Recycled Plastics

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in response to the question from my noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister said something about Scotland being different and that being a problem. Could he explain to noble Lords who are ignorant about these things what the problem is and what the solution might be?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not want to rake over the Scottish National Party’s grief, but it sought to have a different scheme from the rest of the United Kingdom—for whatever reason we can only conjecture. It is important to have one system across the whole United Kingdom. Many businesses and individuals were fiercely opposed to what was proposed to be introduced in Scotland, and we are glad that the Scottish Government pulled it. We can now move forward with one scheme that is effective across the United Kingdom and can really deliver. Those of us who can remember how deposit schemes worked in the past can see how it can work in the future. What was created in Scotland through certain applications of that scheme would have proved disastrous. We want to make sure that this happens properly across these islands.

Storms: Weather Resilience

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right: these floods will undoubtedly affect our food security. Lincolnshire and the Fens is a very important area. Internal drainage boards and managing water levels are an important part of this. I cannot say that the level of rain we experienced was unprecedented, and it certainly was not unexpected. We are going to have more of these events, and we have to be better at managing them.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Somerset Levels have flooded every winter for the last 20 or 30 years, which often stops the railway and roads. I am told it is because the Environment Agency has prevented proper dredging of the rivers, which would allow the rainwater to run away into the sea. Is this not clearly easy to do, and a quick fix that would stop this happening every year?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

People are very often free with advice. I went down to Somerset when there were floods there and somebody said to me, “All you have to do is dredge this river, cut this dyke through, and the water will flow.” I pointed out to him that that might clear the water from his farm, but it would go into people’s houses in Bridgwater. He said to me, “You are confusing me with someone who is concerned about the people who live in Bridgwater.” These things are never simple, and the noble Lord may be right.

Oil Spill: Poole Harbour

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Noble work is being done, and I thank my noble friend for pointing that out. There is a very clear line of process for compensation, which is that the polluter should pay. We will assist anyone who feels they have a legitimate case to make in following that process through. However, at this stage it is unclear whether there are significant losses. As I say, we are working with organisations such as the Food Standards Agency to make sure that the food is safe and that people can continue to produce high-quality shellfish from that area.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this oil spill is serious, and it is good that the Government are doing all they can to mitigate the effect. However, this oil field has been there for a very long time, and I recall a lot of opposition to any development such as this in such a sensitive site. Is there an argument now for looking at new developments on similarly sensitive sites and saying, “No, we’re not going to do it there under any circumstance”?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We apply very strict environmental conditions to any new applications. I think this site is the largest onshore oil-producing business in Europe and it has been there for quite a long time. We want to make sure that all the supporting infrastructure is in the best possible condition and that this kind of spill does not happen again. For future licensing of this or any other site, huge measures will need to be taken to reassure local people that all measures are in place to protect them and the environment.

Environmental Targets

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Dasgupta review was extraordinary in so many ways: first, because it was the first piece of work on the economics of biodiversity commissioned by a finance department in any country. The Treasury having commissioned it makes it a very powerful tool. It shows that we are talking about not just species that the noble Lord and I have grown up appreciating but the economic future of this country. It is fundamental to what we are talking about; that is why we want evidence-based targets. On the other matter, I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave to the noble Viscount opposite.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government seem worried that too many people have responded to this consultation. This deadline was put in at the insistence of Parliament so that Ministers would be held to account. There is another deadline today in the Department for Transport—nothing to do with the Minister—so that is two deadlines missed. All that Ministers can say is, “We’ll ask them to extend the deadline.” That is not good enough. Surely, we have to get a grip on these things; if a Government commit to a deadline, they should keep to it.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I entirely accept that point. I would be treating your Lordships with disrespect if I did not mention the elephant in the room: a bit of mid-air turbulence in recent weeks, which may have somewhat contributed to some of the wheels of government not being correctly oiled. However, I assure the noble Lord that we are determined to deliver proper, meaningful targets as soon as we can.

Sewage Pollution

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Government did not make anything legal. The Environment Agency permits releases of storm overflows. Where they are not permitted, they are illegal. The Environment Agency has had its budget increased and has increased its number of enforcement officers. At the moment, it is carrying out 2,200 investigations into illegal waste being dumped in rivers and is making prosecutions, such as the one that saw Southern Water fined £90 million—a fine that presaged the change of hands of that company, welcome as that was.

On the measures in the Environment Act, one amendment wanted to end the release of any wastewater into rivers. That would have cost up to £600 billion and more than doubled bills, many of them for people on fixed incomes. It is important that we balance a resolute and ambitious plan with affordability for those who have to pay.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in the past week or two, South West Water has named 10 Cornish beaches as being unfit to swim off. I live there. It forgot my little beach in the village of Polruan, which is where I judge the sandcastle competitions every year. One day about a month ago, a great big flood of sewage came down on to the beach for several hours. It has just stayed there. People have videoed and reported it, but nothing has happened. Here we are, paying the chairman of South West Water more than £1 million to do absolutely nothing. It is time that some action was taken to clean up these beaches now.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that that is disgraceful. If it was an illegal sewage dump, which I am sure it was, that matter should have been investigated and should be prosecuted. The Environment Agency now has the resources. Its ambitions have been set not just by Ministers but by legislation that requires this practice to finish. Of course, with our current infrastructure, there are occasions when, if there is not a release of sewage in a storm, that water will back up into people’s homes. We cannot have that in a modern economy such as ours. We must make sure that we build the infrastructure. Some £170 billion has been spent since privatisation on water infrastructure. We are spending enormous sums of money in this price review period, which will rise to £56 billion in the years ahead. The sort of things that the noble Lord describes are absolutely terrible in waters that we want to be enjoyed by people and tourists. Our coastal economies need to be blue-flagged to make sure that these are things of the past.

Water Companies: Environmental Pollution

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Can the Minister answer my noble friend’s Question? When will the directors and chairmen of these companies be sent to jail for what they have done rather than the company paying the fines?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I refer the noble Lord to my earlier Answer: the independent Sentencing Council has agreed to review guidelines to ensure that the sanctions we apply to water companies are appropriate.

Food Price Inflation

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Rewilding Britain is the campaigning organisation promoting rewilding and I think it has a target of 5% of the United Kingdom by the end of this century, which will not have an impact on food prices. It will, because of the change in the way we are supporting farmers, be bits of land that most farms can make available for ecological use rather than food production, without at all impacting on the food we eat. However, the right reverend Prelate raises a very important point about the way that some of the trillions of dollars of so-called ESG money is being spent in certain areas. The Government are taking this very seriously, because the S in ESG matters; the social dimension of how this money is spent, in what is called green finance, is really important. We need to protect our food security in the future and we are looking at this—not just ourselves in England but working with the devolved Governments to make sure that ESG money is being spent in a way that is honest, is not greenwash and does not curtail our ability to continue to feed ourselves.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Statement said nothing about Ukraine, although other noble Lords have mentioned it. Is the Minister not aware that the production of corn, fertiliser and oil from Ukraine is a very significant part of world production? Is that not going to affect not only prices and availability here, but maybe a greater movement towards famine in other parts of the world? I think many noble Lords agree that it is very unlikely that the material will be got out of Ukraine in the volumes necessary unless the ports get opened—which they probably will not.

Culling of Pigs

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

That is a very valid point. Part of our discussions and the announcement that I hope we will be able to make imminently reflects what is also done in the poultry industry, where those changes were made to encourage more workers to come over and operate in that sector. We hope that this will alleviate the labour problems in this sector.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider inviting the Prime Minister and other Ministers who perhaps do not understand the difference between the culling business and the slaughtering business to go and work for a week in a slaughterhouse, with a slaughterhouse worker’s pay, to try to understand the differences between them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is really important that we address the worker shortage right across the supply chain. The Agriculture Act allows us to intervene where we feel that retailers or any part in the supply chain are acting unfairly. This is another area we are looking at. It is important that we have the right people working in abattoirs, and indeed the processing industry, and that they are well rewarded for doing so. This is a vibrant marketplace for a type of meat that people want to eat and, as I say, it is suffering from a perfect storm of three or four different issues. We are trying to resolve this, including the very important point the noble Lord raised.

National Food Strategy Independent Review

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to say that the soft drinks industry levy—it is not a tax—has been a great success. The sales-weighted average sugar content per 100 millilitres in fizzy drinks reduced by 43.7% between 2015 and 2019. It is worth looking at how Henry Dimbleby has nuanced his recommendations by proposing a look at wholesale sugar and salt used by the industry to make food items that are becoming a serious problem to the health of this country.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, are the Government proud of our status as the second most obese nation in the world after the United States, with which, presumably, they have a special relationship? Surely a tax on salt and sugar will reduce obesity and the cost to the NHS and, maybe, even make people happy. Why are the Government not doing it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. The Government have set out a very clear obesity strategy, with particular emphasis on children. Henry Dimbleby’s report is stark in its warnings about the health trends that have been created in this country. They are mirrored in other countries as well, but we have a serious problem. What the ground-breaking obesity strategy sets out is important. It is not just about what we eat but about how we encourage people to eat, through using watersheds in advertising and a range of other means. We are considering this report and all its recommendations, and will publish a White Paper within six months, which may satisfy the noble Peer.