Baroness Parminter (LD)

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 147 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and Amendment 148 in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, both of which deal with the issue of chalk streams, which has been well touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I give the apologies of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who is unavoidably in Papua New Guinea on a diocesan link meeting. If he were here, I know that he would wish to thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for their support for his amendment. There are many noble Lords in this Committee who know a lot about chalk streams. It was interesting to hear the Minister last week say that she knows about them because she has a chalk stream in Stevenage. They are globally significant, and their pristine water conditions and stable temperature are home to some of our most endangered species, including water voles, the long-clawed crayfish and kingfishers, so they really need our protection. I will not go into the issue of where the protections come from, because that was covered so well by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. When this issue was raised in the Commons, the Minister said that these additional protections were unnecessary. I contend that that is the wrong approach. The reasons the Minister gave in the Commons for it being unnecessary to have these additional protections in spatial development strategies were, first, that protection was provided in local nature recovery strategies. For those of us who are familiar with chalk streams, we know that they cross counties, and local nature recovery strategies are specific to individual areas. LNRSs therefore cannot deliver the protection that chalk streams need to cover that cross-county boundary.