My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I also conscious of my noble friend Lord Robathan’s remark that “less can be more”, so I will curtail quite a lot of what I might be able to say.
However, I want to pick up one point made by the right reverend Prelate. He might not be aware, but it was due entirely to the work of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Hayman, and myself that we got soil into the environmental improvement plan. It was promised through the soil health action plan. It was the pressure that we put on the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that got the Government to change their view. It is a pity that the soil health action plan was not implemented, because the OEP is having great difficulty in getting any measurement of how soil can be improved.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend the Minister. Again, we are lucky enough in this House to have a Minister who is experienced in farming and the countryside and who understands the matter probably far more than his civil servants. When it came to his remarks about the difference between management control of grey squirrel and deer and control of other species, I thought he was dancing on a pinhead. His officials need to be kicked pretty blooming hard and told that they need a better argument than that.
The Government have set farmers legally binding targets for 2030, but they are not letting farmers have a full toolbox of measures to tackle that. There is a risk of creating perfect habitats with taxpayers’ money for a whole range of species which would just become population sinks unless there is more help for farmers in protecting those species from predators.
I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take two serious messages back to his Secretary of State and to No. 10. First, we need to get on with SFI schemes. It is no good just saying, “It’s going to be in the summer”; we want it as soon as possible. Secondly, we need more on predator management.