Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

I completely understand the desire for transparency, and that is what the register is for, but I do not think the sort of specific labelling inherent in the noble Baroness’s amendment would be valid or achievable with any degree of accuracy or certainty. Even with modern scientific techniques, it is almost impossible to distinguish between a gene-edited variety and a traditionally bred variety. Therefore, I do not believe it is necessary. I support the view taken by other countries. For example, Canada, the US and Japan do not require labelling for precision-bred products. Having said all that, I strongly support the statutory instrument.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, just said. I do not intend to repeat the technical aspects of it, but I hope I can deliver the lay man’s common-sense view of it—backed by the science, because that is what we are about.

Precision breeding is not genetic modification, whatever anyone might say. In 1998, I was the Food Safety Minister before the FSA existed, when the campaign was laid against GM foods. In fact, this technique was not available then; if it had been, we would probably not even have tried to go down the road of GM. The American population has been the sitting duck sample of GM food technology for 30 years and, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever died from any of the food.

I am also quite critical of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I feel really sad about this, because its report is biased and does not take a full range of evidence. I am not going into further criticism, but I think this report deserves criticism. It is a shame, because they are normally incredibly good.

It is just as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said. It has been a long time since I went to Norwich to the John Innes Centre and the other laboratories and saw the amount of time spent on traditional breeding. If you look at it fully, traditional breeding is gene editing, but they did not know that they were doing it. That is the problem: it is randomised, so they are not certain about it. But the products that come out are safe; the science says they are safe and the FSA says they are safe, and that should be good enough for most of us.

I do not hide behind organics. Anyone would think that organic farmers do not use antibiotics or medicines for their animals. They do. The idea that they are completely natural, with no scientific input at all, is absolutely preposterous.

We basically had this debate when we put the legislation through in 2023. The other place probably has not spend as long on it as this House, from the experience I have in both Houses. Most people—including me, before I went into MAFF—are completely ignorant about the breeding of plants: the technology, the randomised nature of it and the hit-and-miss view of it. The time spent on it is enormous, and is happening all the while. The fact is that breeding is taking place on a regular basis, and we do not worry about it. The products are safe. They are not labelled. That is my criticism of the report: if you cannot check that it is different, how can you label it? I would be much keener on having the methods of slaughter of animals labelled, but everybody is against that. That is more practical. In this case, if you cannot tell the difference, how can you possibly label it? It is scientifically preposterous.

I do not deny that there are scientists who take an opposite view. We had this happen 20-odd years ago, when a scientist told us that something was wrong with potatoes and GM technology. He was checking raw potatoes. I think the advice is, basically, do not eat raw potatoes because the chances are they will kill you. There is a real problem here with some odd scientists. The general scientific community—I hope I am not going to be contradicted in a moment—is generally in favour of this system. It is safe, it is an advance on the science, it helps consumers and it helps the environment. I cannot see what the problem is or the need to slow it down.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the published register. I am torn on this matter. I am a scientist by background and, as such, I have welcomed progress that has been made by science, but I believe that, with the immense impact of that progress, we have a responsibility to be extremely careful and to take steps forward only when we are absolutely certain we are doing the right thing.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, took me back to the early days of devolution in 1999, when the question of GM products was very controversial and caused immense difficulty—not least across the England-Wales border, in north-east Wales and in Cheshire. These are matters that need to be thought through in advance, otherwise we could once again get ourselves in the same sort of mess as we did around that time.

In responding to this debate, can the Minister clarify where exactly the discussions with the devolved Governments have gone? The responsibility for these matters lies with them, in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Minister indicated that discussions were taking place, but by putting it in those terms the implication is that they have not reached a conclusion. Should we in this House be steamrollering an order like this through when that conclusion has not been reached, and many aspects of it may not have even been discussed at all? Why are the Government bringing this before the House before concluding the procedures to which they themselves have signed up—in the context of Wales—with their own Labour Government in Cardiff, who want to have the time to discuss this and come to a conclusion?

Therefore, I welcome the fact that there is a regret amendment, because I believe that we should move down this road if that is the consensus and it is agreed that it is safe, but only when we have gone through the proper procedures. If we are not going through the proper procedures with regard to the constitutional realities in these islands, how can we be sure that we are also going through the other procedures that are vital to the consideration of the substance of these regulations? Therefore, I ask Minister to think again, at least about the timescale, until further thought has been given to this matter.

Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, suggested that there was broad support for his Motion, and I rise to broaden that support and offer the Green Party’s support for both these Motions. I have no personal interest to declare, but the Green Party declares its great concern about food security in the UK and the state of the countryside in what is one of the most nature- depleted corners of this battered planet.

The background to this issue is the CAP scheme area payments. The Green Party has always argued against them, saying that they were deeply flawed and that those with the broadest shoulders got the biggest shovels of cash, while smaller farmers and growers got little or, in too many cases, failed to qualify at all. Our countryside was trapped in a world in which the message delivered by a series of Governments was, “Get big or get out of farming and growing”. We had the Agriculture Bill, your Lordships’ debate on which I took a substantial part in. It aimed to focus on environmental improvements and, indeed, after the intervention of your Lordships’ House, acknowledged the importance of food production. The SFI was supposed to be the scheme delivering on the environmental side of that. As we have already heard at length—I shall not track back over that ground—it was literally slammed shut. Many different metaphors could apply, but that seems a good one to me.

Many farmers are now clearly in a profoundly unsustainable position financially. They are being pounded continually by the dominance of the supermarkets and multinational food companies and are being forced to produce commodities rather than getting a fair price for their products. My particular area of concern is horticulture, vegetables and fruit, which is crucial for food security and public health.

I am not sure whether anyone has referred to the National Audit Office, which said that delay in the rollout of new schemes had made it difficult for farmers to plan their businesses and created “widespread uncertainty and risk”. That is true of many areas of our society, but particularly our farmers: if there is no possibility of planning for the future, it is essentially impossible to farm.

I have one constructive point to make, and I hope that the Minister will be able to agree with me on this, or at least accept my suggestion. She may know that there is a fast-growing campaign for a basic income for farmers as a way of supporting small farmers and growers in particular to be agricultural producers. This aims to guarantee financial security; boost mental well-being and reduce stress; promote inclusivity, innovation and ecological stewardship of the land; and strengthen local food systems and public procurement. Will the Minister agree to have a look at the basic income for farmers campaign, and perhaps arrange to meet me and the campaigners?

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to make a brief intervention. I have absolutely no interests to declare and I have no criticism of my noble friend the Minister or the Minister in the other place, the Member for Cambridge. In fact, in 14 years in opposition, he was the only shadow Minister who ever contacted me to ask me to talk about my experience of Defra and MAFF during the new Labour years of government. He listened, and that was fine—it was good to do, and I have no complaints about that at all.

However, I am reminded of a time when, at that Dispatch Box in about early 2002, when I was on my third ministry and the first in this House, I said that, in my experience to that date, the Treasury had

“wrecked every good idea I have come across”—[Official Report, 16/4/02; col. 837.]

in government. Obviously, the Chancellor was not very happy about that. The fact is that, three ministries later, before I left government, I was thoroughly justified. We have a classic example of this tonight. I am in favour of the CAP going; I have no problem with that—I am a remainer, but that is not the issue. I am in favour of reform of the CAP but, to wreck a good idea, it takes the Treasury. I do not hold Ministers responsible for this at all.

The fact of the matter is that you go back through the memories on this issue. The Minister talked about diversification. I can remember a very senior official saying to me when I was at Defra—I left Defra in 2008, so we are going back a little bit—that they did not really pay much attention to a particular farmer in the Lake District because he was not a full-time farmer, because he diversified into writing. That was what was said to me—it was because he was not a full-time farmer. Noble Lords are obviously aware of who I am referring to.

It is only my respect for this House and our procedures that prevents me walking out, because I have not the slightest intention of voting to support these regulations. I understand the rules about fatal amendments, but the Government would have to pick it up and do it again—that is the reality. We have the power, but we do not use it; as a senior Cross-Bencher said recently, powers you do not use, you lose, so there will come a time when we do not have that. I do not intend to vote to support this, so I will do exactly what my friend from the gym, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said and I will abstain on both amendments. I will not hang around during the votes; I shall go.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I add my name to those regretting these reckless regulations. I am particularly saddened, because they are just one element of a multipronged attack on our farmers, the supply trades and the entire food chain in one of the most important industries and sectors in our economy. I declare my interest in that I am involved in farming, but more particularly in the agricultural supply trade in the fertiliser industry. I therefore know more than most the damage and the harm that the Government are doing to those people who live in the sticks.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker; he said that he does not have an interest, but we all have an interest in the food industry. We have to eat every day, and food in your belly is more important than a roof over your head. The truth is that these regulations are harming a sector that needs finance in order to be sustained, to invest to grow. I do not know what rural Britain has done to deserve this metropolitan-based Government, who have turned an understandable and instinctive indifference into outright hostility. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I do not blame the Minister, because the fault lies elsewhere. She has always been most courteous and honourable and she acts with integrity in this House, which we thank her for.

The truth, however, is that this Government must be held to account because their actions are harming today’s farming profitability, which drives tomorrow’s corporation tax revenues. They are damaging the long-term capital underpinning of the industry, which harms investment, innovation and growth. This is collapsing the cash flow, that financial lifeblood that makes it all happen. I will speak to each of those three elements in turn.

On profitability, it is a shame that the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, who is meant to be leading a review for the Government, is not in her place. She would have told us, had she been here, that farmers are already under terrible, tremendous financial pressure, caught in that pincer movement between low grain prices and elevated input costs. Tighter margins are pressured by the national insurance rises, and now there are these inexplicable plans to persevere with a fertiliser tax that could add a quarter to the cost of the most expensive input, flipping even breakeven businesses over to loss.

On the balance sheet, the effect of the agricultural property relief element of the inheritance tax has been well ventilated. I will not dwell too much on that now, save to say that it is the effect on the business property relief—slightly different—that particularly harms the self-starting, innovative and entrepreneurial tenant farmers, who live by their wits because they did not have the good fortune to inherit the land, free of charge, upon which they make their living. The effect of all these in combination is to remove the long-term generational incentives to invest in the farm, develop the countryside and the landscape, protect nature and, yes, in so doing sustain wealth in our islands, particularly in the shires, where, let us not forget, 90% of businesses employ 10 people or fewer.

I have heard the argument that the IHT can take 10 years to pay, but those annual instalments over 10 years would be more than would be paid by the rent. It is just cloud-cuckoo-land.

Landed estates, for the most part, have already incorporated, in one form or another, or transferred to trusts, so once again those farmers left behind are the smaller farmers. Totally contrary to what Minister said, with these effects Labour is targeting the little guys, the sole traders, the family partnerships, particularly in the less favoured areas, while allowing those larger, more corporate farmers—the ones she says have the broadest shoulders—off the hook.

It is the summary cancellation of slurry lagoon grants that, more than anything, could help solve the problem of river pollution. It is the cancellation of those twin cabs on pickup vehicles. Let us be clear, these pickups are tools of trades. They are as good as a tractor. They are the sort of thing that a man in a factory would have as a crucial part of the plant and machinery involved in the business. It is really a spiteful misunderstanding of how investment in plant and machinery works.

All of these contribute to this £80,000 a year profit cap on aspiration, which is the number that, through EBITDA, gets you to the million quid, at which APR and BPR kick in. If we stop that aspiration, how are we going to grow an economy? This is what is happening, so, yes, I have sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said: this is the Treasury holding the economy down and not letting it flourish.

As for cash flow, since we have mentioned these delinked payments, I want to put a number on this; I do not know why the number is what it is, but I have it in front of me. A specimen 680 hectare farm that would have received £160,000 in 2020 will receive just £7,200 this year, over and above all those other financial headwinds that I have mentioned. A black zero is the best that many farmers can now expect. How does that help everyone? It is particularly important because, although I do not want to dwell too much and repeat the points my noble friend Lord Roborough made from the Front Bench, there was that interplay between the delinked payments and the SFI, and by taking one away the contract between the Government, Defra, farming and the food industry, as well as the supply trades, has been broken. That has a knock-on for machinery dealers, contractors, auction marts, professionals and those family businesses disproportionately affected in the countryside.

In summary, no wonder people living outside the M25 and the conurbations think they are under attack from the cumulative effects of all these proposals in a concerted war on the countryside. The effect is also, astonishingly, to undermine the Government’s environmental objectives, because the effect of all of this is that if land is put under the plough, it must be pushed as hard as possible to get a return. I suppose that leaves more land not ploughed, for other environmental schemes. In essence, it proves that Labour does not understand the countryside, but I tell you, the countryside now understands Labour. The industry that, more than any other, meets the most basic human need—food in your belly—is being made unviable, and rural communities are paying the price.

Clothing Sales: Sustainability

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are certainly having ongoing engagement with the industry to try to reduce the amount of plastics. Of course, there is sometimes a trade-off with plastics when you are trying to get more durable garments that are not disposed of so quickly, but the UK water industry research project, which was done by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, reported in April last year that wastewater treatment plants remove 99% of microplastics by number and 99.5% by mass. We are looking at what France is proposing, which is a mandatory filter in washing machines, and that may be a direction down which we will go.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked of a variety of sources. Could he Minister tell us how much cotton has come to us in the last 18 months in products grown in Xinjiang? This cotton is grown by slave labour and can be checked out by the technical element analysis system pioneered by Oritain, rather than by paper trails. Cotton products can be checked to see where the cotton was grown, and the Government have consistently promised they will check on the sources of cotton. What have the Government actually done about it in the last 18 months?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our anti-slavery legislation went a long way towards requiring companies to develop robust information on their supply chains. I cannot give the noble Lord a precise answer about the amount of cotton that has come from that area, or how many of the workers involved were or were not—by our standards—properly employed. However, it is a very serious issue. The consumer can create a great demand on retailers and retailers can have a great effect. The Government must play their part, though. Domestically, we have 62% of clothing retailers signed up to our voluntary agreement, which goes precisely to the point the noble Lord makes. That means there are still some that are not, but we will continue to make sure that we have full transparency within the supply chain.

Disposable and Reusable Nappies

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think we all want a deposit return scheme, which is a very important way of recycling more products, but the coalition between the Greens and the Scottish National Party has created a disaster zone and has actually put the whole thing back. I think we are now on track to have a scheme that will be a UK-wide common standard for similar products, which has long been needed. That will be better for Scotland, the United Kingdom and the environment.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell us the estimated cotton content of the various nappies? If there is a figure, who has done the checking to make sure that none of that cotton comes from Xinjiang in China?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised that I do not know that figure. I know that the impact of carbon on the environment has dropped considerably since the last life cycle assessment in 2008. That is welcome and we want to see more of it, but we also want to make sure that all our policies on plastics are feeding through to this area of waste management, and that we are tackling the issue of where the products come from, which is entirely right.

Farm Animal Welfare

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. She is not taking issue with me; she is pushing at an open door. This is a manifesto commitment and in our animal welfare action plan, and we want to do it.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Given that the hundreds of millions of food production animals that we eat have to be slaughtered first, should not the public be entitled to know what the method of slaughter is?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a very clear set of guidelines, which we have improved in recent years, such as by putting CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses. As the noble Lord will know, the Food Standards Agency oversees this and requires vets to be present. I think his point relates to pre-stun slaughter, and that is an ongoing discussion. We want to work with those groups that want a particular type of slaughter, while recognising that there is a very strong view out there about our knowledge and understanding of what an animal senses in those final moments of its life. We want to make sure that our WATOK rules, as they are called, are absolutely up to date, and I shall continue to keep him informed of this.

Water Companies: Licences

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend raises a key point. The Government give direction to the regulators of utilities such as water companies, and we have given very clear direction, which has been manifest in the latest Ofwat demand that water companies tackle this. It is not the only regulator. As I said earlier, the Environment Agency has huge powers and will levy fines and make sure that water companies that fail are taken into account. Of course, Ofwat also has to balance the importance of the pressure of bills on households with an increasing level of investment in tackling these issues. It is a constant balancing issue and one that I hope we are getting right.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Can the Minister please explain how competition in the water industry is of direct benefit to the public?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It allows us to make comparisons between good and bad performers and to ensure that they are able to operate in the open market and borrow on the capital markets in a regulated way. Dividends are really important because they pay for investment, and very often they are paid to pension companies that invest in these companies. The average dividend is around 3.8%, which is not massive, but we want to make sure we get that balance right. Competition is also in the customers’ interest. Evidence shows that if it had not been for the kind of competition that we have created in the water industry, there would be higher bills for households and less money spent on infrastructure.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, in general I support the Bill. I am afraid that whenever the word “genetic” appears some people, organisations and supermarkets run a country mile. It is no good supporters of the Bill complaining and moaning about this. I remember my experiences in my early days at the old MAFF in 1998-99, when the issue arose. We all recall that, at that time, GMO tomato paste was on the shelves outselling non-GMO tomato paste 2:1. Then the anti-science, semi-religious zealots got to work.

That is the history, but there is a fundamental lesson regarding new technology and food that I took away and tried to use later at Defra and at the FSA, which is that the consumer is king and that the consumer benefits always need to be up front, rather than the producer benefits. I was always reinforced in that view by the late Professor Derek Burke, a former chair of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes. His essay in 1998 in Consuming Passions: Food in the Age of Anxiety, published by Mandolin on behalf of the Times Higher Education Supplement, is worth a read by the Minister. Professor Burke’s four key points on new products were: that they must be technically possible; they must offer advantage to the consumer; the regulatory process must be rigorous, open and universal; and the consumer must be offered a choice, at least initially. It is worth putting on record the very last sentence of his essay:

“Technical skills will not be sufficient on their own to turn this exciting and powerful new science into products and processes; scientists will have to take the public with them.”


That is a key lesson.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that there is little wrong with GMO techniques. Some 250 million people in the United States of America have been our living experiment for about 25 years. As far as I am concerned, there has not been a single problem regarding food safety over that time. I accept that there have been some environmental issues, but I do not keep comparing the prairies of the USA with our tiny, people-dense island. They are not the same.

The science of breeding has never been more vital with climate change, as others have said. There will be new diseases in food crops and food production animals that we have not encountered before. Confidence in the current and proposed regulatory system is vital.

I am not in favour of gold-plating but, where food is concerned, the key aspects for consumer confidence are openness and transparency. In this respect, Defra blotted its copybook with the recent Public Accounts Committee report on Weybridge animal health laboratory, which has obviously been facing hard times since new Labour. That needs to be put in order PDQ, otherwise confidence in Defra and its scientists will be damaged.

Defra and British Sugar, whose submission I read, have all set out the potential benefits, which certainly relate to consumers. Not least of these is the use of fewer pesticides and fertilisers. In former days, if we could produce fewer pesticides and use them less, there would be less chance of residues in the final product. I have not checked recently, but I am not so sure whether we check for residues in products as quickly and frequently as we used to.

There is one other issue that I read about. The Royal Society sent a very short, readable one-page briefing on this, with some questions which I will ask the Minister to answer in Committee.

I am going to raise only three general issues. The first is with regard to animals being included in the first place. These concerns have to be satisfied. I can see the benefit for food production animals—I am less concerned about the others—but the fact is that we and our key trading partners have different rules on food of animal origin, and rightly so. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, raised the issue last week at Question Time after a Question literally about the benefit of the technology in enabling our food birds to avoid avian flu. There is quite clearly a benefit to the animals, but there is also a real benefit to the public. There is no question about that. There are also potential benefits to the pig industry.

Less disease in food production animals caused by either poor husbandry or climate change will directly benefit consumers, but we must not use the technology to cover up poor husbandry. That is the reason we do not want the material the Americans want to give us: because the washing of chickens in chemicals is only to cover up their poor husbandry. That is the reality. As my noble friend said, if this is all about ever faster-growing broilers on weaker and thinner legs, forget it; I am not going down that route. I have been in chicken sheds with 30,000 birds that were well looked after with techniques to find out whether they are ill. The techniques that can be used beggar belief. But if it is all about fatter, faster-growing birds on legs they cannot stand on, I for one am not having that.

My second general issue—and this is where I am going to fall out with some people—is traceability. To simply claim that “general food law requires traceability”, which is an excuse I saw offered by one scientist, is an unprofessional cop-out. As such, I am persuaded that, from a consumer point of view—remember that—labelling is a must. It is not only that consumers are entitled to know; we have to take direct account of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. Like it or not, we have devolution.

As far as I am concerned, the Food Information Regulations do not cover enough, because they do not cover methods of slaughter. I would add that in if I could, but I suspect that this is not the Bill in which to do that.

Innovative techniques which claim to improve foods have nothing whatever to fear from openness and transparency. If there is a sniff of less openness and less transparency, confidence disappears. We know what happens when that occurs: we get crisis after crisis, built on false evidence.

I looked at the FSA board papers because I have had no briefing from the FSA, which I am a bit sad to say, and neither has anyone else so far as I know. I looked at its board papers from September; this was discussed at the September meeting. Buried right at the end were the results of its 4,000 sample opinion poll. I will quote only one figure: 78% of consumers thought it important to know that the food was as a result of precision breeding. You cannot dismiss that—it is overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. If those consumers think they are not being told information, confidence will go out the door.

My third issue is governance. Parliamentary counsel has again, at the Government’s orders, produced another Bill which removes powers from Parliament—not this House but both Houses—to give to Ministers. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which I serve, has not considered this Bill, but I am assuming we will do so before Committee starts. A Bill with three Henry VIII clauses and 28 delegated powers needs to be looked at very carefully. Some powers have no procedure at all; they are not even classed as negative resolution.

Of all Bills, a Bill that relates to new food technology should, on the evidence of the past, be one that gives Ministers no new powers in respect of food safety. We settled all this many years ago. If Ministers do not think it matters, or that because Ministers are elected they are more important—we were told that the other day—they have not looked at the history of why the FSA is there in the first place. It is there to remove Ministers from pontificating on food safety because we wrecked industry after industry in the 1990s due to people’s lack of confidence, and the system has worked incredibly well, by and large, in the past 25 years. That is important. Ministers should have no role whatever in food safety. They are not qualified or trusted. The Bill looks a bit like it is side-lining the FSA, and for the avoidance of doubt I would like to hear from the Minister about that.

I will come back to this in Committee. I am pro-science, pro-technology, pro-consumer and a supporter of the Bill, but the Bill will have to be changed.

Growth Plan 2022

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effects on (1) food production, and (2) environmental protection, of the Growth Plan 2022.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. A strong environment and a strong economy go hand in hand. To deliver our plan for growth, the Government will be looking closely at the frameworks for regulation, innovation and spending relevant to farming and land management to ensure that our policies are best placed both to boost food production and to protect the environment.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for my naivety in tabling this Question 28 days ago, as I thought that the growth plan would still be zinging along. I ask the Minister—who I hope will be promoted later today—if he could give us one example in terms of food production that would be beneficial to, and supportive of, the National Farmers’ Union, and one example that members of the National Trust could support on environmental protection? Just one of each will do.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On food protection, members of the National Farmers’ Union will be pleased that the Government are looking to make farming more productive. Members of the National Trust can also support this because it will be done sustainably. National Trust members are members because they want to support our natural and built heritage, and hardwired into our environmental land management schemes and other environmental benefits is the need to manage our land for future generations.

Water Companies: Environmental Pollution

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to change the penalties for environmental pollution by water companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the law currently allows Ofwat to issue fines of up to 10% of annual turnover and the Environment Agency to prosecute water companies and their directors, leading to court-imposed fines. We have been clear that regulators should not hesitate to bring the strongest enforcement action where companies have broken the law. The independent Sentencing Council has agreed to review guidelines to ensure that fines, applied by the courts, remain an effective deterrent.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the Minister support the call by the chair of the Environment Agency for prison sentences for chief executives and board members of the worst water company offenders and for their directors to be struck off, so they cannot simply alter their CV and move on to another role? The two water companies outlined last week as “terrible across the board” are Southern Water and South West Water. Is the Minister aware that the chairs and CEOs of those two companies—Keith Lough, Lawrence Gosden, Gill Rider and Susan Davy—have at least eight other roles between them? Should they not be removed from those external roles so they can concentrate on what they are being paid for—delivering clean water and cleanly getting rid of wastewater?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Environment Agency is part of Defra, so absolutely I agree with what the chair of the Environment Agency said in relation to a report that was published on Thursday. I shall read a section of it:

“The sector’s performance on pollution was shocking, much worse than previous years … Company directors let this occur and it is simply unacceptable. Over the years the public have seen water company executives and investors rewarded handsomely while the environment pays the price. The water companies are behaving like this for a simple reason: because they can. We intend to make it too painful for them to continue as they are.”


That report speaks for the Government.

Food Security

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am well aware of this case in Suffolk and the concerns of local people about loss of good agricultural land. The food strategy published today sets out the ambition to maintain our high levels of food security and production. Those sorts of developments need to be seen in the context of that ambition, and very strict rules relate to both planning and the use of the best agricultural land. That may well apply in the case that my noble friend refers to.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

With about 7 billion trees, I think, we are one of the least forested countries in Europe, and there is a case for more trees—the right trees in the right place. I cannot understand why there is not a complete ban on using food-producing land for solar farms, when all the flat roofs of the warehouses and factories in this country could be used for that. There would be more space available; it is a given that it does not take good agricultural food-producing land.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are many grants that people can source, even at a household level, to acquire and install solar panels on roofs, and the noble Lord is entirely right to point that out. He is also right that we need more trees. We have very ambitious targets of planting 30,000 hectares of additional trees every year by the end of this Parliament. That can be achieved without impacting our food security, and there are many areas of renewable energy production that can be done in accordance with food production as well.