Clean Water Bill: Chalk Streams

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

We are very aware that chalk streams are an important ecological resource and we are doing a number of things that will make a difference, which is what we have to do. We are holding water companies to account. We are working within the environmental land management scheme to provide incentives for farmers; for example, six of the ELMS-funded landscape recovery projects are being developed in chalk stream catchments. The Environment Agency is working, as I said, to tackle the impacts of harmful abstraction. We made a number of changes to the then Planning and Infrastructure Bill to ensure that chalk streams feature in local nature recovery strategies so that they can be embedded into any legislation. There are also actions embedded in the water White Paper, which we will discuss as we take forward the legislation.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

One of the opportunities we have to protect our chalk streams is to prevent off-flow from farms. One way of doing that is to create a biodiversity break between a chalk stream and farming activity. When the Minister looks at these issues, will she examine whether financial support could be provided to farmers through the existing schemes to encourage the creation of that kind of biodiversity margin to protect chalk streams?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As I just mentioned, there are encouragements through the existing ELMS, but I take the noble Lord’s point. As we develop our support for farmers going forward, it is important that important ecological parts of our environment, such as chalk streams, are fully supported.