Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Inglewood and Lord Lucas

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

[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.