In the run-up to COP, the Prime Minister spoke about Kermit the Frog. On the first day of COP, he spoke about cows belching before disappearing up a closie for the next two weeks, instead focusing his time on trying to cover up Conservative party corruption. So can I ask...

In the run-up to COP, the Prime Minister spoke about Kermit the Frog. On the first day of COP, he spoke about cows belching before disappearing up a closie for the next two weeks, instead focusing his time on trying to cover up Conservative party corruption. So can I ask...

My Lords, in moving Amendment 156, I will also speak to Amendment 163.

First, I must declare my interest, particularly for these amendments. I am the co-president of London Councils, the body that represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. I am also a vice-president of the...

My Lords, in moving Amendment 156, I will also speak to Amendment 163.

First, I must declare my interest, particularly for these amendments. I am the co-president of London Councils, the body that represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. I am also a vice-president of the...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). I wish I could say I disagreed with him over HS2, but let us not go there.

I congratulate the Government on their decision to back the Isle of Wight’s levelling-up bid last week and moving it up...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). I wish I could say I disagreed with him over HS2, but let us not go there.

I congratulate the Government on their decision to back the Isle of Wight’s levelling-up bid last week and moving it up...

My Lords, I decided to put down this Motion to Regret because it provides an opportunity for us to discuss the role of competition in ferry services. Does it incentivise operators to compete? Can they compete? Is there a role for the competition commission or some other body, because there...

My Lords, I decided to put down this Motion to Regret because it provides an opportunity for us to discuss the role of competition in ferry services. Does it incentivise operators to compete? Can they compete? Is there a role for the competition commission or some other body, because there...

The Minister is doing a first-rate job for students in promoting freedom of speech on campus. Does she agree, however, that it would not help students to recover from everything they have been going through and everything they have lost during the pandemic if they faced the prospect of having to pay back already excessive student loans at a lower threshold? Does she also agree that too many universities have become academically indiscriminate cash cows for overpaid university administrators?

The Minister is doing a first-rate job for students in promoting freedom of speech on campus. Does she agree, however, that it would not help students to recover from everything they have been going through and everything they have lost during the pandemic if they faced the prospect of having to pay back already excessive student loans at a lower threshold? Does she also agree that too many universities have become academically indiscriminate cash cows for overpaid university administrators?

I thank the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) not only for securing this debate on this important issue but for arranging for me to meet, on Wednesday, the wonderful APPG to receive a copy of its report in person.

The Government recognise the challenges faced by people with...

I thank the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) not only for securing this debate on this important issue but for arranging for me to meet, on Wednesday, the wonderful APPG to receive a copy of its report in person.

The Government recognise the challenges faced by people with...

Keeping dogs on leads is particularly important with sheep. It is completely the opposite when there are cattle with calves in the field. The dog owner should let go of their lead and let the dog run away, because otherwise it is people who become the casualties. This is complicated,...

Keeping dogs on leads is particularly important with sheep. It is completely the opposite when there are cattle with calves in the field. The dog owner should let go of their lead and let the dog run away, because otherwise it is people who become the casualties. This is complicated,...

My Lords, I am used to hearing powerful speeches from my noble friend Lord Alton of Liverpool, but what a delight it was to hear also the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. He spelled it out exactly: it beggars belief. I cannot believe that my noble friend, a...

My Lords, I am used to hearing powerful speeches from my noble friend Lord Alton of Liverpool, but what a delight it was to hear also the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. He spelled it out exactly: it beggars belief. I cannot believe that my noble friend, a...

In the last few days, there have been many tributes to Sir David, from politicians of all parties, from his constituents and members of the public, from friends and from family, and from faith leaders, especially the Catholic Church, of which he was such a devoted follower. Each tribute paints...

In the last few days, there have been many tributes to Sir David, from politicians of all parties, from his constituents and members of the public, from friends and from family, and from faith leaders, especially the Catholic Church, of which he was such a devoted follower. Each tribute paints...

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58248/PB42 

Since the Government Office for Science Foresight report “Land Use in the UK in the 21st Century” was published in 2010, many environmental indicators, such as those for biodiversity and water quality, are still in decline. In 2018, the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) set out the Government’s ambitions for the natural environment under separate policy areas.

Yet the Environmental Audit Committee have stated the 25 YEP does not provide sufficient direction to leave the environment in a better state, and that existing Government policy and targets are inadequate to remedy historic and current rates of biodiversity loss - which characterises the UK as the most nature depleted nation in the G7. Over the past decade, the UK has failed to meet a raft of international targets to prevent further declines in the state of nature.

Existing policies and targets are not joined up across government to address biodiversity loss. The challenges arising from interactions between discrete policy siloes have been discussed through integrated decision making frameworks like natural capital accounting, payments for ecosystem services and Nature Based Solutions. There are also examples of more specific ‘on the ground’ opportunities, such as integrating policies that both support bee populations and improve food production. For example, policies that encourage planting flowering strips in combination with lower pesticide use (through integrated pest management) can provide both crop yield benefits for agriculture and provide the environmental benefit of enhanced bee biodiversity, which supports other ecosystem processes. There is also the example of tree planting, which if done in the right locations, can mitigate flooding (POSTNote 623) and sequester carbon dioxide (POSTNote 636), but if in the wrong place, will undermine these efforts. These and other examples illustrate the need to integrate policy across the discrete environmental sectors.

As part of its efforts to tackle these challenges, the Government is designing frameworks to replace the former subsidy arrangements under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, with the Environment Bill setting out a new regulatory framework for environmental targets and objectives.

Defra has identified what sustainable use of available land area looks like and the full suite of natural environment considerations and outcomes that are desired, while highlighting the major challenges to be addressed, and is developing new schemes to shape land management practices.

As part of the Agricultural Transition Plan, Defra are proposing the Sustainable Farming Incentive, the Local Nature Recovery (POSTnote 652) and Landscape Recovery Schemes to act as the main mechanisms for tackling the environmental challenges of climate change, ecosystem and biodiversity recovery and sustainable farm businesses. However, there are significant levels of uncertainty within the farming community and the proposals have faced substantial criticism by a wide range of conservation, farming and political organisations.

Sustainable Land Management (SLM) could be a way of addressing the criticisms the Government’s schemes face. SLM is a broad framework to help decision making around how we manage our land for greatest societal benefit. It emphasises local buy-in, stakeholder and community engagement as part of a larger coherent national scale spatial plan showing what to do and where.

It is a cross scale approach recommending that actions are supported by adequate knowledge transfer, data, monitoring, funding and democratic participation. SLM could also be a key tool for Government to integrate frameworks to address multiple land use pressures (POSTNote 627).

It is important to acknowledge the scale of the evidence base for SLM; which is limited to only a small number of targeted environmental outcomes in developed countries. Most examples of SLM as land policy are often found in developing countries where food security have been central concerns within processes of environmental and social change.

The Welsh Government has recently adopted SLM in its land management strategy. The ambition is a transition towards landscapes that are multifunctional. This means that they: produce healthy food; protect wildlife; provide clean water; help to address climate change; provide protection from hazards; and they reflect cultural heritage values. This approach will require drawing on the full range of approaches that SLM offers to support land managers with adequate data, know-how, appropriate policy frameworks, financial support and other enabling conditions.

This POSTBrief describes how SLM frameworks can bridge the gaps between institutions, deliver cross-sector communication between partners and sets out 10 key principles common to these frameworks. It demonstrates the relevance of these principles in five key areas across food and farming, nature recovery, water management, climate change, culture and heritage (see Principles in Practice).

To bring context to these principles, the report takes a broad review of the challenges in implementation in these areas that have emerged from the evidence base. An annex also provides an overview of the history of agricultural land use in England, identifying key factors that shaped these landscapes.

Key Points in this POSTbrief include:
• Land management is a complex challenge that requires integrated approaches across science, technology and economics, while being strongly shaped by cultural and social values and local traditions.
• Around 75% of land in England is farmed, which makes farming and farm-land managers central to the Governments’ environmental ambitions. Farming policy is itself undergoing generational changes in connection to Brexit and the Agricultural Act 2020. Conditions facing farm businesses will also change substantially over the coming years.
• Better land management can be incentivised through both private finance and public payments. But the “what”, “where” and “how” will be determined by the willingness of land managers. The challenge is in delivering a full range of public goods from land and balancing these so that one does not unduly affect others. For example, through generating unacceptable trade-offs between food provision and nature conservation. The National Food Strategy recommends that Government produce a Rural Land Use Map and Strategy to support spatial decision making for sustainable land use.
• Despite Government’s ambitions for land and the range of policy priorities in connection to this, the proposed frameworks such as the Agriculture Act 2020, the Environment Bill 2019-21 and the Planning Bill 2021, do not address or consider the trade-offs that inevitably arise from land management choices.
• SLM is a broad, holistic framework that seeks to align institutions, funding, knowledge and practice at all scales of governance and management. It could be an effective framework for managing the multiple pressures on English landscapes while facilitating the delivery of public goods. It emphasises local buy-in using demonstration sites and knowledge exchange, while building on existing decision support tools like natural capital accounting.
• Food and farming face substantial challenges. SLM provides a way of considering both farmers’ agency and consumer behaviour. The catchment approach for water is an existing example of collaboration between stakeholders, such as farmers, water companies and conservation bodies. Biodiversity and Net Zero policies are accountable to international treaties but delivery relies on management at landscape scale and depends on landowners working together. Culture and heritage are key to the value of landscapes and how they have been managed.
• SLM can benefit farming through agri-environmental practices that tie improving yields to environmental outcomes. Improved science and knowledge transfer that links agricultural practice to biodiversity and ecosystem service outcomes at different spatial scales with economic incentives is only part of the solutions. Incentives is only part of the solution. Institutional and cultural factors need to be considered to account for the way land managers see their role in delivering public goods. Current approaches currently lack sufficient knowledge of social science to understand land-owner motivation, cultural norms and historic information on the environment.
Land manager trust in the Government is low, and principles of SLM show ways of improving this.
• To deliver the Governments’ natural environment goals, land managers need to work with different actors and scales across the water, conservation and climate sectors in the private, government and third sector. There are challenges of scale, planning, skills and funding, since SLM plays out at landscape rather than field scale. Government funding and policy will need to address these challenges.
• SLM takes a root and branch approach to the underlying factors that shape landscapes and the public goods provided. It connects high level governance to the grassroots challenges of fostering working relationships within local community partnerships. Tensions between local parties and between the local and national governance are
foregrounded to support more cooperative approaches navigating multiple sources of funding and regulation.
• Optimising this complex arrangement is best achieved through polycentric governance where multiple authorities at different levels of governance (national, regional and community) coordinate coherently. Polycentric governance for SLM needs to be supported by adequate funding, aligned policy frameworks and improved knowledge transfer. The difference would be supporting managers with knowledge on the ground for “how to” do SLM rather than merely showing “what” the problems are. The Dasgupta review recommended polycentric governance to deliver land use and management policy change. This allows local concerns and values to engage and negotiate with national environmental and biodiversity objectives.

Acknowledgements

This POSTbrief was based on literature reviews and interviews with a range of stakeholders and was externally peer reviewed. POST would like to thank interviewees and peer reviewers for kindly giving up their time during the preparation of this briefing, including:

Dr Nick Isaac, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

Professor Tom Oliver, University of Reading

Alice Lord, Natural England*

Professor Mark Reed, SRUC

Dr Beth Brockett, Natural England*

Professor Andy Purvis, NHM

Professor James Bullock, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

Chris Uttley, Environment Agency

Richard Reynolds, Anglian Water

Professor Phil Haygarth, University of Lancaster

John Gorst, United Utilities

Vicki Hird, Sustain*

Professor Ian Hodge, Cambridge University*

Dr Mark Riley, Liverpool University*

Danny Teasdale, Ullswater CIC

Dr Steve Carver, Leeds University

Emma Wright, North Pennines AONB Partnership*

Professor David Powslon, Rothamsted

Jon Foot, AHDB

Adam Briggs, NFU

Professor Michael Winter, University of Exeter

Dr Charlie Outhwaite, UCL*

Dr Tim Newbold UCL

Professor Mark Everard, UWE

Professor Jules Pretty, University of Essex

Professor Janet Dwyer, University of Gloucester*

Dr Rob Collins, The Rivers Trust

Ciara Dwyer, University of Loughborough*

Jonathan Baker, Defra*

Richard Benwell, Wildlife and Countryside Link

Professor Edward Maltby, University of Liverpool*

Professor Jim Harris, University of Cranfield

Steve Spode, Welsh Government

Professor Rob Fish, University of Kent

Professor Alister Scott, University of Northumbria

Kevin Austin, Environment Agency

Professor Joe Morris, University of Cranfield

Tom Finch, RSPB

Dr Chris Short, University of Gloucester*

D-J Gent, Environment Agency

Charlie Burrell, Knepp Estate

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58248/PB42 

Since the Government Office for Science Foresight report “Land Use in the UK in the 21st Century” was published in 2010, many environmental indicators, such as those for biodiversity and water quality, are still in decline. In 2018, the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) set out the...

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether beef produced on farms that carry out the surgical removal of ovaries from cows without pain relief falls under the definition of imports of lower welfare as set out in the Government’s call for evidence on Labelling...

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether beef produced on farms that carry out the surgical removal of ovaries from cows without pain relief falls under the definition of imports of lower welfare as set out in the Government’s call for evidence on Labelling...

That is exactly what I am going to say. I think there are options for the aircraft sector. I want to make a plea for Belfast City airport, Belfast International airport and City of Derry airport—all integral parts of

my economy back home. People in Strangford can travel 25 minutes...

That is exactly what I am going to say. I think there are options for the aircraft sector. I want to make a plea for Belfast City airport, Belfast International airport and City of Derry airport—all integral parts of

my economy back home. People in Strangford can travel 25 minutes...

First, I thank all the service personnel involved in Operation Pitting and pay tribute to the as-ever impressive leadership of Brigadier James Martin.

Radar is vital to our nation’s defence, and the Royal Navy’s radar is made in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Do the Government have a plan for the development of next-generation radar?

First, I thank all the service personnel involved in Operation Pitting and pay tribute to the as-ever impressive leadership of Brigadier James Martin.

Radar is vital to our nation’s defence, and the Royal Navy’s radar is made in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Do the Government have a plan for the development of next-generation radar?

We absolutely do. My hon. Friend is an assiduous proponent of the Island’s defence sector. In the summer, I visited GKN Aerospace in Cowes, which is one of a number of great companies on the Island. On radar, my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that we are working closely with BAE Systems on the potential spiral development of the existing maritime radar.

We absolutely do. My hon. Friend is an assiduous proponent of the Island’s defence sector. In the summer, I visited GKN Aerospace in Cowes, which is one of a number of great companies on the Island. On radar, my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that we are working closely with BAE Systems on the potential spiral development of the existing maritime radar.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for securing this debate.

First, a minute of history. In 1987 the NHS had more than 127,000 acute hospital beds and more than 52,000 geriatric beds. Some 20 years later, geriatric bed numbers had been cut by over 60% and acute beds...

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for securing this debate.

First, a minute of history. In 1987 the NHS had more than 127,000 acute hospital beds and more than 52,000 geriatric beds. Some 20 years later, geriatric bed numbers had been cut by over 60% and acute beds...

It is good to see you in your place, Sir George. I will endeavour to meet your time limit, although as hon. Members know I can talk about the maritime sector till the cows come home.

I would very much like to associate myself with the remarks made by the right...

It is good to see you in your place, Sir George. I will endeavour to meet your time limit, although as hon. Members know I can talk about the maritime sector till the cows come home.

I would very much like to associate myself with the remarks made by the right...

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Hayman of Ullock, for supporting this amendment. I also need to declare my various food interests, in particular in this instance that I was an adviser on the food strategy—although I have to...

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Hayman of Ullock, for supporting this amendment. I also need to declare my various food interests, in particular in this instance that I was an adviser on the food strategy—although I have to...

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who I know has much interest in this area. I should first like to declare that I am a farmer’s son in my home constituency of West Dorset. When we...

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who I know has much interest in this area. I should first like to declare that I am a farmer’s son in my home constituency of West Dorset. When we...

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, on chairing these committees. Although the principal committee’s report is over a year old, many of the issues that it pointed to on publication have come to pass. It has been...

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, on chairing these committees. Although the principal committee’s report is over a year old, many of the issues that it pointed to on publication have come to pass. It has been...

My Lords, I shall start with a surprise and say how pleased—indeed, delighted—I am that the noble Lord, Lord True, will reply to this debate. He will be relieved to hear that I am not going to have a go at him or indeed his Government. However tempted I am,...

My Lords, I shall start with a surprise and say how pleased—indeed, delighted—I am that the noble Lord, Lord True, will reply to this debate. He will be relieved to hear that I am not going to have a go at him or indeed his Government. However tempted I am,...