Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
Leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022.”
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, this amendment asks the House to decline to approve this statutory instrument—for total clarity, what is generally known as a fatal amendment. I thank the Minister for his very clear introduction to some of the scientific aspects of the SI and for clearly setting out the differences between gene editing and older forms of GMO technology. I thank all noble Lords who have joined us at this late hour. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, commented earlier, we so often do very important things very late at night. I am sorry about that, but that is not my choice—nor indeed that of most Members of your Lordships’ House, I think.
The Green Party’s position against genetically modified crops and animals is clear, but I will not make any arguments about that tonight. The argument I am making is that this statutory instrument is scientifically muddle-headed, unclear and most likely to create a legal tangle. The fact is, though, that noble Lords do not have to listen to me on that; they can listen to your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. We have to give great thanks for the tremendous work it does slogging through so much material. Its concerns about this statutory instrument shine through very clearly from the length and detail of its report. In the earlier debate, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I think put scare quotes around the term “technically flawed” and suggested that that was a particularly grave insult in your Lordships’ House. I am afraid that I think this statutory instrument is technically flawed.
The basis of the statutory instrument is that plants that could have been produced naturally or by traditional breeding methods could be planted out in field trials without the current requirement to produce a risk assessment or to seek government approval for non-marketing purposes, as the Minister said. But there is as yet no guidance as to what scientific or regulatory criteria will be used to determine what fits the definition of “could be naturally occurring” or “by traditional methods”, which produces what is referred to as a “qualifying higher plant”.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s language is typically measured and calm, as noble Lords would expect, but the committee “regret”—a very strong word in its terminology—the fact that there is no guidance to explain what this means. I thank the Minister for arranging a meeting with him, his officials, experts and a number of NGOs with which I have been working on this, during which it was asked when the guidance would be produced. The answer was “in a few months’ time”. We are being asked to vote on something when we have no idea what it actually means. I do not know whether the Minister can provide me with any updates on that.
It is very clear from the consultation responses that this term is not recognised in any existing markets or certified sectors such as organic. It is interesting that the Minister talked about how the US and other places are loosening regulation of gene editing, but they are doing so by changing their regulation of the method; they are not focused on the outcomes. No other place is working in the way we are by referring to traditional breeding or natural methods.
In response to the consultation, the Wildlife and Countryside Link said that there is “no conclusive evidence” that organisms created by gene editing
“could be achieved through traditional breeding.”
The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation found that there was no basis for Defra’s claims, bluntly noting:
“The entire purpose of expanding the use of gene editing … is to create animals that do not occur naturally”—
or, in this case, plants. The Organic Research Centre said that Defra’s premise is
“unproven in theory and should not be the basis for changing regulations or removing protections.”
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and everyone who has taken part in this very interesting and comprehensive debate. Like the Minister, I am somewhat on the horns of a dilemma because I am aware of the number of people waiting for the next important business.
I will try to respond to the Minister’s comments. It is interesting that a lot of this debate has focused on the views of scientific institutions. He acknowledged that there is complexity in their response and that they are saying that this is a complex area—the problem of defining what could be like naturally occurring or through traditional breeding. It is interesting that in his introduction he said that we were aiming for simplicity here. However, what has been achieved is not simplicity but complexity, which is reflected in the fact that no other country is taking the direction that we are here of focusing on the outputs rather than on the processes.
I will pick up the Minister’s point about ACRE and its composition. Of course, it is not just the case that people may be unduly or unreasonably influenced by their professional interests. There is also the problem of groupthink, where you get a group of people from a similar background, with similar professional lives, all thinking the same way without someone asking critical questions. We really need to look at that in terms of the composition of that body.
The Minister stressed that this SI was limited in scope, and on one level I agree. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter—I thank her very much for her extremely informative and thoughtful contribution to this debate—pointed out that this is a shift away from the precautionary principle to the American principle of proof of harm. That is not limited in scope but a 180-degree shift in legislative approach. The Minister rightly said, as have others, that we are not talking about retail sales of the product here. However, as the noble Baroness said, surely the aim is eventually to produce things for retail, otherwise what is the point? That is where we are headed with this.
I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for pointing out the concerns of organic farmers. That is an area where there has been a great deal of concern. Again, the Minister was perhaps slightly self-contradictory in saying, “We haven’t had any problems with what we’ve done thus far”, while saying in his introduction, “There have been very few trials and very little has been happening because of the current regulations.” If we have had very few trials, perhaps it is not surprising that we have not seen results.
I will pick up a couple more points very quickly. Several people focused on the issue of the need to feed the world. I have to point out the fact that a third of British arable and half of American arable is used either to grow food for animals or to produce fuel crops. If we stopped factory farming, a lot of that food could feed humans, which would be a great deal healthier.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, made an argument about GM crops. That is not the argument that I am making; I am making an argument about this SI. I apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, because it is obvious that I did not make it clear enough in my introduction that I was not claiming that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was commenting on the content of this; it was commenting on the form and the system. When I was addressing your Lordships’ House I thought that everyone in this Chamber knew that, but perhaps I should have made it clearer for people listening outside. I acknowledge that. However, he said, “These faults in procedure, as identified by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, happen all the time.” That is not an argument for voting against my call to stop this SI. Surely at some point, with the huge systematic problems that the committee has identified in its report, your Lordships’ House has to say, “Enough—we cannot proceed with this way forward.”
I want to pick up finally on the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. She made important points that we are not talking here about being against the science. The science has changed and developed enormously. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, referred to the many complexities he saw decades ago, essentially the unknown unknowns and the known unknowns. We are gradually starting to uncover a great deal more about how genetics relate to the phenotype of plants, the behaviour of plants and the way organisms work. I point any noble Lords who really want to inform themselves about this to a great podcast called “Big Biology” that is all about the cutting edge of science. This science is changing at enormous speed, and an understanding of how genes work is very different from what was thought 10 or 20 years ago.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, also pointed out how we are seeing huge advances in agroecology, of working with nature and incredibly complex natural systems—the billion organisms that should be in a healthy teaspoon of soil—and that we can work with those collectively. It is not a case of treating nature like a machine and changing one cog.
I am aware that there is a lot of pressure not to do this but I feel that the issue is crucial, so I do not feel at this point I can do anything but ask to test the opinion of your Lordships’ House.
Climate Change
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
I can absolutely do that. We have doubled our investment in flood defences to a record £5.2 billion. with some 2,000 new defence schemes over the next six years. This programme will better protect 336,000 properties, including homes and non-residential properties such as schools, hospitals and transport links. But, as I just said to my noble friend Lady McIntosh, concrete and steel are not the sum total of this; it is also about planting trees and using nature to slow water. That is at the fundamental heart of our new agricultural policy.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, this morning Reuters published draft proposals from the European Commission that will be published next week including proposals for national Governments to tax the windfall profits that energy companies have made from high gas prices. If the Government want to be world-leading, do they not need to get in in the next few days to bring in a windfall tax on those gas prices that could then be used for adaptation measures, identified as urgently needed in this report?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I will relay the noble Baroness’s suggestion to the Chancellor and he will consider it within the Government’s fiscal policies.
Bird Control Licences
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
We are all grateful to my noble friend for kicking this off when he was Armed Forces Minister. What is happening in the sovereign base areas is excellent, but it needs to be copied in other places such as Malta. For those of us who are passionate about seeing the turtle-dove recover in this country, we are going to have to take action. International action will have to be taken to prevent this amazing bird being shot, and there are many other species of songbird which, unfortunately, are killed in this way.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the weight of captive-bred released non-native gamebirds in the UK is the same weight as that all of the native birds in the UK. These eat reptiles in particular. I was speaking to a herpetologist who was very concerned about the impact on reptile populations. But a fifth of the pheasants released are estimated to be eaten by foxes. Those foxes, with their artificially inflated population, also eat many native birds. Would the Minister acknowledge that we would possibly see many more lapwings and other ground-nesting birds if those foxes were not being fed by those gamebirds?
Lord Benyon (Con)
There is an enormous amount of data on the diet of predators such as foxes, and I do not think it is as simple as the noble Baroness makes out. In the vast majority of areas, there is a net gain for biodiversity by the moderate actions of shooting estates. There are, of course, individual cases where they may be a net negative, but in the vast majority of the country, game covers and hedgerows and management of woodland create extraordinary habitats. That is an investment which does not cost the taxpayer anything but is of huge benefit to our natural capital.
Pesticides: Thiamethoxam
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential negative impacts of their decision to permit the use of the pesticide thiamethoxam for sugar beet cultivation on (1) bee health, and (2) the spread of antimicrobial resistance; and what steps they will take to mitigate the concerns raised by their scientific advisors about the use of this pesticide.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have given emergency authorisation for the use of thiamethoxam in 2022 to protect sugar beet from viruses. The environmental assessment identified potential risks to bees and the authorisation imposes strict restrictions to minimise these risks. In particular, the pesticide will be used only if, according to independent modelling, the predicted level of virus is at or above 19% of the national crop. No flowering crop may be planted within 32 months of sugar beet having been treated.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. I have no doubt that other Peers will address the absolutely crucial issue of bees. This relates also to our second Question on food security.
In the light of the Lancet article yesterday which showed that, in 2019, 1.3 million people around the world died as a result of antimicrobial resistance, I will focus on the second part of my Question. It is, perhaps, the first time this has been mentioned in the House. Increasing numbers of studies, and increasing understanding, show that cross-resistance can develop. Bacteria exposed to pesticides can end up being resistant to drugs they have never even experienced. Will the Minister commit to going back to his department and speaking to officials to ensure that sufficient account is being taken of this when all pesticides are considered?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I, my department and others mind desperately about antimicrobial resistance. When I saw the wording of the Question, I looked into the matter in some detail. The neonicotinoid we are talking about is an insecticide that is not found to be causally related to antimicrobial resistance. I will look at the Lancet article about which the noble Baroness spoke and I will take her points back. The Government take AMR extremely seriously and we are coming forward with a number of different ideas to tackle this problem.
Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee Report
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, my fellow Australian-born female Peer in your Lordships’ House. That will become somewhat relevant later. I also welcome the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, back to your Lordships’ House. The last time we met, I believe we were talking about Yorkshire devolution, so I look forward to having future conversations on such matters.
I join pretty well all noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and his committee on a spectacularly weighty report that really deserves the paper it is printed on. That is not something that can always be said. I join him, the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Lister, and many others in expressing strong disappointment at the Government’s response to the report. “Thin” is, I think, the adjective that has been used. I would probably go further and say “derisory”. However, I take one piece of consolation from reading the Government response. It seems to have evaded that incredibly powerful directive being delivered to all Government output. It does not seem to contain the phrase “world-leading”. That is quite telling, because it reflects the fact that even this Government cannot apply the phrase “world-leading” to the UK’s food system—the broken food system that this report so clearly identifies.
We find ourselves in a very curious constitutional position. The Government’s response says that we all have to wait for Mr Dimbleby’s report. I am not quite sure what place Mr Dimbleby has in the British constitution, but it seems to be a very important one, according to that.
However, I hold great hopes for Mr Dimbleby’s work, and I very much look forward to it, but I have a small disagreement with the words from Henry Dimbleby quoted in this report, in which he says of the food system,
“it is almost impossible to act on it … without creating winners and losers.”
The word I question in that sentence is “creating”. What we have is a food system that now has some truly spectacular winners: the supermarkets, the multinational food manufacturers, the fast-food companies, the seed and agrochemical companies. It also has some truly spectacular losers, as many noble Lords have outlined, starting with the children of the UK who are losing out with a dreadful quality of diet. Our public health is losing out very spectacularly—and, of course, our environment. It has often been said that Mr Dimbleby is producing England’s first ever food strategy. I would say that this is not the first food strategy, it is the first written-down food strategy. Our strategy for decades has been to allow multinational companies and supermarkets decide what we eat, and we can see the results in this report.
However, I want always to look forward and be positive. I want to pick out some words from the report by the National Farmers Union. Philip Hambling talks about the traditional “three-legged stool” of sustainability, in that it has economic, environmental and social legs. It is already clear from what many other noble Lords have said that the social leg has not so much been broken off as smashed to smithereens, given the level of food poverty in the UK. In fact, I would say that this is not food poverty; it is simply poverty. This has been covered very well by other noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, compared the situation 100 or so years ago with the disastrous situation we are in now, saying that somehow, we have been through a cycle and ended up in a similar position. I will draw a further parallel. Back then, our food system was starving many millions of people in India, in the Empire. Today, there is more than enough food for everyone to be fed, but nearly 1 billion people regularly go to bed hungry.
I turn to an issue that no one else has yet referred to today. We need to acknowledge—particularly the Minister who is now speaking for the Government—that this should all be seen in the context of COP 26 and our chairing of it. Repairing our food system is surely part of our responsibility in that role.
That brings me back to Australian issues. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, all referred to the potential for an Australian free trade deal. I refer to paragraph 469 of the report, which states:
“Food imports must be required to adhere to the same environmental and health welfare standards that are in the UK.”
Most other noble Lords have rightly expressed concern about the impact on British farmers of food imports from Australia, particularly meat imports, but I raise the question of the environmental impact of producing those food imports, along with the animal welfare impact. A week or so ago I wrote a piece for the Yorkshire Post reflecting on the fact that not only are my origins Australian, but my first degree was in agricultural science. I worked on Australian farms, and I told some tales from those farms and their animal welfare standards then. I should warn noble Lords not to read them over breakfast. However, I can also tell noble Lords that I was significantly pulling my punches, because there are some things that you simply cannot write in a national or regional newspaper.
Are the Government considering the environmental and animal welfare impacts in terms not only of competition but the state of the world? Is it appropriate to take food from a production system based on the ecocide and genocide of white settler capitalism in Australia that continues to be utterly destructive and profoundly damaging to the environment?
I want to put a couple of more questions to the Minister, given the department he represents, and given that the UK will be chairing COP 26. A former Secretary of State of that department, Michael Gove, was keen on agroecology and agroforestry. Although the report does not use the term “agroecology”, it does refer to farming systems that would fit the agroecological model. As the new Minister, does the noble Lord intend to push agroecological approaches, particularly given the emphasis the report places on the importance of research and development? Is he keen to see far more research and development in the agroecological area?
I stress that I want to be positive, so I thought I would take that three-legged stool idea and construct a new one that the Government might find attractive and be prepared to adopt. I will reframe the report in my final two minutes. I shall refer to “three Ps” that I hope the Government will at least in theory agree to adopting. The first “P” stands for productivity. I hear often from the Benches opposite the desire to improve the productivity of the UK. Can the Minister say whether there has been any consideration of, or reports on, the impact of our poor diet on the UK’s productivity? We hear a lot about the impact on health, and we know that obesity, heart disease, diabetes and all such diseases pose a significant problem for public health. I would posit that they also have a significant impact on the productivity of this country. The Government might like to think about that.
The second “P” is prosperity. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, talked about the South-West Food Hub and how exciting efforts are being made in local food production, bringing huge opportunities to small independent businesses and local traders in order to spread prosperity around the country. That fits very much with the Government’s levelling-up agenda.
The final “P”—I admit I am stretching the “Ps” a little here—is polarity. The levelling-up agenda talks about dealing with regional inequalities in the UK. We have poles of wealth and poles of poverty. If we have strong food systems in every region of the UK—small independent businesses, local greengrocers, markets and cafes all being supplied with local food—what you will have is economic circulation.
These are my suggestions for the three-legged stool, framed in a form that the Government might like. Much of this report could be implemented in that direction, so I hope that the Government will reconsider their response.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I cannot call the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, so I will call the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market.
Pesticides
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to prohibit the use of pesticides.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I refer your Lordships to my farming interests as in the register. Our approach to pesticides regulation is underpinned by the precautionary principle. That is why, for example, we supported a ban on the use of certain neonicotinoids to treat crops in 2018. We are also committed to supporting alternative methods to pesticides, having analysed responses to our revised National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides consultation. This proposed plan supports the development of low-toxicity methods, integrated pest management and improved support for users.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. I gave prior notice that this Question was inspired by a study published this month in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, which was a meta-analysis of nearly 400 studies looking at the impact of pesticides on soil fauna, including earth- worms, beetles and springtails with fungicide impacts being particularly marked. It is obvious that testing regimes have not adequately accounted for these impacts. The Minister referred to the precautionary principle but, given that the Government often acknowledge how important soils are, surely this principle would demand that they set a target of zero pesticide use to protect our soils as a matter of urgency.
Lord Benyon (Con)
I share the noble Baroness’s concern for soils; it is absolutely fundamental to our 25-year environment plan and other policies that we are introducing. I refer her to concerns raised since France attempted a 50% reduction on pesticides in 2008; by 2018, there was actually a 12% increase. We are always wary of targets, but we are looking at implementing them. The most important thing is to look at our proposals for integrated pest management, which sit very comfortably with the need to produce food but to do so safely.
Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions and Simplifications) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, with whom I share an interest in horticultural production—particularly in the interests of public health—which I think needs to be done through agroecological approaches, addressing his concerns about fertiliser use. I do not think he needs to apologise for not being in the House. After all, day after day we hear from the Woolsack that speakers will be treated equally wherever they are, even if that is not 100% accurate.
Again, I welcome the Government’s at least partial delivery of a long-term Green Party policy. In the days of the common agricultural policy, the Green Party called for the CAP to be capped in terms of payments to the largest landowners. For a number of years, our call was for the maximum payment to be £100,000. Once again, the Greens lead and others follow. I hope that this reflects government understanding about the damage done by the extreme concentration of land ownership in England, and the need to democratise it to deliver land reform.
The fact that payments for the largest farms are being reduced by 25% for payments over £150,000 but by only 5% for the smallest farms is a small step in the right direction, at least. However, it is not nearly enough. I want to see payments directed strongly towards the smallest farms, including those that were regarded as “too small” under the previous CAP rules but which are often hugely productive in terms of healthy food, provide good employment and maintain excellent environmental conditions—care for their soil being a particularly obvious imperative for them.
That is not to say that there are not grave concerns about the progress—or lack of it—of government plans for payments to farmers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said earlier at a meeting of the APPG on Agroecology, there is a grave concern that payments under environmental land management schemes may be adequate only to maintain what is being done now, more or less, while there is real concern about the slow pace of the development of these immensely complex schemes.
Since this House last discussed these issues, we have heard initial announcements about the sustainable farming incentive, but I note the words of a Tenant Farmers Association policy adviser to Farmers Weekly that this is
“just the start of a long journey moving away from area-based payments.”
She said:
“There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure SFI becomes a robust and tangible scheme that can be practically implemented for any farming system.”
As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said, this is uncharted territory.
We are talking about eight standards to allow farmers to build their own farm agreements for greener landscapes, cleaner air and water, and to guard against the climate emergency and flooding—at three different levels. The complexity of this and the potential difficulty of monitoring delivery look daunting; also, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said, farms are often homes too, so there are privacy implications. Indeed, the Minister outlined this in his explanation of the inspection access rules in his introduction to the debate. I appreciate that he may not have time today to talk in detail about the plans for delivery, but we—farmers and communities —need to see the rapid delivery of clarity and hear assurance that this will deliver real progress for our horrendously nature-depleted land, with its poisoned waters and trashed soils.
Another key issue that has been very much at the forefront today is the non-progress of the Environment Bill. I understand the need to hold it in the other place for Prorogation—whether that is really the most efficient way for a constitution to operate is a question for another day—but I heard a concerning comment this morning from a Member of the Government’s party in the other place suggesting that the need to get the Environment Bill in place by COP to avoid international embarrassment meant that your Lordships’ House would have to rush it through and not try to do too much to it. Given the close links between these payment regulations and the operation of the Bill, I hope that the Minister can give me an assurance today that the Government intend that this House, with its large number of expert voices with a strong interest in the issues in the Environment Bill, has proper time to scrutinise it. The Domestic Abuse Bill has demonstrated how much Bills can be improved through such scrutiny. The Environment Bill is even larger in scope and equally crucial in impact.
Fertilisers and Ammonium Nitrate Material (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of this SI. I have three brief sets of points to make. Given that the SI is about the management of fertilisers and ammonium nitrate material, an intensely environmental issue, I hope the Committee will forgive me if I take a minute to reflect on this morning’s news about the delay of many months to the Environment Bill. My inbox is full of expressions of fury and disbelief. When we are the chair of COP 26, this can be described only as very depressing and embarrassing. There is a huge legislative lacuna, a gaping gap in UK law, and it sends a message about the importance with which the Government regard environmental issues in this hugely nature-depleted, polluted and contaminated land. Work on the Bill began in July 2018. We will potentially go into the biodiversity COP in October without that law, and it may even be a scrape to get it in before COP 26 itself starts.
I have two questions for the Minister, although I understand that he may not be able to answer them now. What will happen with the Office for Environmental Protection and what will happen about giving farmers certainty about applying the fertilisers we are talking about now, in terms of environmental land management schemes? My second question concerns the fact that we are now discussing artificial fertilisers. The Committee may remember my interest in soil science, so I hope Members will give me for venturing a little into that.
There was an old Italian proverb in the 1930s that said that artificial fertiliser was “good for the father and bad for the son”. That was about the environmental damage—the level of soil damage—done by artificial fertilisers. Having just come out of the Oxford Real Farming Conference and heard lots of excellent things about soil, and having seen reports from its companion, the Oxford Farming Conference, there is increasing understanding of the impact of nitrogen fertilisers, not just on the climate emergency—nitrous oxide has 298 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide and stays in the atmosphere for an average of 114 years—but also on soil structure. In healthy soils, with low levels of nitrogen, one sees that microbes do not metabolise carbon compounds but instead excrete them as polymers that act as a glue holding the soil together. Of course, we are seeing, with the floods around the UK now, some of the huge damage that the loss of soils can do, when we do not have that soil structure.
I come to a specific point about this SI, and I follow the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who, with her customary depth and grasp of detail, asked some detailed and important questions. I particularly pick up the point she raised about paragraph 7.3 in the Explanatory Memorandum, which says:
“Manufacturers who currently market ‘EC fertilisers’ in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland will need to be established in the EU to continue to market ‘EC fertilisers’ in Northern Ireland”.
This seems to be a pattern we often see, so what advice are the Government giving potential or current manufacturers? Are people being told to take their business out of the UK and to set up in the EU? Have the Government made any assessment of the economic and job impacts in this industry and more broadly?
I want to raise a related point with the Minister; I would be happy to share the source with him later. There is a report from the Belfast News Letter which reflects some of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds. It is about peat and it quotes Robin Mercer from the Hillmount Garden Centre, who said that it is
“now illegal to import a plant which contains on its roots any soil or bark-based peat-free compost”,
but legal to import, albeit with lots of paperwork, plants that are contained within peat. I am sure the Minister is well aware of the issues around peat and the need to move away from peat-based compost. Will he look into this and see whether there is any way to ensure that we are not encouraging, through this and other statutory instruments relating to the end of the Brexit transition period, environmental damage through agricultural practices?
Rural Landlords and Land Letting: Reform
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Whips for organising my participation after an administrative snafu, and the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, for calling this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon. We share many concerns, although on this occasion my perspective is different.
I begin with the observation from Defra’s consultation feedback analysis report that tenancies reform is not adequate to tackle the many ills of our current system. It is treating the symptoms of a disease, not the disease itself, which is our acute concentration of land ownership. A lightning recap: half of the land is owned by 1% of the people; much land ownership is not recorded or publicly available; and the vast majority of people cannot get access to land to grow food. A handful of NGOs, including the Kindling Trust and the Biodynamic Land Trust, go to great lengths to get land for a small percentage of the huge numbers of people who would like to start businesses on it.
Your Lordships’ House is often accused of being medieval, as it sometimes can be, but the very nature of our proceedings demonstrates how fast a change is possible. We need an even larger-scale reform of land ownership and access to land to get us out of the medieval relic that is our 21st-century reality.
I have one specific question for the Minister and one suggestion. In the past, the Government have sought to use policy to achieve consolidation of land ownership. The clear view has been that the increasing size of farms is inevitable and even desirable. That has been hugely destructive to the environment, productivity and public health, with the focus being on grain and oil production rather than vegetables and fruit. It has also led to the hollowing out and ageing of rural communities. Have the Government abandoned this ideological position? Are they looking to increase the number of growers and farmers in the UK, and to reduce the average size of growing and farm businesses? My suggestion is for the Minister to read, or get one of his officials to read, a quite short book: Miraculous Abundance: One Quarter Acre, Two French Farmers, and Enough Food to Feed the World.
Official Controls (Animals, Feed and Food, Plant Health etc.) (Amendment) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2020
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who has reflected some of our shared interests as a fellow member of the APPG on horticulture. I thank the Minister for his detailed introduction to these statutory instruments. He made clear the complexity of what we are dealing with. It is clear that we are far from the frictionless trade that we were sometimes implausibly promised by the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred to some of the difficulties being encountered now on the border.
I would like to begin with this question to the Minister. The Official Controls (Animals, Feed and Food, Plant Health etc.) (Amendment) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations were made on 21 December and laid on 22 December. Can he make it clear how well they have been communicated to small businesses and to academics—the people who have a real interest in this area? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that people understand what is actually going on, if they do not have time to spend their entire day focusing on the fine details of statutory instruments?
I pay tribute Friends of the Earth, which prepared two excellent briefings on these statutory instruments that I relied on quite heavily. I have a question about the use of the negative statutory instrument process. Regulation 2 of the official controls regulations allows regulations to be made on special import conditions on animal and related products, and Regulation 13 gives the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers special powers to make regulations concerning meat and bivalve production by negative statutory instrument. It appears that similar procedures in the European Commission operate in a much more democratic way, so could the Minister comment on how this squares with the taking back control agenda if Parliament has less oversight than we see in Europe?
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to the European Union Reference Laboratory for Animal Proteins in Feedingstuffs. I would like some reassurance from the Minister that there will be continual ongoing skills and knowledge sharing, and that we have a real sense that we are still right up at and contributing to the cutting edge, co-operation obviously being much more useful than competition.
Finally, I come to the plant health amendment regulations 2020. Again, my question relates to transparency and openness. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, both referred to the question of openness in the reporting of the UK plant health risk group’s proceedings—both minutes and agendas, one would hope. The comparable EU body, the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed, does this with commendable regularity and openness. Given that all these meetings are, I am sure, now conducted by teleconferencing, as most of us in your Lordships’ House now operate, I see no reason why they should not be broadcast for anyone with an interest. There is, of course, a great deal of interest in issues around plant diseases, invasive species, diseases like Xylella, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, referred to, antibiotic resistance, and the risk of importing it and antibiotic-tainted meat. Has the Minister considered whether the plant health risk group’s meetings could be fully conducted in public by means of Zoom or similar so that they are available to everyone?