argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Scrymgeour (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, Amendment 1 is connected to Amendment 74, also in my name. Both amendments address the Secretary of State’s new financial assistance powers outlined in the first clause of the Bill. Clause 1(1) indicates ambiguity of delivery: "The Secretary of State may give financial assistance" Picking up this aspect of uncertainty, Amendment 1 therefore implies that giving financial assistance, as envisaged, might not necessarily work out as intended, not least taking into account how current forms of international competition threaten to curb the viability of United Kingdom food production. Yet, if, within the Bill, incentives should fail to produce intended results, to some extent Amendment 74’s proposal can provide a remedy In itself, Clause 1 is evidence of an impressive vision. The Government are committed to preserving the national environment; thus, competent environmental land management can become a clear aim for farmers, who are properly rewarded if they achieve this. Nevertheless, so far, in other respects the Bill is less clear. What are the Government’s plans for sustainable food production? Post Brexit, will they develop new and even higher standards than those of the European Union? Or will they set land aside for afforestation, public access and wildlife conservation while leaving agriculture to market forces, as do the United States and Brazil? Among those options, although unstated, no doubt the Government would prefer that which combines high standards for environmental land management along with those for sustainable food production. Yet, if so, how can these two objectives best be realised and British farmers perform and compete against cheap imports from the United States and those from EU states paid a high level of agricultural subsidies Perhaps some of the answer, beginning at home, would be that, in order to further these twin objectives, the Government might better prioritise and adjust existing incentives within the Bill. For if that adjustment is made now, in the first place, then there will be a greater chance that, through time and against external market forces, much of those current joint aims for the United Kingdom of good environmental land management and sustainable food production can be attained Clause 1 details 10 purposes eligible for financial assistance. It is certainly right that funding should be provided for each of them carried out by a farm. Yet, where multiple purposes are addressed, the Bill could now be amended so that a financial bonus would apply. For example, if a farm accomplished [Connection lost.]
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group. Amendments 5, 17 and 89 question the different wording in different sections of the Bill. Clause 1(1)(a) uses "protects or improves"; Clause 1(1)(c) uses "maintains, restores or enhances"; elsewhere, "conserves" is used, which is defined as including "restoring or enhancing" Using different words in close proximity in the Bill gives the strong impression that different things are meant by them and that words which are not included each time are therefore in some way excluded. For simplicity of reading, we should choose one word. I would choose "enhances"; I have gone with "conserves" because that is the Government’s choice. If we have one word which is defined to encompass all the other concepts, this clause will read more clearly With Amendments 27 and 28, I wish to check with the Government that we are not confining ourselves to additional varieties and species, but that we will be able to apply funds to new species of animal livestock and in particular to new plant crop species. Genetic engineering should mean that we can move many of the crops that now grow some way south of us a good way north and therefore improve the resilience and variety of our agriculture Amendment 86 checks where the boundary is for an activity such as coppicing. It was not clear to me from the words used that the whole process of felling trees and particularly extracting them from woodland could be covered by finance. If we are going to make it profitable for small woods in particular—I declare an interest in owning one—to supply coppice for the power station industry, for instance, we must look at how we will get that wood extracted. If not, there will be no benefit in extracting it and therefore no benefit in coppicing Lastly and most importantly, Amendment 76 addresses local nature partnerships. In the Bill we ought ideally to recognise the role that these have come to play in the negotiations between the various entities which have a finger in the pie of looking after nature in our countryside. They have been remarkably successful and I very much hope we will continue to support them and embed them in how we take decisions about nature and the countryside.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Arthur Wellesley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise to comment briefly on and support three amendments. I should declare my agricultural interests as detailed in the register. The first is Amendment 37, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, relating to pasture-fed livestock. There is much evidence that extensively grazing livestock on pasture, both lowland and upland, is the most efficient way to convert grassland into a food product for human consumption. Feeding concentrates to livestock is certainly a great deal less efficient in terms of use of resources. On arable land, cereals and similar plants should ideally be grown for human consumption. We have plentiful grasslands in the United Kingdom. They absorb carbon, if correctly managed, and produce food, if grazed by the right breeds of livestock, so I strongly support Amendment 37 I also support Amendment 78, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Bruce and Lord Greaves. Hill farms are of great concern, particularly the smaller ones, to me and many others. They are all marginal, almost by definition. More than their total profit comes from current forms of financial support. I have an amendment in a later group which seeks to protect the basic payment for the next three years for smaller farms in less favoured areas. All these farms, almost without exception, lose money, and they survive only through financial support, so, using the words in the amendment, I certainly support that Ministers should, "have regard to maintaining support for" these small farms. When the Minister replies, it would be very helpful if he could give us some reassurance on this matter. I also hope that the noble Lords, Lord Beith, Lord Greaves and Lord Wigley, may support my Amendment 149 which comes in a later group The third amendment which I shall support is Amendment 91, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. He specifically refers to wetlands. I think he has in mind lowland wetlands, but in many upland areas there are very important wetlands. They are an important absorber of carbon. Many of these upland wetland areas have sphagnum moss and other plants that absorb a great deal of carbon. If the noble Earl believes that it is advantageous to include wetlands in the definitions, I am happy to support him These three amendments would improve the Bill and, if they are brought back on Report, I will be happy to support them.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Environment
Rupert Ponsonby (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 5, 17 and 27, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. I declare my interest as a landowner and land manager, and as Master of the Horse. My concerns centre on the fact that the breeds of semi-wild, native ponies on Dartmoor and Exmoor, and in the New Forest, are, in some cases, on the critically endangered list, yet represent important gene pools which we lose at our peril. These genetic resources could offer a sustainable way to increase food production and/or improve our capacity to adapt to climate change. They could also help us tackle the emergence of new animal or plant diseases by contributing to a breadth of genetic traits. As has been found in areas such as plant science, genes from ancient species can help us tackle 21st-century problems. These ponies do not fit neatly within the definition of wildlife, any more than they do within that of livestock. Amendments 5 and 17 could mean that the potential financial support and protections currently offered by the Bill for semi-wild pony herds is significantly impaired For the same reason, like the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I have significant—perhaps greater—concerns about Amendment 27. Removing the word "native" would destroy the whole reason behind the clause, changing its meaning entirely. The Explanatory Notes point out that the clause is concerned with "the conservation and maintenance of UK native Genetic Resources relating to livestock or equines." As the noble Baroness said, Amendment 27 might also inhibit the UK’s ability to comply with our obligations under Aichi target 13 of the biodiversity convention and sustainable development goal 2.5, which require us to conserve the genetic diversity of the UK’s livestock breeds. If Amendment 27 were upheld, it could lead to the waste of a great deal of public money because it would support investment in any breed, without differentiation. I am afraid that I cannot, therefore, support these amendments.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for my noble friend on the Front Bench. This debate is all-embracing; I take a specialist interest in horticulture and forestry, but I feel almost out of my depth here. It reminds me of the Maastricht treaty, but I remind my noble friend the Minister: that was a Bill of four clauses, 500 amendments in order and 25 days of sitting, with three all-night sittings. Having said that, I am going to be brief, as there are only two amendments that I wish to comment on One is Amendment 5 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, in which he suggests substituting "conserves" for "protects or improves". In the debate, he reflected that "enhance" would be better. I think he is right, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to consider that Secondly, Amendment 7, in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness, is quite important, inserting the phrase "including growing crops for bioenergy" This is a vital area. I had the privilege of being on the energy Select Committee when there were the beginnings of some thinking about this. That was quite a long time ago, but if we are serious about carbon capture and storage, as I think we are in this country—there is a great deal moving forward on that—farmers must be encouraged to grow crops for bioenergy, assuming that the soil is suitable, et cetera I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to accept my noble friend Lord Caithness’s Amendment 7.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Hugh Trenchard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and strongly endorse his remarks with respect to the need to get back to this House properly, as soon as possible. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, as listed in the register. I have read and considered all 36 of the amendments in this group and believe that the majority are unnecessary, even if they are well intentioned My noble friend Lord Lucas likes to use the verb "conserve" and attributes to it a meaning wider than words such as "protect" and "improve". I sympathise with his intention to broaden the scope of the purposes for which the Secretary of State may provide financial assistance, but I am not sure that his suggestion to use "conserve" actually clarifies approved purposes, except in the cases of species of animals and plants My noble friend Lord Dundee and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seek in Amendment 1 to clarify whether the Secretary of State really will provide financial assistance for the activities listed in Clause 1. I should have thought that this was obvious, but I welcome this amendment if it will encourage my noble friend the Minister to be much more specific in informing your Lordships of how much financial assistance will be made available under the ELMS scheme, and whether it will completely compensate for the loss of direct support payments, which will hit farming businesses hard in 2021 It may be true that the larger estates are better able to survive the withdrawal of direct payments, but it is also true that the larger farming businesses employ a large majority of agricultural workers, and the prospects for those currently furloughed to return to the payroll will be enhanced if the Government can give a lot more clarity on how businesses can mitigate the loss of direct payments. Indeed, it should be made possible for those who are particularly innovative and active in introducing new, environmentally friendly practices to receive more than they have been receiving under the present system.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I want to make sure I get this right. I referred to the 2018 regulations for England about environmental outcomes that land managers must take action to avoid. There is no suggestion of any diminution of standards—in fact, quite the reverse. I will have to write and will put a copy in the Library. I want to make sure that I get all the regulations and how they are interconnected right. There is no intention from the Government on soil quality other than to enhance it, because that is the route to vibrant agriculture. I am most grateful to the noble Earl and will provide full details of all the requirements that will remain.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I did not have an opportunity to flesh out the tests and trials. The tests and trials on the ELM are designed to work with ranges of farmers in different topographies and tenures in all parts of the country. There are schemes that will be suitable. In this case, there are clearly tests and trials with hill farmers in the uplands so that we can ensure that those schemes are in place. Some are under way already and farmers are receiving financial assistance for participating in them When we roll out the entire ELM in 2024, we want to follow the success in the recording and improving of those tests and trials so that we can ensure that, in the case of the noble Lord’s concern about hill farmers, these schemes will automatically work for them. Hill farmers are key to ensuring that the environmental enhancements we all want are available. I am confident that, working with those hill farmers, we will get the sorts of schemes that will be of benefit and that the farmers will actively wish to be engaged in.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Scrymgeour (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming and supporting the Bill, and I thank the Minister for his helpful responses to this Committee debate, which has covered a wide range of matters concerning sustainable food production and a well-cared-for environment Proposed amendments have included: requests for better soil management; the mitigation of floods—whether or not these may have been induced by crayfish, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, warns; the reduction of air pollution; a focus on the predicament of farmers having to deal with hill and marginal land; the case for being ever alert to promote innovations, such as further developments in energy crops or new livestock species; the case for improved management of land around towns and cities where it is not being used for housing development; the need for timely advice to farmers on how to raise and maintain standards in terms of the Bill; the need for impact assessments; and, not least, the desirability that all parts of the United Kingdom should benefit together from the Bill’s useful prescription I am grateful to the Minister for his comments on my Amendment 74 about how incentives might be paid slightly differently for those farms that are responding to what is already offered by the Bill. Meanwhile, I beg to withdraw Amendment 1.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will speak to three amendments in my name in this group and thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and my noble friend Lord Caithness for supporting Amendment 65. The purpose of this amendment is again to probe the Government. As was said in conclusion by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, we have a limited pot of money being spread very thinly. I hope that we can focus where the money goes on farming, obviously within the remit of agriculture, horticulture and forestry In keeping the focus on farming, I will turn to Amendment 103. Just before I do, I will take the opportunity to ask my noble friend the Minister about the types of activities that he feels may be covered. For example, there have been sectors in the past that have received no support but have spent huge amounts of money—I am thinking in particular about antibiotic use, which we have reduced at some considerable expense, although I think this has put Britain in the driving seat with regard to the reduction of antibiotics. There may be possibilities of supporting, for example, pigs through outbuildings and storage facilities, which will help to tackle climate change and bring a number of benefits while improving the way that we manage—or rather pig producers manage; I do not, obviously—manure and slurry reduction. While it has not been beneficial in the past, I hope that it will help to tackle climate change and increase production. Is that something that my noble friend thinks might be supported I want to flag up something that I am sure we will return to in later groups: the potential funding gap between when basic farm payments phase out and when ELMS—which I know we are going to explore in more detail in further amendments—will come in. How is that going to be addressed? I am also looking at the socioeconomic aspects of this, where natural capital seems to have been the focus of great emphasis, although it benefits only those who own the land, for the most part, and it cannot necessarily be shared with tenant farmers, who actually do much of the farming on that land in many circumstances I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for supporting Amendment 103. I am sure that my noble friend will recognise this text because it has come, in great part, from the Government’s own paper Health and Harmony. The public good is very ephemeral and opaque, and I give him the opportunity to put more meat on the bones and reward activities that are related directly to the production of food or farming in its broader aspects and, furthermore, activities from which tenants may benefit. We might focus too much on trees and the planting of crops like special grasses that soak up the water and have many qualities, and I want to make sure that landowners and tenants will benefit.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 108 and 109. I am looking for two reassurances from the Minister. The first is that we are going to look at a system of risk-based regulation. We have a lot of changes and improvements to make. We need a system of regulation which, supported by science, supports change without destroying older technology, in both of which aspects the EU system has proved deficient. Secondly, I want reassurance that we will permit local variation—indeed, individual variation. This ought to be a bottom-up system of support. No farm is the same as any other farm. No set of geology or human geography is the same. Everything will need to be local if it is going to work well. I very much hope that this is the way in which the Government are looking at regulation Amendment 110 has been stranded in this group. I will speak to this subject under the group beginning with Amendment 29. Suffice it to say that, as far as I am concerned, the answer lies in the soil.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): In introducing the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said that farmers would have to get paid to do all these good works in the future. We should pause and thank all the many farmers doing exactly these now without any money at all from the Government. They are doing it of their own free will because they love the land that they farm—they might have been farming it for generations—and the biodiversity and nature that goes with it. We must pay them a big thank you for continuing the work The noble Lord, Lord Addington, jogged my mind. It slightly irks me that we paid farmers to take hedges out and destroy landscape and biodiversity. We are now going to pay the same farmers to put those things back. It is worth remembering that a lot of farmers did not take out any hedges and kept the biodiversity but got no money at all for that I put my name to Amendments 65 and 106 and I was pleased to do so. Amendment 65, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, would add the words, "agriculture, horticulture and forestry in England" to the end of Clause 1(3). At the moment, the wording just stops at "England". It seems logical to put the words in the amendment into the Bill While I am on forestry, my noble friend Lord Gardiner did not say on the first amendment—I am not surprised —what he actually means by "woodland" and "forestry". Are they the same or two different things? If there will be grants for help for forestry and biodiversity, presumably there will be no grants for people planting vast acres of Sitka spruce, which are biodiversity unfriendly Forestry also raises another issue covered by Amendment 106: who gets the benefit of these payments of public money? I will focus on tenant farmers, as my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering did. When I was a land agent, my experience was that pretty well every tree was not in the tenancy agreement; it belonged to the landlord. Tenants were not allowed to plant woodland. That was excluded and outside the tenancy agreement We have an imbalance here and two different classes of farmer. We have the owner-occupier, who can do everything on their own land, and the tenant, who will be severely restricted. Who will get the benefit from these payments? If the tenant signs up to a scheme, I know many landlords who will say to them, "Thank you; I’m glad you signed up to that scheme. I’m glad you’re getting the money. Your rent is now going to increase and I’m going to take most of that money from you because you can afford to pay it." Who will get this money? Is there a way one can incentivise tenants to do these schemes and reap the benefit that they deserve for putting the risk, capital and expertise at stake in doing so?