Rural Communities

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming and land interests in Devon and Scotland as set out in the register. I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard, on his maiden contribution, in an area where he clearly has significant expertise. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for securing this debate and to all noble Lords who have made contributions.

It is clear today that those living in rural communities have little idea what His Majesty’s Government regard as priorities for their benefit and desperately need reassurance. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh mentioned, the Government have made several significant commitments to developing renewable energy and energy transmission, as well as new housing. How can this be achieved while ensuring that local voices and rural areas are still heard in those decisions? I add my request to the Minister for an update on the land use framework and the NPPF.

The rural economy needs greater investment by the Government, rather than the rumoured cuts, in the short term to address food security and water quality, adapt to climate change and deliver our nature recovery obligations. I join other noble Lords in asking the Minister to fight to protect and increase the Defra budget and to commit to the continued rollout of ELMS, including the advanced SFI options that appear to be making limited progress. This is a critical segue into introducing private capital into creating these public goods. The Government can act as a catalyst for private sector investment, reducing that call on the Government in the medium to longer term and creating greater rural and societal prosperity providing they invest now as we work through our green finance strategy, ELMS and other measures.

The rural land-based economy has a tremendous opportunity from the introduction of private finance into natural capital. To allow this, Governments have to step in and create these markets to help to turn public goods into something the private sector will pay for. The fundamental requirement to develop these markets is that standards have integrity and can adapt to improving technology that allows better targeting and monitoring over time.

Our Government were working with the British Standards Institution on developing these standards. We had already created the woodland carbon code and peatland carbon code, which stand level with best standards globally. It is critical that the Government commit to similar standards for other aspects of natural capital that underpin market confidence. In a Written Answer, the Minister stated that this is:

“Subject to the outcome of the Spending Review”.


That is somewhat disappointing, and words we may hear repeated later today.

Confidence in payment for developing key aspects of natural capital follows from the integrity of the standards. If the WCC and PCC enter into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, land managers can have confidence that there will be a liquid market for the carbon management we are undertaking. We were told in a Written Answer from the Minister that we must wait until 2025 before we receive the government response to consultation on this. Please can we move faster?

We need similar financial incentives for other goods such as flood prevention and water quality. Can we provide incentives for the water companies to buy these goods and services from land managers? Can we require corporates, under the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, to invest in nature recovery?

Land managers are businessmen, and if we enable the right incentives they will act accordingly. In the words of my noble friend Lord Benyon, Defra must

“weaponise farmers and land managers”,

as they are the ones who will deliver sequestered carbon and biodiversity, and aid better water management. The most efficient and effective way of doing that is to enable trustworthy and liquid markets for those goods. A thriving natural capital market will bring a new advisory and financial services industry that we can lead the world in, and export high-value, rural, private sector jobs and tax revenue. I urge the Government to move at pace to continue investing and developing these markets.