Biodiversity

I share that aspiration; I really hope the new Government do that. I would only remind the hon. Gentleman that for the crops that come to fruition during this Government, a lot of the hard work on tilling the ground has already been done. But it was done on a cross-party basis and with a lot of support from external organisations, which have generated and brought forward the ideas that we have worked on. We will do this together, one way or another, because the issues we are discussing are bigger than party politics. We often say that, but it is true. Climate change is one of those issues; biodiversity is another. I want to discuss how we bring those together and stop one being to the exclusion or domination of the other. At the launch of the consultation, the Secretary of State said:"““We want everyone to contribute their views on the natural environment, whether they're concerned at the plight of the songbirds in their garden, the quality of air in their town, flooding problems worsened by people paving over their gardens or the fate of our wider countryside. We have the opportunity to be the generation that puts a stop to the piecemeal degradation of our natural environment.””" She went on to say:"““This discussion document will allow everyone to shape the White Paper, in a Big Society approach to policy making so that together we can aim to halt this decline and recognise that nature is our ultimate producer and supplier.””" That is excellent, but what we are looking for now, as the consultation proceeds, is much more specific detail. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, we need to convert that rhetoric into tangible measures, so that we have the detail on how economic issues globally and locally will not push aside the environment, particularly this year. The importance of biodiversity has already been stressed, but we have had difficulty getting across to the general public and other less disinterested observers what we mean by biodiversity. When we talk about ecosystem services, in simple terms we mean the quality of our clean water. Natural filtration from a good water system means that we do not have to spend a hell of a lot of taxpayers' money on treating the water. With farming, if we do not have good soil quality and properly functioning soil with good bacteria and fungi—as opposed to a sterile environment—agricultural production will dramatically decrease year on year. If we do not have the insects, bats and birds to adequately pollinate our crops, both here and internationally, we will see a reduction in the number of plants pollinated and a negative impact on both agriculture and flora biodiversity. One other aspect, which dramatically brings the point home to a lay person, is that something in excess of 40% of anti-cancer drugs come from natural sources. If we continue to lose biodiversity at the current rate, we will lose some of the solutions to some of our significant human-centred problems, and that is why we have to address the matter. The threats are immense, among them the introduction of alien species, habitat loss and degradation, threats to species, over-exploitation or inappropriate exploitation of resources, and human-induced climate change. So, why should we be bothered? We should be bothered because we need to protect these healthy ecosystems for our well-being, for purely self-centred reasons if nothing else—if not for the intrinsic benefits, then for the extrinsic ones. We should be bothered because of the quality of our goods and services: the fresh water, the marine fisheries, the cleansing of atmospheric pollutants, the protection from natural hazards, the pest control and the pollination of our crops. But we should also be bothered because of the stability of ecosystems. We have increasingly come to learn in recent years that when we lose biodiversity, we lose the ability of our natural ecosystems to resist biological shocks, such as hurricanes and floods, as we have seen only too recently. An important thing that was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North and which we need to emphasise, is that while we face some implications of this degradation of the natural environment in the UK, the most significant visitations are on the very poor, very often in developing countries. Let me first deal quickly with some detail. The Minister will be told afterwards by his officials that this is a classic Irranca-Davies approach, that I go through 101 things that I hope will help but then zone in on just two or three important issues. That approach is genuinely meant to be helpful. If the Minister cannot answer everything in his response today, I would be very happy for him to write to me and to Members who have taken part in the debate. First, there is the issue of access and benefit sharing. How do we bring progress forward on that? This is a classic illustration of something that we had moved on very far and had immense discussions on, but on which we had not had the breakthrough. What can the Minister do during his tenure, including in the important summits that are coming up, to push that agenda forward, with the help of the Secretary of State? Mention was made of the Lawton review. What role will national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and sites of special scientific interest—including both those that have progressed and those in the buffer zones—have in contributing to biodiversity within the UK, in not only stopping the loss but reversing it? It was good to hear the Minister mention the BioBlitz, but what do we have beyond that? How are our biodiversity action plans within the UK progressing, and what more will be done, particularly at the end of this international year of biodiversity? What is the next stage? How do we keep the momentum going? How do we roll things out, so that the very good examples in some regions and areas are spread right across the UK? The Minister and I often debate reform of the common fisheries policy, and we have broadly the same approach to it, as we have to many issues. I simply urge him not to capitulate but to carry on with the work that has already been done and get the CFP reform. Many members of the public often miss this point entirely, but the reform is vital for marine biodiversity. If we get it right, we can really assist the general health of our seas. The reform needs to be grounded in sound scientific advice, based on a proper ecosystem approach, sustainable fishery yields and multi-species analysis, multi-annual plans and sea-scale plans, not on the traditional approach that we have had through our European Councils of individual plans for individual species, with some species being covered and others not, and the interrelation between them not being considered at all. The Minister has very good people in his Department, and we have had very good engagement with colleagues in Scotland and elsewhere. We need to keep on pushing very hard on the reform—the UK is leading in this area. We never get everything that we want, but we need to be the country that leads this debate and gets a very good outcome for its marine areas. As I have said, it is important that fisheries are seen not only as fisheries but as part of overall marine management and conservation. Global management of fisheries is also an important issue in the debate, given the scale of the problem right across the world. Will the Minister in his response, or in writing, state what further work he will do on the issue of bluefin tuna? I know that he played a good hand—we tried to do our best as well—but this is still in many ways unfinished business. One opportunity has been missed, not through lack of effort but simply through lack of ability to get people to agree a way forward. Is the Minister still committed to the idea of the largest marine fish that we have—that iconic species—having an appendix 1 listing in the convention on international trade in endangered species? That would move the debate on significantly and show real leadership. Alternatively, is there another way forward? My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland talked about the uplands, peat degradation and the importance of farming. We agree very much, as I know the Minister and colleagues here will, that the stewardship of much of the land in this country is in the hands of those who either own or farm the land—tenants or landowners—and that is absolutely right. However, we were pushing very hard within the Department not only on the uplands entry-level stewardship scheme but on the higher-level stewardship scheme, because those higher-end schemes are the most important ones. They give real additionality, way beyond what is already being done. Sometimes they are trickier for the individual on the ground to implement, but for the hon. Gentleman as a Minister, us as a country and this debate on developing natural wealth, they are the most important. Perhaps the Minister cannot give me an answer today, but I strongly urge him not to give way on those higher-end countryside stewardship schemes. They are vital because they set the standard to which we should aspire. I am sure that there is Treasury pressure to look for some cost-cutting here, but that is really difficult because the schemes set the highest standard to which we should aspire for the uplands. The Minister also mentioned the Campaign for the Farmed Environment, and I welcome his commitment to that. That agreement was hard-won and not uncontroversial, going as it did for a voluntary approach rather than a regulatory one, but let me put this question firmly to him. In all the discussion that we have had on biodiversity—often in terms of flora biodiversity and the farmland bird index, in relation to farming—is the Minister confident that in the coming years, as we look at the roll-out of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment and at the buy-in from agronomists, farmers and landowners, we will be in a position to effectively monitor and measure what is happening on the ground, that we have the right measures in place, and that whatever streamlining there is of the number of people visiting farms, that monitoring is going on? Without such monitoring, we will have nothing to measure; we will not know whether we are successful. We must find a way to deliver on that without over-regulation and additional burdens of bureaucracy. Moreover, it must be credible that it is being delivered effectively, not only to the farming community and landowners but to non-governmental organisations outside. My concern, echoed by a number of groups, is that there might be some denuding of the monitoring and evaluation of our farming stewardship and of various other schemes, including the voluntary one. I welcome the Minister's commitment to the roll-out of marine coastal zones and marine protected area networks. Stick at that. I strongly support what he is doing in that area. I look forward to the delivery of these wildlife corridors, stepping stones and buffer areas that are mentioned in the White Paper and the consultation document. They refer not just to undesignated areas, but to the linkages between them. Such developments will enhance the ability of our wildlife and habitats to migrate, which they may need to do not just because of development pressures but because of the impact of climate change, which is having an effect on our wildlife as we speak. Further work must be done on non-native and invasive species as well. I should welcome an update in writing on how the trials are going with Aphalara itadori, one of the first invasive species that we introduced. We hope that it is a nice sort of invasive, and that it will effectively tackle nasty invasives. I have not heard anything about those trials for some time, so it would be good to have an update. One critical issue relates to the quality of water and the water framework directive. I suspect that the big society will strongly come into play here. I will be interested to see how the Department can square the circle given the financial pressures that it is under. We knew that the secret behind the water framework directive's ability to improve not just the water quality but the ecological quality of the water and the species that are within it was always going to depend on partnerships—river catchment partnerships, angling societies or people just buying in to the scheme. The Environment Agency cannot solve the problem on its own, so this will be a real test of the big society. We cannot walk away from our commitments. This is not a Brussels-led, top-down bureaucratic mess, but a genuine right-minded aspiration to ensure that we have not just clean water but a multiplicity of species and flora and fauna within our rivers to the higher reaches. I welcome the Minister's initial thoughts on how we will achieve that. Government procurement within Departments is also important for biodiversity whether it is through the use of legal sustainable timber or other such things. I should welcome an update on that. As for international wildlife crime, we know that there is a multi-billion pound annual trade in prohibited species. Will the Minister give us an update on the individual species that are in the public domain at the moment, which includes tigers. A hard line was taken under the previous Government on ivory trading. Does that still hold or are there nuances that we should know about? Moreover, I should like to hear about the commitment domestically to the wildlife crime unit, which does sterling work. The former Home Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), and I visited the unit and saw what it was doing on the ground in the UK. It requires a Government commitment and a small element of funding to keep it going. One thing it was admired for was its specific focus on wildlife crime, which was pushed up the agenda of many individual police forces across the country, but still more work needs to be done there. I have mentioned the Darwin initiative already. Stick with it because it goes a long way for very little investment. I also urge the Government to continue promoting eco-tourism, which covers whale watching and other forms of wildlife enjoyment, with our colleagues in Norway, Iceland and elsewhere. That has to be the way forward—we are not actually killing the wildlife, but snapping it on our cameras and enjoying it for its intrinsic merit and beauty. My final point on the detail relates to peat extraction. It is an enormously complex issue, because we cannot isolate UK peat extraction from the extraction that is carried out internationally. Different countries have different objectives and uses for the peat that is extracted. We tend to use it in horticultural, industrial and garden-based products. We said that we wanted to move away from peat extraction much faster, and there is still more work to be done. I am sure that hon. Members here today are interested to hear what the next stages will be. It is not an easy task, but it needs to be addressed. After that wealth of detail that I have thrown at the Minister, I shall now turn to the big questions. Before I do, let me say—and the Minister will know this—that the issue of biodiversity runs not just through his portfolio but across everything. It cannot be isolated into one area. One of my first big question relates to an issue that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North. What measures will we be passed that take us on to the next step and that build on the work of ecosystem valuation through TEEB—The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity? How will we embed that aim in Government. Some fascinating options have been put forward by GLOBE and other organisations, but the secret is to place the whole matter not in DEFRA but in mainstream Government. What could be more mainstream than the Treasury? I have no doubt that the opposition to that will be immense, but what would be better than having a far-sighted Minister and Secretary of State who were willing to take the fight on. They may not succeed in six months, a year or even 18 months, but they can start doing the work now, because it really is possible, and it is the logical next stage. We should be looking at not just the pure, arithmetical economic wealth, GDP and GNP of the country, but at what is happening to the natural wealth of this country and we should give it the same ultimate level of credibility. If we can encourage that to happen internationally, heaven help us we would have really got to the holy grail. Secondly, what can the Minister and the Secretary of State do to bring biodiversity and climate change together with equal priority on the national and international agenda? What arguments will he use to articulate that and to persuade international colleagues to recognise that? For too long, the focus has been very much on climate change, with biodiversity as something of a side show. Both need to be together because they are so intimately interlinked. Thirdly, I return to the issue of measuring and monitoring. Has the Minister got the confidence that in the next six months or two years, we in the UK will have not only an adequate set of measures that we should be monitoring, but the mechanisms to do that, as well as the people on the ground? We need credible, adequate measures so that we know what is happening. That will be an issue for the Government's big society, and a tangible test of whether it actually works. So much had been done already; DEFRA was very good at engaging with the third sector and voluntary organisations. If that is the way forward, it will have to be asked to do a heck of a lot more. There is also a role for Government in coming up with creative solutions to the many challenges that face us and showing leadership. I am sure that the Minister is up to that. If he and the Secretary of State can show us that the leadership is there on those three big issues, we will be applauding by the end of this Government.