Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)

I will try to remember where I was and what I was talking about. Oh yes—I was making lots of promises, was I not? I talked about the fact that we are developing an MPA monitoring strategy in order to address progress on marine areas. We want to deliver this in March 2028, basically to make sure that we are making continuous progress in this area. I turn to the specific points made in the debate; if I miss any questions, I will of course write to noble Lords afterwards. I just want to confirm that, later this year, we will confirm the criteria for land counting towards 30 by 30 in England; that was raised by a few people. The requirement for long-term protection is one issue that was raised; clearly, it is really important. We know that committing land to long-term management can be an extremely challenging prospect for landowners, even those who want to deliver and work for nature conservation; we know that this has been hampered by short-term funding cycles and management agreements. What we are actively doing at the moment is considering the committee’s recommendation, as we review our approach to achieving 30 by 30, to ensure that we establish the most appropriate timescales for the long term and support people who want to work to that. A number of noble Lords asked about SSSIs. In particular, my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone talked about the importance of how they are counted, while the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, talked about the quality of SSSIs being of critical interest and importance. We recognise the committee’s recommendation that, in order to count towards 30 by 30, they have to be in good condition. We are looking at how we can reflect the condition of SSSIs in our approach. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked specific questions regarding Natural England’s resources. Some of them were quite complex, so we will write to her with the detail. The monitoring of protected sites also came up. The noble Lord, Lord Banner, asked about monitoring, as did my noble friend Lord Whitty, who is no longer in his place. The environmental improvement plan was mentioned; I mentioned it previously. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked specifically about the six-year cycle for looking at SSSIs. I want to let him know that the Joint Nature Conservation Committee has moved from a six-yearly assessment cycle, so that is not how it is going to continue. Instead, we are moving to a risk-based process for SSSIs, so that we can be much more targeted and efficient in how we assess them. As part of this, Natural England is developing a long-term prioritised monitoring programme and is working to make better use of new technologies such as remote sensing. Citizen science and partnership working were mentioned. I assure noble Lords that citizen science is already being used to support assessments; for example, we are working with organisations such as the British Trust for Ornithology and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland in this area. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about protected landscapes. Again, protecting these important landscapes is obviously incredibly important. The new Government are committed to working on how we can improve our protected landscapes so that they offer more to 30 by 30—basically, achieving their full potential going forward, because we know that, at the moment, they are not. The noble Baroness, Lady Rock, asked about continuing the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme. I am not fobbing her off in any way at all and will come back to this when we talk about the budget but, at the moment, we are simply still looking at the spending review. I assure noble Lords that we have not made any final decisions about this issue, but clearly will be doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, raised the review of the environmental improvement plan, which I mentioned earlier. I assure him that the review I mentioned will be completed by the end of the year. The idea is to provide a clear vision on how we are going to use it to achieve our environmental goals. Marine monitoring, including HPMA monitoring, was mentioned by a number of noble Lords. The committee made a recommendation on expanding the current marine monitoring programme, both inshore and offshore. I am sure noble Lords are aware that this is an extremely complex process that requires long-term vision and, of course, investment. We want to work in close collaboration with Natural England, the JNCC and Cefas on what the future of that marine management should look like and the best practice to deliver against the statutory targets that have been set. It is also important that any data they collect complies with accessibility standards and is publicly available. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, who has kindly given me apologies for having to get his train, asked about marine net gain. For the record, we are currently working to develop options, including timescales for the operation of that policy. It has not disappeared; we will provide more information in due course. Further on marine, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked about the Blue Belt. I can give him a firm yes; we support the Blue Belt, which is very important. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked who the Minister responsible for international development is. I can confirm that it is Mary Creagh MP. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked about overseas territories, including Darwin Plus. The committee rightly recognised that the overseas territories will be integral to the UK’s contribution to the global biodiversity framework goals and targets, and calls for effective partnership working. Clearly it is for the individual territories to decide how they want to work within this and how they want to work with us, but we are working closely with the Governments and Administrations of the overseas territories to develop a new overseas territory biodiversity strategy. I assure noble Lords that we are working hand in hand and looking to move forward in this area. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about the Global Ocean Treaty. I confirm that we fully agree with her on the importance of the Agreement on Biodiversity beyond Natural Jurisdictions for protecting our marine environment, especially for achieving 30 by 30 for the ocean under the global biodiversity framework. It is important that we show progress on that; we want to make progress and to work with the international community to deliver on these agreements. My understanding is that at the moment the FCDO and Defra teams are working together to come up with a realistic timeline to introduce the necessary legislation for UK ratification. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked about citizen science and partnership working. These are critical. That is something that we are building through the work we are doing in looking at how to achieve results. The role of partners is going to be incredibly important. This is a huge collaborative effort and we have to work in partnership. The public sector, the conservation sector, farmers, developers and business: we all have to come together if we are genuinely going to achieve these targets. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, asked about partnership details for specific organisations. I will just say that we are looking right across the piece to see how we can deliver with partners. My noble friend Lord Grantchester mentioned the devolved Administrations. This is an important opportunity to work collaboratively with the devolved Administrations as we review and develop our approach here. The noble Lords, Lord Gascoigne and Lord Harlech, asked about building and the environment. The green belt in particular was mentioned. We are consulting on what we are referring to as the grey belt, which are the areas that are designated as green belt but are not of good standard. Part of the reason for consulting on and talking about the grey belt is to make sure that we protect the green belt that is of value—pulling out the areas that are not, but protecting the areas that are important. There was a lot of discussion around ELMS. I shall try to cover a few bits but clearly time is ticking on. Just to confirm, we are absolutely committed to ELMS. My honourable friend Daniel Zeichner, the Farming Minister, is working really hard, talking to stakeholders and looking at how we develop ELMS to make it more fit for the future, particularly around such things as nature-friendly farming. Our manifesto said that “food security is national security”: we want to work with farmers and other stakeholders, including tenants. We take the needs of tenants and their rights very seriously. There is a lot of good work going on there. That brings me to the Budget. As I say, we are still in discussions and nothing has been agreed or decided yet on whether there will be any cuts to the farming budget. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned the OECMs. Again, we will be looking at the committee’s recommendations around this to develop a process to identify land outside the designations. In that same vein, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, talked about national nature reserves. I just say that many of these are already in SSSIs, so already contributing. Finally, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich talked about forest schools. My granddaughter has just finished three years at a forest school. She has thrived and grown and it has been the most wonderful experience for her, so I have huge admiration for the work that they do. Once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing today’s debate and her committee for all its work. It is a huge piece of work and can greatly inform the Government as we actively consider the recommendations it sets out. I look forward to working constructively with everybody in this Room as we go forward and will write if I have missed anyone’s question.