Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Earl of Devon

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, in particular, for tabling Amendment 2 on soil health. She made a compelling speech, as she did in a previous session, describing soil as an ecosystem in its own right: an ecosystem—or ecosystems—that we are plundering and destroying at an extraordinary rate of millions of tonnes every year.

It is often cited as an example of extraordinary human progress that we have managed to treble food production in the past 40 years, and that is true, but we have done so at the expense, undoubtedly, of many future generations. It is the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out, that many of the bread baskets of the world have been pretty rapidly converted into deserts. According to the latest data that I have seen, at least 500,000 small farmers in the world are currently having to deal with diminishing yields as a consequence of their impoverished soils. As a Minister in the FCDO with some responsibility for part of our ODA budget, this is something I am trying very hard to shift the focus towards, so that it is a problem that, I hope, the UK will be able to have a positive impact on.

Bringing this back to the domestic, I would like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we are working out now how to develop the appropriate means of measuring soil health. It is complicated but we are doing that work and its results could be used to inform a future soils target. However, as I outlined a number of times in Committee, long-term targets set under the framework of the Bill have to be capable of being objectively measured. If we commit in the Bill to setting a target by 2022, without the reliable metrics needed to set a target, and then measure its progress, we could be committing to doing something that ultimately we cannot deliver or might not even know whether we have delivered it. We therefore cannot commit to set a soil target in the Bill, but I can assure the noble Baroness of a number of things.

The first is that we are focusing our efforts already on developing a soil health measuring and monitoring scheme, which will produce a baseline assessment of soil health against which change can be measured. This, as I said, could inform a future long-term soil target. Secondly, we are currently identifying soil health metrics as the basis of a healthy soils indicator. This will complement a future soil health monitoring scheme by providing a straightforward measure—

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

Does the Minister accept that under Clause 1(2) we need to set only a single metric? Is he saying that there is not a single metric that Defra can set that would impact soil? Is that correct?

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Earl of Devon

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The short answer to the first question is that, were such a thing to happen, it would be a breach of planning permission, and the local authority could enforce that. I am happy to have the meeting that the noble Lord has asked for—but it would a breach of contract and the rules.

On the issue of 30 years, I feel that if I were to answer that question, I would be repeating what I had said earlier. Again, I am happy to discuss that when we meet, but the argument is that the 30 years is not a maximum. We will have an increasing number of protections for the land over time. That is part of the government programme and is a commitment that we have made. However, most importantly, we need to get land into the system. We have had many discussions in relation to the tree strategy and the incentives that we are creating there to encourage people to give over some of their land for tree planting. It is difficult. It does not matter what the incentives are—it is difficult—and if one were to ask people to make their commitments in perpetuity, that would limit the market for us and make our job much more difficult. That is the bottom line and the main reason.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

I am sorry for delaying noble Lords a little further. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her dollop of reality. In response to her comments, the Minister suggested that, in his understanding, the industry and developers and so on are overwhelmingly supportive of biodiversity net gain.

I work for a solicitors’ firm in the south-west called Michelmores, which regularly hosts a planning and developers’ round table. Just last month, we hosted a gathering of planners and developers that was addressed by the Environment Bank to introduce the idea of biodiversity net gain. The overwhelming response was that they had not heard of it at all; they were hugely uncertain about it, and there was considerable trepidation. Their principal concern was where on earth they were going to find the qualified professional consultants necessary to conduct and undertake all this business, because they just do not exist. Can the Minister provide any insights into how that industry will achieve the professional qualifications and the huge number of people necessary within a two-year period to deliver all this biodiversity net gain understanding?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I understand that some may not have heard of this, but developers should have, because it is already current policy in the National Planning Policy Framework. Not everyone goes to bed reading such a document, but if you are in the development sector you ought to be familiar with what is in it, so I am surprised by that. I certainly did not say that they were overwhelmingly supportive: I think the term I used was “broadly supportive”. I do not want to exaggerate, but the feedback we have had has been broadly supportive from people at all stages of the spectrum, from the large to the medium and the small—but, as I said, this is our job. We need to do this; it is a really important part of the nature recovery journey we are on, which I believe is backed by most people in this country. Most people recognise that this is something that has to happen, and our job is to make it work.

As for consultants, this is an entirely new thing, a world first, so there will not be loads of consultants waiting to start advertising their skills as of tomorrow. But when you create a market for something, the market responds. People will recognise that there are careers and opportunities in helping companies at all levels to deliver biodiversity net gain. So I imagine that, as with most things market-related, we will see ever more people entering this field with ecological expertise, knowledge and skills to offer those businesses.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Earl of Devon

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

I am terribly sorry, my Lords. The Minister says it is not for Defra to handle the funding of heritage restoration, and he directs our attention to DCMS and says that it should handle it instead. But Natural England has long contributed substantial capital grants for existing heritage restoration works. Indeed, this is under the HLS programme. An example would be the award-winning restoration of the belvedere overlooking the Exminster marshes, which was substantially repaired thanks to an HLS and Natural England grant as a historic natural landscape feature. Could the Minister comment on that? I think Defra and Natural England are very capable in this regard.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The examples the noble Earl provided are areas where there is a direct biodiversity value. Not all the examples we have been given today have a direct biodiversity value. I am not suggesting that they have no value; of course they do. But, if we were to squeeze into ELM all the concerns, priorities and projects that have been listed today, it would need to be significantly expanded from what it is, and it is just not practical or possible.