English Horticultural Sector (Horticultural Sector Committee Report)

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, what a pity it is that a subject so important, and which has had such an input from the House of Lords, has such little time to be debated. I hope there will be other occasions on which we can talk about this.

I speak as a professional horticulturalist—I am less so nowadays, because I spend too much time here, and you cannot actually work in the fields and sit on these Benches. I must declare some interests. I am president of the Institute of Agricultural Management, and in that there might lie a key as to how I approach this job. I am also president of the Anglo-Netherlands Society, and that also probably is a key to how I view this job.

We were talking earlier about how we start in these things. Taylors Bulbs, the horticultural firm of which I am the third generation, was started by a man from London—an ex-soldier in the First World War who managed to get 10 acres of land in Holbeach and rented it as a Crown colony holding. From that, he grew the business. His two sons were born in London but became naturalised Holbeachians in time; I still say “flowers” in the way that I was taught to when I was younger—I cannot help it. From that beginning, we grew to a business of 200 acres, which we owned by the time I joined. We now own 2,000 acres, and the business is in the hands of my younger son and a nephew. They are running it very well, and many of your Lordships will know the products that the company offers.

That lesson shows you something about the way in which horticulture thinks of itself. It is an entrepreneurial business. It is not a form-filling and bureaucratic business—it cannot be so. It has to work with the grain; it cannot fight against it. It works with the climate and the seasons, and has a great deal going for it because of that. It is really important that the Government, in interacting with the industry, understand that basic tenet; it means they should regulate lightly in an area where enterprise and initiative may well lead to great solutions.

That is certainly the way in which the Dutch have worked. Having left school at 17—I should have gone to university but I did not, and I do not mind that I did not because I went somewhere that was vital for me—I went to work in Holland. As a result, I learned how the Dutch dealt with their business: how they worked and prioritised horticulture, and how all sections of the Dutch Government used natural gas and various attributes which came to the Netherlands to build an industry. It was very much the enterprise and focus of the Dutch Government, and the Dutch as a nation, that led to the huge development of horticulture in that country. We can still learn from that; we have very close relations. Spalding was built by Anglo-Dutch co-operation—it is still the area supplying most of the fruit and vegetables to the whole of this country. Even strawberries growing in Kent and melons from Brazil get distributed from Spalding. This is an important feature of the potential that we have.

We have a lot going for us. We should back our horticultural institutes—the National Institute of Agricultural Botany is superb in its East Malling venture, and should be invested in and encouraged. We have Kew, and we have the Royal Horticultural Society. We have so much going for us in this country. We also supply the nation’s greatest hobby industry—gardening. Are we not lucky? Are we not gifted? This is a superb report. I am so grateful to all those who have spoken and participated, and I am really grateful to my noble friend Lady Fookes for all that she has done in proclaiming the virtues of our industry.

I hope the Minister will understand why there is disappointment with the Government’s response, not for any other reason than that they have failed to realise the potential that lies in this report and this industry. We should be optimistic, back it, and make it work for the interests of Britain.

Biosecurity and Infectious Diseases

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Trees. He is a distinguished Member of this House and this is an important topic. I might tend to disagree with some of what he said—probably because of my slightly different job as a horticulturalist. But I certainly join him in welcoming our new Minister. He knows that he has a hard act to follow, but all of us who heard him at Question Time on Tuesday will know that he is a fine appointment.

I must declare my interests in the register, but I think my background in the horticultural and farming business is probably more important. I shall concentrate on horticulture, hoping to show that international co-operation is the most important way in which we can deliver biosecurity.

Perhaps I might be excused some personal history. I left school at 17 and went to work in the family bulb-growing and farming business. I was ambitious for its success. I went to work in the Netherlands at a nursery and bulb farm. I learned an important lesson—they were very good at their horticulture. Although they were competitive and entrepreneurial, they worked together and shared, even across borders.

Which brings me to the substance of this debate. The sciences were what I knew about, and it became clear that science lay at the foundation of biosecurity. Discovering the cause of pests and diseases was also its remedy. Eventually, as the result of my interest in science and the regulation of commerce, I chaired the European Bulb Committee, which was set up in Brussels to advise on the integration of horticulture within Europe, its regulatory framework, co-operation and product biosecurity across what became the European Union.

However, here comes the rub. Without doubt, Brexit has hindered this trade, particularly with the Netherlands, in both additional bureaucracy and costs. Biosecurity is about international co-operation. Nothing demonstrates this better than plant breeding, in providing new varieties to protect against evolving pest and disease pressures. It is an expensive business: up to 25% of a plant breeding business’s income can be spent on R&D, according to the British Society of Plant Breeders. It is also a risky business: roughly half of plant breeding research is focused on disease resistance and tracking the genetic battle between plants and disease. This battle is why the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, which we passed in the previous Session, has been so important.

However, as the British Society of Plant Breeders has pointed out, regulatory separation between us and our trading partners in effect doubles the cost of registration and delays testing, trials and certification, which are all part and parcel of making sure that the remedy is effective. Noble Lords will see that I am of the view that we need to find ways of working together again, trusting our differing and diverging regulatory systems, if we are successfully to deliver resilience and responsiveness to present and future disease threats—both at home and abroad—and to provide the biosecurity and trade that the world needs.

Horticultural Peat

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate accurately sums up the difficulty for some growers. We have learned, through detailed engagement with the industry, that the alternatives have not been easy to produce but, as the noble Baroness says, great progress has been made in finding new media. Large organisations now declare themselves peat free, and we want to ensure that the specialist areas can continue to move towards our clear timeline of 2026, with certain exemptions that will allow the propagation of plants that are very much needed and the protection of businesses, such as he mentions.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Perhaps noble Lords will know of my interest in the horticultural industry, and I might say that our firm is peat free: we use it neither as a growing medium nor as a packing medium. What help are the Government giving to the horticultural industry in practical terms that will make it easier? The right reverend Prelate put the case for specialist growers that are finding the alternatives suggested to them not effective whatever. There will need to be a partnership between the industry and government, and I should like to hear that from the Minister.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and there is a very good partnership in dealing with this. He comes from a part of the world where there is a lot of peat, but it is a diminishing resource. We want to talk not just about the use of peat for crops that we grow in specialist settings but protecting peat where it is farmed. That is another issue where we are determined to react to the clear direction given to us by the Climate Change Committee, and this is all part of that.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2023

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I too support the ELM scheme, and, broadly, I support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, said. I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, but I do not believe for a second that we should effectively cancel the ELM scheme at this moment.

I think it is important to put another point of view, to do with the food price situation. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, talked about when we were progressing the then Agriculture Bill and we debated the ELM scheme. It was decided that sustainable food growing would not be classed as something that could get any sort of payment. It was thought that if you grow food, you have a means of making money; that is fundamentally correct but, at that time, the reckoning was that about 8p in every pound got to the farmer; the rest disappeared into supermarket profit, packaging, production, processing and all the different things up the chain. New figures that have come through in the last year—compounded by issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, set out to do with the war in Ukraine and energy costs—reveal that UK farmers receive less than 1% of the retail price for goods that go through our main supermarkets.

That is not a percentage on the production cost but a percentage of the total price; it is pathetic and tiny. For example—I am referring to the research—for a wrapped, sliced loaf of bread, a cereal farmer will spend 9.03p yet will receive a negligible profit of 0.09p on something sold as a unit for £l.14. If they sold it as a loaf of “real bread” through an independent bakery they would make 0.5p profit; that is not much but it is something. For four beefburgers, the processor gains 10 times the profit of the beef farmer. A carrot grower spending about 14p per bag and selling to the supermarket will get virtually no money in return.

This leaves them with nothing to fund the transition. We all know that we need to have this transition. The agri-food sector currently makes up a third of UK greenhouse gas emissions, while agriculture accounts for 10% or possibly more. Farming drives 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss. Intensive livestock farming poses a serious threat to climate change—we have debated many times in this House what industrial chicken farming does—and 85% of our land is used to graze livestock or produce crops to feed animals rather than feed us.

Everyone in this House agrees that we have to reform the farming sector, but if we are to reform it through the ELM system, people will need some reason to put in the herbal leys and they need to make some decent money out of food. This is driven by our commercial and rubbish food system dominated by supermarkets, which are driving farmers—especially small farmers—completely out of business.

So I have three small ideas: accelerate ELMS—madly so, putting more money in—introduce a land use framework that supports farm diversity, and support the transition to agroecological farming. Farming can be nature-friendly; it does not need to be industrial. We are pushing big farmers in the middle of England towards being more industrial rather than thinking, “I will grow some hedgerows”.

The Government should set up new, legally binding sector-based supply chain with codes of practice and use data to help farmers deliver more public goods and get supermarkets to help by giving farmers a much fairer deal. Given what we know about the two big supermarkets that recently distributed £1 billion to their shareholders, we could do something; we could have some higher prices paid to the farmers.

Given all that we have learned from recent shortages in fruit and vegetables, the UK must have a coherent and ambitious horticulture strategy to improve our nutritional food security. We are already importing large amounts of fruit and veg from climate and water-stressed countries. As it worsens, this threatens our own food security. As many people have said, we need to support our small and family farmers; but we need also to support our big farmers so that they see a proper advantage in transitioning out of industrial farming methods that cause so much damage.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

I ought perhaps to draw the attention of the House to my interests as in the register. I am also president of the Institute of Agricultural Management and I have the good fortune to be involved in a horticultural and farming business. I consider it good fortune because that business has grown. As my noble friend Lord Caithness would say, we are in some of the most fertile parts of England, and we have flexibility available to us that is not available to everybody involved in farming.

It is inevitable that we will talk about farming in general as we talk about this SI. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, spoke particularly about the strains that face farmers—the difficulties that they have in marketing their produce—but we can all agree that we want to take the industry forward. We want to see the agricultural and horticultural industries going forward.

There may be a certain amount of frustration in the criticism of this SI. Change is, of course, difficult. Nobody likes change, least of all farmers, but we are blessed in this House in that I always feel that we generally have a consensus on this issue. I am slightly distressed to suddenly find that we are talking about a “fatal Motion” and a “regret Motion”. We have in my noble friend the Minister someone who was a colleague of mine in Defra some 11 years ago and whom we can rely on to make sure that the interests that we express here this evening are expressed within government.

I know that change is a difficult matter, but what are we trying to achieve? We are trying to achieve a diversity in farming that has not existed before. We are trying to induce a situation where farmers realise that what is environmentally beneficial to this country is also part and parcel of the way that the state, the Government, funds farming and gives farmers a chance. This SI is a step on the way. It is only the beginning of a continuing process, but we should support it at this stage. This change will be to the benefit of the country and to the benefit of the industry of which I consider myself through my family connections to be a part, and I consider it to be to the benefit of the world in which the majority of our fellow citizens want to live.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has proposed this amendment. I cannot agree with her. I think it is looking backwards when we need to be looking forwards. I know that we and the Labour Party are both anxious to make sure that we have a policy for agriculture and horticulture which builds on where we are and what we want to achieve; it is something that I think we share.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interest as detailed in the register.

Last week, the environment committee of your Lordships’ House—of which I am a member, as are some other Peers present—heard a very interesting presentation from one of our witnesses. She was a lady farming in the Yorkshire Dales, I think. It was a small family farm, and she was farming with her son. She explained that, in the past, they had received £12,000 per annum in farming support under the basic payment scheme. However, they were now due to receive £5,000, under the new schemes. I tell this story only because it is a very realistic assessment of what is happening to small family farms in the uplands, which are trying to farm in an environmentally sensitive way but not really being supported by the support system to which we are moving.

Like others, of course I support the idea that there should in future be payments that help the environment. In fact, I believe that most farmers already want to farm in a way that is friendly to the environment. Nevertheless, I understand that public money should be directed towards environmentally friendly systems of farming.

We all know that our Minister, who is so widely respected in this House, is not the author of the details of this transition. I do not think he was the Minister when we were debating two or three years ago the then Agriculture Bill. Many Members of this House at the time warned about the effect of phasing out the basic payments before the development of the ELM schemes and how it would affect particularly family farms in the uplands. That is indeed what is happening.

It is an uncomfortable truth for a Member of the United Kingdom Government that the Scottish Government are treating their farmers rather better than the English farmers are being treated by the centrally directed schemes here. In Scotland, they have decided to retain the basic payments until such time as the new environmental schemes properly kick in. We have been told many times in this House and in Grand Committee that there will be alternative ways in which farmers can apply for public money. We all accept that and nobody is disputing the principle. What worries me, and should be of concern to the Minister, is that there is a serious funding gap between the diminution of the basic payments and the access to and development of the new environmental schemes.

Although I of course support the direction in which the Government are taking farming, I do not rate the announcement by the Minister in January of £1,000 for helping all farms to receive advice. I am sure the Minister is aware, even though I have heard him suggest otherwise, that the complexity of the various schemes on offer quite often requires rather expensive advice. I have even been told that the expense of the advice is likely to be as great as the payments that people might possibly receive under some new schemes. It is complex—I think the Minister probably realises that—but I do not think the offer of £1,000 is really very significant or indeed very generous.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

As a non-scientist, I am not sure that I have a good answer to that. I would rely on the vets.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

I think my noble friend is quite right: we will depend on increasing productivity and will be able to do that only by breeding. The whole point of the Bill is selective breeding; actually, it is precision breeding. The noble Lord may well have this nightmare that we are releasing something ghastly into the world; I do not believe that is true at all. It is done because of objectives in the breeding programme, which is precise. This is just the sort of thing that I do—and I declare my interest as a horticulturalist, as the House well knows—when we are breeding bulbs and daffodils. But this is more serious; this is not about domestic gardening but is about feeding the world and making it possible for the diversity that exists in gene stock to be harnessed for greater productivity.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I do not want to argue with the noble Lord about this too much but, actually, I have to say that there is good evidence. For example, with gene editing and the operation called i-GONAD where you can change embryos, most of those animals look perfectly normal and would pass without their gene being changed, but it turns out, of course, that they do not actually fulfil the requirements that you eventually have for the gene. That is one of the problems. That is a serious issue because you change other genes; not as a result of editing them, but by having those other genes edited. That is a big problem.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I would not have chosen to speak in the gap, but it has certain advantages. It is certainly a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who chairs a group with which I am involved in an advisory capacity: Peers for the Planet. Of course, there is a risk that what you will say has already been said, but I do not think that that should trouble me so much: had things worked out better, I would have been on the speakers’ list. It was also a delight to hear the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Roborough, who is not in his place—I suppose he, like the rest of us, has been worried about how to get some nourishment during this debate.

I have some interests to declare. As noble Lords will know, I am involved with a family farming and horticultural business. I am also very grateful for the briefings I have received from the Library—just one of the excellent documents it produces—the NFU, Science for Sustainable Agriculture, the British Society of Plant Breeders, British Sugar and many others. Among other things, I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, which has long campaigned for gene editing to be facilitated. I have a particular interest in the Bill, and I will concentrate on my area of knowledge, which is, of course, plants rather than animals. It may interest the House to remember that, 10 years ago, I was the Minister in the Home Office responsible for licensing animal experiments. It would be interesting to know whether the Home Office is likely to be involved in any way in the regulation that will follow from the Bill.

I have long been interested in horticultural research. I had an early encounter with it at school, when my form master, who was also my botany master, somehow got hold of some irradiated tomato seeds. I was the pupil required to grow these tomatoes and see whether they had changed in any way, and whether there was anything remarkable about the genetic stimulation that irradiation had produced in them. I was also a founding member of the Horticultural Development Council. Some of the institutes available to us then have disappeared, but we do have research institutes in both the public and private sectors in this country that are second to none. Mention has been made of NIAB, the John Innes Centre and Rothamsted Research, which are all centres of excellence we can rely on.

The Autumn Statement provides for increased investment in research and development work, and this is just such an area where British excellence can be a huge advantage. The advantage of gene-editing technology takes us a step further to healthy, productive cropping, with disease resistance, an efficient use of plant nutrition and an awareness to adapt to climate change.

I support the Bill. In an increasingly hungry world, the technology we are able to use has opportunities way beyond our own needs in the United Kingdom. As the Minister said, we are world leaders in genetic technology, and this Bill should be welcomed in every way.

Horticultural Sector

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Grand Committee for allowing me to speak in the gap. I should declare my interests. My family business is well known for its daffodils and bulbs. I am no longer active in that business, but noble Lords should none the less be aware that I was a professional horticulturalist before I came to this place.

We also grow a substantial acreage of brassicas and potatoes. There is a link between horticultural products in my part of the country, which is England’s Holland, or Britain’s food valley, and agriculture. As president of the Institute of Agricultural Management, I am very aware that science and technology that support horticulture and agriculture are key factors in the future growing techniques to address food security, not just in this country but throughout the world. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Curry, who is my friend but sits in the other part of the House. I am delighted with the work that he has done in this area.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister can see that the horticultural industry is part of the growth economy. It involves smallish businesses but they have great potential, as my noble friend Lady Fookes, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said. The industry will need the support of the Government as they question things such as supply and skill sets for those engaged in it. Those in the industry certainly see themselves as key to maintaining and protecting the environment, making this world a better place to live in. They are indeed green jobs.

Food and Farming: Supply Issues

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will relay the suggestion to colleagues in the Government. The Healthy Start food vouchers scheme, which has been raised from £3.10 to £4.25, should be seen as part of a wider array of measures that we are providing to target families on lower incomes. The £500 million household support fund is another example, but the noble Baroness makes a very important point which I will relay.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my horticultural interests. What success has the department had in negotiations with the Home Office on extending temporary worker schemes to non-edible horticultural products—for example, nursery trees, nursery products, flowers, and other such things?

Plant Health (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend the Minister. Some eight years ago I was in his place. I thought I was busy, but none of us could have foreseen the workload that Defra has recently had to carry in this period of dramatic change. He knows of my interests, which are that of bulb growers and packers in my family business. We are very much affected in the import and export aspects of these new procedures. My son Adam—who now runs our bulb business—is a former president of the Horticultural Trades Association, and with it recognises the need to adapt our working methods to maintain, and indeed enhance, biosecurity following our departure from the European Union.

The Horticultural Trades Association realises that these regulations have to be in place by 1 January 2021—deal or no deal. I expect that my noble friend Lady Fookes will provide the Grand Committee an update from the HTA and its chairman, James Barnes. She and I were able to share in a briefing for the HTA by my noble friend the Minister and his senior team at Defra. It made clear the need for a continuing partnership. Good communication is needed if the industry is to deliver on these regulations. The Government must show a willingness to listen and act to avoid unnecessary burdens on business.

The Minister is right to take a risk-based approach. The development of a single-access customs and reporting computer program will be key. There are particular problems with the nurseries and packers which trade with Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. At present, the Dutch can deliver by crossing GB without any extra paperwork or inspections. Let us hope this can be resolved. With a sizeable business on the island of Ireland, I am keen to see progress so as to avoid repeat inspections, documentation and delay.

As president of the Anglo-Netherlands Society, I am keen to see Defra, in conjunction with the FCDO, have a dialogue with key suppliers such as the Dutch. I know from what the newly installed ambassador, Karel van Oosterom, has said that the Dutch embassy has greatly added to its staff in London. We need to establish and maintain contact and dialogue, here and in Holland, so that we can make use of this important link, now that we are no longer a member of European institutions.

I support these regulations and hope we can make a success of them.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my farming interest in Suffolk as in the register.

We are debating a number of amendments that could loosely be described as antipesticide. I am afraid I cannot support them because they would end up making the task of food production, which is the primary responsibility of the farmer, both harder and more expensive. As I have pointed out before, in Committee, some 70% of the taxable profit of farmers is composed of Brussels money; on my own farm the average figure over 14 years was 67%. As has been pointed out many times, switching money from the present system to environmental obligations inevitably reduces profitability, and it is in that context that we should consider these amendments.

I yield to no one in my devotion to sustainable and responsible farming that protects the environment and, indeed, enhances landscape, which in general is manmade—that is, made by farmers. I served three terms on the old Countryside Commission, two terms on the Rural Development Commission and five years as national chair of CPRE. A couple of years ago, I retired as president of the Suffolk Preservation Society after 20 years. I mention all this because, all too often, farmers are condemned without justification as people who are interested only in profit and short cuts and are not considerate.

We must make use of safe new technology when it is available, and this includes pesticides. Over the years, these chemicals have been more and more carefully tested and controlled to protect humans and animals, and all life in the environment. Many of the standards, rules and regulations on the use of chemicals are crucial; they must and will continue. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said that she would like all pesticides to be banned entirely, but, frankly, that is quite impractical.

I will give two examples where, lacking full justification and presumably formed on the precautionary principle—the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has just mentioned this; it is all too often an excuse for sloppy thinking—the rules have actually been harmful to economic farming. These include rules on the use of treatments for seeds to grow two important UK crops, which are now banned. The first is on the use of a chemical called Cruiser for the treatment of sugar beet seeds to protect the crop from the devastating effects of a disease called virus yellows. This problem was mentioned a few moments ago by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.

The second example is on the use of neonicotinoids for the seed of oilseed rape before it is planted to protect it from flea beetles, which can—and do—more than halve the yield. The ban on this seed treatment has led many farmers in the UK to give up growing oilseed rape. Of course, this merely means that the product is imported from Canada and the United States, where the bans do not exist. Obviously, I would have thought that there is no way in which the treatment of seeds under the ground can damage insects such as bees and butterflies, which feast on the nectar of a crop above the ground.

Of course, we must treat and use all chemicals with the greatest care and respect, but they are a crucial component of modern farming. I fear that these amendments are too wide and go too far, which is why I cannot support them.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I hope I can contribute to this debate by drawing on my farming interests and my experience. Of course, some of the latter is now history: I remember personally hot water treating daffodil bulbs in mercurial dips and, in my part of the world, there was widespread use of aerial spraying. Quite rightly, we live in very different times, as all of us using chemical applications have become more aware. The prohibition of noxious and dangerous chemicals, such as DDT, is well known, and all farmers and growers have an awareness of selectivity in their use of chemical sprays and dips. The use of broad-spectrum sprays is now rare, and most applications are for specific purposes.

Noble Lords will know, as a result of this debate, that a robust regulatory system of comprehensive scientific assessments is in place to ensure that pesticides are not used where their use may harm human or animal health or pose unacceptable risks to the environment. All these regulations include operator risk as well as risk to the general public. Assessments are carried out by a large team of specialist scientists at the Health and Safety Executive, and independent expert advice is provided by the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides. This system derives from EU Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009, which sets the rules for assessing and authorising pesticides, and Regulation (EC) No 396/2005, which sets limits for pesticide residues in food. All of these regulations will be carried over in full to UK law at the end of the transition period.

This brings me to the specific amendments in this group, and I have a great deal of time for all the signatories to them. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is a marvellous contributor to this House; I like, admire and enjoy listening to her, but it must be a long time since she was on a modern arable farm. Nowadays, she would see the precision with which sprays and chemicals are used; she would see the field margins adjacent to water courses and the headland nature strips. She would see modern sprayers, which bear no relation to the primitive things I used, with variable flow, nozzles and height. The operation of this kit is a highly skilled job and must be performed by a trained operator.

Farmers are a generous lot, but they do not spray their neighbours’ fields for them; neither do they spray the hedgerows, nor a neighbouring resident’s lawn. If noble Lords ever sought a contract with a multiple retailer—or even a third party who supplies a supermarket or chain—they would appreciate the high standards of husbandry and record-keeping that are required. Most farmers belong to accreditation groups as a consequence. When times are normal, I hope that the noble Baroness will join other noble Lords to visit our farm or, alternatively, attend a local LEAF Open Farm Sunday. Many people do. On our centennial open day last year, we had 500 visitors. If she stayed overnight, she would hear the sprayer go past between 5 and 6 in the morning, when winds are calm just before dawn, because that is the prime time to spray.

The thing that really upsets my nephew—he is responsible for our farming and growing and is active in many local farming groups and the drainage board—is that these amendments give the impression of a lack of trust. I will not repeat his critique of the well-intended but nightmare-inducing bureaucracy of the proposals in this group. We have over 100 fields on our farm plan, for example, and I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that our whole farm, except for 11 fields, is near one or two of the prohibited areas that he lists. How are noxious and persistent weeds and fungal infections going to be controlled with his measures in place?

I hope that my voice from the farm makes it clear that the use of pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals is not taken lightly by the industry and that the authors of these amendments will realise that, if we want more from our farmers in every way, we should maintain our confidence in them. This Bill will encourage farmers and growers, but we should not pass these amendments if we want the House and Parliament to retain their trust.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who has reminded us of the regulatory system in place at the Health and Safety Executive and given some examples of the impacts these amendments might have on farmers. I have added my name to Amendment 76, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and to Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I am grateful to both for their detailed and excellent introductions to this topic.

The use of pesticides was mentioned at Second Reading and in Committee. It is a topic which raises a great deal of concern among those living in the countryside and rural areas. Farmers spray their crops with pesticides to protect them from pests and diseases. However, some farmers—not all—do not exercise care when doing this, and their chemicals drift over neighbouring lands and properties, as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, mentioned. These chemicals can be extremely toxic and for citizens to breathe them in is likely to have a very adverse effect, especially for those already suffering from respiratory diseases. It is not unreasonable for those likely to suffer from pesticide drift to be notified by the farmer of the fact that they are planning to spray their crops on a certain day at a certain time, so that neighbours may stay indoors or be elsewhere during the process. Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is specific about the type of buildings which farmers would be prohibited from spraying near. It is essential that our young children should be protected from inhalation of toxic chemicals. Their lungs are fragile. Hospitals where the sick and chronically ill will be cared for by NHS staff should be similarly protected.