Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-06
Topic: Environment
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate to listen to. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing forward his amendment. I made up my mind to speak when I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. He put his finger on something very important but then moved off it. Which species are we going to keep? Who is going to decide which species will be protected? One thing that is absolutely certain is that the law of unintended consequences will continue: human beings will get involved in one area that will help some species but will be to the detriment of others. So I hope that my noble friend will tell us how exactly this part of the Bill is going to work The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said that success relies entirely on habitat, but, thank goodness, he changed his mind a little later and went on to say that it is part of a package. Habitat alone will not solve the problem and halt the decline of biodiversity. We need proper farming practices, we need habitats, we need winter feed and spring feed, which farming practices have all but eliminated on agricultural land, and we need predator control. It is a hugely complicated and difficult area. To give a simple example, many of us feed birds in our garden and think that we are doing a great job for nature. We are benefiting some birds; blue tits have certainly increased. But, as a result, a lot of other birds have not increased, because blue tits are quite territorial and quite vicious towards other birds. In this mix, we have some species increase but also some species decline To move to a perhaps more rural aspect, one could look at the work that the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has done with the Allerton Project. It has been trying for years to bring back waders, but unsuccessfully. If my noble friend says that we must bring back waders and even the Allerton Project cannot do so, how will this succeed and what will be the price My noble friend the Minister is, I know, terribly keen on white-tailed eagles. They are one of his specialities and he mentioned them in Committee, but they are vicious birds and not terribly good breeders. They are vicious in that, in parts of Scotland that I know, they have driven out the golden eagle. They fight golden eagles and kill hen harriers and peregrines. That is the nature of white-tailed eagles. They are lovely birds to look at, but if you get too many of them you will destroy a whole abundance of species that have been living happily on the moor for hundreds and thousands of years. As they are not terribly good breeders, man will have to intervene to make certain that the numbers were maintained by bringing in hand-reared chicks. Whatever we do, we are upsetting the balance of nature. Can my noble friend explain how he and the department, and subsequent Ministers, are going to handle this? To me, this is crucial. I thoroughly approve of not only halting the decline but turning it round, but we must be cognisant of the fact that some species will be far worse off. Who will make that decision? Will it be transparent, so that we can all decide whether those are actually the species we want to see decline and the other species increase?