Lord Deben:

I thank the Senator for her comments about Lord Attenborough. There is a good reason for talking about him in any case because he is very encouraging for those of us who are slightly older. If someone can still go on doing like he does at his age, it means I have a long time to go. I am keen on that. He also has a voice that is listened to. Katowice was much more successful than any of us dared hoped. With Mr. Trump, we in Poland thought it was bound to be a disaster, but it was not, which is important.

The peatlands arrangements are a part of our environmental support system. We will have to do much more about the situation and we have significant planting issues that we must sort out. There is much work to be done. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is responsible for this area, is Mr. Michael Gove and I disagree with him on almost everything except this. He seems to have got hold of the issue of the environment in a remarkably intelligent and driven way. He produced a document on waste yesterday that is worth this committee's consideration. It is significant and goes much further than most of us had expected. We will be pressing for more work to be done.

This is one of the issues that Ireland has a special need to address. Peat is a very serious area of damage and, I am afraid, Ireland has historically done things that it should not have done. We all know that. There is no point in disagreeing, as that is what happened. Therefore, the replacement of peat and attempt to repair the damage are important.

This is one of the pressures that Ireland can bring on the EU. That is why I am a passionate European. This is the sort of thing in respect of which the whole of the Communities ought to be helping us make up for the sins of the past. This is one of those sins. It is one of the reasons that CAP needs real reform. Just like deficiency payments in Britain prior to that, it was created to ensure that we had food to eat. That should not be its purpose today. Rather, its purpose should be to enable farmers and land users to move from where they are to where they have to be in the context of climate change. That will be a major battle. Ireland has a special role to play because it is an agricultural country that recognises that we have to do something in the immediate future. Ireland has tended not to be on that side but is increasingly moving to it, so it has a large role to play.