Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)

My Lords, I sympathise with the amendments on land use put down by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. He wishes to ensure that in this very densely populated country of England we use our limited available land wisely. England—not the UK—is, I think, the fifth or sixth most densely populated country in the world. That includes countries such as Singapore, which are, in essence, city states. So, it is right that we use our land wisely: per head of population, we do not have much of it. Furthermore, as I have said on several occasions, it is the primary duty of any Government to ensure that they can feed their subjects. I believe that the food agenda comes as high as—if not higher—than the defence agenda, although they are clearly very closely interlinked. However—I am sure noble Lords could all sense a “but” coming down the line, though I shall try to be gentle with the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, as he requested—I am not certain that this is the right way to approach this issue. Land use must be planned in the round. We all need to step back and examine our needs from land as a whole, which include food, biodiversity, flood relief, forestry, access for leisure and health, much-needed housing and of course energy. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and others, including me, have been banging on about this for several years now. We need a land use framework in the round. I am afraid that a uni-purpose focus such as found in the noble Lord’s amendments, however sensible it may seem in today’s circumstances and business, can only limit our ability to sensibly plan a wider, step-back, more holistic strategy. For a start, circumstances may change. I see our land use framework as a constant work in progress as the world changes around us. Such changes may include the way our food is produced, the latest imminent threats from foreign countries or the importance of energy to our economy—thus, in this context, the ever-changing balance between food security and energy security. While today the priority of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is clearly food security over energy, it may be that in the future grade 3 land, for instance, is superfluous to our food security and better off focused on biodiversity or energy. I am afraid that I am not able to support these amendments, however much as a retired farmer I sympathise with their very good intentions.