- Commons Reasons
- 3:45 pm
- Motion A
- That this House do not insist on its Amendment 1, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 1A.
- 1A: Because environmental objectives will be considered when setting out strategic priorities for giving financial assistance.
- My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak also to Motions C, C1, F and F1. At this juncture, I should declare my farming interests, as set out in the register.I start by once again acknowledging the work of your Lordships in the scrutiny of the Bill. These debates have provided a valuable opportunity to clarify the Government’s agenda of reform for agriculture in this country.Turning to Amendment 1, I agree wholeheartedly with the intent behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The strategic priorities of multi-annual financial assistance plans drawn up under Clause 4 will most definitely consider those objectives and those of future environmental improvement plans.I turn to Amendment 11, and Amendment 11B proposed in lieu by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in Motion C1. The exacting process of scientific assessment applied to all pesticides specifically addresses the situation of those living near to where pesticides are applied. The Health and Safety Executive is the regulator covering the safety of chemicals, including pesticides. Staff working on pesticide assessments are scientists who specialise either in one part of the risk assessment, such as the fate and behaviour of pesticides in the environment, or in interpreting the specialist findings to reach conclusions on a product’s safety. No pesticide is allowed on to the market unless these scientists are satisfied that it poses no threat to the health of those living near farmland where it might be applied. This assessment process applies to all new pesticides, and the safety of existing pesticides is regularly reviewed.Some noble Lords are concerned that the Government could face a gap in powers at the end of the transition period. I want to reassure your Lordships that that is not the case. We have the powers needed in this area. Section 16 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 allows the Government to make regulations that prohibit the use of pesticides in certain specified areas. Section 17 of the same Act allows the Government to make codes of practice providing practical guidance on pesticide use. Other powers include Article 6 of Regulation 1107/2009, which allows the designation of areas where the use of plant protection products containing a particular active substance may not be authorised.
- My Lords, I oppose the Commons deletion and commend Amendment 11B, which proposes a revised version of what was Clause 38 in the Bill as it left this House.I thank the Minister for his explanation, and for his courtesy, throughout this discussion and when meeting me yesterday, but I am afraid that he has not yet convinced me. I appreciate that many in this House do not regard this issue as important enough to be dealt with at this late stage in the Bill’s passage, but the Bill will define the future practice of agriculture in this country. We are dealing with agriculture’s relationship with nature, the environment, the food trade and so on, but it also must be about its relationship with those human beings who live and work in our countryside alongside that agriculture. Too many of those rural inhabitants have had health effects from exposure to pesticides, which have been and remain a serious threat to their physical quality of life. They deserve at least the limited and straightforward protection which my amendment provides by requiring the Government to regulate the distance between them and pesticide operations.There have essentially been only three arguments from the Government against this principle. The first is what the Minister has just said: that the EU authorisation process nowadays ensures that even repeated exposure to the application of legally authorised pesticides cannot lead to serious health effects. I regret to say that medical reports and evidence from rural residents, some of which noble Lords will have seen, suggest substantially otherwise. Noble Lords will also recall the powerful speech on Report by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on the medical issues that residents and others affected by pesticide poisoning have suffered.I accept that there have been significant changes in EU pesticide authorisation, but they are not sufficient. One of the easiest and most obvious ways to prevent such exposure from causing health effects is to ensure that the exposure to crop spraying is at a prescribed minimum distance from where people are most likely to be: in their own homes, their children’s schools, and so on.
- My Lords, I speak to Amendment 17B, which would create a new clause for a strategy to reduce emissions from agriculture, having regard to our national and international obligations, and requiring an interim strategy for 2030 commensurate with meeting our 2050 net-zero target.This is a clearer and simpler version of Amendment 100, which we passed by a 49-vote majority on Report. I have since had a further opportunity to reflect on the Minister’s detailed response to my amendment, and I am also grateful for the meetings that he has arranged before today, and the promise of a future meeting. I have also read with interest what the Minister in the other place, Victoria Prentis, had to say about our amendments.At the heart of our disagreement is whether individual government departments should be required to spell out how they are going to meet their share of the obligation to deliver net zero by 2050. In the debate on the Bill last week, the Commons Minister said:“If we are to achieve the UK’s net zero target, emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors. Not setting sector-specific targets allows us to meet our climate change commitments in the best and speediest way.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/10/74; col. 74.]Of course I agree that emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors, but I fail to see how this can be achieved unless you precisely set sector-specific metrics and outcomes. If not, you end up with precisely the criticisms levelled by the Committee on Climate Change, which said that the voluntary approach in agriculture has not worked, and that there is no coherent approach to emissions reductions in agriculture at present. The result, as noble Lords will know, is that our agricultural emissions have stayed static, at about 10% of the total, when we should be playing our part in driving emissions down. Given that the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008—12 years ago—we have quite some catching up to do. This is why our amendment introduces the concept of a strategy to be published for staged progress to be delivered by 2030. Given that we seem to have made little progress in agriculture in the first 12 years, this interim strategy seems all too necessary, otherwise we risk getting close to 2050 and realising it is too late to take deliverable measures to meet our target.
- 4:00 pm
- On Report, I referred to the 2020 report of the Committee on Climate Change, which helpfully sets out some recommended measures that would put us back on track to deliver on our target. I am now grateful to the Minister for drawing my attention to the publication last Thursday of the Government’s response to that report. It is a considerable response that sets out the Government’s approach nationally, but also department by department, for delivering net zero.
- I welcome the Government’s recognition of the urgency of the situation. As it says in the introduction:
- “To limit the Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to halve global greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.”
- The challenge is there. I also welcome the following acknowledgement regarding agriculture:
- “While farming processes inevitably create GHG emissions, there remains potential for reducing emissions and increasing sequestration of carbon in land and plants.”
- It is this challenge that our amendment seeks to address, so I am pleased that the Government’s report to the CCC echoes our concerns and begins to outline ways in which this might be achieved.
- Our concern all along has been to tie down the Government’s good intentions on climate change into deliverable policies for which they could be held to account. We still believe that linking the provisions for climate change in Clause 1 to our amendment would make that essential link. However, the Minister has previously argued that the right place for this is the Environment Bill, and that is the thrust of the Government’s response to the report.
- We have debated the role of the Environment Bill many times, and, of course, there is always a danger that we will simply kick the can down the road and never fully resolve this issue. As noble Lords will know, there is a lot riding on the Environment Bill, and the Natural Capital Committee has already been critical of the lack of meaningful metrics in the 25-year environment plan, which would be the vehicle for measuring progress on agricultural emissions. Nevertheless, I accept that it will provide another opportunity for bottoming out Defra’s contribution to the climate change effort, so I do not apologise for pursuing this issue again. It is important that our sector plays its part in delivering net zero, and we believe that the strategy set out in Amendment 17B, whether in the Agriculture Bill or the Environment Bill, is a means of delivering this.
- Since this is the only opportunity I have to speak on this group, I will add a few words on the amendment of my noble friend Lord Whitty. When we debated this issue, there was considerable support for this amendment. However, a few noble Lords and, indeed, the Minister argued that spraying of the kind described should not be happening because there were regulations in place to protect the public from spraying in adjoining areas. What these arguments fail to recognise is that, despite current regulations, dangerous spraying is still taking place, and there are enough reports to show that this is more than just an isolated incident.
- The UN Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, published in 2017, highlighted the fact that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides is associated with a range of diseases, including cancer, sterility and developmental disorders. It drew attention to the fact that those who live near crop fields are particularly vulnerable to exposure to these chemicals. It seems that the current regulations and their enforcement are inadequate, so I hope the Minister will acknowledge the urgent need for the Government to review and update the effectiveness of these regulations and the associated code of practice. Otherwise, as I hope is becoming clear, this issue will not go away, and we will come back to it again and again. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.
- The following Members in the Chamber have indicated that they wish to speak: the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Krebs. I will call them in that order. I call the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.