My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 46, and I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their support.
As I explained at Second Reading and as we have heard already today, the shortage of affordable housing in rural areas has had, and continues to ha…
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and a particular pleasure to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Walker. I could not agree more with almost everything he said. I declare my interest as a retired member of a farming family in Somerset, and I will talk about rura…
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I am a retired member of a farming family from Somerset producing food and milk with lettings to domestic and commercial tenants. The first thing to say about the rural economy is that it is not agriculture that makes it tick.…
My Lords, this new town agenda is very exciting. It is a chance for us to create new, high-quality communities for the 21st century, where the quality of people’s lives will be boosted by their surroundings: places where people can live, work and play and, above all, be inspired. But this agenda nee…
My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 310 under the welcome leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I declare an interest as a retired participant in a mixed family farming business in Somerset.
In Committee I spoke at length on the very real need for some form of rural-proofing or rural…
My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 46, particularly the reference to the land use framework. The point about the land use framework is that it is not a dictatorial thing; it is not saying, “Thou must do this or that” or “Thou must grow that”, or whatever it might be. It is definitely a framework, b…
My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady McIntosh, to all of which I have added my name.
First, I must declare my interest in that I still have a family farming interest in Somerset, although I am now retired and live in Cornwall. I must also dec…
My Lords, a similar amendment to this was brought forward in Committee and very ably spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. The problem the amendment tries to resolve is the fact that the Government’s powers of compulsory purchase are being used and abused by private operators. The Government q…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her words, which I have to say were very disappointing. They obviously came from her department, written of course from the perspective of the Whitehall bubble, which in my view always remains somewhat distant from the reality of what is going on out there.
I cann…
My Lords, I must say, I smiled when the Bill first came out and I saw this clause. It shows an extraordinary lack of understanding of rural life. Someone working for Forestry England, which is probably the statutory undertaker most likely to be affected, will visit his forests probably three or four…
My Lords, my Amendment 171A to Clause 69 seeks to create an additional methodology open to Natural England when deciding how best to determine charging schedules for contributions to the nature restoration fund—the NRF. Clause 69(5) sets out the methodologies that Natural England can use to determin…
My Lords, in supporting these amendments, I must first declare my family farming and land-owning interests for the purposes of Report on this Bill. I should say in this context that we have both food production and some land—less good land, I may say—with a solar array on it.
Normally, in the past,…
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 104, but, first, I must declare my interests, as this is the first time I have spoken formally in Committee on this Bill. I am still a farmer and land manager, or at least my family is; I now farm and manage land from the perspective of a retired farmer.
Amend…
My Lords, I support Amendments 8 and 9, et cetera, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, about treating self-employed agricultural staff as full-time staff members on a farm for the purposes of the Bill. As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill—probably the only time I am going to …
My Lords, first, I declare my long-standing interest in Persimmon plc, a middle-market mass housebuilder. This position has given me a ringside seat to observe the vicissitudes that have beset house building and planning over decades, with their cycles of ups and downs which no one has ever managed …
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the published register. I am torn on this matter. I am a scientist by background and, as such, I have welcomed progress that has been made by science, but I believe that, with the immense impact of that progress, we have a responsibility to be extremely …