That this House takes note of the challenges caused by the effects of climate change on natural ecosystems and the role of nature conservation in combating global warming.
My Lords, it is late in the week. The reason why I wanted to hold this debate is that, as those who have been Members of the House for some time know, I have tended to specialise on climate change and energy during my career here. However, more locally in Cornwall, for the last few years I have chaired the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Its aim is to tackle the crises of biodiversity and the retreat of nature regionally. For some time, I treated both those crises—they are crises—as separate issues locally and globally.
For instance, I was optimistic about biodiversity in the far south-west of the United Kingdom. I used to say about the climate crisis that, wherever carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere, they will affect us globally, wherever we are, but that we can really make a difference to biodiversity in our locality. We hope that the rest of the world gets it right, but we can get it right here as well. However, I quickly learned that, although that is just about correct in the short term, if we do not solve the climate crisis in the medium and long term, our attempts to repair our ecosystems will be equally fraught.
I make an apology in that, in asking the question, I have said something that I tell everybody else off for saying—“nature conservation”. Nature conservation was a 1970s and 1980s term. It is no good now; we need nature recovery. Conservation is not sufficient. However, the one thing that I will try to do during this debate is to be optimistic and not mention that our nature is the most depleted of any country in the world. I will not go down that route.
So we have two crises. On the climate side, we know that 2024 was the hottest year for our planet, and that all of the last 10 years have been the hottest on record. On biodiversity, the Living Planet Index has shown that, over the last 50 years, the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by three-quarters. In the UK, one in six species has been threatened by extinction, while 7% of our woodland and a quarter of our peat-lands are assessed to be in good condition—a minuscule amount. I will come back to peat-lands later and I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is here to talk about caring for our forests, and the Woodland Trust.
Both these crises are linked by their cause but, optimistically, they are also connected by their solution. Briefly on the causes of biodiversity loss, it is now estimated that climate change is the third most important reason for biodiversity loss but that it will, over the coming years, become one of the most important.
Those individual threats include temperature, and the fact that species cannot migrate at the same rate as the planet is warming up—at the end of the day, you cannot go further north than the North Pole, and you cannot go further south than the South Pole; flooding and more destructive storms; fires, obviously; species migration, and the fact that we do not necessarily have the right conditions for all the migration routes; seasonal dysfunction, where perhaps a species of flora that an animal or species relies on is there at different times of the season because of changes; ocean acidification, which is directly related to carbon being absorbed by the ocean, which has been hugely helpful against climate change but will eventually be very destructive to marine species; invasive species, which when they come down to being pests can also affect human health; soil destruction; and desertification, as we have seen in Africa and beyond.
My Lords, I declare my interests with a range of environmental organisations, as listed in the register. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for securing this important debate. I am very glad that he has seen the light on the road to Damascus and is now seeing climate change and biodiversity as a joined-up issue. Predictably, the noble Lord has done a splendid job of laying out the issues, so I will not duplicate that. I will simply say that looking after nature benefits not only nature but people, the climate and the economy; indeed, it is one of the most effective ways of reducing carbon and providing solutions to enable us to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
When I was looking at what I was going to say during this debate, I was very worried because, when talking about climate and biodiversity decline, you can begin to sound like Private Frazer from “Dad’s Army”—“We’re doomed!”—so I am going to talk about something much more positive: four real opportunities that are around right now, in the real world, that could make a difference for both climate and nature.
First, we will be building a lot in the next decade in pursuit of growth, housing, infrastructure and green energy. We have the opportunity to do all that in a completely different way—with planning decisions that are simultaneously good for the climate, the environment, the economy and people; using new green construction technologies; and building our new housing stock to the highest environmental and resilience standards.
We will have to change our current ways of doing things, of course, where too many developments threaten or destroy some of the most precious habitats for the storage of carbon and the support of biodiversity—vital carbon sinks such as, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, ancient woodlands, ancient and veteran trees, and peatlands, which store twice as much carbon as forests. You have no idea how difficult it was as a former chair of the Woodland Trust to put pen to paper to admit that something is better at storing carbon than trees are. What we must not do is what I call “doing an HS2”—driving in thoughtless straight lines across protected sites, important biodiversity and stuff that is really important for climate change.
My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the noble Baroness—someone, I confess, I greatly admire. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on securing this debate and his fantastic rallying cry at the beginning. Sadly—I am sure that I am not alone in this—he has stolen much of my thunder. It was a good speech. I thank all the organisations which I am sure have been in touch with all noble Lords ahead of this debate. I declare that I am a member and supporter of the Conservative Environment Network.
There are three things I would like to raise today. First, everyone knows the importance and beauty of our oceans and, sadly, the many challenges they face. Under the last Government the United Kingdom played a leading role in negotiating the High Seas Treaty and it now needs us—this country—to take it forward and to play our part. I ask the Minister: what steps this Government are taking to ratify the treaty?
There is one linked—utterly crazy, frankly—manmade thing we are allowing that is having a huge effect on biodiversity in the ocean, not to mention carbon, and which we could bring to a swift end. That is, of course, bottom trawling. Just before Christmas I met Oceana, the international organisation doing incredible work to promote ocean conservation. I asked for the meeting because I was struggling to understand why—this is not a political dig at all; obviously, this has gone on for far too long—we continue to allow bottom trawling to happen. I was blown away in that conversation to discover that it is also allowed in marine protected areas.
Let us be clear: this activity is unbelievably destructive. It is practically bulldozing entire habitats with extraordinary, ridiculously high bycatch, and it is disturbing blue carbon. As I say, this is actively happening now and in what are deemed protected areas. So urgent action is needed. What steps are the Government taking to ban this destructive form of fishing across our so-called protected areas?
My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on sponsoring this important debate and on his impressive opening speech. Clearly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, stated, farmers have a key role in helping to address this challenge. Having been a farmer for most of my life until recently, I am conscious of that responsibility.
Some in this House may be aware that I was responsible for a report published in 2002 on the future of food and farming, commissioned by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair. We reported that agricultural policy had been slow to recognise the impact of post-war policies on the natural environment. When we drafted that report, participation by farmers in stewardship schemes was less than 10%. We recommended the introduction of a broad and shallow entry-level scheme, which the Government endorsed, and after five years’ participation it led to 70% of eligible land being in some form of stewardship. It was an important first step for the majority of farmers, but we still face a huge challenge if we try to slow down and arrest species decline. The subsequent stewardship schemes, and latterly the ELM and SFI schemes, have built on that early progress.
However, I am concerned that, having got the balance wrong in the latter half of the last century, when we as farmers were incentivised only to produce food, that we may still be getting it wrong. The pendulum has swung 180 degrees. We need to learn lessons from the past and get the balance right between sustainable food production and addressing the environmental challenges we face, including the restoration of habitats. Those are not incompatible objectives, and I am sure the Minister will reassure us that Defra is fully aware of this challenge.
Even if all farmers were to actively engage in trying to restore habitats and re-establish ecosystems, we may never recover some species due to other factors, including climate change, as we mentioned, rising temperatures, urbanisation and, I may say, the increase in predators. I mention predators because they are having a greater impact on the natural environment than is appreciated. I welcome the inclusion of grey squirrel control in the SFI. Just for information, the badger population has doubled over the past 40 years. Over the same period, the population of hedgehogs has fallen from 20 million to fewer than a million. Of course there are other factors at work, but badgers are the only predator of hedgehogs.
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this debate. I agree with almost every word he said, but when he starts telling the House that the Labour Government are to be congratulated on their climate change actions, I am afraid that I disagree really strongly. In a debate on an existential crisis for the human race and the planet, we have one Labour Back-Bencher—albeit an excellent one. At least we have three Tories, most of whom will talk some sense—but not completely, obviously. I just do not understand how this Government can take this so casually. It is absolutely appalling and I have been sitting here fuming since we started.
We need nature and we need biodiversity. It is not a nice thing to have but absolutely necessary for human life. Biodiversity, in particular, is nature’s safety blanket; it cushions the shocks and creates resilience. We have been shredding that security blanket for decades with an industrialised agricultural system that is overly dependent on chemical life support.
Human actions have raised global temperatures by 1.5 degrees. We have done that a decade ahead of when we thought we would. Climate science is constantly wrong because it is constantly cautious in talking about impacts and because it is constantly running to catch up with real-time impacts that scientists are measuring. For example, last year the UN issued its big climate report that brings together all the other reports. It was its sixth assessment, and it declared that things were far worse and disaster much closer than it thought in its fifth assessment. Its fifth was worse than its fourth, and that was worse than its third. We have had decades of these reports and emissions are still going up.
The science that went into the UN report last year is already out of date. First, the rate of increase in global temperatures has accelerated and broken barriers that we thought we had over a decade to reach. It might be why Trump is so interested in the sovereignty of Greenland; as the ice sheets melt, zinc and all the other minerals and precious metals will be available for grabbing. His rich friends know that the climate is changing. Their denial is simply greed; they want to carry on making money while the rest of us have to swim to our lifeboats.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for including climate change and nature in this debate. They are and always have been inextricably linked. I agree with the Government in describing the crises facing them as the greatest long-term challenge the world faces. It is significant that, in the Global Risks Report published by the World Economic Forum yesterday, extreme weather and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are ranked first and second over a 10-year horizon in a table of severe global risks.
This interconnection, and the policy focus on measures to address the climate and nature crises, is likely to result in increased human-wildlife conflict. The global biodiversity framework recognises the role that human-wildlife conflict and coexistence plays in nature conservation in its target 4. In taking a lead, will this Government adopt the IUCN guidelines that provide the necessary framework to address conflicts and promote coexistence? If so, when?
While nature-based solutions—known as NbS—can help mitigate the effects of climate change, there is evidence from other countries that addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in isolation will result in other environmental implications. The Grantham Research Institute reports that, in some cases, NbS
“have been employed with a short-sighted focus on rapid CO2 removal without due attention to other environmental implications”.
To pick up my noble friend Lord Gascoigne’s point, this is a clear warning to the Government that a holistic discussion addressing the issue is needed. Does the Minister agree that NbS should be pursued alongside other measures, such as emission reductions and a concurrent focus on consumer consumption as opposed to just producer emissions?
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for calling this crucial debate. I note my interests in the register and the various capacities in which I wrestle with the challenges of climate change and nature restoration, as both a sustainable economy lawyer and a sustainable land manager in Devon. Given that climate change is so significant to future generations, I also note my interests as a father of two children whose own recent experiences of climate change warrant mention.
My kids have been privileged and challenged to spend their childhood in the south-west of two different countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the UK, they schooled at Kenton Primary School in Devon, which was inundated when a biblical deluge swept through the village on a Sunday in September 2023. The beautiful building in the middle of the village had hosted a village school for over 400 years. Given the devastation wrought by an unprecedented spate of five feet of water within an hour’s rainfall, it will never host a school again. A new school is promised on the edge of the village, but the excitement of schoolkids’ playtime voices will not be heard from the Triangle ever again.
Having moved to California to finish their education, they have enjoyed the delights of the Pacific Palisades Charter High School, replete with surf and beach volleyball teams, where my daughter is a senior and my son a sophomore. Until last week, that is, when the school burned down, victim, along with a whole community, of the Palisades fire, which still burns—it is only 22% contained. They are safe and evacuated, but over 50 of my daughter’s classmates are now homeless. They have lost everything: wildfire has taken back that whole hillside. The Apocalypse is here and it is now, and I speak today in tribute to that community and the remarkable bravery of firefighters, volunteers and public servants. While their experience is, thankfully, somewhat unusual, it will not be in the years ahead. Whatever we can do, we should have done it years ago.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on securing and introducing this debate, and I congratulate everybody who has taken part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, regretted the small number of Back-Bench speakers here today, but I have to say that that has given us a little bit more time. With a debate such as this, the trouble is that this Chamber is an echo chamber: we all know what we are talking about and what we want to see happen. We have to get that message out there—not just to the public but to No. 10. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned the potential conflict between DESNZ and Defra. The people who can sort this out are in No. 10, which has to provide leadership on these issues. If there were anything we could do to give Defra more power to its elbow, I am sure we would all agree on that.
The trouble with being the last Back-Bencher to speak is that it has all been said. I was also struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, and it is true; there are some conflicts. I should register my interest as a member of various conservation organisations. I would normally be seen, and hope to be seen, as someone who is on the side of nature, but the noble Lord is absolutely right about the number of badgers. I can attest to that in my own garden, where the hedgehogs have disappeared and, suddenly, a camera trap has produced badgers. I am delighted that they are there, in suburban Middlesex, but I lament the loss of the hedgehogs.
I have been interested in birds, and been a member of the RSPB, for more than 60 years. I have seen things change. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I have actually seen a species—although not in Britain—which is now recognised as extinct: the slender-billed curlew. I am sure there are a few other species I have seen during those years which will become extinct before I do. However, I am pleased to say that some breeding has gone on, so there may be some Randalls still around in generations to come.
20 of 32 shown
So we see all sorts of examples of that, including the current wildfires in California, coral bleaching, floods in the United Kingdom and Europe and extreme weather in the Caribbean. I ask noble Lords whether they can think of a day when they have watched the news, whether on television or YouTube, and not seen some form of extreme event problem over recent months. It seems to me that every night examples of this problem are there to see on our screens. This is not just about biodiversity; it is about trying to protect our ecosystems and ecosystem services, whether it is pollination, clean water and air, water cycles, healthy soils or flood control.
I will give a bit of bad news and then I hope to come on to the good news, so that everybody can at least feel that there is some solution here. When I first got involved in biodiversity, I was looking at the so-called Aichi targets from the Convention on Biological Diversity. There were a number of them: they were set in 2011 and were supposed to be completed by 2020. Not one of those targets, all of which were on biological diversity, was actually met and we do not seem any nearer to them now. Very few of the sustainable development goals, which we perhaps know better, have been met, either globally or here in the UK. Some have, but not very many in this area.
This is a big issue globally. Back in October, there was a convention on biodiversity in Colombia, and in November, a Conference of the Parties on climate change in Baku, Azerbaijan. The first ended without any conclusions whatever because the parties could not agree on the biodiversity side, and at COP, as we know, partly because of the fossil fuel interests that were there, again, there was insufficient agreement on how to move forward. In the meantime, we face a number of tipping points that we must avoid: the disappearance of the polar ice caps, the movement of ocean circulation and the survival of the lungs of the planet—not just the Amazon but the Congo Basin rainforest.
I will mention something that really disappointed me, as a parliamentarian, during the last Government. The Treasury, while under the control of Mr Sunak, produced the fantastic Dasgupta report, which was primarily about natural capital. To me, it was equal to the Stern report on climate change from several years before. It was a beautiful report, produced by the Treasury under the previous Government, but did anything happen? Did any of us do anything about it? It lies there, unused. Both nationally and globally, we are all committed to the 30 by 30 target, aiming for 30% of the land and sea to be managed for nature by 2030, but we are nowhere it.
Let us be a little bit more upbeat and look at where we go from here. I believe that we can solve all these by solving both together. We can rebuild our ecosystems and can substitute nature for concrete when it comes to adaptation. The first of those ways, as Members in this debate will know, is nature-based solutions. For example, unstraightening rivers, healthy soils, reforestation, beavers—as we have in Cornwall now—or healthy wetlands can all really confront flooding. For biodiversity on farmland, we have ranch-style grazing, herbal leys and lots of other things that I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Curry, will put far more powerfully than me. Of course, there are no-take areas for fishery regeneration as well. I congratulate the previous Government, particularly on the marine Blue Belt initiative across the globe.
I come back again to peatland regeneration. I understand that, although we had a ban on gardening peat last year, we are still able to extract peat and use it commercially. We have regenerative agriculture and nature-friendly farming, which will look after our soils, absorb more carbon and give long-term food security. Seagrass increases biodiversity and is an effective carbon sink. I welcome the Crown Estate’s mapping exercise of our coast, including salt marshes. Native forestry can absorb carbon and increase habitats, and individual trees or clusters of trees give shelter and moderate heat for livestock. Tropically, mangroves promote carbon capture and biodiversity in tandem. Of course, we should not forget urban green areas, which can be as good for human health, both mental and physical.
In this area, I would say that we have the promise of a triple win: climate mitigation, adaptation and a rebound of biodiversity. That is my good news—but I ask the Government the following questions. The Government are great on climate change and I really respect and encourage them in their objectives, particularly in decarbonisation of the energy system. I also welcome the rapid review of the Government’s 2023 environmental improvement plan, which has been ordered by Steve Reed, the Secretary of State. But where is the real plan for 30 by 30, even here in the UK? We have only five years left for that now, and the Office for Environmental Protection warned today that the Government are
“largely off track to meet”
the majority of legally binding nature targets, and time is rapidly running out, as we have seen. How will the Government avoid silo management between DESNZ and Defra? This is a problem for all Whitehall departments and it is absolutely crucial here that the two work together. Will the Government turn first to nature-based solutions rather than concrete ones? Will they look at the Dasgupta report again? In England, how will they deliver local nature recovery strategies? Is there a real way of stopping peat extraction as soon as possible? I beg to move.
My second proposition is that agriculture has probably the single biggest adverse impact on biodiversity and the climate change mitigation and adaptation that biodiversity can offer. But all is not lost; we have a significant amount of funding in this country already invested in agricultural support, which, if used skilfully, can simultaneously support biodiversity, climate change mitigation, food resilience and farmers. We have farmers who have shown that they understand the need for diverse and resilient farm businesses. So let us go for it, but with the climate change and biodiversity issues well embedded in all aspects of the agricultural landscape.
My third opportunity—I am sure the Minister will comment on this—is that right now we have an awful lot of initiatives across biodiversity and other environmental measures, planning and construction, energy systems and climate change, and very few of them are joined up. The Government set off in the right direction with joined-up mission boards in support of the manifesto, but we need to go further than that. We are blessed with one thing that joins up much of this: land. Land is a scarce resource. It is fundamental for a whole range of issues: climate impacts, biodiversity, housing, infrastructure development, energy, health, water quantity and quality, and growth.
So I urge the Minister not to keep us waiting any longer for the much-delayed—although I must admit it was the Tories who mostly delayed it—land use framework consultation, because that is the foundation that will join up many policies that currently are not joined up. But it also offers a process, nationally and locally, to get away from the sorts of conflicts in the past that were framed around the idea that we can either build or have biodiversity, but we cannot have both. I believe that we can have both and that local people have a right to expect both and to be part of that.
My fourth and last opportunity is that the majority of the biggest landowners in this country are public bodies. Look at the league table of land ownership in this country: I bet not many people know exactly who lies where in it. But if those public bodies, such as the Forestry Commission, the Crown Estate, the Ministry of Defence and others, were all to do the right thing by their use and management of their land in the interests of biodiversity and climate change, we could make tremendous progress and set some terrific examples of good practice for private landowners, and globally.
Let me take those three examples in a bit more detail: the Crown Estate, the defence estate and the Forestry Commission. I praise the Crown Estate for the progress it has voluntarily made in addressing environmental responsibilities and welcome the fact that, as a result of the Crown Estate Act, it will have an even stronger statutory requirement to do so. The defence estate is less promising, with land set aside for carbon sequestration through tree planting and habitat creation now being sold off for development as it searches for cash. The Forestry Commission, the biggest landowner in Britain, needs serious review. Its establishing statute is now over 60 years old and shows signs of age.
The statutory purpose of the Forestry Commission is to promote the interests of forestry and the production and supply of timber. Conservation is to be undertaken, but only if it can be balanced with timber production. We need an urgent review of the legislative framework of the Forestry Commission to bring it into the 21st century and, indeed, we might well consider tasking all public bodies that have major land holdings to deliver statutory targets for biodiversity, environment and climate in much the way that has now been done for the Crown Estate. I hope the Minister will grasp these opportunities.
The second issue, as has already been mentioned, is around forestry and rewilding. Trees play a massive role in society, in nature, in economic terms, in health and in carbon storage. What steps are His Majesty’s Government taking beyond the task force to unleash planting by the private sector to create new woodland habitats, thereby sequestering lots of carbon in the process?
More broadly, I have argued for—I am sure noble Lords have heard me bore for England on—rewilding. To me, nature is our ally on so much. It is not just about some green and pleasant land. It is not just about health. It is not the emotional attachment and the enjoyment it gives. It is not about the jobs it creates or the communities it pulls together; nor is it about the importance of restoring habitats or stopping them being lost. Nature does all this and more, especially when it comes our climate and weather.
The reason I pushed hard for nature-based solutions during our debates on the Water Bill is because those help us tackle water pollution. Often, they are far better and more efficient than manmade infrastructure. Flood plains, hedgerows and letting rivers meander, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, help tackle floods —as does our great and trusty friend the beaver. Trees, heaths and peatlands also cut gases. I say to those sceptics who say this is all nice to have but is impractical: it is not. Echoing the beautiful and moving words from the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, yesterday in her incredible maiden speech in this Chamber, nature does not stop things, including food production.
That leads me to my third area: farming. I want to raise it because the only people who can improve nature and biodiversity en masse are land managers. I am afraid it does feel as though this Government are knowingly making it more difficult for land managers to do their job. So I ask, respectfully: what assessment was done by the Government of the impact of the tax changes on farmers and, crucially, on nature restoration? If farmers leave and sell up, what will replace them?
In closing, I have a general point that again slightly echoes what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said at the beginning. Nature and the environment are not the same as net zero. They are entirely separate, albeit complementary, and I cannot help but feel that the wider Government—I respectfully exclude the two Front Benchers from this—see debates on the environment purely through the lens of net zero. I am not at all doing down the importance of green jobs or having energy diversification, and of course energy security is crucial, but so are food security and economic security. The Government, with the exception of the Minister, are broadly absent on nature. It is forced on them through the water Bill, or it is always under review, or, as we read the other day in the papers, policies are even killed off as options because they are seen as Tory policy.
By focusing solely on wind turbines and solar panels we miss a huge swathe of opportunities. You cannot tackle and mitigate the effects of climate change without recognising the limitless benefits and opportunities of nature. If we become the go-to place to lock up carbon, restore biodiversity and deliver green finance, those are the jobs of the square mile and the countryside as well as the solution to so much, not armies of civil servants or reams of legislation. Can I seek a firm commitment that the Government understand nature and the private sector’s ability to drive change? As I said, nature is a solution for so much.
There is undoubtedly some urgency about the challenges we face. The year 2030 is just five years away and these are long-term trends that we need to turn around. We need landscape-scale participation, with targeted action to address specific environmental issues, including the encouragement of species at risk. There are some great examples of that beginning to happen, and we need more of them. Existing schemes may need revision in order to achieve agreed landscape-scale priorities.
Tensions are clearly apparent on some estates between landlords and tenants, with the latter feeling threatened by decisions taken without consultation, particularly with regard to short-term tenancies. The viability of farming businesses is being put at risk. I hope that the new tenancy commissioner will be given the powers to investigate perceived unreasonable behaviour by some landlords.
There is clearly a need to look at all schemes—the noble Baroness, Lady Young, stated this—whether that is woodland establishment, selective tree planting or flood mitigation, and the SFI and the various options available, to make sure they are reliable to deliver the desired objectives of restoring nature, climate change mitigation and sustainable food production. It does not feel as if policies are joined up. Peat has been mentioned and the planting of trees, so I will move on.
I want to make a plea to the Government. Soil quality is crucial for sustainable food production and the sequestration of carbon, but also for supporting effective ecosystems. Soil is fundamental. The previous Government committed to a soil action plan and then reneged on that commitment. We need a national plan to enable us to optimise the effectiveness of the contribution that our soils are capable of delivering. Northern Ireland has a national soil map; so does the Republic. We need one in England. We have the opportunity, through the ELMS, to capture information on soil quality, which could be supplied by all participants. Soil’s carbon content varies from farm to farm, from field to field, and within fields. GPS, in conjunction with soil testing, can help identify what actions are needed and where to improve soil quality. We need a national map and a plan.
I will make two other points. First, the statement by the Secretary of State for Defra committing to £5 billion of funding for agriculture support over the next two years is very welcome. However, despite fairly encouraging figures of farmer participation in the SFI, there are still thousands of family farmers, many in precious and vulnerable landscapes—some will be neighbours of the Minister and some neighbours of mine, on the other side of the Pennines—who have not yet engaged in the schemes. Can the Minister confirm that funding will still be available for those who have not yet applied, or have delayed applying, due to either the scheme being too complex or the options available being inappropriate until recent revisions? Is there a possibility that Treasury pressure on Defra might have to limit participation in the SFI? It would be deeply regrettable if that were to be the case.
I will be just a short moment. I have long believed that the public benefits that farmers can deliver are much greater than has been calculated in the past. Finally, I would like to ask the Minister, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, did, when we can expect an announcement—
Secondly, the scientists who work on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation—the Gulf Stream is part of that—are saying that it could fail because of all the freshwater running off the Greenland ice sheet, and a lot of those scientists are now saying that it could fail in the next few years, rather than in the next few decades. That research is important, as it talks about Britain losing the warm waters coming north and having the same climate as Newfoundland. Imagine icebergs floating off the coast of Cornwall and you will get the picture. That research will not appear until the UN’s seventh assessment report in 2029. We can see that the science is constantly behind in reporting.
I used to worry about what a seven metre rise in water levels would do to our coastlines and major cities when the Greenland ice sheet melts, but it turns out that, well before that happens, we will be very, very cold. That cold will probably destroy our farming industry and wildlife. This Government and the last—I blame the previous Government just as much—are unprepared for any of this because their plans are based on the out-of-date science of the last UN report, rather than on what the latest research is telling us. I hope that Government Ministers can get more up-to-date advisers. Please talk to scientists and find out the latest research.
Building up the countryside’s national resilience to the potential shocks of climate chaos should be a priority for our Government, farmers and planning system. The talk of constant growth does not fit with human survival. Capitalism places no value on nature, other than destroying it as fast as possible to create more wealth. We are destroying parts of the planet that we need for our own lives and well-being. That is utterly stupid.
I want to bring up a nationally important case for rivers. Labour committed in its manifesto to clean up rivers. There is a river in North Yorkshire—with a nice name, but I cannot find it in my notes—over which the Pickering Fishery Association, a club in North Yorkshire, won a landmark legal case against the previous Government and the Environment Agency. The anglers successfully argued that the Government and the Environment Agency had failed in their legal duties to clean up and protect the Costa Beck, a former trout stream near Pickering. Please can the Minister tell me what the change is? The previous Government put in an appeal against that ruling. This Government, through Steve Reed—who the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, congratulated—have continued with that appeal. This Government are refusing to clean up a river that the courts have said they should.
I do not understand why this Government cannot see that they should be the face of change—and they are not. We might as well have the Tory Government still in power—though I do not want that.
Many NbS have long timescales and may not even achieve the ambition of the restoration of an ecosystem, such as peatlands, but rather the creation of a novel ecosystem that relates to current climatic conditions. It is claptrap to say that we can save our peatlands by rewetting, when it is estimated that only 30% of the Peak District can be rewetted as part of peatland restoration. Climate change will cause land degradation. Models of future climate projections suggest that the geographical distribution of blanket bogs gradually retreats towards the north and west. Therefore, the protection of these existing carbon sinks is vital. The question for the Government is whether the focus should be on adaptation rather than mitigation in some habitats and areas.
Wildfire is one of the drivers of biodiversity loss and is becoming a growing threat. The UK’s Third National Adaptation Programme identifies wildfire as a significant risk to forests, woodlands and peatlands, with the climate change risk assessment highlighting a significant increase in summer wildfire danger. While the risk is highest in the south and east of England, the change in risk is likely to be more pronounced in the north and west. The expected milder, wetter winters will promote vegetation build-up, and hotter, drier springs and summers will increase the risk of vegetation catching fire. This increased fuel load will be an added threat to new woodland plantations.
Some UK habitats consist of fire-adapted species such as heathlands and peatlands, but the projected increase in fire frequency and the increase in fire intensity and severity means that even fire-adapted species are at risk. Whatever the targets for habitats and biodiversity are, wildfire is just one example of where proper management is essential in ensuring that NbS are good for both climate mitigation and biodiversity. Each site or area will be unique, requiring a policy that does not take a one-size-fits-all approach. We all know how difficult that is for Governments to implement.
Proper monitoring will be necessary, for how can one judge whether a policy is successful or not without it? However, we know that Natural England and the Environment Agency are struggling with resources and that the lack of monitoring has already led to environmental problems. I therefore pose the question: do the Government have the inclination and resources needed to grasp the challenges and opportunities? We are waiting to hear how their policies will be designed to meet their targets. Sadly, they appear rudderless, with the Treasury treating Defra with disdain. They need good non-departmental bodies to help implement their policies.
I conclude with two further questions. Why is there is still an interim chair of the Climate Change Committee? The term of office of the chair of Natural England ends in April. Will he be reappointed and, if not, when will his successor be announced?
Of course, it is not just these personal challenges that we need to bear in mind. Climate change’s impact on our natural ecosystems has devastated recent harvests. UK wheat production last year was 21% down due to those rains, and the Spanish fires around Barcelona massively disrupted supply of fresh fruit and vegetables. Bad weather has added over £350 to national food bills. Tree disease is rife due to unseasonable droughts, and pollinators are stressed by parasites encouraged by warmer weather. Similarly, our national infrastructure is threatened by rising sea levels, with the main railway line past my home now under constant vigil at high tide due to the threat of breach of the Exe estuary’s Powderham banks.
Nature, of course, will survive these challenges. The fires may be life-threatening to us, but the Santa Monica mountains will recover; this is their natural cycle, after all. Rewilding is not the option; the removal of productive farming and the local communities that steward the land is not the solution. That way lies hunger and increasing food insecurity. What we need to do is to listen to nature, not to fight it; to embrace it and to farm with it, sustainably harvesting our food and regeneratively intensifying production where appropriate. Around the River Exe, we should not seek to hold back the tide, like King Canute, but we should embrace its return and look to harness nature-based solutions to the challenges of coastal erosion and flooding. I have long requested that intertidal habitat play a more important role in our land management structures; thus I applaud the inclusion of this land type in the recently announced SFI options.
As a priority, the Government need to turn around their relationship with farmers and land managers. The APR inheritance tax reforms were simply a disaster for rural trust. Steve Reed recently announced fresh reforms at the Oxford Business Conference: a farming road map. I ask that the Government take care in uprooting and changing farm policy yet again. Farmers, and the soils and biodiversity on which they rely, require consistent, long-term and dependable policies, not constant chopping and changing. I echo the call by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for us to honour the work of Professor Partha Dasgupta and his The Economics of Biodiversity. I happened to meet him yesterday at St John’s College in Cambridge.
In their tireless drive for economic growth, the Government need to recognise the cost of the natural capital that that growth will inevitably consume. If we do that accurately, and accurately measure what we consume, we may turn the tide on global warming and biodiversity loss.
To conclude on a positive note, both my children are passionate about the environment and hope to study it at university. They know that nature can provide a solution to these terrible challenges, if only we treat it with the deference and respect that it deserves.
As has been mentioned, climate change has affected mountain birds, which are going higher and higher. Snow-buntings and dotterel are running out of mountains because there is nothing left. It is not the right climate any more. This is an urgent and important issue.
My noble friend Lord Gascoigne mentioned the very good maiden speech yesterday by the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, who was president of the NFU for a long time. What struck me in what she said was how farmers can help. We must not have this conflict—it is not that farmers are bad for nature and conservationists do not like farmers. The most important thing is that we all work together.
My noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the peatlands. This is another issue on which have to find a common theme. There are too many people taking a polarised view of these things.
Another issue, which has been hinted at, is wetlands, which present a fantastic opportunity. Some have been restored and new ones have been created. The Wild Fowl & Wetlands Trust has created wetlands on the Steart estuary, and it has just announced that it is trying to create them on the Awre peninsula, which juts out into the River Severn, by the Forest of Dean. These are places where we can restore wetlands, with all their benefits.
There will be a problem with the planning. As president of the Colne Valley Regional Park, on the edge of London, I am very concerned about this. Our green belt is being attacked by all sorts of things. No one seems to worry about whether the land in question is on a flood plain. This is not about housing; it is about databanks and so forth.
These are real issues. I would like the Government to think about creating wetland cities, as we had garden cities. We could re-wet some areas; the Fens would be quite a good area for that. The RSPB has the Lakenheath reserve, where it has recreated wetlands over some not particularly good agricultural soil—the original Fens. Perhaps we could create new towns there where people would actually want to live. The Minister could also talk to the MoD, which has a huge amount of land that it could do things with.
Let us not be too pessimistic, but, if we are not careful, we will have reason to be pessimistic because it will happen and happen badly. But we still have just about enough time.