Water Companies: Borrowings

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is simply an objective fact that we are the first Government specifically to tackle sewage overflows in the way that we have. We are the first Government to set a legal requirement on water companies to tackle significantly storm overflows. That has never been there before—not before Brexit or before we joined the European Union—and is a new development. We are taking stronger action than any Government in the history of this country.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Is there any truth in the report that at least two water companies have needed cash injections and that the Government’s recent sewage reduction plan was a result of those companies’ poor credit ratings?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I cannot answer questions on the two companies but will ask the Minister responsible for this area and get back to the noble Baroness. The reason we took the steps we took in the Environment Act was to improve the environment. This is an issue that everyone cares about; it does not matter where they live or which part of the political spectrum they occupy. Everyone wants our waters to be clean and we are taking the strongest possible action to make them so.

United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Single-Use Plastics) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his efficient explanation. I too read the report to which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred. I saw it in the Times and the Daily Mail.

In the helpful Explanatory Memorandum, reference is made in paragraph 13.1 to regulating small business. Has the Federation of Small Businesses been consulted? At this point it seems to be central, although I should say that I hold no personal brief for the FSB in any way.

Paragraphs 12.1 and 12.2 refer to impact. It is early days, but have Scotland and Wales yet set out their impact assessments? It is also clear that in all of this Scotland has been ahead of the game since June. Is there any intelligence yet as to how things are moving in Scotland? How was Scotland consulted? Was it simply by Zoom or was it between officials? Was it done personally by Ministers or was it done by phone? “Consultation” can mean many things.

Similarly, at paragraph 7.1, how was Wales consulted? To whom did the Minister talk? Did he talk to the Cabinet Minister for agriculture in the Senedd? If I may set him and his excellent officials in the department a challenge, can he tell me the name of the Welsh Minister for agriculture sitting in the Cabinet?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise wearily to my feet on this issue of single-use plastics. I agree almost completely with my noble opponent, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. She is absolutely right that this does not go far enough—of course it does not, we have been talking about this for decades. This statutory instrument is on the right path but is still nowhere near enough.

Where I disagree with the noble Baroness is on the fact that it is not only households but councils that need to know. As we have said lots of times before, we need one system across the whole of Britain. I was watching an episode of “The Outlaws”, a comedy drama with Stephen Merchant, and in it a very large, angry drug dealer told off his lieutenant for putting a tomatoey pizza box in the recycling. I thought that that was probably much more effective than government education. Even so, the Government have a role in educating. Still people still do not see—perhaps the Government themselves do not see—that most of the 8 billion tonnes of plastic produced since the 1950s is still in existence: in our drinking water, our soils, our animals, our fish and our air, and even, apparently, in our beer and, I suspect, our wine.

Every time we get a promise from government, it is inching towards what we need, which is a total ban on plastic. It seems that every time we get a small bit of progress, the Government pat themselves on the back and then take ages to get to the next bit of progress. For example, we used to have bottle deposit schemes. It is not as though we do not have the knowledge of how to implement these things. We can do it. We did it with an awful lot less technology 70 years ago, so why not do it now?

Of course, with a ban on all single-use plastic, we would get to the point where unnecessary items were not made at all. If you think that 40% of the plastic produced goes into single-use packaging, that is fairly shocking, even before you consider that the world total is more than 300 million tonnes each year.

It is exhausting to keep coming back to this issue. I am sure the Minister does his best, but I cannot say the same for the Government. I understand that they are struggling a bit at the moment to be coherent but, even so, I plead with them to do better—I am sure they could. We need to educate everybody in plastics pollution, including all the contenders for the leadership of the Tory Party, none of whom has mentioned the climate crisis or the environment. I suspect, therefore, that none of them will be interested in plastic pollution. So, I welcome this in a very limited and specific way.

Fur: Import and Sale

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to introduce legislation in the current parliamentary session for a ban on the import and sale of fur.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have committed to exploring potential action in relation to animal fur, as set out in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare. We have since conducted a call for evidence on the fur sector and engaged further with interested parties. We are continuing to build our evidence base, which will be used to inform any future action on the fur trade.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

That did not sound like a yes. In fact, this is a government promise; I do not understand why the Government have such problems promising and then not delivering. A few articles in newspapers in February said that the blockage for all cruelty-free animal welfare legislation was Jacob Rees-Mogg. Why is one senior person in the Conservative Party blocking all the legislation that so many people in Britain want to see enacted?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I share the noble Baroness’s passion on this issue—as she knows—and her frustration with some of the blockages that have got in the way of a whole range of animal welfare legislation. However, it is not true to say that all our legislation has been blocked. We have achieved an enormous amount in the last two years. We have increased sentences for animal cruelty from six months to five years; recognised the sentience of animals; banned glue traps for rodents; and enacted and extended the ivory trade ban, which is now the strongest in the world. We are currently in the process of banning the live export of animals for slaughter and banning the keeping of primates as pets. Although I am running out of time for this answer, there is a whole range of things of which we can be proud—but, like the noble Baroness, I hope we can do more.

Minister for the Oceans

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for appointing a Minister for the Oceans.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, ocean protection is vital for the domestic and global economy as well as for nature, of course, and that is why we have several Ministers across government covering different aspects of the marine environment. We work together to deliver our ambition for healthy, productive and sustainable oceans through the effective management of UK waters and by championing ocean protection internationally. The range of ministerial portfolios covering the marine environment is both a reflection of the priority that we afford the ocean and the need to integrate ocean considerations across government policy, from biodiversity and climate change to energy and maritime security.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

What a brilliant Answer.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Well, actually, if I could be allowed to speak—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Sorry.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I do not find it to be a brilliant Answer at all because it sounds like everywhere and nowhere to me. The oceans are a huge entity with billions and trillions of ecosystems. This is about not only their protection but understanding our impact on them, which might be good or bad. Should not the first job for the Minister today be to go back and ask for one good person to be a Minister for the Oceans so that they can be understood and supported?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right about the importance of the ocean but that is why this issue runs like a thread through most departments of government. The impact of our collective government approach is clear from: the success of the G7; COP 26, where we put nature, including the ocean, at the heart of our approach; our own extensive MPA network, covering nearly 40% of our domestic waters; our protection of 4 million square kilometres around our overseas territories; our leadership of international efforts to secure protection of 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030; and our co-sponsorship only last week of the successful UNEA resolution on a new treaty on plastic pollution. I could spend much longer than I have done reeling off things that have been achieved on the ocean by that collective approach here in the UK.

Peat

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to undertake further consultation on the professional use of peat.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, we are currently consulting on measures to end the use of peat in horticulture in England and Wales. This includes a call for evidence on the impacts of ending the use of peat and peat-containing products in the professional horticulture sector. The consultation closes on 18 March this year. Our assessment of the responses and the evidence that we receive will inform our next steps, which will include targeted engagement with specialised areas within the sector.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was frightened that that would be the Answer. Environmentalists are sick of all these consultations. The Government promised to ban peat in 2020, and there were years to achieve that then. In the interests of moving on, I suggest two things: first, that imports of professional peat be stopped, because when we stop selling it here it will just get imported. Therefore, this is a primary thing to do. Secondly, we must replace peat with something, and we could use green waste from councils, for example. Can the Minister take that back to his department and make them think about it?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I will certainly take both those suggestions back to the department. The point the noble Baroness makes about imports is a good one; I will have that discussion with the Secretary of State. She is not the only person who is sick of endless consultations but unfortunately, they are unavoidable when the impact of a policy affects the value of a business or of assets. We have no choice but to consult, but we are doing so as quickly as we can.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Can we hear from a woman for a change?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the ambitions of this country is that Iran should adhere to the rule of law? If so, should we not be adhering to the rule of law—and, therefore, will he now give us a very clear “yes” or “no” reply to my noble and learned friend Lord Judge’s very straightforward question, which he has yet to answer?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Yes, of course, it is in everyone’s interest that Iran as a country adheres to the rule of law, just as the UK does on a routine and permanent basis.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Government do have some responsibility for the suffering that Nazanin is experiencing because our Prime Minister told a lie that she was teaching journalism. That meant that the Iranian Government were much more exercised about her presence in Iran when, in fact, she was only there to see her family. Has the Prime Minister shown any remorse?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The Prime Minister continues to engage on this issue with his counterpart, as does the entire FCDO. The Government continue to prioritise this case, as I have relayed to the House, and will continue to do so.

Environment Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Pollution of our rivers by sewage is a national embarrassment; I hope that these clauses in this Environment Bill will bring it to an end. I conclude with this thought: our children and grandchildren will surely be surprised that we allowed this revolting state of affairs to continue for as long as it did.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my coughing is not Covid, in case anybody is concerned.

I am so sad and disappointed that we have got to this place: we are under pressure, because of the primacy of the other place, to pass a Bill that is not as good as the one we amended. It seems that the Government do not understand what they have done in stripping out some of the safeguards we have put in. This will come to haunt MPs, because people will not forget the campaign to stop the sewage discharges into our rivers. Some people were also concerned about the office for environmental protection. This will not be forgotten.

I know the Minister said that this was not true, but I would argue that the Government have legitimised the sewage discharges that will be happening from now on. There is no timetable and there are no targets. Quite honestly, it seems that the Government do not understand the pressure that is coming from the grass roots—from dog walkers, fishing enthusiasts, Surfers Against Sewage and wild swimmers, who have seen this and really care about it. We have returned to the 1970s version of ourselves as the “dirty man of Europe”.

I hope that the Government will now admit the deliberate confusion that they created about the cost of stopping any further discharges. The figure—was it £60 billion or £600 billion?—that they put forward was absolutely outrageous; of course, they quickly withdrew it when people started to check. The Government could loan the money to the water companies to put in the infrastructure that we need to prevent discharges in a relatively short space of time. However, that would mean, of course, that those water companies could not pay dividends to investors, senior people and shareholders until the debt was paid off. If we had a tough regulatory system, the scandal would never have been able to escalate in the way that it has. It has been a failure of the Government, Ofwat and the Environment Agency and, unfortunately, the Environment Bill does nothing to deal with our relatively toothless system of enforcement.

I had hoped that we would be able to pressure the Government even more. Quite honestly, if any votes are put this afternoon—I cannot give up—I will vote for them, because the Government have still not achieved what we hoped would be achieved and what the general public want us to achieve: a cleaner Britain. I am hoping that the Government will at some point come forward with more safeguards, but at the moment I am not holding my breath and, as I said, I will vote for any amendments that are pressed.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on bringing us this far and I add my congratulations to my noble friend the Minister.

I want to ask two small questions. My noble friend said that he would look for the water companies to achieve a progressive reduction in the discharge of sewage over a period and admitted that this would go beyond one price review. As we are so far into the current price review, what will the level of expenditure be within this review, and does he admit that the majority of expenditure will probably fall in the next price review?

He is aware of my concern about the delay in introducing the regulations under Schedule 3 of the water Act 2020. Does he not share my concern that we will still potentially be front-loading raw sewage as surface water will be allowed to mix with the overflow from the combined sewers, pumping more raw sewage into the rivers? I am deeply unhappy that we have not yet fulfilled one of the outstanding requests of the Michael Pitt report from 2007, when surface water flooding first became an issue, and even after the awful floods that we have had since. We have not managed to achieve an ending to the automatic right to connect and, until these regulations are introduced, we will not do so.

Is my noble friend able to put a timetable on when these regulations will finally come into place, so that we can have a pincer movement on the raw sewage going upstream and downstream, as addressed by the amendments before us this afternoon?

Environment Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

I end by saying once again that the Climate Change Committee has made it absolutely clear that it cannot see how we reach net zero unless we do something serious about soil. I declare an interest, because I am a farmer in a small way, and I have a son who is particularly interested in, and financially concerned with, sequestration. So I could be said to have a personal interest, but that is not why I am speaking. I am speaking on behalf of the Climate Change Committee, which has made that very clear statement. I hope very much that the Minister will give us some hope that he will find a way to set a date. If we have a date, it seems to me that he will have won his case. If we do not, I think we have to say, once again, that soil is too important not to be dealt with.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I understand democracy. I have been elected. Indeed, I have been elected under two voting systems: proportional representation and first past the post. So I understand that the other House takes a priority over your Lordships’ House—I understand that. But, at the same time, the way the other House rejected our amendments so casually and so arrogantly hurt me. We worked for days on these amendments; we refined them and discussed them and, I hope, we actually convinced the Minister and the Whip that we were right. And yet the other House decided that they were of no value. I will be voting “content” today with anyone who wants to press their Motion to a vote.

I particularly want to speak in favour of the air pollution amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but, as I say, I am voting for all the amendments today. Air pollution is an issue I care very deeply about. We are talking about changing the law to make sure our toxic air becomes safe to breathe. This is a health issue. It is also a social issue, and we should understand that many people in our towns and cities suffer very badly. It also becomes an economic issue, because it hits the NHS, through people having to go into hospital with lungs that are badly damaged or through early death. Throughout the health crisis of the pandemic, the Government constantly said that they were being led by science. This is another health epidemic. It is toxic air, and it is time to listen to the scientists again, and to the World Health Organization, which says we need to bring our air pollution down to the levels in this amendment.

This is not an abstract issue. The young girl Ella Kissi-Debrah has been mentioned many times in your Lordships’ House—she was the first person in the world whose death certificate recorded death from air pollution. She suffered and died because of the toxic air where she lived and around her school. One child’s death is a tragedy, but there are probably thousands more who suffer with their lungs and die young who we do not even know about.

The House of Commons’ reason says that

“the powers conferred by clause 2 should not be limited in the manner proposed.”

Why on earth not? I do not understand. Without this amendment, it is left completely to the Minister’s discretion as to what level to set the target. That discretion is absurdly broad, and personally I do not trust the Government to do the right thing on air pollution without the intervention of your Lordships’ House. Quite honestly, the other place should have brought forward its own amendment on this; it should not just have swept our amendments away. It should have acknowledged the work, effort and expertise that we put in, and should have brought forward its own amendment. Instead, it just returned to the Government’s original wording.

I know that your Lordships do not like to defeat the Government too often, particularly in ping-pong, but this Bill is exceptional in terms of scale and scope. There are an exceptional number of issues that your Lordships ought to ask the House of Commons to consider again. I very much hope that we can pass this amendment along with all the others and that the other place will at least consider a compromise amendment that takes the issue of air pollution seriously.

I also want to speak briefly in favour of Motion D1, on the interim targets. I could not understand what the Minister said. I have huge respect for him, but, quite honestly, when he reads out, “If we have interim targets, they will not allow us to get to the final target”, I say that that is the whole point of them—we can actually measure progress towards the long-term target. It felt like an Alice in Wonderland speech. I feel very strongly that the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, has been generous to the Government and added an element of compromise to her amendment. I would not have compromised, but I can live with it, and I support it. I feel very strongly that we should ask the other place to look again at this issue of interim targets as well.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene at this stage with a degree of real diffidence. During the Third Reading debate, I urged the other place—there are those present who know that I did—to recognise the wisdom and experience of your Lordships’ House and not to bother sending back a lot of amendments so that we could move forward and get the Bill on the statute book by the Minister’s target date of before the end of the COP conference, which is just about to begin. I meant that.

However, I have been provoked into speaking this afternoon by two Members for whom I have very genuine and real respect: the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who was one of the best chairmen whom I have sat under in 51 years in Parliament, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, whom we all hold in great affection. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, got it right and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, got it wrong. The noble Lord would not have been wise in persisting with his amendment, and he made it plain that he would not.

There are amendments on the Marshalled List today that I shall be inclined to support—one of them is in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington—but we have to have a real awareness of our constitutional position in this House. I believe in this House passionately—I think that noble Lords know that—but it is not the elected House, and, although I sometimes think that the elected House behaves without due regard for what we have suggested that it does when it thinks again, it is nevertheless the elected House.

There were amendments, particularly that of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on which there was a sizeable rebellion in the other place. Where there is that indication, it is an encouragement to say, “A sizeable number wants us to think again”. I am not for a moment suggesting that we should roll over on every amendment this afternoon, but I am saying that we must not be prodigal in our treatment of the other House. We must listen with care and act with discretion.

If we really and truly feel, as I do with the amendment from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, that there is a sizeable number of uneasy Members sitting on the Government Benches in the other House, we can be encouraged. Where that is not the case, we have to say that this is the end of the road. We regret that they did not reconsider sufficiently sensitively and carefully, but we recognise that they have the ultimate political power.

I say this because I believe so passionately in your Lordships’ House. There would be no point or purpose in this House if we did not defeat the Government from time to time and ask the other place to think again. If we are indiscriminate in the way in which we use our grapeshot, we might put our own position in jeopardy. I would never wish to do this.

At this early stage in the Bill, let us approach this afternoon’s business with care and discretion. By all means, let us say on one or two occasions, “Please, you really must think again on this one”. On others, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, with a degree of reluctance but with real statesmanship, let us say, “Well, I have something, and I am going to accept it”. That was a wise counsel which we should all be extremely wise to follow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will give way to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who has tried about 20 times to stand up.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, at this stage, I know that the only thing noble Lords want is to get on with the vote or non-vote, so I will be very brief. I just want to say a huge thank you to the Minister and his wonderful team for the finagling they did with DLUHC—I call it the department of luck—in getting the concessions on ancient woodland protection. I am also delighted with what the Minister said tonight in association with that about the rigour of the reviews, the need for action following reviews and support for the ancient woodland inventory. How can we expect local authorities and developers to avoid ancient woodlands if they do not know where they are? The ancient woodland inventory is far from complete at the moment.

I will make two points before I sit down—my Front Bench is giving me hate mail. First, I hope the Secretary of State for DLUHC will take his new call-in duty seriously, because that is one of the most important parts of these concessions. Secondly, we really need to find a way of enfolding national infrastructure into the provision so that the majority of damage, which is now caused primarily by national infrastructure, does not continue. I was bemused, as were many other noble Lords, by the reason for the Commons rejecting my amendment:

“Because the National Planning Policy Framework and the Forestry Commission and Natural England’s standing advice already make provision to protect ancient woodland”.


Clearly, they have not seen the 290 cases that have arisen in the last 12 months alone.

I very much thank the Minister, his team and all noble Lords around this House, including the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who reminded me very firmly of the little kid who ran between Alan Bates and Julie Christie in “The Go-Between”, as he did shuttle diplomacy with his party at the other end.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak on my own behalf now. First, I am absolutely horrified at the abuse that the Minister has received. I do not know about the practices in this House, but the other Member should be disgusted at his behaviour. I have not seen it all. I would check up, but he has blocked me. I think I offered a tiny amount of criticism once and he blocked me. The first person to block me was President Trump—so, you know.

The amendment from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, is absolutely necessary. We have seen a vast public outcry over this. The whole point was that the Government swept aside our amendment without really understanding just how much the public cared. That was a huge mistake on their part and I hope that they now go all the way to meeting the noble Duke. He has in fact amended the amendment slightly, making it much more reasonable.

Quite honestly, if any Conservative Members at the other end vote against this again, they will have to explain themselves. I thank Feargal Sharkey, the punk star, and Professor Jamie Woodward, who have given me huge amounts of information. I do not believe in abuse on social media, but if I see Tories being virtuous on this subject, I will highlight what is happening in their constituencies.

If we are going to fix the sewage discharges, we can also fix the discharges of plastic and microplastics. Apparently, we could do this all together. That is something we clearly have to do.

I was absolutely horrified by Conservative Central Office, which put out all that nonsense about how much this was going to cost. If the Minister wants to correct the record on that, I would be absolutely delighted, but I understand if he does not have the figures to hand. The issue of cost was not raised at the other end, because I am sure the Ministers did not want to mislead Parliament. Perhaps the Conservative Party’s office might just draw in its fangs occasionally and start to tell the truth.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on his determination and persistence on this issue. Equally, I thank my noble friend the Minister, my honourable friend Rebecca Pow and the officials who have engaged so sincerely and robustly with us in exploring ways forward.

I am grateful for the progress we have made so far. However, before the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, laid amendments to this Bill, the Government seemed reluctant to place an actual duty on companies. I am hopeful that we can be extremely proud of the changes that we in this House have made in bringing this issue to the forefront of public opinion and prompting action from the Government.

I too express my abhorrence for any vitriol levelled against honourable Members in the other place. Have we not learned in recent weeks the dangers of that type of discourse and personal abuse? I implore noble Lords and those who may still have significant concerns about this Bill to accept that the progress we have made has been made in good faith by Ministers and officials who sincerely wish to make this a landmark piece of legislation—I believe it will be—and are committed to the environmental causes that are so important to so many of us.

Without the duty that the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, proposes, it is entirely possible that little or nothing would happen. That is not safe for public health. I declare my interests as in the register. I recognise the importance of private water utilities to many pension funds and institutional portfolios, which rely on their generous dividends. I have no interest in seeing these companies pushed into bankruptcy or public ownership, but I believe they have neglected their sewage overflow problems for years. They have failed to invest sufficiently to limit the problem and have even played fast and loose with the requirements to report overflows and allowed many illegal discharges. It is time to legislate to force them to spend significant sums to make up for past underspending and egregious behaviour, rather than relying on further promises which leave us with horribly polluted waters.

As the Rivers Trust said—I commend it on its work—more than half of Britain’s rivers are in poor ecological condition due to sewage discharges. This amendment does not call for the immediate elimination of sewage discharges but for ongoing reductions. Clearly, this will take time, but a new duty is so important as we have not really even started.

I noticed this afternoon that the Government have just announced and released on the Defra website plans to further strengthen the Bill with their own amendment to be enshrined in law, which I am led to believe will ensure that water companies have a duty to progressively reduce the adverse impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows. I sincerely hope that that is the case. For that to happen we will need to pass this amendment in this House tonight. I also congratulate my right honourable friend Philip Dunne and my honourable friend Richard Graham and others in the other place who have been working so hard behind the scenes to ensure that we move to a much better place on this amendment.

I therefore hope that noble Lords will support the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, in this important amendment, and I hope and believe that the Minister and the Government will take us to the right place very soon.

Environment Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister that this Bill, as it stands now, is ambitious. But the Bill we had originally was a terrible Bill and that is why we so heavily amended it—it is quite unusual to amend a Bill to this extent. I hope that the Minister is going to push very hard, with the Treasury and his colleagues in the Commons, to make sure that they take out very few, if any, of our amendments.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I thank the Minister and the Defra officials, who have engaged with me and many other noble Lords very constructively during the passage of this Bill through your Lordships’ House.

I echo the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb: the amendments that have been passed in this House have significantly improved the quality of the Bill. An important point to note is that the amendments had almost universal support from all groups in your Lordships’ House. They were not party-political points; they were points made by those of us who believe passionately in the protection of the environment, now and in the future, to leave a better environment for our children and grandchildren than we have at the moment.

I hope, therefore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has said, that the Minister will do his very best with his colleagues to ensure that the majority, if not all, of the amendments survive their consideration in the Commons and that we do not have to start the arguments all over again at ping-pong in a couple of weeks’ time.

Environment Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Earl, Lord Devon, in his amendments. They are hugely important. I am a great supporter of conservation covenants and I want them to work effectively. As he just said, I have a number of amendments in this group.

I am looking at conservation covenants in something akin to a divorce situation. One can enter into marriage with the very best of intentions and it is all going very well, but then it starts going sour. Divorce can be extremely costly and brutal. A conservation covenant could be entered into with the very best of intentions, but here the situation is complicated because the parties entering it could be different parties when it comes to a conclusion. There could be very different interpretations and a great deal of costs.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, did not actually mention costs so much today as he did in Committee, but in Clause 126 the final remedy is the Upper Tribunal and that can cost £50,000 to get started. Can farmers really afford that, particularly tenant farmers? The average size of a farm in England is 87 hectares and the cash flows are bare at the most. They might be a little better with the wheat price at the moment but, sure as anything, we have seen wheat prices go up and come down. You cannot expect farmers to have that amount of ready cash to fight in the courts.

I therefore seek to spell out in some detail the sort of things that need to be taken into account. I do not expect many conservation covenants to be undertaken by tenants but, if one is, all the freeholders of the land should be signatories to that agreement. I hope my noble friend will confirm that. It is a very un-Conservative thing to deprive the beneficiary of a reversionary interest of the full value of that interest, which could easily be done if a tenant enters into an agreement which prejudices the farm at the end of the tenancy. Not only does a conservation agreement affect one property, but it could very easily affect the neighbouring properties and surrounding farms if that conservation covenant involves the re-wetting of the land, which can take many years to undo.

I hope we can get a simpler way to modify and change the tenancies. When negotiation has failed, we need a simple system. I suggest in my amendments that there is an alternative dispute resolution which is simple, cheap, and which farmers, tenants and landowners are used to. I am hugely concerned by the impact that outside bodies might have. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has just reminded us, all you need is a PO box. You could get foreign investment companies coming in, taking over these conservation covenants and making life extremely difficult for the occupier.

I very much hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. His Amendments 109 and 110 cover all the points I have raised, but I have spelt them out in a different way because they are of extreme concern to farmers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. When I first looked at these amendments, I decided to leave them well alone because I did not know what covenants were. Looking at them a little more closely, my working-class bigotry kicked in and I thought that if three hereditary Peers were dealing with this then I ought to be careful. But, in fact, I am convinced, soothed and reassured, and I will be voting for the amendment.