My Lords, we welcome this statutory instrument. We have heard that a regulatory gap arose when cross-compliance was withdrawn at the beginning of this year. Our concern is that the SI was not progressed more quickly, because the no-cutting period it covers is from 1 March to 31 August, so cutting has been permitted that is not going to be permitted next year and has not been permitted in previous years, so getting this new system in place as quickly as possible must be a priority. I was interested in the question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about whether there is any evidence of what damage has been done in the meantime and, if so, what will be done to mitigate that.
My noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone said that this is a bit of a missed opportunity because we could have done better than the former EU protections, and she went into some information about that. We have heard that the main issue is the three exemptions from the former cross-compliance—fields under two hectares, hedgerows younger than five years and exemptions to the no-cutting period—so I will not go into detail around that. Despite the fact that some noble Lords, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, who is no longer in his place, mentioned that farmers and landowners on the whole follow best management practice, and we do not want to undermine the work that farmers do, the exemptions should have been carried across wholesale into the new regulations because otherwise hedgerows are not protected. It is important that we have those protections in place in law for sound environmental reasons.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned enforcement. The SI embraces a different approach to enforcement that we have been seeing across farming more broadly. In other words, it is now advice-led, which will improve trust and drive better outcomes. Interestingly, the SI allows a defence of mistake when regulations have not been followed, whereas cross-compliance always said a breach is a breach, even if that breach was a mistake. I think we would in principle support that because there is no point in punishing farmers if they have made a genuine mistake, but it takes more time and resources for the Environment Agency to implement the new approach. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked who enforces this. My understanding is that it is the Environment Agency, but perhaps the Minister
could confirm that. How is that slightly more complex enforcement going to be resourced and managed? One of the reasons for asking is because new data has shown that the majority of deadlines that were issued as part of this new advice to farmers to improve the environment were missed. It is just about making sure that it all comes together and works effectively.
Martin Lines, from the Nature Friendly Farming Network, who we all know well, said in an article that he thinks large food corporations bear significant responsibility for this. Does the Minister agree with that? Where has the evidence come from?
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We have heard that the removal of cross-compliance has left other notable gaps in protection, particularly for water courses and soil. My noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone talked about this issue—in particular, the buffer strips next to water courses—in some detail. Although the requirement obviously was not there to address water pollution specifically, it was better than nothing. Not having it potentially means a greater risk of nutrient run-off. I assure the Minister that I am not going to start talking about water pollution today, but how are we going to prevent run-off going into our water courses?
A number of noble Lords asked whether the Government are planning to bring forward any legislation to address these remaining gaps. I support that question because it would be helpful to have further SIs, both to plug all the gaps that are still there and to improve the situation as it is at the moment. We know that we can get protections through the SFI schemes but those are voluntary, and a voluntary scheme does not bring in the same level of protection. We consider that it would be better to have this matter regulated for.
Finally, I wish to raise one particular issue. In his introduction, the Minister talked about Defra looking at how further to manage hedgerows sustainably in future. That is incredibly important but I have one concern. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, talked about the fact that they have drystone walls in Yorkshire. We have them in Cumbria but we also have a lot of farm hedgerows along the roads—that is, a lot of roadside hedgerows. Something that has become appallingly obvious recently is the number of ash trees in those hedgerows; we have a lot of ash trees in Cumbria. They have all had to be cut down because they are dying and there are concerns that they are going to fall into the road. Those hedgerows just look devastated. If we are looking at having sustainably managed hedgerows in future, in the same way that we look at how to manage trees, can we also look at how we can support hedgerows through disease and the loss of such an important part of those hedgerows, when we have diseases such as ash dieback?