My Lords, in moving Amendment 140 I will also speak to Amendment 141, which is grouped with it although it is a different issue. I will speak to Amendment 141 first.
Earlier on in this Committee, a long time ago, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said—I am almost quoting him—that the Government never use compulsion and would never instruct farmers what they should do. That is a fine sentiment. The purpose of this slightly convoluted amendment is very simple: to ask how the Government intend to proceed on large tier 3 schemes in circumstances in which one or more landowners is being obstructive and refusing to take part.
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For example, there may be a large area of moorland, such as an upland moor in the north of England, for which a tier 3 scheme is proposed for a combination of reasons, such as wildlife, carbon sequestration, restoring the peat, water catchment, and improving the management of the farms as a whole in that area. One large landowner, who occupies a strategic position on that moorland massif, may refuse to take part. It is a simple question: what procedures or ways will there be to overcome that and force them to do what is in the interests of the public and everybody in the area?
Amendment 140 is a slightly convoluted amendment that puts to the Government that the words “public goods” are not terribly specific or clear. A lot of people have taken to repeating, because it is a good thing to say, “Public money for public goods”. In the instance of the Bill and Clause 1 specifically, what does this mean? We need to know. The phrase originally came from Michael Gove when he was Secretary of State, who put it forward as a major principle. The cynic in me suggests that, rather than being a principle, in many cases it is a slogan; it sounds good.
Most members of the public, if asked, would say that a public good was something that was good for the public. Some of this confusion is behind some of the amendments we have already discussed and dealt with—for example, the question of food security. Is food security, however defined, a public good or something that is good for the public but, in strict economic terms, not a public good? Earlier in Committee, the Minister was specific that the production of food was not a public good; it is a private good, because it is produced and distributed via the market. That is a summary of what he said, and he is agreeing with me.
I am not an economist, but I have read far too much of what economists have written during my life. I notice that they are rather like lawyers: you can pay them to say what you want, in some circumstances. At its most basic, a public good is defined as a commodity or service that is made available to all members of society. It may be free, like the air that we breathe—to almost quote The Hollies, Pendle’s most famous pop group in history. It may be charged for but available to everybody, like a bus journey; on the other hand, if you have an old person’s pass, as I do, you get a free journey, so it is not clear. It is often administered by government and public authorities, paid for by the public purse, often by taxation but perhaps in other ways. For example, clean drinking water, law enforcement, defence security, rule of law and more specific things—street lighting and primary education—are often cited as public goods. They are the opposite of private goods, which are inherently scarce, if you read what the economists say, and paid for by individuals or private corporate bodies.
A further criterion of public goods is that they are not scarce. Their supply does not reduce if they are used or, if it does, the authorities can come along and replenish them. They can be used by any number of people at the same time. The issue is obviously complex. You might think that roads, for example, have been a good public good for cyclists in the last four months. Whether that continues is a different matter. Public parks are thought to be public goods, and so on.
As it applies to the Bill, the question is which items in Clause 1(1) and (2) can be regarded as public goods. You can make a pretty good argument for most items in Clause 1(1), but the health of the livestock or the soil is specific to a particular farm operation. Putting public money into them might be highly desirable, but are they public goods? Clause 1(2) is about creating new farming institutions or increasing the productivity of an existing farm in various ways. That comes close to direct subsidy of what the Minister said is not a public good, but is simply producing food in a better way.
How come increasing productivity and making people more efficient, rather than doing things in a more environmentally desirable way, is a public good? It is not clear who benefits from that kind of thing. It is clearly not about what is good or bad.
What is it about? The truth is that, the more you look into it, the more different people think it is different things. I want to know what the Government think it is. If they are saying to the public that they are not going to reduce farm subsidies generally, but spend them on different things—and perhaps turn them around, as the noble Lord said earlier—I suggest they stop using “public goods” in a vague way or as a slogan in general, and define what they mean. It is only by clearly defining what they mean that they will give clarity, not just to farmers and land managers but to people generally. I beg to move.