Horticultural Sector

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Fookes]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support (1) careers in the horticultural sector, and (2) the role of that sector in protecting the environment.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gardening and Horticulture—quite a mouthful. I shall refer to it only as a “group” in future. When I first took on the role, some years ago, I do not think that I appreciated the whole role of horticulture. I knew about the craft of gardening and production of plants; what I had not appreciated was that it embraced cell science, inquiry into new plants and how they might be developed, particularly those able to deal with climate change, arboriculture, dealing with amenity trees—quite distinct from forestry—landscaping and gardening design, and so forth.

This came to the fore in 2019 when an independent group, the Oxford Economics group, brought forward an interesting report which gave a very good indication of the scope of horticulture in 2019. I am not very good with figures, so I shall read them very carefully. In 2019, horticulture contributed £28.8 billion to gross domestic product and jobs numbered 674,000. Much more interesting was the scope for development that the report saw, provided that the Government and the horticultural industry co-operated. It reckoned that, by 2030, GDP could be £41.8 billion and there could be 763,000 jobs. If the watchword of the new Government is “growth, growth and growth”, I give them horticulture, on a plate, as a wonderful way of increasing growth to everybody’s benefit.

There are a number of worries in the horticultural world at the moment. One is that employers feel held back by a shortage of skilled workers. That includes not just the lower skills but many of the higher skills that are well paid. We certainly need to address this. I believe that, for young recruits, a lot of the problem lies with schools and careers services, which seem to me woefully inadequate in their knowledge of what opportunities there are for young people. Indeed, it is worse: sometimes I fear that they give a clear indication that they think gardening is only for those who are idiots and cannot do anything more. I put that bluntly, but I believe it to be the truth.

What they do not seem to understand is that a variety of qualifications lead up to degrees in horticulture. Recently, I went to the land-based Plumpton College in East Sussex, where there are a variety of qualifications at different levels, the last one being a degree, and every single person there, the principal assured me, would have a job at the end of the course. Clearly, there is scope for young people. There is another stream, of course, for those who are career changers, who perhaps need slightly different qualifications, but there is not enough time now to deal with that aspect.

To look at it in more general terms, I think it could be very helpful if the Government recognised certain facts which seem to me perfectly obvious but do not always seem so in government circles. First, all jobs in horticulture are by their nature green jobs—and we are supposed to attach great importance to that. Secondly, we need to ensure that the Office for National Statistics, which at this moment is consulting on the definition and classification of green jobs, includes horticulture in its calculations. Thirdly, the Government need to recognise that in the great 25-year environment plan, with its various goals, horticulture contributes to at least half of them, so it has a very important role to play.

I shall deal now with one or two more specific ways in which horticulture could be helped. Research funding for horticulture has declined in recent years to a scandalously low level, and it seems to be very much the poor relation to agricultural research. However, if it is to play an even greater role in developing skills and, more importantly, in the environment, it is vital. I hope that the Government will give strong consideration to real research funding. We have had an example in recent days; the new Secretary of State for the Environment has trumpeted a very new scheme which is to help horticulture in edible terms—the crop side—through £12.5 billion of research funding, matched to others, to develop high-tech skills and robotics. That helps deal with the difficulty of finding people to work on seasonal jobs, and ones which require a lot of effort, unless they can be dealt with in new, innovative ways.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of horticulture in its ornamental sense beyond a passing reference to the fact that a new government adviser is to be appointed shortly who will cover both sectors. I have to say to my noble friend the Minister: “This is not good enough”. I expect that horticulture in its ornamental role should have equal access to such funds and I hope very much that he will persuade the Secretary of State to amend somewhat this excellent new scheme as far as it goes, because it does not go far enough. I hope that I will not be pushed into the role in the biblical story of the widow whose just complaints the unjust judge did not want to deal with—in the end he gave way because she persisted and persisted and he could not stand it any longer. But if I am pushed into that, I jolly well will.

Let us look now at other aspects to mitigate climate change, where I believe that horticulture has a very important role. We all know about planting trees, but has anyone looked at the number of private residential gardens that could play a role in this on a small scale? I asked a Parliamentary Question about this: 1.5 million acres—I do not do hectares—in the land are there for the taking and that does not include parks, green spaces and great historic gardens. So, all in all, you have an enormous contributor.

Of course there is tremendous biodiversity with garden plants. It is very interesting: the RHS did a survey and found about 400,000 ornamental plants growing in gardens in the UK alone, but only 50,000 food crops worldwide. That gives an indication of the diversity that can be utilised in gardens. We are very worried about the decline in insects, because it has such implications for food production. I believe that gardens and green spaces could have a very good contribution to make. You have only to look at the Chelsea horticultural show and the number of insects that gather around the new gardens. I hope that that will be taken on board.

I will make one final point in the time that remains. I am concerned that new developments will often make short shrift of landscaping and the maintenance of plants. It is usually there in theory, but by the time they get to the end of the development, there is not enough money left. I suggest that there should be a special fund into which the developers have to put their money and then it will not be sent out to them until they start on the actual landscaping and maintenance of plants. We certainly do not want to see the scandal repeated of 100% of trees dying because nobody thought to water them in this hot summer.

I see the clock flashing so, although there are many other points I would wish to make, reluctantly I will have to rest my case here.