Agriculture: Royal Society Report

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Plumb. Rather a long time ago, I was a member of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee when he was its chairman. In those days, I think he thought that the late Barbara Castle and I, the Labour members on the committee, caused him a certain amount of grief—he is nodding—but I remember him as a diplomatic and wise chairman in a challenging post. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, on initiating this debate and pay tribute to her for her long-standing commitment to British agriculture and the countryside. I know that a couple of weeks ago she flagged up this debate in her contribution on the Queen’s Speech. I hope that she will not mind if I take issue with a point that she made concerning the siting of the new Marine Management Organisation in the north-east of England. I think she said that she thought it was being put there simply because we have a Defra office in the area. However, Newcastle University has the largest and most broadly based marine school in the country and we have the excellent Dove Marine Laboratory in Cullercoats. While I would not denigrate the other strong candidates for the location of the agency, I urge the noble Baroness to visit the north-east to see the excellent facilities and become aware of our long maritime tradition, which means that the area will be an excellent location for the organisation. The report to which the noble Baroness has drawn our attention is important in dealing with food production and food security in a world with an expanding population that is confronted by climate change and resource depletion. Its recommendations are important for the UK and the wider world. We are all familiar with the sobering statistics, but it was telling that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, referred to specific examples of what is happening, particularly in Africa, about which we need to be concerned. The report also highlights the importance of working with EU partners on some of these issues. As we know, British agriculture has to be looked at within the EU context because of the existence of the common agricultural policy. I must say that I find it frustrating that much reporting of the CAP still tends to be in old-fashioned terms, as if it is still the policy that existed in the past. Guaranteed prices were offered for some crops and products, often at the expense of others, and that led to bad environmental as well as other effects. However, not only has the agricultural budget been reduced—it now represents 35 per cent of the total EU budget instead of 70 per cent as it did in my day and that of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb—but, with the emergence of the second pillar of the agricultural policy, we have potentially a much better approach that will allow for more market-friendly activities and a policy that respects the environment more than was the case in the past. At the same time, this approach will allow funds to be used for some of the important goals quite rightly highlighted in the report. I hope that the movement away from the traditional funding approach towards more funding under the second pillar will continue. If the public see money being spent in a way that delivers public goods and helps the environment, support for agricultural spending will be much greater in the future than it was in the past. Recently the Franco-British Council, of which I am chair, organised a debate on agriculture which attracted participants in equal numbers from Britain and France. Instead of the stereotypical arguments of the past, where we were at loggerheads with each other, it was good to see broad agreement on the importance of the environment in agricultural policy, the importance of research and the need to get away from the traditional type of CAP to something more positive for the future. In her speech, the noble Baroness mentioned the importance of farming sustainably and biodiversity. I should like to conclude with a couple of remarks on each of those. I pay tribute to British farmers on how they have increasingly adopted an environmentally sustainable approach to farming. The contrast between organic and mainstream farmers is now much less marked than it used to be. We ought to recognise that and pay tribute to it. Biodiversity and the quality of our countryside are also important. Next year is the International Year of Biodiversity, so while we ought to do our bit to support the survival of threatened plants and animals throughout the world, we also need to do that at home. In saying that, I conclude with another parochial issue dear to my heart, which is the survival of the red squirrel in Northumberland, where I live. A lot more needs to be done if this charming creature is to be safeguarded for the future. This year we have seen greater encroachment by grey squirrels than ever before, so we need to establish an effective buffer zone. It would be tragic if, in the International Year of Biodiversity, we saw even fewer of our precious flora and fauna in our own country, so I urge the Government to do their bit in that respect.