Adapting to Climate Change: EU Agriculture and Forestry (EUC Report)

Lord Henley Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, along with other noble Lords, I offer my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Framlingham on his maiden speech, particularly on bringing his expertise in both forestry and agriculture from another place to this House. I hope that in due course I can deal with some of those concerns. He raised some of his other concerns about the use of new technologies in this House. That is not a matter that I will try to address this evening, but will leave for the House authorities to address in due course.

Like other noble Lords, I congratulate not only the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, on introducing this debate, but all the members of the committee—those who served on it, those who serve on it now and those who have spoken in the debate. We welcome the report on adapting to climate change. I can give a simple assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Giddens: yes, we take adaptation to climate change very seriously. We support it and it has all-party support. We will continue to work with the previous Government’s Climate Change Act. As the noble Lord will remember, we have the adaptation sub-committee, which is chaired by our own noble Lord, Lord Krebs. He will also know that we are required to lay the national adaptation programme before Parliament in 2012 and revise it every few years. We will make sure that we do so by January of next year.

As the noble Lord also knows, there are requirements on several key organisations to produce their own reports on adaptation to climate change. Only recently, we saw some of the key organisations, such as Network Rail, the water companies and others, produce theirs. I involved myself in the launch of Network Rail’s report, just to see how it was going on. We are very glad for what it did and the work it is doing, much of which could be described as being on the “stitch in time saves nine” principle. That is, if one does some work now it will save much greater work later, when changes that are sure to happen take place. As the noble Lord put it, certain things have already happened that make change inevitable whatever we can do in mitigation in the future.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss these important issues. As the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, put it, this is an opportunity to give an update on what the Government have been doing. As the noble Baroness will know, it is almost the anniversary of the publication of this report; it came out just before the election last year. If I can correct her, my honourable friend Mr Paice sent the Government’s response on 29 June. At least, that is certainly the date that the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, cites in his letter of 7 July 2010, in which he thanks Mr Paice for submitting the Government’s response to the report on adapting to climate change. I just make that very small point. I will respond by giving an update on what has been happening since then, because we laid out our response in some detail last year.

We have listened to constructive comments that have been made by all noble Lords as we decide what further action is required to ensure that agriculture and forestry, in both the United Kingdom and Europe, are able to prepare themselves for the threats and—we ought to say, as others have implied—the opportunities that climate change might bring. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for mentioning the Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures report, which was published in January. It provides further evidence of the challenges facing the global food system; and of the need to adapt to climate change to continue to produce food sustainably, and to produce more food for a population that, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said, is likely to rise to a little more than 9 billion by the middle of this century. We hope that at that stage, with a bit of luck, it might stabilise at that level.

I start by dealing a little with research and knowledge transfer, which was raised by many Members, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. All noble Lords will be aware that only yesterday my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food gave evidence to the committee’s new inquiry into innovation in EU agriculture. He answered questions on research and development capacity, programmes and adaptation to climate change. The Government have funded the development of climate change scenarios that provide an essential tool for predicting the impact of climate change. Defra has also commissioned research that used those scenarios to determine the impact on United Kingdom agricultural production and on wider ecosystem services. Therefore, we now have a reasonable understanding of what these impacts are, and are working to identify and prioritise measures for on-farm adaptation. Further discussions with key stakeholders will take place shortly.

The department will also continue to monitor the situation closely. Work is ongoing on the climate change risk assessment, which will draw together evidence and analysis to evaluate the risks, threats and opportunities for the UK posed by climate change. As I made clear in my opening remarks, the report will be laid before Parliament by January 2012, and will inform adaptation policy.

Under the United Kingdom cross-government food research and innovation strategy 2010, set out by the Chief Scientific Adviser, government departments, public funders, industry and academics are all working together to consider how they can stimulate R&D and innovation to meet the challenges posed by climate change and the threat to food security. In addition, the Government will invest up to £90 million over five years in match-funding industry-led applied research through the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform. That funding will stimulate the development of new technologies to increase productivity, and at the same time reduce the environmental impact of the food and farming industries. The aim is sustainable intensification.

I will refer briefly to the report, Science for a New Age of Agriculture, produced by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach when we were in opposition but adopted by the Government, which was published last December. We are committed in our structural reform plan to implement the recommendations of this report, and work is ongoing in that area.

The Government also feel that communication to both farmers and land managers is important to ensure that research and knowledge are used on the ground. We are considering ways to develop and facilitate knowledge transfer, to help farmers adapt so that they can produce food sustainably. In February, Defra started a study to look at how to develop and deliver integrated advice to farmers on a range of policy objectives, including climate change adaptation, mitigation, competitiveness and environmental outcomes. This integrated advice pilot is also expected to report early next year.

The current farm advisory system in England provides one-to-one advice via a telephone helpline service. We intend, as part of the development of a more industry-led approach to farm advice, to explore further the potential for face-to-face advice, and in particular to address areas where breaches of requirements are common. Defra is considering the future delivery of cross-compliance advice under the FAS and will develop options for a big-society approach that will fit in with other advice streams.

In the context of the EU, it is expected that the clearing-house mechanism that was foreshadowed in the European Commission's 2009 White Paper on adapting to climate change, which was referred to by a number of noble Lords, will go live at the beginning of 2012. It will be an aid for the development of adaptation strategies focusing on the needs of national and regional policy-makers.

I turn now to the long-term changes to the CAP. As noble Lords will know, last November the Commission published its communication, The CAP towards 2020: Meeting the Food, Natural Resources and Territorial Challenges of the Future. It identifies adaptation to climate change and fostering green growth through innovation as objectives of a reformed CAP. The Government have responded to the communication and are now taking an active part in discussions with the Commission and with other member states. As I think noble Lords will know, the Government’s view is that at this stage the proposals do not go far enough and they risk missing a vital opportunity to put farmers on the right footing. The challenges that farmers are facing are serious and require a long-term solution. Ambitious reform of the CAP is needed if farmers are to meet those climate change adaptation targets and other challenges in the future, as well as to make the most of the opportunities.

The Government agree with the committee that a reformed CAP should reward land managers for the provision of public goods, including land adaptation actions which would not otherwise be undertaken. The CAP should also support sustainable production, which may mean not supporting agricultural production where it would result in unacceptable environmental cost. The United Kingdom is already providing effective support for environmental public benefits through the various agri-environment schemes under Axis 2 of Pillar 2. There is already provision for adaptation actions under the existing Rural Development Programme for England—the RDPE—and measures that benefit soil, water or biodiversity also underpin adaptation action. This should continue to be supported under Pillar 2 as part of a reduced CAP supporting climate change resilience and correcting market failure.

The Government will continue to work positively within Europe to press for the greater ambition that we see as necessary on CAP reform. It will obviously be a very difficult matter, as anyone who has ever been involved in agricultural negotiations in Europe will know. I see almost a wry grin on the face of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, but she knows what I mean, and I think other noble Lords do as well. However, we shall continue to work to that end.

We will also continue to work with the Commission and other member states on the implementation of the EU White Paper on adapting to climate change, which includes embedding adaptation in all EU policies and not just the CAP.

Perhaps I may say a word or two about forestry. This subject was raised initially by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and then by all other noble Lords. Climate change represents a significant challenge to our trees and woodlands. It is possible that climate change is currently allowing some of the diseases that come into the country to take hold in our forests. There are also synergies between climate change adaptation, forestry and meeting a number of other environmental objectives, including the water framework directive. However, those synergies will be exploited only if land management is treated in a holistic way. The CAP reform process represents a real opportunity to develop that approach and for woodlands to play an integrated role with agriculture.

The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and others referred to Professor Read’s report, which showed conclusively that woodland creation is a very cost-effective approach to helping to tackle climate change. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, stressed the evidence that Professor Read gave to the committee. As part of the work of the Woodland Carbon Task Force, the Forestry Commission has also commissioned analysis to examine further the returns of investment in different types of woodlands in delivering a range of ecosystem services, including mitigating and adapting to climate change. This will help to focus investment where it will deliver the greatest benefits for the least cost. It is also important to consider the implications for forests when developing and implementing EU directives and other legislation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and my noble friend Lord Caithness also asked about support for forestry. I assure them that, as a result of recent controversies, if I may put it that way, we have set up a panel on the public forest estate. The panel will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, will be aware from the terms of reference, range slightly wider than purely the public forest estate, which manages some 18 per cent of our woodlands. It will obviously consider these matters.

We will also always look at what other support forestry needs because, as my noble friend Lord Framlingham made clear in his maiden speech, forestry yields many benefits, not just in carbon retention but in many other public goods, and it provides timber that has uses. For that reason my noble friend Lord Caithness was very anxious to know what we can do to make forestry a profitable and sustainable industry. That might be too big a question to deal with now, but I think we all agree that forestry should be a sustainable and profitable industry for the good of the country in the future.

Monitoring the effects of climate change and the suitability of adaptation actions in the agricultural and forestry sectors will be essential to the development of robust and coherent adaptation strategies. Sharing that information at European level will provide added value for member states to develop their own programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, stressed the importance of water and water quality and possible future problems in dealing with water shortages, not just in parts of the United Kingdom but throughout the world. I was very grateful for what the noble Lord said about making much more efficient use of water. We shall certainly continue to support research into improving water efficiency. I can give an assurance that quite a lot of work is going on in Defra in that respect. He is certainly right to talk about the problems that face us. We will also continue to discuss these matters, as we did only yesterday or the day before, with our water stakeholders’ forum. That was built around the water framework directive.

I have a brief comment to make about the remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, on biotechnology and GM crops, a matter that was addressed by other noble Lords. I can give him an assurance that the United Kingdom has worked towards finding a solution, with the Commission, to the low-level presence of non-approved GM in feed imports. That will certainly reduce the threat to feed suppliers bringing in food that might otherwise be contaminated, if that is the right word. We recognise that GM is, dare I say, a controversial issue and as the noble Lord made clear when he commented on Lord Melchett’s comments, it can be somewhat polarised. We believe that the argument should be based on the existing science and evidence; we will always make our decisions on scientific evidence for the future. I am sure that in the long run, once we have achieved a consensus on these matters, it will be right to go forward in a direction that will help to feed the world in the future.

I end by thanking the committee for its work. We look forward to future reports that the committee will bring forward. I can assure the House that the Government are committed to assisting agriculture and forestry in every possible way to adapt to climate change, and I can give an assurance that we shall continue to work with our domestic, European and international partners to achieve that end.