Agriculture Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

I refer to Acts in some of my amendments because the many strategies that might be touched on simply are not solid enough to have that effect. We need something that has the force of law. I hope that the Minister can give a series of positive answers, so that people know what they will be entitled to, and who will benefit from it. It will be a combination whereby the farmer, or other land user or manager, gets a benefit from giving something good to society: public money for a public good. Can we have a definition here? The Government started this: they said “access”. What do they mean by it?

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I shall not detain the House long. I have added my name to those of my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Dundee on Amendment 5, because, as has been said, it is important that we get clarification. We must also ensure that farmers and other land managers realise that the access provisions are voluntary and will not be imposed. We need to take everybody along with the new framework, and the new way of looking at how we finance our agricultural system. If land managers fear that this will be compulsory they may not take part in it. Obviously, there is a good reason why we want more access—but it must be voluntary.

I echo the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about making paths, if possible, accessible to all, not just to what he called the hardened rambler. I also concur that there are occasions when paths and access must be curbed, for various reasons. Even nature reserves have to close paths because a bird—or some other creature, but it is normally a bird—has decided to nest right by them, and the last thing it needs is a lot of people walking past. I hope that the Minister can give us the clarification that we desire.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I offer the Green group’s support for Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will speak on other amendments, so I shall confine myself to this one. Amendment 2 has multiple benefits. As the noble Earl explained, it would improve the clarity of the Bill, with “health and wellbeing” being measurable and quantifiable terms rather than the—if I may say so—rather woolly drafting of “enjoyment”.

This also helps us to come to terms with the rest of the debate and to set out clearly what the Bill is trying to achieve. We need our countryside to provide multiple services for us. In terms of our health and well-being, we need a great improvement from our present diet, to one packed with fruit and vegetables. We also need widespread broadly available leisure opportunities, and we need to look after the health and well-being of the natural world so that it can maintain biodiversity and bio-abundance, store carbon, prevent flooding, provide clean water, et cetera.

The economy is a complete sub-set of the environment, and ours is in a parlous state, as the RSPB reminded us this week with its reflections on our “lost decade for nature”. There is a context to the Bill involving contesting views, summed up as “sparing versus sharing”. The idea behind sparing is that we trash much of the land—the soils, the biodiversity and the waters—but we leave some of it, in its still surviving or restored state, as pristine as possible. Spare some, and the devil—or the agrochemical companies—take the rest.

Sharing involves looking after all our land—the soils, the wildlife, the air and the water. Those are things that everybody needs around them all the time for health and well-being—rural and town residents, visitors, and those who eat the food that comes from them. That is, as the noble Earl’s amendment says, for their health and well-being. An occasional visit to a specially protected treasured area will not deliver health and well-being if the rest of our countryside is trashed.

When we reach Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and consider the damage done by pesticide application, this will all come into acute focus. Amendment 2 gives us a chance, in the early stages of the Bill, at the start of today’s debates, to set out a crucial understanding of how our health and well-being, and our future, depend on looking after every inch of our environment. If we live in a healthy land, we will have a healthy society.

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

I shall speak specifically to my Amendment 48, which concerns commons. I am not sure how it ended up in this group, but it does not matter. In Committee, we had a longer discussion and I put it in a group on its own, so as to talk about quite a lot of the issues connected with commons. On this occasion, in order to save time, I did not mind in which group it ended up, as I can talk about it in any event.

Again, I am grateful for the help and advice that I have had from the Foundation for Common Land and the Open Spaces Society. It is interesting that they come from different angles. One comes from a management of the commons angle and the other starts from an access angle, but they come together and work together because it is necessary to do so.

I need to go through again briefly what common land is. It is land registered as common land in a register kept under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 or the Commons Registration Act 1965. It is land owned by one person or a number of people which is subject to the rights of other people—the commoners—to use and take some product from it. Nowadays, typically that is the grazing of animals.

Common land is only 3% of the total land area in England but it is 37% of the land above the moorland line. It is therefore used by hill farmers, who depend on the rough grazing, natural grasslands and other sorts of moorland. It accounts for a fifth of the area of the SSSIs in England—not a fifth of the number of SSSIs but a fifth of the SSSI land, as a lot of the moorland SSSIs are quite large. It delivers many public benefits and includes two-fifths of the access land in England. It is often designated in different ways for nature, and, not surprisingly, over 90% of common land was under an environmental stewardship scheme under the CAP. Importantly, these sorts of schemes can continue on the upland commons. However, there are also lots of small, local commons, such as the ones referred to by my noble friend Lord Addington, many of them vital for informal local recreation, such as the village common where people play rounders or whatever. They are also often environmentally important for the reasons given by noble friend.

The problem is the management of the commons under the ELMS. How does a system designed to provide financial support for all these different purposes to traditional owners cope with a number of different interests—owners, commoners and perhaps others? They may be competing interests, and individual commoners may have different views on what should happen. In Committee, I asked the Minister whether the Government had already turned their mind to the administration of agreements in relation to commons, with the particular difficulties that can arise in negotiating, administering and delivering them. The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, said among other things that the Government were working in the trials to create commons-specific land management plans and systems. There are two tests and trials which I understand include substantial amounts of common, one in Cumbria and one in Dartmoor.

Since then, I was very grateful to have a meeting with civil servants and lawyers, and I was astonished how many people in and around Defra had an interest in commons. It was an extremely interesting meeting, and I was very grateful indeed. I am sorry that the Minister could not come, but I understand. I asked about the two specific local tests and what the Government were doing in relation to small, lowland commons, to find systems for them. I understand that there will be some small, lowland commons in the tests and trials once the national system is brought in next year. I was told—this is where it got interesting—that they were developing toolkits to understand the issues; everybody develops toolkits nowadays. These are toolkits not for what should happen but to understand the issues. One very interesting comment by one of the people in the meeting was that we need to focus on what we need to learn. This all gave me to understand—and it was extremely useful for this, if nothing else—that, as had been suggested to me by some of the people from the Cumbria test and trial, working out what to do with commons is really in the early days. In particular, I asked about disputes and was told that they were still working out a way forward. This was all very honest, and I was grateful to be given that time.

It really comes back to what I said before about the Bill—that we really have to treat the Government as though they are on trust on these matters; we have to trust them to do it properly and do it right. As far as commons are concerned, as the months go by following the passage of this Bill, I shall certainly be on the Government’s back. Indeed, I got some promises in relation to the tests and trials taking place and so on, that people would keep in touch with me—and I shall keep in touch with other noble Lords, such as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who are interested in this issue. I hope that together we can form a little group and follow it through with the Government.

It was confirmed that the details of the ELMS with regard to commons would, along with lots of others, be outside legislation. I tabled this amendment saying that that should not be the case simply because it was the amendment that I had tabled in Committee, and I had not had time to think of a new one, but I am not going to push it to a vote when we get to it in order. A lot of work is taking place, but it is at a very early stage, and it will be very important that a lot more work takes place much more quickly. This whole thing is going to come rushing up on people, and we really do not want the commons missed out.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and his very interesting thoughts on commons. That is a very useful debate to have and one we must take seriously. I echo the words of those who have been talking about the need to get new entrants into agriculture and develop diversity.

I have added my name to Amendment 16 in the name of my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Dundee, who have already spoken about it adequately. I am delighted to see that climate change mitigation is in the list, because we have to take it seriously. I know that the NFU has set an ambitious target with regard to being net zero, so that is something that the agriculture sector is taking very seriously.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on his myth busting around the fact that farming can be eminently profitable and nature friendly. As we have all been hearing, nature-friendly farming is the way forward. I also send my congratulations on his words about the Allerton project of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. I visited it a few years ago and was incredibly impressed by the work there. He mentioned the grey partridge. In conjunction with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, National England and others, there is also the Peppering Partridge Project, which shows that not only can farming be very beneficial to wildlife but game shooting can be very beneficial to wildlife. That might seem slightly counterintuitive, and I speak not as a shooter myself, but it shows how all those different aspects can work together.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about trust. I have immense trust in the entire ministerial Defra team. We are very fortunate in this House to have my noble friends Lord Gardiner and Lord Goldsmith, and in the other place we have other very committed people who take the environment and farming interests very seriously. There is always the case of not knowing what is going to happen later but, at the moment, I have immense trust in them and wait to hear what they have to say.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating and thoughtful debate, and I would like to make a few remarks about three amendments. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering set us off to a good start. However, I want to talk not about Amendment 6 but rather about Amendment 7, and really for the reasons mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who referred to those very important words “pasture fed.”

The only thing that really terrifies me about farming is the increasing move in certain places, particularly across the Atlantic, towards what can only be called factory farming, with vast sheds occupied by living creatures who never see the light of day. The glory of farming is, in many ways, pasture farming. Anything that we can do we should do to encourage our farmers to pasture their cattle, have their sheep on the hills and, indeed, to have their pigs eating their mast in the woods —and, of course, to make sure that we move away from that ghastly poultry farming which so polluted one of the loveliest stretches of the Wye earlier this year, when it seeped out from massive chicken battery farms. Anything we can do to emphasise the importance of pasture farming should be done.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 14, in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I am very grateful for their support. Currently, all farmers in receipt of common agricultural policy payments have to deliver, under the cross-compliance regime, a range of standards described as “good agricultural and environmental conditions”—a snappy little title. Some of the standards have now been enshrined in UK law but some have not, and would disappear when the good agricultural and environmental conditions provision disappears with the end of direct payments to farmers and the end of the cross-compliance regime.

The standards that would be lost are primarily those covering the management of hedgerows, the protection of soils and the provision of watercourse buffer strips. My amendment is aimed at ensuring the delivery of all the standards for good agricultural and environmental conditions, which were previously assured by cross-compliance and which all farmers receiving subsidy had to respect, and to make sure that they will continue to be a condition of receiving public money under the new system.

The Minister very kindly organised a meeting with himself and Defra officials, and they acknowledged that the holes that I have identified, which would be left by the cessation of the cross-compliance regime, were indeed holes, and that something would have to be done to plug them. The Minister has indicated that the Government plan

“an intensive consultation on standards in the autumn, laying out what standards should be achieved by all farmers receiving public subsidy, but there is not yet any agreement on the mechanism for enforcing such standards and the design principles and regulatory strategy are still being worked up.”

As noble Lords know, direct payments are due to start to taper shortly, though the date will be a subject of debate in this House later on Report. It is not entirely clear when cross-compliance requirements may disappear. Can the Minister clarify that date? Whenever it is, we could well end up with a gap in hedgerow, watercourse and soil protection during the transitional phase, and possibly beyond, depending on the results of the intensive consultation on standards. I suggest that the holes that the Minister acknowledges in environmental protection would be very easily and, if I may say so, elegantly plugged by this amendment, so I hope that he will accept it. I beg to move.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, taking my cue from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on the previous group of amendments, I do not want to pontificate about this. The amendment has been eloquently proposed, and I am delighted to have added my name to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. She has previous talked about baubles on Christmas trees, and now she has provided us with an eminently suitable plug. I am concerned that if we are not careful, these things will, although maybe not on purpose, be allowed to slip down the plughole, so I urge the Minister to ensure that we have an ample plug, to stop this happening.

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to have put my name to Amendment 14, and particularly to emphasise the importance of cross-compliance GAEC regulations on the preservation and management of soils. I spoke to my own soils amendment in Committee, and I appreciate the Minister’s subsequent letter identifying the various ways in which soils may be protected going forwards.

However, the variety of potential soil protection measures and regulations on its own reveals the weakness of the post-Brexit system, as none of the methods identified has the broad and clear application of the cross-compliance regulations with which farmers are so familiar. As the Minister has already accepted in responding to the second group of amendments, sustainable soil management, including the maintenance of organic matter within our soils, is undoubtedly the most important element of environmental land management. Farming is soil management. Healthy organic soils are an essential carbon sink, and provide an astoundingly diverse ecosystem for microscopic life beyond our comprehension. They also minimise run-off and erosion, decrease the need for artificial fertiliser and ensure better productivity. The loss of the regulations, and the gaps that the noble Baroness referenced, will cause terrible damage to our net-zero targets.