Water Bill

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for his question. I shall come on to that in a minute, but we have had exhaustive and extensive discussions with the ABI to ensure that the statement of principles is succeeded by a new regime, on which I shall elaborate in a few minutes.

The main focus of the Bill is reform of the water industry. Reform will provide more choice for non-household customers and bring new entrants into the market. It will use the power of competition to drive efficiency, innovation and benefits to the environment.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

As somebody who strongly welcomes the introduction of competition, why will not the Secretary of State allow competition for everybody? If it is really a natural monopoly, nothing will happen and no harm will be done, but if it is not, we could all get the benefit of competition with lower prices and the quality of water we want.

[Mr Paterson]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I have total sympathy with that position. I am quite clear that as an aspiration universal competition is worth while. Our problem is that we want to take the first step and take the wholesale route, which will bring immediate benefits and real efficiencies to major businesses, but it is hard to move down to a household level, where the gains are much smaller because of the narrow margins, until we have universal metering. At the moment, metering is at about 40% and we need to move closer to universal metering before we can reach the position with which he and I have much sympathy.

Privatisation of the UK water industry has seen the sector attract £116 billion in low-cost investment, enabling our infrastructure to be upgraded and environmental standards to be improved. I saw that for myself when I visited Northumbrian Water’s waste treatment site in Howdon. Its investment in anaerobic digestion is enabling it to process 500,000 tonnes of sewage every day that was previously dumped untreated in the North sea.

Our rivers are now cleaner than they have been for decades. Rivers that were previously classified as sterile or biologically dead are now supporting otters and salmon. A substantial programme of investment has also led to more than 82% of our bathing waters meeting the highest EU standard this year. That is a great example of improving the environment and growing the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

Well, water lands on the whole of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman is probably referring to the Welsh aspect of the Bill, and I think that he knows that the Bill’s competition elements will not apply to customers in Wales.

[Mr Redwood]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way once again—we are teasing out important points. Does he agree that there are quite a lot of rising water tables under the big towns and cities of this country, because they used to be tapped but no longer are? Is not that a good source of new water that competition could deploy?

[Mr Paterson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. We used to have heavy industries in our cities that used large amounts of water, as I know well, having worked on Merseyside for 25 years. Merseyrail has had problems with water because so many of the extractive industries have gone. There is no problem with the volume of water; it is about getting it to the right place at the right time and by the right means. That is what I hope the Bill will facilitate.

Our reforms will increase water supplies by making it more attractive for landowners to develop new sources of water, or for innovative businesses to treat and dispose of waste water. Let me take a hypothetical example. If a brewery with its own borehole has spare capacity, it might be able to supply its pubs in the area more cheaply than they could be supplied by the local water company. The brewery could put its spare water into the water company’s supply system or work with a retailer providing broader services to those businesses.

We also want to make it easier for our farmers and land managers to develop new sources of water, such as on-farm reservoirs, and to hold water back. For example, a farmer with an on-site reservoir that more than meets the farm’s water needs could make an arrangement with either a licensee or the incumbent water company to enable it to put water into the supply system. The water could be supplied regularly or only at times of high demand. Either way, the farmer would have a new product that he could sell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman appears to be making a second speech. The previous Government were the only Government to see water bills cut during their time in office. We need to see a determination in the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that Ofwat has the proper powers to deal with water companies. He ought to remember, even if he is technically in favour—

[Mr Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

I will finish dealing with the Secretary of State’s point before I give way to anybody else. He needs to ensure that Ofwat has the power to deal with water companies that have a captive market. Even if he gets to increasing competition and extending it to householders, as he said himself, that will not happen for some time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I have some sympathy with the first part of the hon. Lady’s intervention, but perhaps less so in practical terms with her latter point.

[Mr Redwood]

I am interested in the Opposition’s argument. What reduction in bills could the extra powers that the hon. Lady wants the regulator to have produce for the average consumer, and how much should companies put into helping those who have a problem with affordability?

[Maria Eagle]

I will say a little more about what extra powers I think the regulator should have, and perhaps at that point I will deal with some of the questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman.

The Opposition will seek to amend the Government’s legislation and address its central weakness, which is the lack of measures to tackle the contribution that rising water bills are having on household budgets. First, we will seek to grant Ofwat more wide-ranging powers to reopen price reviews between the current five-year periods. In his answer to me last Thursday the Secretary of State said:

“I have written to water companies to call on them to consider the pressure on household incomes when making future bill decisions and, in particular, to consider whether they need to apply the full price increases next year allowed for in the 2009 price review.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 1350.]

However, it should not be for water companies simply to “consider” limiting price rises; the regulator needs much greater powers of intervention when those companies are making far more than anticipated at the time of the review.

Water Industry

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for more reservoirs. Reservoirs are not only important for water storage; they are important places for the angling community. Many hon. Members here are passionate anglers who enjoy fishing, and reservoirs provide an opportunity for that pursuit.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend is going to talk about the need for competition to provide better quality and low prices, but why does he think that there is a natural monopoly? Surely anyone, under a suitably liberated regime, could build a reservoir or drill a borehole and provide water to the customer through a piped system.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. The planning system obviously means that such things take time. It is certainly important to have more of a national planning framework, which has been discussed by some and is worth considering. The view of water professionals is that competition is important but, in terms of customer service, it does not necessarily reduce costs because the infrastructure represents about 90% of the cost base.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

God knows; it would depend on when, if the hon. Gentleman sees what I mean.

The bulk of the reservoir capacity and the pipework was provided when big cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds and the Metropolitan Water Board in London were trying to look after the interests of the people of their areas. They created the reservoirs and laid the pipes.

During the arguments about the privatisation of the water industry, I received a letter in beautiful copperplate handwriting from an ancient ex-councillor in Sheffield. He said, “All the people at Yorkshire Water are doing is collecting water in reservoirs we built and sending it along pipes we laid. I speak as the former chairman of the water committee in Sheffield.” He pointed out that while the chief executive of Yorkshire Water was getting several hundred thousand pounds a year, when he had been responsible for it he had been paid “nowt” and the job had been done properly, whereas it had not been done properly ever since.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the right hon. Gentleman concede that the pipe network that the nationalised industry put in was riddled with holes by the time the private sector took over? More than 25% of the water was being lost en route and the private sector has been renewing the pipes.

[Frank Dobson]

That is certainly true. Until 1995, Ministers from all parties accepted the statement by the water industry that the bulk of the water that leaked out of the system leaked out of customers’ pipes. It took a lot of effort from me and somebody who was working for me at the time to finally reveal that that was nothing short of a lie. It was not that the Ministers were lying; they were being provided with lies by the water industry. I have had the figure changed into fashionable litres now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

It is no good my saying that the previous Government’s record was as good as it ought to have been—I will not pretend that it was.

Another thing is that, over the years, charges for water have risen at twice the average of price rises for everything else. There can be no possible justification for that. What sickens customers are the water industry’s byzantine financial arrangements and how it is an outpost of the tax avoidance industry. Nobody appears to understand this. Ofwat, successive civil servants and successive Ministers do not appear to have understood what is going on. I am not excusing anybody: I have no faith in the continuation of the existing system. The industry continues to be run for the benefit of companies, company bosses and shareholders. If it is to be run properly from an environmental, security of water supply and cost point of view, it is essential, before changes are made, to subject the industry to freedom of information, so that troublemaking pressure groups and individuals can get to work on the figures in a way that Ofwat and the Department are clearly incapable of doing.

I have a more advanced view of what should be done: we should follow recent examples from Germany. Berlin decided to bring the control and operation of its water supply back under the ownership of the people of Berlin, and the people of Hamburg voted in a referendum to bring its electricity supply back under the control and ownership of the people of Hamburg. That almost happened in Berlin, but the necessary turnout was not quite achieved. I propose a trial run in London. We could give the people of London a referendum to ask, “Do you want to take over, and bring your water industry back under the ownership of something similar to the Metropolitan Water Board?” That would be popular with the public: at the weekend, an opinion poll showed that 69% of the population wanted the energy industry to go back into public ownership.

[Mr Redwood]

The right hon. Gentleman has just criticised spending £2.5 billion on water meters as a luxury we cannot afford. How much would it cost to buy companies back into public ownership, and why would it be a good investment?

[Frank Dobson]

These industries are pleading poverty all the time, so it would not be all that expensive. The cost could be paid out over a very long period, which is what happened when industries were brought into public ownership in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Most people are sick to death of what is going on. They have no faith in Ofwat, officials at the Department or Ministers. I share their lack of faith and until we put forward some aggressive propositions nothing will change to the advantage of the people we try to represent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who spoke with passion and real understanding about what is a complex issue. The water industry was privatised nearly a quarter of a century ago now, and it is reaching a crossroads. While I agree with my hon. Friend about the levels of investment that privatisation has delivered—which is well in excess of £100 billion in the last 25 years—we are reaching a stage where we now need to look for different solutions. My hon. Friend touched on a number of them in his remarks, and I was very impressed by his description of City analysts and their attitude to the regulated sector, and the challenge of gearing. As he said, the high level of gearing is causing inflexibility. That is leading to unimaginative solutions to the problems that beset companies such as Thames Water, which serves not only the London area, but the area I have the honour of representing: Swindon.

My hon. Friend mentioned abstraction from the Kennet, and I should commend the Save Water Swindon campaign, which is all about encouraging householders to be sensible in the use of water. It has had a marked impact and continues to this day. Indeed, only a couple of weeks ago I was helping Thames Water promote that campaign.

All that is detail, however, but today’s debate presents us with an opportunity to look more broadly at the challenge facing the industry. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for accepting the application made in my name and that of my hon. Friends the Members for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). There is quite a geographical spread between our constituencies, which shows that this is an issue for the whole country, not just the area I represent.

Although cost-of-living issues are very much the stuff of current political debate, the issues raised today long predate the current political spat. This debate has to be about value for money for local consumers and businesses and finding better ways for our water industry to operate.

Despite the interesting contribution of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who is no longer in his place, there is no doubt that 25 years ago privatisation was the right course of action. There was no alternative for the industry if we were to seek and secure new forms of capital investment. The achievements of Bazalgette and the Victorians lasted us for a long time, but we have by now reached a stage where renewal and reinvestment are essential.

Now, after nearly a decade of continued price rises, householders are rightly asking themselves, “Why us?” In the context of the current monopoly, who can they turn to? The situation is worse than the Henry Ford scenario of “You can have any colour you like, as long as it’s black,” because there is nowhere else for consumers to go.

I understand why the regional model was adapted from the previous nationalised structure. In many ways that made sense in terms of bringing together infrastructure with water supply, and I can think of the example of Severn Trent with its assets over the border in Wales, but I ask this question: is the regionalised model sustainable for the long term? Is there not a better way of dealing with the industry?

[Mr Redwood]

When we debated this, I was the one who said, “You must have competition and you can have competition in water, as in other things.” I lost that battle. Privatisation solved the capital shortage but, apart from that, it has left all the evils of the monopoly in the nationalised business—a lack of quality, a lack of choice, high costs and a lack of innovation.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that, and his role in all this back in the late 1980s must not be underestimated. As he rightly says, now is the time for us to draw an analogy with other industries such as telecoms, where infrastructure and supply are dealt with separately. Giving consumers the right to switch suppliers is essential if we are to drive through an improvement in service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you taking up your new duties, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Monopoly is the evil that we are here to debate. It is monopoly that stifles innovation. It is monopoly that drives prices higher. It is monopoly that takes away choice and consumer power, and it is monopoly that leads to rationing. We saw all those features in the water industry when it was nationalised. I am amazed that the Labour party still has people who think it would be a good idea to go back to the nationalised water monopoly, which regularly ran out of water in the summer. Woe betide the man or woman who had bedding plants in a hot summer in Britain—because before global warming we used to get hot summers, and then the water would run out. It was a tragedy, because it was a direct result of the nationalised industry.

The privatised industry, I am pleased to say, has done one thing better than the nationalised industry—it has got access to more capital. It has mended a lot of pipes, put in new pipes, and put some investment into dealing with dirty water as well, so we have fewer interruptions to supply under the privatised industry than before. However, we did not go far enough with the privatisation. We transferred the ownership but, as some of my hon. Friends have wisely pointed out, we kept in place much of the regional structure.

We bought the idiotic idea that the industry sold to Ministers and advisers that because rivers run to the sea in separate geographical areas called river basins, it was terribly important to have local monopolies around a river basin. Woe betide anyone who wanted to move water from one river basin area to another, and woe betide anyone who wanted to use borehole water. Apparently, it all had to be organised around river valleys. Sometimes it is difficult to create boundaries between them, because tributaries and streams have a habit of not being as neat as administrative lines on maps, but it was decided that we had to have this “natural monopoly”.

There is no natural monopoly in the supply of water. As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) who has recently departed the Chamber, rain falls across the whole of the United Kingdom, not always all at the same time, not always in the same quantities, but this island is not cursed with a shortage of rain for most of the time, and we collect very little of it. It is also not true to say that water is some precious resource that has to be husbanded because it will run out. Water is the ultimate renewable resource. It falls as rain; it mainly runs out to the sea; it is picked up by the winds and goes back into the clouds; and it comes back again as rain. Nature or God, depending on one’s beliefs, does most of the job for us, producing an endless supply of water to this country. All that we have to do is provide business people who can raise the capital to make sure that we capture enough of that water in a form that we can then put into pipes, and that we clean it up to an appropriate standard for the use.

We did not introduce competition into the industry when we privatised it, so many of the evils of monopoly are still with us. We have less rationing, but we can still have rationing. We have quite dear prices, although perhaps they do not go up quite as quickly as they did when they were part of a Treasury exercise. We certainly get more capital into the industry, but at the expense of quite substantial gearing, as some hon. Gentlemen have mentioned. However, many of the bad features of the nationalised industry are perpetuated and it is very difficult being a challenger to the industry, so I pay tribute to the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who produced a White Paper which is becoming a piece of legislation, which will try to open up the market a bit more.

I pay tribute to the modest steps taken in Scotland, where it was discovered that far from the taps running dry or the water prices going through the roof if the authorities dared to have more than one provider of business water, the opposite has happened: the prices went down—a little bit, because there was not a great deal of competition coming in—and above all the quality of service rose. I have talked to some of the Scottish businesses that have to deal with the water industry. They say that the great breakthrough in Scotland as a result of competition was the fact that they could get a much better service. They could get the water supply when they wanted it and where they wanted it, and pipes and so on mended and repaired.

Businesses in Scotland can also negotiate with their water industry about what sort of water they want. At present, under a nationalised monopoly or a privatised monopoly, only one type of water is available. It is cleaned to a certain standard and it then has additives put in it. An industry wanting to make drinks may need to take the additives out before it can make its drinks, so there is a double cost and a nuisance, because it cannot get the type of water it wants. A firm that wants to carry out a fairly rudimentary washing business does not need water of a quality that we can drink, but it has to pay the extra price to buy the very high-quality water literally to tip it down the drain.

Therefore, we are not seeing experimentation, innovation or customer service because of a lack of competition. The industry is determined to supply only one grade of water and only the amount it can be bothered to supply, and then it blames the customer, should we dare to say that we want a bit more. We are now bombarded with messages from the industry suggesting that water is a natural monopoly and not the ultimate renewable resource. We are told that good people take only one bath a week in order to save water, that they do not use so much water for cleaning and that they ensure that they husband their use of water in their sinks and whatever machines they have at home that require it.

I have good news for my constituents: I do not believe that. I think that water is the ultimate renewable resource, that it ought to be made available more abundantly and more cheaply and that that could be done if we trusted competition. Surely one of the advantages of rising living standards, which is what we are all here to try to help create, is that people can then use more water because they have more things to clean, or because they wish to enjoy themselves in their bathroom. We need to ensure that they have access to the right quantities of cheaper water, and competition is the way to do that.

[Julian Smith]

My right hon. Friend, as always, is speaking in an impassioned way about the merits of competition. Will he explain to the House how quickly he thinks domestic competition could be introduced and whether he thinks the Government should be moving more quickly on that?

[Mr Redwood]

I would do it straight away. I cannot see what the problem is. If water is a natural monopoly, as some people argue, no harm will be done by breaking the formal monopoly; it is just that nothing will happen. But of course it is not a natural monopoly, which is why the industry is fighting so hard to keep a legal monopoly. It knows that it will have to wake up and change quite a lot if it has to face competition.

We would have to give the market some help to get it going, because the monopolists are in a very strong position. We would need to tell them to use their pipe network as a common carrier, because other people would need access to it. However, the challengers might soon find, as was the case with those sorts of arrangements in the telecoms industry, that the existing assets are not so great and that they want to put in their own pipes. The challengers in telecoms did that with wires, and then of course the radio links became a cheaper and better way of doing it. Who knows what technical breakthroughs there might be or how much challengers would want to use the common carrier network? However, to get competition going we would need to start with a common carrier network, so a system would need to be put in place to allow people access to the pipes.

We would also need to ensure that the Environment Agency was prepared to license borehole water and sensible levels of river extraction by other licensees. I do not want our rivers to be run dry by people taking too much out in a dry season, so we would need proper regulation for that. As has been pointed out, however, we let huge quantities of water go to the sea during wet periods, so we do not seem to be very good at planning our water use and holding it in suitable locations so that we have plenty in drier weather.

Another thing that I think the water industry needs to pay attention to, along with other utilities in this country, is the huge disruption they cause to our road network. Our road network is a nationalised monopoly and therefore has rationing and, looking at the tax bill, is extremely expensive. It has all the characteristics of monopoly provision that I dislike. One of the things that make our totally inadequate road network even worse is the fact that it is regularly disrupted by businesses digging up great chunks of tarmac and subsoil with pneumatic drills in order to lay new water pipes, other utility pipes and wires. Why on earth have we not learnt that it is not a great idea to put these things right down the middle of the road and then hard-pack soil, subsoil, tarmac and stones on top, which means huge delay, disruption and cost every time we want to change it? In modern buildings all the services run in ducts under the floors so that we do not have to rip out the plaster, half demolishing the place, every time we want to change the wiring.

Surely we could have a system to provide easy access along the side of our roads to pipes, wires and anything else we want to put down without having to dig up the road every time. We could at least start doing that when we build new estates, shopping centres or whatever. We should do it intelligently by putting in ducts to save all that money and time. I find utility companies very sympathetic to that idea when I invite them in to talk about it. They say, “It’s a very good idea, but it won’t work in this case, Mr Redwood.” We have to make it work, because many other countries are well ahead of us on all this. They think we are completely potty to go in for this idea that the water company digs up the road and puts in a new pipe, then six months later the gas people come along and do exactly the same thing in a slightly different position, and then the following year the electricity people turn up and do it again. It is mad, costly and inefficient, and it is doing huge damage to an inadequate road network.

For all those reasons, give us competition, give us choice, give us innovation, and give us some common sense, because we are getting a rotten deal at the moment.

Badger Cull

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr McKenzie]

I would like to think that farmers in my area would not be convinced.

There is no accurate way of knowing how many badgers there are in an area, so how would we know when a cull had reached its quota of 70%? The culls are non-selective and would equally destroy healthy local badger populations. It is not possible to take out diseased badgers only. The research that the Government cherry-pick to try to justify their onslaught on badgers shows that even in TB hot spots most badgers are not infected. Licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it. Imminent pilot culls are too slight to measure impacts before wider roll-outs of culling, and badger culling risks becoming a costly distraction from nationwide TB control. Vaccination is now possible for both cattle and badgers, and should be implemented as soon as possible, as it has been in Wales.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the criticism of vaccination, which many feel is not a solution?

[Mr McKenzie]

What is equally not a solution is going out in the middle of the night and shooting badgers indiscriminately.

Vaccination is the most humane way forward, and, if it can happen, we should pursue it. I understand that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee will be considering it. How can this be a science-based badger cull, as claimed by the Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government’s chief scientist is among those who dispute the evidence used to justify killings? The Government should be asking whether the culling of badgers produces a significant effect in eliminating bovine TB. We believe the answer is no, it will not. Is culling badgers cost-effective? The answer is no. Is it morally and ethically appropriate? Again, we feel that the answer is no. The public costs alone of licensing and policing a cull will exceed £1 million in each pilot area. Shooting badgers in the pitch black is not a good idea. There are serious doubts about whether controlled shooting of free roaming badgers would actually achieve any worthwhile reduction in bovine TB at all.

We know how dreadful bovine TB is—I mentioned that our sympathies are with the farmers whose cattle are struck down by this terrible disease. We need to focus on other measures—those that will protect both cattle and badgers. We believe that vaccination is the way forward. Progress should be made on cattle vaccinations and DEFRA should secure change in the EU to permit commercial use of a cattle vaccine. There are far better ways to deal with bovine TB than the mass slaughter of badgers. We do not support a cull this year, next year or any year. We say: stop the cull and move to vaccinations.

Common Fisheries Policy

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House considers that the Common Fisheries Policy has failed to conserve fish stocks and failed fishermen and consumers; welcomes the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report, EU proposals for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; and calls on the Government to use the current round of Common Fisheries Policy reform to argue for a reduction in micro-management from Brussels, greater devolution of fishing policy to Member States, the introduction of greater regional ecosystem-based management and more scientific research to underpin decision-making in order to secure the future of coastal communities and the health of the marine ecosystem.

It gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to move this motion. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to debate the issue, and I thank my fellow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee members—from all parties—for the excellent work they did in drafting the report on this topic. I also thank the witnesses, both those who appeared before us and gave so generously of their time and those who submitted written evidence.

In my local area, I visited the coble fishermen in Filey, who are some of the heroes of the smaller—under-10 metre—fishing fleet in this country. The Committee visited Hastings, accompanied by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), and we were very warmly received. It was a highly productive visit—once we had negotiated the London tube network—and I thank everyone who shared that day with us for the warm welcome we received and the evidence they shared with us.

It was a particular pleasure for me to take the Committee to Denmark and to meet the Danish President of the Council of Ministers, the Danish Minister for fisheries, farming and food. We also met the local fishermen in Gilleleje. I have to confess that I had not visited that little fishing port for some 15 or 20 years, but we were impressed by the work and co-operation of its fishermen, and persuaded by the science we saw there. We were allowed to partake in a non-live auction mart, buying and selling some of the fish, which expanded our knowledge of the live internet auction mart that they use. We were interested to see the selective gear those Danish fishermen use, a detail that is particularly relevant to the motion.

This debate is timely. The Danish presidency is expected to reach a political decision in the European Council in June—in the well-known coastal resort of Luxembourg! Seriously however, Luxembourg does have a genuine interest in freshwater fish and aquaculture—the Minister can correct that term, if it is wrong. We are expecting a political decision in the EC in June. For the first time, it will be a co-decision. The European Parliament is seeking to reach an agreement on the financial regulation in January 2013, and we will have co-decision on all the fisheries reforms. A final agreement is not expected until June 2013.

I commend the motion. I think we can all confirm that the common fisheries policy—particularly the last round of reform—has failed everybody. It has failed to conserve fish stocks, and to help fishermen or consumers. I want to dwell for a moment on what I believe is the most exciting part of the motion and of our report, and I am grateful to the very senior lawyers in this place and elsewhere who have advised us on the report. We have a once-in-a-decade opportunity. We have a one-off opportunity to end the centralised micro-management by Brussels, which I think we can all agree has failed to deliver. We want to support the commissioner, who agrees that, as an essential first step, we must look at the possibility of handing power back to member states to enable them to work together to find a local solution.

I applaud the openness of the commissioner, and the immediate past chairman of the Brussels Committee on fisheries, Carmen Fraga, who is a personal friend of mine and who is affectionately known in the European Parliament as “madam fish.” The commissioner was especially open in the meeting we had in Brussels, during our evidence session of some 18 months ago, and more especially when the commissioner gave evidence on the record. I am delighted that there is now a picture on the commissioner’s website of the commissioner and me handing over the report we are debating this afternoon.

I believe we have given the Department, the Commission and the European Union the opportunity—which we were all looking for—to drive decision making down to the most local and regional level. Our proposals are truly groundbreaking. I believe the fault has been that there has been too much micro-management from Brussels and a lack of overarching objectives, which we would like the Commission to remain in charge of.

The Commission should have a strategic high-reaching overview, but the day-to-day decisions on how fisheries are managed in local waters should be decided among the various coastal states on the basis of scientific evidence, which is missing at present, and through working much more closely with the fishermen. We will talk shortly about giving the advisory councils more power.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I support the motion, but will my hon. Friend make this point clear to me: presumably, she would want the British Government to be able to get rid of the much-hated and stupid discards policy and be free to decide ourselves how to conserve stock?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am going to be very methodical and discuss discards later, as we have some interesting things to say about them and I hope that hon. Members from all parts of the House will elaborate on the matter.

On the treaty base, I hope that the Minister has now had the opportunity to analyse what we are proposing. This is the first time anyone has identified what is staring us in the face—that all we have to do is amend the regulations, which form the whole context of this round of the common fisheries policy reform. The feedback we have had from the fishermen we have consulted, as well as from the Danes and others, has been very positive.

It is important to recognise that the little fish do not swim around with a Union Jack on them. Much as I would like to say that the fish outside Filey have a Yorkshire flag on them and the fish in the Scottish waters have the saltire on them, they do not; they swim across the various waters. So it is absolutely right that the Commission should retain some competence in this area, and I, for one, do not wish to reopen the treaty base that gives exclusive competence on the resources to the Commission. By allowing the coastal states that neighbour the individual fisheries to take the day-to-day management decisions, we will save a lot of the Minister’s time every December, as things will be managed on a more regular basis. The approach will be much more local, it will be based on science and it will be about working more closely with the fishermen.

[Mr Redwood]

Nor do the fish swim around with an EU flag on them. We should accept that it is our fishing resource if it is in our wider waters—we have to pay the bills, so we should be responsible for it.

[Miss McIntosh]

My right hon. Friend has put his finger, possibly inadvertently, on the nub of the issue. This is a shared resource and we need to conserve it. The Committee has gone through things and we have identified many ways in which we believe we can do that.

Fisheries

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Getting it right also requires political leadership, which has been sadly lacking from the Minister on this matter. What we have instead is more uncertainty and delay for the fishing sector, which is not welcome.

Food security has not featured heavily in the debate, so I want to take the opportunity to mention it. In Europe we are eating more fish than ever before. We have hit an historic peak and the projections for the next 30 years show that consumption will continue to rise. With the EU already importing two thirds of its fish and growing demand in big markets such as the US and China, the reforms must address the issue. I hope that the Minister will address that when he comes to the Dispatch Box.

Reform is long overdue, as all Members have said—it is one concern that unites the House. That is the hope, but as ever the devil will be in the detail and in how strongly the Government argue and negotiate for UK fisheries and use regionalisation to respond to the needs of fishing communities. We support the reform process and stress the need for a strong voice for the interests of UK fisheries and a clear move away from the top-down management and control that pervades the current CFP.

I have no hesitation in acknowledging the hard work and commitment of the Minister in engaging with the devolved Governments and with stakeholders. It is essential that the UK has the strongest possible voice in these negotiations. I read yesterday that the Secretary of State is bending over backwards in representing the interests of the UK in reform of the common agricultural policy, but where is she on CFP reform? Can the Minister assure the House that the Secretary of State is fully engaged and will perform similar political contortions to get the best possible deal for the UK on fisheries reform? It would also be helpful if he put more flesh on the bones of his negotiating position. Four months on from the publication of the Commission’s proposals, does he have a clear view of what he wants to come out of CFP reform, which of the proposals he agrees with, and which he wants to strengthen? I am aware that the impact assessment closed only last Thursday, but can he update us on its progress? Any information would be welcome.

I would like to turn to some of the key areas of the reforms set out by the Commission. Regionalisation is a key element of the new CFP, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) mentioned. The current top-down approach has failed to achieve its objectives. Radical reform is necessary. The new CFP must ensure that fisheries management is dealt with at the most appropriate level. Without genuine decentralisation of fisheries management, it is difficult to imagine that sustainable management will be achieved. To that end, I welcome the proposals for multi-annual plans devised by member states, which the Commission intends as a central tool for ensuring that fish stocks are kept at sustainable levels and achieve maximum sustainable yields. It is vital that the Minister works closely with stakeholders in that process.

The collaborative approach will be particularly important in the plans to eliminate discards under the basic regulation within the multi-annual plans. In some EU fisheries 60% of catches are discarded. Discarding is a symptom of the poor management and practice of the current CFP. Much of the focus of the current proposals is on landing all catches of the main commercial species, but there is a real danger that discards overboard will become discards ashore.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given that all previous Governments have not wanted that policy but failed to get rid of it, does the shadow Minister have any idea how the Minister will be able to do so?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I am sure that the Minister will be glad to answer that question, but I will say that what we are seeing now is a phased-in approach on three levels, which gives us a real opportunity. I share concerns that Members have voiced in the debate on how we can achieve that, but that is not an excuse for a lack of political leadership in achieving the aim.

The Commission’s proposals place a legal duty on the UK to implement a tradeable system of quotas, known as transferrable fishing concessions, which some Members have touched on. They have raised concerns in other debates and argued that we should not end up with a situation in which a vast share of our concessions is in the hands of a few and multinational organisations can buy up the rights to our national resource. There is a proposal that member states should maintain an accurate register of holders of transferrable fishing concessions. Does the Minister support and welcome those plans for transparency, and what preparatory plans and assessments have been undertaken by his Department? Has he come to a view on the transfer of concessions to other member states?

My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) spoke about reaching maximum sustainable yield, and like her I have concerns about how we achieve that, given the nature of our mixed fisheries. The scale of the challenge must not again be an excuse for a lack of political will from the Government in driving forward to achieve maximum sustainable yields wherever possible by 2015. Ensuring that decisions are based on the best possible data and scientific advice requires Government agencies and the Government to work with fishermen, and as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) mentioned, there is good practice in the pilots in Scotland to build on.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby mentioned external waters. It is proposed that fishing partnership agreements will be replaced with sustainable fisheries agreements, which will put more emphasis on achieving the aims of the CFP outside EU waters. I welcome the new legal framework introduced by the Commission to ensure that European fishermen fish responsibly, but there is another concern relating to employment rights—perhaps not the Government’s strongest cause—which I would like to raise with the Minister. We know that on EU vessels there are many workers from developing countries and there is concern about their employment rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I commend the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) and his colleagues on the all-party fisheries group for bringing this issue to the House, and the Backbench Business Committee for supporting it. This debate leads on well from our debate in May, which my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) brought to the House, and if Members support the motion they will give me and the Government a mandate to continue our work to introduce some common-sense reform to a failed policy, and to take forward proposals that will greatly advantage the industry and our marine environment.

I should like to take this opportunity, however, to recall the six fishermen who have lost their lives this year in the line of their work at sea and in the harbour. We must remember the courage and sacrifice of individual fishermen, who put their lives in danger to bring food to our tables. Today is especially poignant, given our memory of Neil Murray, the husband of my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), to whom many Members have referred, and I know that the House will wish to join me in sending sincere condolences to all those families and friends who have suffered losses.

I shall try to cover as many points as I possibly can. I shall not be able to cover them all, but at this vital time, as we move toward the December round and, of course, through the wider CFP reform negotiations, I remain absolutely willing to meet the all-party group of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North and any other groups of hon. Members.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the manifest failing of the common fisheries policy and found a ready audience in the House and, certainly, with me. He spoke about discards, as did several hon. Members, and it is important that our reforms on discards—I think that these were his words—reflect the reality of fishing. It is absolutely vital that we do so on a stock-by-stock, sea-basin and species-by-species basis and secure a workable result that delivers not just what the 700,000 people who signed up to the Fish Fight campaign want, but a sustainable solution for the fishing industry.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the landing of black fish, and let the House be absolutely clear: those who land fish illegally are stealing fish from their fellow fishermen, so it is absolutely vital that we do all we can to crack down on that practice. He spoke also about regionalisation, as did a great many other Members, and about the welcome addition of the regional advisory councils in the 2002 reforms, and I absolutely agree that that is the basis on which we should talk, using a sea-basin approach to the management of our fisheries.

I want to see regionalisation work, but I concede the concerns, raised by hon. Members from all parties, that regionalisation in its current form could lead perversely to an increase in the Commission’s powers. That is not what we want, and we will push very hard to ensure that regionalisation is effectively that.

The hon. Gentleman and several others raised another point, about the proposed cuts in the December round to those stocks where there is data-deficiency. We won a very important argument in the Baltic round of negotiations last month, noting that the arbitrary 25% or 15% cuts on the basis of a lack of evidence was completely illogical. It results in more discards, in poverty and in people going out of business, and we won that point. It remains on the table for the December round, but the principle has been won and we will drive it home, because it is really important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, made a very important point when she spoke about her Committee’s desire to see more work on marketing less popular fish. DEFRA is doing that. We set up the “Fishing for the Markets” project, and among other things we are undertaking a land-all scheme in North Shields. Indeed, we have been doing so for a long time—for well over a year—and it is paying dividends. As Members have pointed out, 54% of discards are nothing to do with quotas; they are species that are not eaten in this country.

[Mr Redwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Benyon]

If my right hon. Friend will allow me, I will not, because I have only five minutes and a lot to get through.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned the lobsters and brown crabs off the coast of her constituency, and I assure her that we are thinking again about that issue, because we want to ensure that we carry people with us and our measures work.

The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall, for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and others spoke about the under 10 metre plan, as did the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), who spoke for the Opposition.

[Richard Benyon]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I really do not have time.

The important thing is that those reforms really work. A lot of work has gone into the issue, not just by this Government, I am first to concede, and the three pilots will be taken forward. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) said that there is enthusiasm in his constituency, as there is around the coast, to ensure that they work, and we are recruiting coastal liaison officers, who will assist people not only with managing their fishing opportunity or quota, but with marketing their catch and getting a better price for what they land.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Benyon]

I am sorry, but I shall not give way.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran asked about marine conservation zones, and that represented the one note of discord in the debate, but I think that I can address it precisely. The hon. Member for East Lothian, who leads for the Opposition, asked me to take forward proposals on which there is no scientific basis or not enough of one to sustain them, but that position was not taken during the lengthy hours of debate, in Committee and on the Floor of the House, about provisions that became the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Neither the Wildlife Trust nor anyone else took that position. What we will do—[Interruption]—and the hon. Lady would do well to listen to this—is obtain the evidence so that we can take forward an ecologically coherent network of marine conservation zones. I assure her that it will be something of which she can be proud—and so can we.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke with concern about the displacement effect of scallops, and he is absolutely right: our management of one area of the seas will impact on another. I assure him that I take that issue very seriously.

We secured a review of the cod recovery plan a year ago, and I—naively perhaps—thought that it might have manifested itself by now, but unfortunately there will be dramatic cuts in days at sea unless we can improve it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for his praise. There is a terrifying hidden threat when Members are nice to Ministers, because they are saying, “If you fail, boy do you fail” but I take his comments at face value and absolutely assure him that recreational sea angling is key to what we want to do—not just because of the enjoyment that it provides, but because of its social and environmental benefits and what it does for coastal communities.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) mentioned the 25% and 15% cut, but I hope he is reassured that we are going to fight it. On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park made, I intend to get more management control out to 200 miles. With the marine conservation zones, it is vital that we get buy-in from the European Union, otherwise we might have the perverse case of conservation zones that are just for fishermen from the United Kingdom, not for those on vessels that fish from other parts of the EU.

Member states must be able to work regionally to develop management plans and to implement measures that are appropriate to their fisheries, but currently the proposals lack crucial detail on how regionalisation will work. I understand that there are legal constraints to devolving power, particularly to the regional level, but proposals must enable nations fishing in the same areas—often for the same fish, as Members have said—to come together and agree on how to manage their fisheries.

This debate is, of course, also important for allowing us to set out clearly that our partnership with fishermen, both in terms of science and how government works, is vital. This is a critical time for fisheries management and I am sure that the House shares my commitment and enthusiasm to take this once in a decade opportunity to overcome the structural failings of the CFP. It is a long and challenging road ahead, but the UK has a major role to play in influencing the new policy and, with negotiations under way, progress is being made.

However, there is a lot more we can and must do to deliver the reformed CFP that we want. We need continued engagement with the European Commission, other members states and the European Parliament to exert maximum influence throughout the negotiations. We also need to continue working closely with NGOs, fisherman, retailers, processors and others with an interest in fisheries and the marine environment to secure a policy that will deliver a real change for the future of fisheries and the marine environment. I hope that hon. Members will continue to support the Government’s view that fundamental reform of the CFP is required. I fully support the motion.

Waste Review

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is unacceptable to have rotting food waste hanging around for up to two weeks in bins, and will she tell councils that she hopes that they will have at least weekly collections so that we do not have the danger and risk of that situation?

[Mrs Spelman]

I said in response to an earlier question from the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) that we believe that it is important to support local authorities that want to provide a weekly collection of the smelly part of the waste, and DEFRA will make available £10 million to assist them in that.

Fisheries

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) not just on bringing the debate before the House but on his wider ongoing efforts to bring attention to the need for sustainability in international fisheries. I know that he has played a key role in the Fish Fight campaign, bringing the scandal of fish discards to public attention, and I commend him for his efforts.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s recognition that under the current rules, fishermen have no choice but to dump fish, and that the underlying problem is the systemic failure of the common fisheries policy. I have the privilege of representing some of the UK’s most fishing-dependent communities, including Peterhead, Europe’s largest white fish port, and Fraserburgh, Europe’s leading shellfish port. Thousands of my constituents work in fishing-related jobs, whether onshore or offshore, in the processing sector and in other related industries.

Fishing is at the heart of the identity of the communities around the Banffshire and Buchan coast, and for years people in those communities have expressed their anger, frustration and exasperation with the CFP and the disgrace of fish discards. Many of them have said to me how glad they are to see the issue finally getting the widespread public attention that it so deserves.

Having tabled my amendments, I wish to make it clear that I am in full sympathy with the spirit behind the motion and that the amendments are intended to strengthen its wording and reflect the fact that discards are a symptom rather than a source of the problems, which rest squarely with the CFP. To end discards, we need to end the practices that encourage discards, and there is no real shortcut to that. In no way do I want to dilute the strong signal that the motion and the debate will send, but I hope that we will foster a more nuanced understanding of why discards occur and the range of measures that are needed to end them. We have had positive signals from the European Commission that it recognises the problem, but we need a lot more than rhetoric. We need practical solutions.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am one of those in the House who have campaigned long, and so far unsuccessfully, to ban the atrocious practice of the discard of dead fish, with all the waste involved. From the hon. Lady’s experience of her important fishing community, can she tell us how much better it would be for her local fishermen if the practice were banned?

[Dr Whiteford]

It is very important that the UK Government avoid having the Commission make a knee-jerk response to the problem that could cause damage to certain stocks and jeopardise the livelihoods of fishermen who have already made huge sacrifices to put the industry on a sustainable footing. We only have to go to the ports of the north-east to see that the white fish fleet has basically halved in the past 10 years, and that is a huge sacrifice that the industry has made in order to be sustainable. We need to avoid the same top-down solutions that we have had from the EU hitherto, and we need solutions that come from the industry itself and from the communities that are most directly associated with it.

Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend raised this important issue at the end of the last Parliament. We hope to work with the Government on that, as I am sure it is a cross-party concern. No doubt he will campaign on this issue as eloquently as he does on many others.

We will scrutinise the Secretary of State’s plans for an emissions performance standard. There is concern about whether that will lead to uncertainty in investment in coal and gas, but, again, we will judge the Government on the measures they introduce. There is some urgency on this issue, so I hope that plans will be produced speedily.

On clean coal, I think the Government are broadly in agreement with our plans, but what about renewables, which are the second part of the trinity of low carbon that we need? The Conservatives said in their manifesto that they agreed with our target of 15% renewable energy by 2020. The Liberal Democrats said they wanted a figure of about 40% by 2020, which I think is completely unrealistic. How have they resolved that difference? The new Government do not seem to have a target. They have 15% as a baseline, but say that they want the figure to be higher, and they have referred the issue to the Committee on Climate Change. There is a deeper problem here, because the Government say they want a larger target, but they are not willing to support the measures needed even to deliver existing targets. The Secretary of State made much of our record on renewables. We are the world leader in offshore wind generation, but it is true that we lag behind on onshore wind. However there is one very good reason for that, and he knows it as well as I do—most wind farm applications are blocked by Conservative councils. One might put it this way:

“At local level, Conservative councils are simply not heeding Cameron’s green call.”

Those are not my words, but those of the Secretary of State, writing about Conservative opposition to wind farms, so he knows that is the root of the problem.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why his Government failed to take the decisions or create the climate to have new investment in electricity generation, and why they left this country with insufficient capacity and the danger of the lights going out?

[Edward Miliband]

I do not agree with that. The question for Britain is whether to meet our security of supply needs in a high-carbon way, by building gas-fired power stations, or in a low-carbon way, by building renewables and nuclear. That is why what I am saying is so important.