Kew Gardens (Leases) Bill

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 2 stand part.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank hon. Members of all parties who have joined us here today. The Bill may be small, but it has ramifications for all. I also thank Lord Gardiner, who has taken a keen interest in the proceedings, for steering the Bill so far.

[Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

Very apt.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I knew someone would say something from a sedentary position.

The Bill removes the restrictions on leases on the Kew Gardens estate. Currently, 18th-century legislation limits leases at Kew to 31 years. It is therefore none of our faults—not even Peter Tapsell’s. The measure modernises the provisions by allowing a lease of up to 150 years.

That change would allow Kew to generate revenue to improve the quality of the estate and support its world-class science. Income generation would help Kew achieve its core objectives and retain its UNESCO world heritage site status. The change would also enable the release of value from non-core land and property at Kew. Long leases would help Kew develop what it does and what it wants to do in future. Anybody who saw David Attenborough in the wonderful series at Kew will not disagree that it is a remarkable place. The aim is to help Kew in its ambition to increase its self-generated income and become more financially viable.

Kew Gardens, as Crown land, is governed by the Crown Lands Act 1702. The Bill modernises the constraints on Kew and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by allowing a longer lease to be granted on the land. The Bill removes the restrictions on the lease; it does nothing else.

What is the benefit of the legislation? Kew’s historic estate requires conservation and improvement. The Bill will enable income generation from the land at Kew that can be reinvested in the maintenance and development of the site. That will allow Kew’s infrastructure to be brought up to a standard that fully supports Kew’s ambitions and, more importantly, its mission. Basically, that has to happen because it is a UNESCO world heritage site. The financial benefits mean that it will have a time and place to raise the money it requires for the long-term commitment that it has shown in the past 150 years since it was set up.

The change does not allow the sale of the freehold land. The Government cannot sell the land because it remains with the Crown. Primary legislation would be needed if we wanted to do anything else to the land. Any proposals for new build or changes to buildings or their use, including the wider estate, will continue to be subject to rigorous review. There are tight restrictions on planning anyway, because Kew is a UNESCO world heritage site. We also know how rigorous planning is in that part of London.

Kew is in the process of updating its world heritage management plan, with UNESCO’s approval, with the firm intention of maintaining its status. Generating income from its estate will enable it to achieve its core objectives and retain its UNESCO world heritage site status. It is a UNESCO site because of the historic and contemporary scientific and horticultural activities that occur within its landscape. The need to maintain such activities means that this is an important little Bill. Income generation will continue for generations to come.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this excellent Bill. I have two questions before he winds up. First, can he say why the figure of 150 years was chosen? As a fellow chartered surveyor, he will know that most leases are for either 99 years or 999 years, so 150 is unusual. Secondly, most explanatory notes to a Bill contain some form of financial appraisal. Can he say whether any figures have been produced to the benefit of Kew?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I have asked the Minister for some guidance. The previous Crown lease was for 150 years. I certainly did not know that the Crown works on 150-year leases, and I have Crown estates in my constituency. So 150 is not unusual and no precedent is being set within the Crown Estate.

The changes being made use the precedent of how section 5 of the Crown Lands Act 1702 was applied in relation to the Crown Estate. The Act indicates that a limit of 150 years, which we are using here, is considered an appropriate length to achieve the policy objectives.

We talked about funding. A member from Kew is here taking a keen interest in our proceedings. There has been no financial appraisal yet. It is a chicken and egg situation, as my hon. Friend knows. We need to get the lease in order to be able to do what we want to do.

[The Chair]

Order. Would you mind facing the Chair?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Mr Turner, I am sorry. I stand castigated. You are absolutely right.

We are trying to get the lease so that Kew can start the planning within the world heritage status. We are not going down any avenues or roads that come to a dead end at any time. I have worked with Kew for some time and I know that Lord Gardiner will keep us well informed of Kew’s future aspirations and hopes, because obviously it is a jewel in the British crown.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset and Lord Gardiner on introducing this important Bill.

As a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee in the previous Parliament, I was privileged to visit Kew with Committee colleagues and see at first hand the marvellous work being done there at all levels. The world-class research carried out at the Royal Botanic Gardens is something we should all be very proud of. Kew rightly deserved being awarded UNESCO world heritage site status in 2003, which gave due recognition to the important mix of science, education, public amenity and architectural heritage represented at the site.

However, such a facility has significant maintenance costs as well as the cost of funding important research. The world-class scientific research carried out at Kew should be protected by the Government and should receive proper funding and recognition. In his evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, John Wood, a senior research associate at the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford, said:

“Kew cannot and should not compete for short-term grant money with a view to producing high impact academic publications. Instead it should provide taxonomic services of the highest international quality to catalogue the world’s plant diversity and support other areas of biodiversity and ecological research.”

The Government’s £130 million funding package for Kew Gardens, announced in 2016, was therefore very welcome. I am pleased that the Secretary of State recognised the need for more money to enable Kew to maintain its estate and to support its world-class science base. However, this does not address one of the complications surrounding the way in which the Royal Botanic Gardens are funded. The gardens are Crown land and are covered by the Crown Lands Act 1702. As has already been said, that 18th century legislation limits leases on buildings on Crown land to 31 years.

The hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset said that this is a little Bill. We support this little Bill, because it would modernise those restraints and instead allow leases of up to 150 years. We believe that would make properties on the Kew Gardens estate more commercially attractive, generating income that can help support its world-class scientific research and help maintain its historic buildings. My researcher gave me an estimate that in the first 10 years of the new arrangements Kew could bring in £40 million in capital receipts. I am not sure that has been verified after what was said earlier, but I would agree with Jill McLaughlin, director of corporate services at the Royal Botanic Gardens, that the Bill would bring Kew into line with modern-day lease arrangements and enable it to generate much-needed income and be more financially self-sufficient.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Thank you. I have nothing else to say.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

This debate has been very useful indeed. I thank the hon. Member for North Tyneside for her kind words. I think that John Wood of Oxford hit it on the head in saying that the importance of this incredible place needs to be protected not just now, but for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, who is a surveyor, and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, who is a solicitor, understand that better than I do.

There is no doubt about the Government’s determination to ensure that Kew remains the property of the people of the United Kingdom and that is it not frittered away. The Minister made it very clear, in response to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, that the properties around the green need to be protected and need to provide an income source, which cannot happen at the moment. It is important that Kew gets funding from us, and rightly so. The hon. Gentleman is right. Nowadays, 125-year leases are unusual, but people want long-term security. We need to give Kew—this incredible world heritage site—the ability to say, “We know we can look forward 150 years, under the Crown and under Parliament’s direction, and sort out the things we need to sort out.”

I suggest that we all need to go to Kew to have a look, because I did not realise that there were seven properties around the green. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West said that normally we take evidence and, as he said, evidence has been taken on the hoof. Perhaps we need to hoof it, while the tube is running, to go and have a look at this wonderful place. I know that the Minister has been to Kew many times, as has Lord Gardiner. It was certainly a favourite place of my children when they were younger.

I thank the hon. Member for Luton North, with whom I have worked for far too many years. He is quite right to bring up the ideas he raised, because we are setting this out for the future. We cannot say that we will be able to change it, because we will not. Kew has to move on. There is no doubt that what it has achieved for the past 150 years is breathtaking. One only has to look at the television programmes to see that. Because of its seeds database, if anything went wrong, we would have the ability to take out these wonderful seeds and start again. It looks after plants that may not be here in the future—that may die out. Its role is not just scientific; it is a guardian of our future. The hon. Gentleman is right that we must take that very seriously.

I thank all Members who have been here today, especially the Minister.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am sorry to be such a bore, but will my hon. Friend answer this point about the length of the lease? The Bill, at clause 1(1), is very clear and states that the powers

“include the power to grant a lease in respect of land for a period of up to 150 years.”

I assume that the Bill gives the power for a one-off 150 years, not a succession of 150 years. I say this so that when our successors in 150 years’ time look back at the Hansard of this debate they will have a clear answer as to what was in our minds at the time.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. He is a surveyor and is holding my feet to the fire—rightly so. Having talked to my hon. Friend the Minister, the power is for 150 years with the opportunity to renew in 150 years’ time. The explanatory notes also mention

“allowing leases up to 150 years.”

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

If that is the intention, may I suggest that the Bill needs to be amended in the other place to make that point absolutely clear? That is not what is stated on the face of the Bill. In my view, the explanatory notes differ from what is in the Bill.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I will therefore take the liberty of writing, on behalf of my hon. Friend, to express his concerns to my noble Friend Lord Gardiner. Lord Gardiner imparted to me who will take the Bill through the Lords but, embarrassingly, I have forgotten who it was already—I apologise to my hon. Friend and to you, Mr Turner, because my mind has gone completely.

[Rob Marris]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will clarify this for me. I understood from what the Minister said—I may have misunderstood—that under the Bill we are not talking about a situation in which the Secretary of State will grant to Kew itself a lease of 150 years; rather, the Secretary of State will have the power to agree up to six leases by Kew to the six plots of land, and that each of those leases can be for up to 150 years. If I have misunderstood that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman can clarify those two points: we are talking not about leases to Kew, but leases granted by Kew, signed off by the Minister; and each of those leases to what I think the Minister said were six plots of land could be for 150 years.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I have had a quick chat with the Minister, and the lease is for 150 years on everything. On the properties, it will be a 150-year lease. Would my hon. Friend the Minister like to say something?

[George Eustice]

The intention, as I understand it, is to extend the maximum term of the lease from 31 years to 150 years, and several leases may be granted, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West pointed out—there could be several leases on different properties. The crucial thing, however, is that in my reading of the Bill, to answer the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, the grant would be for a lease of a maximum term of 150 years in the normal way of other leases. My hon. Friend also asked whether, in 150 years’ time, that could be considered again and a future Minister 150 years from now could decide to grant a new 150-year lease. I do not see anything in the Bill to prohibit that. The crucial thing, however, is the maximum, which is 31 years but will move to 150 years, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State at the time.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

If my hon. Friends and all hon. Members are happy—

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I just wanted an assurance that any income from commercial properties as a result of the lease is absolutely ring-fenced for reinvestment in the Kew estate and its activities.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right—any income will go back into Kew. The lease is to Kew, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, and it will spend the money on enhancing Kew. If she has a quick word with the Kew team in the Public Gallery, I am sure that they would enlighten her about what they are doing. As I said, we need to go to Kew. Leith is very beautiful, but Kew is equally beautiful. I look forward to that. I hope that helps her.

Mr Turner, thank you for your clear leadership. I am grateful to all my colleagues for their support for the Bill and, as I said, to my noble Friend Lord Gardiner, who will steady it through the other place.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

On a point of order, Mr Turner, will the Bill go to the House on Report and for Third Reading in the same way that other Bills do?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Friday.

[The Chair]

The hon. Gentleman has his answer.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.

Flood Defence Projects: South-west

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered management of flood defence projects in the South West.

I am delighted to be working under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the Minister for responding to two debates in a row—seagulls and flooding. There is a sort of synonymy to that. I am grateful for this debate. It is a short one, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) wishes to contribute.

Three years ago, almost to the day, I stood in the Somerset levels in waders, in floodwater, fighting for Government action. We witnessed the most appalling and predictable natural calamity when rain began to fall. It was a relentless season of downpours, and many of my constituents were stranded and made homeless as the riverbanks burst.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces is present, and I would like to let the Chamber know that at this precise moment there are three battalions in England, one in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland on stand-by for flooding. This is a critical time to have those people, and I am thankful for the work they did last weekend. The work they did in my patch was absolutely phenomenal. I know that they are ready to go.

Returning to what happened in my constituency, some of the sewers gave way and the landscape began to vanish under a feisty, filthy water. At the time, I was very critical of the Environment Agency and its then chairman, Lord Smith. I described him in a couple of TV interviews as a coward for failing to visit the stricken area. When asked what I would do if he turned up, I replied that I was tempted—and I was—to flush his head down the nearest water closet. Forgive my straightforward turn of phrase; they were tense and difficult times as 17 miles of my constituency had become an inland lake. Lives had been ruined. Tempers were at breaking point.

All that is happily behind us, but there is a saying about things destined for the water closet: Lord Smith may have been flushed out of the Environment Agency, but he remains afloat as provost of a Cambridge college and chairman of the Task Force on Shale Gas. How apt and rather sardonic. The good news is that the Environment Agency is in much safer hands these days and plays a far more proactive and constructive role in protecting us from the ravages of flooding. For that, the Government deserve a great deal of credit, and I thank them.

The Minister represents a constituency with flooding challenges of its own, so she fully understands the subject from personal experience. Because of her hard work and the efforts of her predecessors, Bridgwater and West Somerset can now breathe much more easily whenever we hear raindrops.

After the crisis of 2013-14, a new era of flood defence was born, with the creation of the Somerset Rivers Authority. The idea was simple and sensible: take back control of flood defences from the centralised Environment Agency and base it locally with people who live and work in the area. The agency would use its technical skills to get the job done and the authority would set out the important tasks to be tackled. There were big battles to be fought, of course. There had to be muscle to ensure that the then Prime Minister came up with enough money to pay the large sum we wanted for the initial remedial work, but, with determined arm-twisting, David Cameron delivered. At this point, I must pay tribute to the Minister for her efforts in pushing forward the legislation to secure the SRA future funding. We are all very grateful.

Now I would like to reveal one or two skeletons, unfortunately. It has not been easy getting the SRA set up and running. The authority was designed to bring together all the experts from the old river drainage boards and Somerset’s local authorities. The Government provided starter money, but the deal demanded local authority contributions too, some of which were easier to obtain than others. Without doubt, the worst offender was Taunton Deane Borough Council—my neighbour.

When it comes to alleviating flooding, Taunton Deane could not be called a big spender. The local authority has failed to deal properly with flood risks in Taunton over many years. It skimps. It calls for consultants’ reports. It sits on the results. But when the waters rise in Taunton the rivers burst in my constituency, not in that of Taunton Deane. The River Tone snakes its way right past the centre of Taunton and ends up joining the overworked River Parrett down in the middle of the Somerset levels, as the Minister is aware. That is where the worst flooding happened three years ago. Since then, the neighbouring Sedgemoor District Council has worked tirelessly, along with the Government, to get the important parts of the River Parrett properly dredged—grateful thanks again. Much of that great and important job has been done, but it is absolutely pointless if your next-door neighbour leans on his shovel and does next to nothing. I am sorry to report that that is precisely what has been happening in Taunton for almost 60 years—it ain’t new.

I hope that the House will forgive me for offering some of the background to this sad state of affairs. Records of flooding in Taunton go back to the late 19th century. Since then, we have been seriously flooded in 1929, 1960, 1968 and 2000, and, of course, more recently. Without a shadow of a doubt, the worst incident was in 1960 when, as the river overflowed, 500 properties in the town were washed out. Some parts of the town were 3 feet underwater. It was a soggy mess. Plans for a relief channel were suggested after that. The old Bridgwater to Taunton canal could have been used, which, in engineering terms, made perfect sense, but the estimated £1.7 million cost was considered prohibitive. So the cheap option was chosen, and the riverbanks were upgraded just a bit, but by the early 1990s it was obvious that more needed doing. The banks had to be built up again, and this time a guarantee was given to safeguard everyone for 200 years.

Rule one: never take a guarantee at face value. Barely a decade later, the River Tone flooded the town, and there have been more recent floods in 2004, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. That gives Members the general idea: too little, too late, too cheap. It is the same old Taunton story repeated time after time.

Today, just as for the past eight years, Taunton Deane is led by Councillor John Williams, a builder with an extravagant plan for the future. By now, I think he probably believes he can walk on water and, if he is not too careful, pretty soon he will have to do just that. Mr Williams wants to grow Taunton by building. His dream is to put up 17,000 new houses by 2028. That is unbelievable growth, higher by a margin of 70% than the average Government prediction for new houses anywhere. It is absolutely impossible. Last year, with the help of Mr Williams’s mates in the local building trade—firms such as Summerfield, which seems to own an awful lot of land around there—Taunton Deane Borough Council presided over the construction of just 883 new houses, and that was a record then. If the council carries on at that rate, by the end of 2028 it will be way short of the insane target of 17,000 houses.

But, say what you like about Councillor Williams—a lot of people do—he is nothing if not determined. His absurd new building target was set in 2010 and he is sticking to it. There is a faint chance, and I sincerely hope it is a faint chance, that he might even get the Government to put in money to help him on his way. Mr Williams has tarted up his plans and submitted a bid for Taunton to build a new garden town. What his glossy documentation fails to point out, however, is that all this manic building will take place on some of the wettest and flood-prone land in the United Kingdom. The much-trumpeted Taunton garden town could well turn out to be tomorrow’s Atlantis. The builders might need aqua-lungs and flippers. Does Summerfield employ frogmen? Perhaps Wrencon—Councillor Williams’s personal building firm—does.

Those who follow parliamentary affairs will know that I take a dim view of some of Mr Williams’s activities. It is wrong for any elected councillor to accept a private building contract on his own patch without declaring it, but Taunton Deane has no rules about that. Even the council leader is immune. That is not just strange; it is downright wrong. It undermines the confidence we deserve to have in local government leaders at any level. No wonder people in Taunton have become highly suspicious of this leader and his empire-building plans.

Before I came to Westminster Hall this afternoon, I took a hard look at the Environment Agency’s flood maps for the Taunton area, and I ask the Minister to do the same. The blue bits represent risk, and the blue bits are almost everywhere. I have also read detailed reports compiled by flood experts on behalf of Taunton Deane. They do not go as far as to say, “Stop before it’s too late,” but they never minimise the threat and they urge absolute caution unless flood defences are radically improved. Let me quote from one of the latest reports, completed in 2014:

“The town centre and many existing properties rely heavily on the degree of protection resulting from the existing flood defence embankments and structures. The condition of these… is very variable, many will need to be replaced… None of the defences will provide an appropriate standard of protection… and they do not include a ‘safety margin’… which is essential… where so much property and business could be affected by small changes in the predicted flood water levels.”

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

As chair of the all-party group on flood prevention, I am undertaking a routine check on all areas throughout the United Kingdom. I started in Tadcaster last week, and I hope to complete some areas over the next five or six weeks. Is the hon. Gentleman minded to allow me to visit his area to gather some information?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I would welcome the hon. Gentleman. The Minister has been down to look not just at the flooding, but at Hinkley Point nuclear power station—she has Sizewell. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon is one of my near neighbours and we welcome anyone coming to look at the flooding. It was a disaster for us all. The Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), is a Cornish MP and therefore knows how much flooding affects our area. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman and personally host him.

I will continue as I have a little bit to go and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon wishes to have his say. This is what the flood experts had to say on Councillor Williams’ building bonanza:

“The proposed new development in the town centre and other sites will increase the volume of water discharging to the Levels and Moors”.

That was the clearest warning that Taunton’s building bonanza could spark floods next door. The report said that

“doing nothing is no answer”.

The only way to tackle the issue is with a new water storage facility costing around £15 million, but will it ever happen? I checked the National Rivers Authority programme for the coming year and there was no mention of it. Apart from some maintenance on French weir in the centre of town, Taunton is not scheduled to do any serious flood defence work in the foreseeable future, yet the council leader is boasting that he has the money in next year’s budget to deal with floods. How much? Slightly less than £2 million. That does not make sense. It is not enough.

Once again, Taunton is cutting corners, and it is not using its own cash either. Councillor Williams intends to spend the new homes bonus, which is a grant he gets from central Government, as the Minister is well aware. It is sleight of hand—trickery—and it is cheating the public. Everyone knows that flood prevention costs serious money. We know that. Everyone knows that budgets are tight. That is agreed. Everyone would understand if Taunton simply could not pay, but the council is prepared to spend money like water on totally pointless things.

Last night, the council voted to borrow millions of pounds—you are not going to believe this, Mr Pritchard—to refurbish its office. The Deane House is the council’s headquarters and it is 30 years old. The council would get about £2.5 million if it sold the place. Its advisers said it was not worth a penny, but Councillor Williams, the jobbing builder, intends to fork out £11 million to do it up. For that kind of cash, looking across the Atlantic, he could install gold lifts, marble walls and champagne fountains. Eat your heart out, President Trump; look what President Williams has got! A short step down the street is Somerset County Council’s headquarters, which the Minister knows. Taunton could have moved there to a brand new office for a fraction of the cost. It was offered a building. Does that sound like a good idea? I know a man who thinks so:

“If Taunton Deane moves to County Hall the Council will form part of a gathering of other public sector services, to create a one-stop shop for our community.”

The writer is none other than the leader of the council: John Raymond Williams, to use his full name. The words are on Taunton Deane Borough Council’s own website, but like the author, they are slightly out of date.

The reputation of any council depends on leadership and management. I do not have to tell anyone here that. Taunton Deane has a leader with bizarre territorial ambitions. He is trying to swallow up West Somerset Council, in my patch. He has an absentee chief executive with the worst sickness record of any local government officer in the whole of England. I am sorry to say that I would not trust either of them to run anything. Least of all, I cannot and will not trust them to look after the flood prevention measures that affect my constituency so badly.

Flooding

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Secretary of State will say that it is ultimately a decision for local people, but we need to look at the broader picture. For one local authority to say, “It’s okay to build on a floodplain”, perhaps ignores the impact on communities in the surrounding areas. We need an overarching approach.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady is well aware, being from Bristol, the Somerset Rivers Authority, which we have set up, is working well. We have the money we need for flood defences. We have had everything we require. This is a county-wide development receiving money directly from the Government to do the necessary work. I am pretty sure she understands that, but I just wanted to make sure.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am well aware of the work being done on the Somerset levels, but it is a slightly different picture there because of its basin geography, which perhaps makes it more isolated from surrounding areas. Elsewhere, as we have seen in the north of England, one community after another can be hit.

Organophosphate Sheep Dip

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will return to this at the end of my speech, but my constituent Stephen Forward found it incredibly difficult to get his medical records. Many others seem to be in the same situation as the constituent of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), so the matter needs to be considered.

At the time of compulsory dipping, mild warnings were given on sheep dip packaging, but the Government and inspectors did not warn farmers about exposure to the solution or advise that any precautions or protective clothing be worn during the dipping of sheep. The sufferers of OP contamination believe that the Government should have provided explicit advice and rules on the safe use of OPs, including rules on proper protective clothing.

The crux of the debate, as has been said, is that while sheep dipping came to an end in 1992, the survivors’ groups and other campaigners suspect that the Government must have been aware of the risk earlier. In 1990-91 an inquiry was carried out by the Health and Safety Executive into sheep dipping on behalf of the Ministry. The full report was released to Ministers in 1991, but it was not made public until Tom Rigby put in a freedom of information request. As The Guardian reported in April, the FOI disclosure shows that Government officials did know of the dangerous health risks to farmers using this chemical, but they still did not end its compulsory use.

The report set out concerns about the cumulative health impact of long-term and repeated exposure to organophosphates and criticised manufacturers for providing inadequate protective clothing and unclear instructions to farmers. It is also said that at some time in the 1980s Ministry inspectors were told not to go within 14 feet of sheep dip when supervising, which also needs investigating. It is important to remember that at the time, the then farming Minister demanded that local authorities clamp down on farmers who refused to use the chemical. It was another year, though, until sheep dipping was no longer required by law. As Stephen said:

“We were given no training or advice about how to use the chemicals, just told to get on with it and, if not, we would be prosecuted.”

Today, my constituent, Stephen, and the Sheep Dip Survivors Group would like from the Minister full disclosure of all the documentation on this issue from that time, so that the campaigners can examine it. Campaigners also want a full inquiry, independent of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, that looks at this matter afresh, so they can see who in Government knew what, when, and why they might not have acted on that information.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful point. Given the length of time this has been going on for, we almost need a royal commission. This goes back 30 or 40 years, so many of the people involved will no longer be here. Does she agree that we need to set up something, perhaps through the Minister, that this place can scrutinise, as well as something outside?

[Jessica Morden]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is crucial that any inquiry is independent of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. There have been studies over the years, but independent studies by University College London have come to different conclusions. To settle this matter we need something like his suggestion; that would be a good idea. We want a full inquiry, independent of DEFRA, to allow us to question why farmers might have been compelled to use this chemical with no guidance if governmental research pointed to health impacts. Was compulsory dipping stopped because MAFF knew it was affecting farm workers’ and farmers’ health? If so, why did it not say so? We need an answer to that question in particular.

We also need to examine what happened to the blood test results from the national poisons unit and disclosure of those that still exist. My constituent had a long battle to get his results, but he did finally get them, so there might still be some there. Even if the paperwork does not exist, medical staff should be invited to give their recollections.

Stephen was affected by this at a young age. He and others deserve an apology from the Government, as he has had to live with the effects for decades. Will the Minister also look at what can be done to help those who are suffering and want access to treatment and an acknowledgement of their health issues? Finally, as a result of this debate, will the Minister take this opportunity, early in this Parliament, to move this issue forward by agreeing to a meeting with the Sheep Dip Sufferers Support Group, so that we can go into this in far greater depth than a half-hour debate allows? That would be greatly appreciated by campaigners, so I urge him to do that as well as fulfilling my other requests.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) on securing the debate. She has championed this cause for some time and she made it clear towards the end of the last Parliament that she would seek an early opportunity for a debate. She has succeeded. Everyone here will have been touched by the story of her constituent and his ill health.

I am sympathetic to farmers suffering from ill health and I acknowledge that some of them associate their illness with the use of organophosphate sheep dips. There is a long history of research into the hypothesis that low-level and non-toxic exposure to organophosphates, sheep dips in particular, might have caused long-term neurological health conditions.

The independent Committee on Toxicity released a statement on organophosphates in March last year, following its earlier report in 1999. The COT reviewed the science published since the original 1999 report and in summary concluded that the reviewed evidence suggests that exposures to cholinesterase-inhibiting organo- phosphates that are insufficient to cause overt acute poisoning do not cause important long-term neurological toxicity in adults and that, if toxic effects on the nervous system do occur, they are minor and subtle.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am sorry, but I really must take issue with that; that is not the case. My constituency covers Exmoor and one of my constituents, George Wescott, has suffered with this for more than 30 years. As the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and I have already said, the Minister should set up a commission so that we can get to the bottom of the issue rather than accepting what I suspect is slightly flawed science, although I hesitate to say that.

[George Eustice]

It is worth looking further at the science, because the committee’s statement was also endorsed by the medical and scientific panel, which is a sub-group of the independent Veterinary Products Committee. A cross-Government official group on organophosphates also endorsed it. It is worth highlighting some extracts from that detailed report. I have read the report, which is very scientific; I recommend it to anyone with an interest.

The report highlighted that, since 1999, 13 new papers have been published on the relation of low-level exposure to organophosphates and peripheral neuropathy, which added to the 13 studies already available at the time of the previous COT report. Having reviewed all 26 of those studies, the report concluded:

“The current balance of evidence suggests that there is no long-term risk of clearly demonstrable peripheral neuropathy from exposure to organophosphates”.

Upland Farming

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I greatly appreciate the chance to talk briefly tonight about upland farming, not least because my hon. Friend the new Minister—my hearty congratulations to him—represents Penrith and The Border, a part of the world that we both know well. I know that he has the same problems I do with farmers who are struggling on upland pasture. He is very shrewd, and although he is new to the job he certainly knows his subject. I think we can both agree about one thing—it takes a very special sort of farmer to be able to ply this trade on the moorland and uplands of the United Kingdom.

Cattle and sheep on the lonely but lovely purple-capped landscapes of Exmoor are bred to be tough, and so are the people who tend that land and always have done, but mostly it is not much of a living. In the LFAs—the less-favoured areas, as Whitehall insists on calling them—some farmers, as we well know in this House, barely cover their costs. They have to rely on unpaid family labour to help run their businesses, or diversify. Their savings have dwindled hugely. Holidays, new cars, nights out and even clothes are sometimes luxuries that they can no longer afford.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Of course I give way to my hon. Friend, with pleasure.

[Andrew Bingham]

In my constituency there are lots of hill farmers. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the difficulties facing these farmers in the current climate and operational system are discouraging the next generation of younger farmers? Ultimately, when we look across our beautiful fields, what we see is the result of the work these farmers do, and I have great concern for the future.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

As always, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head; he is absolutely right. He knows as well as I do—we are roughly the same age—about the closure of agricultural colleges across the United Kingdom and the failure to invest in farming and young farmers. Our inability to help finance young farmers to get into farming has proved to be almost insurmountable. A lot of us, including me, should really be farming. That is what we set out to do, and we have ended up in such esteemed places as this.

I am afraid that this entire situation—my hon. Friend put it very eloquently—is not a sob story but a reality. He and I know it to be the truth, because these people are our constituents. They are proud and extremely hard-working people. It is not that they do not want to be farmers—of course they do; it is what their parents and grandparents did, and they want to continue a tradition as much as anything else—but the balance sheets do not add up. They cannot grow cereals or exotic vegetables on unsheltered land at high altitude. They have to graze livestock instead—the most uncertain and least profitable part of cattle and sheep farming. Hill farmers are rightly at the end of the production chain. They are more vulnerable than most to price fluctuations, as we are seeing at the moment. If their costs go up, that comes out of their pockets. In some ways, it is a miracle, given the economics, that they have survived, but miracles do happen.

Let us look at some local things. The best sheep tags in Britain are designed by an Exmoor company—an excellent local company called Shearwell. Despite all the challenges on Exmoor, it still supports two markets at Cutcombe and at Blackmoor Gate—fantastic! However, because cheap imports such as New Zealand lamb and Polish beef are flooding in, prices get squeezed, and I am afraid that our hill farmers and other farmers take the hit. Farm incomes on uplands like Exmoor are way down. Not long ago, the average income was roughly £31,000. That may sound like a reasonable amount of money, but remember it is just turnover—most of it comes from subsidies, not profit. A similar lowland farm would reckon to be getting about double that—possibly £60,000 or more—yet it is our hard-pressed hill farmers who have helped to create some of the finest landscapes in Europe, and not just in our country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I give way with pleasure to the Irish.

[Jim Shannon]

I am always very interested in how we can help upland farmers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one thing we could do for them is encourage more sporting shooting projects in the uplands, thereby giving them more income and finance to help them in their farming projects?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My constituency is the home of the stag hounds and some of the finest shoots in Britain. I have, I think, 11 packs in my constituency and I assure the hon. Gentleman that shooting, hunting and fishing put an enormous amount back into my constituency, as is also the case in my hon. Friend the Minister’s constituency of Penrith and The Border. If there was ever a reason for repealing a ridiculous Act, this may be the time to do so. I thank the hon. Gentleman and hope he will join us in the beautiful Exmoor to ride to hounds.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to Exmoor every year. Hill farming is the driver for wealth creation across whole swathes of our rural economy. Diversification has become a necessity on moorland, encouraged by Governments and imaginative implementation by farmers who will turn their hands to anything legal to keep going. It is, of course, a case of having to do so. Many hill farmers will never break even on farming activity alone. They know it, we know it and I know the Minister knows it, but the burning issue for us all is how to achieve a financial solution that persuades farmers to continue doing what they have always done

Personally, I am not convinced—I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on this—that we have got this right. I hope that we will hear a much more joined-up approach now that this country is being run by our one-party Government. We should strive to achieve an outcome that compensates farmers fairly for the efforts they make preserving, protecting and looking after our landscape.

Some of the hill farmers I meet have become embittered about the system—with some cause. It is, after all, a minefield of baffling bureaucracy with ever-changing subsidies all packaged in deliberately confusing names which keep altering without much warning. Even the most basic subsidy—I am going to go into acronyms, I am sorry—the SPS, or single payment scheme, has now been renamed the BPS to remind the world that it is just a basic payment subsidy. The poor old farmers, however, have to put up with much worse.

Does anybody remember the HLCAs—hill livestock compensatory allowances—which were paid to farmers to look after the land? They were simplified and replaced by the HFAs—hill farm allowances—but just as we were getting used to HFAs, they were killed off and turned into UELS, which, as everyone knows, stands for the upland entry level stewardship scheme. Don’t bother to write this down: it’s too late and I really can’t go on too much longer with this.

The same thing happened to ESAs—environmentally sensitive areas—but probably not for long, as some of these things tend to come back rebranded with different initials. We are going to be talking about something called CS, which is countryside stewardship. That is fine, but we have been getting used to the CSS, which is the same thing but with an extra S stuck on the end. I do hope everyone is taking this in; I will, of course, be asking questions at the end.

A hill farmer in an SDA or LFA who used to be paid an HLCA which turned into an HFA which then became a UELS or perhaps an ESA and is about to transform itself into the CS has probably been tearing out their hair, or what is left of it, for years. Every one of those schemes comes with complex forms which are to be filled in before—dare I say it?—a single euro changes hands and ends up in the farmer’s pocket.

I did a quick trawl on the internet to try to list the number of different schemes and rules that come under the CAP—common agricultural policy—and can see how it would drive anyone batty. I do not have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and run a farm in a bleak climate, or rely on subsidies to put food on my family’s breakfast table, to find that out.

Most hill farmers will tell us that this is a nightmare system. It is like trying to play soccer with both legs tied together and then finding that Sepp Blatter has shifted the goalposts again. The Minister should not be alarmed. I do not hold him personally responsible—he has only been here two minutes. The muddle is caused by a basic conflict between trying to help farmers and looking after the natural world at the same time. This is where common sense starts to break down.

As I have mentioned, the major funding that farmers get is the SPS, which is known now as the BPS. It amounts to roughly £200 per hectare, but to claim the cash the farmer has to have the land in good agricultural and environmental condition—or, believe it or not, GAEC—among the compulsory standards for which is:

“Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land”.

That means that if a farmer wants more money, they have to keep wild weeds in check, presumably by towing cutting gear over the land, which is an awful lot easier said than done if they live and farm on Exmoor—it is a hill.

For decades, farmers have managed the moor by burning off gorse and heather in the spring. It is one of the oldest methods known to man. It fertilises the soil with ash, provides new growth for livestock grazing and prevents raging summer fires that could destroy the soil and lead to erosion. But guess what? Natural England came along and told farmers they were getting it wrong and burning too much. A restriction order was placed at the whim of one official, whose views were based on a practice in—dare I say it, seeing that my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) is on the Front Bench?—North Yorkshire. The problem is that vegetation grows far more rapidly on Exmoor, which is why it has to be burned regularly. I mean no disrespect: we are a few months ahead. The result of such interference is that parts of the moor now sprout 10-foot gorse. It is far too tall to be burned safely, so it has to be chopped mechanically, with no soil benefits whatsoever. It makes the area look—I would happily entertain my hon. Friend the Minister on Exmoor—as though a small thermonuclear bomb has just gone off, and it costs us a fortune.

All that is very hard for any farmer whose family has been managing the same piece of countryside for five or six generations. Just as one example, farmers have been told that they are not doing enough to protect butterflies and beetles, so they have been lumbered with more controls. I do not think that farmers go around wilfully vandalising fauna or flora—I have never met one who does, and nobody else in the House has; farmers love to see it as much as any of us, which is why they farm—but we cannot expect them to be full-time guardians of the countryside for next to nothing.

The problem is that subsidies have not kept pace with the growing list of environmental responsibilities. That is one of the main conclusions of an important academic study produced by the Exmoor Hill Farming Network. I commend that excellent organisation to the House. It wants the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to invest in a thorough analysis of beef and sheep chains to try to secure better prices for producers. How often have we been here before? It is also after a complete review of the current level of support to these farmers to analyse the implications of

“social exclusion and mental ill-health”.

The Minister will already know from his own experience of hill farming how desolate and lonely it can be.

I accept that there are no quick fixes, but I have to wonder about the sense of moving too fast to achieve some of DEFRA’s more bizarre ambitions of reducing farmers’ reliance on subsidies. It may be a good aim, but it surely cannot be done until alternative solutions and sources of income can be guaranteed. I extend a warm invitation to the Minister to visit our beautiful part of the world. As I have said, I would love to host him.

I offer one caution. Almost 400 years ago, Exmoor was just a filthy piece of barren ground. That is what the writer Daniel Defoe called it. Robinson Crusoe would not give it a second look; he had gone to his desert island. But then came the farmers and—guess what?—they tamed the land. They continue to do so. If upland farmers ever called it a day, who would look after Exmoor? Why would the tourists bother to come? What would happen to the hundreds of rural businesses that we depend on to keep it the way it is? One farmer put it to me rather simply. “All I want,” he said, “is a level playing field”—then he winked—“but please don’t tell FIFA to design it.”