I think it fair to say that the Bill is not that likely to become law, so I suggest that my noble friend is putting down a marker. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, expressed very well the way we should be looking at these things, on a scientific basis. I am, in fact, going to talk about abortion, which is a path down which one should tread very warily. Last year, there were some 200,000 or more abortions, of which the vast majority will have been perfectly healthy foetuses that people just did not wish to take to term. That was not the intention of David Steel in 1967; it was thought to be quite a minor adjustment to the number of children that would be aborted.
My own view is that abortion is necessary on many occasions, but it is a necessary evil. It is not something that anybody could contemplate lightly or would wish to see happen—either the mother or indeed the child. This is not about women’s rights. The reason why I am putting down a marker today is that there is talk of decriminalising late abortions, after one or two very high-profile cases of a mother being prosecuted. In the particular case I am thinking of, a mother aborted at home, through drugs, a 36-week-old foetus.
Of course, that child could have lived perfectly happily, so we have to ask ourselves not about women’s rights, but about where murder begins and murder ends. A child that could have been born perfectly happily—that is being born in the ward next door—being aborted when it could have lived, seems to me to be a very, very serious matter. I put this down as a marker because I hope that nobody will pursue the idea that we decriminalise late abortions, which may take place at home. This is not about women’s rights, but about a decent, humane society.
]]>Perforce, I will be brief. I would like to give the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, my support in his dissection of the integrated review refresh of last year. I also say to my noble friend Lady Goldie, who is not in her place, that, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop knows, there is more rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repenteth as she has done over defence spending. It is a pity she did not say that when she was a Minister, but I will upbraid her for it in person.
I will touch briefly on three current conflicts; first, Ukraine, about which a great deal has been said. This war in Europe is the most serious for nearly 80 years. The war is a mixture of World War I attrition and 21st-century high-tech drones and the like. I congratulate Boris Johnson—I do not often—who was of course a great school friend of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. I also congratulate the UK Government on their steadfast support for Ukraine in the last two years, but we must continue to do this and do more. Are we pressing our allies, particularly France, Germany and the United States, to do more? They must do more, not sit on their hands and say, “It is all very good but a bit difficult”. This war affects global security and prosperity. The United States, Europe, Africa and India all need to understand that.
Our munitions have been extremely welcome and invaluable, but now they are totally depleted for our use or Ukraine’s. Is my noble friend pressing for a dramatic increase in industrial production, to move away from the mindset of the peace dividend? My noble friend may say that defence is not his brief, but he will be listened to, and he will know well the dictum of von Clausewitz in “Vom Kriege”, or “On War” for those who do not speak German:
“War is the continuation of policy with other means”—
and for foreign policy with defence, I suggest.
On Gaza and the Middle East, the UK has again been steadfast. It is a dreadful, possibly intractable situation. I cannot think of anybody who is not very concerned, to put it mildly, about the death of many civilians in Gaza, but Hamas could end this war tomorrow if it gave up the hostages and stopped attacking Israel. Perhaps we could then allow for a more peaceful, long-term solution to emerge, probably based on a two-state solution in which Hamas disappears, along with the illegal settlements in the West Bank and some of the ultra-Orthodox pressure on the Government. Perhaps we would get more reasonable—or moderate, shall we say —Governments in both Palestine and Israel.
Finally, on the situation in Yemen with Iran and the Houthis, the prosperity of the world is under threat. It is disappointing to see so few countries defending the shipping routes in the Gulf. My noble friend Lord Ahmad spoke of international responses, but as I understand it, the only response has been from the United States, helped by us with one ship. We need much more than that to defend the shipping lanes in the Gulf.
Moving on, perhaps I may quote a predecessor of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary from some 30 years ago, Lord Hurd, who said that we punch above our weight in foreign affairs, and President Theodore Roosevelt, who said some 100 years ago, in a much better- known quotation:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”.
We spent the defence peace dividend several times over and we have no big stick left. Our allies know this, and the United States and NATO say it. As I speak, we are reducing our defence in terms of numbers of troops, numbers of ships and numbers of aircraft. I heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer say recently that he wants to dramatically increase defence spending over the next 15 years. That is not good enough; our needs are now.
I support the Conservative Government. I have supported my party. I have been loyal—mostly—through thick and thin over 32 years; quite a lot of it has been rather thin, to be honest. I do not believe that a Government led by the Opposition would do any better, but I say to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary that our interests, our society, our values and our security are all threatened. We must spend more on defence, because the first duty of government is, as always, the defence of the realm.
]]>I do not know General Nesmith—I am sure she is a very good person—but we must take this and hit it on the head and understand what the Armed Forces are for. Will my noble friend go back to the MoD, talk to civilians and soldiers and say, “We are here to defend the nation properly and well, without discrimination, but we are here to defend the nation”?
]]>To explore this further, I read a Times article on
“went undercover to try it and was shocked by the damage it did”.
In brief, she was paid to write this article and, in pursuit of remuneration, she lied and said to a therapist that she was unhappy about being attracted to women. All the sessions were on Zoom. I quote the article:
“When I logged on to our first Zoom call the woman—whom I will call Carol—appeared to be a harmless-looking, middle-aged lady in a cosy, middle-class home”.
It quickly changed. She says:
“The process … quickly became destabilising. I dreaded the sessions, which were making me feel wrung out and depressed”.
She could have stopped.
Emily was also horrified to be asked about her sexual relationships—these were six counselling sessions about sexual relations—and about her relationship with her parents. That is pretty standard for psychologists, of which more later. She then says that she felt “exploited”. One might ask who was exploiting whom: Carol, whom Emily called “empathetic and gentle” and who had been asked to give counselling, or the journalist who deceived her, was paid for the article and could have switched off Zoom at any time?
Emily Sargent concludes:
“There is no doubt that a ban on these practices is wildly overdue”,
but she does so without any evidence in her article that I can see. Personally, I am against banning things just because someone does not like them—as, indeed, I am against pointless legislation.
We are also told that the therapy does not work. The Library briefing says that, in a government survey of 108,000 LGBT people, fewer than 3,000 had undergone this therapy—presumably all voluntarily. So what is the problem that the Bill wishes to solve? I note the BMA’s briefing, which I will read from now. The BMA says that it “strongly supports” the Bill and that:
“Talking therapy is recognised as a legitimate clinical pathway to those questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation. Such therapy is typically explorative and patient led, and thus cannot be seen as seeking to supress or deny an individual’s understanding of their gender identity or sexual orientation”.
It concludes, rather illogically, that it wishes
“to ban conversion practices in their entirety”.
I ask again: what is the purpose of the Bill? Is it to ban talking therapy, which the BMA calls “a legitimate clinical pathway”, or is it to ban physical assault, which is already banned and illegal? It seems to me, I am afraid, to be purely virtue signalling to placate a very small, outraged minority who think that their choice of lifestyle must never be questioned or discussed, however gently, by parents or anyone else.
I would like to conclude on a lighter note; I find it amusing, although others may not. Some 43 years ago, when I was young, I did SAS selection. At the beginning, Derek, who was running the course, said to me, “Andrew, somebody in the MoD has been persuaded that we can identify potential SAS officers using psychologists. You have been chosen”. So I filled in a long questionnaire, then met a man who asked me lots of questions. I had just trained a dog and had put that down as an interest, so we talked a lot about it. After some 20 minutes, he suddenly said, “You haven’t mentioned your mother”, to which I replied, “But you haven’t asked me about her”. At the conclusion of the selection, Derek told me that the psychologist had said I was totally unsuitable and could not possibly pass selection. The lesson I drew from that was: what do psychologists—or indeed therapists—know?
]]>I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on introducing this debate. He raised some really important points, which I shall not repeat. I have a close interest in farming because I have a small farm in the east Midlands, where I live. I intend to use my experiences to illustrate a bit of this debate and give a ground-level, coalface view—again, I apologise for mixing my metaphors. I will make three points.
First, the reduction in farming payments will hit farmers overall and may lead to more big farms rather than smaller ones. While some of this may be sensible—I am no great fan of subsidies; it would be better if there were none at all—if there continues to be a reduction in farm payments, the cost of food will inevitably rise because farmers will pass the costs of their inputs and work on to the consumer. At the same time, more farmers will leave the countryside. If they do, the landscape may be changed adversely. I seem to recall that after the Brexit vote the then Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the farming budget would remain exactly the same after Brexit. That does not seem to be the case, unless the Minister would like to contradict me on that.
My second and more important point is about complexity. I support much of ELMS and everything else, but I am rather keen on planting trees. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, around me I see trees and hedges flourishing. I have planted several miles of hedges and acres of trees. I thought I would plant some more because of the England woodland creation offer. This is the letter I got back after my son, who is also very keen on planting trees, sent in an application:
“Missing Evidence … It is mandatory to contact your Local Environmental Records Centre … Historic England area team, Local Historic Environment Service … and prior to applying”,
which is bad English. It continues:
“You must allow 28 days … You must … confirm this and … provide … Evidence of checks made for priority habitats … Evidence of checks made for protected species … Evidence of checks made for designated heritage assets and local historic environment records”.
I could go on, but that is quite enough.
The Government want me to plant trees and have offered to help. I want to plant trees—and have planted a lot already—for the landscape, wildlife and environmental improvement. What is the point of all this bureaucratic nonsense dreamed up in a warm office in Bristol or London? Let us get on with planting trees, not filling in 10 pages of nonsense. It deters people and to no good purpose.
My third point is about species management, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I disagree. It is not really an interest, but I should declare that in 1995 I was responsible for the Eradication of Mink Bill, which noble Lords will remember clearly. It got nowhere because it was a 10-minute rule Bill in the House of Commons. As my noble friend Lord Caithness said, mink have devastated our riverbanks—not just the water voles, although they are particularly obvious, but species such as kingfishers, because they can get into their nests, whereas otters, for example, cannot. There is some anecdotal evidence that otters are driving mink out. I hope that is the case.
Going back to predator management, when I bought my farm 20-odd years ago, we used to have curlews there every year. It was magnificent to have them on a lowland farm in the Midlands. However, now we almost never see them. The reason is probably not foxes or badgers, because we do not see that many of them, but corvids.
Noble Lords may not know that you need a licence to show that you are allowed to shoot or control corvids. Magpies are very clever birds and easily tamed. If noble Lords watch them over the next couple of months, they will see them working their way down a hedge, poking their heads in and looking for nesting birds. When they find a nesting bird, they destroy it. Each magpie is probably responsible for the destruction of 10 nests, but I do not know, as I have not studied it closely enough. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, you need a licence. There is a general licence, but you need to be able to prove that the magpies or crows are causing damage. What is the point of that? Can the Minister confirm that that is the case?
As for grey squirrels, I plant a lot of trees, and in one wood, a third of the trees have been killed by grey squirrels. I trap them. This is legal, I am glad to say; otherwise, I probably would not tell noble Lords. I have caught 14 in traps since Christmas Day and I am catching them all of the time. However, there are still hundreds left. They do so much damage. There are people who challenge the trapping. I ask the Minister: have there been any suggestions that we should make it illegal to kill grey squirrels? We must reduce the number of them if the Government’s ambition to plant more trees is to be realised.
There is a policy move to introduce a contraceptive, which will be useful only for male grey squirrels. I hope that works. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that later. Public sensitivity about killing squirrels is also one issue. I would also say there is some stupidity among the public. If noble Lords do not believe me, they should take their dog for a walk in the park and see what happens if it kills a squirrel in front of a lot of other people.
My real point in this is that there is concern and confusion over general licences and what one can and cannot do. They were all stopped and then restarted in the last couple of years. I return to what I said at the beginning: less—in this case, regulation—is more. We do not need endless regulations and laws to do what is right and humane. Some people will behave badly with or without laws and regulations. We could do with less regulation on the control of destructive species, as well as on tree planting and agriculture as a whole.
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