British Agriculture

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise but the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, was going to speak in the gap first.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

The noble Lord is on his feet. Let him stay there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I can bring no farming expertise to this debate but what I can do is to bring memory. I well remember that, before the war, the farming industry was allowed to decline. That was a great strategic mistake. It is necessary, for strategic reasons, that we are as near self-sufficiency in this country as we possibly can be. Before the Second World War and for a long time during it, we were not self-sufficient and we suffered for that.

I happen to have been evacuated from London to a farm in Mapledurham, so I have a certain amount of experience of farming. The farmer was a member of what were then called the war agricultural committees. They had enormous powers to take over farms, if necessary, and have them run by the Government or people who they appointed. I remember going around with the farmer to some of those derelict farms. It was an absolute disgrace that farms which could have produced food were producing nothing and that their buildings and systems were completely derelict. So I know that we must not let our farming industry decline. I also believe that, for strategic reasons, we must have control of its policies. That is what we have not got under the European Union and the CAP.

Following the Second World War, the then Labour Government brought in a new agricultural Act, which treated farming probably better than it had ever been treated before. That lasted quite a long time but we can—and should—still be responsible for our own farming decisions. I understand of course that the farming industry and farmers themselves are concerned that, if we left the CAP, they would lose the subsidies without which they could not operate. However, we have to remember that we pay a net contribution to the European Union and that half of that goes to farmers. We could then use that in ways that save our own farming industry, rather than being beneficial to other farms throughout the EU.

It was correct of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, to have raised this matter. This has been an excellent debate and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Thames Tideway Tunnel

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who has been one of the parliamentary leaders against this particular tideway scheme, and indeed the sole leader of the campaign in the House of Lords. He needs to be thanked for his efforts, so I have come along, not as an expert in any way and not as a Londoner, but to give him moral support. I represented Swindon in the House of Commons and I live in Reading. Although I have no interest as a Londoner, I have some interest as the former representative of the people of Swindon and as a resident in Reading who will be expected to pay an extra £80 to £90 in perpetuity for a scheme which will only benefit Londoners. That might sound parochial, and of course it is, but nevertheless people living outside London have an interest and really need to have their position considered.

I know a little about the water industry because I was elected to Reading Borough Council and served there for 18 years. One of the first committees I served on was the water committee. In those days the water industry was largely owned by the local authorities and they made a reasonable success of it. I was later the chairman of the land and works committee of the Thames Valley water board. We produced a very efficient and cheap water service for the people of the Thames Valley area and south Oxfordshire. My boast was always that we provided water at sixpence a ton. It is of course a lot more now but prices have gone up. Therefore I have a little knowledge of the water industry.

Talking about London, we had a quarrel with the Metropolitan Water Board. London is an important place and we understand that, but what they wanted to do, and what they did do through a parliamentary Bill, was to extract water from the Thames Valley area—our water, as we put it. It came along and stole it and put it into the Thames for the benefit of the people of London. It was not to the benefit of rivers in the Thames Valley area because a lot of them dried up. We have to careful about the needs and demands of London. However, that is just a little bit of history.

As has been explained, there are many aspects to this proposal. It involves people who live outside London having to pay for a project from which they will receive no benefit. All the benefits will go to London. They will be forced to pay the same increase in bills as Londoners, who will be the sole beneficiaries. The population of London is set to increase to more than 9 million over the next few years, so Thames Water will be receiving extra profitable revenue from all those people, part of which I believe should be used to finance this scheme. Also, when the shareholders bought the company, they knew that there was a problem of disposal in London. They knew exactly what the commitment might be and that it would be very expensive, yet they still bought the shares. Having acquired those shares, they should take responsibility for the proposals which, by buying the shares, they actually agreed to. I have said this before and I will repeat it now: this project should be largely paid for by the suspension of dividends for the shareholders. After all, a precedent has been set for this. Lloyds Bank shareholders, for example, have not received a dividend for three or four years because of the intervention by the Government in the bank’s management. I believe that the shareholders should pay.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has outlined some of the much cheaper and more effective alternatives. I believe that they should be examined more thoroughly than has been the case so far. He has also referred to the Government’s intervention into this privatised industry. It may be proposed that there is to be a government subsidy, but that would be intolerable. This is a privatised industry, and the Government have no business paying a subsidy. I have to tell the Committee that I disagreed profoundly with the privatisation of water, and I blame both parties for it. When the Labour Party had the opportunity to renationalise it and give it back to the local authorities where it properly belongs, it did not do so. It would therefore be outrageous if, having sold the water industry off in order to get rid of any debt and responsibility, they should now expect the public to subsidise a project which the shareholders knew about when they bought the shareholdings. I am completely at one with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I hope sincerely that the Government will not subsidise this project. It is not their business to do so. They should ensure that the cheaper alternatives are put in place and that if they are not put in place, the shareholders of Thames Water should pay the whole bill.

Thames Tideway Tunnel

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, Ofwat has ensured that the regulatory ring-fence in Thames Water’s licence was tightened following its acquisition by Macquarie. The ring-fence licence conditions on Thames Water already include a condition requiring Thames Water to ensure that its dividend policy will not impair the company’s ability to finance its functions. As for alternatives to the tunnel, studies have looked at all kinds of alternatives over the past decade but none has shown a viable cheaper solution that would simultaneously address the current sewer overflow problems within a decade, deliver value for money and meet environmental objectives.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, this project has been known about for decades, I imagine, but over the past 10 years Thames Water has paid out £3.5 billion to shareholders. Should it not have known that that sort of money should have been saved to provide this essential ring system in London? Why should every customer of Thames Water pay for this project? Would it not be better if Thames Water did not pay any dividends for the next 10 years at the rate that they paid in 2012, and that covered the whole of the cost of the new project?

[Lord De Mauley]

What an interesting suggestion, my Lords. The standard model in the water sector is for customers to pay the financing costs of the company’s capital expenditure on underground assets together with a charge to reflect expenditure required to keep them in a serviceable state. I do not think that we would find investors if we were not able to finance it in this way.

Drought

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Will the Minister ensure that water companies do not close existing storage capacity for developing housing and other things? In particular, will he get in touch with Thames Water, which is closing storage capacity in Reading?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I do not know the details of the particular case to which the noble Lord refers, but it is certainly useful to be advised of that. Thames Water is not in as acute a situation as some of the other water companies. Indeed, it is helping out water companies in Essex by transferring water from its area to Essex. This co-operation between water companies is a very good strategy, and one which the Government are anxious to encourage.

Subsidiarity Assessment: Food Distribution (EUC Report)

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I have very often criticised the European Union Select Committee as being an expensive white elephant, but I am not going to do that today because it seems to me that it should have praise for the action that it has taken in this instance. Certainly, I shall support the Motion. I am also very pleased to hear so many people, including the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and members of the committee, standing up for the nation state. In particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, criticised centralism and is in favour of localism. That is altogether good, but I am not at all sure that that is achieved through the European Union.

It is interesting that the committee is using the subsidiarity clauses. Of course, we have to go back to 1992, when the clauses were introduced into the treaty on European Union. Indeed, the treaty was sold by Mr Major to his own Back-Benchers by introducing the clause. We were assured at that time that that would put a brake on the European Union gaining more and more powers. I think that eight members of the Conservative Party were sacrificed—or at least given the sack—because they refused to support the Government, and the Bill only just made it through the House of Commons.

There have been far too few challenges. There should have been many more challenges to attempts—successful attempts—by the European Union to accrue more power to itself. There has undoubtedly been an insidious grab for power by the institutions of the European Union to achieve their aim of ever closer union—do not forget that the achievement of “ever closer union” is still in the Lisbon treaty; I do not know how close it is going to get, but the aim is there—and the emasculation of nation states.

The latest paper from the House of Commons Library shows just how much of our legislation, particularly in regulations, is coming from Europe. It gives the figure of 53 per cent. Some people think that the percentage is greater than that. Now, virtually no area of policy is untouched by the European Union leviathan, and the power grab has been given new impetus by the implementation of the Lisbon treaty, which significantly enhances the power of the European Union and its institutions. So it is indeed encouraging that the Select Committee is increasing its watchfulness to ensure that the subsidiarity provisions are respected.

I have concerns about the seemingly lax attitude of the Cabinet and the departmental Ministers in their surveillance of the extension of EU powers. I can only wonder how much influence they have on decisions that are taken. We do not often hear about COREPER—the Committee of Permanent Representatives—which, as I understand it, meets in secret and whose decisions are simply rubber-stamped by Ministers. I have heard that from the mouths of former Cabinet Ministers. Perhaps the new Administration will take a tougher line, but the activities of that very powerful committee should be transparent, and I do not believe that they are at all transparent at the moment. It should publish minutes setting out the positions taken by its members and how they voted. In the interests of parliamentary democracy, the United Kingdom members of COREPER should be seen to be accountable and subject to parliamentary scrutiny at Westminster.

Having said that, once again, I congratulate the committee, and I shall take pleasure in supporting the Motion.