Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-09
Topic: Environment
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I fear that I might not be quite as brief as I was when I spoke to my last amendment. My concern is that at present the Government give access to farmland without compensation or appreciating the impact on the farm. The coastal footpath is one example of farmers having access rights forced on them and this even goes as far as public access to private beaches free of charge. My amendment simply seeks to rectify that by allowing the Government to pay compensation where there is damage and for public access. I believe that the Bill only makes matters worse and I fear that, if we are not careful, the Government will, sadly, start to alienate the farming community as the consequences of this legislation become more apparent On Tuesday we talked about rights and the provision of access. Today I want to discuss the consequences of those rights and the other "R" word—responsibility. It is a word that does not seem to crop up much now in the way that we work and it is often ignored. When we talk about responsibility and the countryside, it is the mess that people leave behind that I want to focus on, although there are other issues that I will mention. We have all seen the dreadful amount of detritus that has been left on recent visits to the countryside and parks: the glass, the laughing gas canisters, the soiled nappies, the plastic bags, the fast food containers and every other sort of rubbish. The 25-year environment plan has a lovely picture of Durdle Door in Dorset. Three tonnes of rubbish were collected in one day off that beach alone. In Morecambe Bay, 25 black plastic bags of rubbish were picked up and 12 tonnes of rubbish was taken off Bournemouth beach Litter is a hazard to animals and wildlife as well; it is not just an ugly sight for us human beings. In Port Meadow in Oxfordshire, five horses and 10 cows needed treatment and a cow died from eating plastic. We are talking about people’s livelihoods. Sadly, what is not being left on the land is now being washed out to the ocean. We saw yesterday comments about the number of face masks that are being washed out into the seas as people chuck them away after use to try to combat the virus. It was rather dismaying to read that one face mask alone could kill a whale. It is we human beings who are making all this mess and putting such a hazard in wildlife’s way. The RSPCA receives over 7,000 calls a year over litter-related incidents The removal of litter costs a lot of money. In the last month it has cost Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens nearly 20% more than at the equivalent time last year to pick up the amount of litter that has been thrown down This is not a recent aberration and it is incorrect to blame it on the excitement of being able to get out after lockdown. A survey last year showed that one in five visitors to the Royal Parks left litter behind after their visit. The LitterAction group tells us that the problem in rural areas is more than it can contend with. Worst of all, the Hygiene Council has proclaimed us the dirtiest developed country in the world. That is a bad record to have. Fly-tipping is a cause of litter, and the Defra figures published last November show that local authorities dealt with over 1 million fly-tipping incidents in the 12 months to the end of March 2019. That was another annual increase, this time of 8%. What should be done about this? I was delighted that my noble friend the Minister said on Tuesday that "dropping litter should be an anti-social behaviour."—[Official Report, 7/7/20; col. 1104.] I hope my noble friend who replies will not use the facile comment that there is going to be another anti-litter campaign. We tried that in 1987, when I was Minister for the countryside. The Secretary of State, Nick Ridley, persuaded the Prime Minister to get involved and there was a great photoshoot in St James’s Park. It helped for a bit, but we seem to have an ingrained ability to forget about these things and to continue in our bad, old ways. Will my noble friend the Minister consider on-the-spot fines or an alteration of the law to increase fines—and to not only increase them, but to enforce them?