Farming on Dartmoor

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Hosie, and to follow all three of the speakers so far. They have all spoken articulately and passionately, and I support pretty much everything they have said. I want to say a big thanks and congratulations to the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) on securing this important debate.

The conflict that has arisen around the higher-level stewardship schemes on Dartmoor common is deeply concerning for everybody involved and for all of us who care about the future of Britain’s vital uplands and moorlands. Our uplands are crucial to our biodiversity and to tackling climate change; they contribute to food production and flood prevention, to our tourism economy and our landscape heritage; and they are crucial to the communities who live there. Indeed, it is the human destocking of our uplands that troubles me even more than the enforced removal of animals entailed in this deeply upsetting stand-off.

Too often, the Government and their agencies take rural Britain for granted—especially those communities and families who underpin life in our uplands. We officially call them less-favoured areas, but they are favoured by God with awesome beauty, immense significance and wonderful people who sustain that landscape beauty with hard work and commitment all year round.

As we have heard, letters from Natural England were sent to more than 20 commoners on Dartmoor at the very last minute—at the very point when the current HLS schemes were running out. The letters, which were received just as farmers had their animals in calf and in lamb, told those farmers that they had to remove their stock by this coming winter—no wonder the commoners reacted with such dismay. Natural England’s argument is that current schemes have not delivered in ecological terms, as if this was all down to the farmers, and nothing to do with Natural England itself. Of course, Natural England is a Government agency, responsible to and ultimately directed by Ministers, and funded—or, crucially, underfunded—by the Government. If HLS partnerships have not delivered on Dartmoor, or anywhere else, for that matter, the responsibility must be shared. The solution must also be based on partnership and patience and not on a Government agency blaming farmers and taking zero responsibility itself.

It is no accident that this conflict has arisen after Natural England has seen its staffing levels in the south-west reduced by around 90% over the past few years. In Cumbria, we too have seen Natural England staffing resources severely restricted. That is perhaps why only half of the farms that could enter countryside stewardship higher tier are able to even contemplate doing so. It is also one reason the Government are inexcusably botching the transfer from the old payment scheme to the environmental land management scheme.

Farmers in general are being sold short. The uplands have all but been abandoned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which knows full well the impact of its painfully slow agricultural transition policy on business viability. The Government’s error in Dartmoor is caused not just by underfunding but by a fundamental misunderstanding—a mindset that says that there is an overriding conflict between farming and nature. That is simply untrue. There is no such in-built conflict. In Cumbria, and, I am sure, in the west country, farmers demonstrate that they can produce food and care for the environment, but if we do not enable them to farm and to maintain their businesses, we will lose our most important partners in the fight to defend and improve nature.

The debacle in Dartmoor could be averted if Natural England and the Ministers to whom it is responsible took the time to negotiate with commoners, create space for respectful conversations and listen. The Minister must surely know that, if the threats in the February letters are carried out, that will be the end of many of those upland farms. Farmers whose families have cared for these commons for generations will be dealt the cruellest blow, through no fault of their own, and will face the crushing reality of being the ones who lost the family farm—all because of intransigence and a failure to treat people like people and to work in partnership to find workable solutions together.

In Cumbria we have seen that, although it can be difficult, progress can be made, but only if we work in partnership. In 2019, “co-operation not conflict” was the theme of a meeting between all players in our world-class uplands in the lakes and the dales. The meeting was led by the Foundation for Common Land and was attended by His Majesty the King when he was the Prince of Wales. The outcome was a clear understanding that when we co-operate we deliver far more. I hope that this Government will heed that outcome and, in doing so, put right the grave wrong that Natural England has done to the commoners of Dartmoor.

This year, the result of partnership working in Cumbria has seen, for example, the agreement that led to the Duddon, Subberthwaite, Torver and Coniston commons coming into a countryside stewardship agreement that ensures 600 hectares of woodland pasture. That shows what can happen when people talk with each other over time, rather than when Government agencies send terrifying letters to commoners who now find themselves on a cliff edge with nowhere to turn.

In considering how we work with farmers to achieve public goods, we need to remember that arresting biodiversity decline is essential but that it is not the only public good that we must secure. Environmental schemes must also deliver on our climate goals, food security, landscape quality, cultural heritage, flood prevention and water quality. To achieve those vital gains, we will need partnership, which is distinctly lacking in this case. People who work for Natural England in Cumbria are good people, but there are not enough of them. That is surely the case with Dartmoor too.

The simple fact is that the Government have let down rural England as a whole. Promises to maintain previous levels of funding for agriculture and our environment have been broken. With basic payments reduced by at least 35% this year but fewer than 10% of farms entering the new sustainable farming initiative schemes, Ministers know that they are making huge savings and not using that money to support farmers, or even their own agencies, to bridge the gap to keep farmers farming and to protect our environment. Farm funding is being hollowed out. It is overcomplicated and riddled with red tape and built-in conflict. The consequence is that farmers from Cumbria to Cornwall will be needlessly put out of business. Or they will do what many are already doing: they will look at the inaccessibility, unattractiveness and restrictiveness of the new schemes and do the only thing they can think of to save their business and feed their families—turn their backs on environmental schemes and increase their stocking levels. I spoke to farmers in Westmorland just last week who are doing that very thing. They are doing it with heavy hearts, but what are they meant to do when the Government have let them down so badly?

The conflict on Dartmoor is tragic but not inevitable. We simply need Ministers to give Natural England the resources and the instruction to manage transitions in partnership, not with threats, and allow time for solutions to be delivered. I strongly urge the Minister to choose co-operation over conflict.

Oil Spill: Poole Harbour

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is right to mention Dorset’s phenomenal tourism offer, both for people from this country and abroad. That is why the investigation and the messaging are so important, and the public must adhere to the UK Health Security Agency guidance. At the moment, the local resilience forum has not issued any concerns about the impact on tourism, but this will be kept under guidance.

My hon. Friend should take confidence from the standing environment group set up by Natural England and the involvement of all the environment non-governmental organisations. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is already saying that it believes this is being well handled and well dealt with. We do not want any wildlife to be impacted, so every precaution needs to be taken. I have heard that, so far, just two sea birds have been found with oil on them, and they have been carefully washed off—a fantastic process that I witnessed myself when I was an environment reporter. We need to ensure that we know fully what is happening, through the investigation, so that there are no adverse impacts on tourism, which is such an important industry to this country.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her diligent approach to responding to this troubling occurrence, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on bringing it to the House’s attention.

I am sure the Minister will agree that not only is there an ecological price to pay for this spillage but, as has been mentioned, there will be an impact on the potential bathing water status of Poole harbour. Does she agree that bathing water status is an important tool in ratcheting up water quality, both on our coasts and in our rivers and lakes? Will she reflect on the fact that, last year, only 10% of applications for bathing water status for our rivers, lakes and coastal areas were accepted? In my constituency, Coniston Water and the River Kent were turned down, despite having many more bathers than some rivers that were accepted. Does she agree that consistency is important if we are to keep our waterways free of oil and sewage, and will she look again at the applications that were turned down?

[Rebecca Pow]

Unlike the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who stuck to the subject of this important urgent question, the hon. Gentleman asks a question that is somewhat irrelevant. Well over 70% of our bathing water is excellent, and more than 90% is rated good or excellent.

Poverty: Food Costs

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on securing this debate. A mark of having brilliant parents—and I had brilliant parents—is that you do not realise that you were brought up in poverty until later, when you look back. One thing I can say about food poverty is that there is something worse than being in poverty and that is to be made to feel guilty about being in poverty. There is something worse than virtue signalling: vice signalling. There is something better than both: actual practical virtue. I praise my food banks and the food share schemes in Westmorland and Lonsdale and elsewhere in Cumbria.

I want to focus my minute and a bit on those who produce our food. I am desperately concerned that what Britain is doing at the moment with its agricultural policy is reducing the amount of food that we produce, which will inevitably increase the cost of that food. The Government’s transition from the common agricultural policy to the environmental land management scheme would actually be one of that rare, rare species—a Brexit benefit—if it was done properly, but it is not being done properly. In my constituency, we have a thousand farms. All of them will lose at least 35% of their basic payment this year. Two per cent. of them have qualified for the new sustainable farming incentive. We need to pause the phase-out of the basic payment scheme, so we can protect our farmers and stop the eradication of our ability to produce food. We need to look again at the perverse incentives in some aspects of ELMS, which give big cheques to very large landowners for clearing off their tenants, which is morally outrageous and will again reduce our ability to produce food. It is a foolish approach to pit nature against farming when they work beautifully together. 

If we lose farmers, we lose not only our ability to look after our environment, our natural landscapes and our biodiversity, but our ability to produce food. We need to go on to international markets to buy the food that we do not produce ourselves, which pushes up the costs of food for the poorest people on the planet. Protecting our farmers means producing food for us locally and keeping food prices down domestically and abroad.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

Of course, we recognise that there are cost pressures throughout the whole food supply chain. That is why the Government are offering huge amounts of support to households to try to cope with that. However, we acknowledge that there are challenges—not just in schools but in the Prison Service, the NHS and many Government Departments. That is why we need to address inflation, which is one of the Government’s highest priorities.

We continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore a range of measures that they can take to ensure the availability and affordability of food. It would be remiss of me not to mention the recent issues that we have experienced with the supply of certain fruit and vegetables to supermarkets in the UK. We are continuing to engage with industry throughout this period, and I hosted a roundtable with retailers this week to explore with them their contractual models, plans to return to normal supplies and contingencies for dealing with supply-chain challenges. I have also asked them to look again at how they work with our farmers and how they buy fruit and vegetables so that they can further prepare for these unexpected incidents. In the meantime, I reassure hon. Members that the UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, which was demonstrated during the covid-19 response. It is well equipped to deal with situations with a potential to cause disruption.

I want to address the comments made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). He tried to divide the House this evening on the statutory instrument that provides funding for ELMS. That is a real disappointment and a misunderstanding of the challenges that we face. In effect, he tried to keep English farmers tied to the EU’s bureaucratic and tiresome common agricultural policy by trying to shout down that legislation.

[Tim Farron]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Spencer]

I will give way in a moment. The hon. Gentleman made a point about wealthy people. Under the CAP, 50% of the budget went to 10% of landowners, and it did little to support food production or environmental improvements. With the new schemes, we are trying to ensure that nature works hand in hand with those who produce food.

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He will know that all parties here are united in our support for the principles of ELMS, and we think that moving to public money for public goods is the right thing. I said on the record just a few moments ago that the CAP was one of the worst aspects of the European Union, and it is one of the few reasons to celebrate not being in it. The key thing is that the Minister’s party and the Government supported, proposed and promised £2.4 billion of ringfenced farm support. I am sure that he will confirm that that money is not being spent at the moment, because the basic payment scheme has been withdrawn and the new schemes are being taken up by a fraction of those to whom they should be available. That means he has broken that promise to farmers.

[Mark Spencer]

No, I absolutely stand by that commitment.  We will spend £2.4 billion of taxpayers’ money every year in this Parliament. If we fall short and spend only £2.3 billion this year, we will roll that forward and spend £2.5 billion next year. In rolling out those schemes, farmers clearly needed time to adjust, have a look at those new schemes and ensure that they could bid and understand the process that is taking place. It has taken a while to get those schemes right, but we worked with farmers to ensure that they were right. We have now rolled them out, and there are huge numbers of farmers bidding for capital grants on slurry and equipment, to enter into sustainable farming incentive agreements and get involved with countryside stewardship. That is the right thing to do and the right way to go forward.

I am conscious of time, Mr Dowd, because I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield time to respond. I thank him for introducing this debate. The Government have a shared ambition to ensure that our food system delivers healthy and affordable food for everyone. I thank him and other colleagues for engaging in this debate.

Water Company Performance

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a tremendous campaigner for Southend and I would be happy to meet with her and the head of Anglian Water to push that forward.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

We have seen £2.8 billion in water company profits, £1 billion in shareholder dividends, and a 20% rise in executive water company pay, 60% of which has been in bonuses—in my book, bonuses are for doing a good job, not a terrible one. Meanwhile in Cumbria, the River Eden at Kirkby Stephen has had 101 days of sewage outflows, Swindale Beck at Brough has had 115 days, the River Eea at Cark and Cartmel has had 252 days, and Windermere lake at the heart of the English Lake district has had 71 days. All of that, outrageously, is legal. When will the Government force the water companies to clean up not only their act, but our lakes and rivers too?

[Rebecca Pow]

If I might say, the hon. Gentleman is a fine one to talk. I believe the water Minister in the coalition was a Liberal Democrat: what exactly did he do? It is this Government who are taking action now on the water companies. This Government introduced the storm overflows reduction plan and, in addition to that plan and all the requirements it puts on the water companies, just this week the Secretary of State has asked that a plan be submitted for every single storm sewerage overflow, with water companies’ proposed actions clearly outlined.

Avian Influenza Outbreak

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Sir George. I want to pay a genuine and heartfelt tribute to the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), who has successfully secured this debate on a hugely important and significant issue for us all, particularly in communities such as mine.

Animal diseases pose an enormous threat to UK farming, trade and rural communities. We are in the midst of the worst outbreak of avian influenza that we have ever seen. H5N1 has stayed with us all year round for the first time ever, and it is more virulent than previous strains. Yesterday, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee heard evidence on this; I am grateful for the work it does, and many of its members are here today. There have already been more than 140 confirmed avian influenza cases in poultry and captive birds in the UK—in previous years, getting to double figures was considered to be bad news. The fact that we are well into three figures is terrifying.

As of 20 November, 1.6 million birds had been culled directly because of bird flu on farms. Half of the free range turkeys produced for Christmas in the UK have been culled, as we have heard. British farmers are under immense pressure, both emotional and financial. Poultry farmers often rely on the Christmas trade to pull their annual income out of the red and into the black, but that Christmas trade has been wiped out in an instant, and the small independent farmers, particularly in Westmorland, are bearing the brunt of it, fearing that their businesses will be wiped out completely.

It is not just avian flu that we should worry about. The UK faces real threats from bovine tuberculosis, new diseases such as African swine fever and, of course, diseases affecting domestic pets, including rabies. These outbreaks do not just threaten our food security, trade and farming; they also threaten our natural environment. All birds are being culled, not just those sold for meat—the great skua population, for example, has declined by between 55% and 80% in the UK this year. The species has immediately been placed on the red list, and its population will not recover for decades. If the Government do not intervene effectively, the ecosystems and food chains we rely on—the very fabric of Britain’s countryside —will be changed forever.

A report from the Public Accounts Committee this month found that the Animal and Plant Health Agency has been

“left to deteriorate to an alarming extent.”

It said that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had “comprehensively failed” in its management of the agency’s Weybridge site. That is the site where the science happens—surveillance testing, disease tracking and so on.

We have seen what the consequences of inaction and not learning from the past can be. The foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 devastated communities in Cumbria, not just financially and economically but socially and emotionally. A friend of mine who passed away just a month ago was among those 20-odd years ago who were involved in the large-scale culling in the Rusland valley. It broke him—and 20 years on, it continued to live with him.

A year after foot and mouth happened, I remember the children of Kirkbie Kendal School doing a play they had written themselves about the emotional effect the outbreak had on them. One of them likened it to Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”—waking every morning and thinking, had the disease got closer to them? Had it hit their valley yet? Those people are adults now, and the impact on them, on all of us and on our shared memory is huge. We must never think that animal disease outbreaks only affect animals; they have a huge impact on human beings as well.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the contribution he is making, particularly on the impact of foot and mouth in Cumbria. I was one of those schoolchildren in Cumbria at that time. Given the closeness of Cumbria and north Lancashire to the Scottish border, does he share my concerns that, while we are housing birds in England we also need to see the devolved Governments following suit when it comes to biosecurity?

[Tim Farron]

I absolutely agree that this needs to be a whole-UK project. I thank my friend and neighbour for her contribution—not least for reminding me how much younger she is than me. If we had an outbreak of foot and mouth on the same scale today, it would have an economic impact of £12 billion. As I said, there are impacts that are not quantifiable but even more devastating.

What do the Government need to do? I will briefly suggest three things. First, they should support our farmers through the current crisis. As the right hon. Member for Maldon rightly said, the compensation scheme is not fit for purpose, and the Government must bring it into the 21st century. The legislation that it was built on was introduced in 1981. It is practically prehistoric —like me. Farmers are able to receive compensation only for birds that are alive when the flock is seen by a vet.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

As the representative of a constituency that has a large number of intensive poultry farms, and as someone who has kept a backyard flock and been the financial controller of a poultry farm, I have seen at first hand the difficulties of trying to house poultry. Most importantly, I have seen the difficulties that the farming industry faces when trying to insure against avian influenza. It used to be possible to obtain insurance, because the disease was an unlikely event—it was a peril that insurers would happily insure against—but now it is almost impossible. Does my hon. Friend agree that taking preventive action—

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. If the hon. Lady wants to make a speech, she should indicate so. Interventions should be brief.

[Tim Farron]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and am grateful for her intervention. The uninsurability of flocks is a reminder of why the compensation scheme must work and be effective.

In 1981, avian flu had a low pathogenicity. It did not kill the poultry, so farmers could get a vet to confirm an outbreak and command a cull before the livestock was dead. That is the crucial thing. Now, the disease has a high pathogenicity. Turkeys are dying within four days. The legislation was introduced to incentivise farmers to take their birds to be culled, and it is no longer serving that purpose. The Government must therefore intervene to correct the compensation scheme accordingly.

Secondly, the Minister should take evidence-based decisions. Earlier, I mentioned that the Animal and Plant Health Agency is where the science happens. It is vital that our approach to the disease outbreaks is based on science. Scientists think that avian flu probably lasts for around six weeks after death, so why do farmers have to rest their sites for 12 months? Why are some being told to strip six inches of soil off their free-range paddocks? Farmers are ordered to move their bird flocks indoors, but it takes longer for avian influenza to spread among a flock if they are kept outside on the ranch.

Thirdly, I ask that the Government ensure that they properly prepare for future outbreaks. I expect that the Minister might say that the Government are investing £2.8 billion to redevelop the Animal and Plant Health Agency. That is welcome, but the programme is not due to complete until 2036, and the Treasury has not yet agreed to fund it.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Maldon for bringing forward the debate. It is a huge issue for farmers in my patch, for rural communities across the board and for the infrastructure of our natural environment across the UK. Action must happen now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend offers an interesting invitation. Given my diary, I cannot commit now, but his constituents’ work is exceptionally positive. We introduced the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill because we know we need to adapt some of our food production industries to be resilient for the future.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

We will produce less food if we have fewer farmers. In just a few weeks’ time, the Government plan to take 20% of the basic payment away from farmers, at the same time that barely 2% have got themselves into the new sustainable farming incentive. Will the Secretary of State consider delaying the reduction in the basic payment scheme to keep farmers farming while she sorts out the mess in her Department on the environmental land management schemes? Will she also meet Baroness Rock at the earliest opportunity to discuss her important tenant review?

[Dr Coffey]

It has been well trailed for several years that we will shift from the EU common agricultural policy for distributing money to our farmers and landowners to using public money for public goods. That is why we have been working on the environmental land management schemes and will continue to make sure we get them right. We will make further announcements in due course.

Bathing Water Status: Rivers

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Trudy Harrison)]

I thank Members for showing such interest in this important subject. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who has a wonderful career ahead of him as a blue badge guide—or, indeed, in any role in the tourism industry in his area—such was the wonderful picture that he painted. I congratulate Members across the House on championing what DEFRA very much wants to achieve: clean water.

Let me set out how we are going to achieve that. We are absolutely committed to driving up the water quality of our lakes, our rivers and our coasts for the public to enjoy and for the benefit of nature. Designated bathing waters protect people’s health at popular swimming spots across the country. As a Member of Parliament in the Lake district who has enjoyed much wild swimming for many of my 46 years, I know the benefits that that can bring. The water quality at those sites is monitored regularly—much more regularly than previously, as Members noted—and improvements are made if it does not meet the minimum standard.

There are 421 designated bathing waters in England. As my hon. Friend mentioned, the vast majority are coastal, but in the past two years we have designated our very first bathing waters on rivers. It is very much thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) that we have been able to achieve that in his constituency. I am pleased to say that we have many more applications for rivers to be designated bathing quality areas.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Minister will be surprised to hear that I want to talk about a river and not a lake. We are seeking bathing status and clean water status for the River Kent. The “Clean River Kent” campaign has raised over £8,000 to do sampling, lab testing and surveys—massive thanks to it for raising that money, and to the people who sponsored me to do the Staveley trail to help raise a bit of it. Does the Minister agree that the regulator should be driving this work, instead of local groups having to raise the money to do it? Does she also agree that the water companies could come up with some of the money to fund these bids, because, let’s be honest, it is their fault that the rivers are not in a clean state to start off with?

[Trudy Harrison]

The hon. Gentleman raises an excellent point on the part water companies must play in cleaning up our lakes, rivers and coastal areas. I am a neighbouring MP and will be delighted to meet him to talk about the natural management that could be done—very much part of my portfolio in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—to assist in cleaning up Lake Windermere in particular and of course the River Kent.

Bathing waters across England are a success story, with almost 95% achieving “good” or “excellent” status last year, the highest rate since the new stringent standards were introduced in 2015. Of these, 70% of bathing waters were classed as “excellent”, the highest quality standard, whereas just 28% of bathing waters met the highest standards in force in the 1990s. That demonstrates the excellent progress the Government are making in cleaning up our waters and holding water companies to account. Over the last 30 years, there has been good progress, following more than a century of poorly regulated industrial practices. A large proportion of the improving trend in bathing water quality can be attributed to improvements in sewage treatment.

Over £2.5 billion has been invested by English water companies to improve bathing water quality since privatisation, and England now has the cleanest bathing waters since records began. We know there is more to do to continue to drive up the quality of our rivers, lakes and coastal areas so people can enjoy them and nature can thrive. Areas used by large numbers of bathers and that have facilities to promote and support bathing are eligible for designation. We welcome applications for bathing water designations for both coastal areas and inland waters such as rivers. We actively encourage applications by writing annually to the chief executive of every local authority in England; we also write to other stakeholders such as swimming associations, because local authorities and stakeholders best know which popular riverside bathing areas may be suitable for designation. Once a site is designated as a bathing area, the Environment Agency will assess what action is needed to improve the water quality so that it can meet the standards that the public rightly expect and which are set by the bathing water regulations.

In 2021, we were delighted to approve the first designated river bathing water on the River Wharfe in Ilkley, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley for his superb championing to get that designation over the line—I know he is supporting other Members across the House. That was followed by Wolvercote mill stream on the River Thames at Oxford this year, so it is wonderful to have my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) here, championing bathing water quality and improving all water quality across the country. The designations are driving action to improve water quality.

My Department has received a lot of interest this year, and clearly society is paying a lot of attention to cleaning up our water. Our aim is to announce which new sites will be eligible to be designated before the start of the next bathing season, which is officially 15 May 2023, so get your Speedos ready—other outfits are available. We look forward to receiving the application for the River Nidd in the very near future, and I will be delighted to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, as will the Minister responsible for this area, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

Guidance to assist applicants with their applications is already available on the Government website, and we plan to update this next year. To respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, that will make it easier for community groups to understand the criteria for bathing water and ensure that only the necessary information is requested, to save such a lot of time and effort. In addition, we are reviewing the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 to ensure that they reflect changes to how and where people use bathing waters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough raised the subject of wet wipes. There is absolutely no doubt that wet wipes cause huge damage to sewers and to the environment when they are incorrectly flushed away. In fact, they make up 90% of the material that causes sewers to block. Let me take this opportunity to remind everybody across this House and across the country to bin it, don’t flush it.

Blockages can cause pollution and surface water flooding, and cost the water industry in England and Wales £100 million a year. The case for action is very clear. We are considering various options to tackle the issues caused by wet wipes. In November 2021 we launched a call for evidence that included questions on those options to help us build our evidence base and to inform our approach. That call for evidence closed on 12 February, and the Government will publish a response later this year.

Once again, I thank all Members, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, for championing the best quality water we can possibly achieve, to support people to enjoy bathing and so that nature benefits from clean water, which we will all benefit from. I also agree, as has been said across the House, that water improvement is a team effort. We can all play a part. That is why we will continue to take action to require water companies and industry to achieve the necessary improvements to reduce pollution. I am pleased that water companies have committed £56 billion to be spent over the coming years to clean our water and improve storm overflows.

We recognise that healthy and well-managed water is key to our wellbeing and an important part of the Government’s pledge to hand over our planet to the next generation in a better condition than we inherited it.

Avian Influenza

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his three questions. First, we have moved the date for the compensation scheme to as early as legally possible, to try to assist farmers with the challenges they face. He mentioned the labelling of free-range eggs. The law currently allows 16 weeks from the second a bird is housed, before eggs may no longer be called free-range. We have a while before the end of that 16-week period, when eggs would have to be labelled as barn-reared. That can be done with a simple label to say the eggs are barn-reared, rather than free-range.

As with covid, vaccination will be the route out of this problem, but we need our best scientists to concentrate on developing an effective vaccine. We need to work with our colleagues across the European Union so that birds and products exported for food will be accepted into their marketplace, as well as keeping conversations open with retailers to ensure they are also happy.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Twenty-one years on from foot and mouth disease devastating our communities in Cumbria, we are especially sensitive to not only the animal welfare consequences of outbreaks of animal diseases such as avian flu, but the crushing impact on people, livelihoods and the wider community. Will the Minister say more about the support he will be giving—compensation and other support—to poultry farmers directly affected and to those who will be indirectly affected by this hammering of their business, which puts their businesses at risk? Given that the Department has delayed imposing mandatory housing until next week, what evidence is there that this window could not now trigger panicked and unsafe practices, creating greater infection and increased misery for communities such as mine?

[Mark Spencer]

Clearly, the housing order came in following the best scientific and veterinary advice that we have, but I cannot reiterate enough the impact that improved biosecurity has on those units over a housing order. I recognise the impact that foot and mouth disease had in the hon. Gentleman’s part of the country and the mental scars it leaves on livestock holders. We have brought forward the compensation scheme so that cash flow is assisted. In bringing forward the moment at which the compensation scheme kicks in, we have also brought forward the moment at which the compensation is received in the bank account of the affected farmer. However, we cannot pay compensation for consequential losses further down the track. As a society, we will have to monitor and support those whose mental health is affected and address the impact that has on many, many families up and down the country.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

What a number of countries have done—the UK was in the vanguard of this—was to move away from maceration of day-old chicks towards the use of carbon dioxide and argon gas as a means of dispatching them. However, I think we could accelerate the process of identifying the eggs through the use of genetic technology.

Dehorning cattle is another mutilation that we would like to phase out over time. Progress has been made for some breeds on polled cattle—that is, cattle born without horns, so that we do not have to use a hot iron, albeit under anaesthetic, to de-bud them. Again, it is difficult to perfect without precision breeding techniques, but if we had that technology, we could have more polled cattle and reduce the need for conventional dehorning of cattle, or even pave the way for a regulatory change to prevent it.

There is also the prospect of breeding more resistance to diseases. In the dairy herd some selection is already done for natural resistance to bovine tuberculosis. It is limited in its ability, but if we had the technology, we might be able to go further.

At the moment, the Government plan to phase out and remove badger culling is predicated on a lot of confidence that a cattle vaccine will be viable and deployable, but it would be helpful to have additional tools in the box, and resistance to TB could be one of them. Of course, we are about to face another very difficult winter when it comes to avian flu, and this technology might have some application there.

However, my sense when I read amendment 4 was that whoever drafted it had had one sector in particular in mind—the broiler chicken sector. There is a genuine concern that the production speed of broiler chickens, reduced now to around 32 to 33 days, is so fast that they are having all sorts of leg problems, and we might be able to make some changes there. That is a legitimate point, because while we might say it has improved the welfare of a broiler chicken that it is bred to finish within 32 days, we might say it is in its welfare interest to ensure that it does not have leg problems. There is a second question, which is whether it is the ethical and right thing to do to produce a chicken within 32 days rather than, say, 37 days, in which case the welfare problem goes away.

A less obvious and less talked-about situation might be commercial duck production. We know that ducks need and want open water—it is part of their physiology and the way their beaks work. However, many commercial duck producers do not give ducks access to water. I have come across vets who will argue that it is in the interest of ducks not to have access to water, since that can spread disease and that is not in their welfare interest, but that goes to the root of the issue with animal welfare. We can either see animal welfare in the conventional five freedoms sense—freedom from pain, hunger, thirst and so on—or we can see it in the more modern sense of a life worth living.

The amendment does not work, because the more we put into an amendment the more we inadvertently exclude. If we accepted an amendment that proscribed certain things but missed certain things, at a future date a breeder might bring a judicial review and say, “Well, this wasn’t covered by the Bill and everything else was.” Therefore, we would not be future-proofing the importance of animal welfare.

However, that is where guidance could work. After Second Reading of the Bill, I asked our officials to give some thought to the idea of guidance, which might give organisations such as Compassion in World Farming and people such as Peter Stevenson, who is very thoughtful on these matters, the reassurance they need in the absence of a legislative change on the face of the Bill, which is difficult to do. The Minister may find that there is some guidance helpfully drafted—or it may be that it was not drafted, but it is not too late, because the Bill has time in the other House.

Will the Minister consider whether this issue of how the animal welfare body should approach its task and how it should assess the impacts on animal welfare could be dealt with in a non-statutory way through guidance. He and his officials will have to issue terms of reference anyway to the animal welfare body, which is likely to be a sub-committee of the Animal Welfare Committee, and it would not take much to set out some parameters for the things we want it to bear in mind when making assessments.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will not speak for too long, but I want to address a couple of the amendments and some of the issues affecting the Bill overall.

I will start by being extremely critical of the European Commission—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Indeed. Most of us in this House think that science is broadly a good thing, or certainly at least neutral; it is a case of what we do with it. One of the things that has irritated me most about part of the Commission over a 20 or 30-year period is its knee-jerk objection to science in this area and the idea that there can be a moratorium not just on the application of knowledge, which is an issue, but on the very knowledge and research in the first place. That troubles me greatly. We should weigh all issues up and make wise, evidence-based decisions.

On the one hand, I welcome the Bill and I certainly welcome and support science-based approaches to technologies such as genetic modification and what the Government refer to as precision breeding. They have the potential to deliver a major improvement in productivity and on the environmental front, reducing the impact of farming. Genetic modification can have a positive impact by allowing us to address pest and disease pressures on crops and farm animals, and so reduce our reliance on fertilisers and pesticides; that helps more broadly in the fight against climate change. Genetic modification also provides opportunities for us to meet global need, including the food requirements of the global poor. However, there are problems with the Bill, and reasons why I would support the Government being more open to amendments from the other place, and especially to amendments 3 and 4 tonight.

Let me mention some areas in which the Bill is weak. It does not solve the intellectual property and commercial issues surrounding genetic modification technology. If we allowed science to be better used in farming, for the reasons we have set out relating to the environment and the quality and scale of production, but ended up making farmers, particularly tenant farmers, entirely beholden to the commercial interests of large, multinational agribusinesses, that would be an outrage. That is not what farmers in this country want; they want science applied, and they want freedom. They do not want to be pawns in a multinational game. That major area of concern is not addressed in the Bill.

The Bill is also light on the details of the new regulatory requirements for crops and animals. I accept that animals should be in the scope of the Bill, but we are transitioning from a very high regulation system to a relatively low regulation system. The lack of detail on how the new system will work makes it hard to support the Bill.

Amendment 12, tabled by the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), would prevent the Secretary of State from authorising a new product if scientific evidence indicated

“that the precision bred traits are likely to have a direct or indirect adverse effect on the health or welfare of the relevant animal or its qualifying progeny”.

Lack of detail on those kinds of situations makes it hard for us to go into the Aye Lobby and support the Bill this evening. Editing a pig’s genes could, for example, make it resistant to disease—that would obviously be a welcome advantage of this technology—but the Bill must not be a shortcut that allows pigs to be reared in less hygienic, more crowded conditions. Again, that issue is not covered. Animals’ welfare must not only continue to be protected but be continuously improved.

We do not want all the effort that has been put into the high standards in British farming to be wasted as a result of a back-door watering down of standards; but if there was such a watering-down, it would be part of a pattern, I am afraid. It would fit the pattern of the trade deals that are being designed and agreed to. The deals with Australia and New Zealand in particular basically throw away the high standards we have developed. It is not only that it is morally right to have those standards; they make the provenance of our produce important, make it high-quality, and give it high ethical value. What a desperate shame that free trade, which is a good thing, should be done so badly that our farmers are thrown under the bus, have their livelihoods threatened, and cannot take advantage of the benefits that free trade ought to provide. If the Bill is part of a deregulatory framework, or part of an agenda that seeks to unfairly disadvantage British farmers or throws the standards that they have developed under the bus, that is unacceptable. Unamended, the Bill forms part of a pattern of this Government throwing our farmers to the wolves.

Farmers do not benefit from the application of science envisaged in the Bill if they do not survive the transition from the current payment scheme to the new one. Reshuffle upon reshuffle has followed on from great uncertainty, which the Government introduced in September when they indicated that they might be prepared to rip up the environmental land management scheme. There are many problems with that scheme, by the way; the fact that only 1% of eligible farmers have applied for the sustainable farming incentive shows how poorly the Government are rolling out a scheme that most Members agree with in principle. The worst thing the Government could do is rip it all up; the best thing they could do is invest in protecting the £3.5 billion supposedly ringfenced for ELMS and allow the process to take place, so that farmers survive. Farmers will be in no position to protect our environment, produce our food or apply the science that the Government want them to apply if they do not survive.

In short, we strongly support the principle underlying the Bill, but we strongly urge the Government to consider the amendments before us this evening, and those that will undoubtedly be tabled in the other place, to improve regulation, safety and animal welfare, and protect farmers from the damage that could be done to them if they end up being the pawns of multinational global enterprises. I would hate the United Kingdom to end up a mirror image of the European Commission, which regulated to such an extent that applying science was impossible. Alternatively, the Government may deregulate to such an extent that it is hard to defend the science, and that would be a real shame for all of us who genuinely care about the application of science in farming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

Briefly—I promise—I thank the many, many Ministers who have helped to lead this Bill through Parliament. Let me say on behalf of farmers in Cumbria that we would be grateful if this Government did not take us for granted in the transition to the new payment system, which has been botched so badly, or any indeed in the trade deals that have thrown so many of my farmers underneath the bus.

Science has an important role in farming. That includes GM, and there is no doubt in my mind that the European Commission’s stifling position on GM was massively regrettable. It is good to have a debate on it in this place and to try to move forward with it. GM and science in agriculture can reduce harm to the environment, reduce the reliance on damaging and expensive pesticides and fertiliser, increase productivity and help to meet global food needs, but to achieve those advances the Bill would need to provide proper detail and regulation, to protect animals and consumers and to protect farmers from being sold out and their livelihoods placed at the mercy of multinational businesses. We must not replace the European Commission’s knee-jerk opposition to science with a reckless lack of detail. I fear that that is where we are.

Sewage Discharges

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Ms Elliott, and I also thank the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) for securing it.

We hear that there will potentially be an increase in the maximum fine. There have been only 11 prosecutions in the last four years, so we know that the real cause of anger is the failure to deal with legal discharges of sewage into our waterways, lakes and rivers. The collective profit of the water companies last year was £2.7 billion—£1 billion in shareholder dividends. The choice is not having sewage back up into people’s houses or letting it flow into our waterways, rivers, lakes and streams. The alternative is to invest those obscene profits in holding tanks to ensure that we do not get sewage outflows in the first place. [Interruption.] I hear Conservative Members muttering from sedentary positions. I wish they were as angry about sewage as they are about people campaigning against sewage.

In Windermere, the largest lake in England, there were 71 days last year when sewage was discharged legally. In Coniston, there were 112 days when sewage was discharged legally. In the River Eden, in Kirkby Stephen, there were 2,500 hours of sewage being discharged legally. In Morecambe Bay, there were 35,000 hours of sewage being discharged legally. The option here is obvious: to force the water companies to invest their profits now—not over a 20-year period—to ensure that the water in the lakes of the Lake district, the dales and the rest of the country are not polluted by sewage, so that this environmental health risk, public health risk, risk to animal welfare and risk to our economy is not allowed to continue. The Government have the power to force the water companies to take the action that they should take. We know that the water companies have the money to do it. Why are the Government not forcing them to do it now?