Biodiversity and the Countryside

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I declare my farming and land management interests in Wales, as set out in the register. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Grayling on securing this important debate before the Budget.

I begin with the policy area that should have been the cornerstone of recovery: land management. The Government’s handling of environmental land management schemes—SFI, Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery—has created deep uncertainty among farmers and land managers. Pauses, reviews and shifting signals have left farmers unsure whether they can commit to habitat restoration, soil recovery or long-term stewardship. As we have heard this evening, these schemes cover 70% of England’s land, so, where they falter, our biodiversity targets falter with them.

As we have heard from nearly all noble Lords, that same instability now extends to inheritance tax. Farmers who want to invest in nature recovery are being actively discouraged by the Government’s proposed changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief. The NFU has warned that the reforms could force farmers to sell part of their farms simply to meet their future tax liabilities, and the CLA has cautioned that they risk making some farms “economically unviable” precisely when we need them to deliver environmental benefits.

If a farmer intensively cultivates every inch of land, relief is available, but, if they re-wet peatland, create wetlands, plant woodland or commit to long-term ecological recovery, they may lose it. This is a perverse incentive. It rewards environmental degradation and penalises stewardship. Nature recovery depends on generational continuity and these policies undermine it.

Compounding this is the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which conservation organisations, from the CPRE to the Wildlife Trusts, warn will weaken environmental safeguards to accelerate growth. Biodiversity does not benefit from speed. It benefits from scrutiny, local accountability and protections that prevent short-term economic pressures overriding long-term ecological health. Yet the Bill risks increased habitat loss, reduced oversight and fast-tracked development across landscapes already under strain.

The same problem appears in an area which has not yet been mentioned: the Government’s energy strategy. Ministers insist that accelerated renewables deployment is inherently good for nature, but that is not how it is playing out on the ground. As Professor Dieter Helm has argued forcefully in the Times, the Government’s claim that renewables are “nine times cheaper” than gas relies on ignoring the enormous system costs: new pylons, substations, storage, cabling and “lots of back-up gas” needed to stabilise an intermittent system. We now require 120 gigawatts of installed capacity to meet the same demand once met by 60 gigawatts, meaning more infrastructure, more land take and more environmental pressure. Professor Helm warns that the Government are

“digging an ever-deeper energy policy hole”

and that this dash for infrastructure is not climate leadership but an ecological burden being loaded on to rural Britain.

Climate policy is not automatically nature policy. Net zero will not succeed politically, economically or ecologically if it is pursued at the expense of the landscapes and communities it affects most. The countryside is not merely a backdrop for targets; it is a living system of farms, hedgerows, rivers and habitats already stretched to breaking point. Weakening environmental protections, destabilising nature-friendly farming schemes and penalising ecological land management through the tax system are not the actions of a Government who have grasped the scale of the biodiversity crisis.

Given the deep uncertainty facing farmers who wish to commit to long-term environmental management, can the Minister tell the House when the Government will announce the next round of countryside stewardship agreements and whether farmers can expect continuity of funding in time for the coming planting and restoration seasons?

We cannot rebuild nature on the back of contradictory policy signals or wishful economics. We need coherence, honesty and a willingness to listen to those who live and work on the land.