Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure my noble friend that it does remain a priority for this Government. If he looks at the very first few lines of the Agriculture Act, he will see that it is beholden on the Secretary of State of the day to make sure that farmers are able to produce food sustainably. That remains an absolutely determined view right across government, but we also want to make sure that we are accepting that, if you deplete your natural capital, you are destroying the life chances of farmers of the future and you are not allowing the industry to produce the kind of food that the public want to eat. So we want to assist farmers, where they need it, to go on that journey to produce food sustainably; it is absolutely at the heart of our agricultural policy.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Statement refers to the fact that, 70 years ago, people were waking up to the great flood of 1953, which caused great loss of life and great damage in Millbank, outside this House. One of the consequences of that great flood was to begin the planning that eventually led to the Thames Barrier. Will the Minister share with the House the current thinking about the need to look ahead for an additional protection for London with a second barrier? Given the time involved in planning such a thing, can he give us any indication of what the department’s thinking is about the need for it and how long it might take to bring about?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Viscount is absolutely right to raise this. That storm flood, which was a perfect storm in every sense of the word, combined a tidal surge with very high water levels. It led to some visionary thinking right across government and saw that measure put in. There is work going on to factor in long-term rises in sea levels, as have been predicted by a number of different organisations. I am not up to date on where those are, but they are very real and we want to make sure that we protect one of the great cities of the world from all future risks. If I can get back to the noble Viscount with more details on precisely where the Environment Agency, Defra and other parts of government are working on that, I will.