Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Lucas

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 253 in this group. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give me some comfort as to the Government’s intention towards the private schemes—after all, the Minister and I were both involved in the Environment Bill when it was going through. We set up a system where people were making 30-year commitments to look after a piece of land properly, and now the whole system appears to have been turned on its head. No one knows what its future is, nor whether they should be going ahead with the schemes that they have put together to provide the biodiversity net gain where it cannot be provided on the site.

One farm owned by my local council is entirely suitable for restoration of the best quality chalk grassland, but the scheme is dead in the water. Nobody knows what the Government’s intentions are. Will this be viable? When we get EDPs, will everything be undermined by Natural England doing it itself? Will there be a role for the private sector in this area? Nothing is certain any more.

When you set out to get people involved for 30 years, there really ought to be an understanding on both sides of the House that the 30 years should be respected and that we should try to keep things stable for that length of time. Can the Government give me, and the people I find myself talking to, a real understanding of what their intentions are with respect to all that the private sector has done to date and might do in the future? What direction are we setting out in and what comfort can the Government give that it is worthwhile for the sector continuing to do what it has started to do? I should be very grateful to hear.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his amendment. We cannot think about EDPs in splendid isolation. It is important that we as a Committee look at the wider context, including biodiversity net gain, that the EDPs will slot into. In that regard, it is incredibly important that, before we get to Report, the Government make clear their response to the consultation that they launched on biodiversity net gain, which closed before recess. If the Government were to decide to significantly change biodiversity net gain for the smaller sites that are up for grabs, it would have hugely detrimental impacts for the environment. It is important for us to know that before Report, so that we can then think about other amendments we might wish to bring forward.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Lucas

Report stage
Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very uncertain how the wording of this amendment works. Is a regulation the whole package of regulations that is submitted to this House or each individual regulation? If a regulation makes changes so that an old provision is swept away and the new one replaces it, that sweeping away of an old provision is a diminution, but there does not appear to be a mechanism for balancing it with the better regulation that follows. If a regulation benefits one species but hurts another, how is that dealt with here? If we protect badgers more so that there are fewer hedgehogs, I do not see how the wording works. Most of all, it seems that if the Government want to keep Clause 16(5) they must want this too, so I shall support the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because that is exactly the point I was going to begin on. If you are to keep Clause 16(5), you absolutely need to have this. As my noble friend Lord Fox says, the importance of this amendment is that it takes the sting out of Clause 16. If we want to protect the environment for the future, and our food standards, as was so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, this amendment is absolutely fundamental.

I do not want to add much more to what the noble Lord said, because he introduced it so expertly, but we on these Benches would add one other reason why we support it. It is critical that the public have confidence in environmental legislation, particularly at a time like now. If they see the Government not prepared to sign up to a non-regression clause—which is, as has been said, what the Minister says they want—they will be left with questions. We need them to be reassured that our environment is in the best possible hands, and the only way the Government can prove that in the Bill is to allow this non-regression clause.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Lucas

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to two amendments I have tabled in this group, namely Amendments 118 and 121. These aim to ensure that we get a strong regulatory framework to enforce this new system of paying public money for public goods because, as it stands, the Bill says that the Government only “may” introduce regulations to do this. It should be not just a power but a duty to do so, given that what we are talking about is ensuring public confidence in the money spent to deliver societal goods.

We know that the current regulatory framework for farming is not fit for purpose. It is estimated that only every one in 200 farmers will get inspected, and the Government have known this for some time. They commissioned a review in 2018 but have not done anything since then to overhaul the existing regulatory framework, so it is really important that the Bill states that the Government have a duty to put together new regulations and work quickly with relevant stakeholders to draw up a new framework to give the public confidence. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for supporting me in that amendment.

I appreciate that this is almost two sides of a coin. I am talking about the regulatory side that we need to ensure is in place to manage the giving of public money in the future. I am very much in support of other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Teverson and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who have talked about the vast majority of farmers; we know that they are doing and want to do the right thing, and there is a real need to ensure that, alongside a strong regulatory framework, there is good provision of advice. I want to ensure that Members do not think that I think all farmers are bad apples; they are not. However, we need to ensure that good farmers have their reputations preserved by a strong regulatory framework.

I would find it very helpful if in winding up the Minister would say something about the Government’s current thinking on the timeframe and the consultees—almost the how and the when—when they are producing this new regulatory farm framework, so that the public can have confidence that taxpayers’ money is being properly spent to deliver the environmental and animal welfare benefits that we all want.

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 108 and 109. I am looking for two reassurances from the Minister. The first is that we are going to look at a system of risk-based regulation. We have a lot of changes and improvements to make. We need a system of regulation which, supported by science, supports change without destroying older technology, in both of which aspects the EU system has proved deficient. Secondly, I want reassurance that we will permit local variation—indeed, individual variation. This ought to be a bottom-up system of support. No farm is the same as any other farm. No set of geology or human geography is the same. Everything will need to be local if it is going to work well. I very much hope that this is the way in which the Government are looking at regulation.

Amendment 110 has been stranded in this group. I will speak to this subject under the group beginning with Amendment 29. Suffice it to say that, as far as I am concerned, the answer lies in the soil.