Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-23
Topic: Agriculture
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hope that at this time of the night noble Lords are not getting fed up with my voice. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble Earl, Lord Cormack, for their support for it. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish proposals for an updated regulatory framework for agriculture to fill regulatory gaps that result from our leaving the common agricultural policy, and which would bring the regulatory framework into line with the environmental objectives stated in the Bill and the 25-year environment plan. It would also help to create effective monitoring and compliance mechanisms Everyone is pretty clear that the regulatory framework around farming is not fit for purpose. Some farming and land management practices continue to have adverse environmental impacts—ammonia emissions, pollution of rivers, greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion, to mention just a few. It is staggering that agriculture is the primary cause of 30% of our sites of special scientific interest—those jewels in our wildlife crown—being in an unfavourable condition. Yet the current average inspection rate for the environment on farms is once every 200 years. I am not counting inspections by the rural payments inspectors, which are about EU requirements to audit funding and which, hopefully, Brexit will see the end of. However, once in 200 years is not much of an environmental inspection regime Changes to the farm support system, as outlined in the Bill, will further jeopardise effective farm regulation. Under the current basic payment scheme, all farmers and land managers in receipt of payments must, under the cross-compliance conditions, deliver something that is catchily called good agricultural and environmental condition—GAEC. It is the regulatory baseline of environmental performance. That requirement to achieve GAEC if one is in receipt of payments disappears with the common agricultural policy. There remains no less need to have a strong set of baseline environmental standards universally required of all land managers so that the specific public good provided above this baseline by the ELM scheme can be rewarded with payment. It would be heinous if ELM scheme public money were to be paid, for example, to improve water quality to a farmer, who, meanwhile, was failing to comply with the basic agricultural conditions that currently exist for other water quality protection arrangements Defra’s Farming for the Future update committed to introducing an alternative inspection and enforcement approach. I would welcome that, provided it does not mean a new stand-alone agricultural regulator which would duplicate the expert regulators we already have in Natural England and the Environment Agency—I declare an interest having been chairman of one and chief executive of the other—which not only know their onions but draw on knowledge gleaned from regulating a range of sectors, not just farming. That cross-learning from other sectors is very important. What these existing regulators need is not another regulator on the pitch but a proper framework for agricultural regulation, within which they can work with land managers. They also need proper resources to do an effective job in inspection and enforcement. All of this would be enabled by my Amendment 229, which I am moving.