested parties, including enforcement agencies. In the light of recent events, North Western IFCA has closed the cockle fisheries for safety reasons. It is now a criminal offence to take or remove cockles in the Ribble, and the Government welcome and support this action.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, it is nearly 800 years since Magna Carta gave people the right to pick cockles from the shores of England. However, is it not now time that there was a better regime, in view of the chaos when the cockle beds were recently opened in the Ribble estuary near Lytham St Annes? Hundreds of people converged on the cockle beds, dozens had to be rescued and there was general chaos—and it was discovered that many people did not have permits. What will the Government do to help IFCA and other local agencies to protect the interests of the legitimate fishermen in that area who pick cockles so that they have a safe, reliable and environmentally sustainable business, which is being put at risk by what is going on?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

As my noble friend will know, the situation is that North Western IFCA took the decision, in the light of the safety requirements, to protect lives. The Morecambe fishery is closed; the Ribble estuary fishery has just been reopened; and the price of cockles, at £700 a tonne, has encouraged a lot of people who do not have permits to go cockling. However, IFCA recognises the effect that the by-law will have on legitimate fishermen and is urgently looking into possible management measures that it could introduce to ensure a safe fishery and to operate it as soon as possible. The Government support IFCA in this endeavour.

Rural Payments Agency

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. I am afraid that, as a departmental Minister, the room for flexibility is perhaps not as great as it was, but I shall do my best. We have been building alliances within the European community on CAP reform. I think many other countries will be just as disappointed as we are with what appears to be a very retrograde and regressive proposal from the Commission at this stage. Our job is to negotiate, as the noble Lord rightly said, to try to build alliances and to place not just the farmer or the countryside but even the consumer interest at the fore. That is certainly our position. That is what we intend to do, and I hope we have the support of the whole House in achieving that.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Taylor on his accession to the portfolio which he dealt with in opposition with such competence and in his usual friendly manner. I look forward to him holding this job for quite a long time because he will do a very good one.

Because of other things going on this morning, I have not had a chance to look in detail at the proposals from the Commission, but does the Minister agree that it is very important to prevent the opinions and forces in this country that would like to abolish the common agricultural policy and the payments altogether? They are not the way forward. Without a reasonable level of support to British farmers, combined with the cross-compliance conditions on the environment and animal welfare and the Pillar 2 schemes, such as the environmental stewardship schemes, the British countryside would be a much worse place.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Undoubtedly my noble friend is absolutely right. That is the purpose of our discussions, that is what our focus will be in negotiations, and that is why we are going into the negotiations in a positive frame of mind: to try to achieve the changes to the CAP which we think are in the interests of the people of this country.

Environment: Litter and Waste

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am not always convinced that targets are necessarily the right way to go forward. Targets can very often distort behaviour and distort priorities and how people deal with things. We made clear in our waste review that we want to make it easy for individuals and organisations to do the right thing, because a great many of them want to do just that. We will continue that process, and I hope that as a result we will head towards that zero-waste economy that we are looking for.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, in the general area of litter and waste, and indeed offensive graffiti, localism really should reign and prevail? It is not up to central government to tell local people and local councils exactly what they should do and how they should do it. It is up to local people and local councillors to get together to make sure that their streets and areas are clean and that unsightly graffiti are removed. Would he agree that it would be wrong for the Government to take away any of the existing powers that local authorities have in this area?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is quite right to link graffiti with both litter and waste, and I am very grateful that he did that. I am also grateful for his stress on the importance of localism. I have made it clear the whole way through this process, particularly when it came to our recent waste review, that we believe that it is for local authorities to decide on these matters and that they can get them right. What is right in one borough, such as Westminster, where I happen to live, or Carlisle, where I also happen to live, will be different processes. The same will be true for Pendle, where my noble friend lives.

Forestry Commission

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this is a bit like Punch and Judy—up you come, down you go, that’s the way to do it. However, it is absolutely clear that the debate that we have had over the past few months has been narrow, divisive and based on ill judged proposals. That is not the way to do it, but thanks to the sensible government decision that has been taken we now have a real opportunity to have a broad-ranging, inclusive, constructive debate about the future of forests and woodlands in this country. However, it all depends on the panel of experts, how it is set up, who is on it and their terms of reference. It has to be broadly based and I am confident that that will happen. Its terms of reference must be as wide as possible, not just about the future of the forestry estate but about the work of the forestry commissioners and the Forestry Commission in the widest sense, including the future of woodlands and forests in this country.

My honourable friend Roger Williams pointed out in the House of Commons debate yesterday that 80 per cent of the woods and forests in this country are private, of which 40 per cent are not managed properly or not even managed at all. That must be the basis of the whole debate but it must not under any circumstances be based on an assumption of disposal. We have to start with a clean sheet. As regards the terms of the panel’s operation, it must be able to look outwards to the knowledge, expertise and wishes of the people. It must be open and involve people throughout the country and do as much of its work as possible in public. I hope that it will hold a series of constructive seminars around the country in which people can take part. We have a real opportunity now to get away from the oppositional debate that we have had towards an inclusive project aimed at building a consensus for the future—not just for the next four, five or 10 years, but one in which the Forestry Commission, the forestry commissioners and our woods and forests can go ahead on a basis of 50 years, because trees take quite a long time to grow.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly in the debate because I realise that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, have been incredibly helpful. It is the first time I have spoken on the Bill. I just want to raise an issue that was not really covered by the Minister’s statement—otherwise I would not be standing up. That relates to the forests being used for motor sport.

Last year, the motor sport industry contributed almost £1 million to the Forestry Commission for 41 events, 31 of which were stage rallies. There is nowhere else they can take place. Each one of those is estimated independently to bring to the local community about £2 million when it takes place. Ministry of Defence land used to be used. That is not really possible in any event because of use in the past so the forests are the only areas where these rallies can take place. There was a centrally managed agreement between the Forestry Commission and the Motorsports Association, which is the governing body for UK motor sport. I have a couple of questions, because the Minister said that a measured and rational debate was not taking place, so it is going to take place with the review.

First, will the independent chair be appointed as a result of an advertisement or a few phone calls? It is quite important that we know that. Secondly, will the Land Access and Recreation Association have a place on the body? I am making a special plea because that is the one way that the motor sport industry will be represented. It employs 38,000 people, 25,000 of whom are professional engineers, and is worth something like £4 billion to the economy. Most of the teams that we see with foreign flags are actually in this country, where the cars are designed and produced. We are talking about big business here, where the forests play an absolutely crucial part, particularly for the rally side of the industry. It is very important that they can put their piece at the table and are not reduced to external flag-waving or lobbying. If LARA is represented on the body, then I am assured that the issues relating to motor sport can be raised, because the issues have not gone away. If I can be satisfied with that, there will not be any need to raise this in future. I realise that forestry is coming out of the Bill. Nevertheless, as this body and review panel are going to be meeting, if we can get these things settled now, it will make life a lot easier for the ministry and for Defra, which, I presume, is going to have to fill a hole in its funding in due course.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, along with other noble Lords, I thank the Government, particularly my noble colleague Lord Henley, for intervening early in this debate, which was extremely helpful in setting us on the road for debate in certain areas. I want to thank the Government generally for their common sense in dropping the forestry clauses from the Bill, or at least proposing to support the dropping of them when we get to them. The Government have listened to what has been going on; I suspect as well that they have been retreating in a certain amount of disarray in the face of the public opposition which they did not expect. I am not, however, going to stand up and talk about U-turns and that kind of thing. It is always strange that when Governments put forward things that some of us might not like, they are accused of being obstinate and stubborn if they refuse to listen to what people say. However, if they agree to change and withdraw things, they are accused of making U-turns. They can be accused of anything by people who want to accuse them but I am delighted by the Government’s decision to take out these clauses.

I speak in favour of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere. I would have signed it if there had been any space when I first discovered it. I have tabled several amendments in this group, which are now all dead parrots or perhaps dead budgies—or, since we are talking about trees, dead woodpeckers. I do not know; I get lost among these metaphors. The Minister talked about Sherwood and suggested that my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby might be Maid Marian. I was not sure whether he was putting himself forward as the Sheriff of Nottingham. If he is, the right reverend Prelate could be Friar Tuck. All I can say is: please can I be Robin Hood?

When I proposed that Clauses 17, 18 and 19 should not stand part of the Bill, I originally did so for traditional House of Lords Committee reasons. These clauses needed a great deal of probing and discussion, which the stand part debates would have allowed to take place. I was also concerned about what appeared, on the face of it, to be fairly draconian Henry VIII powers being granted. In retrospect I was right to be concerned, but as time went on I became more convinced that this was not the appropriate legislation to deal with the future of the Forestry Commission and its land, woodlands and forests. Therefore, I became more serious in believing that this House ought to take these clauses out. I now believe firmly that if the Government had not seen sense on this, this House would at least have taken them out before it sent the Bill to the Commons. Nevertheless, we are now in the position that we are in.

I praise not just the Government for their action but those who have campaigned on this matter. It is easy to attack or criticise the campaigners by saying that some of their messages were a bit simplistic and not all of the 535,000 people who signed the 38 Degrees petition had a detailed knowledge of all the issues. That is absolutely true but how many people have a detailed knowledge of all the issues when they cast a vote in a general election? Once these campaigns started to mushroom, I was determined to make sure that the people running them had as much knowledge and understanding as possible of what the Government were putting forward, what the Forestry Commission does and the facts and figures about the estates, as well as parliamentary procedures. They could then at least have some slight understanding of how the Bill would go through this House. Not many people have such an understanding—including some Members of this House, probably—but I thought that was at least a useful thing to do. If I have been able to play a small part in that, I am very pleased to have done so.

The huge petition that the noble Lord, Lord Clark, mentioned was quite astonishing. Similar petitions—about, perhaps, more important things than the forests in many people’s eyes—rarely get into six figures but this one, if the Bill had got to the Commons with the forestry clauses still included, would clearly have been signed by a million people. This is an astonishing phenomenon. In addition to that, several national campaign groups were set up and campaigned mainly via the internet. They included Save England’s Forests, which got its first real boost of publicity from the celebrity letter to the Sunday Times. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, in his place. He was thought to be a celebrity who might like to sign the letter. Nobody bothered to ask me but that does not worry me at all because I am not a celebrity.

There was also Save Our Woods. The young people who run that have done a very good job in setting out a vast amount of factual information and creating a forum where people could exchange information. I believe that all this has contributed to the amount of knowledge and understanding in the campaign groups being much greater than it was at the beginning. In addition, providing huge local support to the campaigns were local organisations, some of which were enumerated by the noble Lord, Lord Clark. Some of them covered big forests such as the Forest of Dean and the New Forest, others covered larger areas such as the Lake District, and many more, springing up almost by the day, were concerned with their own local forests. Add to that all the access groups, which were absolutely united against the proposals. Towards the end of the campaign, a lot of the established groups, such as the Woodland Trust and the RSPB, were coming on board. It was an astonishing campaign. The involvement of the internet, Twitter, Facebook and all these realms that I do not know much about has been a complete eye-opener to me.

Basically, the problem was this. First, the Government, although they would put it in slightly less brutal terms, botched the entire publicity throughout the last six months of last year of what they were doing. Different Ministers, although not the noble Lord, Lord Henley, were saying different things. It was not at all clear what they were saying. That gave the campaigns a lot of fertile ground. This was also about trees. As a local councillor for many years, I learnt long ago that you mess about with trees at your peril, unless you explain to people exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it and you get them on side. It really came home to me on one occasion, when Pendle council—I declare that I am a member of Pendle council—was proposing to remove some trees outside the municipal hall, which is a council-run theatre in Colne. These trees were diseased and needed removing, yet there was huge public opposition to it. We now have some nice birches there, which are much better. Nevertheless, at the council committee meeting at which this was being decided, a lady addressed the committee in tears. She said, “Do you know, me and my husband, we had our first kiss under that tree, and you’re going to chop it down”. That is how people think about trees. If you are going to do things to trees, you have to be very careful; you have to prepare your ground and you have to take people into your confidence from the very beginning.

I support many of the comments made about the independent panel and some of the questions. How will it be chosen? It is all going to happen fairly quickly if it is to report in the autumn, as is intended, so how will it be chosen? What are the criteria and the mechanisms for deciding who should be on it, and what are its terms of reference? The Government have to come clean about these questions from the very beginning. Furthermore, will there be any ongoing information and publicity about the panel’s work until it produces its report? If not, there will be a vacuum for several months during which all sorts of rumours will develop and gain credence. The organisations that have now been set up are not going to go away. They will continue to ask questions; and if there are no answers, all sorts of information will get out there that may or may not be true. It is in the Government’s interest to be as open as possible about the work of this panel and how it will work.

There is a further question about the 15 per cent. The Government have said that they have suspended selling any more of the 15 per cent until they have better protections on access and biodiversity. That is very welcome. How will these protections be announced, when will they be announced, and will the panel be involved in that work as well as deciding the long-term future of the majority of the estate?

A major consultation was run by the Forestry Commission in 2009—not very long ago—which seems to have been dropped and forgotten. A lot of organisations fed into that consultation. Will the proposals and submissions that resulted from that consultation be fed into the panel as information on which it can consider their views, along with everything else? Will there be a means by which the public can input into the work of the panel, or is all consultation now dead? I was disappointed when the Government dropped the consultation—although I was delighted when they said that they would remove these clauses—because a lot of organisations were doing a lot of work preparatory to putting in their views. It sounds—to a cynic outside, anyhow—as though the Government have said, “We have looked at the first results of the consultation. We do not like them and therefore we are stopping the consultation”. However, a lot of work contributed to that consultation, and it would be helpful if organisations in the field, campaigning groups and everyone else were at least able to contribute to the work of panel by putting in their views.

Trees: Sudden Oak Death

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to counter the spread of sudden oak death in trees.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the Forestry Commission and the Food and Environment Research Agency, working in partnership with other organisations, are delivering a five-year programme in England and Wales against Phytophthora ramorum. The Government take this very seriously. Infected Japanese larch is being cleared from 7,920 acres of woodland in an effort to halt the spread of the disease.

[Lord Greaves]

I thank the Minister for that reply and praise the work that is being done by the Forestry Commission and the other organisations involved. However, since Phytophthora ramorum jumped species into Japanese larch, is it not now spreading at an alarming rate through commercial plantations, particularly up the west side of Britain, and is this not, indeed, a potentially disastrous position? Are the Government satisfied that the resources that are being put into research, particularly into the nature, behaviour and means of preventing this disease, are sufficient?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to draw attention to the dangers of this disease, which I think was first discovered in viburnam. It then moved to rhododendrons and bilberries, but then, far more alarmingly, it moved into Japanese larch where it is difficult to detect other than from above by use of helicopters. We have put considerable funds into research into it. Defra is funding a five-year £25 million programme against this organism and against Phytophthora kernoviae. We will continue to assess what is happening. At the moment the advice is that the best possible policy is to fell the timber. Some of it is on Forestry Commission estate, some is on private estates. We will continue to do that as appropriate, particularly in the west of England.

Forestry Commission

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scott of Foscote]

My Lords—

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, the comprehensive spending review put forward proposals to sell 15 per cent of the forestry estate within the next four years. As that is possible under existing legislation, what is the rush to legislate for forestry in the Public Bodies Bill? Why does it have to take place now rather than at greater leisure in the next Defra Bill that comes along?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure that there is a Defra Bill in the pipeline, but I cannot comment on that. We are seeking powers to take the appropriate steps with regard to the Forestry Commission and the forestry estate in the Public Bodies Bill. We are looking not at an immediate sell-off of the entire estate, but at a process that will take place over a number of years. My noble friend need not worry about that.

Japan: Whaling

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. We will certainly continue with the policy on which Her Majesty's Governments—of all parties—have concluded for a number of years. We will continue to work with the IWC and hope to achieve success there. The important thing is that we also work within the EU to ensure that the EU speaks with a united voice on these matters. I offer praise to my honourable friend Mr Benyon, who last year at Agadir got the EU to speak as one bloc on the matter. It is very important that the EU continues to do that at St Helier this summer.

[Lord Greaves]

My noble friend mentioned the EU. Iceland is at the moment negotiating to join the EU. Last year, the Prime Minister suggested that if Iceland is to join the EU, it should cease whaling in its territorial waters. Has any progress been made with that proposal?