My Lords, I am speaking in favour of Amendment 117 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone. I feel she made a very good case for an overarching land use framework to address the acute shortage of land we know we have in the UK and the competing pressures on it. This has been a developing theme that she has very much championed throughout the passage of this Bill and the Agriculture Act before it.
Whether it is setting aside land for habitat renewal and biodiversity, identifying land for planting trees to help with carbon sequestration, providing better public access to green spaces or becoming more self-sufficient in food, all these issues have to compete with the need for more housing, hospitals and schools, and it all needs to happen on the same scarce and expensive pieces of land. As my noble friend says, it has become an impossible jigsaw.
As we pile on the pressure for more and more uses for the land, there is still no accepted understanding of what the priorities are and how all those needs can be addressed. We are virtually operating on a first come, first served basis: those who already own the land decide its future, regardless of the pressures stacking up for other, maybe more pressing, needs.
Which land should be used for growing food and which for nature recovery? We never really resolved that during consideration of the Agriculture Act. Where are the millions of trees in the tree action plan going to be planted? How can we maximise our land use to mitigate the impact of climate change and contribute to net zero? What will be the impact of the new planning laws on our desire for biodiversity net gain?
Are we in danger of locking up land through conservation covenants before we have decided on its ideal use? These are all urgent questions that need to be addressed, and we believe the creation of a land use framework is an excellent way to address them.
However, I am very pleased that, since the earlier debate, my noble friend has received considerable support for her proposal for a Lords special ad hoc inquiry into this issue; I was very pleased to add my name in support. I believe this would be an excellent step forward. Undeniably, as noble Lords have said, this issue is hugely complex and not easily captured in an amendment to a Bill. Whatever the outcome of her bid, I hope she will keep raising this issue, in the planning Bill and beyond, until we can reach a settled view about how to prioritise our land use for the future. I look forward to the Minister’s response.