Lord Cameron of Dillington: In light of the fact that the last report of the Social Mobility Commission indicated that intergenerational poverty and deprivation was as bad, if not worse, in rural England than anywhere else, including urban England, can we assume that an appointment to the commission will go to someone who truly understands the particular nature of rural poverty and deprivation? In other words, are these...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I hope the Government are aware that these techniques developed in the UK could be beneficial to the wider world and its environment. Built-in resistance to pests and diseases means a big reduction in the use of chemicals in the developing world, where it is very hard to train smallholder farmers in the use of chemicals. Are the Government aware that in-built drought resistance...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and indeed a panoply of excellent speakers over the past two days. It is a well-worn opening sentence of after-dinner speakers to say: “As Henry VIII said to his wives, I shall not be keeping you long”. I hope indeed that I will not be keeping your Lordships for long but, more to the point, as the 129th speaker...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I declare interests as a farmer and landowner, as chair at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and as a trustee at Rothamsted Research. I have a lot of good things to say about this plan. It is ambitious and sets out precisely what we ought to be doing in many different fields. However, something about it provoked a memory for me of the tombs of the nobles at Luxor, dating from...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the availability, and sustainable management, of water in developing countries.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, first, I thank all those noble Lords who are taking part, including the Minister, in a debate on what I consider to be a very important issue. Water is the source of life. The value of water to the developing world is more than that of all its minerals put together—the gold, diamonds, uranium and copper, et cetera. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the world’s population live with water...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I too sat on the committee during this investigation and thank the noble Earl for his very able chairmanship. Most of us on the committee thought there would be fully automated cars on the UK’s roads by 2030, but we all thought that driverless mobility would come more easily and sooner to fields of movement other than on our roads. The difficulty will be to get investors and...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, what discussions have the Government had with rural and indeed urban organisations to establish what services land managers can provide to others to best maximise the benefits of the countryside to the whole population, and while doing so to best maximise returns to farmers?
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, it is a very sad day when we have to bid farewell to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb. Our Henry is a national and international celebrity. If you go with him to Brussels, you get off the train and, 10 yards down the platform, the first person will say, “Bonjour, Monsieur le Président”. It goes on all day; every five minutes someone will come up and say “Bonjour, Monsieur le...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for introducing this debate. I must first declare an interest as a frequent holiday visitor to Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, where our family often occupies a cottage during the first half of August—I am greatly looking forward to it in a couple of weeks’ time. I have also been known to visit Scilly in the winter when tourism is not...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: With DfID’s new and welcome emphasis on the promotion of agriculture as the bottom rung of our wider economic agenda, does the Minister agree that forestry and agri-forestry have a vital role to play in sustaining soils and encouraging the sustainable management of water and grazing, and that therefore forestry has a really important role to play in the wider economic agenda generally...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, there are a lot of reasons to support this amendment, quite apart from the general support that it receives in public opinion polls. There is the vital economic argument about the value added to our country and our universities, as numerous speakers have said. There is also the fact that our main competitors, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has just emphasised—the United...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, with reference to the recent Bilateral Aid Review, how they intend to use UK aid to enable smallholder farmers to connect to local, regional and global markets.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, with reference to the 2015 Conceptual Framework on Agriculture and the recent Bilateral and Multilateral Aid Reviews, how they intend to use UK aid to facilitate transitions from subsistence agriculture to off-farm job opportunities in rural economies.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I support Amendments 493, 494 and 495, to which I have added my name. I must declare interests as chair of the advisory board of CEH, a trustee at Rothamsted and chair of the strategic advisory board of the Government’s Global Food Security programme. As has been explained, these amendments are designed to broaden the vision of the purposes of the research to take place under the...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, first, I must declare an interest as a farmer and landowner. Everyone is agreed on the fact that we need more houses: the Government, opposition parties, local authorities, virtually every NGO in the country and, of course, anyone looking to get married or start a family. For decades we have not built enough homes in this country, and this has had devastating consequences for the...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate for bringing this matter before the House. We can take as read the importance of public transport to the carless in the countryside—the poor, the old, the young, the disabled, and so on. Without public transport they cannot access work, food, doctors, medicines, education, training, banks, lawyers, accountants, cash machines or just...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the whole question of rural areas, as I support this amendment from a purely rural perspective. I apologise to the House that this is the first time I have spoken on this very important Bill. Unfortunately, on previous occasions, I have been unavoidably committed elsewhere, prior to the Bill’s scheduling by the Whips. I...
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I also served on the committee that produced this report and thank the noble Earl, Lord Selbourne, for his wise chairmanship and the administrative team for their excellent support. My very short intervention will merely echo the main message of the report: namely, that in the fight against disease we need more tools in our toolbox, not fewer. Of course, by this stage in a debate it...
