Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Caroline Lucas

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the amendments standing in my name, which were tabled in a personal capacity as the constituency MP for Kirby Misperton, where Third Energy proposes to apply for a licence in six weeks. At a public meeting attended by residents of the three villages affected, Third Energy admitted that there is a minuscule risk of contamination of groundwater. I therefore urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to look extremely carefully at the contents of amendment 59.

My hon. Friend the Minister talked about the amount of monitoring that would be done three months before a licence application for drilling can be started. Is she aware of the worrying fact that at least one insurance company has stated in writing that it will not insure for public liability any landowner who allows the oil and gas industry or fracking companies on to their land? That raises the question whether during the monitoring stage and, in the long term, during the fracking stage, home owners will be able to obtain insurance.

Another point raised is about emissions after the fracking operation has finished. Third Energy seems to think that the land will revert to the landowner at completion of the fracking operations, but I believe that that is a misunderstanding. I shall be grateful if the Minister clarifies that matter.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend says that compensation for blight may indeed be possible, as proposed in my amendment 61.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sorry that there is such a lack of time to make a serious response to the amendments still outstanding for debate this afternoon.

I wish we could press amendment 51 to a vote, because that amendment would stop the Government’s proposed change to trespass laws. Some 360,000 people signed a petition opposing that change and 99% of those who responded to the Government consultation opposed it as well. To see the Government just flinging that back in people’s faces, simply not listening to the consultation, raises big questions about what the consultation is for and undermines the credibility of the process, as does the ongoing secrecy about the DEFRA report. I am not reassured by what the Minister said about it.

Managing Flood Risk

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Caroline Lucas

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

The hon. Gentleman will have listened carefully to the four headings that I set out—the different types of maintenance, of which dredging is a small part.

I turn to the flood defence maintenance funding for the coming financial years. It is with some sorrow that I see the reduction in the headline figures for flood defence maintenance, from £172 million in the financial year 2010-11 to £147 million for 2013-14. I hope that in discussing the supplementary budget, the debate will achieve one thing: an increase in maintenance from revenue funding and a more general grasp of the importance of maintenance in all its forms to preventing flooding in future. The Environment Agency’s £147 million maintenance funding for 2013-14 is allocated as follows, in accordance with the four maintenance categories that I rehearsed earlier. I repeat that there is only £30 million this year for clearing watercourses, normally referred to as dredging, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned. For operation there is £44 million, for structures there is £52 million and for mechanical electrical instrumentation control and automation there is £21 million.

The role of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in climate change is narrow; it is about adaptation and seeking to increase resilience. However, it would help to allow the conveyance of water, to slow the flow with land management schemes upstream—dredging, desilting and other means—and to stop fast-growing willow coppice from blocking watercourses in order to allow the water to flow away in Somerset, Yorkshire and other areas across the country, to prevent flooding.

My Committee and I absolutely accept that there is no one-stop option that will prevent all forms of flooding; maintenance, as well as land management upstream schemes, has to be considered.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that there is incoherence at the heart of the Government’s policy on climate change and flooding? The Prime Minister said that money was no object when it came to the relief effort to clear up after floods, but less than two weeks later he was handing huge new subsidies to the fossil fuel industry; when those fossil fuels are burned, extreme weather events, including flooding, are made more likely. Does she agree with the commentator who said today that that is like promising to rebuild Dresden while ordering more bombers to flatten it again?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to say that I believe that there is an incoherence in policy. We import woodchip at huge expense from the United States and other parts of the country to co-fire coal at Drax power station in Selby; I should be encouraging farmers in north Yorkshire and all around the country to grow fast-growing willow coppice trees to co-fire that power station. There are inconsistencies and incoherence in our renewals policy and we should visit those as part of our flood prevention scheme.

We have seen just about every type of flooding possible since autumn last year—coastal flooding, tidal surges, river flooding and overtopping, surface water flooding and, most recently, groundwater flooding. We know that all this has been the worst flooding incident in this country in 250 years, since 1766. This debate is the opportunity for the Department to share how the Government seek to adapt to more extreme weather events and how we are becoming more resilient and building more appropriately. Given what was asked at Communities and Local Government questions earlier, I am not sure that the House is entirely convinced that we are yet building in the most appropriate places—that is, not in areas that have something to do with flooding in their name or that act as functional floodplains.

Contamination of Beef Products

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

I believe that that will be an inevitable consequence of the exercise, and I hope that they will respond positively to that invitation.

Obviously, substituting horsemeat for beef, which is what has been discovered, is described as criminal activity and will be investigated. We are obviously delighted that the perpetrators will face the full force of the law. However, the potential shortcomings are particularly worrying, because the food industry currently appears unable to account for ingredients in all its foodstuffs. We conclude that it is improbable that those who are prepared to pass horsemeat off as beef illegally will apply the high hygiene standards that we require and that consumers expect in food production. With regard to lessons to be learnt, we strongly believe that the FSA has to be more fleet of foot. It must be given the tools to do the job. It currently has no statutory power to require testing by producers, taking into account the level of risk.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady rightly says that the FSA needs greater powers, but does she agree that the increasing length and complexity of supply chains inevitably make such risks more likely and that, therefore, as well as strengthening the FSA, we need a far more radical look at re-localising our food supplies?

[Miss McIntosh]

Absolutely. As I said, consumers have responded to the challenge by buying more locally, and I hope that they will continue to do so. For example, if we buy meat for a Sunday roast or stew and then freeze what is left over to serve in other ways over the week, we are basically processing the food ourselves, and that will lead to a much better understanding of what we are eating. I entirely take the hon. Lady’s point.

The Committee’s view is that the FSA has been reduced to a food safety body. We believe that its powers were weakened in 2010. It told us that labelling policy was “not really for us” because that is not a food safety issue.

Badger Cull

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

The hon. Gentleman will hear what my right hon. and hon. Friends say when they speak on this issue with some passion.

May I commend the work of the Food and Environment Research Agency, based in Ryedale in my constituency of Thirsk and Malton and, in particular, its work on progressing vaccinations for badgers? I note that it is already undertaking badger vaccines. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) asked about the cost of those individual vaccines, and it would be helpful if the Minister would confirm that.

In the pause before an eventual cull, I believe that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee can make a major contribution precisely on the vexed issue of vaccination, which was raised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. Not only do we have the cost and difficulty of vaccinating badgers, but there is currently no effective test to tell the difference between vaccinated and infected cattle—the wider issue raised by the hon. Lady. It is, therefore, impossible to identify clean animals from infected animals for the purpose of export.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sorry to intervene so soon, but that is not correct. The test to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals—the DIVA test—exists and is ready to be used once we get permission from the EU. The obstacle to the problem is getting that permission—there has not been much effort on that—not that the test does not exist.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am afraid that is a point of disagreement, which is why I believe there is a role for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee to examine the state of the science. Members of that Committee can use their role to encourage the Government to use good relations with the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, and colleagues in the European Parliament who have co-decision, to make plans to lift the ban on exports. That raises the wider issue of how we can encourage FERA to develop the badger vaccine, and encourage the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency to look fully at developing the efficiency of a cattle vaccination.

There is one issue that I regret the hon. Lady and Team Badger do not accept. Government Members recognise the issue of badger welfare, but I would like to see the whole House rise up and agree that it is unacceptable that almost 60,000 cows in calf—they were carrying an unborn calf—were slaughtered in 2010 and 2011. My hon. Friends have already alluded to the human grief suffered by farmers, and this year everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. We have seen a rise in fuel costs for transporting animals, and in the cost of feed. There has been bad weather; the potato crop is going wrong and pig farming is going wrong—everything is going wrong and farmers are battling with the elements.

We are talking about herds of cattle that have been raised by generations of farmers, and when a herd is slaughtered, that lifeline can never be regained. The contribution of such herds to the rural economy should not be underestimated, and they will be lost and gone for ever. I would like the House to unite to show that we care for the loss suffered by farmers, and that we recognise that this broader wildlife and countryside issue goes to the heart of the rural economy and farming in this country.

I have the honour of representing two livestock marts—that in Thirsk is the largest, or joint-largest, fatstock mart in the country. Farmers who produce those animals live in fear of one rogue beast coming into the herd.