Water Companies: Water Pollution

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

In 2013, we only knew about 5% of the storm overflow points where sewage was going into our rivers. We now know about 90% because we instructed the water companies to provide that information. By the end of this year, we will know about 100%. The Environment Agency is the guardian of water quality and it takes forward prosecutions. The Government have said that they will increase the fines available as, at the moment, there is a cap on them, which we think should be higher. The Environment Agency is already able to launch criminal prosecutions against CEOs. Ofwat has the power to impose a fine of up to 10% of a company’s annual turnover and all fines are taken from the water company’s profits and not from customers.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, we consume twice as much water per capita as we did 50 years ago. There is an increasing frequency in sewage discharges as a result of extreme weather events, all of which require institutional investment. Do the Government not have the choice either to reduce profiteering in the sector in favour of this investment or to ask the taxpayer to subsidise this infrastructure?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are asking water companies to spend a lot more—£56 billion. In this period alone, they are putting an extra £7 billion into investment in infrastructure. Water companies make a profit of about 3%. This is not dramatic, compared with what some other companies make, but we watch it very carefully through the instructions we give to Ofwat. We want to make sure that customers are getting a good deal but, more importantly, that there is investment going into infrastructure.

Agricultural Transition Plan

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. His knowledge and interest in this subject are of course really helpful. We want to make sure that precisely those farmers are able to access these schemes. In fact, they are the people most often able to deliver the kind of benefits we want, in reversing the decline of biodiversity, hitting our net-zero targets and hitting our tree-planting targets. There is something in there for them, particularly in the upland areas. If they are farming areas that have either upland or lowland peat, there is a standard that would be of particular value to them. I also draw farmers’ attention to the hedgerows standard. Farmers are used to hedgerows, and they are restoring their number to deal with those that were taken out with government grants in the 1970s. They know that if they can manage those hedgerows in a different way, it can have enormous benefits, both in carbon and biodiversity. I really hope they will benefit from these new standards.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said that there were no other deaths, but independent marine experts claim that there have been deaths of bivalve shellfish, octopuses, barnacles and algae and there is growing evidence that seal populations were affected. If the assumptions in this new report are accurate, it suggests that we have a discrete, pathogenic, multi-species serial killer committing ecocide. That is significant because it is also in an area that is coterminous with the blast radius of the explosion of the Teesside furnace, which was demolished by explosion with the dust cloud scattered across the sea. I am sure the Minister must be worried about that level of death in the sea. Can he at least try to challenge the notion that there is a multi-species element to this, because I think the report focused just on crustaceans?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I absolutely accept the noble Lord’s point. I want to make sure that my language is correct, because there are a lot of conspiracy theories at the extremes; then there are the absolutely genuine points made by people such as the noble Lord, who want, quite rightly, to ensure that they are addressed.

Although a novel pathogen—a disease or parasite—has not been identified, the experts concluded that it could explain the key observations, including mortality, over a sustained period along a 70-kilometre coastline. The report makes clear the unusual twitching of dying crabs and the deaths being predominantly among crabs rather than other species, and it concluded that a novel pathogen is as likely as not to be the cause.

That leads us to ask, “What now?”, which is why we are talking to Cefas to make sure that we are monitoring this issue. We are also talking to the IFCA about the measures that it brought in and making sure that we are drawing on the evidence of citizen science and other scientific organisations—some of which have understandably been taking part in campaigns on this. We recognise that, as yet, we do not precisely know what the cause is, but we want to.

Pollution: Rivers and Beaches

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect rivers and beaches from pollution.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. The Government are committed to protecting our water bodies from pollution. In December we announced our ambitious suite of legally binding Environment Act targets, including four targets to address pressures on the water environment. To tackle agricultural pollution, in November we published a grant scheme to improve slurry storage on farms, alongside almost doubling the budget for our catchment-sensitive farming partnership. In August 2022, we also published our £56 billion plan to reduce sewage discharges.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but in the light of increasing public alarm, Thames Water now provides live information on pollution caused by combined sewage overflow spills. When will the Government mandate all water companies to provide their customers with this information?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

By the end of this year. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s interest in this subject. In 2013, I wrote to every water company in England and was amazed to find that only 5% of combined sewage outflows were registered anywhere. We did not know, and the reason we now know and are able to hold them to account is that we now have over 90% of those, and by the end of this year we will have 100%, so all the concerns people have can be measured in real time. We are also requiring water companies to put telemetry just below outflows so we can see precisely the impact of legal outflows and use it for enforcement for when there are illegal discharges into rivers.

Environmental Targets (Marine Protected Areas) Regulations 2022

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, which leads me on to my next point. I was not boasting, because I certainly do not know as much as some of the academics with whom I have worked over the years. However, since I wrote my report—it was published only 18 months ago—the understanding of blue carbon has moved on considerably. She will be pleased to know that a number of the marine protected areas that we have designated contain seagrass. In other areas such as maerl beds and kelp, there is enormous potential to lock up and sequester more blue carbon. She is right that our oceans have enormous potential to add to our abilities to achieve our net-zero ambitions. We need to weaponise the oceans to help us to achieve that.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

I am absolutely certain that this Minister knows more about the oceans than I do, and I am grateful for his patience in allowing a new Member to intervene in a way that I understand might not be conventional, but I have a single question about the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Its report highlights the additional targets that did not appear in the Explanatory Memorandum. One target is to reduce by 50% the length of waters polluted by

“arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc from abandoned metal mines”.

I have a personal interest in this with regard to the Cornish coast-line where, as the Minister knows, there is consideration of new lithium mines and, perhaps because of rising commodity prices, bringing abandoned tin mines back into mining. How could emissions from new mines be baselined? Will they be included in these targets? That is obviously quite a big consideration for the people of Cornwall.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Absolutely. I welcome the noble Lord to these proceedings and thank him for his interest in these matters. We debated these targets yesterday on waterways, under the same provision in the Environment Act. One of the four areas in which we are setting ourselves testing targets is on waste from metal mines. Some of the pollutants going into our rivers and thereby into our seas come from mines that ceased production before 1900. Nevertheless, there is a serious problem and there are now means by which you can detect the point source of pollutants. We have set ourselves a taxing target to try to tackle this.

The noble Lord is absolutely right about new mining. As commodity prices change around the world, there is a likelihood that certain areas that were considered redundant from mining in the UK might suddenly become viable. He mentioned tin in the south-west. If a new mine is to be opened, a strict area of regulation requires it to prove to the Environment Agency in the main sense, but other agencies as well, that it is not adding to the problem and is not impeding our ability to hit our target for mines and metals. I hope that reassures him, but there will be many other opportunities to raise these concerns as we go forward.

I will just tackle one or two other issues. This is part of a commitment that we have made, both nationally and internationally, to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. We seek to do that in a way that stands the test of international oversight, because these should not be paper parks. We have not rolled out management measures as fast as we should, because the EU had to allow us to do this in the past, when other countries in the EU might have had arrangements for their fishers to fish these waters. We are now in a position to move this forward, and the welcome news that we are preventing bottom trawling in areas such as Dogger Bank is just part of this.

I hope I avoid the need to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, but, if I fail to satisfy her, I am happy to do that. As she says, the management measures will be in place by 2024. These documents will be publicly available and they have to be clearly understood by all stakeholders.

We have great ambitions for marine energy as well as for other forms of marine activity including carbon capture and storage, which may yet be a few years away; but all this needs to be understood as we talk about the great spatial squeeze of our oceans. When you look at an ocean you think there are miles of it and plenty of room for everyone, but when you look at a map you see what is going on—which areas are favoured by fishermen, which areas will see the rollout of marine energy, which are covered in a cat’s cradle of cables that cross our ocean bed. We have to make sure that marine protection has its full place.

The most important thing I took away from doing my report was the marine environment’s ability to recover quickly. I talked rather depressingly about areas such as coral gardens—which explains our date of 2042—but other areas will recover very quickly. Highly protected marine areas around the world see an extraordinary abundance of biodiversity very quickly if protection is done in the right way. Of course, that needs the support of everyone concerned. In those areas that we saw around the world, their greatest supporters were the fishermen—because the biomass that spills out of them into neighbouring areas of the sea, which they can exploit, is immense if things are done correctly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, talked about how the statutory deadline of 31 October 2022 for laying these target SIs was missed. In March 2022, the Government launched their consultation on targets relating to the Environment Act, determined to leave our environment in a better state than we found it. It included around 800 pages published following three years of developing the scientific and economic evidence. The consultation closed on 27 June. We received over 180,000 responses, which all needed to be analysed and carefully considered. The volume of material and the significant public response indicated that we would not be able to publish targets by 31 October last year as required. The Secretary of State reassured the other place and all interested parties that we would continue to work at pace to lay draft statutory instruments as soon as practicable. We are now at that point.

The noble Baroness also asked about good environmental status. The Government are already required to work towards good environmental status through our UK marine strategy. This is UK-wide, whereas the targets under the Environment Act are England-only. A UK-wide target makes much more sense for good environmental status given the dynamic nature of the marine environment. Regulators already have legal responsibilities to protect MPAs. The target to achieve a favourable condition by 2042 is based on halting damaging activities by 2024.

The final suite of targets is stretching. To deliver them will require a shared endeavour across the whole of government and all of society. We consider the evidence carefully. In some cases, it is not technically or practically possible to go further. In others, higher targets would involve significant restrictions and costs on businesses and people’s lives, which we do not think would be right to impose at this time. However, the Environment Act requires future Governments to report regularly on progress. If, as time progresses and technology evolves, there is evidence to show that we should be more ambitious, we can increase those ambitions.

MPAs are one of the most important tools we have for protecting the wide range of precious and sensitive habitats and species in our waters. The instrument will ensure that we greatly increase the number of protected features in a favourable condition. The MPA target will focus the efforts of our regulators to manage pressures, and sets a path for the recovery of the diverse habitats and species that live in our MPAs. I hope that I have addressed the issues raised and that the Committee will approve this instrument.

Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for presenting the SI and the updated targets this afternoon; they are very helpful indeed. I am just trying to get my head around the government policy.

I accept that I am not completely up to date but, at the time when I left as the MP for Thirsk and Malton, we were selling quite a lot of waste to Holland and paying for it to be transported there. It was waste from North Yorkshire and the City of York, which, as my noble friend said, is the hardest waste to get rid of because it is often timber, window frames and all the itemised materials that he stated. It seemed a huge waste of resource. One reason we did that was because the landfill sites in North Yorkshire were already either full or about to become full.

The reason we exported the waste to Holland was because there was a ready market there for—what is the terminology? My noble friend referred to incineration, which is, of course, a red rag to a bull for many areas of Britain because they think of chimneys and smoke coming out of them. In fact, I am a big proponent of energy from waste. It seems to fall between two stools. My understanding of the Energy Security Bill going through Parliament at the moment is that the Government are looking favourably on energy heat networks; perhaps the old-fashioned term is “energy from waste”. Why are we not recognising energy from waste or energy heat networks as a form whereby we create two streams: we dispose of waste that is difficult to get rid of, as my noble friend said, and create an energy strand? Is that something the Government would look favourably on?

With those few remarks, I approve of this statutory instrument.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that I am conducting myself in a way that is considered normal, if I can describe it as that. It is back to mineral extraction for the Minister. He said that the mineral waste extraction target was removed from these targets on the grounds that it is largely inert. In essence, my concern is for export-led growth and security of supply. It seems to me that this country has an opportunity in areas such as electric automotive to be a world leader, which is why the market is looking at mineral extraction for lithium and at reopening mines.

I have read the response that the department is still trying to work out the best way to assess a baseline, but it seems to me that if we are going to extract minerals, we need some kind of public buy-in in that process. A proper baseline and some kind of reassurance on its measurement seems pretty urgent to me. In its response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Defra said that it was still considering the evidence and how best to present that information. Perhaps the Minister could suggest how he might approach that, given the concerns raised in the various submissions to that committee. Can he give some reassurance to those communities that are considering whether to support people who seek to extract minerals in their community?

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his introduction of this statutory instrument. I hope that I am not taking him out of context, but I would dispute one thing he said which was that we take a holistic view on waste. This statutory instrument shows that by excluding the vast majority of waste produced in England—that is waste from demolition, construction and excavation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred—the Government do not exactly have a holistic view of waste. Although we may quibble with the explanation given in the Explanatory Memorandum that the reason for that exclusion is in order

“to focus on reducing waste that is more environmentally harmful”,

I think all of us would agree that there is significant harm from much of that waste. There is much waste in the construction area, but I will come back to that.

This SI focuses on what I would call consumer waste. As the Minister was good enough to outline, it needs to focus on consumer waste because, as an OEP report last week showed, the targets for such waste have deteriorated since 2018. The Minister referred to the fact that we have stalled on recycling; we are actually sending more waste to incineration now than we were in 2018.

So we need a renewed focus; one hopes that these targets will provide that because they need to. The Minister referred to the welcome provisions in the Environment Act to encourage more uniform collection via municipal authorities around the country. That is an essential step if we are to make progress on consumer waste but, over the past couple of years, we have not seen anything near significant progress on extended producer responsibility. He mentioned the fact that the deposit return scheme announcement was made on Friday, but it will not happen until 2025 whereas it is coming into effect in Scotland this year. Equally, it excludes glass.

We need a sense of urgency, given the need to move on waste; it is an area where we would like to put a rocket under Defra to get it moving forward. We hear that there may be a refreshed resources and waste strategy document later this year. We do not need another strategy; we just need a bit more action in this space.

I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is in her place. When our committee looked at how to mobilise people to take the action needed for climate and environment, the responses we received from the various departments on how to improve people’s contribution to the waste targets were one of their weakest areas. We had the Secretary of State before us talking about the success of the plastic bag levy; that is great but it happened back in the coalition days. I hope that these targets will give the department a sense of pace and urgency to encourage it to get a move on. Otherwise, if it carries on with its mantra of going with the grain of consumer choice, we will not make the progress that we need.

Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised, construction and demolition waste are excluded. The consultation said that it

“is also a high priority and we are not overlooking this.”

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee picked this up, in response to which the department said that it was considering a separate target. I note that the Minister mentioned discussions with BEIS, which are to be commended. Might he be prepared to say a bit more about that today, including whether it will be part of the refreshed resources and waste strategy later this year? Or are we going to have to wait a bit longer? As I say, I do not think we have the time for that.

Environmental Targets (Woodland and Trees Outside Woodland) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, of the three instruments that we have discussed today, this is the one that gives me the most concern, for many of the reasons just outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. The context of this is that every environmental scientist and data scientist on every continent says that, if we are to reduce global warming and get below the 1.5 degree figure, we need to extract more CO₂ from the atmosphere. The only way we can realistically do that is by planting something in the region of a trillion trees. The UK has a tiny but significant role to play in that.

I have known the Minister long enough to know that, although the dignity of office means that he must respect the collective decisions of the Government, he will be personally hurting inside at this reduction in what was in itself a fairly limited target. Today, he has told us that the Government must set realistic targets. A realistic target with political leadership intent could be 17.5% canopy cover. It requires leadership and resource.

We are in very difficult times but, I have to say, what this represents is not just a cut in ambition but a withdrawal. In my view, this is a resource-led instrument, and one that we cannot afford. The planet cannot afford it. Future generations cannot afford it. I think I know the Civil Service well enough to realise that there is a potential get-out clause or caveat where, while explaining in its response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

“that a canopy cover target of 16.5% is the most ambitious that can currently be set whilst still being realistically achievable”—

I think it is achievable but it will require leadership and resource—Defra says this:

“The first review of environmental targets will be an opportunity to consider whether the level can be realistically increased”.


Can the Minister give some comfort to colleagues here by saying that, if one can be found, there could be a cross-party way for us to work dextrously and quickly to increase that target significantly to 17.5%, perhaps more, after we decide on this instrument today? Can we work together to see whether the parties can come to a solution on this?

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the targets that he has outlined today. Before I go on, I should apologise in advance; this is one of my first times standing up so I am sure I will make many errors. I declare my interests in developing new forestry plantations and managing forestry, as well as in carbon offsets, so I have a little experience in this area.

In some ways, I want to echo what has come before me but with a different emphasis. I want the Government to continue to work on these targets by addressing the practicalities of what it takes to plant a new forest. Look at our neighbours in Europe. France has 31% woodland cover. Germany has 33%. They are at a similar stage of economic development to us and have similar climates. The UK’s figure should be much higher, but there are many barriers to getting it higher that need to be addressed. I am not convinced about setting targets; I think that the work needs to be on removing the obstacles to developing new forestry—everything from the invasive grey squirrel, which attacks many of our native broadleafs in an early stage of their development, to the cumbersome and restrictive planning process that places undue weight on perhaps poor quality archaeology as an obstacle to planting new ground. We must also develop carrots for the industry and landowners by encouraging more green finance involvement in developing new forests.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I think that we need to work on the basis of some of the recommendations from the Rock review on how landlords and tenants can engage constructively on freeing up more land for planting forestry.

I want to speak up in favour of conifers. One of the tests for developing new forestry plantation is the economic or agricultural impact assessment, which looks at the employment opportunities. If we take land that currently supports low-intensity agricultural practices and put it into forestry, we need to be sure that we are not costing jobs or the economy. Conifers play a critical role in construction in this country. We currently import most of our construction timber, and it is essential that we plant plenty of conifers.

In summary, I would like the Government to continue working on how we can plant more acres and hectares than the current targets incorporate.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government are not currently tracking their tree planting manifesto commitment. There have been challenges in the past few years, not least the pandemic, which saw an entire planting season missed, but we are making good progress. Since October 2019, we have planted an estimated 11.5 million trees. I said “we”; I made that classic mistake that politicians and people in government make. We have seen 11.5 million trees planted, to the credit of those who planted them, not just to the Government who incentivised them. I have addressed the point about conifers as a percentage.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

I feel grateful to the Minister for giving me one last roll of the dice. Could I make my offer to him again? I am absolutely convinced that he is across this, but I am prepared to do everything I can in my party to join his nascent squirrel execution pledge. If we could work together afterwards, we are likely to agree this or would at least restate or work towards the case for 17.5% politically, in what I think could be an agreement across the main parties’ manifestos for the next period. There may be at least an opportunity to review those targets prior to the 2028 review, as currently addressed in this set of arrangements.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that helpful and honest appraisal about where we want to get to. I want the highest possible ambition. We are setting targets that we think we can achieve within the current framework. Farming is going through a massive transition. I have spoken about the need for a land-use framework for the future and, as the next few crucial years go by, the kinds of incentives and encouragement will become more apparent, as will our success or otherwise. The private sector green finance that my noble friend Lord Roborough was talking about is already seeing tree planting, to the criticism of some people. This could be hugely effective in exceeding our target. I am certainly happy to work cross-party to achieve that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked me a number of questions, not least about nursery capacity, importantly. We have launched the nature for climate fund, which is spending £750 million on trees and peat-land restoration over this Parliament. It has seen progress on not just tree planting but building long-term capacity within the sector. We will commit around £28 million of this fund to projects to support the domestic seed and sapling supply sectors.

Other questions were put by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who correctly set this within the context of the Government’s net-zero ambitions. They are not just ambitions but comply with the Climate Change Act. The Climate Change Committee is very clear about where we are and how we can get on track with the sixth carbon budget. I can tell her that, as part of the Government’s response, we are looking across the range of Defra’s responsibilities and to recent court cases. We want to make sure that we are not only saying the right thing and that something is deliverable but backing this by real fact.

This makes for difficult choices, because we want our relatively small country to continue to be able to feed itself and for it to be secure that that production is sustainable. We can achieve this. I have seen that from the scale of the farm to now talking about it for the nation. It takes courage to make those decisions and to argue them with sectors that may be very suspicious about what they mean for them and their businesses, so we must do it in the right way.

I take the key point about skills. We are training people to manage a different kind of environment. That might be about producing more energy crops or managing more wilder spaces. In terms of nature and its recovery, it is certainly about having more people working in forestry. That is why I am pleased that the Forestry Commission training scheme is now up and running, and that more foresters are being taken on and trained. Actually, it is not just for the Forestry Commission to do this; it is for local authorities and the private sector, as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked me some questions about the targets, which I hope I have answered. So far, the Government have trebled planting rates to 7,000 hectares a year. This is the first step to hitting the target. I have talked about nursery capacity. Our £270 million farming innovation programme is seeing money going into a variety of different things, including skills and improving the market for timber products. This is very different from growing a crop of wheat, where you can have a discussion with your bank manager because you know you are producing something that may vary by 15% up or down every year, depending on the weather. You need to take a much longer-term view with trees, but there is business to be had in forestry and we want to make sure it is successful. We can really enhance our forestry targets if people realise that there is a future in it.

These targets, as part of the suite of Environment Act targets, will drive action to deliver our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.

Horsemeat

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State mention trust in his speech, because it lies at the heart of this public policy issue. We need to ensure that the regulatory and legislative framework provides trust to consumers eating food off the plate. They need to know that what they buy in the supermarket is what it says on the label.

The incident involving Findus UK is instructive. I am speaking today because, when I asked the Secretary of State a question yesterday, his answer led me to believe that he was not in possession of the facts. On this occasion, I have a reasonable suspicion that it was not his fault. I think at best it was because very clever crisis public relations people had obfuscated the facts, but it might also be possible that people have been deliberately withholding the facts from the Secretary of State and his Department. In order to make my case, I need to go through the timeline of events.

I want one thing to come out of my contribution: for the Secretary of State and his team to redouble their efforts when they scrutinise what happened at Findus. In the past 24 hours, since yesterday’s Question Time, I have assembled a timeline of what I think happened. On Tuesday 29 January, Findus Group received initial test results from the Eurofins lab in Germany suggesting that horsemeat DNA had entered its beef lasagne products. By Wednesday 30 January, Findus UK had decided to quarantine the beef lasagne in its wholesale warehouses. At some point over the next few days, it would have had confirmation of the initial lab results. Experts in the industry tell me that would usually happen within 48 hours, so I am working on the assumption that it had confirmation of the test results by Thursday 31 January.

On Saturday 2 February, Comigel wrote to Findus UK asking it to withdraw its beef lasagne products, explaining that it could not guarantee the integrity of the supply chain of its products from as early as the previous August. It wanted its beef products withdrawn. On Monday 4 February, Findus communicated this information to major UK retailers, and I understand that the big retailers started to withdraw those products late on Monday evening. The rest of us understood that on Wednesday 6 February, because The Sun revealed it in a news report. Late afternoon on Thursday 7 February, the company confirmed that its beef lasagne products contained horsemeat. On Friday morning, my researcher in West Bromwich bought a Findus frozen lasagne in a shop in my constituency—so they were still available to my constituents—and yesterday the Secretary of State announced that on Saturday 9 February he had a conversation with Leendert den Hollander, the boss of the sister company to Findus UK, Young’s.

From that timeline arise several searching questions that we need to put to Findus, and I would like to share them with the remaining Ministers on the Front Bench. I know that they cannot answer them straight away, but I would like to get them on the record. First, given that the company had a reasonable suspicion that its supply chain was contaminated—or whatever word we want to use—on Tuesday 29 January, why did it not issue an immediate withdrawal of products, a product recall and a refund strategy for its customers? These were frozen goods that people stored in their freezers to eat at some point in the future, so the refund strategy would have been important.

The test results were obviously important enough to the company for it to decide to quarantine products as early as Wednesday, but not for it to remove products from the retail section. On what day did the lab results confirm beyond doubt that there was horsemeat in Findus food? That would have been the day when any company adhering to basic forms of corporate social responsibility would have pressed the red button. The company said that it was informed, in writing on Saturday 2 February by Comigel that its supply chain was contaminated. When was it told by telephone and/or e-mail? Finally, given that the company was told on Saturday 2 February that its second and third-tier suppliers could not guarantee the ingredients in the product, why did it not urgently and immediately issue a product recall on the Saturday, but instead leave it until the Monday evening?

Why do I think this is important? I honestly say to both Front-Bench teams that our respective views of the markets do not matter here—obviously, Ministers and I will differ about the markets—because even the driest economist and greatest adherent of laissez faire in the market would still consider this a market failure that needed addressing. On my side of the political and economic debate, this is probably the most perfect example of predatory capitalism I have ever seen. Findus UK was a company in crisis. Private equity investors took possession of the company a few years ago, started putting pressure on the supply chain and refinanced the company. I think that that pressure led to corporate failure and its failure to do the right thing.

This is how capitalism eats its young. It gobbles up our money and our health, it scoffs down our dignity and our children’s safety. We eat whatever it puts in the box, and it calls it whatever it likes. I say “we”, but that does not include one man, and his name is Mr Dale Morrison, who right now is sitting on the 43rd floor of his Manhattan offices on Wall street, failing to get a grip of the biggest food fraud this country has probably ever seen. That is a failure of capitalism, whatever side of the House we sit on.

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Consumers must have faith in the products provided by the retailers. It is the retailers’ responsibility to present consumers with goods that are wholesome, of quality and conform to the label. It is important that the retailers get out there and sell their systems and products in a way that keeps the faith of the consumer.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State would agree that Findus still has serious questions to answer. In particular, exactly when did the company have a reasonable suspicion that the supply chain was contaminated and who took the decision not to enact an immediate product recall? Ultimate responsibility lies with the man at the top—in this case, Manhattan-based private equity investor Dale Morrison. Does he agree that it is shameful that he has not flown to the UK immediately to tackle this problem or issued a word of contrition?

[Mr Paterson]

I talked to the UK chief executive of Findus on Saturday afternoon, but I think we have to be cautious about what we say, because I understand that Findus might launch legal proceedings against Comigel and possibly Spanghero. The important point, however, is that I made it clear at our meeting on Saturday that from now on, the minute that any food business has evidence that there might be something untoward in a product or that something might not conform, it must tell the FSA immediately, and that as soon as that evidence is corroborated by a scientifically valid laboratory test, the product should be withdrawn very publicly. I made it clear to the retailers that I would strongly support any withdrawal on those grounds.

Point of Order

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In answering my question earlier, I fear that the Secretary of State might have given incorrect information. I am sure that I heard him say that he spoke to the chief executive of Findus UK on Saturday, but my understanding is that there is not currently a chief exec of the company. He left last December, hence my point about the executive chairman in New York. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State found out who was masquerading as the chief executive, if that is possible.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I can confirm that I spoke to Mr Leendert den Hollander. Perhaps I have inadvertently misled the House and given him the wrong title, but that was his name.

[Mr Watson]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I believe that that person works for a completely different company—namely, Young’s Seafood.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am sure that this is something that can be sorted out in the course of time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s passion for this issue, some of which I share. The advice I have received is that the decision that the previous Government unsurprisingly made to develop the most bureaucratic and regulatory option is irreversible, but I am more than happy to look at it again.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Notwithstanding the Minister of State’s previous defiant answer, could the Secretary of State find it in her heart to praise The Independent for its campaign to ban wild animals from circuses? Perhaps she will join the 10,000 people who have already signed the petition that the newspaper is running by signing it herself.

[Mrs Spelman]

Every Member of the House can find it in their heart to do that—of course they can. We have all read newspaper reports about the terrible suffering of Anne the elephant, and I am very glad that she is being spared and has a new, far more enjoyable home. However, the report in The Independent clearly states that the Austrian Government have been taken to court by a German circus company because of a breach of the EU services directive. It would be irresponsible of any Government—I hope he is not saying that he would do this if he were part of a Government—to recommend something that is in legal dispute.