Sale of Puppies and Kittens

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak at the end of this debate, because it has been a good debate and all parties have come together. I have the great pleasure of chairing the all-party group on animal welfare, and I believe this is an issue that we all care strongly about.

There are more than 11 million cats in this country, and Blue Cross and Cats Protection take in between 4,000 and 5,000 stray cats and kittens a month. That shows the scale of the problem with not only puppies but kittens. If kittens are taken too early from their mother, not only is that bad for their welfare, but most will probably depart this world for health reasons. We must be clear about that.

It is more important than ever to ensure that we can enforce whatever legislation is in place—I am sure that is what the Minister will speak about this afternoon. It is no good having legislation that we cannot enforce. This is not just an animal welfare problem. When someone chooses a puppy, they are bringing an animal into their household. They may have young children, and that puppy is potentially dangerous and could grow into a dangerous dog. If people do not see the mother of that puppy and the environment in which it has been raised, they will not know what could happen in their family with that puppy.

With the internet, it is becoming much easier to access a puppy, and if someone goes to buy one and their child picks it up and loves it, it is difficult for them to say they are not going to buy it. Not only will the puppy be difficult from a welfare and behavioural point of view, it may be suffering from many diseases. It probably will not have had proper inoculations or been dealt with properly, whether it has come from a badly managed puppy farm or from eastern European countries where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) mentioned, rabies and other diseases are a problem. We must act on all those issues to protect people from buying the wrong type of puppy or kitten.

I am not against designer dogs such as Cockapoos or Labradoodles, but they are expensive. People decide they want this type of dog, they look on the internet and they see a puppy that is half or a third of the normal price of a Cockapoo or Labradoodle. Naturally, people buy the cheaper puppy, which has probably come in from central or eastern Europe. Therein lies the problem.

I welcome the Government’s introduction of microchipping, but we have to make sure that it happens. Will those who breed puppies in their backyards and should not be breeding puppies be the sort of people who will microchip them? No, they will not.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making such a superb speech that I think we need to hear an extra minute, so may I ask him if he is aware of the work of wonderful charities such as Woofability in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)? Such charities train dogs beautifully to do tremendous work for disabled people, such as pulling their socks off, taking the washing out of the washing machine and all sorts of tasks that able-bodied people think nothing of doing, but which are of huge assistance to someone confined to a wheelchair?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend highlights not only that dogs can help people with certain tasks that they are unable to do themselves, but that a dog is a part of the family and an individual’s life. For many elderly people, their dog becomes their life, so if they lose a dog and then buy the wrong type of puppy—it might be diseased or have huge behavioural problems—that becomes a serious social issue as well. It is imperative, therefore, that we deal with the situation.

The Minister has many weapons in his armoury already, but there is not enough enforcement. Are we tracking vans coming through the ports of Dover and elsewhere with illegal puppies? Are we checking them? Do we know what is coming in? Are we checking the microchips already in dogs? According to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and Blue Cross, only a third of the microchips they see in puppies and dogs are accurate. Not only do puppies need to be properly microchipped, but we need a national database to trace where dogs have come from.

If we ignore this situation, I fear it will get worse. People have got so used to buying clothes, shoes or whatever on the internet that unfortunately they think they can do the same with puppies. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have strongly made the argument that, for goodness sake, when someone buys a puppy, they should make sure they know where it has come from, have seen its mother, have seen where it has been bred and know how the mother behaved, so that they know what they are bringing into their home and can have a successful and loving pet. That is what people in this country believe in. The vast majority of people do a good job, but we have to stamp down hard on the rogues in our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

4. What progress has been made on introducing individual electoral registration in the last six months.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The transition to individual electoral registration in England and Wales started on 10 June, and it will begin in Scotland on 19 September. Online electoral registration is now available in England and Wales, and electoral registration officers have begun writing to electors to tell them whether they need to provide any more information to register under the new system. To support the work of EROs and to help to raise awareness of the transition, the Electoral Commission launched a mass media advertising campaign in early July, which will run until 10 August.

[Neil Parish]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s answer. Is not the key to registration to be able to do it as close as possible to elections, but to make sure that it is absolutely secure, so that we know that people who want to vote are genuine voters?

Common Agricultural Policy

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), who made a good case for Welsh farmers. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice). He referred to the Rural Payments Agency and how much it has improved, much of which was down to his stewardship when he was a Minister. He worked very hard, and payments are getting out on time. We inherited quite a mess, which leads me on neatly to my first point.

When the single farm payment was introduced in 2003-04, there was no doubt that the Beckett formula was complicated. It took years to sort that out, and we paid more than half a billion pounds in fines to the EU for the mistakes that were made. We do not want to repeat those mistakes, and I appeal to the Minister to ensure that we do not do so. I have been sold on the idea that the maps are best done digitally, especially because of the hedgerows and everything else, but if farmers do not have access to broadband, they either have to have somewhere to go—not just a library but somewhere where they can access broadband securely and privately—or they have to be able to use agents. Farmers do not expect to be given a fortune, but they need money to do that. We are working hard to deliver rural broadband, and I am certain that we will get there, but we are not there now. If we make a mess of introducing the reform in the first year, it will carry on year in and year out. That is precisely what happened with the previous system, and it took years to sort it out. In fact, there are some cases that have never been sorted out.

I hope that people who were not able to register under the old system for various reasons—some people pursued their registration for years—are able finally to register their land under the new system. I also pay tribute to the idea that young farmers should be helped, because the population of this country and the world is growing and we need to produce more food.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I share my hon. Friend’s views on the importance of supporting young farmers. On the question of broadband, does he share my view that there is scope for supporting wireless broadband to reach rural areas that are hard to reach by wired means, as it were?

[Neil Parish]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Wireless broadband will reach parts of my constituency in the Blackdown hills that fibre optics will not, but wireless broadband will not necessarily get there in time to ensure that applications for the single farm payment can be made online. That is why we must take care to get the payment right in the first year.

Ensuring that it is the working farmer who receives the payment is a good idea, and I am interested in what the Minister has to say about that, but we do not want to create the biggest bureaucratic nightmare to prove whether someone is or is not the farmer. If we are not careful, we will make the system increasingly complicated.

I spent rather a long time—some might say too long—dealing with the CAP in another place, and I think that one of the overall problems is that across 28 countries, from Finland to Greece, from Poland to Germany and right through to Great Britain and Ireland, there are so many crops that can be grown, so many soil types, so many temperatures and so many amounts of rainfall, with some areas getting very little and others being flooded, that if we try to come forward with a common policy, we will end up with the biggest mess known to man and woman. There is no doubt about it. We cannot have a common policy unless there is much greater flexibility.

Are we to have a policy that demands three rotational crops, because Germany grows solidly maize, maize and maize? This country has very diverse farming and lands, with uplands and grasslands, but many countries have hardly any grassland. Somebody driving from Calais to Berlin will see hardly a single hedge the whole way there, because they have all been ripped up over the years as a result of a different policy on the way they farm. We have great hedges, and it is good that they have become ecological focus areas. In my view, the hedges are probably the most important part of a field, because they are home to wildlife and birds. That, above all, is what we need to concentrate on.

[Mr Spencer]

I wonder whether one of the unexpected outcomes of trying to apply that policy across the whole of Europe is that we will end up supporting the least efficient farmers and those that are economically challenged, perhaps because they farm in arid areas or small alpine villages, whereas we should actually be supporting the most efficient farmers, many of whom are in France or the UK.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right to a degree, but is it right that the most productive land across the whole of Europe, including in East Anglia, should get the highest payments, given that farmers there can make the most from that land? We must have some balance in the process. We have talked about the uplands tonight, and there is no doubt that upland livestock farmers struggle. In my view, it could be argued—my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire will probably jump out of his seat—that some of those farmers in East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and elsewhere across the country who can grow very good arable crops, perhaps 10 tonnes of wheat per hectare, could see just a little bit of those payments move uphill. That is what we are trying to do, but I think that we probably need to do a little more. There is an argument there, but I think that we need to ensure that we support farming in those marginal areas, which is more difficult.

We must also ensure that in the end we deliver a policy that encourages food production. It is great to support the environment, but we must remember that in the uplands and on a lot of the permanent pasture on the hills it is the cattle and sheep that will keep farming as it is. It was not put there by God; it was put there by farmers. We must remember that it is the farmers who look after the countryside. We must remember that in order to support them, we must ensure that they have an income. We have to spread that as far and wide as we can.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

On this, my 65th birthday—

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart]

Certainly. Will my hon. Friend enlighten me as to whether we have any control over how we allocate the CAP in England, or is that decided in Brussels?

[Neil Parish]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on reaching that great age. There are—dare I say it?—others in the House who have reached an even greater age. He asks a difficult question. We are limited by how much of it we can decide ourselves, as a lot is decided by the European Commission and, finally, the Council. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire said, it is very difficult to change things at that stage. We can tweak some of the environmental schemes a bit—there are the odd things we can do—but in the end we have to go along with much of what is in the policy.

Overall, the CAP overall should be moving towards a simpler system, but we are not getting that. We should be weaning farmers off more and more public support, but I want that to happen across the whole of Europe. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire said, there are many different types and levels of payment. Margaret Thatcher said, “Don’t buck the markets”, but that is exactly what we do. We have all sorts of different levels of payments across the whole of Europe and then expect farmers to compete in a single market, which is almost impossible. More and more of the subsidy should be phased out, and farmers should increasingly stand on their own two feet. We should make sure that we get a decent price for food and use biotechnology to produce even more food so that in the end we can feed the growing population.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady has raised this issue with me a number of times and we have had meetings on it. It was also raised with me at a meeting in Northern Ireland at the beginning of this year, and we continue to raise it with the Chinese authorities. When Mr Zhi, the Chinese farming Minister, was in the UK in April we took the opportunity to raise it again. We want more meat processors to be able to export pork to China and we need clearance for their plants. We will continue to keep up the pressure.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Exporting beef would improve the market here, and I know the Secretary of State has done an excellent job in China. Japan still bans our beef, right back from the days of BSE. We now have BSE completely under control, so it is time those markets were opened up again. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister do their very best to make sure that happens?

[George Eustice]

All I can say to my hon. Friend, who has been a champion of this industry for many years, is that we are working on many different fronts to create new markets. In the past year, we have opened markets for breeding cattle to countries such as China, for pig meat to Chile and for dairy to Cuba. In the year ahead, we will continue to look at exporting beef to Singapore and poultry meat to Papua New Guinea. The country is working incredibly hard to open as many new export markets as possible.

Bovine TB

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am looking at examples from across the world. I was in New Zealand last year, where there is a huge cost to the Government from TB, as there is here. Here, we are looking at a bill of £1 billion for the taxpayer. It is clear from examples such as New Zealand that the state working in partnership with farmers has delivered results. It is perfectly obvious that farmers and farmers’ organisations have a huge personal vested interest in getting on top of this disease, and our working with them is the sensible way forward.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his commitment to eradicating TB. In Devon, a quarter of the herds are affected by TB, and a third of the badgers are infected with the disease. It has been scientifically proven that half the cases of TB in the endemic areas have been transferred by badgers to cattle. When will more culls take place? Can we put the relevant areas together so that when the lessons have been learned from the two pilot culls, we will be ready to roll out the culls across Devon? Our farmers in Devon are absolutely desperate.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. He has been stalwart in defending his constituents and bringing to my personal attention the horrific problem of bovine tuberculosis, particularly in Devon. When I was at the North Devon show, I asked the farming organisations there to start organising. There are 30 areas that have shown an interest in having culls, once we have got the pilots behind us, so my advice to those in Devon is: start organising. Once we have perfected the technique in Somerset and Gloucestershire, I am keen to roll it out because I understand the desperation in areas such as that of my hon. Friend that have such an intensity of disease.

Badger Cull

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate.

It is far too early to draw conclusions from the report. The House has not yet seen the report properly, and all we are acting on are leaks from it. I have full confidence in the Secretary of State and the other DEFRA Ministers to analyse the report properly and to come to this House with their conclusions. Where we need to cull badgers and it can be done humanely, we must carry on doing so.

Many Members have referred to their own constituencies. It is very likely that vaccinating badgers in a rural constituency with very little TB in cattle, and hardly any TB in the badger population, will be effective—badgers must be vaccinated annually, but that will do a very good job. However, in a constituency such as mine, where some 25% of herds are restricted and are testing positive for TB, and there is a huge amount of TB in the badger population, any amount of vaccination will not cure the infected badger.

The British Veterinary Association has said:

“Scientific evidence proves that badgers and cattle spread bTB to cattle and that the targeted culling of badgers does reduce the levels of infection in cattle herds. Cattle vaccination will be an essential part of the long term strategy to eradicate bTB but will not be available in the UK until at least 2023.”

Will we really be able to wait until 2023, and continue to destroy some 35,000 cattle a year—some 5,600 a year in Devon alone? We cannot go on doing that.

This mythical vaccine was offered to farmers throughout the 13 years of the last Labour Government. Is it any wonder that those poor farmers are pulling their hair out and are almost suicidal because they cannot cure their herds of TB? They are testing their cattle every six weeks. Anyone who tries to organise such tests time and time again, running all those cattle through cattle crushes, will find that it is a huge effort, not just physical but emotional.

When the farmers have tested the cattle and established that they no longer have TB, and when the reactors have been taken away, what do the farmers do? In the spring and summer they turn their cattle out on to the edges of Exmoor and the Blackdown hills, where there are huge grasslands that are very good for the production of dairy and beef. When the cattle are out in those fields, it is almost impossible to prevent them from mixing with an infected badger population.

We need cross-party support in this place for action in those areas in particular. It will not be possible to eradicate TB by means of vaccination alone; it will be necessary to remove the infected badgers. The point of carrying out pilots rather than randomised badger culling trials was to establish hard boundaries in order to ensure that there had been no perturbation that would spread the disease to surrounding areas. I hope that the report will provide evidence of that. What the randomised cull did do was reduce the amount of TB in those areas by some 28% or 29%, which shows that the controlling and culling of badgers does work.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that we need to look at the report. I would be the first to say, as many other Members have, that if we are going to cull, we must be certain that we can cull humanely. If we have to trap more badgers in order to cull them, let us do so.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

I had to wait all afternoon to speak, so I do not think that I will give way.

We have tried for 30 years to control bovine TB In this country, and all that we have seen is increase after increase. We cannot go on doing this for ever, because in the end we will not have a viable cattle herd, and we will not have the food security that we all seek. We must get to grips with this disease.

Finally, let me deal with the myth about what is and is not supposed to be happening in the Republic of Ireland. This is the point on which I really disagree with other Members. It is possible to argue that opossums may be slightly different from badgers in Ireland, but the differences between badgers in Ireland and badgers in Devon are very few. [Interruption.] I have listened throughout the afternoon to speeches from the Members who are interrupting, and I have remained very quiet. Perhaps the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) will now listen to what I have to say.

Recent figures from Ireland show that TB infection levels have fallen by more than 45% since 2000. They are now slaughtering fewer than half the cattle they needed to some 10 years ago. This is a substantial reduction that the Irish Government believe their badger culling programme has significantly contributed to. The culling of badgers is the only significant difference between the current approaches taken in England and Ireland; the cattle restrictions and cattle movement orders are virtually the same. Last year 15,612 cattle tested positive in Ireland which represents a 15% reduction on the 2012 levels. The Irish Government have said TB eradication is now a practical proposition in Ireland after the latest figures show a substantial drop in reactor numbers in 2013.

I now quote from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine:

“We believe that, while it is difficult to quantify the precise impact of badger culling on the reduction in the incidence of TB, much of the improvement in the TB situation is due to the badger removal programme.”

Therefore, the Irish believe culling badgers has worked to reduce TB in the Republic of Ireland.

In a county such as the one I represent in Devon where over a quarter of the herds are restricted, where we are slaughtering 5,500 cattle a year and where probably about 40% of our badger population are infected with bovine TB, we have to take action not only in cleaning the cattle and having stricter cattle movements, but in making sure those badgers are clean so there is no TB in them If we do that, when we turn our cattle out, it will be safe to do so, and when we drink our milk it will be safe to do so. When our tourists come to Devon and Cornwall and the west country, they will come to see the beautiful herds of beef cattle, such as Devon reds grazing there, that are not infected by TB.

Managing Flood Risk

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. She is most astute. One of the problems is that we do not have the capacity to pump into the river below a certain level. I am talking about the area on the border between my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath). What happened was that the river backed up. We could not get the water around. We have two points into the sea; one is through the River Parrett and the other is through the King’s Sedgemoor drain. Both are not able to take what we need to pump into them. Nearly 60 square miles of land are underwater, which really focuses our minds on the problems faced by our constituents. Although we have not lost many properties, it has devastated the tourism industry and many other things in the local area. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) knows from his long experience of farming nearby how dangerous these areas can be.

The Minister has made it quite clear that local input is needed. The internal drainage boards and the local Environment Agency—I am not suggesting asking Lord Smith for one second, nor would I—have an enormous input to make, but that must be done in conjunction with local people. That is why the meetings that we have been holding in Sedgemoor or Somerton and Frome have been so important; we have been able to use that local input. I was rather worried when the EA sent John Varley, whom I have met a few times. I find him the most impossible man, although I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury would disagree with me. It is obvious that a lot of people have others’ best interests at heart.

We must do three things. First, we must look at the Bridgwater barrage. That will cost an enormous amount of money, but it is vital. Secondly, we must look at the pump system.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about the barrage across the River Parrett, which is absolutely essential. The £200 million cost of raising the railway across Sedgemoor starts to make the barrage look extremely cost-effective. The railway would not be flooded if that barrage were there to stop the sea going up the Parrett.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This year, we managed to shut the main railway line and the A303, and water was lapping against parts of the M5. We really could have stopped tourism in most of the west country. I am glad that that did not happen; it is obviously good news.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stuart]

That needs no further comment apart from the natural applause that normally comes spontaneously from around the Chamber when my hon. Friend speaks on this or other topics.

[Neil Parish]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Parish, you have got away with it once. I am not going to let it go twice.

Weather Events (South West England)

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bradshaw]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. What she describes fits into the overall picture, which is that the joined-up, strategic, collaborative, comprehensive approach adopted following the Pitt review after the serious floods of 2007 has been picked apart. The Cabinet Committee on Flooding that was set up under the previous Government was scrapped. It has now been reintroduced, we hear.

I do not know whether the Committee has sat; I do not know whether the Minister serves on it. However, we have lost three and a half years of effective policy on flood defence, flood management and managing flood risk, and I still do not detect the “joined-up-ness” that we need. When the Prime Minister comes to the Somerset levels and repeats what he heard from the last people he spoke to about dredging, has he actually looked at the evidence? Has he looked at all the advice that is coming, including again today, from organisations that know much more about flooding than anyone in this room does? They say that we need a much more holistic and joined-up approach—in the end, an approach that would save us as a country not only a great deal of heartbreak, but a great deal of money.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is not just about dredging, but the problem with the Parrett and Tone is that the river channel is only about two thirds of the size it should be, so dredging is needed. The problem has been that dredging has not been put into the equation. The issue is about water management, but it is also about dredging.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I invite the hon. Gentleman, who serves on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which sits this afternoon, to invite Professor Brazier from Exeter university to come and give evidence to the Committee. If the Committee is to publish a report on the lessons that could be learned from what has happened in the past few months, it is very important that it listens to the views of people who have conducted such important research.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I also thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for obtaining this important debate.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who said that the Dawlish line needs to be restored. As well as connecting to Cornwall, the line is a great tourist attraction. It is a lovely railway line to travel along. Given that it is 150 years old, it is amazing that it is still there. The line is a remarkable achievement of Brunel, who was such a great engineer. Restoring it is important.

We also have to consider a complementary line that would potentially make it much faster to get from Plymouth and Cornwall up to London. We already have a second line that comes from Exeter up to Waterloo; it runs through my constituency. We have a loop at Axminster, but we need a loop at Honiton, which would help. We also ought to consider twin-tracking the railway all the way down from London to Exeter because that would give us a line to Exeter. Furthermore, we should consider whether we can go across from Exeter towards Okehampton and down to Plymouth. We could try to go across Dartmoor itself, but that might not be easy.

Those things have to be done, and I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who pointed out that billions of pounds are to be spent on HS2. Every time I have been through the Lobby to vote for HS2, I have held my nose for the simple reason that I did not want to support it. If we do not see real and meaningful investment in the west country, it is our duty to speak up and stand up for our constituents, and I believe we will. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) reinforcing that point in a minute.

We have to consider the current structure, but we also have to consider sea defences. After I said in Parliament the other day that we do not have to retreat from the sea, The Daily Telegraph poked fun at me slightly by saying that I am like King Canute. Of course King Canute actually stood in the sea to try to persuade his courtiers that he could not keep back the sea. On the Somerset levels there are now Dutch pumps. The people of the Netherlands do not retreat from the sea for the simple reason that, if they did, they would probably lose between a third and two thirds of their country, and they do not intend to do that.

We have to treat sea defences as an infrastructure project. People can rightly argue, as the Government have, that we inherited a huge £120 billion financial deficit in the day-to-day running of the country, and we are reducing that deficit, but there has never been a better time for investment in capital projects and infrastructure because we will never see lower interest rates. I lived through a period of interest rates of 12% and 15% when I was farming, and those rates were cruel and painful to say the least. We now have much better interest rates, so let us use them to our advantage. We need to protect our coastline.

The A30 and the A303 need to be dualled so that we do not only have the M5. The A30 down from Exeter is a good road, but the A30 that runs on the edge of Dorset into Wiltshire, Somerset and the south of my constituency needs to be dualled. We do not want to be held up entirely by Stonehenge. We have to sort out Stonehenge, but it should not be the sticking point against dualling the rest of the road.

On his visit to the west country, the Prime Minister said that 100% of the need will be provided under the Bellwin agreement. There are potholes all over Devon and Cornwall. The roads are horrendous, and a fortune has been spent on them. The roads have to be put right. I was driving through Seaton the other day, and I nearly drove into a pothole the size of half a car. The pothole was not quite that bad, but it was huge and would cause amazing damage.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Bellwin should be extended to allow local authorities to repair potholes properly, rather than cold-filling potholes only for them to become deeper a couple of weeks down the road?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right about the need for good repairs. The county councils naturally argue that a major repair is much more expensive than just filling a pothole, but she is right that it is a pointless exercise if all the tarmac comes out of the pothole five minutes later. An awful lot of money is available to be spent.

I also welcome the Prime Minister’s pledge of £5,000 grants to help businesses through the floods. Will the Minister give us more detail on how people can claim that money? It is always great when the Government offer money, but people would like to be able to claim and use it.

On the Somerset levels, it has been said that raising the railway line across the moors would cost £200 million. There is one solution to ensure that that railway line does not flood, and that is a sluice at the end of the river Parrett to stop the sea from coming in. At the moment, the sea comes in and drives the fresh water back, and that is what keeps the moors flooded. I cannot guarantee that the sluice would mean that the moors never flooded again, but a tidal sluice on the end of the Parrett, north of Bridgwater, could mean that the depth of water on the moors would not be enough to flood the railway line.

Doing the arithmetic, it would cost £200 million to raise the railway line and that will never happen. I reckon that a sluice across the Parrett would cost some £50 million and if hydroelectric power was put there as well, the project would start to show its worth. It would help farmers, properties and nature conservation. When there is water over the whole Somerset levels for six to eight weeks, there is nothing left when the water recedes. There will not be the lovely flora and fauna or reeds and rushes that everybody wants, because it will all have rotted. Then there is the farmland, what has happened to people’s property and the stock that has had to be moved across the moors. We have to look at the situation seriously.

The other great benefit of having a sluice across the River Parrett is that the water could be penned in during the summer and the area could be made like a mini Norfolk broads. That would bring the benefits of a huge tourist attraction. Devon and Cornwall need a railway line, but we have to cross Somerset to get there, and we need to consider that. I know that the right hon. Member for Exeter does not like dredging and all those things, but they must be part of the armoury. We can hold water in certain places and further upstream, but in the end rivers such as the Parrett and Tone silt up, and without dredging we will not get the water away fast enough.

The management of those waterways has to be much more local, and that is where inland drainage boards can do a lot more. We might need more drainage boards. Will the Minister consider that? We might, dare I say it, have to get people living in houses further up the catchment area to pay a small amount, because their water is flowing down and flooding the lowland areas. There are ways of raising money, which will help. Local management would be so much better.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I was interested in what the hon. Gentleman just said. He seems to agree with the research from Exeter university, which argued that if landowners and farmers in upland areas were paid to manage their land differently, the amount of money saved through reduced flood risk on the Somerset levels and elsewhere in low-lying areas would massively outweigh that expenditure. Is it not better to pay farmers to do that, rather than to graze the uplands intensively, which is sadly sometimes the case?

[Neil Parish]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. It is part of the solution, and we have to look at how land is managed and how farmers are paid. At the moment, farmers are paid for loss of income. We should say, “If you are going to hold that water and that will reduce flooding, you should be paid to manage that water.” In the end, that would probably be a much cheaper option.

We must also remember—this is where I probably do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman—that we need land for food production; we should not take away too much land from food production for that type of process. It is about getting the balance right, an issue on which the right hon. Gentleman and I do not entirely agree. Land management is part of the solution.

Let us go forward and look at the infrastructure across the west country, including road and rail, and let us look at maintaining our coastline. Let us look at having, in the Somerset moors, the south-west and the country, pads and pipes where we could put in these massive mobile pumps that the Dutch have. We could have Dutch pumps in Sedgemoor and they could be moved around the country. Rather than having millions and millions of pounds invested in one pumping station, let us spend a few million pounds on portable pumps and the necessary infrastructure to connect those pumps wherever they are. We can import the pumps from Holland and have them ourselves. That is key.

We have to learn lessons. A lowland area has to be pumped fast. We should stop the tide from going up the Parrett so that we can fill it with fresh water. Then, when the tide goes down, we can let it out. There are lots of practical solutions. We have suffered and people still are suffering. We can never guarantee that flooding will never happen again, but we can reduce it. I will stop there, because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset wants to speak.

Flooding (Somerset)

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There may well be better alternatives to sandbags. I would be very interested to hear from him if his constituent’s solution is as easy to move around as empty sandbags, because that has proved to be invaluable in recent weeks.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

The Secretary of State was right to mention the Dutch engineers who drained the levels, because they dug out the ditches and rivers and kept them clean, which was absolutely key. We have now had six weeks of flooding. I welcome what the Secretary of State has done, but we need to change the rules to ensure that farmland and environmental land is protected, because six weeks of flooding destroys not only farmland, but nature conservation and people’s lives.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I remind him that we are protecting significant areas of agricultural land as we speak, but my view of the future, as he has probably picked up, is that many of the low-risk waterways are much better cleaned out and maintained by local landowners, in co-operation with the Environment Agency. That is probably the best way to go.

Rural Communities

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Albert Owen]

Absolutely. It is good to have the hon. Gentleman back on-side. He and I debated this issue during the previous Parliament and my arguments were very consistent when I sat on the Government Benches. I am glad to see that, now he does not have ministerial responsibility, he is again championing those off-grid, which is the next topic I wish to address.

Energy Ministers are taking the off-grid issue seriously, but not enough practical steps have been taken. I am very pleased that my party is now calling for something for which I have been campaigning for some time: for the energy regulator to take responsibility for those not on the mains grid. This is an historic element of privatisation. When the energy markets for gas and electricity were set up, they encompassed the old generators that were on-grid and left an unregulated off-grid, which means that many people are paying a lot more in energy costs for their gas supplements.

When the Government, the energy companies and, indeed, the regulator talk about discounts and dual-fuel discounts—this issue affects every Member who represents a rural community—that does not apply to people who do not have mains gas. They are paying considerably more for their energy. The average price is a luxury for many people in rural areas. They pay considerably more, not only for the distribution and transmission cost, but for not benefiting from the energy companies.

I have been pressing for many years, with some albeit limited success, for the energy companies—the electricity companies, in this case—to give loyalty bonuses to people who stay with them. It is perverse that the energy market encourages switching and gives dual-fuel deals when it could and should give loyalty bonuses and help those in rural areas who do not have access to dual fuel.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman about the off-grid situation in rural areas. There also does not seem to be enough competition between oil companies to deliver heating oil. Many constituents of ours will probably never get on to mains gas, but heating oil is an alternative. We have to get more competition and get the prices down for people in rural areas who use oil for their heating.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Many Members, including those from the Cornwall and Devon area, have been campaigning on that issue for some time. The Office of Fair Trading called for a number of inquiries into it and made a recommendation to the Competition Commission. Unfortunately, it did not find that there is no competition, but I think that is blindingly obvious. That is why I welcome—I am not just making a party political point—the Labour party’s intention that Ofgem, the regulator, look at off-grid as well, because it could give the same protection to off-grid customers. It is there to champion consumers and businesses, and that would be a good, positive step forward.

Hon. Members from rural areas will know that many of their constituents try to buy their fuel before winter. In line with a cross-party campaign, I urge the Government to look at mechanisms to allow people in rural areas to get their winter fuel payments earlier, so that they can buy in advance and do not have to pay premium prices for coal, oil and other energy sources. I have pressed my party on that important point, and it has agreed, if it comes into government in 2015, to bring that measure in. I know there are IT issues, but I am sure that postcodes could be used to distribute payments earlier than happens now.

I raise the issue of winter fuel payments because there have been lots of delays and glitches, including in non-rural areas, with people receiving their payments. That is certainly the case in my constituency and those of colleagues I have spoken to about the issue. If the software was amended, people in rural areas would have the advantage of receiving payments earlier so that they can buy in bulk earlier, at prices that suit them.

I have covered the issues relating to off-grid customers and the distribution companies, but I welcome the important energy investment that will be made in my constituency in north-west Wales. I am not someone who stands here and picks winners. There is a nuclear power station in my constituency, and I support moves to low carbon as well as the new build there. However, we have to have the right balance of biomass and other forms of renewables—it is important to have gas and clean coal in that balance—and my constituency is certainly playing its part. I make no apology for repeating that it is unfair that people in our areas pay more for the end product.

Having highlighted energy issues, I want to move on to fuel—petrol and diesel—which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. In previous decades in this House, many people were encouraged to buy diesel, because it was more energy efficient, with cars able to do a greater mileage on diesel than on petrol. The price of diesel has now of course gone up considerably, which is hampering businesses and individuals in rural areas. There is a massive difference in the price of petrol and diesel on some independent and supermarket forecourts.

I very much welcome the Government’s moving the fuel rebate forward, but it does not cover all rural areas. When they brought it in, there should have been a rule for the whole United Kingdom; it should not have been done piecemeal. I am sorry to make a slightly partisan point, but Scottish Liberal Democrat seats should not have been in the first wave, with other areas having to play catch-up and make applications. There should have been proper criteria covering the whole of rural Britain and Northern Ireland.