Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)

I am glad to have identified something that the Minister will have to find out about. The whole business of the contribution of agri-environment schemes and the farming road map to the EIP is huge. Nature-friendly farming is fundamental: it will be key, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, to delivering goal 1, the restoration of nature, as will a proper land use framework. Goal 3, clean, resilient and plentiful water and nature-based solutions to those, will be fundamental. I know that water is a very important government priority: we really have to get the EIP to focus on that and get the land use framework and nature-friendly farming solutions implemented. The land use framework should help the Government in their prioritisation of their own spend on biodiversity. I know that the latest timetable is for March, which is terribly close to local government and Scottish and Welsh elections. We can anticipate that there might be a little turbulence after those. I would hate there to be another Minister who wants to pore over the land use framework all over again when, in fact, in many government departments, spatial strategies are progressing apace. I was going to talk about trees, but I am getting a bit close to the end, so I shall finish with farming and the farming road map. We really have to set out how the three environmental land management schemes we have currently will balance. How much will we see invested in each of them? What contribution will each make? We need to give surety to people who are going to put their heads above the parapet and take up these schemes that they will be there for the future—that they will be maintained and developed, and have predictable application windows—so that we can get landowners of all sorts, large and small, investing in these very sensible schemes, with the surety that they will not find them disappearing from under their feet. My last words, before I get cut off in my prime, are, in summary, to commend energy and pace to the Minister, because that is absolutely what we need in this important area.