Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, this has been a most interesting and wide-ranging debate. We have benefited a great deal from the expertise shown. In particular, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter. With his maiden speech, he showed us the depth of his understanding and drew on his wide experience of rural matters. We very much look forward to hearing him again. The Bishops’ Benches have always contributed in a way that we find worth listening to carefully because of the experience and expertise that the bishops bring to us. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich also gave us some useful information and views about the Bill and how it should go forward. I began to wonder whether we should congratulate the Minister on having his brief expanded to include rural affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, worried that we on these Benches did not entirely support the idea of the rural advocate, but we had been worried that there was no Minister in this House to do with rural affairs. These things will all be settled in due course. The Bill contains much of interest to me, both as a land manager and as a student of our devolution settlement. I get the feeling that my understanding of those concepts as it is now will not remain the same when we have finished with the Bill. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville for expressing his admiration for some items in Scottish legislation on nature conservancy, but the ambition of this Government when they set out to tackle such problems never ceases to amaze me. Once bold ideas are reduced to words in legislation, the outcome usually fills me and many others with a bit of disappointment. By way of declaring my interests, I should say that I live in a recognisably beautiful part of the country. It has never been a particularly rich or productive part, and presumably my ancestors recognised that when they bought into it 300 years ago. They looked after it in ways that suited their intentions and, as a result, there are numerous ways in which I have to declare my interest in parts of the Bill—particularly when I have figured out which ones apply to Scotland. The land that was formerly our estate has been designated a national park and an area of outstanding natural beauty. I am still the owner of a national nature reserve that borders on a Ramsar site. I manage three additional SSSIs, one SPA, one SPC—the House must forgive me for using all the acronyms; it is probably easiest—and a designated landscape, all in an area in Scottish terms that is fairly small and limited. That reflects an aspect which was well drawn to our attention by my noble friend Lord Peel and which is in danger of being overlooked in the framework proposed by the Government—that is, given a chance to exercise their own initiative, individuals are readily interested in looking after their environment, and they are prepared to put money into it provided that they are allowed to earn and keep a sufficient amount. Perhaps one of the tussles that the Government are currently having with their Back-Benchers should not be lost on the House. As I understand it, after having been determined that all education should be directed and, if necessary, funded by government, they are now putting forward the idea that certain areas can be improved by enlisting the initiative of those who would like to put their personal money into education. In so far as the Bill is concerned almost entirely with environmental aspects of land management, that puts me firmly in the picture. I also participate as a farmer in environmental schemes related to the single farm payment, and those will no doubt form an important part of the delivery that is intended. But I ask whether enforcement, as allowed for under the Bill, in order to ensure compliance is really the way to achieve the variety and diversity for which this country is renowned. Reinforcing the point that I made earlier about the role of individuals, the Countryside Alliance voiced a useful criticism in its brief with regard to Clause 2 of the Bill, detailing the general purposes intended for Natural England. That fails to single out the fact that the economic contribution of the land may have a marked effect on the environment as well as on the sustainability, and that should receive adequate recognition. We have just come through the 50 post-war years when Europe has squeezed agriculture economically and the route offered for survival has been to increase production and increase the claims on government subsidy. Now, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, mentioned, the mid-term review has dramatically altered that. Production subsidies are in the past. Now, farmers can increase production but that will tend to be with the risk of being penalised if they exceed cross-compliance criteria, and the only government assistance that will be paid will be for the delivery of environmental benefits. That is a huge change of emphasis. Just last week, I experienced my first cross-compliance and second British Cattle Movement Service check within one year. The inspector’s pro forma for good farming practice ran to 10 pages and the cross-compliance criteria took 20. That is for a herd of 109 cows and their youngstock. For the BCMS, we had to check their passports, their dam’s identity and the identity of every animal that has moved on to the farm since 1990, and, finally, the inspector required someone to hang on to each cow’s head while he checked the ear number. With every ear number being composed of 14 digits, I reckon that by the end of the day we had checked 29,000 digits, and I hope we got them right. There was the added confusion that one cow went missing in the summer—probably in a flood—and it was only by a process of elimination that we could be certain which one it was. The noble Lord, Lord Plumb, was concerned about what the countryside can afford in all these schemes that are being dreamt up. One hears of wonderful statistical gymnastics relating to the fact that the common agricultural policy takes 43 per cent of the Community budget and that that supports only 4 per cent of the working population. Only with considerable difficulty did I unearth the fact that the money that British agriculture received from Brussels in recent years was 0.57 per cent of the total United Kingdom government expenditure, to which the UK added 0.13 per cent from Treasury coffers to give a grand total of 0.7 per cent. I simply warn the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that, if she wishes to raid this rather generous pot, she will obviously have a hard job to see what she can get out of it. The farming industry in my part of the country is still trying to fathom the meaning of the new support structure for their individual businesses. What was threatened during the summer as a possible exodus of farming from the hills has not materialised, and most are sitting tight while they try to figure out what to do. My general impression is that much of what the Bill sets out to achieve in terms of the environment will come about under this new economic regime without many of the more draconian provisions that the Bill contains. Like my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith, I think that in Committee we shall want to explore in a little more detail what the Government see as the areas in which Natural England will expect to charge for its advice. What is the meaning of ““licences”” mentioned in Clause 11? When drawing up a management agreement for an SSSI, will the time spent by its staff be regarded as advice given? Similarly, when a request is made for carrying out listed operations on that same SSSI, will the granting of the approval come under the heading of advice? It will be rather strange if, in one case, it becomes the source of the advice for setting up the agreements and, at the same time, is the body to which the scheme is submitted for approval. As other noble Lords have mentioned, Clause 43 is another area where we would like to see a little more information about the Government’s thinking on the level of pesticides that will be on the Secretary of State’s list. Can the Minister give us any details of those? There would appear to be every chance that the Minister will list every chemical that could conceivably be a poison and then leave it to those who possess them to know under which of the pesticide Acts they can argue for their legitimacy. I can only think that there would be a great howl of dismay from gardeners if methiocarb appeared on that list, as they would be left having to rely on using up their beer supplies to top up traps made of jam jars, and so on, when they catch slugs. Like my noble friend Lady Byford, I should like to ask the Minister what thought has been given to possible conflicts of opinion between the two new organisations that are proposed and how they will be resolved. The Commission for Rural Communities will obviously be giving advice to the Secretary of State, who presumably comes under the heading of ““a relevant person””, and, from discussions in the other place, I see that the Minister was allowing that the rural advocate would speak directly to the Prime Minister. But that will merely relate to the social and economic needs of persons in rural areas. At that rate, the commission will presumably regard itself as having authority not just equal to but perhaps greater than that of Natural England. When the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked about the efforts to achieve a proper title for the body that was being set up, I wondered whether some wag thought that Natural England conjured up views of a large bunch of people running about covered with nothing else than a liberal coating of woad. Natural England has a whole clause laying out to whom it is likely to be required to give advice, but there is no mention of government or Ministers, although presumably that is whence its authority emanates. Social and economic well-being is only one of the five purposes of this body, and so it is almost bound to view things from a different perspective. It is therefore proposed, as my noble friend Lord Rotherwick suggested, that any and all differences will fall to be resolved by the Minister. If so, will she be required to inform Natural England if its advice has been rejected, as provided under Clause 5(3)? Like many speakers in the debate, we welcome considerable parts of the Bill but we have severe concerns over certain aspects of it. We look forward to being able to raise our worries, particularly on the Floor of the House.