Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 282NE in this rather miscellaneous group. It is one of the joys of England that we have a lot of towns with houses that have no driveways but front gardens. We need to take care of that in the context of our policy for making everyone drive electric. As we have set things up at the moment, we have introduced an imperative that people should pave over their front garden and use it to park their car. If they do so, they will have a dedicated parking space and can charge from their own house, at the rate they are buying electricity in a deal they have made themselves rather than from some organisation doing it in the street. They also pay VAT at 5% rather than 15%. Zoopla says that, if you do that, you will increase the value of your house by at least 10%.

It is both for people’s convenience and a necessity. If you get an electric car and rely on very thinly provided street parking, you may find that you have to park some long distance from your house and cannot be sure of being able to charge your car when you need to do so. We are creating an environment that will result, if we are not very careful, in our towns becoming much less charming and beautiful places because of our good ambition that more people have electric cars.

I ask my noble friend to make it clear to local authorities that they can do something about this and do not have to give permission for a dropped kerb or paving over front gardens. They can wind this into an organised rollout of on-street charging and not let desecration happen by default.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will introduce my noble friend Lady Bennett’s Amendment 282NC, as she has been called away to “Gardeners’ Question Time”. Of course, I will vote to support Amendment 281.

I will be very brief. This is a quite simple amendment based on a report from the New Economics Foundation entitled Losing Altitude: The Economics of Air Transport in Great Britain. It takes on the Conservatives, on their own ground, on questions of growth and economics. There are still arguments that airport facilities are needed for business travel, but it has declined by 50% in the past decades.

All the infuriating by-products of air travel—the noise, disruption and pollution—are not actually worth while. The sector is one of the poorest job creators in the economy per pound of revenue. Automation and efficiency savings have meant that the rapid rise in passenger numbers between 2015 and 2019 was not enough to restore direct employment to its peak in 2007, plus wages are significantly lower in real terms than they were in 2006. That is obviously not for the top jobs; this is for the bulk of workers. Quite honestly, air travel just cannot be justified on any grounds anymore.

The amendment proposed a review to examine the costs and benefits of planned expansion of the UK air transport sector. Quite honestly, it is not worth it.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend has just said, having grown up in that part of the country and spending many happy decades fishing there. I just ask my noble friend the Minister, if he is going to give special consideration to chalk streams, to end the discrimination against Sussex. In particular, my local chalk stream should be included in the list, which it is not at the moment. The fact that it is called the Lottbridge Sewer should not be enough to exclude it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to support every word that the noble Viscount has just said—a rare event.

I have recently joined a group of people who meet monthly to assess the health of the chalk stream that runs through their village by counting river flies, and the experience has been a real pleasure. There is nothing as satisfying as seeing a healthy ecosystem, and luckily theirs is.

However, as the noble Viscount has pointed out, chalk streams are extremely vulnerable. In fact, the amendment should not be necessary at all because we should automatically be protecting the health and well-being of our chalk streams. So I very much support the amendment. I hope it comes back again and again and we vote on it—or perhaps the Minister will snap it up as a good thing to do.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to be very quick. I would like to speak to my Amendment 86B and later amendments which are essentially saying the same thing: that this Bill is dreadful and ought to be taken away and thought over completely.

Amendment 86B is to delete Clause 49 entirely because it is such a far-reaching clause that it will create a bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of families. At the same time, it will fail to achieve the Government’s stated policy aims. I am also completely puzzled about how overstretched local authorities will be able to implement these new powers and duties. Having been a local councillor, I know how hard they work and how overstretched they are already—even before the recent government cuts.

Overall, I am convinced that Clause 49 will turn out as a total legislative failure and will leave a trail of destruction that will probably be ignored because home-schooling families are a minority in this country. I wish the Government would see sense on this and support the deletion of this clause, as they have with significant other parts of the Bill which they acknowledge were also unworkable. Within that, I would like to include my deletion of other parts of the Bill in Amendments 93A, 95A and 95B.

Finally, on my Amendment 118C, the government amendments are a step in the right direction, but a long way from the necessary protection that families need from these new powers. A code of practice would address the data protection concerns that many parents have. I urge the Minister to think about that.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have several amendments in this group. If I were to say one thing to my noble friend the Minister, it is that I really hope the department will use the time it has while dealing with Part 1 to advance its thinking on the guidance and other aspects of the Bill so that, by the time it gets considered by the Commons, its thinking is rather more detailed and matured than what we have had the chance to look at. That would be a real help.

My noble friend Lord Wei raised some issues of true Conservative principle, which I hope home educators will find the opportunity to discuss with the candidates during August. Home education is a matter of freedom. Although the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and my noble friend both say that the Bill is supportive of home education, in many details it is not.

As my noble friend Lord Wei said, many letters are reaching us describing situations in which local authorities have been, frankly, abusive to home educators without any obvious good reason. I have pursued some of these matters with local authorities. I will not name the one I have talked to, but it is clear that they allow the difficulty that they have with some families to spill over into the way that they deal with those who are, on the face of it, doing a pretty good job—for instance, harassing a child who had a stroke aged six and saying that the child, rather than being cared for specially within their family, must be cast into school, not accepting independent reports about this child and saying that they must have more, different evidence. That is not in any way conducting their relationships in a supportive way. There have been cases where they have made really unpleasant remarks about home educators privately, and then, by mistake, copied others into emails. This shows that among a good number of local authorities there is a very unsatisfactory attitude to home education.

I am very keen that the Bill contain safeguards which put home educators, particularly good ones, in a position where they can reasonably hope to argue their case. We will come to some more details of that later. My noble friend Lord Wei espouses some true Conservative values of freedom and family which the Bill does not recognise sufficiently. One could also argue for efficiency, in that the best local authorities seem to do a very good job and, with the same money, go beyond what is achieved elsewhere by building up a pattern of trust which enables them not to spend time harassing people who are doing a good job.

The Bill as it is at the moment is not efficient, nor does it pay sufficient attention to all those occasions when the state is failing children. We have an amendment later, which I applaud, which says that children who have been excluded should not be placed in unregistered institutions. Oh, my golly—that is the state doing that. Why are we fussed about what good private educators are doing when there are things like that being done by the state?

There is a flavour in some of the remarks I have read from local authorities of a difficulty with difference which we should surely not allow. Local authorities have to deal with a lot of very different people, including Gypsies and others who choose to live a lifestyle which is not at all in accordance with the normal. Fear or dislike of difference should not be something one finds in a local authority. I entirely understand where the noble Lord, Lord Wei, is coming from, but my wish in the Bill is to find ways of improving it in its detail rather than attacking the principle of the register.

Amendment 65 looks at the

“means by which the child is being educated”.

That is widely seen—I think correctly—as permitting the Government to inquire deeply into the exact way in which a child is being educated. That is one of the ways the worst local authorities have adopted to oppress home educators. They ask for more and more detail. They ask for things that home educators are not doing, like having a timetable. There is a whole structure of education which is necessary in school but does not apply to home education. Home education can be centred on the child and be very different. The question is: is it effective and sufficient? Is it doing what it should do to bring out the qualities of the child? The structure of what is being provided should not be open to question and attack if the outcome is sufficient.

Amendments 65 and 66A suggest alternative ways of dealing with that, and in Amendment 66 we will come to another, when the right reverend Prelate speaks to it. With Amendment 66A, we are looking at a limit to who is providing the education. The Government want to know what outside people are providing the education that a child is receiving. That seems to me to be a reasonable bit of information to ask for, and is well short of the worrying implications of the wording as it is.

In Amendment 85, I come back to a subject I raised in Committee. One of the justifications for the register is so that we know what is happening to children. I find that quite persuasive, but if we are going to do that, we ought to know what is happening to all children in this country; we should not leave bits unexamined. At the moment, your standard independent school does not return data to the Department for Education on the children in its charge. I do not think it takes legislation to change that; it just takes the Government to decide that they want that, and to ask for it—they have the power. But if the justification for a register on home educators is that the Government ought to know what is happening to children, that same thought ought to apply to independent education too.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is my pleasure to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I had not actually realised that he was not here because I have seen him so often on screen. It is good to see him.

I have a slight confession to make. When I first looked at these amendments, all my working class instincts—which have served me quite well over the past 70 years—started coming out about supporting something that seemed sensible but was from a landowner, and then another landowner came in with another amendment. However, I fought down those suspicions and in fact I welcome the concept of new conservation covenants in the Bill.

I would probably benefit from some more explanation. I know the noble Earl, Lord Devon, gave an extremely comprehensive introduction to this topic, but I still have a few small queries. However, I want to put on record the Green group’s support for these amendments. They appear to be an essential tool for modifying the law of land ownership towards a greener system that understands that land is the primary source of all real wealth, which is held in trust by humans on behalf of all species and future generations.

Regarding the noble Earl’s introductory speech, the minute that anyone uses words like “offsetting” and “market”, all my green instincts come out. I have a slight problem with those words because both those things normally mean a complete scam as far as environmental issues are concerned.

This would be a landmark change to the law because it expands on some traditions in English land law—common land, public rights of way and other traditional rights and obligations arising under various circumstances—but the amendments in this group also highlight some of the real difficulties of the law of the land. So much of land law is focused on formalities, and if the necessary formalities are not met then everything can unravel.

Amendments 266, 267 and 268 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, focus on the formalities needed for a valid conservation covenant. This is where I would like a little more explanation, particularly if the noble Earl is going to push them through to the next stage.

Amendment 276 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, probes another issue, one that I find quite perplexing, the question of why Clause 125(8) explicitly states that

“the Secretary of State has no liability with respect to performance of any obligation … under the covenant”

during any time that the Secretary of State is custodian of the covenant. Why have the Government chosen that approach? If they are not responsible during this time, who is? Will these important natural sites go untended, unmanaged and uncared-for into abandonment? Unless the Government can give some convincing reason, it seems that Amendment 276 would be an important change to the Bill—in fact, to law—to ensure that these covenants are upheld and natural sites protected.

I once again commend the inclusion of these covenants in the Bill, and I hope noble Lords can iron out these few small queries so that the covenants work as effectively as possible.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I share all the reservations expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. In dealing with perpetuity in this section of the Bill, the Government seem quite laid back about it, whereas my suggestion of perpetuity earlier on in the Bill caused an attack of the heebie-jeebies. I find this strange because here we are dealing with individual farmers, who, as the noble Earl pointed out, may often be vulnerable, while in the case of biodiversity gain we are dealing, by and large, with professional builders, who are in a completely different position when it comes to understanding the law and in the state of their finances. In both cases, I support perpetuity but when it comes to dealing with individual farmers, we must have something which is much more cautious and much safer.

I agree with the noble Earl that there really is no place in this system for commercial enterprise. Nature changes. What happens in the course of perpetuity—what the right action is—is going to move; it is never static. If there is a conservation obligation—say, to keep a certain number of ground-nesting birds in a particular space—and 10 years later a big badger sett is established next door and it is no longer a place where ground-nesting birds can survive, we need to be able to alter the covenant and adapt it to the changed circumstances. If we have a commercial entity in place, which perhaps is only after gain at that stage—it may not be looking to do more or to continue in the business—the poor farmer is going to be in a very poor place indeed.

The holders of these covenants ought to be organisations which are likely to continue, and to value their reputation. for a very long time and which are likely to want to continue to enter into new covenants on the basis of their reputation. There are quite a number of big conservation-oriented organisations that that would apply to. It should not be a matter for commerce.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is quite right to point up food waste at home. Here in Eastbourne, we have a universal system to deal with that, and a pair of them is nesting on the roof above me as I speak: very little goes to waste here. But on the broader front, yes, we absolutely must not accept the idea of waste. This comes back to the point I was making on previous amendments: the necessity of looking at things in the round. One of the prime ways to reduce waste is plastic packaging. The less you use plastic packaging, the more food waste you generate. We need to look at things as a whole, not at little bits. Within the area of food that, however packaged, has reached or is reaching the end of its shelf life, we indeed need to make it compulsory that it is offered to people, particularly charities, so that they can distribute it as it is needed and that, if there is no market there for it, that it is used in the most efficient way possible. By doing that, we will generate efficient ways to use it.

The other day, I came across a fascinating company called C3 BIOTECH, which is using biotechnology to convert food waste into useful fuels and other materials. These things flourish because we create the circumstances in which they can. If we do not mandate that people deal effectively with food waste, it just gets thrown away and the opportunity to do better things never arises. It is really important that the Government take action in this area. I wish the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, well: if not in the detail of its drafting, very much in its spirit.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on their excellent amendments. They are really good but, sadly, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. That is not something I usually do, but he is absolutely right: we must go even further on these issues. Food waste is a scourge on our society, We should be horribly embarrassed about it. Unfortunately, we are trying to get the Government to catch up, and I just do not know how we can do that; they are so far behind the general public on such issues.

I slightly disagree about how much individuals can do, because this is not an issue for individual behaviour change. A bit of education, perhaps: teaching people not to take those large packs of something that will end up with half rotting in the fridge, or whatever, but generally, this is for businesses—supermarkets—and for the Government to start legislating. These two amendments do quite a comprehensive job of covering all the issues: the waste hierarchy, practical solutions such as producing feedstock, setting targets and reporting.

I volunteered for a homeless charity for some years. Every Monday morning, I would go out on a very early tea run. Some companies, mainly cafés such as Costa, gave us their food from the day before to distribute to the homeless, which was very welcome. One Christmas, a big supermarket gave us 25 turkeys, which was a little more than we could handle and took quite a bit of redistribution. It happens from time to time, but we must make it normal to do that, so that nobody thinks it is okay to put waste food in a bin.

Personally, I think the Government would be well advised to accept these amendments. It is only by going after supermarkets and businesses that we can actually change the way we treat food waste.