Speeches by Buckley.

“Prior to the change they had an uncapped APR. What they did with nature was outside that. Now their total liability for all their activity is at £1 million, and that includes all their agricultural activity plus anything they choose to do on nature. It cannot be the case, looking at their global activity, that there wi…”

“The problem is their total liability—”

“We understand the scope question, but the total value of investment will still have an impact, won’t it?”

“Understood. That is separate—that is the DEFRA budget. I just want to be absolutely clear: has your Department done any assessment of whether there will be any negative impacts from the APR on your schemes?”

“But instead of being without a cap, it now has a cap of £1 million, and that will include BPR and APR for the entire business. Any farm that is going to engage in nature business will also have farmland, equipment and things that will easily hit the £1 million. We need to be quite pragmatic about the possible impacts o…”

“They have brought them into scope—”

“You use the word “expansion”. They have now brought in a cap of £1 million. Previously it was uncapped, so it is the opposite of an expansion, isn’t it?”

“To go back to the first scheme, I reiterate that if you want to help scale up and stimulate demand, and if we all want to help farmers in the current climate, we need to reopen the scheme and we need to meet that demand as soon as possible. I hope you will take that message back. Moving on to my next question, nature r…”

“That sounds excellent, but you have not quite answered the question. How are you helping farmers when you have paused the scheme?”

“That is very reassuring. We also have some questions about how that is progressing in terms of actual delivery. Can you explain what ecosystem improvements are being purchased by the taxpayer through funding from your Department, particularly on farmland, but elsewhere as well? How is that progressing from a delivery p…”

“Thank you for the detail that you have just given us, particularly on the forestry progress that you’ve made. More widely, how are the Government stimulating the supply of investable schemes for nature recovery in England?”

“At the moment, there is a gap between countryside stewardship and the SFI. Schemes were paused, I think until January, because of demand.”

“In my rural constituency of Shrewsbury, we have England’s longest river, the magnificent Severn. It flows through our historic town centre and meanders through our outlying villages, but my constituents are running out of patience with the current privatised water company, Severn Trent Water. It is failing its customer…”

“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that, in response to the Etherton review into the treatment of LGBT veterans, additional amounts of compensation will be offered to all victims, and a second tier payment will be offered to those most se…”

“Dr Williams, do you agree with that assessment? What are your views?”

“I can hear how carefully you have analysed the value and the benefit. There is also an implied growth there, growth of the research, and we are hearing about the growing demands. Do you think that that will continue to sustain the one-plus or one-plus-plus? Do you think that will sustain us going forward? Will we ever …”

“It is the revenue for the delivery.”

“Could you share with the Committee what your key takeaways were from the Committee’s visit to the Rothera research station?”

“My other question was about balancing two roles. You touched on them. Given the significant investment that went into that vessel, how does NERC maximise its use, balancing the roles between supporting logistics and conducting the marine research that you mentioned?”

“Dr Williams, do you agree with that assessment? What are your views?”