Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. As I have said before, if we do not have sustainability and adhere to maximum sustainable yields, the ecosystem of our waters—as a whole and not just for consumption—will be put in peril. Sustainability is absolutely key. Obviously, we have all been very concerned about discard and the complete waste that it has caused. As part of that, we will consider the vexed issue of choke and choke species and look for solutions. Clearly, these issues are quite difficult and technical. We need to ensure that we do not overfish but fish sustainably. Therefore, the issues of discard and choke are a key element of seeking to keep our stocks in good order.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the report’s important features is the role of our research through Cefas. There is no mention that we will maintain or even increase it. There have been some cutbacks in Cefas. To have agreement between the UK and Europe as we move forward, we will need agreement about research. There has been considerable agreement about it, but it is very important that we maintain good links with our European research colleagues.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, knowledge and understanding of sustainability is obviously not possible without scientific evidence and research. Clearly, Cefas is an outstanding place of research. Of course, I think that it is world-leading and will furnish us. In discussions, knowledge of zonal attachment and how we work with fish stocks not respecting borders—we share fish stocks in so many cases—means that we need to work in co-operation. Indeed, the spirit of co-operation is an essential part of international law on fisheries. Cefas will provide us with research, but there are excellent research bodies all around the world.

I should say to my noble friend Lady Byford that I forgot about the under-10 metre category. Further allocations have been made with unused quota. It is a very important area of our fishing world.

Environment: 25-year Plan

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a professor at UCL; president of ACOPS, an NGO that reviews the marine rubbish around our shores; and director of an environmental consulting company.

This report is a welcome return to strategic UK and international planning for the UK environment; indeed, that is mentioned by the Prime Minister in her foreword to this document. This restores the mistakes made by the coalition Government, who in 2011 eliminated the widely admired Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the UK sustainability development strategy, which was established by John Major after the Rio Earth Summit. Both were effective in co-ordination so the new development is welcome. However, all parties have continued with the co-ordination of climate change and—it is important to relate—environmental policies for people, especially those in exposed areas in the UK and globally. I am familiar with North Devon, where several villages in steep valleys were flooded last week and were even on the nine o’clock news.

The main conclusion of environmental science, practice and policy is that co-ordination is essential. That also means international co-ordination, which has to go beyond government agencies and departments to regional, international and global bodies. For many experts and civil servants, the implementation of international environmental co-ordination has been frustratingly slow but it has happened and, if politicians and parliaments are determined and support it, will continue to. For example, as I saw when I represented the UK at the World Meteorological Organization, there was greater co-ordination of meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic data and this had led to the improved prediction of weather and flooding extremes and the consequences for food, forestation and desertification. There are also the very important environmental changes in the Arctic, which will have a significant impact in the UK in the next 25 years, as the House of Lords Select Committee discussed.

It is important to consider the changes that there are going to be in clean energy. Green energy has been an important development in the last 25 years, but in future we are going to see the use of not only solar and wind but also the less visible but important power of small-scale nuclear fission, which has been much discussed in the press. There is also the likelihood in the next 25 years of modular nuclear fusion, which is being developed in the UK by the private sector and the Government. It will not be necessary to wait until 2040 for the large international fusion system; I believe this important development will happen long before that, in the next five to 10 years.

With this cleaner energy, we may well have a future in which vehicles are primarily electrically driven. As Rolls-Royce explained in a seminar last week, we may also have electrically driven short-range aeroplanes. Another feature of clean energy supplies will be the pumping and desalination of water, which enables the billions of people still suffering from water shortages and waterborne diseases to get water, as was debated last week here in the Lords. Over the next 25 years the Government should also consider the decades after that, when the UK will finally have to begin to deal with its stored nuclear radioactive waste. It may be in geological reserves or, as Euratom has suggested, it could be transformed and made safe by alternative isotopes.

Another important feature of the environment is the urban environment, which other noble Lords have not emphasised. Here I emphasise a considerable UK success, with support from all the parties: the restoration of the environment in the east end of London—the Olympic legacy, as it is called. No other country has been as successful as this in developing an Olympic Games, and now we see remarkable green developments in the environment and water supplies there, with new cultural and educational areas. Although that is a great plus for the UK, and there are other important port cities such as Liverpool, many people have commented to me that in many rural areas we see considerable poverty and environmental and social deprivation. The standards in communities have gone backwards. The very successful Sure Start programme introduced by the Labour Government was dropped in 2010-11 by the coalition Government, and the consequences for some of those areas is very serious. There seems to be no acknowledgement by the Government of the damage. What do they propose for those communities in the next 25 years?

Finally, one feature of the environment which has not been mentioned is the connection of industrial, environmental and cultural development which one sees in many other European countries. We have our great pop festivals here and there, but many beautiful areas of Britain should have much greater cultural investment, and that should be an important part of the environment looking to the future.

Plans to Improve the Natural Environment and Animal Welfare

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important debate and I welcome its introduction by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. It touches on the future of the natural environment in the UK and around the world. I declare my interest as director of a small environmental company and president of ACOPS, an NGO.

Her Majesty’s Government have a responsible role, nationally and internationally. As the noble Earl pointed out, this is about large-scale and small-scale phenomena.

This debate rightly considers animals as well the traditional areas of environmental science—plants, oceans, the atmosphere and the natural environment. Particularly when thinking of urban areas or arid lands, natural life is a vital part of the process and the environment, but often in very small areas. It is a great improvement that nature in urban areas is now more important, but it is not always consistent with the fact that areas of green space available to schools in urban areas have been progressively reduced. I hope the Minister will be able to touch on that point.

The importance of the natural environment has steadily increased in politics as the general public have become more concerned about its deterioration, as scientific monitoring data has confirmed some of the worries and fears. The public are also very well aware of the loss of biodiversity and amenity. Many species are no longer available and the amenities that many people recall—rock pools on beaches and clean beaches—have deteriorated.

The political and scientific organisations concerned with the environment have changed over the past 50 years, both nationally and internationally. Where necessary, organisations have come and gone, depending upon different types of pollutant. The UK set up its first royal commission to cover the environment in the 1960s, but it no longer exists, and the other broad environmental body set up by the Conservative Prime Minister Mr Major has also gone. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out, we have an excellent roll of contributions by Natural England and the Environment Agency, but the point of the original royal commission was that it looked at the whole process, many sources of pollutant and many scientific aspects, and we should consider that again. Looking at the manifestos of the Conservatives and the Labour Party, I did not see the suggestion of an overarching organisation which, as a scientist, I think is necessary.

The worst direct damage to the natural environment has led to action in the past and turned countries that were considered to be highly polluting, such as Japan, into model countries. The change in Japan was stimulated by the effects of water pollution in Minamata, and in the UK it was the London smog or even the River Thames in the 19th century. It has taken longer for people and organisations to respond to longer-term environmental damage. For example, radiological pollution from nuclear accidents has a very long-term effect, and it took decades before long-range acid rain began to be controlled. Polluted waters similarly cause great problems around the world and there continues to be a problem in rivers and coastal waters. Ozone in the stratosphere has already been mentioned. That was quite a success in the sense that it was identified and that has led to the Montreal protocol; however, there are continuing problems. There was an interesting article in Nature last week about the risk of some organisations suggesting that we put particles in the atmosphere as a means of controlling the dangers of excess carbon dioxide and climate change. One has to look at the different processes.

Air pollution from vehicles, shipping and fossil fuel energy is coming from different sources. It has immediate and sometimes local impacts on health. Those suffering with breathing issues, such as asthmatics, are particularly sensitive to the air pollution in cities. As we all saw last week, pollution can sometimes be bad enough to affect really healthy people, such as the cricket players in Delhi. I once, long ago, did a study in Lancashire and there was a headline in the local newspaper, “Air pollution stops play”. I could taste it without needing instruments, as I could stick my tongue out and measure the sulphurous rain that was coming down in southern Lancashire.

The question, then, is how these new types of pollution should be dealt with and by whom. The solution for certain types of pollutants comes from a combination of scientific understanding, government regulation and action by business to produce non-polluting products. Where appropriate, people’s involvement is also critical. Sometimes these combinations are successful, for a limited period, for example with air pollution caused by damage from fossil fuels. But then, problems arose when certain scientific and industrial organisations pointed out that vehicles that at one time seemed to be clean and to be contributing to low carbon were actually contributing to NOx and other emissions. These complicated interactions of different processes require different organisations. We need to consider how to have overview of all those organisations.

If your Lordships read the Guardian or another newspaper this morning, you would have read about the problems with the solid waste the UK sends to China. The Chinese Government no longer want it as much, which suggests that we need to have whole new industries to deal with the question of waste. We had a meeting here in the House of Lords a couple of years ago, organised by ACOPS. Many of the organisations were concerned about plastic, but it was noticeable that the representative from the chemical industry was lukewarm about the kind of changes that might happen. The Government will need to play a very strong role to push this forward.

Last week, the International Maritime Organization, at which the Department for Transport is the UK representative, met here in London to set up its working group on reducing carbon emissions from ships’ diesel engines. Shipping now produces as much as 13% of total carbon emissions, about three times more than aviation. Much shipping is involved in transporting plastic waste, so dealing with our waste differently would be one way to reduce carbon emissions.

Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important debate not only for those living in rural areas but also for the whole of the UK population, which relies on rural areas and the adjoining coastal seas for natural resources, environment and energy, both above and below ground level. These areas are as reliant on appropriate governmental, human and financial resources and policies as urban areas are. The Labour Party has a long tradition of introducing new policies, from national parks and planning in the 1940s to the recent establishment of the Marine Management Organisation at the end of the Brown Government. Some of us thought that the MMO should have been part of an overall environmental organisation. Such integration occurs in the USA, India and other countries.

I declare my interests as a director of an environmental consulting company and the president of ACOPS, a marine sustainability NGO. I am also the owner of a small property in a national park in the south-west.

I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, and thank him for his contributions, particularly in dealing with foot and mouth disease, which is a critical environmental issue.

Our first concern should be the social and educational development of rural communities. In the period of the Blair-Brown Governments, following the idea of Bill Clinton, there was the considerable success of the unified development of welfare, education and housing in critical areas and the Sure Start programme. I saw this in small villages and certain deprived areas. However, these programmes have declined under the coalition and Conservative Governments in rural and urban areas across the UK.

In Wales, the PISA calibration of educational attainment is low on the international scale. This inhibits all levels of commerce and industry. Engaging school pupils in practical and out-of-school activities may be one way of stimulating learning. One initiative for such an integrated approach is being developed by the Darwin Centre in Pembrokeshire, which I have visited. A research and engagement programme supported by Dragon LNG, based at Milford Haven, has been effective. This is a beautiful estuary where the environment is studied to stimulate children at different levels. Practical projects for cleaning beaches around the British Isles are essential for improving the environment and the tourist economy. The ACOP survey produced every year is supported by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. However, this needs more funding. In Wales, in particular, such centres are being planned in connection with universities.

The sustainable building project at Machynlleth in the centre of mid-Wales is another successful project which engages the interests of teachers, communities and tourists. It develops new materials and techniques, which is particularly important for areas that are prone to flooding.

Another aspect of community development in rural areas should be the provision of mobile information, with a much wider range of services and advice than is available in the mobile libraries, the number of which is greatly declining—a fact which I checked on the internet this morning. Many people do not have or know how to use the internet for their daily needs. In many villages there are, of course, now no longer banks, post offices or even buses, and it is essential that we do more for these communities. Given the changes in welfare payments that we have been hearing about, particularly in the House of Commons, a new approach needs to be developed for these areas. This week this House has discussed the problems of financial fraud on the internet. Again, we must develop methods of helping people in remote areas. If these wider services were provided the funding could be obtained from many other budgets rather than relying on the library budget, which is extremely depleted.

Successful economic development in rural areas requires innovation, such as that made possible through the world-class Dyson innovation centre in Wiltshire, which has its own university. As the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, mentioned, various kinds of green energy are of great importance for jobs and for science centres in rural areas. The Government’s research agency, the Natural Environment Research Council, is very effective in this area.

As has been mentioned, some fishing ports around the UK need to recover. As stated in a Marine Management Organisation report covered in a House of Lords Library paper, there has been a great decline in shipping and fishing boats. Part of the reason for this has been attributed to the fact that fish caught in the North Sea and elsewhere have been landed in continental ports in countries where people eat more fish per head. The Government need a stronger programme to support fisheries and to bring more fish back into our cities. There are now very good fish shops in Tufnell Park, which we never had before.

Air Quality: London

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick. Air pollution is now an intrinsic aspect of most large cities around the world. It damages the environment and greatly affects the health and habits of citizens as well as the operation of the city’s transport and other operations, and even the economic functioning of major cities. The important point for this debate, which focuses on London, is to realise how air pollution is quite complex and keeps changing, as urban citizens have experienced and protested about around the world. I declare my interests as a director of a small environmental company, a former president of the National Society for Clean Air and a former director of the Met Office.

My own experience began in the London smog of December 1952, when thousands of open fires in Whitehall offices, where my father worked, were belching out so much smoke that it was dark at midday. However, medical research—which I studied a bit because I used to lecture on this—showed that the carboxyhaemoglobin in the blood of policemen actually decreased during four hours of traffic duty. This is a little quiz: why? Because those policemen were not smoking. This showed that four hours in the worst air pollution that we could ever have was a lot healthier than four hours’ smoking.

The health effects of the 1952 smog were very serious, of course, particularly for non-smokers, with hundreds of thousands of people dying prematurely from asthma and other lung diseases. After the clean air legislation in 1966, coal burning was progressively replaced by cleaner oil heating and by vehicles producing fewer particles in their exhausts. Urban pollution became less visible but, by the 1970s, different gaseous pollutants in the urban atmosphere, such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, were increasing. These were produced more by road vehicles than by the reducing number of local power stations, which had been important in earlier times.

Photochemical reactions stimulated by solar radiation produced ozone and nitrogen dioxide and a yellowish haze in the atmosphere, which was extremely bad for some people’s breathing and produced serious associated health effects. As European urban pollution was beginning to resemble that in the United States, where they were familiar with the phenomenon in Los Angeles, the health standards for acceptable levels of air pollution in Europe were established, based on advice from the World Health Organization.

Europe introduced selective subsidies for particular types of vehicle engine, based on differing environmental criteria. European Governments also focused on reducing adverse climate impact associated with carbon dioxide emissions by subsidising and encouraging the use of diesel engines, even though this amplified other pollutants with significant health effects, as other noble Lords have commented. Different standards were adopted in Japan in the 1980s, where diesel engines for private vehicles were banned, as I noted in my visits—and I never bought a diesel car. In 2016, the UK Government changed their policy to discourage diesel private cars—but diesel car tax still tends to be lower than petrol car tax.

The next important policy change was to focus on measuring and then reducing the concentration of vehicles producing air pollution in city centres and other locations of higher pollution, such as highways, crossroads and around airports and ships—as the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, commented. The research showed how air pollution from road vehicles breathed by people in the streets and in vehicles was highly concentrated in such locations, because the pollution was emitted near the ground—as other noble Lords have commented—quite unlike the pollutants dispersed from rooftops and power stations before the 1960s, which effectively spread all over the city. These low-level emissions of pollution meant that cleaner, healthier areas could be established in cities where concentrations were markedly lower, and this has benefited cyclists. But children walking in streets next to traffic are exposed to high concentrations, as has also been mentioned.

There is a terrible story of an eight year-old child living near a very busy crossroads in Beijing, which was reported in all the newspapers in Asia. This child was found to be suffering from lung cancer at that age because of the very high concentration of pollutants on the crossroads where she lived. In the UK, particulates will become more of a threat in future.

I should say that the European Environment Agency, the director of which is a British colleague of mine, reported on its website in November 2016 that air quality was slowly improving all across Europe, but that it is a large health hazard. The figure it gave last November was 467,000 deaths per year.

Following other countries, UK legislation enabled London in 2003 and other cities to restrict private traffic in such critical areas by the congestion charge, while allowing public vehicles and taxis to avoid the charge. As the London Taxi Association, which I spoke to, emphasised, this policy has not produced smooth running of traffic or low air pollution. Excessive numbers of minicabs—50,000 was the number I heard—and goods vehicles are permitted, with high pollution emissions, as has happened in the past two years.

Apparently, from a reply to my recent PQ, HMG have no policy to limit the number of road vehicles—not even in urban areas. Is this really true? In other words, are we just to have more, more and more traffic with no limits? Is there no policy even to think about a limit? Perhaps the Minister could clarify that point.

There are other ways in which the impact of air pollution could be minimised. In London, individuals and the public are provided with current air pollution information and forecasts for the next day or two ahead. For example, there is www.airtext.info—and I declare an interest as helping in that. That is provided by local authorities in London and also used by the Mayor of London’s office. By the way, the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, could download it if he wanted to; he commented that he was unable to find information about air pollution every day, but it is there. That information can enable those suffering from health effects to use drugs or other remedial measures, such as dealing with their exercise or not going out. Regional forecasts are also provided by the UK Met Office and the European Centre in Reading.

Over the longer term, urban government organisations should relate their consideration of air pollution to the future development of their cities and regions. In recent decades, London has been successful in its development of Docklands and the green and water spaces for the Olympic areas, although it has not been so successful in its multistorey housing, in making London greener or in transport planning, as other noble Lords have commented. For the future, we should expect lower pollution from ground-level and underground transport and from aviation transport, together with electric propulsion. If vehicle emissions cannot be suppressed, there should be high-tech cleaners within buildings to reduce air pollution. Dyson now has this invention, which is widely used in Asia.

For the future, there need to be more effective fora for all the interconnecting aspects of the London environment—perhaps like the high-level academic and government conference held at UCL in 2002, which also included schoolchildren and then then Mayor of London. We need more such events.