Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I support the amendment. At the beginning of last year, in Committee in the Commons on the earlier incarnation of the Bill, the Minister—who is now Secretary of State—George Eustice MP, said: “I do not believe we need a statement that fisheries resources are a national asset or public property, because that is self-evidently the case and our common law has always held as...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, poor nutrition is a killer. Some 2.5 million children die from it every year. If it was a newly discovered virus from China, the world would be in a state of complete panic about it—but, sadly, we are inured to such devastation among our fellow human beings. Also, as has been said by numerous speakers, stunting, wasting and even obesity limit education and economic productivity,...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I too welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box and look forward to working with him. As others have said, when we in our committee did our original report on the landing obligation at the end of 2018, it was obvious to us that no one was prepared for the dramatic change that was to be introduced to the common fisheries policy. The Government had not really addressed all the...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: First, I am not a Viscount—I should perhaps correct that. However, the answer is at the moment, yes, but I am assured that we are building up to it. The Government have been slow to grasp the nettle but are moving in the right direction. That is a good thing. In the meantime, bearing in mind that fish are an international commodity, it is important that we try to persuade our neighbours...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, has Defra commissioned research, along the lines of that carried out by the Welsh Government, as to what land, notably upland, is likely to become unfarmed after the extended single farm payment runs out? Has it calculated what is likely to happen to that land?
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I congratulate the Government on being the first major economy to put a net-zero target into legislation, but we have to get on with it now. It would be fatal to think that we can wait for another 10 years and then see what needs to be done. Above all, we have to put the structures in place as soon as possible. The public, especially younger voters, want action now. I believe that...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I want to talk about the importance of improved smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa has a current population of 1 billion, which is due to grow to 2 billion by 2050. That is not sustainable. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and support his plea for an open debate on family planning, which is hard in Africa when your nearest clinic may be 40, 50 or 60 miles...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that other countries, including France, the Netherlands and New Zealand, have saved much of their rural post office network by supporting their role as deliverers of financial services? Is he further aware that there are now more post offices in rural England than all the banks put together? In some areas of rural England, only post offices are serving the...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and his committee for an excellent report. It has a good broad approach, and above all, the case the committee makes for a new overall rural strategy is very convincing. But it is disappointing that Defra has not picked up on that, and, like other noble Lords, I want to focus on the importance of this integrated agenda. I realise that Defra now...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, owing to the 25% cut in local authority funding for bus services over the last four years, literally hundreds of shire bus routes have disappeared. Given that most rural households have only one car, and that car usually goes to the job, will the Minister consider setting up a group to look at the transport needs of those left behind, how they might be provided for and how we might...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to (1) harness the potential of tidal ranges to generate renewable energy, and (2) encourage the private sector to invest in this area.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I have put down this Question for debate because I believe that, in our uncertain world, it is imperative that the UK plays to its strengths, and in energy one of its real strengths is the range of its tides. Whereas at somewhere such as Gibraltar the tidal range is only about one metre, it can be eight metres in the Solway Firth or higher than 15 metres in the Bristol Channel. We...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I must first declare an interest as a farmer in Somerset, where we pay drainage rates. I very much support the principles behind the Bill. In the 1980s, I went occasionally to conferences on the continent which dealt with aspects of water management. The one thing that was always stressed to me by our continental neighbours, whose rivers sometimes run from one country to another,...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, can we assume that the Government are aware also of the serious dangers posed to agriculture by EU tariffs on our exports in the event of a no-deal Brexit? If, for example, our beef exports were to suffer the current EU tariff of 80% to 90% or our lamb industry were to export through a 35% to 40% tariff it would kill those two industries dead and undermine the agricultural economy...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: Are all sections of government and all departments in Whitehall signed up to the principle that we will never import food into the UK that is produced by methods that are illegal for UK farmers?
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, would it not be possible for the Government to set themselves a target bracket of nutritional self-sufficiency which ensures we are neither too dependent on imports nor, at the other end of the scale, too dependent on our own productive capabilities and our own unpredictable weather? Such a bracket would be very useful as a target for the Government.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I thank all the speakers for their views and indeed for their support of our committee’s views. I also thank the members of the committee for their hard work and for the sometimes quite strong arguments. I am grateful to the clerks and special advisers to the committee for their hard work, and I appreciate the particular wordsmithing skills of the clerks in implementing some of...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, from the moment we started our inquiry it was obvious to us that the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, known as NERC, has undoubtedly been overtaken by events during its 12 years of life. In our report, we start by looking at Brexit. In terms of the environment, the big difference here is going to be the disappearance of the threat of large fines from the European...
