My Lords, it is very good to have the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in the Chamber. He has been very active on the screen but there is no substitute for being here in the flesh. I very much hope that it will not be too long before we see the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, here too. She also has been very assiduous in taking part in debates and making her contributions, but I ask her to come here if she possibly can, please, because that is what proper debating is about.
My heart is entirely with those who have moved these amendments, but we owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for making this a
proper debate. I was a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency for 40 years. I got to know many farmers and many of them became close friends. A person I would like to quote is perhaps the greatest countryman I have ever known. Some of your Lordships may remember Phil Drabble and his programme “One Man and His Dog”—he was its originator—but he was far more than an accomplished shepherd. He had his wilderness, about which he wrote books, which was a wonderful corner of Staffordshire with the second largest heronry in the country. I often used to talk to him about these things. He used to say to me, with his inimitable burr, which I will certainly not try to imitate, that it is a question of getting the balance right.
Nobody could dispute that pesticides are indeed poisonous, as my noble friend Lord Randall said, or that their indiscriminate or careless use causes enormous damage. It is right that colleagues in this debate should point out some of the dangers—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, was particularly forceful on this. It is also very important indeed that the dangers to pollinators should be properly recognised. Without pollinators there is only one end, which is extinction, and we have to be conscious of that. But the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was right when he asked us to consider whether the current regulations are adequate. He came down on the side of saying that they were. I am not absolutely convinced, but we have stringent regulations and, although one case of poisoning through pesticides is one too many, there have not been enormous numbers and we have to bear that in mind.
The Minister, who will reply in a few moments, is, as someone said a little while ago, someone with a good track record in this field. I hope that he will bear in mind that your Lordships’ House—as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and several others reminded us—voted for a similar amendment during the passage of the Agriculture Act. I well remember the debate and the graphic and gruesome examples that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, drew to our attention. But, at the end of the day, farming is there for one overriding purpose: to produce the food to feed the nation.
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It is terribly important that we are as self-dependent as possible on quality food and crops grown and animals reared to the highest possible standard. It is very important that we recognise that overriding role for agriculture and the importance that this Bill should help and encourage responsible farming and certainly not do the opposite. I think that the regulations—and here I slightly part company with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington—need to be put under a microscope, and this Bill gives us the opportunity to do precisely that. Committee is the stage when we probe to see what needs to be done on Report before the Bill finally becomes an Act of Parliament and goes on the statute book.
I think it would be very good if there were fairly intensive discussions between the Minister and people such as my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and others—including, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington—to make sure that, when this Bill
emerges, we are better protected than we are at the moment and that farming is not inhibited to the point where farmers give up and become custodians of prettiness and not producers of food. However, there is nothing incompatible between beauty and the production of food because that way lies a balanced and proper environment, with a countryside we can all enjoy and the benefits of the food that we need to sustain us.
I very much look forward to what my noble friend the Minister will say when he comes to wind up this interesting debate. I hope there will be an opportunity to strengthen regulations—if that is needed, and I believe it is—when we come to Report.