Lords
Statutory Instrument
27 April 2026
Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2026
My Lords, it has been a pleasure to hear the final contributions of departing noble Lords who have been such stalwart supporters of the rural economy. It is a huge loss both to the House and to the rural economy, which will have a much-diminished voice in debates in this place, when there is limited…
Lords
Committee Stage
27 April 2026
Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2026
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this SI forward. This is a complex and wide-ranging area. It is about protecting our country’s health as much as it is about animal welfare. It involves scientific authorities, Border Force and police inspections, and compliance checks.
Let me begin by sa…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 April 2026
Sustainable Farming Incentive: Flood Prevention and Drought Resilience
The noble Baroness makes some really good points. The Government are keen to look at how we can encourage more private funding and support for much of the work that needs to be done, whether that is in the climate sector or in nature restoration. I completely take on board the points she has made.
Lords
Oral Questions
23 April 2026
Home Ownership: First-Time Buyers
I hope I set out in my earlier answer the importance we place on the mix of tenures. The £39 billion programme to increase the provision of social and affordable homes is designed to do exactly that. We are taking measures, particularly confidence measures for consumers, to help some of our young pe…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 April 2026
Plastic Pollution Reduction
I am quite shocked to hear that the Greens are not as good as we would have expected them to be. I am sure the noble Baroness opposite may have something further to say on that.
Lords
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
Farming Road Map
It has been important in developing a number of strategies, not just the farming road map, to have regular contact and input with stakeholders—and not just talking to stakeholders but listening to what they are saying to us. We are not going to make the kind of progress that we want to if we do not …
Lords
Oral Questions
15 April 2026
Marine Protected Areas: Bottom Trawling
As I said, we are working with the Marine Management Organisation on this, because we need to get it right. We had a huge number of responses. There is also ongoing research at the moment that needs to be taken into account. The way we are looking at this is that each marine protected area is set up…
Lords
Oral Questions
19 March 2026
Flood Detection and Prevention: Technological Assistance
It is worth pointing out that a fair amount of work has been done, particularly by the Environment Agency, to improve community outreach and engage with the kinds of households that the noble Baroness describes. For instance, more than 1.5 million users are signed up to receive EA flood warnings in …
Lords
Oral Questions
18 March 2026
Trail-hunting
I reassure the noble Baroness and all noble Lords that, when I look at future policy and legislation as part of my role as a Minister, it is incredibly important that everything is evidence-led and, where scientific evidence is needed, that we take the most up-to-date scientific evidence into accoun…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 March 2026
Peatland Restoration
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this is a very important issue. I am sure that she has read in detail our environmental improvement plan that was published at the end of last year. This was set out as one of our key actions on peatland and peatland restoration. The Government are committ…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 March 2026
Sustainable Farming Incentive: Small Farms
We have tried to reduce the complexity of the scheme. We want to make it more straightforward for more farms and different types of farms to access. There are opportunities for horticultural growers, which are often smaller farms as well. We are looking to better support tenant farmers and, importan…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 March 2026
PFAS
Clearly, we want to move forward as quickly as we can. The noble Baroness and others will be aware that we are working with the EU at the moment. There are negotiations. We know that the EU is looking at its own approach and, clearly, we need to take that into consideration and to work alongside it.…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 March 2026
British Farming: Competitiveness
The noble Baroness is absolutely correct that we talked in our manifesto about the importance of public procurement in supporting our food industry. The Procurement Act allows contracts for certain value thresholds also to be reserved for smaller UK suppliers. We want to look at the big suppliers an…
Lords
Oral Questions
2 March 2026
Forest-Risk Commodities
Due diligence, particularly around trade and standards, is incredibly important. We want, as I am sure the noble Baroness is aware, to grow our economy in this country, but at the same time we must support business and ensure that we are doing so in a way that is sustainable—whether it is to do with…
Lords
Oral Questions
9 February 2026
Life Sciences: Beagles
If the noble Baroness looks at the strategy, she will see that we have put £75 million of new money into that strategy to accelerate the phasing out of the use of animals. As I said in answer to my noble friend Lord McCabe, we have a target of a 30% reduction by the end of this Parliament in the are…
Lords
Oral Questions
28 January 2026
2 contributions
Yorkshire: Sustainable Water Management Solutions
My Lords, I pay tribute—
When we brought in the recent water Act, we expected water companies to respect what Parliament had passed, and to behave in the right way regarding paying themselves bonuses when they were continuing to pollute. We will do what we can to crack down on that and to change behaviour, but I am also ple…
Lords
Proceedings
26 January 2026
Water White Paper
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement repeat this evening. Some proposals in this White paper are indeed most welcome, including the scrapping of Ofwat—something we have long called for—but it falls short of the fundamental reforms water customers are so desperately in need of. True refor…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 January 2026
Independent Water Commission
When we are delivering a once-in-a-generation reset of a system that has not been touched in, frankly, decades—in the last 14 years of the last Government—it is important that we make sure that we get the reforms right. If that means that there is a delay in publishing the White Paper, it is better …
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
Environmental Improvement Plan 2025
My Lords, it is a privilege to participate in a debate led by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who made a very good point about the condition of our SSSIs. The Government’s 2025 plan speaks with confidence about restoring nature and becoming a clean energy superpower. That confidence must be matched by c…
Lords
Oral Questions
6 January 2026
Flooding Interventions
The noble Baroness is right. As someone who lives in a rural area that floods regularly, I am aware of the important role farmers play in managing flood risk and storing water on their land. Farmers can access payments in a number of ways, as I am sure the noble Baroness is aware. One is the farm re…
Lords
Debate
24 November 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the considerable amount of time she has given to so many of us in these discussions, particularly on Motions H1 and K1 in this group. First, on K1—this is the wrong order, but I am going to do it that way anyway—I particularly welcome this new and additional commit…