Nitrogen Reduction, Recycling and Reuse (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, who gave such excellent evidence to our committee. It is a pleasure to serve on the Environment and Climate Change Committee under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and my thanks go to our clerks.

All on the committee are all too conscious of the impact that action on climate change now—or, alas, inadequate action now—will have on the environment of the United Kingdom and the environment more widely over the next 50 years or so. But how encouraging and compelling is the focus on and concern about the environment from the young? That is regularly brought home to those of us who attend the committee’s meetings with secondary school children. It is, after all, the young who will live through the consequences of our action or inaction today.

As a number of noble Lords have said already, some of us saw the potential effects of excess nitrogen when we visited the De Hoge Veluwe National Park in the Netherlands during our inquiry. The park was lovely but nitrogen leeching from waterways had killed the grasslands. There were reeds waving but there was no green. Circumstances here are different but that was a clear warning of why action is necessary now. We do not want that to happen here.

Partly with that in mind, during our inquiry, I invited Professor Jeremy Biggs, the CEO of the Freshwater Habitats Trust, following the evidence he gave to our committee, to visit the chalk stream pond in Ewelme, where I live. Children were present there to watch. Fortunately, the nitrogen levels, though high, were not disastrously so. But when I asked Professor Biggs how long it would be before the nitrogen levels in the chalk stream pond reverted to a satisfactory level, even if all the agricultural run-off from the catchment area stopped today, he said, “decades”.

Nitrogen pollution in much of the country, particularly the Wye Valley, is suffering from the run-off from chicken farms. That is far more serious for water quality, fish life and biodiversity more widely—hence our report and the need for urgent, properly co-ordinated action. Like others, I am grateful for the Government’s reply to our report. I have also read the Environmental Improvement Plan and been impressed by the Cunliffe and Corry reports, and I look forward to the various reports still to come.

However, I have two main concerns. The first is that reports may well be needed, and many of them are good, but they must lead to action and not be a substitute for action. I am sure that the Minister will assure me that that will not be the case, but I hope that she will focus in her closing remarks on the actions the Government are taking to respond to the urgent need for improved water quality and more effective advice to farmers on the right level of nitrous and other fertilisers. I hope, too—this my second point—that the Minister can tell us what action is planned or, better, is under way to simplify the regulatory landscape.

As the Government’s response to our report says, the Corry report

“found the current system to be complex and duplicative”.

The Government’s response to our report says that:

“Work is underway to implement or consider next steps”.


I hope that the Minister can tell us that implementation is now under way and not about yet more consideration.

I end where I started. I have been reading Lord Sumption’s excellent series of essays on the challenges of democracy. In one essay, he says:

“The major challenge to democracy in the coming years will, I believe, be climate change”.


He says:

“This is because although all humanity has a common interest in dealing with climate change, they do not have a common interest in the measures necessary to do it”.


He is right in his diagnosis. I profoundly hope that he is wrong in his conclusions. I am encouraged by the report in today’s Guardian of a survey that suggests that far more people today accept the need for action on climate change than politicians realise. However—and I know this goes wider than nitrogen—could the Minister assure us that the Government will not only take the measures needed in the United Kingdom to combat climate change but will continue to impress on other countries, difficult though that may be, the need to do so too? The next generations need to know that.