My Lords, I do not have an American spouse to declare and I am certainly not a landowner, so maybe I bring more of a working-class approach to this. But I do declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, where conservation covenants are already becoming a live and slightly perturbing issue. I speak in support of Amendments 109, 110, 112, 113, 114 and 115 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, to which I have added my name. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for his amendments, which echo our concerns about the current wording of Part 7 of the Bill.
As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said in Committee and again today, conservation covenants are a new and radical concept. They could bring great benefits to our landscape and to improving our biodiversity, but they are long-term agreements with huge implications for the landowners, so it is essential that we make the wording watertight from the start. The noble Earl’s Amendments 109 and 110 would require any conservation covenant to be underpinned by a deed. We believe this provision is essential. It would ensure that the landowner received appropriate legal advice before locking in the land to agreements that could last 100 years or more, committing their family for generations.
In the noble Lord the Minister’s letter following the debate in Committee, he made it clear that the covenants would not require a dominant and servient tenement. The implication was that this would be an equal agreement between the landowner and the responsible body, but we know this is not necessarily how it will work in practice. We are talking about public bodies or large institutions with huge resources compared to a single landowner, who may be a small farmer. So it is crucial that they get the best legal advice, which a deed would deliver. There would then be clarity for all on what the conservation requirements are.
As I mentioned in Committee, the concept of environmental stacking is also taking hold, where a landowner might have multiple conservation obligations to different bodies, with all the legal complexities that that would ensue. Could the noble Baroness clarify how it would work if a covenant existed for a piece of land? For example, would the landowner also be able to claim additional financial support through the sustainable farming incentive scheme?
We are also concerned about the implications of individual farmers being approached to sign covenants that are at odds with the wider plans for the landscape. How would we ensure that the covenant was in keeping with, for example, the strategic plans for the protected landscapes in the national parks? As I mentioned in Committee, farmers in the South Downs are already being approached to provide carbon offsets for developments elsewhere, and the new biodiversity offsets will complicate matters further. All of this underlines
the need for a land-use framework for England, which my noble friend Lady Young will be debating in the next group.
I also agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that the advice on conservation may turn out to be wrong, over a period of time, so we need a simple mechanism to adapt and sign off new amended conservation agreements.
Finally, we agree with the noble Earl that the responsible bodies that determine the basis of the covenant, if they are not public bodies or charities, should be organisations focused solely on conservation —we all had a great deal of sympathy with his example of Southern Water, which did not quite tick the box of being a trustworthy conservator—otherwise, there is a danger of the covenants being traded by for-profit institutions with no interest in the biodiversity outcome and no direct engagement with the landowner. In the worst case, it is possible to imagine all these covenants bundled up into packages and traded internationally, with the UK losing control of its land use. I hope noble Lords see the sense of these amendments and agree to support them, if the Minister is not able to adequately address these concerns.