Agriculture Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 227, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. England—not Britain, but England—is the fifth most densely populated country in the world, from a list that includes the city state of Singapore. The south-east of England, with London at its commuter heart, is obviously very crowded, but so too are the Midlands. For instance, the Peak District National Park has 21 million people within an hour’s drive of it. That is a staggering number of human beings.

The second fact to note is that, as Bill Bryson once said, the unique feature of the English countryside is that its citizens love it to death. We all feel it belongs to us. Furthermore, most of us want to live in it and to have a home there. A survey in the 1990s showed that more than 80% of those living in southern England wanted to live in the countryside, where less than 20% currently live, so there are immense pressures on our countryside, even before we start to plan our nation’s food production. There are demands for leisure, housing, transport, energy, forestry and business property, as well as our obligations in relation to biodiversity, landscape and climate change.

How do we deal with all these pressures? At the moment, the way our countryside produces all those services and goods is a matter of haphazard chance. There are, of course, myriad strategic and neighbourhood plans, guided by the national planning policy framework, but there is a difference between what people need to get planning permission for and how we actually want to use the land on the ground.

At the moment, most of the usage is dictated by the marketplace and responded to—admirably, in a way—by a new generation of young, entrepreneurial landowners and others who look for whatever possible use the land might be suitable for. But we have already decided in this Bill that the marketplace cannot and should not drive all land usage. With the powers in the Bill, the state is going to step in with large amounts of money—£3 billion per annum is promised—to buy land uses that the market does not cater for.

This brings us to the question of what we should use our land for, and where. The answer may be that we need a plan, or rather a framework or frameworks, possibly at different levels—we possibly need a national framework and a regional framework. Personally, I would avoid local frameworks as I fear they might encourage too much nimbyism, which could destroy the innovation we so badly need for our future land use. The one thing we do not need, of course, is a Soviet-style plan that knocks local enterprise on the head.

Although I think a land use strategy is a good and useful idea, I strongly support the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in his wish to have a one-off Select Committee in this House to really examine how best we could set up and implement such a land use strategy. There are now many new variables to go into the mix, including the need to plant more trees to absorb CO₂, maybe the need for more domestic tourism venues now that overseas travel has taken such a hit, and maybe even the imminent arrival of lab-produced meat and milk, which could dramatically change our farming landscape and what we want from our land. I strongly believe that this is just the sort of issue that a Lords Select Committee could get its teeth into to produce an illuminating and compelling message for government.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Campbell remarked that this is a wide-ranging debate and that the whole Committee stage has been. There is an inevitability about that, because our shared objective of a thriving agricultural sector delivering a range of public goods can be met only if certain foundations are in place. It is those foundations that I think are troubling many Members of your Lordships’ House. We discussed one in the previous Committee session, namely the lack of an overall food strategy.

Today we discuss another: the total absence of any kind of comprehensive land use strategy. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, had it exactly right when he remarked about having no framework on which to balance and manage the competing demands we make of our land. In May the RSA published a report and said:

“Land use is not an aspect of policy that can be compartmentalised, parcelled away and deemed to matter only in certain places and to certain people. We all live with the choices over how land is used every day.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, highlighted that this was just one of a whole number of reports and organisations doing a lot of thinking in this area.

We know that Scotland has a land use strategy, Wales has a spatial plan and Northern Ireland has a regional development strategy. It was fascinating to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, how that is used to help new entrants. On the other hand, England has no overall framework. What it has for planning is a morass of strategies, plans and initiatives, so I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and her cosignatories for tabling the amendment to set out the vision for a land use strategy that could help the Government to deliver their agriculture and forestry aspirations, as we are debating today, but also the 25-year environment plan, the 12 policy statements for critical infrastructure, and this sense of place, which is something on which the Government have based their civil society strategy. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was quite right to highlight just what a crowded island this is, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, talked about the lack of coherence; he is quite right too.

Amendment 228, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, addresses this problem of new entrants to agriculture and the difficulties they face. In some ways this links with amendments on county farms in earlier groups, because county farms were intended to do just this, but, as we have heard, are becoming rarer. That links with land use, of course, because if you are a cash-strapped council and can sell some land on the edge of town for a housing development, I am afraid you are likely to do that. It is a fact that land for agricultural purposes will struggle to compete against the land demands of housing, for example.

Finally, Amendment 228A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves, would create this link with local development plans and the neighbourhood plan process. This is absolutely the right thing to do. It has seemed to me for some time—clearly the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, tends to feel the same—that in this country we are very good at development control but not very good at planning. We had some elements of it up until about 2004 in the form of county structure plans. They did not cover the whole country, but they were at least strategic. However, they often got stymied by differences with district councils, which had the development control function. County structure plans disappeared in 2004, replaced by regional development plans, which bit the dust in 2010. It seems sensible to include local planning in any provisions and thought in Amendment 227.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone for raising the case for an integrated land use framework today and in her very good contribution at Second Reading. She makes a very important point.

As all noble Lords have said, there are huge competing pressures on land use, and we do not currently have a mechanism to resolve the priorities among those competing claims. We already have expectations on land to deliver carbon storage, extensive tree planting, renewed biodiversity, flood management, water storage and, of course, food, and we are about to add the pressures of all the environmental and habitat improvements set out in Clause 1.

In his excellent speech on food security on Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, reminded us that population growth and urban development are producing demands to build 2 million to 3 million more houses, with all the services and infrastructure needed to underpin those communities—new shops, schools, hospitals and so on. This will inevitably put the squeeze on land available for food production.

As we have debated several times, we are busy making policy and legislative decisions in silos and not taking account of the impact of one on the other. This is a major criticism in the latest report by the Natural Capital Committee. It quite rightly identifies the need for a “natural capital assets baseline” against which priorities can be assessed and progress measured.

A land use framework could comprehensively map out the opportunities and benefits of different forms of land use. It could provide clear guidance on cross-departmental priorities and mechanisms for resolving conflicts over land use. It could join up resources and money to rural areas, providing funding on a game-changing scale rather than separate pots of money and layers of bureaucracy. It could also ensure that overarching government priorities such as tackling climate change are delivered coherently, utilising national, local and private funding. I see great benefits in this approach.

I also have a great deal of sympathy for the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. These are issues that we have debated in other groups, most notably in the debate on county farms and tenancies. I think we all agree that we need to find new ways to bring new blood and business skills into the sector. The question remains: where will that land come from? How can we make that aspiration a reality?

Finally, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would make it more explicit that local planning should be part of the land use strategy. This is understood as one of the competing forces that needs to be balanced by the mechanisms in my noble friend’s amendment, but it is nevertheless helpful to have it spelt out.

This debate has raised some important questions about competing pressures on a scarce, finite and precious resource. I hope the Minister will be able to provide some reassurance that the proposal laid out so ably by my noble friend is being taken seriously.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who of course has more knowledge about the UK’s food situation than most of us can ever hope to have.

I come from a background of rearing livestock, which is at one end of the food chain. We have heard this evening from people who have concerns about food all down the chain as far as the question of waste food. It is good that we have had so many contributions from those who sat on the recent committee that produced the Hungry for Change report, and particularly good that we have heard from its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who speaks with great authority on these matters.

I add my support for Amendment 161, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. Many of us would like to see the question of a review of food security addressed as soon as possible but, given the scale of the changes that have been wished on agricultural production, anything that is laid down at this point can only be very sketchy. I think that a duty to report every three years is a realistic target; rather as my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts said, it tends to have a bit more impact than a simple annual review.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Curry, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister and the Government on including a chapter on this subject in the Bill. For the past 40 years, our agricultural policy has been able to ignore this question, as from the start it has been the kernel of the common agricultural policy and that is what we have followed. Now we have to set our own parameters.

Many who have spoken have mentioned the many reports on this topic. I would like to mention where our food security stands at the moment, as calculated in an annual report, the Global Food Security Index, produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In 2019, it awarded the UK a ranking of 32nd in a study of 113 countries. Even so, that puts us at the tail end of most other European countries. Those leading the index are the Republic of Ireland and the United States. Perhaps we should heed that our rating was already dropping from the previous year.

The concern now for the industry is whether this new support mechanism will see us land up by trailing even further than that present estimate. If any review of food security is to have meaning at a practical level, it will also have to be broken down into categories of the main commodities. I ask my noble friend the Minister: will the Government give us some idea of where they intend to turn at the start of this process?

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating and wide-ranging debate. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, that this is probably the most important set of amendments to the Bill.

Certainly from the public’s point of view, whether it is national food security or household security, there is nothing more important to people than keeping food on the table. We have always left the provision of food to the private sector to manage and it has ensured a supply of food very well, even during the early days of the pandemic when things were challenging, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said. However, we are also all aware that its efficiency has come at a price —a price to the environment and to the viability of farms.

Household food insecurity is clearly a growing problem. For many of us it really is a stain on any claim to be a civilised country when a growing number of people are simply unable to eat. Many noble Lords have raised that point.

When the Minister summed up at Second Reading, he said:

“However, in our view food is a private good; it is bought and sold”.—[Official Report, 10/6/20; col. 1830.]


I am sure he has got the message clearly from the last couple of hours that many in your Lordships’ House would challenge that view, and clearly believe that the Government should have an overall food plan in the same way that they have strategies and plans for energy and transport, for example. As drafted, the clause nods in that direction but for many of us it does not go far enough. These amendments begin to move the Government in that direction.

I fear that what is proposed in the Bill is essentially an historic, backward-looking document. A five-yearly report has some uses but there is a real missed opportunity to do much more. More regular reporting would help to spot trends and potential problems sooner, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, pointed out, so whether the parliamentary scrutiny is on a three-year or an annual basis, as set out, there are merits in thinking about doing this more often.

The value of the good co-operation between central and devolved Administrations was a theme picked out by many noble Lords, and is of course very sensible. I was particularly struck by the strategic context put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, about the potential dislocations between the devolved Administrations and England.

The key amendments are Amendment 163 and Amendments 171 to 173. They would begin to turn this document into a genuine strategic plan, which can ensure for us a secure supply of affordable food that does not trash the planet. These points were made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.

Amendment 169 raises the important question of food waste, which is a significant environmental issue as well as a social wrong and a financial burden. Food waste on farms is largely driven by supermarket contracts and, as I proposed in earlier amendments, it should be dealt with under the groceries code. My noble friend Lady Parminter was quite right to emphasise the importance of good data. The 2014 EU sub-committee inquiry into food waste, which I chaired, found unequivocally that organisations which start to measure food waste start to do something about it. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, made that point about hunger: if you measure it, you act on it.

Several amendments in this group all seek to turn this historic document into something of real value to the public, to farmers and growers, to the food production sector and to retailers. This would require thinking right across government, whether about the health of the nation, trade policy, migration levels or levels of benefits and the national living wage. I have a lot of sympathy with this idea of the need for an independent body on the lines of the Committee on Climate Change, and I hope we can consider that further on Report.

I would urge the Government to consider very carefully what has been said by noble Lords today. I am sure that the Minister has understood the strength of feeling on this issue expressed in the Committee, and I look forward to his reply.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for what in many respects has been a heartfelt debate. References to words like “important” set the tone in which your Lordships have spoken. I am very mindful of your Lordships’ recent report Hungry for Change. In that context, I understand all the sentiments that have been expressed.

In thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for her amendment and for speaking to Amendments 161 and 162, I should say that it is this Government who have brought forward the food security provision. I am grateful to my noble friend the Duke of Montrose and others for at least saying that the Government have brought this forward. Having heard some of the commentary of noble Lords, I could wonder if that had ever been the case.

As I have previously stated, the food security report will be a significant body of work that will use a set of core measurements and indicators for each of the key topic areas. It will go beyond what food security data we currently publish. This will allow consideration of the trends, many of which are slow-moving and do not change significantly year on year over a longer period. Taking a holistic approach, we will consider food security in its complete form, from the global availability of food to UK availability and access. We will use data drawn from a blend of national and international data sources, including UK national statistics as well as data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The requirement to report within at least a five-year period allows time to observe key trends from a variety of sources. This would not be possible over a significantly shorter period. While we are committing to reporting within at least a five-year frequency, we consider this a maximum period. When we are able to publish the first report will depend upon a range of factors, including the availability of statistical data. Of course, we certainly will not wait for the end of the five-year period to publish the first report, which will include analysis of the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the datasets that will be considered in the food security report are published and made publicly available annually; certain noble Lords know very well that all this data is reported annually. Defra officials routinely track these reports to spot any unexpected or significant changes. For example, the excellent Agriculture in the United Kingdom statistics that Defra publishes alongside departments in the devolved Administrations come out annually, as do the world food production and calorie statistics produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Government intend that the report will consider these and less frequently produced data to provide deeper analysis to help us identify longer-term trends to support the development of policy for the future—a point remarked upon by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, with her unparalleled experience of the food industry, and indeed by my noble friend Lady Chisholm in her important contribution.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

If there are any outstanding points, which I fear there may be, I will respond in writing, but I want to point out that fungi are an aspect of our ecosystem that is clearly important to our wildlife habitats and to the production of food. Given the reassurances about Clause 1 and Clause 22, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in 2016, I chaired an EU sub-committee inquiry into building a more resilient agricultural sector. We took evidence on the financial impact on farmers of a number of supermarket contractual practices. One was overzealous specification, which could result in the destruction of up to 20% of some crops. The other was that because of such swingeing penalties for under-provision, farmers had to grow far more than they needed. Noble Lords may come on to this issue when we debate food waste in later groups of amendments, but I wanted to raise it this evening with regard to the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, because no one else has. I hope the Minister will consider it in the list of items relating to fair dealing, to which I know he will be giving a lot of thought.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. We are bringing forward these provisions in the Bill because we recognise that the current situation is far from satisfactory. We need to consult the sector on fair dealing provisions. We started with the dairy sector, but that is the beginning; we need to consult each and every sector so that we get the right response and find out how they are most directly affected by what I would call unfair arrangements. When we have reached a view with them, we can rectify any problems and find a way of enforcing the provisions. Regarding the consultation, it is a question of making this work for the farmer. Like everything else in this Bill, if this does not command the consent and support of the farmer, we will not have done a good job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 126 in this group. I declare my interest as a landowner and arable farmer. Echoing what would be achieved by my Amendments 56, 60 and 69, this amendment would ensure that the requirement for the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to encourage the production of food by producers in England, and its production in an environmentally sustainable way, when framing any financial assistance schemes was explicitly taken into account in the development of the multiannual financial assistance plans required under Clause 4.

In earlier remarks on domestic food production support, the Minister said, if I understood correctly, that food production did not need financial support because this came to the farmer, who had a profit from the sale of his produce. However, in my view, this argument does not cover the situation where, for instance, dairy farmers sell their milk at a loss, or where farmers would like financial support to invest in new buildings, machinery, processes, new crops or different species of livestock, particularly when these take some years to develop. I believe that the scope of multiannual assistance plans set out in Clause 4 should be expanded to include the above. I ask the Minister for her views on this.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 124 and 138, which I have signed. While my thinking is very much informed by questions of public access in the way that my noble friend Lord Addington’s is, there is a wider point here about the operation of this new system that is echoed in one way or another by a number of amendments in this group. While I recognise that it is positive that multiannual assistance plans will provide a level of certainty both for farmers and for the public, who are interested in these things, this ought to be strengthened by a greater understanding of how the objectives align with the public goods in Clause 1.

As drafted, the Bill refers to the Government’s strategic priorities, but it is not really very clear how one would determine what those priorities are. I shall give the Committee an example: there is a national policy on flooding, for example, and we know that there are policies around climate change and the environment. That is probably clear. However, there are no strategic priorities established for the question of public access. It is quite difficult to see how assistance under the Bill will link to a government strategic priority that does not actually exist. It would be helpful if the Minister could say a word or two about this because it would really aid clarity about what the funding is to deliver and ensure that there is a coherence in approach and predictability.

That then feeds into Amendment 138 regarding clarity in the financial assistance scheme, which I think most of us would agree is an essential part of transparency. We want to see not just what is being given to whom but how these strategic priorities—these public goods—are reflected in the spending once it has happened.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 127, 134 and 137, relating to Clause 4, which deals with multiannual financial assistance plans.

Amendment 127, which I am delighted is co-signed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, seeks to enhance the usefulness of the Government’s multiannual financial plans. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to produce these plans, as they will provide a degree of assurance to farmers and other land managers regarding the Government’s commitment to schemes and programmes. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to come forward early in the policy transition period with their first such multiannual plan.

However, I fear that the current provisions of the Bill lack any requirements on the Government to specify levels of expected expenditure and how those levels relate to the achievement of each of the strategic priorities set out in the Bill. Without seeking to bind the Government too tightly, it is sensible to have a framework that requires the Government to be clear about what it is planning to spend, and on what. Circumstances can and do change over time, but we must see a clear direction of travel from the Government now, so that we and farmers can judge how well the Government are doing in achieving their objectives and in the targeting of public resources.

Farmers and land managers too will need assurance about the certainty of funding if they are going to enter long-term relationships to deliver outcomes for the public benefit and for the improvement of productivity. Identifying specific levels of budgetary expenditure will also enhance the ability of Parliament to scrutinise government plans and policies, both in advance of them being implemented and by way of evaluating performance afterwards; both are important parts of good governance.

Turning to Amendment 134—which I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for co-signing—in framing the financial assistance scheme, it is absolutely right that the department and the Government should have regard to advice from time to time on the funding required to achieve the strategic priorities of financial assistance for the duration of the plan, whether that advice is from the Office for Environmental Protection, or any other public body with a national remit and responsibilities for the natural or historic heritage. In Amendment 137—which I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for supporting—I go on to say that we need to know that, under the Bill, any advice received from the Office for Environmental Protection and any other public body with this national remit is sufficient to prove that the financial assistance provided is sufficient to meet the strategic priorities of the financial assistance.

It is very difficult for us to take a view on what the role of the OEP and its relationship with these other advisory bodies should be when we have not had sight of the Environment Bill in its current form, or the chance to adopt it. I make a plea to the Minister and her department that the Environment Bill and the Agriculture Bill are mirror images of each other, and their provisions reflect and fully complement each other.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is now not intending to speak, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Greaves tabled these amendments, because it has given us a chance for debate and for the Minister to give us an idea of the Government’s thinking on this particular form of land management.

I recognise that, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, mentioned, rewilding—whatever we called it then—has been around for a long time. The other week I was in Wicken Fen: I am not sure if it was ever unwilded, but it is certainly pretty wild there now. This is not new, but we have to recognise that rewilding is now being discussed more, and there is a lot more thinking about the role that landscape management can play in improving diversity, which we all know is in pretty steep decline. I am very pleased that these amendments, which I regard as probing, have been tabled.

I was struck when, in winding up on Tuesday evening, the Minister talked about balance, and we have heard a lot about that today. Among the things that make a Bill such as this so tricky are the multiple balances we are trying to strike; for example, between public access and safety, and between food production and biodiversity, and so on. Rewilding has a part to play, albeit a modest part, in helping redress some of those balances. It is possible to have a long-term approach to some habitats which will improve biodiversity but will not have a big impact on food production. They can be accessible and enjoyed by the public in a way that does not bring biosecurity risks and so on, which we discussed the other day.

I know that most noble Lords are concerned about the economic outlook in rural communities. There is a contribution to be made by rewilding, even if it is modest and hyper-local. Today’s Independent, for example, carried a story about a rewilding project near Loch Ness. It will involve some 500 hectares of land, with the restoration of peatland, native tree restoration and a focus on biodiversity. The estate will employ local rangers, and a small number of eco-cottages are being built by a local firm. In that small area it can make a big difference. Wildlife tourism is actually quite a big generator of income. In Scotland, interest in ospreys is estimated to bring in about £3.5 million a year in revenue. Rewilding can have huge benefits to individuals, who can better connect with nature, whether it is to relax or to learn about the countryside, which we spoke about in earlier amendments.

I recognise the problem of rewilding as a contested concept, with the fundamentalists on one side and the realists on another. There is a really good balance to be struck, which is about some of the concepts of rewilding and conventional environmentally friendly land management approaches.

Very close to me, the Suffolk Wildlife Trust is doing this very well in the Black Bourn Valley on former arable land. It is letting the former fields rewild to a certain extent, but there will be some grazing, which will help with the complexity of the vegetation structure. Turtle-doves, which we know are in steep decline, have really benefited from the development of these scrubby areas. Even here, within what is thought of as rewilding, there will need to be some intervention to keep the valley’s pond habitats in good health and to keep the variation there, so that the current biodiversity does not decline.

It comes down to this word: balance. For me, the key thing is not so much having everything absolutely nailed down in the Bill—you never get that—but having the assurances that this sort of approach will not be ruled out.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for introducing this topic. It is obviously one that can do with some discussion. I thank the noble Lord for picking his words carefully and reading out the content of Amendment 102, because that illustrates what he is looking for. Following my noble friend Lord Cormack’s argument, I feel it must all be done with great care and attention.

I will add to my declaration: I am a member of NFU Scotland, and I do not know if I dare mention that I fairly regularly have an osprey nest in my property. Most of my experience and evidence of various kinds of rewilding are in Scotland. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned, there has been an extreme element to that movement, which he is obviously trying to rein in. I live on the edge of the highlands, and some people once regarded the whole highlands as due for rewilding. Anyone familiar with Scotland will have heard of the Langholm Moor experiment, in which all management was withdrawn. It was most amazing. From a peak of grouse, it became a peak of hen harriers. Then there was nothing for the hen harriers to eat, so they crashed. Luckily it is being left to nature at the moment, and we all wait to see what develops.

Another thing that other Peers mentioned is that we have big areas in Scotland dedicated to various forms of rewilding: millionaires are buying up vast acres to carry out rewilding without any assistance from the Secretary of State. Given the nature of this Bill, I wonder whether they will benefit from the money the Government are likely to make available if they have a large number of animals, birds or whatever they reckon to encourage.

One element we need to be aware of is that some people’s idea of rewilding is to see the removal of anything that cannot be described as totally native. Where I live, it is quite hard to take in that we are told that we must remove all sycamore and beech trees, because somebody has done some research and seems to reckon they were not around immediately after the last ice age, which other Peers have mentioned. I back the proposal put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that it will take more than a light touch of management.

Agriculture Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

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

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, we come to a rather more honed group of amendments. We are talking about access, inspired by

“supporting … access to and enjoyment of the countryside”

in Clause 1(1)(b). It is a pretty fundamental change here that you are getting finance for that purpose, and I believe we should take quite a long and hard look at this. It is changing everything that goes on inside the countryside, but it cannot sit by itself in agriculture. If you are talking about access, you are talking about getting access to activity going out there. We are going through a crisis caused by a disease which does not affect people with decent cardiovascular systems as badly. There is a public health element. There is a sports and recreation policy element here—it affects everything else. There is a tourism element here. If you have good footpaths, you can sell that weekend in a cottage. You can go on and on here, but I will not insult the intelligence of this Chamber by doing so at any great length. The fact is that access matters, both as a principle, as being of practical value to the rural economy and, I hope, to farmers directly now as well. If they are providing this access—the point I was trying to make earlier on—they deserve to get some payment, but we deserve something back for that activity. It is a two-way street. I hope that these amendments will open up a discussion that goes through.

I should also mention that these amendments were created in conjunction with the ramblers and the canoeists. There is a huge amount of activity on waterways which hits all those targets we are talking about: public health, access, enjoyment—it is all connected with the waterways. There are the canoeists—the paddlers—and the wild swimmers can be included here as well. That group’s activity probably becomes more attractive for most of us during the summer months, but it happens. We could have gone to other groups. I have some sympathy with the Minister, because these groups have a reputation for squabbling with each other. Anglers and canoeists are not traditionally the best of friends but they should get on together, and the defence of reasonableness that runs through British law should be applied to all of them. Those on scrambler bikes and those who might occasionally use a byway or a bridle path rather annoy those on horses. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and my noble friend Lord Greaves on Amendment 100, as somebody who has, shall we say, a strong equestrian influence in my household—it was rather remiss of me not to bring them in. All these groups slightly compete for access, but they all have to get in there. However, to draw the Minister’s attention to some of the other amendments here, the idea of enhancing access runs through many of these amendments.

If you start talking about footpaths, you get the vision that a footpath is a path that runs across some countryside, often following a historical road. That does not fulfil many of the criteria I have been talking about. If you simply have a muddy path, it can become not easily used by many people incredibly quickly. Some of the amendments here are designed to reward farmers to make sure that these remain useful. There is the buggy and self-propelled wheelchair test—the buggy test is probably the most applicable one here. If there is a muddy path on a winter’s day, especially if it is on a route that people can get to, it will have a habit of getting holes and then puddles in it, which expand. That damages any land around it, either as regards its environmental or agricultural purposes. If you reward farmers for making sure that that has a toughened surface, it will take much more use and will cause less damage to the things around it.

Other people then sometimes contradict this. I remember we did it during the passage of the CROW Bill—my noble friend Lord Greaves, I think, has the scars from that—and we have not yet got anywhere near the number of amendments we had on that; I like to clang the death knell every now and again. There was a great deal of discussion then. People in motorised wheelchairs gained a great deal of traction, which was fair enough—they like access to the countryside—but their issues are not the same as those of a person with a slightly bad knee who needs that surface.

Where is it appropriate to use a gate as opposed to a stile? How do you maintain it? I have heard many a farmer say, “Yes, great, we could put a gate in there. Do you have any idea what they cost and how difficult they are to maintain, and about replacements?” The answer, of course, was that I did not at that time. We must make sure there is a structure here that rewards that sort of help, which will help everybody else here, too: if you need to get to a waterway, for example, you will have a path that is useful and allows access through. These amendments are not so draconian that they would say exactly what the enhancement must be. There will be somebody who lives on the Wiltshire-Berkshire border and somebody, like my noble friend Lord Greaves, who lives in the Pennines, where the hills are steeper and more formidable—he says they are not; he is being kind—but I come from East Anglia and the change was pretty substantial: there, a hill is an event. The point is that different bits of the countryside will need different practices going forward.

Part of the answer here plays into other areas. The Agriculture Bill may be predominantly about agriculture, but it must be aware of what else is going on. I hope the Minister will at the very least be able to give us an idea of how this important aspect of the Bill will be tied into other policy and enhanced. If we do not do this, we are missing a trick. I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, like some other noble Lords, I fell victim to the Second Reading cull. Had I been able to speak at Second Reading, I would have focused entirely on the question of public access, so I am very pleased to have the opportunity this evening of supporting my noble friend Lord Addington’s amendments and saying a few words.

We are all agreed that the principle of reward for public good is the right one, and it feels to me as if public access is one of the most important public goods that we can put in the Bill. We know that open-air activity in the countryside—not just walking but all sorts of activity—has a huge contribution to make to individual health and well-being. I think it should sit alongside access to good-quality food as an important outcome of the Bill. I was very heartened to hear the Minister’s response to the last group amendments, when he talked about the importance of projects for well-being and partnership working with other departments.

But it goes much further. There is, of course, an economic development argument, with people coming to visit farm shops, cafés and pubs, but it is even more fundamental than that. One thing that has troubled many of us is the real disconnect between people, the food they eat and the way that it is produced. Noble Lords have tabled a number of amendments later in the Bill to deal with that. Regular access to the countryside is one important way of helping to stimulate this interest in and understanding of the way that our food is produced. It is also a way of exciting young people into thinking, potentially, about careers in agriculture, land management or forestry—individuals who come from towns, not necessarily just country dwellers. The same can be said about biodiversity, landscape, animal welfare—the more access people have to the countryside, the more committed they will be to those things.

For a decade, I chaired a rights of way committee in Suffolk. I know that some landowners are more accommodating than others and that some users do not behave in ways that we might like them to, but this stand-off really does need to end, because going forward, the link between individual taxpayers and farmers will be much clearer than it was in the days of the CAP. If people have a perception that they are somehow not welcome in the countryside, they will ask, “Why should my tax money support you?” I think that it would be in everyone’s interests to begin to think much more carefully about public access.

In the interests of time, I will not go through the amendments, but there are two categories. There are the ones that seek to make sure that nothing in the Bill makes the situation any worse. An example is the important question of cross-compliance: making sure that we do not pay for farmers and landowners who do not even comply with their duties under the Highways Act. Nor should we be using taxpayers’ money to help them to do what they should be doing anyway. So we have one set of amendments that are negative in focus, but then the much more positive ones which talk about enhancement and all the things we do to improve public access—not just public footpaths and rights of way, but access more generally, and particularly how we should think about getting people from towns and cities out into the countryside that we all enjoy. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson [V]]

Many of the amendments to which I have added my name cover issues around water. I welcome the comments of the Minister when he summed up on the earlier group and the discussion about how we could be more creative. I was also delighted to hear many noble Lords raise the issue of social prescribing.

I would like to declare an interest in that my daughter is a kayaker and has previously been on a British Canoeing junior development programme. Because of that, as an individual I have spent countless hours trying to get better access to the countryside and to water which, as a wheelchair user, is not easy. Indeed, it is often not easy for disabled people to access anything much beyond a car park—if they are lucky enough to find somewhere to park. So I welcome all the amendments that seek to offer financial assistance to help increase and improve access for everyone.

Although I have not specifically raised the issue of disability access in any amendments, it needs far more consideration. I have said previously that too many barriers have been put in place which stop wheelchair users getting around. I have been discussing this with the all-party group on cycling and I would also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for widening the issue out to discuss scooters and families with buggies. I should also like to thank British Canoeing and the Ramblers for helping to clarify some of the points that I wish to raise.

I believe that it would advantageous to define the term “waters” within the Bill so as to be clear about what is or is not included. There is a lack of clarity in the scope that may lead to inconsistencies in how the text is interpreted. There could be an assumption that public access and enjoyment should be supported only on land. The definition should be broad enough to ensure that financial support can be given to the widest range of farmers and landowners who are seeking to improve the use and maintenance of or access to the water that falls within their land.

The annual waterways survey estimates that around 2.1 million people go paddling every year, 35,000 of whom have direct contact with British Canoeing. However, a similar number of people swim outdoors and the 2018 survey showed that 50% of them had experienced conflict around access and 84% of that was on rivers. Of the 42,700 miles of inland waterways, only 1,400 miles are uncontested. So less than 4% of all rivers have a statutory right of access. This can be a huge barrier to participation, so I believe that there is scope for the Bill to support farmers in making more space for nature and for people.

I also believe that wider contact with an environment that is rich in wildlife will help to increase understanding of the need to protect it and it will increase people’s ability to be physically active, but it is necessary to support farmers and landowners to do that. I am afraid that I disagree with the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, who talked about access in the previous group. England may be more densely populated than Scotland, but we have to educate walkers, paddlers and anyone who is accessing the countryside to not damage or disturb wildlife.

With regard to water, I would argue that it is more damaging to restrict people to using just a tiny amount of water. If we could spread that use out, the burden on existing pressure points would surely be eased. It goes without saying, however, that those who use these spaces need to be respectful. I know from my daughter’s experience that people are taught about the environment and flooding, as well as how to look after an area, clean up litter and report things that they see along the way. They would want to protect certain areas, for example where fish are spawning, and not cause damage.

With improved access to and along waterways, we need to be looking at places to launch and land, and access around dangerous obstacles, such as weirs. We should not forget that through our communities, our towns and cities, we are perhaps more disconnected from water than we have ever been. Including these amendments will be a crucial stepping stone for the Government to meet their objectives in the Defra 25-year plan and be part of a green recovery. I believe the Government can help farmers and landowners to make this happen.

Food Supply and Security

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

In 2014, the EU Sub- Committee which I was chairing at the time held an inquiry into food waste, the first ever such inquiry in Parliament. It was very much a reflection of our concern that around a third of the food that we produce for human consumption ends up being thrown away. Since then, the issue has certainly come up the agenda, but it has remained a very difficult nut to crack.

For UK households, the problem is intention. People recognise that it is a problem, but they say that they have a lack of knowledge, their shopping habits perhaps encourage food waste, and the behaviour of retailers almost certainly does.

The leader in this field, WRAP, has just reported after two weeks of lockdown. It has found that people are shopping much less because they do not want to risk going into stores, but they are buying more, and of course people are eating out very much less than they were before. Therefore, the incentive now is not just time and money; it is people’s safety. They have begun to do all the things that we have advised, such as planning meals, checking stocks and making lists, managing portion sizes and using their freezer. WRAP has found that one in three households is now throwing away less and only one in 25 is throwing away more. Crucially, WRAP has found a clear correlation between those throwing away less and those who recalled seeing information from campaigns such as Love Food Hate Waste.

Therefore, I now ask the Government to work with WRAP to really ramp up practical advice that will help households save money now but also, crucially, will help to instil a lasting behaviour change going forward. In this way, we can reap the environmental benefits of reducing the emissions and water footprint of the food that we throw away. This is a one-off chance to change behaviour for good, especially in younger people, and we should not miss it.

Biodiversity Duty: Public Authorities

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

It is very important to retain veteran trees wherever we can because they are vital to our ecosystems. Obviously, if they are dangerous because they are beside roads or whatever, we have to be practical, but we want to plant a lot of new trees and we also want to have protections for our veteran trees and our wonderful landscape. Enhancing the environment is not only the intent of the environment Bill but the direction of travel for all of us.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, the Select Committee to which the noble Countess referred a moment ago heard evidence that fewer than one-third of planning authorities have access to a trained ecologist. I suspect that that is part of the reason why previous questioners’ issues are coming forward. Has the Minister done any work since that report was published to ascertain how we are going to get the right quality of ecological advice if we are to deliver the outcomes which he would like to see?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that is why we are working not only with Natural England but with local authorities. In terms of the biodiversity net gain proposals, the developer and the local planning officer clearly need to work together to ensure that the local planning officer knows precisely what is meant by “net gain”. This is work in progress.

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I join in the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who chaired our committee with great diligence and hard work and also a certain amount of tolerance, because there were some quite significant areas of disagreement within the committee on some of our recommendations.

There is always a debate about what to call these reports. In this case, I personally believe that the countryside is at a crossroads. As we know, British farming has been shaped by the common agricultural policy for 40 years now, as has pretty much every aspect of our environment. Depending on the decisions that we make in the next few years, our countryside could be very different in 20 years’ time. It is about much more than Brexit. Our overall rural policy is not, and never has been, driven by Brussels. The shortcomings in this area are entirely home grown and can be laid at the door of successive Governments. Although I have some serious reservations about rural policy-making, I want to place on record my admiration and support for the Minister, who fulfils his role as rural advocate with enthusiasm, commitment and great knowledge. Nor do I take issue with the civil servants who work for Defra.

However, pretty much all the evidence the committee took demonstrated that something is seriously wrong with rural policy-making, and that these problems are widespread and deep rooted. This has led me to believe that they are less about policy and more about culture, leadership and structure. The committee spent some time discussing the issues of rural policy-making and rural proofing. Indeed, many of our witnesses used those terms interchangeably. This did not help debate, and there is a clear distinction. Rural policy-making is about proposals aimed specifically at rural areas—housing, transport and broadband provision, for example. Rural proofing, on the other hand, is about looking at all legislation and policy through the prism of the countryside to see whether different interventions need to be made to make something better in the countryside.

I will give two examples. Last year, I was involved with the Bus Services Bill as it went through this House. It was heralded as a great breakthrough in the provision of public transport, yet it made not one mention of rural services. When it came, the draft guidance contained just a few lines. After pressure from this House, that was somewhat improved. If rural proofing is as effective as Defra claim in its response to the committee, how on earth did we get a Bus Services Bill which simply ignored rural areas?

My second example is the National Citizens Service, created by the Government last year. During the summer I went to Ipswich to have a look at how the scheme was working. It was an inspiring experience and I am confident that it was very positive for the young people involved. There is a “but” coming: the take-up from the south-west of Suffolk was very poor. Why was that? Because the whole programme has been set up to be delivered on county lines. People who live in the south-west of Suffolk cannot get to Ipswich. Cambridge is only just over the border, but they cannot use it. It is not the policy that is the problem here: it is simply that nobody thought about rural public transport when they set it up.

For rural proofing to be effective, it needs to be embedded in every department. It also needs central oversight and leadership from one department which can reach right across government activity—from health to highways and pensions to potholes. For that reason, I support the recommendation that this activity be carried out by the Cabinet Office, where a small team could build up real expertise in spotting rurality issues and work with the sponsoring departments to put them right. Rural policy making, on the other hand, probably needs to sit within one department. I have never understood why the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government does not include rural communities. Instead, rural policy sits with Defra, alongside farming and the environment, and it is not well served by that, particularly at a time when the department’s focus has to be increasingly on Brexit-related agriculture, fishing, and post-CAP and environmental frameworks.

I live in a very small village and like to look at the census. About 100 years ago, the village was about the same size as it is now. However, virtually everyone in the village worked on the land in some capacity. Now, there is not really anyone who works on the land. Important as the successor to the CAP is, its direct impact on rural communities will actually be pretty modest. Housing, social care, health, public transport and broadband are what matter to rural communities. Not a single one of those is delivered in any way by Defra. It would therefore make sense to move rural communities to HCLG, where it would sit with local government, which is responsible for delivering so much in the way of rural services. It would also be helpful to see rural areas in the context of their neighbouring towns and cities, where the jobs and services are often provided, as well as to see urban areas in the context of their rural hinterlands.

I am not surprised that the Government have rejected this recommendation, but the committee was right to make it. Who knows? It may even happen one day. But for now it puts down a marker that all is far from well. No matter how much the Government protest, if they look at the vast amount of evidence our committee received, they should admit, in private at the very least, that they have much to do if they are to restore the confidence of their key stakeholders.

As I was rereading the Government’s response over the weekend, it struck me that it is pretty much all framed in terms of inputs: how much money is going in, how many people are here, and what mechanisms exist. However, I did not see any focus on the outcomes. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has already pointed out, the Social Mobility Commission has highlighted how the limited social and economic opportunities in rural areas mean that the worst-performing areas are now rural, which we would never have believed.

The Suffolk Community Foundation has done some ground-breaking work in gathering evidence about rural poverty and inequality and the failure to get services. It has produced two reports, called Hidden Needs. I commend them, not so much out of interest in Suffolk, which I recognise is not for everyone, but because it is a good example of how getting into the nitty-gritty of communities can identify some of the problems they now face and, crucially, how you can improve them.

As we have heard, the successive reorganisations have left a gap in evidence and analysis, which is operating to the detriment of rural areas. One of the most telling pieces of evidence was from Hastoe Housing Association, which told us that communities of under 3,000 are no longer monitored for delivery of affordable housing. In other words, there is no data available for rural communities in one of the areas which is most important to their sustainability: affordable housing.

Last week there was another example. The consumer group Which? reported that cash machines are being closed at a rate of 300 per month, and rural areas are particularly badly affected. LINK, which oversees the provision of cash machines, disputes both the number of closures and the impact, but how can we know what is going on if the Government have moved away from ensuring independent analysis and evidence-gathering?

In any event, across the piece, from a wide range of stakeholders, our evidence suggests that community rural stakeholders are far from content with Defra’s performance, and government should listen.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

I start by offering a welcome to this 25-year plan for the environment, even though it is by no means perfect and has been justifiably criticised as heavy on aspiration and light on detail. The plan outlines some progress that has been made: it highlights significant improvements in water quality made in recent decades. Most of us in this House are old enough to remember that we were once “the dirty man of Europe”; bathers waded through raw sewage on their trips to the seaside. So what does success look like? Last May the European Environment Agency reported that in 2016 96% of Europe’s beaches met the basic standards and 85% met the most stringent requirements. How do you achieve such success and what can we learn from it?

It started with campaign groups making a fuss and raising awareness among the general public, leading to political pressure. The response to that was legislation that included binding targets, an enforcement regime and penalties. This changed behaviour. Pressure groups continue to act to highlight shortcomings and the whole process becomes iterative. Of course, because water quality is a cross-border issue, EU legislation such as the bathing water directive and the water framework directive were the legislative underpinning. It seems to me that campaigning groups are fundamental to holding Governments’ feet to the fire. In recent years changes to charity law have been made regarding what the Government describe as “lobbying” but is in fact the rightful campaigning role of this sector. The rules have been described as having “a chilling effect” on charities’ ability to get their concerns across, especially during election time. These groups must be able to tell truth to power.

The plan recognises that many of the proposals will need to be put on a statutory footing. However, there is already a huge body of existing EU legislation which does much of this work: around 80% of the UK’s environmental law comes from the European Union. A number of environmental organisations have expressed the view that the provisions in the withdrawal Bill simply do not provide sufficient safeguards, while constitutional experts query the legal status of retained EU law: we will continue that debate tomorrow. Many of the objectives in the plan are weak, they lack statutory force and targets remain aspirational. The Government have already missed non-binding targets for halting biodiversity decline, phasing out horticultural peat, achieving good ecological status for water and others. Some objectives are unambitious. For example, the target for water quality does not set a date for achieving good ecological condition, unlike the water framework directive, which does. Experience of climate change legislation shows that targets should include realistic delivery dates, with milestones for achieving them.

As we have heard, the plan commits to an independent environmental watchdog as a replacement for enforcement at EU level. For such a body to be effective, it must be properly resourced. We are currently seeing serious funding issues with other statutory regulators, such as the Charity Commission, Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation. This has to be a concern. Such a body must have an effective complaints mechanism and access to remedies for the whole of civil society, and should definitely be accountable to Parliament, not to government. As the Minister emphasised, cross-border working is essential to delivering the plan. A new post-Brexit framework for international co-operation must be a priority. The Defra website names 40 international agreements on environmental matters to which the UK is a signatory. Can the Minister say how many of these we are signed up to as a consequence of EU membership and how many in our own right? Are there any we would not seek to rejoin? I am sure that the House would like an assurance that the fact that many of these agreements are justiciable in international courts will not be a bar to our continued membership.

The 25-year plan must address the UK’s impact on nature overseas. We are dependent on natural resources embedded in our imports: 70% of the water consumed here comes from imports, as does about one-third of biomass. Is the Minister able to give an assurance about the important role played by European funded research projects? Can he say that every effort will be made to see that the UK remains engaged in the same way that other non-EU member states, such as Norway, currently do? This issue was highlighted in the EU Select Committee report into regional co-operation in 2015. We noted then that the economic and environmental importance of shelf seas, such as the North Sea, is four times higher than the open ocean. We found that a lot of data is collected but not widely shared or fully utilised. However, one mechanism that exists for doing this is the European Marine Observation and Data Network, so can the Minister say whether we will continue to participate in its projects? In a similar vein, the RSPB has highlighted the value of European funding for environmental projects such as LIFE and BEST, not just here in the UK but in the British Overseas Territories. Is the Minister able to tell the House the current thinking on projects such as these?

Last summer I fulfilled a long-held dream to visit Svalbard and came away with both wonderful memories and serious concerns about the rapid environmental changes which were evident even to a visitor such as me. We were given strict instructions to leave nothing behind and take nothing away. The one exception to that rule was litter, which we were encouraged to collect and take back to the ship. Among my stash, there in the high Arctic, just a few hundred miles from the North Pole, I found, washed clean by the ocean’s currents, a polystyrene burger box. It is a reminder that pollution and environmental problems know no boundaries and that we can tackle them only if we work together.

Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

I add my thanks to the noble Earl for securing today’s debate, for introducing it so ably, and for giving us the opportunity to hear the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb. Although he sits on the other Benches, I would still very much like to refer to him as my noble friend. His wisdom, experience and dedication to this industry is legendary and we shall miss him in this House. I imagine there must be a certain bitter-sweet quality for him and for others that, having fought for so long to get agriculture on to the public agenda, it has taken the result of the referendum to begin to get people talking about farming and what it means for this country.

I guess that in a sense one impact of the CAP was that agriculture was something that happened over there somewhere and that we did not have much say in the matter. There is some truth in that. So, if we are about to take back control, it is time to take some responsibility.

Around 18 months or so ago, the EU Sub-Committee on Energy and Environment, which I chaired at the time, carried out an inquiry into building resilience in the farming sector. It was in the context of our EU membership, but the challenges we identified are systemic to the industry and will not disappear after Brexit. Indeed, making progress on some of these basic structural issues will be vital if our farming sector is to survive in anything like its current form.

I guess for me that is the starting point. Do we actually want something that is the way it is now? I am not clear on the Government’s vision for agriculture, as we go forward—whether it is a Grayling-esque fortress Britain or the dream of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, of a low regulated buccaneering sector, or something more aligned to the Secretary of State’s vision where we have high environmental and welfare standards.

Taken as a whole, the agri-food sector accounted for 7.2% of the national gross added value in 2014. The agricultural workforce that same year was around 429,000, and some 71% of land in the UK is utilised by agriculture. This is an enormous sector for the well-being of this country, and its needs ought to be very high on the Government’s agenda as they negotiate trade policies, for example.

We need to reflect that farming is an industry quite unlike any other. Farmers provide a secure supply of safe food, manage the land and contribute to the wider rural economy. They cope with multiple risks such as unpredictable and catastrophic weather, the impact of political decisions such as the Russian embargo, and volatile international markets. They do that while providing public goods, such as a managed environment and animal welfare standards. Their investments are often made over a very long period. Land is often family owned and passed through the generations. Short-term price volatility, which is becoming an increasing feature of agriculture markets, is an uncomfortable bedfellow with that sort industry structure. That is why, right across the globe, we see public support for agriculture. Many countries offer short-term assistance for particular problems such as catastrophic weather because those risks are insurable, but very expensive. Government need to reassure us that the previous funds available from the EU will continue in some form after/if we Brexit.

In the long term, there is a very fine balance between providing the sort of support farmers need to smooth out short-term volatility on the one hand, and providing a permanent cushion which creates a disincentive for innovation and change of business practice. At the moment, when our farming sector is receiving between 40% and 60% of farm income in subsidy, it is difficult to see how that will be sustainable financially or politically in the long run. If UK taxpayers are expected to contribute on that level, they will expect to see much clearer outcomes in return for their money, whether it is in landscape, biodiversity, animal welfare, food security or the wider rural economy.

New Zealand is noteworthy for having removed public subsidy pretty much overnight in 1985. The committee was told that the dominance of a few key exports meant that periodically revaluing the currency was a viable way of ensuring competitiveness. That is still government intervention in my book. The US is sometimes cited as an example we should follow, but the committee was not convinced by that either. Public subsidies are still enormous, but they are entirely linked to a few crops and not at all to public goods such as the environment or landscape. The American system is also notoriously bureaucratic. Canada, Australia and New Zealand operate various schemes of support, including income equalisation and agri-investment. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister the Government’s thinking on how support for agriculture will be framed as we go forward.