Agriculture Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Some will say that that rewilding sounds like a modern version of impractical hippy idealism, but the reverse is true. It is growing in popularity from small beginnings and it is here to stay. Holding a brief debate about it today in the House of Lords is a useful thing to do. I beg to move.

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

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on these three amendments and to support the arguments that he has advanced. It is encouraging that these are narrower amendments, which means that the debate will be less slightly less prolix. It is clear from the debates in your Lordships’ House on the Agriculture Bill that there is general agreement about the revolution going on in the countryside, which is not only technological, but intellectual, psychological and emotional. Against that background, what is known as rewilding, as defined by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is in fact a real part, although obviously only a part, of a new era for the nation’s rural landscape.

Of course, as the noble Lord said, the populist perception of rewilding means releasing sabre-toothed tigers on Hampstead Heath, or perhaps slightly less melodramatically, what is happening on the Knepp estate in Sussex. That kind of rewilding may well have a role in the future countryside, but it will certainly be only a part of that future. Rewilding covers a whole range of things from plants and insects to animals. Since the beginning of time, our environment has been evolving and changing, sometimes quickly and at other times almost imperceptibly. It is absolutely clear that our flora and fauna are always in a state of flux. Look at what has happened to the landscape and the plants and animals in it since the last ice age.

During that period, we humans, as part of creation, have been one of the vectors. In some instances, our involvement has been benign, and in others, particularly in the case of some alien introductions, it clearly has not. But it is as legitimate, subject to proper consideration, to interfere with the ecology of the relatively unaltered parts of our land as with that of the more intensively cultivated parts, when it is called farming or forestry. That is why I believe rewilding, however exactly you define it, should be an element, but only a part, of the future. Natural and rural agricultural policy should encompass it, and hence, it should become part of national policy.

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I look forward to the Minister’s reply on Amendment 19. Our ability to repair the landscape is obviously crucial to getting our South Downs back in order. Kew is immensely helpful in this regard with its seed bank, which gives us some species we have long lost. We have to play an active part in getting our countryside back and not just wait for it to happen gradually over the next few centuries.

As for wider rewilding, yes, Knepp is wonderful—I have been there—but it requires fences. If you fence an area and you want nature taking care of itself, with very light-touch management, you need large herbivores and top predators. Otherwise, as in Knepp, we have to be the top predator. So, we have to accept our role in rewilding—we are the top predator. We have a role to play in a rewilded landscape. If you try to do it without boundaries, the herbivores leak; I do not think Knepp’s neighbours would be much pleased if all the Tamworth pigs started straying across their wheat crops. It is a concept that takes some very careful working out. We ought to learn the lessons of the rebellion in Wales, when the rewilding attempt failed. I encourage the Government to look in this direction, but with a good deal of scepticism.

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[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury. I live in the countryside, albeit I am not involved in farming, and I have always believed that there is interdependence and a symbiotic relationship between health and welfare when it comes to livestock: both go together. I want to probe the Minister to find out why it should be an either/or subject. The majority of noble Lords who have spoken this evening have said quite clearly that it should be conjunctive—health and welfare.

I take on board what the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said about animal welfare. Of course animal welfare is important because we must have good animal husbandry if we seek to have a sound, productive system that provides health and well-being. We therefore need health and welfare in terms of good livestock and that symbiotic relationship, but we also need to ensure there is good-quality food that people can access—food security, not food insecurity. I am happy to support Amendments 26, 125 and 136, as long as noble Lords recognise the importance of health and welfare together. I also welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who, I must say, is looking very well indeed. I wish him well.

[Lord Inglewood [V]]

My Lords, I am sure contributors are right to distinguish between animal health and animal welfare. The important thing is to combine the two: you can conceive of an animal being entirely healthy but having extremely unsatisfactory welfare conditions. Therefore, regardless of how you draft provisions, it is important that each is recognised as an independent concept. Support for livestock farming should be dependent on the satisfactory standards being reached in respect of each. I should declare that I am a livestock farmer and president of the Livestock Auctioneers’ Association.

The core issue we are discussing with these amendments was articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, earlier when she said that animals should have a good life and a good death. That must be the starting point.

Like many of your Lordships, I am also delighted to see the return of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who combines expertise and robust common sense about these things. Of course, he is right. I personally do not like factory farming, but one has to recognise that, to feed our population, various forms of intensive animal husbandry will take place. I hope we can improve the standards of welfare that the animals experience over time and there must be a level below which the standards should now not be allowed to fall.

Against this background, it seems entirely appropriate that welfare and health should be a component of any support that might be provided for animal farmers. First, it must be right that the conditions in which animals live have to be above a certain minimum. Secondly, it is worth remembering that you have to move animals about. The conditions in which they are moved must also be appropriate. Finally, of course, we must turn our attention to the food on the shelves of our supermarkets and shops. No doubt we shall go back to this at a later stage in the proceedings and the Bill, but I have serious problems with the standards experienced by animals that are dead on the shelves, which would in no way be permitted if they had been reared in this country. That was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, alluded to.

It is a difficult problem for the reason one of the noble Baronesses gave: we are not creating new criminal law here. Issues of animal welfare depend on the animal, not on the system of agriculture in which it is reared. While I do not believe that animals have rights, I do believe that we have obligations towards them, which we jolly well must honour.