Air Quality (Designation of Relevant Public Authorities) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 19 and 27 October be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 24 November.

Motions agreed.

Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations, which were laid before this House on 19 October, be considered. The instrument makes necessary technical corrections to the retained regulation on persistent organic pollutants, which I will hereafter refer to as POPs, to ensure that it continues to fully function in Great Britain following EU exit. The technical amendments in this instrument address deficiencies in Annex I of the retained POPs regulation, reinstate a set of exemptions also in Annex I that were omitted in error, and correct some provisions that have no legal effect.

I should make it clear that all the amendments introduced by this instrument are technical operability amendments and do not introduce any policy changes. These corrections are permitted by use of the powers available within Section 8 of, and Schedule 7 to, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. We have worked with the devolved Administrations on this instrument.

These regulations form an essential part of secondary legislation needed to implement the UK’s commitments under both the United Nations Stockholm convention on POPs, to which the UK is a party, and the protocol on POPs to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. POPs are substances recognised as being particularly dangerous to the health of humans, wildlife and the environment. This instrument preserves the current regime for managing, restricting or eliminating POPs in the UK.

I turn to the details of this instrument. When the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 were drafted in preparation for the end of the implementation period, some errors were made. This resulted in a number of minor issues that need to be remedied by the new instrument.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we do not have any problem with this statutory instrument as it stands, but our concerns are similar to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell.

First, I congratulate the Minister on his introduction. He did say that these are necessary technical amendments; some of them sounded extremely technical so I congratulate him on introducing those technical aspects to us today.

Our big concern is exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said: there were many, many SIs during the Brexit process and we repeatedly raised issues around drafting accuracy. As the Minister knows, a number of those instruments had to come back to us. So it is concerning that, some time on from the first time around, we now have this issue. This was not picked up quickly. Can the Minister explain why it has taken so long to bring it to light? What has happened to draw it to the department’s attention? Was there an audit? Was there a practical issue that shed light on it? As the noble Baroness asked, how do we ensure that this does not happen again in future, because we know that we will be seeing a lot more SIs again? That is our biggest concern: not what is in the SI itself but the process and what has been happening.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The regulations we have debated here today make no change to our existing policy to tackle the restriction and management of POPs. This instrument will ensure that we have the operable regulations we need to continue to protect the current and future health of the population, wildlife and environment of both the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. I absolutely concede the point that this SI has been brought to the Committee because of an error. A Government who do not make mistakes is a Government who do nothing; we are not perfect but we try to be. Did I get that right? Yes, I think I did.

I am very grateful to providence that I was not in the House at the time of that tsunami of statutory instruments. I can see that the scars still linger on the backs of some noble Lords who had to go through that relentless process. We remain committed to all the effects of Brexit, in getting the right regulations on to the statute book in a fit and proper state, and we will endeavour not to have to use noble Lords’ time in correcting them in future.

The unintentional omission of several exemptions for decaBDE did not come to light until June 2021. The process of taking an SI through from inception to coming into force is long and detailed, with many required steps and layers of scrutiny, even when making only minor corrective points with zero changes to policy. This instrument has been progressed as swiftly as possible, while ensuring that the necessary steps are taken, so that it comes into force before the required powers expire on 31 December this year.

Defra has conducted a detailed scoping exercise to identify REUL, retained EU laws, in its policy areas. Defra is in the process of analysing its REUL stock and determining what should be preserved as part of domestic law, as well as REUL that should be repealed or amended. There will be a department-wide programme to co-ordinate this analysis. We are working through how best to involve different stakeholders in this process and I absolutely pledge to keep the House informed throughout it.

I give an assurance that we will make sure we protect the environment in everything we do. In trying to create regulations and laws that are bespoke for these islands, we are not going to weaken them. We will make sure they are better, both from the perspective of people trying to do things and for those who are trying to protect the environment.

I think I have covered most of the points made. As I outlined, all the changes introduced by this instrument are technical operability amendments that are required to ensure that the UK can continue to implement the Stockholm convention to prohibit, eliminate or restrict the production and use of POPs. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Air Quality (Designation of Relevant Public Authorities) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Air Quality (Designation of Relevant Public Authorities) (England) Regulations 2022.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, this instrument designates National Highways as a relevant public authority under Part 4 of the Environment Act 1995 as amended by the Environment Act 2021. The effect of this is to place a duty on National Highways to collaborate with local authorities to achieve local air quality objectives.

Air pollution at a national level continues to reduce significantly, with nitrogen oxide levels down 44% and PM2.5 down 18% since 2010, but we know there is more to do. Road vehicles contribute to both nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 in our atmosphere and we are committed to driving down emissions across all modes of transport.

Although it is important that the Government continue to drive action to improve air quality nationally, it is also necessary that we enable local authorities to take meaningful action at a local level. Local authorities rightly have responsibility to review and assess air quality in their areas and to act when statutory air quality objectives are not met. Often, this requires working with partners, so already, through the Environment Act, we have created a more collaborative framework with the concept of air quality partners.

The Act requires all tiers of local government and the Environment Agency to work together, where appropriate, to meet air quality objectives. It also requires neighbouring local authorities to co-operate, where appropriate. The Act sets out powers for the Secretary of State to designate other relevant public authorities as air quality partners. Traffic on the strategic road network, for which National Highways is responsible, has in many cases resulted in local authorities not meeting their air quality objectives.

Following overwhelming support for designation from a public consultation, this instrument would therefore designate National Highways as an air quality partner, requiring it to collaborate with local authorities to address local air quality problems. Specifically, National Highways will be required to commit to relevant and proportionate actions to take for inclusion within local authority air quality action plans.

The actions National Highways will take will be for it to determine and will be consistent with its responsibilities under the road investment strategy. They could include speed restrictions, improvements to road infrastructure or signage to improve traffic flow. Together with clarified duties on upper-tier authorities, this will create a more collaborative framework, bringing all authorities with responsibility for our roads together to co-operate to address excess pollution.

Over the summer, the Government provided newly published guidance to local authorities on how they should work with air quality partners. We will also provide further statutory guidance to support collaborative working between local authorities and National Highways specifically.

In line with published guidance, there is no need to conduct an impact assessment for this instrument. This is because no, or no significant, impact on the private or voluntary sector is foreseen, as this instrument is limited to requiring action from National Highways.

The territorial extent of this instrument is England only, as air quality is a devolved policy area.

I hope your Lordships agree that these regulations are an important contribution to further strengthening the local air quality management framework to enable local action to reduce pollution and therefore reduce negative health impacts. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, we support it. She explained why there are so many concerns about air quality standards right across the country and went into the details of some of the challenges that have been facing local authorities around how to tackle this in their area.

We know that air pollution is still a huge problem and a great worry to many people. As the Minister will recall, we recently debated the clean air Bill; that debate demonstrated the huge amount of support for the Government to get on and tackle this seriously.

We very much welcome the designation of National Highways following the Government’s consultation. The Minister mentioned further designations. When are we likely to see any further designations? What will the process and timescale of that be? What came out in the consultation around potential further designations? How will this work with the development of local plans with local government around clean air strategies? In particular, what are the duties going to be to tackle health inequalities?

Finally, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me ask whether there is any update on when we are likely to see the air quality targets, whether they will all be laid together or whether some will be laid first. Will there be prioritisation? What are the targets likely to be? With that, we support the regulations. It is a very important decision to bring National Highways into this.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for your support for this measure, which is fairly limited in its extent but can have an important effect. As noble Lords will know, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, there are trunk roads under the responsibility of National Highways that go through some very urban areas and have a massive impact on the people living there. I used to represent the town of Newbury. Many Members will remember the issue of the Newbury bypass. Cross-party support in and around the town at the time was predicated on the basis that children were growing up, attending school and living close to areas with extremely high levels of pollution.

That is an example in my head that shows that these regulations are perhaps overdue. In most cases, it is not a problem because National Highways is working with local authorities on their plans, but the regulations place a duty on it that could resolve an issue where there was a lack of support for those local plans.

I can absolutely assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that this is a key part of our policy in moving towards a healthier environment. We will see how it works. To answer her points in a bit more detail, once designated as a relevant public authority, air quality partners, including National Highways, have a clear duty under the Environment Act to provide a local authority with such assistance in relation to carrying out air quality functions as it reasonably requests. That is important to answer her question about appropriate requests for co-operation. As public bodies, air quality partners can be expected to comply with their legal duties.

National Highways will also be required to commit to taking action to reduce pollution in the context of local air quality action plans where pollution from vehicles using the strategic road network contribute to exceeding an air quality objective. If proposed actions are not sufficient, there is a last resort power of ministerial direction, which can be used to direct National Highways to make further proposals. I hope that gives some reassurance.

A majority of the existing exceedances of air quality objectives—I think 501 out of 532 in England, excluding London—are for roadside emissions of nitrogen dioxide. We have therefore prioritised ensuring that all authorities with a role governing management of the highways, including upper-tier authorities and two-tier authorities, are brought into the statutory local air quality management framework. A call for evidence held in 2021 established that designation of National Highways was advocated by a clear majority of those responding. This reinforced a clear message we had heard from engagement with local authorities as well. Consideration of future designation of public authorities whose relevance may be more locally specific will follow an evidence-based approach and be subject to public consultation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is absolutely right: air quality remains a serious problem. These issues were aired in the debate on Friday when my noble friend Lord Harlech responded on behalf of the Government.

There is the possibility of further designations as they come forward and the Government remain committed to setting ambitious targets under the Environment Act. We are currently finalising the Government’s response to the consultation and will continue to work at pace to lay draft statutory instruments as soon as practicable. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will have heard me talk earlier, in response to a Question in the House, about our requirement under the Act to publish our environmental improvement plan in January. That is a target we intend to hit and I am sure she will keep my feet to the fire if there is any slippage on that.

The 2017 NO₂ plan was clear that charging for entry into a clean air zone would not be suitable for all locations, particularly those that largely take traffic through rather than into areas. The strategic road network provides main routes for interurban traffic and takes high volumes away from towns and city centres. Charging on key routes could be an alternative and a means by which local authorities, working with National Highways, could implement a meaningful plan. But encouraging drivers to reroute into potentially less suitable local roads could create or worsen air quality issues on them and/or lead to increased carbon and road use issues, so it is really important that these authorities work together and look at it holistically, not just creating displacement of a problem but solving it. National Highways is working with those local authorities which have or are developing plans for clean air zones as part of their NO₂ air quality plans.

I repeat my thanks to noble Lords for their contributions. National Highways already works alongside local authorities and has had to consider actions to improve air quality to address exceedances of NO₂ national statutory concentration limits on the strategic road network. This instrument clarifies its role in working with local authorities where there are exceedances of air quality objectives locally, which will create a more consistent framework across local authorities. This instrument will make a difference to how local authorities can contribute to improving local air quality in their areas and I commend it to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Water Framework Directive

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw attention to my interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I too refer noble Lords to my entry in the register. This Government are committed to protecting and enhancing water quality. Reform of retained EU law will not come at the expense of our already high environmental standards. Our Environment Act has strengthened regulation since we left the EU. We have consulted on legally binding targets for the water environment, covering pollution from wastewater, agriculture, abandoned metal mines and reducing water demand. We are also the first Government to instruct water companies to significantly reduce storm overflows.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, while I welcome that Answer, of course storm overflows are one of the later pieces that will come into effect. We are in danger of creating a perfect storm: building 300,000 houses a year with nowhere for the wastewater and sewage to be safely disposed of. Does my noble friend agree that the European water framework directive, the drinking water directive, the bathing water directive and others played a great part in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher in ensuring the improvement of water quality in this country? Will he set out what the Government’s plans are, under retained EU legislation, to ensure that we maintain the highest environmental standards we possibly can, and that there will be no going backwards?

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can absolutely give my noble friend that assurance. The water framework directive is the retained measure of our performance in terms of water quality, but the vehicle that will deliver it will be the environment improvement plan, which is due to be published in January. It sets out the steps the Government intend to take to improve the natural environment. She will know that the Office for Environmental Protection is the UK’s independent statutory environment body, which will hold Governments and public authorities to account in their implementation of environmental law. The OEP has powers to scrutinise, advise, and enforce compliance, including the ability to bring legal proceedings against public authorities.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am so angry. The Minister knows full well that the water framework directive was a very precise, scientifically based measurement of ecological well-being that the Government quietly dropped in 2017. They have replaced that with this talk of “natural state” for 75% of rivers. What does “natural state” mean in scientific terms? I would argue that it is incredibly woolly and totally meaningless and that this Government do not have a suitable plan.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Well, I live to make sure that the noble Baroness is not angry and is reassured that this Government are absolutely determined to have the highest science-based evidence to support the targets that we will impose on ourselves and future Governments in this area. The Environment Act really is a very powerful piece of legislation and the structures it has created will do precisely that. Good environmental status has not been achieved in any country in Europe. We, along with other countries in Europe, are failing to meet the demands of the water framework directive. We are now able to produce standards bespoke to the United Kingdom that will be scientifically based and will be able to be scrutinised by your Lordships, by people in the other place, by civil society and by individuals, and implemented, if Governments fail, through the Office for Environmental Protection.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, Ministers have discussions—as the Minister has told us—with the Environment Agency and with Ofwat, company executives, farmers, and community representatives, but these happen at different frequencies and the various players do not necessarily all talk to each other. The Minister may not be able to solve the problems relating to water quality single-handedly. Does he recognise the power that he and departmental colleagues have to bring people together on this? Is he doing that, and is he formulating a comprehensive national plan that will command broad support?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Within the constraints of the fact that this is a devolved issue, we are certainly doing that in England. I hope that I have got across to noble Lords, in responses on 7 September, 25 October, 31 October, 2 November and 14 November, my and my department’s determination and commitment to make this work. We are precisely bringing these different organisations together. Interestingly, the reason why rivers fail is, first, because of physical modification—water is impounded, there may be weirs that have to be taken away—secondly, because of pollution from agricultural and rural land, and, thirdly, because of pollution from wastewater. There are also many other reasons. We have to work across society to make sure that this is co-ordinated, that the targets we will announce in January will be effective and that the Government can be held to account on them.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister refers to the power of the Office for Environmental Protection. This week, the OEP said that the retained EU law Bill should include a provision that no legislation should be revoked without an equivalent or enhanced level of protection. Do the Government agree?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Three weeks ago, I asked my noble friend what was happening to change building regulations to reduce the volume of water needing disposal, which would thus be an advantage with things such as storm overflows. My noble friend told me that there were discussions going on, but I realise that this is a cross-cutting matter between departments, and that always makes me nervous. I wonder whether my noble friend would write to me, and put a copy in the Library, about exactly what discussions are going on and what plans there are to change building regulations to reduce the capacity of water, and with some sort of timetable that is being given to developers to make sure that it is complied with.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

This comes down to the thorny issue of nutrient neutrality. The problem that we have in this country is that most of our houses have mixed clean water and dirty water going into the same sewer. This is what is causing the problems in the sewage overflows. We have a new legal duty on water companies in England to upgrade wastewater treatment works. A new nutrient mitigation scheme established by Natural England is helping wildlife and boosting access to nature. But the cost to retrofit a separated system would be somewhere around £345 billion to £600 billion, which would be quite a considerable hit on individual households. But there has to be a plan to resolve nutrient neutrality, or the backlog of houses that are needed by people will not be able to be built—so I will certainly write to my noble friend.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, with blue algae sightings in the Lake District from farmland nutrient runoff and overflowing septic tanks, and with Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite, Ullswater, Loweswater and a number of reservoirs under threat—and Windermere actually dying—why cannot responsibility for water quality and pollution be removed from an overstretched Environment Agency and transferred to a new water pollution control authority with lay membership, similar to the regional flood and coastal committee structures that currently cover flooding issues? It is food for thought.

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is indeed. We are constantly looking at the whole landscape of how we deliver government through our agencies. Maybe there is room for changing certain parts of what we do in the wider Defra family. Windermere is a really interesting case: the Environment Agency monitors occurrences of algal blooms. We think that the largest reason for that is private sewage treatment, such as septic tanks and missed connections. There is of course an ongoing issue on a great many waterways where we have to look at it in the round. People like to find one villain when in fact there are many people at fault, sometimes ourselves. There will be people in this Chamber who have a badly connected or defunct system of sewage treatment which will be polluting a waterway. I might be one of them.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Brexit campaign promised us that leaving the EU would lead to a bonfire of regulations and massive deregulation, getting rid of unnecessary red tape. Does the Minister’s answer to my noble friend Lady Parminter mean that Defra has no intention of following through that promise any longer, but intends to maintain at least as high a level of regulation as the EU provided?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, I absolutely say that, because we have commitments in the 25-year environment plan and the Environment Act and we have commitments to reverse the decline of species by 2030. We will not be able to achieve those commitments by just getting rid of regulations. What we want is better ones. We want ones that are not designed for an environment that goes from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. We want ones that are suitable for these islands. That is what we are seeking to do. We want at least the same levels of protection. We think that in many cases they can be better for both the user and the environment.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Lord Benyon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to open the Second Reading of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. I declare my interests as a farmer.

Science, research and development are at the heart of igniting the United Kingdom’s economic recovery, boosting productivity, creating new jobs and improving people’s quality of life. The United Kingdom is a world leader in genetics and genomics. With this Bill, we are supporting scientists to harness the huge potential locked within the DNA of plants and animals and will make sure that plants and animals developed using precision breeding are regulated proportionately to risk. We will also introduce a new science-based authorisation process for the food and feed produced from them and ensure that appropriate safeguards are put in place to regulate precision-bred organisms.

I am proud to present the exciting and vital opportunity that the Bill offers farming and the environment. It will give farmers options for greener, more resilient and more productive farming in the face of climate change and global challenges to world markets. Precision breeding has the potential to develop plants and animals that are more resilient to weather and resistant to disease and less reliant on chemicals such as pesticides and antibiotics.

This year we have seen England endure one of the hottest summers on record, leading to drought declarations in many parts of the country. Farmers have faced lower yields, higher fertiliser costs and challenging conditions for animal welfare. We do not have time to hesitate when it comes to ensuring that the right varieties and breeds are available to farmers to help them face volatile markets and a changing climate.

I will give noble Lords an example of how the Bill could help increase food production from a crop on which 2.5 billion people are dependent. At the John Innes Centre in Norwich, leading researchers have used precision-breeding techniques to identify a key gene in wheat that can improve traits such as heat resilience while maintaining high yield. This development could help address issues of rising temperatures not only at home but abroad.

The genetic technology Bill will create a new proportionate regulatory environment that will encourage innovation to help us adapt to the impacts of climate change. Many would say that this is long overdue. It is not an overstatement to say that precision-breeding technologies such as gene editing have the potential to revolutionise farming. Science has moved on from where we were 30 years ago, and this should be reflected in our legislation so that we can harness the benefits of these technologies.

I know that some noble Lords may have concerns regarding the safety of precision breeding. On that front, I hope to provide reassurance. For thousands of years, we have been breeding crops and animals to domesticate them and select desirable characteristics. Using the potential of animal and plant DNA in breeding programmes has resulted in safe and trusted products. Precision breeding is the latest in this line of breeding techniques which utilise this same resource. Under the Bill, an organism will be considered precision-bred only if it could have occurred through traditional or natural processes. Therefore, precision breeding allows us to introduce beneficial characteristics that could have occurred through traditional breeding, but much more precisely and efficiently.

In putting forward the Bill, we are choosing to follow the science. The scientific advice from independent scientific experts and our expert Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, or ACRE as I shall refer to it, is that organisms produced through precision-breeding technologies pose no greater threat to the environment and health than their traditionally bred counterparts.

The Bill sets out four key policy objectives which would enable the proportionate and science-based regulation of precision-bred organisms, while still making provision for appropriate safeguards for precision-bred plants, animals and the food and feed derived from them. The first objective is to remove plants and animals produced through precision breeding from the regulatory requirements governing the environmental release and marketing of genetically modified organisms, also known as GMOs. The key difference between precision breeding and genetic modification is that genetic modification produces organisms containing genes from a sexually incompatible species that could not occur naturally or by traditional breeding. The current GMO legislation will continue to govern these organisms.

Secondly, the Bill will introduce two notification systems: one for precision-bred plants and animals used in research trials, and a second for the marketing of precision-bred plants and animals. The information collected from these notification systems will be available on a public register on GOV.UK, which I hope will give noble Lords confidence in the transparency that the Bill provides.

The third objective will be to establish a proportionate regulatory system for the marketing of precision-bred animals to ensure that animal welfare is safeguarded. I understand that some of your Lordships may have some concerns regarding the inclusion of animals in the Bill. The Government are committed to maintaining our already high standards in animal welfare. That is why we are planning to take a step-by-step approach, facilitating the commercial use of precision-breeding technologies in relation to plants first, followed by animals later. We will work closely with industry, animal welfare NGOs, scientific advisers and other stakeholders to design the next steps.

To ensure that animal health and welfare are safeguarded, under the Bill anyone wishing to place a precision-bred vertebrate animal on the market will have to submit an animal welfare declaration, which will be assessed by an animal welfare advisory body. These measures are designed to safeguard animal welfare and ensure that the health and welfare of relevant animals will not be adversely affected by any trait that results from precision breeding.

I hope noble Lords are reassured that the measures in the Bill will not only safeguard animal welfare standards but have the potential to improve them. For instance, in research by Imperial College London, the Pirbright Institute and the Roslin Institute, we have seen the potential to use gene editing to produce chickens that are resistant to avian influenza—a disease that noble Lords will know is currently having a devastating effect on wild birds and poultry farming in this country.

The final policy objective will be to enable the establishment of a new science-based pre-market authorisation process for food and feed products developed using precision-bred organisms. The Food Standards Agency will design a new framework that is more proportionate to the risk profile of precision-bred food and feed products. This authorisation process will build on five key principles: safety, transparency, proportionality, traceability and building consumer confidence.

The Bill has the potential not only to unlock benefits for the economy, as the size of the global market for technologies such as gene editing is predicted to rise to over £7 billion by 2026, but to unlock benefits for farming and to address the impacts of climate change and to reduce food waste. Tropic Biosciences is an example of the innovative, smaller bioscience research companies that the Bill will benefit. It has recently developed a non-browning banana using precision-breeding techniques. Given the fruit’s high perishability, this innovation has the potential to reduce waste, which helps both the environment and consumers. It is exciting to think that the Bill will support investment in both Britain’s leading research institutions and SMEs such as Tropic. As we move to align with our international partners and harness the benefits of these technologies, we are enabling the development of foods enjoyed at home and abroad.

I am looking forward to what I am sure will be an enlightening debate. I beg that the Bill be read a second time.

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[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their insightful and engaging contributions to today’s debate. It undoubtedly shows this House at its best when it draws together scientists, former Ministers, farmers, leaders of the veterinary profession and many other insightful contributions on this very important legislation.

I broke a self-denying ordinance in my opening remarks when I said that we were going to follow the science. I always promised myself that I would never use those terms again, because after many years in the department in which I now serve, I have been given conflicting scientific advice on so many issues. Others who have been Ministers there will know that, if you are a layman, as I am, you can sometimes find scientific advice prayed in aid by polar opposites. I find a much more united scientific body of opinion in support of this legislation than on anything else I have done, which is why I broke my self-denying ordinance.

Others have spoken of scars on their backs. I really appreciate the insight given by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others into how the arguments on this issue were in some ways traduced—that is perhaps not too strong a word—by others to create the impossibility of having rational debate. What we are trying to do here is bring this down to a proportionate measure, grasp the benefits of this technology and regulate out the disadvantages and malign effects. If we just concentrate on this and are too cautious, we will lose all the precious advantages that noble Lords have spoken about today with such eloquence.

It is clear to me that the exciting potential of precision breeding will of course ignite passions about how we should grow, buy and eat food, as well as about how we should care for our crops, the animals on our farms, biodiversity and the planet. This Bill complements the great work that Defra has been doing in these areas. I assure noble Lords that I know that precision breeding is not a silver bullet—the very words used by some—but it will be another tool in our toolkit as we adapt to climate change and a turbulent global environment.

Jonathan Swift seems to have come in for quotation, so I will give noble Lords another quote. He said:

“Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.”


With this legislation, we are trying to use proper words in proper places. I am happy to debate this tonight—and, of course, in Committee and at other stages of the Bill—to make sure that we are getting that right. I understand that views may differ on some of the finer details of this legislation, but I will take this opportunity to reassure noble Lords on some of the concerns raised in this debate.

I start by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Roborough for his excellent maiden speech. He brings to this House wide experience: that nexus of an understanding of agriculture, finance and natural capital can be incredibly powerful in our deliberations. What he said about climate change, echoing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and others, reminded me of an incredibly moving conversation that I had at COP with a Minister from the Maldives. She was talking about the salination of the atolls that make up that low-lying country. The point has been made about trying to create opportunities in countries where, for example, salination is becoming a problem, such as by making species of crops that can be resistant to that, thus giving us an opportunity to help some of the most vulnerable people in this world.

People like me sit at the foothills of understanding of this issue when people such as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, speak. That was brought home to me in an analogy from the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, which I, as a layman, found really helpful. What we are talking about here is a paragraph in a book. We are taking out one or two words from that paragraph and replacing them with other words from the same book. That is totally different from what we were being accused of 20 years ago: taking out the entire paragraph and putting in a paragraph from another book. I know that that probably does not stack up when it comes to exact scientific examples—the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is shaking his head, which makes me think that I got that one wrong—but the point is that we need to explain this and communicate it to a wider group of people; the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is absolutely right to try to do that. I will come later to some of the other points that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, made.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, made an incredibly powerful speech. He referred to Jane Langdale; I am going to see her when I visit her laboratory to really immerse myself in the details of this. I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that point, and the point about the consumer benefits that will undoubtedly flow from this.

My noble friend Lord Jopling gave an interesting historical perspective on this. He referred to a number of issues where there can be enormous benefits; I will come on to the animal welfare possibilities. His point about the nitrogen-fixing nodules on wheat—indeed, many of things he talked about—may not be within the exact confines of this legislation, but undoubtedly he spoke about there being great possibilities with the technology within the confines of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wants me to delay the Bill. I hope that she listens to the scientists she works with at Rothamsted; as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, they are in favour of this Bill. We can kick this can down the road if we so wish, but we will miss out on an opportunity about which many noble Lords spoke so eloquently. However, like other noble Lords, the noble Baroness was absolutely right to point out that this should not be a substitute for bad husbandry. We should not create a pathway towards types of farming activity that we are moving away from. We have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world; that is something that we should be proud of and where we should continue to push boundaries. I will come on to talk about that in a minute.

Many noble Lords spoke on issues which I will come to in a moment, but in response to the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, regarding allergens: no, that will not be the case. The Food Standards Agency has a very clear remit and success in protecting people from allergens. All the transparency issues relating to labelling which people may be concerned about will exist and the current food safety legislation will still apply regarding the chance of an allergen finding its way into a foodstuff. What I do agree with the noble Baroness about is an ecosystems approach to food production. This was echoed by my noble friend Lord Caithness. Britain has signed up to, and will be consistent with, the Cartagena protocol, which she may not be aware of. It underlies what we are talking about.

My noble friend Lord Lilley apologises for no longer being here. He spoke about the precautionary principle. I am fully signed up to this being front and centre in the Environment Act and many other areas. I am sad enough a person to have read the EU guidance on its use and implementation. Sometimes I must remind parts of Defra and its agencies what the precautionary principle is and what it is not. He is right to point it out. The analogy of the chicken was well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.

A number of noble Lords talked about polling and public opinion on this. Of course, it depends on the question that you ask. If you ask people a question in a way that makes them feel unsafe, they will give you a negative answer, but if you ask it in a positive way, perhaps reflecting some of the exciting possibilities in terms of vulnerable people around the world, Britain’s ability to grasp this technology and be a world leader, and all the other things, you get a different answer. I have been a politician long enough to respect that perceptions are reality in the game that we live within. We perhaps need to do more to get the message across.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, the midwife of the Bill, and his appeal for the urgency of it. That is why kicking the can down the road is not an option. There is a requirement to tackle this now. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is a former Minister for whom I have great respect. I will talk about virus yellows in sugar beet as a possibility for this technology. Often, we have fearsome debates in this Chamber about derogations for the use of neonicotinoids on sugar beet. So far, we have not had to use them, but if we can breed out virus yellows and continue to produce sugar in this country, that is good for so many different reasons.

The noble Lord, Lord Winston, was one of several noble Lords to raise the concern about the use of the words “precision breeding”. As the changes that we are considering are similar to natural breeding, it is not misleading to use “breeding” within the definition of a qualifying plant or animal. Meanwhile, “precision” reflects the specific, targeted nature of changes which can be introduced by such technologies and which we are considering in the Bill. By not naming the products of such techniques after the technology used to produce them, we futureproof the Bill against developments in this area. For example, genome editing is currently the most popular technology that breeders are using to make the kinds of changes that we are considering in the Bill. However, this may change, so naming qualifying plants and animals “gene-edited organisms” or similar would not be appropriate.

Whether this is a move to GMO by stealth has also been raised. Precision breeding is different from genetic modification, where modern techniques are used to insert genes from one unrelated species to another, for a desired trait or beneficial outcome. Precision-bred plants and animals will have only genetic changes that could occur through traditional breeding.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting at this late stage of the debate, which has been really thoughtful and helpful.

The Minister might want to consider the difference between DNA that is naturally produced and is what the Bill is talking about and DNA that is produced in a gene sequencer, completely chemically. An issue here is that there is not really any difference at all. We must consider that very carefully.

Do not forget, too, in spite of your spelling, that if three base pairs are missing, for example, you end up with cystic fibrosis, which is a killer. One base pair will do with many diseases, so there is a real problem with these definitions. I hope the Minister will forgive me for interrupting; I do not expect an answer, but it is something we will need to consider during the next stage of the Bill.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not going to debate with the noble Lord, because he knows much more about this than me, and I know that I would sound even weaker if I just read out a line that has been written. But I value his contribution and I hope to tease out some of these matters as we go through the remaining stages of the Bill.

In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs—I hope I have got this right—in some cases, transgenic organisms will be used as an intermediate step in the development of precision-bred organisms. However, for the end product to be classed as a precision-bred organism, genomic features that could not have occurred naturally or resulted from traditional breeding must be removed from these organisms. For example, this would include removing CRISPR-Cas9 genes from gene-edited organisms.

DNA fragments from sexually incompatible species are naturally present in many organisms. This is in line with what could occur naturally—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is on board on this. Therefore, we are allowing for foreign DNA to be present in precision-bred organisms only so long as this DNA does not serve any function and is within the range achievable through natural processes.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, also asked why companion animals are in the Bill, and a number of other noble Lords referred to this. Independent scientific experts advise that precision-bred organisms pose no greater risk to the environment or health than traditionally bred organisms. This applies to companion animals, as well as farmed animals. We are aware of precision breeding research that is already taking place on animals that could lead to positive welfare outcomes, such as increased disease resistance. Although there is less research taking place on companion animals, there is early research on the use of precision breeding—for example, in improving hip dysplasia in dogs. We do not want to restrict the potential benefits that can be achieved to improve the health and welfare of these species. That is why they are included in this Bill. I would say that that is not a priority, but it is definitely important that we future-proof the Bill.

We are not aware of the specific project to which my noble friend Lord Jopling referred and I would be interested to hear about it. A project that may be relevant was recently authorised by the Secretary of State for a field trial of GM and gene-edited barley. This is related to the concept about which my noble friend spoke. It is being undertaken by the Cambridge Crop Science Centre and is investigating the potential to increase yields by altering the interaction between the plant’s roots and the soil micro-organisms with which they are associated. We are not aware that any research group has yet succeeded in developing wheat plants in the laboratory that can fix nitrogen like legumes can.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Trees, that disease is a welfare issue. I cannot put it better than he did. The Government are committed to maintaining our already high standards in animal welfare, and we want to improve and build on that record. I assure noble Lords that this Bill will not lower the standards set by current legislation. He refers to zoonotic diseases and there is a human health element to this. This Government are very much signed up to the “one health” concept, so there is a wider benefit from this.

I will address the questions about why we are including provisions for animals in this Bill. Precision-breeding technologies such as gene editing have the potential to improve the health and welfare of animals, and improve the sustainability and resilience of farming systems. Such technologies can enable new traits to be developed more precisely and more efficiently than traditional breeding. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, made a really interesting point about genetic diversity. I cannot remember what percentage it is, but many of our dairy cows are descended from a very small number of bulls. It could be that in the future, because of recent trends, something occurs that endangers the health of many of them—I am not saying the whole dairy herd—because of their genetic uniformity. We want to be able to correct circumstances such as those as quickly as possible, and this legislation should allow us to de-risk that situation.

Research in farmed animals is already leading to the development of animals that have increased resistance against some devastating diseases. A number of noble Lords have spoken about the great organisations we have in this country: for example, the Roslin Institute and others such as Genus have developed gene-edited pigs with resistance to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS. It is a disease that causes mortality and major welfare issues in pig populations globally. This has been referred to by a number of noble Lords.

Whilst there is great potential for increasing innovation, we recognise that there is a need to safeguard animal welfare in the new regulatory framework. That is why, as I have already said, we are taking a step-by-step approach, facilitating use of precision-breeding technologies in relation to plants first followed by animals later. The measures in the Bill are designed to ensure that the health and welfare of relevant animals will not be adversely affected by any trait that results from precision breeding. To provide some further reassurance, I would also like to take this opportunity to expand on what the system for protecting animal welfare will look like. I am mindful of the time, but I will be as brief as I can.

Before marketing a precision-bred vertebrate animal, developers will need to provide assurances to confirm that the health and welfare of the animal will not be adversely affected by any trait resulting from precision breeding. This will be in the form of an animal welfare declaration and accompanying evidence. The Secretary of State will need to be satisfied with the declaration before issuing a precision-bred animal marketing authorisation, after which point a precision-bred animal can be marketed. This process will also involve an independent scientific assessment of the declaration by a welfare advisory body. We have also commissioned a research project to help us design the animal welfare declaration process and will work closely with a wide range of stakeholders as this work progresses.

I hope my words, the ongoing research project and engagement on these issues will provide noble Lords with some assurance that we fully acknowledge the importance of animal welfare, and we will continue to protect the high standards that we are proud to uphold.

I turn to labelling and the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and others. The Bill will provide the Food Standards Agency with the ability, through regulations to be made by the Secretary of State, to introduce a new proportionate and science-based food and feed authorisation process. This will include a pre-market risk assessment for food and feed products developed using precision-bred organisms. The FSA’s role is not being diminished but enhanced—we could not be doing this without it—and it has produced some really interesting work in support of what we are doing.

I will address the points on traceability made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and others. To ensure transparency, there will also be a public register of authorised precision-bred organisms for food and feed uses. This will provide consumers, industry and enforcement authorities with information on the precision-bred organism authorisation date, product, developer, characteristics, and food or feed uses. This will give clarity on food business operators involved in the supply of precision-bred organism food and feed products and enable traceability back to source.

A number of noble Lords have raised concerns about the delegated powers. Let me assure them that this is not a skeleton Bill. The powers supplement the principal policy measures which are set out on the face of the Bill and are quite specific and technical in how they are intended to be used. Your Lordships will know that delegated powers serve a valuable purpose, and it is always important to assess them in context. Simply counting up the number of powers in a given Bill is not necessarily meaningful. There are Henry VIII powers, which I know that your Lordships are quite rightly keen to scrutinise. They exist in Clause1(8), Clause 10(2) and Clause 42(1). I am sure that we will discuss those if noble Lords give this Bill the boost that it needs to get into Committee. I will hopefully be able to satisfy your Lordships about the need for them and the proportionality with which they have been put in the Bill.

I am coming to the end of my remarks, but I must address the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, about trade. They quite rightly want to ensure that trade will not be negatively affected by this Bill. The international regulatory regime for precision-bred products is rapidly evolving. Many countries, as has already been said, have already amended their equivalent regulations, including the United States, Canada, Japan, and Argentina. Our proposed approach would help facilitate greater trade with those countries that have already adopted a similar approach to the regulation of precision-bred organisms.

With regard to the EU, this summer it conducted a consultation on legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques, which is the term it uses for techniques such as gene editing. Some 80% of the respondents agreed that the existing GMO legislation was not adequate for plants, and more than 65% mentioned negative consequences if the regulations were not amended. These consequences included the loss of tools to tackle climate change, to develop more resilient crop varieties and to reduce the use of phytosanitary products. In response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Lansley, we will continue to monitor the position of the EU on precision-bred products and on UK/EU trade implications for products developed using precision breeding.

As things stand, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is absolutely right. If we pass this Bill, some material produced through precision breeding and sold into Europe would be treated as a GMO there, but they are moving fast and we want to make sure that we are too. The global market value for gene editing is estimated at £2.7 billion in 2020 and expected to rise to more than £7 billion by 2026. I therefore ask noble Lords to consider the impacts and missed opportunity that would be caused by not supporting this important transition and the scientific basis for it.

Concerns have been raised about the impact assessment. I reassure noble Lords that this red rating is not a reflection on the quality or the ambition of the Bill. The Government are committed to proportionate, science-based regulations and have carefully considered all views and evidence in establishing our approach. The main criticism of the RPC is that the description of the policy differed between the initial review notice and the final submission. It felt that the impact assessment had not adequately accounted for the potential impacts arising from this policy change.

We are clear that at no point has the policy changed. The final submission had small changes in terminology such as changing the title of the Bill from “gene editing” to “precision breeding”. In our engagement and evidence-gathering, researchers and developers were made aware of the policy intention, and that the name had not been finalised, and so our expectation is that the change of the name to precision breeding will be of no impact on researchers or developers.

In response to the RPC’s comments, work is under way to gather further evidence from stakeholders and additional consumer insight data to provide more detail on the impacts to businesses and to bolster the cost-benefit analysis. We are also seeking to provide information to give more clarity on the policy intention, the Bill’s objectives and the options appraisal. Defra is working closely with the RPC and will submit an enactment impact assessment which will address its comments, and this will reflect any amendments made to the Bill as it progresses through Parliament.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about pausing the Bill, the policy has not changed. His Majesty’s Government are absolutely committed to supporting proportionate, science-based regulation. Our engagement and evidence-gathering will, I hope, address her concerns.

We recognise that the devolved Administrations’ positions regarding this legislation differ. My department has had very good conversations with a number of people. I have meetings next week with the devolved Administration in Wales and we will be talking to the Scottish Government as well. The noble Earl, Lord Stair, raised the point that this is a devolved issue. The Scottish Government have declined to join the Bill but the Welsh Government remain open to discussions via the common frameworks. We also engage with leading research organisations: with the Roslin Institute and the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, and with Aberystwyth University and Bangor University in Wales. These are world-leading organisations and they are calling for this kind of legislation. The electoral dynamic will, of course, differ in different parts of these islands and we want to make sure that we are talking to and working with the devolved Governments, and that we come to the right conclusions. I hope that we can persuade them to come along with us.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, talked about the IP implications and whether precision-bred crops and organisms can be patented. The patent system exists to encourage inventions by offering time-limited exclusive rights in exchange for making the invention public, allowing others to further develop it. I am preaching to the choir; he is, of course, an expert on this. Patent rights are available in the UK in the area of gene editing, including plants and animals modified by such techniques. A number of patent applications have been filed and patents granted that relate to the genome-editing tool CRISPR.

The noble Earl and others also raised issues relating to the World Trade Organization. In 2018, a joint statement issued to the World Trade Organization signed by 13 countries stated that Governments should

“avoid arbitrary and unjustifiable distinctions”

between those crops developed through precision breeding and those developed through conventional breeding. The signatories included Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and the USA. We are moving in that direction.

I have not had time to answer everyone’s points, even though I have been rather lengthy in my reply. It is important that we have open conversations. This has been an incredibly fascinating debate. I am encouraged by the level of support for the Bill. I hope we can progress it through the House. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Grand Committee.

Avian Flu

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, international collaboration and knowledge exchange is facilitated through the World Organisation for Animal Health by the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s international reference laboratory. The UK’s membership of the Ospar-Helcom-ICES joint working group on birds and the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement are also key forums for improving collaboration, monitoring and information sharing on avian influenza in migratory birds. Defra has commissioned Natural England to assess the vulnerability of seabird species and recommend actions.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

I thank the Minister very much for his reply and for putting in place a wild bird avian influenza strategy to assess the impact of this desperately damaging disease. In view of the fact that the United Kingdom and European nations are in the grip of the worst ever outbreak of bird flu, will he now consider widening and strengthening the Government’s current measures to create a fully comprehensive avian flu response action plan, working in co-operation with the devolved Governments? This plan could include improved seabird site protection measures and the encouragement of research and development on more effective vaccines for domestic birds.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of an international response to this. I assure him that there is almost daily collaboration across the devolved Governments and through international fora such as the ones I just mentioned. We are also consulting our European colleagues in the European Food Safety Authority closely; we have two officials on the panel working on this. This requires an international response. The impact it is having on our wild bird population and on domestic birds in poultry farming and other settings is tragic. We are working really hard, with a sense of real emergency, to try to find solutions, but it is a very difficult one to solve as it is now endemic in the wild bird population.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, as we have heard, avian flu is causing devastating disease in wild birds but also in our domestic fowl population. Is the Minister aware of recent research using gene-edited chicken cells in culture, which has created cells that can resist avian influenza? Does he agree that gene editing offers great hope that in future we can control the disease, at least in domesticated birds?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do agree. On Monday we will debate the Second Reading of the precision breeding Bill. It will take a number of years for the measures in that Bill to become effective, but it will undoubtedly have an impact on this kind of disease, to which we will be able to improve resistance in plant and animal species.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, some strains of avian flu are transmissible to humans. Some are very mild but others are more aggressive. Of 868 cases of human infection recorded between 2003 and October 2022, more than half—456—resulted in death. The traditional flu season is approaching. Those with flu-like symptoms tend to self-isolate and not visit the GP. How will the Government accurately assess the level of avian flu among humans in the UK and record the number of resulting deaths?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The medical advice we have received is that although this is a zoonosis and can therefore be transferred from birds to humans, the risk is low. There was one case in the UK last year, in an elderly gentleman who recovered. We give clear guidance on how to work with birds, whether in a domestic fowl setting or in picking up carcasses of birds that have died of avian influenza. There is very clear guidance on this and members of the public should be wary of getting into close association with sick birds.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, have the Government estimated, with stakeholders in the poultry business, of how long supermarket rationing will last? Is it a case of weeks or months?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There have been a number of reports of difficulties of supply. I can say that my fingers and toes are crossed when it comes to turkeys for Christmas. On egg supply, about which there has been a bit of publicity today, I can tell the House that there has been a 4.11% decrease in production, not entirely due to avian influenza. It is worth reporting that we have 38 million laying hens in this country, around 812,000 of which have died or been culled since the beginning of October. That is a 2.1% reduction in the population, with a 4.11% effect on egg production. We think that is okay. There is no need to dash to the supermarket to get eggs. We believe that the supply is safe but we are monitoring the situation on the daily basis.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that these diseases are likely to increase because of the effect of climate change? I declare my interest as chairman of the Climate Change Committee. Is he really sure that his department has adequate resources and adequate people working not just on avian flu but on the other pests and diseases that we are likely to have to face?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I invite my noble friend to join me in my monthly security meeting, which draws together people from across Defra and its agencies, looking at the risks coming from near and far. That can be quite a sobering experience. He is absolutely right that a combination of climate change and the globalised movement of people is bringing greater risks to our shores. I am full of admiration for the work that is done, and I assure him that an enormous amount of horizon-scanning goes on in trying to see where the next risk is coming from and what we can do to mitigate it.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, breeding seabirds have been badly hit, particularly great skuas. Last winter on the Solway Firth, the disease killed over 16,000 barnacle geese. Seabirds are long-lived so they take longer to reach breeding age and have fewer chicks. They are already under massive pressure from climate change, a lack of prey fish and deaths from entanglement in fishing gear. What surveillance and testing systems exist for seabirds? Earlier the Minister mentioned dead birds and public health. What guidance is there on carcass removal and disposal for wild birds? What are the Government doing to prioritise and fund seabird conservation?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that this is a tragedy for populations of particular seabirds. Bass Rock, just south of Edinburgh, has been white for centuries but is now black; that is a visual reminder of the impact the disease is having.

I assure her that we are working hard. Information is available on the GOV.UK website about what people should do if they find a bird or are concerned about one. We are calling in the best advice. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has been commissioned to set up an advisory recovery group on monitoring data and evidence on whether existing conservation interventions are working and new conservation interventions that may help.

As I said, we are working internationally through the European Food Safety Authority. Our chief vet is in regular contact with colleagues in Ireland and elsewhere, including of course in the devolved Governments. We have a clear strategy, which is available for people to see, to resolve the issue.

Dealing with the disease in poultry settings is vital but it is harder to deal with among wild birds. Still, we have a clear strategy to try to mitigate it. Some possible good news is that there is evidence that some birds are developing degrees of resistance to avian flu, but it is too early to say why that is or quite what the effect will be.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, early in this outbreak there were gaps in the collection of wild birds’ carcasses, between local authorities, landowners and Defra. Is the Minister now convinced that those gaps have been filled and that lessons have been learned for inevitable future outbreaks of avian flu?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I cannot tell the noble Lord that there will never be any problems. I can report that yesterday, for example, there was a park in a town where the council said that it was not its job to pick up carcasses, it was the Environment Agency’s—which said that it was someone else’s job. These things happen. We are trying to be as clear as we can with the guidance. There should be no silo thinking here. We need these matters resolved as quickly as possible. I can assure the noble Lord that if he has any reports of where there are difficulties, I will take it up and we will try to iron them out, but there are clear processes. This is an emergency that we are dealing with on a national scale.

Sewage Discharges

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the delay in water companies producing plans for dealing with sewage discharges.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, in August the Government published the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to tackle the unacceptable use of storm overflows. The plan will see £56 billion of capital investment over 25 years. We have allowed water companies slightly more time to develop their drainage and wastewater management plans to incorporate the new strict storm overflow targets. Water companies remain on track for developing their plans for the next price review period and for commencement on 1 April 2025.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

That is a bit odd, because the water companies have already had all the money they needed for infrastructure improvements but did not use it for that; they gave it in dividends to their shareholders. The Minister knows that I like to help the Government if they are floundering around, confused and out of ideas, so perhaps I may suggest to his department that it instructs Ofwat to ensure that no dividends are paid to shareholders or large bonuses to senior executives until further notice, until this problem is fixed and water companies stop pumping sewage into our chalk streams and rivers and on to our beaches.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware of the very strict new conditions set by Ofwat on water companies about how they reward their senior staff and shareholders, and of the absolute imperative, driven by the regulators and the Government, to reduce massively the effect of storm overflows. The letter that Ofwat wrote in October sets out quite clearly that:

“Company plans on storm overflows are lacking”;


there is “insufficient evidence” to support the positions that they have previously taken; and there is a “lack of ambition” and

“a lack of focus and maturity in partnership solutions.”

We are therefore giving them an extra two months, from March to May, to come up with better plans, and we will make sure that they are implemented on the original timescale as the next price review period starts.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall take a somewhat harder line than the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. When there are repeat offenders, we should not condone them but punish them. Surely the water company heads should be sent to jail, not have a gentle ticking off. Is it a lack of power on the part of Ofwat or a lack of willingness to do something about it? We cannot sit by as beautiful places like Lake Windermere are polluted beyond use.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware of some very extensive fines issued to water companies. A £90 million fine was imposed on Southern Water recently. There are 100,000 reports a year to the Environment Agency of allegedly illegal outflows. Those are investigated and action is taken. The Environment Agency has taken severe actions against them. Those fines cannot be dumped on the customer; they have to be paid for out of what would have gone in dividends or indeed in pay.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, although I thank the Minister for his answers and I am pleased that Ofwat appears to be becoming more active, does he share my frustration and that of many others in this House that there has been so little progress since the passing of the Environment Act last year in reducing storm overflows and various other sewage discharges into our rivers? This seems to continue despite the efforts of the Government. We must introduce a greater sense of urgency about this matter.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I assure the noble Duke that there is a great sense of urgency in my department. It is an obsession of Ministers; my wife tells me I talk sewage all the time, but I may have misunderstood the point she was making. There is an absolute determination to resolve this matter. We have to recognise that it is not just water companies. There are point source and diffuse pollution incidents caused by farming, individual households with poor connections, poorly maintained septic tanks and individuals pouring chemicals, paints, oils and greases down drains—which they should not do. It is a much more complex issue than just water company bashing. Ministers are prepared to give water companies a bashing where it is necessary and that is what we are doing, in incentives and enforcement. It is absolutely vital that policymakers are looking right across the piece when it comes to the quality of our waterways.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, this is not just causing devastation in our rivers—not least in our wonderful chalk streams in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in my diocese—it is also a public health issue. Noble Lords may have seen the story of Jayne Etherington, a 22 year-old who went swimming in Pembrokeshire, caught E. coli from sewage and landed up in hospital with serious damage to her organs. What does the NHS think about this as a health hazard which is affecting a significant number of people and stopping them getting exercise by swimming in the sea?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate’s question is very well linked to the point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. The urgency of these matters is reflected in the urgency with which we are intending to deal with them. I would hate any noble Lord to be of the view that some of the dates in legislation, such as the Environment Act and in other measures to control this, mean that we are going to continue to allow pollution in the belief that it is suddenly going to drop off a cliff at the end. We are tackling the most important public health areas, such as bathing waters, the chalk streams that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned and the most precious environments—some of which have overlaying international designations. It is right that we have public health to consider, but we also have the health of our natural environment. We are tackling the problems where they are worst and where we can make the most difference as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, talked about the lack of progress and frustration. The Minister talked about the storm overflow reduction plans, but they are not due to be completed until 2050. This is hardly “urgency”. Why do the Government seem happy to crack down more heavily on environmental protestors than they do on environmental polluters?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is usually much more devastating in her attacks than that. She knows that 2050 is a date by which we hope to see the problem completely resolved. We are going to move very fast on many of the areas where the problem is greatest. As for the idea that we are going to continue to leave this to future generations, that is not the case. The Environment Act is one of the most progressive pieces of environmental legislation anywhere. It has water quality at its heart. The drainage and wastewater management plans will be reviewed again in 2027 to see if our ambitions are being fulfilled. We can change them with government direction through the water regulators, the Environment Agency, Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate, to make sure that we are getting this problem sorted. It is not a question of making a decision between people gluing their fingers to a road and solving this. This is a problem we can solve now, and we are doing so.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend agree that water running off the roads into the combined sewers is contributing to sewage going into watercourses? Will he make sure that the highway authorities are held responsible for rainwater run-off?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend makes a good point. The recent outflow at St Agnes in Cornwall, which rightly had a lot of publicity, lasted for 10 minutes, and there may have been some sewage in it. After 12 hours of rain, the vast majority was probably soil run-off from farms and run-off from roads. We are bringing in measures to continue to improve farming policy and soil management, and we are putting a lot of resources into this. But she is absolutely right that highways authorities and others have responsibilities to make sure that we look at this holistically, not just in one particular sector.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, despite heavy fines, water companies carry on discharging sewage into our waterways. Communities affected by this practice are at their wits’ end. There is a danger to aquatic wildlife and children playing close to infected water. Fines do not appear to be a sufficient deterrent. I have heard the Minister’s reassurances, but surely the timeframe is far too long to solve this noxious problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I would like to know when the noble Baroness thinks we should precisely say we will end this. We have had a piece of research that says that we can resolve this in its entirety if clean water is divided from dirty water—but the water flowing off our roofs and driveways is going into sewers. If we do that, it would have an impact of £800 on the average bill, taking water bills from just over £400, or more than that, to about £1,230 a year. We have to think of people, particularly those who are nervous at a time of increasing household costs, and we have to get this right. It is easy to come here and say that Ministers should be doing more, faster. We are working really hard to resolve this problem, but we have to be mindful of people’s bills.

Avian Influenza

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to inform noble Lords about the very serious situation relating to avian influenza and all that we in Defra are doing, working with our colleagues in the devolved Governments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked why we did not impose the housing order sooner. We operate in line with the best advice we get. We Ministers are not experts; we operate on the advice of the chief vet and the Animal and Plant Health Agency, working with many other partners on this issue. We decided to impose the housing order for England. We talked to Scotland in the core group this morning; it decided not to impose a housing order because it believes that the protection zones can contain the outbreaks there. But we are proceeding with an England housing order on Monday, as the noble Baroness correctly pointed out.

The question of housing is important: it can improve the situation by a factor of about two. But good biosecurity can improve it by a factor of 44, which is why we are concentrating on biosecurity and working closely with the sectors to make sure that all keepers of poultry are adopting the best biosecurity they can, whether they are large industrial-scale poultry units or have small ornamental flocks. This also involves people accessing those units for whatever reason.

There is great concern about compensation. It was rightly pointed out that we are in consultation with the industry. Mark Spencer, the Farming Minister, and I had a meeting on Monday with all the representatives of the sector. That is in addition to the core group, which meets several times a week. We took forward their concerns, and one of the demands for the housing order came out of that meeting.

There is significant concern from the industry about the impact that rapid mortality caused by the current H5N1 strain—and the risk of escalating cases and numbers leading to substantial delays to culling—can have on the amount of compensation paid. In response to this, changes to the compensation scheme for avian influenza have been introduced, effective from 1 October. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, pointed out, compensation will be linked to decisions taken at the start, not the end, of planned culling. This will allow us to give earlier certainty about entitlement to compensation and better reflect the impact of outbreaks on premises, leading to swifter payments to help stem any cash-flow pressures.

The free-range issue is absolutely valid. Our current period for that is 16 weeks, and all matters are kept under regular review. I am happy to discuss this in more detail. Last winter, we developed a scheme which allowed eggs to be sold as “barn reared”. That was a simple process of putting a sticker over the “free range” sign, and it was accepted by the industry and by the consumer.

On turkeys for Christmas, around 10 million turkeys are eaten every year at Christmas. They are particularly susceptible to this disease, which is one reason why we brought in the frozen allowance, meaning that birds can be culled early, frozen and then defrosted. We are seeing an increasing number of turkeys falling prey to the disease. At the moment, we think that the situation for Christmas turkeys is there or thereabouts okay, but I would not like to predict that there would not be some impact if it carried on at the current rate. Around 1 million birds have been culled or have died. That cannot not have an effect on the supply chain. It is a resilient supply chain, and alternatives can come from elsewhere, but we want to make sure that people are eating healthy, British-reared turkeys.

The situation on vaccination is important. Currently, two commercial avian influenza vaccines are authorised by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate for use in the UK. These vaccines are unlikely to provide full protection from the strains of highly pathogenic influenza such as HPAI currently circulating in wild birds in Europe and the UK. Only zoos or collections in England holding a current zoo licence can apply for an authorisation to vaccinate. Currently available vaccines have disadvantages in that, although they may be able to reduce mortality, it is possible that some vaccinated birds would still be capable of transmitting the disease if they became infected while not displaying the symptoms. This would increase the time taken to detect and eradicate the virus.

On future-proofing, I refer noble Lords to the precision breeding Bill. This will not cause a rapid change to our ability to have stocks of poultry and waterfowl that are resistant, but it may over a number of years be the sort of thing we should do to make us more resilient to such outbreaks.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, was absolutely right to talk about the impact on biodiversity. The most apparent impact has been on shore birds and waterfowl. I was looking the other day at Bass Rock, south of Edinburgh, which for centuries has been white because it is a nesting area for gannets and other seabirds. It is not white this year; you can see the rock colour. That is a stark reminder of the horrendous impact that this disease has had on wild birds. We are measuring biodiversity. We have a wild bird avian influenza strategy, through which we work with the British Trust for Ornithology, the RSPB and a great many other organisations to try to assess the impact it is having on populations. We have an established way of counting wild birds in this country, and we are working with those organisations to make sure we know what the impacts are and where we can find particularly resilient strains, which might lead to future work.

The noble Baroness asked what the penalty was for not reporting. I shall have to write to her on that, but she is absolutely right that it is an offence not to report. There is an incentive. That is why the compensation regulations regarding all farm animals and disease are created in a way that incentivises people to report as early as possible. She was right also to point out the impact on vets; I am sure that we will be questioned on that shortly. We are using the vets we have available at the HPA. We are surging those numbers as best we can and recruiting as many people as we can, but perhaps we will come on to that later.

On the question of game shoots, we are again working on the best evidence. At the moment, it is not considered to be a reason for the spread of the disease—it does not add to the risk—but we are monitoring this, and we are absolutely confident that the prevalence of game in an area does not add to the risk of avian influenza in commercial flocks. That is one of the factors we are taking into the account; these matters are all under review.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will pursue with my noble friend the Minister the question of what is happening in Scotland. There is deep unease that Scotland is not following the same measures as England. Will he keep this under review and use his best offices in that regard? The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, referred to the impact of migratory birds. How can we prevent the spread of wildfowl entering the system in future years?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a devolved system of government, and the Scottish Government have this decision in their hands. They will be talking to the Scottish NFU, Scottish research establishments and other interests in Scotland while making their decision. As I said, we are consulting them on a regular basis. On my noble friend’s second point, migratory birds are the reason this disease came to this country. It is a tragedy that is very hard to control because migratory birds are coming from all over Europe and beyond, and we now have the problem that the disease is within our own wild bird population. Whereas in the past it started to flare up at this time of year and more or less ended towards the end of February, it is now established in the kinds of species that I described earlier. All we can do is monitor this and see whether we can find areas of change. This is a flu—an influenza like many others—and, after a while, these viruses diminish in their effect, and great abilities to withstand their impacts start to occur. We must hope that this happens quickly. We are all united in this House in wanting this country to fulfil its desire to see no net loss of biodiversity by 2030, although factors like this make it more difficult. Nevertheless, these species can be extremely resilient: if we can get over this, their numbers can start to recover. I assure noble Lords that we are monitoring this carefully.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, first of all, I empathise with our farmers who are losing their flocks. It is most distressing for them, on top of the economic challenges they are facing with rising feed and energy costs. Following on from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I ask the Minister: what support are the Government giving to the development of improved avian flu vaccines, which have deficiencies as he outlined, and to the development of tests that will differentiate vaccinated birds from naturally infected birds? With regard to trade, what discussions are we having internationally to encourage the adoption and acceptance of vacations? I will ask another question, so as not to disappoint the Minister: what steps are the Government taking to strengthen our veterinary workforce, particularly to facilitate the return of many EU vets to the UK to bolster our very hard-pressed veterinary workforce?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On the emergency measures, we are concentrating absolutely on biosecurity. We are trying to ensure that we get to farms as quickly as possible: they are visited within 24 hours in all but a very few cases, which allows an assessment to be made on which birds are dead and which of those can result in the farmer being compensated. The number of vets is constantly under review. We have a shortage of vets in the Animal and Plant Health Agency, but we have surged those numbers by using vets from the wider population to try to assist us. Vets are on the Home Office’s shortage occupation list, and therefore visas are available for them. However, the noble Lord will know that some EU vets are deterred from taking this route by the level 7 English language requirement to register as a vet in the UK. These matters are constantly under review with the Home Office. The noble Lord asked me specifically about vaccination. I made the point that we are concentrating on the emergency measures, but, looking forward, we will certainly want to see progress made on vaccination so that we can differentiate between vaccinated and non-vaccinated birds. That will alleviate the trade issue, which is the reason why we are not permitting vaccination at this stage.

[The Lord Bishop of Exeter]

My Lords, earlier this year, His Majesty’s Government announced the establishment of a new flu map research project, which aims to help us better understand the transmission and spread of avian flu. Along with many others, I welcome the £1.5 million in funding by the Government, but in the light of the severity of this current outbreak, have the Government undertaken an assessment of the need for additional and further funding for this project, mindful of the fact that prevention is better than cure?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. Further to that, the previous but one Prime Minister made a commitment at UNGA—the United Nations General Assembly—that Britain will be part of an international effort to tackle zoonotic disease. This is a zoonotic disease although the risk to human health is described by experts as very low. Ultimately, it is the sort of thing for our new zoonotic research capabilities, working with other countries. We must be mindful that we are far from alone in this business. It is a very serious situation right across Europe, the United States and elsewhere. It is in the interest of all countries that we develop a response which deals with this in the long term. I am talking mainly today about the short-term issues that we are tackling but he is absolutely right to raise the matter of the funding that we have put in and the other measures that we are doing, working with countries around the world to make sure we are tackling this and other zoonotic diseases.

[Earl Cathcart (Con)]

My Lords, I have 16,000 birds at my farm and the problem is the compensation. It is being paid only for birds that remain alive at the time of culling. We have heard of delays in culling because of vets et cetera so there could be very few birds still alive when the vet arrives. A producer had 10,000 birds and had lost all but 200 by the time the vets arrived so there was no compensation for him. Will the Minister consider compensation being paid at the date the producer notifies the vets and not at the time when the vets arrive? This applies to the rules for foot and mouth, so why not make it the same time?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I totally take my noble friend’s point. We are talking about taxpayers’ money here and are deeply sympathetic to farmers who have been hit by this but also have responsibility to make sure that compensation is fair. I am sure that my noble friend’s flock is very well protected and that the systems of management there ensure that the chances of infection are very low. But that is not the case everywhere. The taxpayer will be forking out millions of pounds where there have been biosecurity breaches. I have seen some photographs and have had evidence of lamentable biosecurity measures in place in some really quite large poultry establishments, and of course that has had an effect on the outbreak. We have narrowed the time from notification to someone arriving and have changed the way that the compensation is applied. It is never going to be perfect. The problem we have here is that this is so highly pathogenic. The time from the first visual example of a bird having the disease to large numbers dying is very short. We are getting out there within 24 hours in nearly every case. We continue to try to speed that up, but my noble friend’s experience in this matter is invaluable to the House.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I ask a question about the longer term. The Statement said that

“any future decisions on disease control measures, including the use of vaccination, will be based on the latest scientific, ornithological and veterinary advice.”

Is the Minister able to tell the House, especially in relation to the answer he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, from which scientific organisations the department is intending to get the advice that it is seeking, and does it include the Royal Society itself?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not know specifically, but I would be very surprised if it does not. Our chief scientific adviser, Professor Gideon Henderson, is a very renowned scientist; he ensures that we use the best and most rigorous scientific advice and that we use it properly. I am very happy to give the noble Viscount more details about how we are approaching the medium to longer-term solution in the areas that he raised. I can assure him that—while scientific advice does vary and, at certain points, it comes down to Ministers making a judgment call—the advice that I have seen on this has been pretty clear. We need to progress that, and I will certainly keep him informed and give more details about the areas of scientific advice that we are tapping into.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, one of the most important things in life is communication. My noble friend on the Front Bench has gone into great detail, and I think the House also owes a tribute to the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench. But, in today’s world, we are not good at communication. I used to be in charge alongside the COI, and I say to my noble friend that the consumer needs to know what is happening. The consumer is at two ends. First, there is the general public, who will be anxious; we can see now in some of the letters appearing in the national and regional press that people are confused. Will my noble friend pay particular attention to that area? Secondly, there are the retailers, wholesalers, direct sellers and so on. Finally, we have wonderful veterinary schools in this country. They have excellent students. This is a wonderful case history, in a sense, in which all those students can get involved between now and Christmas.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of keeping people informed. In fact, it works both ways: members of the public are keeping us informed—often through NGOs, but also directly—in particular about the impact on wild birds. Defra and the Government keep consumers and customers informed directly through social media and other media announcements. We also work through retailers; they give us information and we give them information. I should say that there is a well-established method in England and Wales of reporting sick birds that are discovered. They can be reported to the RSPCA—and similarly in Scotland to the SSPCA—which will give advice and will euthanise wild birds that are sick. Single dead birds, birds of prey or three or more of any species can be rung through to the Defra helpline, which is on our website.

In terms of consumers and what they are going to eat, we will be keeping them informed, but there is absolutely no need for people to rush out and panic buy. This is a very resilient supply chain and we are talking to retailers and others regularly and keeping them informed as well.

On vet schools, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and others, we have developed new vet schools. We have more veterinary surgeons coming into the system and we want to make sure that they are coming into government work as well as the private sector and private practice. We particularly want to encourage them into the large animal sector and this area as well. It is a constant problem, but we are trying to resolve it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that, in the past 50 years, the global population of domestic poultry has multiplied by six, from 5.7 billion to 36 billion, representing 70% of the avian biomass on this planet. That is a large reservoir, connected by trade, for disease to flourish, which inevitably spills over into wild populations, as we are seeing here. We know that this avian flu originated in a domestic population. The noble Lord may be aware of the editorial last month in the journal Science, which said this avian flu outbreak should be regarded as

“a warning, with devastating consequences if not heeded”.

There is also African swine flu spreading over into wild populations and mycoplasma gallisepticum in finches and other wild birds in North America. The authors argue that we need to see reduced livestock numbers, reduced density on farms, limited movement of livestock and, in middle and higher-income countries, movement to plant-based protein sources. Does the Minister agree that there is a systematic issue with factory farming, which represents an unacceptable risk to human and environmental health?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have very high animal welfare standards here, as seen in the removal of battery cages, and have worked faster than other countries in Europe and elsewhere to improve those factors. The point lying behind the question of the noble Baroness is that, when my grandparents were alive, chicken was a luxury item that one had relatively rarely. In many cases, it was reared on the premises. It has now become the staple diet of large populations right around the world. In a way, the market has responded to that. I am not saying that complications have not arisen, but the recent drive by retailers for free-range eggs has seen an enormous increase in egg producers in areas such as the Wye Valley, which is starting to have an impact on the natural environment.

The Government have to try to foresee all these things and then bring in measures, whether in planning, the right incentives, regulation or laws. The noble Baroness asks a perhaps more philosophical, societal question; we need to tackle it as best as Governments can, but people want to and like eating chicken and eggs. There are a lot more people around than there were when my grandparents were alive. We have to feed a hungry world, but we have to do so sustainably and mindful of the impacts of disease and on the natural environment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, this is a terrible disease; my sympathy goes out to the producers and so forth. I declare my interest as a council member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and other conservation interests. I was very heartened to hear of the involvement of the British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB. It is not just gannets; the world population of great skuas is severely at risk. My noble friend may recall that there was some talk of setting up a task force specifically to look at the conservation impacts of this disease.

On game bird releases, while I agree with my noble friend that current shoots will not spread it, I wonder whether we should have done something a bit earlier. If this horrible disease is still so present this time next year, will game bird releases be stopped as they would be now under the housing orders?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I assure my noble friend that there is a sort of task force already in place. Defra and the devolved Administrations, working with the Animal and Plant Health Agency, Natural England, NatureScot, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and non-governmental organisations such as the RSPB and the British Trust for Ornithology, are monitoring and responding to the effects of avian influenza on wild birds. We produced our Mitigation Strategy for Avian Influenza in Wild Birds in England and Wales, which sets out practical guidance to support land managers, the public, ornithologists and NGOs in England and Wales in their response to the growing threat of avian influenza to wild birds—how they can report it and what measures they can take.

On the other matter, I repeat what I have said. We will keep these factors under observation, but we must remember that, if we bring in measures against one sector, we have to make them consistent. Are we going to ban everyone from walking on a footpath, because carrying the faecal matter of an infected bird on your boots to another part of the countryside could spread it just as badly? We need to be really clear about the impact this could have on the rural economy and the important work many people do for nature conservation, such as gamekeepers, who keep numbers of wild birds vibrant in those areas. We want to make sure we do not cause unseen problems but take proportionate measures on the basis of scientific evidence.

Water Companies: Pollution

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the decision by Ofwat on 3 October to penalise 11 water companies for failing to meet their targets, including on pollution incidents.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government welcome this robust regulatory response from Ofwat where water companies are underperforming. It provides a great example of strong environmental and economic regulatory frameworks in action. The penalties to these 11 water companies were the result of missed performance commitments on areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. The Government will continue to work with regulators to hold companies to account on their environmental and other commitments.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister just mentioned that the 11 companies fined by Ofwat missed targets in a number of areas: water supply interruptions, pollution and internal sewer flooding. The problem is that these performance commitments do not set the bar particularly high, which makes it extremely worrying that so many companies are falling short, some by a considerable distance. Does he believe that the current sanction, which sees failing companies having to repay customers a proportion of their bills in future years, is enough to bring about the improvements that we so desperately need? With this in mind, how does he respond to the suggestion by Ofwat’s newly appointed chair, Iain Coucher, that the regulator should be granted powers to debar the directors of egregious water companies?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I take what the noble Baroness says about the level these sanctions are set at. If she thinks that there are areas that could be improved on, we will work with Ofwat to do that. She talks about this as though it is the only area of enforcement. Where water companies have failed to achieve their environmental standards and illegally pumped sewage into rivers, enormous fines have been applied, which have had a dramatic impact on the amounts of dividends that they have been able to award.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend estimate for the House the contribution that the 300,000 new houses being built will make to the problem? When will we have an end to the automatic right to connect so that we will have antiquated, antediluvian pipes replaced with modern pipes that can actually take sewage from these new houses?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Enormous amounts of money have been spent on new water infrastructure, but sewage companies are responsible for the maintenance and resilience of drainage and wastewater networks. To address current and future pressures on drainage networks, we are making drainage and wastewater management plans statutory through the Environment Act, so they will be consulted. They have to put these forward as a legal measure to ensure that they take into account the pressure of new housing.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of some analysis done by the Rivers Trust that shows that the monitoring of our rivers by the Environment Agency has much reduced in recent years? It would probably say that it does not have the resource. Could he consider either adding to its resources or at least redirecting its priorities?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have put more money into the Environment Agency and it has been recruiting more enforcement officers to do precisely that. We are also working with citizen science. I pay tribute to the Rivers Trust and others that are providing people to assist the Environment Agency in assessing the quality of river water.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, as someone who lives in an area which is likely to see a reduction in water bills due to penalties from Ofwat, I would prefer our rivers, waterways and seas to be sewage-free rather than to receive a small monetary handout. It appears that the threat of financial penalties is insufficient to encourage water companies to change their damaging environmental practices. Are the Government ready to propose more stringent means to ensure that water companies invest in infra- structure rather than directors’ bonuses?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are seeing precisely that. There has been a £56 billion investment in infrastructure, the biggest investment in real terms that the industry has ever seen. Further to the question asked by the noble Duke, I can say that since 2015 the Environment Agency has brought 54 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of almost £140 million. In 2022 the EA has already concluded six prosecutions, with fines of more than £2.4 million, so we are seeing not only more investment but more enforcement, and the Government will insist on an improvement in the releases of sewage into rivers.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Norfolk is fortunate to have a number of remarkable chalk streams, which provide spectacularly important habitat. What more can be done to protect them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important point. The chalk streams strategy, written by Charles Rangeley-Wilson, whom I suspect was my noble friend’s constituent, is a brilliant piece of work which the Government have accepted and which will form the basis of our policies to put these very valuable environmental and ecological systems in a pristine state as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about the enormous fines that can be given to water companies, but Ofwat has already admitted that it is able to fine up to only 10% of their turnover. Ofwat said that this is a very small percentage of the value of those companies, because they are so asset-rich. Will he look again at the limits on the fines that can be passed on to the water companies, because they are clearly not working?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am very pleased to make the noble Baroness’s day by saying that we have increased a thousandfold, from £250,000 to £250 million, the upper limit on which water companies can be fined.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, have the Government given consideration to changing the building regulations, particularly with regard to rainwater run-off, so that the water is recycled and not taken into the system, thus reducing the volume going out of the system?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right to raise this. One of the problems is that water coming off roofs and driveways—absolutely clean water—goes into the same sewerage system. To separate foul water from clean water has been estimated at costing between £350 billion and £600 billion, which would have a dramatic effect on people’s bills. However, there is nothing to stop us trying to do this with new housing, as well as retrofitting it into existing housing, and ongoing discussions are taking place with other government departments to see if this can happen.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, by no means wanting to excuse the water companies anything, I say that, certainly in the west of England, a lot of the river pollution comes from industrial food farming, particularly chickens and nitrates. What are the Government doing to fine it for its contribution to the pollution in our rivers?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very severe problem. We rightly hold water companies to account, but they are only part of the problem. Phosphates from the poultry industry have caused rivers such as the Wye—one of the great rivers of our country—to become, in part and at certain times of the year, practically ecologically dead. We have to recognise that there is a planning issue, alongside the way in which we support and incentivise farmers, and the way in which we enforce these issues, which all have to be brought together. We all want to see things such as food security, free-range eggs and broiler houses in this country, but not at the price that we are now paying in rivers such as the Wye.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, if we are bringing these all together, what are the Government going to do when they have brought them together?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refer the noble Lord to the Environment Act as a first measure, probably the most significant piece of environmental legislation that any country has brought forward. That brings with it controls and sanctions, alongside a new statutory policy statement to Ofwat, to give it more powers, higher enforcement fines and many other things that I have already discussed this afternoon. I hope that he can see, on reflection, that there is a plan, and that we are determined to end the shameful situation of illegal outflows into rivers, whether it is from sewage or from illegal pollution coming from farmland.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, those of us who watch this situation closely do not actually think that Ofwat is doing a very good job. A case in point is that it fined Thames Water £50 million, which was great—but Thames Water is now giving each of its customers £3.40 as a sort of recompense. Does that sound reasonable or fair?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As part of this failure to hit its commitments, Thames Water will be returning to customers next year £51 million. An average household water bill to take all the fresh water into a household and remove all the dirty water is just over £1 a day, which is a lot of money for someone on low income, but in terms of household incomes, it probably sits well below energy costs, for example. This system of being able to return money to customers is absolutely at the heart of the kind of incentives we want to see.

Environmental Targets

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, in asking a Question of which I have given private notice, I draw attention to my conservation interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, as set out in the Written Ministerial Statement I laid on 28 October, we will continue to work at pace to lay draft statutory instruments as soon as practicable. Our next steps include agreeing the final targets across government and scrutiny by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. His Majesty’s Government remain committed to our future targets to halt the decline in species by 2030 and to bring forward the wider suite of targets specified under the Environment Act as soon as practicable.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his Answer. I congratulate him on not only his reinstatement in the department but his elevation to Minister of State; it reassures me that this Government are reaffirming their commitment to their manifesto promises on the environment.

It is of course disappointing that we have not met these targets by the due date. However, can we use this delay to increase, for example, our target for the protection of terrestrial sites, which would be very helpful in encouraging into domestic law our 30by30 commitment, and our species abundance target? I urge the Government not only to do this as fast as possible but to ensure that, by the time we attend COP 15 in Montreal, these targets are in place—and remember, they are just targets; what we really want is action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his kind words. I share his and other noble Lords’ disappointment that we have not been able to fulfil the perhaps over-ambitious target date set out in the Act. However, I am confident that we will be able to show that we have meaningful evidence-based targets that will deliver on our overriding commitment to see a reversal in the decline of species by 2030. He is absolutely right to highlight the importance of sites, and the protection of rare and special habitats within them, as part of our 30by30 commitment. We are absolutely determined to achieve this not just for our own domestic benefit but, importantly, so we can say to other countries in the CBD, “We are doing it; so should you”.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the Office for Environmental Protection has also taken this failure seriously. In its latest letter to the Secretary of State, it has pointed out that this is not the only failure to comply with statutory legislation—it has also kindly included an annexe of other failures to comply. It is a non-exhaustive list and, as it says, a pattern is beginning to develop. Can the Minister assure us that Defra is addressing these issues? These are not just policies; they are statutory requirements that have been missed time and again. Can the Minister tell us what the department is doing to get back on track on these issues?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

One reason why we will be publishing these targets later than we would have liked, and later than the Act required, is that we had over 180,000 responses to our consultation. It is important that we listen to those, because these targets affect people whose interests are not directly affected by Defra; they could be right across the whole gamut of what government does and how it regulates. It is important that we get this right.

I would hate for any noble Lord to believe that this is the one area of the Environment Act that really matters. It covers a whole range of other issues: storm overflows, our environmental principles, biodiversity net gain, waste, illegal deforestation, the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection, and local nature recovery strategies. Work on all those are under way, and they were written into the Environment Act, which is what makes it such a world-beating piece of legislation that we want to see implemented.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be getting used to answering questions on the targets, which should, legally, have flowed from the Environment Act by now. Yet here we are, on 31 October, and no targets are forthcoming. With COP 27 approaching, is there any point at all in the Government sending any representatives when they have so woefully fallen short in setting targets, never mind meeting any?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That would be an absolutely extraordinary thing to do. The United Kingdom is a global leader on the environment. We are one of the leaders of the High Ambition Coalition, which is seeking to get countries right across the world to fulfil really demanding targets to protect nature, which has suffered depletion of such staggering quantity in recent decades. It is absolutely right that we continue to do this. I can tell the noble Baroness that the United Kingdom is revered abroad for the leadership we took at Glasgow and the leadership we are taking in the CBD. To diminish what we are trying to do internationally is quite extraordinary.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government commit to not repeating the missing of dates when it comes to the 557 pieces of environmental legislation that are about to disappear next year under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I think there is a collective clunk of realisation of what it would actually take to replace that. That legislation was created for an environment that goes from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. I am sure she understands, being the expert that she is, that it is a bit clunky when it comes to dealing with the bespoke environment of these islands. It can be improved, but in a way that is at least no worse for nature, and which preferably improves it.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, that “collective clunk” took hours of time of the Minister’s department and both Houses of Parliament. Is he saying that, at the stroke of a pen, the Government are going to write off all the environmental protections that we spent hours in this place writing into retained EU law?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, that is not what we are saying at all. Most of the protections we have are written into law in the Climate Change Act, the Environment Act and many other provisions that no Administration in recent months—of any form—have talked about trying to tamper with. The habitats directive and other measures are very important; we will not be able to hit our 2030 target for no net loss of biodiversity if we were somehow to sweep those away.

So, if we are going to get rid of them, we have got to replace them with something that is meaningful and bespoke for these islands, and that cannot be done overnight. The Government want to hit our target for 2030, our 30by30 target and many other measures that are written into the Environment Act. The directives we have transposed into UK law have got to be dealt with carefully and in a way that results in no net loss of benefit for the environment, preferably improving it.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind your Lordships’ House that the Environment Bill was introduced in July 2018. However, lengthy delays caused not just by consultation responses but by Conservative Party divisions meant that it became law only last November. During its passage, concerns were raised about the lack of targets, and the then Minister assured your Lordships’ House that they would appear by today’s deadline. My noble friend Lady Jones referred to the repeated missed deadlines, and the Government have again failed to deliver. The future of our environment is one of the most pressing issues we face, so why have the Government again broken their promise?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We will be publishing these targets and they will be very much linked to the areas we consulted on: halting the decline of species by 2030; reducing exposure to PM2.5, benefiting health, as the noble Baroness knows it will; helping restore water bodies to their natural state; increasing woodland cover; protecting marine habitats; and setting a clear direction of travel in reducing the amount of waste per person. These are the measures we want to see implemented, and they will be rigorous targets we can meet, not just for this Government but for future Governments. In line with the Act, they will mean that this country is respected for its protection of the environment above all others.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talks of ambitious targets. Is it too ambitious to use his position in the department to persuade the Prime Minister to attend COP 27?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I would say to the noble Viscount the words “over pay and grade”, but I do appreciate the point he makes.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned storm overflows. I wonder if he shares my and many others’ frustration that the water companies continue to discharge dreadful quantities of sewage into our rivers and the sea, using as an excuse the fact that they are storm overflows. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As the noble Duke knows, the Environment Act places several duties on government and water companies to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows. The Government have now launched the most ambitious plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows in water company history. Our new strict targets will see the toughest crackdown on sewage spills and will require water companies to secure the largest infrastructure programme in water company history: £56 billion of capital investment over the next 25 years. Our plan will protect biodiversity, the ecology of our rivers and seas, and the public health of our water users for generations to come.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in answering the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, the Minister appeared rather powerfully to make the case for the Prime Minister’s going to COP 27, so we can only hope that he was listening. I want to go back to an earlier answer from the Minister. He said that the delay occurred because it was important to listen to public concern. Did the response to this consultation really come as a surprise to the department? As the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and many others in this House highlighted, there was enormous public concern about these issues. Why did the department not put enough resources into handling these responses in a timely manner—or does the department not have enough resources to do its job?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Every department could do with more resources. As I said at the beginning, the Government regret not being able to hit this target. Perhaps we were overambitious in thinking it could be done to the timescale we had. There is no point in holding a consultation if you do not listen to the consultees’ replies, and more than 180,000 is at the maximum end of the response to most consultations. That requires that this House and the other place make sure that we are putting in place statutory instruments that really do the job. It is a complex process, and I regret that we have not done it by now, but we will do it as soon as we can.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, what note have the Government taken of Sir Partha Dasgupta’s report The Economics of Biodiversity, released by Cambridge University, and are they acting on its recommendations? Secondly, why are they not encouraging His Majesty King Charles to attend COP 27? He was ahead of the game by decades.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Dasgupta review was extraordinary in so many ways: first, because it was the first piece of work on the economics of biodiversity commissioned by a finance department in any country. The Treasury having commissioned it makes it a very powerful tool. It shows that we are talking about not just species that the noble Lord and I have grown up appreciating but the economic future of this country. It is fundamental to what we are talking about; that is why we want evidence-based targets. On the other matter, I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave to the noble Viscount opposite.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government seem worried that too many people have responded to this consultation. This deadline was put in at the insistence of Parliament so that Ministers would be held to account. There is another deadline today in the Department for Transport—nothing to do with the Minister—so that is two deadlines missed. All that Ministers can say is, “We’ll ask them to extend the deadline.” That is not good enough. Surely, we have to get a grip on these things; if a Government commit to a deadline, they should keep to it.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely accept that point. I would be treating your Lordships with disrespect if I did not mention the elephant in the room: a bit of mid-air turbulence in recent weeks, which may have somewhat contributed to some of the wheels of government not being correctly oiled. However, I assure the noble Lord that we are determined to deliver proper, meaningful targets as soon as we can.