Agriculture Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

I will speak to Amendment 83 to Clause 1, in particular the work that my noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned. I will highlight the issue of catchment areas and draw attention to the fact that, while they create great difficulty in some areas of the country, they also do so in some of the most favoured areas, if I may put it that way.

The catchment areas in question are a series of spring-fed chalk streams and their seasonal winterbournes, which define the landscape around Winchester in north Hampshire. Many people know that they are famed for their world-class fly fishing for the most favoured in the rivers Test and Itchen, and for the watercress industry around Alresford. The unique landscape is a product of human as well as natural history, providing drinking water for Southampton and, at one time, pure water for banknote watermarking at the De La Rue works near Basingstoke.

In the last 50 years—certainly while I have lived in the area—more than half of all wildlife species have declined across the UK, never more so than in Hampshire’s winterbourne and watercress landscape, including its conservation areas, sites of special scientific interest and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Historically, efforts to protect rivers and their ecology focused on the channel and possibly the immediate floodplain. There now needs to be an increasing awareness that a river system is inherently linked to and affected by its wider catchment.

The water framework directive recognises this and requires a holistic view of the needs of the freshwater environment. It identified the pressures affecting Hampshire’s seven headwater chalk streams and set targets for the improvement of the chemical and ecological status of each. It also required stakeholders to be involved in local decision-making and delivery. Clearly, the quality of the water in these headwater chalk streams is critical, contributing as the streams do to the Test and Itchen river systems and the groundwater resource they share.

It therefore has to be a cause of considerable concern that recent surveys have shown that all the streams are at risk from excessive levels of nutrients, sediment and pesticides, the worst case being the River Alre, which is literally on my doorstep. The lake behind a weir, built in the 16th century to control the river waters before entering Alresford’s watercress beds, is heavily polluted with nitrates and phosphates, largely due to agricultural run-off. The Environment Agency is understood to have recently tested the water in the River Alre above the lake and found it below standard. An industrial-scale salad-washing plant is nearby and is licensed to use the river water to wash all pesticides and other chemicals from salads imported from Europe and elsewhere for distribution across the UK.

Apparently, the Environment Agency is required to negotiate with polluters over infringements rather than close them, with predictable results. The Agriculture Bill should present an opportunity to strengthen this rather toothless organisation to tackle this extremely harmful abuse. To give just one example, Salmon & Trout Conservation considers the presence of these pesticides responsible for the marked decline in Gammarus freshwater shrimp, the foodstuff of the trout of the river.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to the UK Progress on Reducing Nitrate Pollution report from the other place. Have the Government taken action to take up and recognise the recommendations made by the committee that produced the report? They will be essential to tackle this hugely damaging problem of nitrates in our watercourses, water tables and water catchments.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, as one of the silenced ones at Second Reading, I must begin by declaring my interests in the register. In particular, I point to the fact that I farm, have land and am involved in land management in Cumbria. I endorse the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and a number of other noble Lords about the condition of the uplands.

Although this afternoon should have been the second day of the Second Reading—after all, the Bill is not due to conclude until September—I do not propose to make a Second Reading speech. Rather, perhaps unusually, I intend to follow the recommendation of the Government Front Bench not to be repetitious. I have heard the various contributions made across the Floor of the House and it is clear that they run with the grain of my thinking through this discussion of the first group of amendments, many of which would improve, refine and calibrate the general principles on the Bill. It is necessary to be clear what the generalities might in turn entail.

Many of your Lordships have said that we are at a very important point of change—perhaps as important as joining the CAP or even the great radical changes of the 1940s. In fact, I suspect it is a more important change, because we have not only political and administrative changes; they are combined with very far-reaching scientific and social change and a great deal of enhanced environmental consciousness. That is why I join a number of your Lordships in saying that it is a great pity that this legislation is not being run in substantive tandem with the new environmental legislation due to come on to the statute book. The underlying reality is that many of the Bill’s provisions cannot be free-standing in their own terms. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, were particularly important in this context when he talked about the complications and importance of systems and administration.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, after the noble Lord, Lord Judd, speaks, I will call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, again.

[Lord Inglewood [V]]

My Lords, with the first group of amendments, we did the easy bit: we discussed the generalities. Now, as we move towards specifics, it becomes harder. I will not speak to a specific amendment, for the simple reason that I agree with them and I disagree with them. It is all a muddle. My starting point is very much the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lord Marlesford. After all, at the end of the war, it was clear that agriculture was coterminous with the rural economy. That is no longer the case. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Marlesford about the Rural Business Unit, merit very serious consideration and have an important part to play in the evolution of policy in this area.

As far as the immediate matters we are discussing are concerned, the crucial thing is to think about the provision of public goods. This is not a form of outdoor relief, but an arrangement for the acquisition, in the public interest, of things it is desirable for the public to have. Their acquisition divides into two separate things. First, it is an ongoing product which is essentially a function of maintaining land, but to do that, in certain circumstances it is necessary to invest capital. If you start looking at the economics of it in that way, it becomes more understandable.

The other thing that I have learned from farming is that just about all you can be certain of is that things go wrong. In this country, as we know, an awful lot of agriculture is conducted under the landlord and tenant system, but this disguises a whole range of arrangements between landlords and tenants. In those arrangements, the various parties contribute very differently and the risk is carried differently. In any event, if you are thinking about these subjects, how do you deal with the landlord and tenant system separately from that of owner-occupiers? How, in financial terms, is an owner-occupier with large borrowings different from a tenant who is borrowing “money” from a landlord? That makes it very difficult.

In addition, there is not only one form of land tenure. In the north, where I come from, there is a great deal of common land, as we have heard this afternoon. The problems with common land have caused considerable injustice in the way in which they have locked, or failed to lock properly, into environmental payments. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, spoke about conacre in Ireland, which I have heard about but never come across personally.

Furthermore, in looking at public money for public goods, we have to be clear that what is suitable in place A is not suitable in place B. Different bits of Britain are completely different from one another. I live in Cumbria, on the edge of the Lake District, but I spent a number of years in East Anglia on the edge of the Fens. They are as different as the automotive industry and the aerospace industry. We have to be very specific and careful and start by thinking about what advantage the public can gain from any particular place.

In terms of money, it seems axiomatic that there should be proper audit. This must be accounted for properly because, in any commercial transaction and wherever public money is involved, you have to be able to see what is going on and trace it properly. However, confidentiality is also important, a point which I think has been made. I am a dairy farmer; we have had our supplier on to us about security in the face of animal welfare activists.

At the end of the day, it is for the Government to work out what they want to buy under the principle of public money for public goods. As I and others have said, they are pretty vague in their own mind about what they want to do. In dealing with the consequences for the people on the ground, as much as possible—this has been touched on by a number of speakers—if it is appropriate to find an agreement between the various interests involved in the use of land, that must be a very good starting point to take it further forward.

[Lord Judd [V]]

My Lords, I return to the basic amendment for this group from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. It makes sense. It spells out more fully the range of activity which I am sure the Government intend to cover and specifies some of these areas more clearly. At this point in our economic history, which is not very cheerful, horticulture may become very much more important than it is even today. It may become an important part of our way of life and an important way of generating income for a cross-section of people. This will not be altogether a bad thing. It will lead to a better quality of life for them, frankly, than what they may have been involved in before. For all these reasons, we should be grateful for this amendment. I certainly support it.