Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anna McMorrin

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

I agree: we need to see that change everywhere, but there is a broken system at present, and that must change.

We have seen this not only in the Arctic: in the Antarctic too there is that changing climate and environment. It is having an equally horrifying effect. Almost 90% of the glaciers have retreated since the 1960s when my father spent two years there with the British Antarctic Survey, but I am hopeful that the McMorrin glacier, which was named after him, will still be there when my children are older. The natural world and his time in Antarctica shaped him, and I remember the stories he told me about that vast and beautiful landscape when I was growing up. They have instilled in me his passion and determination to help to change things.

When I was an adviser in the Welsh Government, I saw the impact that waste pollution was having on wildlife and natural resources, and the effect that it was having on climate change. I was lucky then to be part of a Government who acted quickly and helped to ensure that Wales was the first country to introduce the 5p charge on single-use plastic bags, which has resulted in a 71% reduction in their use since 2011. Unfortunately, it took the UK Government four years to follow suit in England. I have watched the statistics on waste get worse and worse, and this is even more worrying when studies have shown that the UK Government figures have been known to drastically underestimate how much plastic packaging waste Britain generates. A study by the specialist organisation Eunomia estimates that just 31% of plastic waste in the UK is currently recycled.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend is saying and I commend the Welsh Government for the excellent steps that they have taken on this issue. Does she agree that it is shocking that some of the plastic we think we are sending to be recycled often ends up in landfill sites thousands of miles away in developing countries on the other side of the world, where it causes pollution by leaching into the surrounding ecosystems?

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. That is absolutely what we are seeing, and we have to stop it by fundamentally reforming the system.

We have seen growing public awareness of the problems with waste, especially since the broadcast of David Attenborough’s “Blue Planet II”. Three quarters of a billion people worldwide watched that harrowing footage of albatross parents feeding their chicks plastic, mother dolphins potentially exposing their new-born calves to pollutants through contaminated milk, and the whale with a bucket caught in its mouth. Those images were hard-hitting, but necessary to bring about change.

St David’s Day

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anna McMorrin

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. I am talking about the warnings that are being given. Airbus is issuing stark warnings, and some companies are upping and leaving. Many will up and leave unless something is done.

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman does not appear to have heard the warnings from organisations and businesses across the spectrum. The other day, I was speaking with people from Cardiff University who cited Brexit as one factor in their decision to issue redundancies. That is happening in our crucial and brilliant university in our city.

[Anna McMorrin]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent point.

This pattern does not seem to bother our UK Government, intent as they are on delivering a Brexit whatever the cost. That cost will be great, but it will be the greatest in Wales as we are dependent on those and other such jobs. We have been at the mercy of a Tory Government’s austerity measures for the past nine years. I see the struggle in our public services and in our communities. Our people who were left bereft following the ruthless Thatcher years are once again feeling the brunt, and Brexit is only set to make things worse. Why do we in Wales have to put up with this again?

Wales is an outward-facing international country with our own values, our own language, and our own culture and history. We do not want this right-wing Brexit ideology, which only harms our communities, our people and our services. We know that Brexit—any Brexit—only aids the right. It is a project driven by the right and for the right. As a progressive forward-looking Wales we know that the best deal for us, for our hard-working families, for our public services and for our businesses is the one that we have now as full members of the European Union.

European Union Citizenship

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anna McMorrin

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

That is an excellent point with which I completely agree. Indeed, I am about to speak about just that issue.

Brexit is an injustice that will take away rights without giving people the option to secure those rights in the long term for themselves and their children. The idea of European citizenship is cherished by those who are old enough to remember a time when Europe was going through a healing process. We seem to have forgotten that it was not always the peaceful, prosperous place that it is today: a union of people, not merely nations. It is a pity that there are elected politicians in this House who are unwilling to understand the strong feelings of many British people about their European identity.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is making a strong speech. Does she agree that many people, particularly in places like Cardiff where we have a strong and thriving university sector, see themselves much more as part of pan-European collaboration in science and driving forward progress in discovery, and key to that is their European Union citizenship? By taking that away we potentially do great damage to those relationships on a European level that are taking forward all sorts of exciting scientific discoveries.

[Anna McMorrin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am proud to represent Cardiff North, and the whole of Cardiff is a diverse community. We have plenty of students from across the European nations, and we want to retain that feeling of European identity and citizenship.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anna McMorrin

Report stage: First Day: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

[Anna McMorrin]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this Front-Bench amendment was written alongside and in co-operation with the Welsh Government, which means they will accept what this amendment says? [Hon. Members: “The LCM?”] Yes.

[Stephen Doughty]

The series of issues we have raised concerns about for months has been clearly set out. These issues have been raised since the Bill was drafted. We are in the absurd situation where the Secretary of State for Scotland admits there are deficiencies in the Bill and many Conservative Members agree with that. I have no doubt that the Minister for the Cabinet Office agrees with it, although I doubt he will say so today. We all recognise there are deficiencies with it, so the question is: why have they not been resolved before we reached this stage? We were hearing a lot from the Scottish Conservative Members, whose position seemed to be somewhat different from that of their counterparts in the Scottish Parliament. The Welsh Conservatives claimed today that they are disappointed; the whole of Wales will be disappointed by their failure to stand up for Wales and their own legislature, in which they sit.

As I said, I do not want to go back into all the technical detail, so I finally wish to come to the nub of this issue: why does all this matter? Why do these issues matter? Why do these technical debates about the constitutional settlement matter? They matter because they have consequences for our Union, for the devolution settlement and for the economic operation of the markets within this United Kingdom. We are already going to be struggling to deal with the serious consequences we will face if we carry on along the Government’s hard Brexit path of, for example, leaving the customs union and the single market, with which I do not agree. Do we really want to add to that a series of complexities, challenges and problems within our own internal markets, logistics and functioning?

There are serious consequences for relationships that we know are already under strain and the subject of lively political debate in the UK. There are also economic consequences of Brexit as a whole for the devolved nations. Just this week, University of Birmingham research showed that the nations and regions of the UK are very exposed economically, with 11.7% of Welsh GDP being exposed. As I said, there are serious consequences to leaving the single market and customs union. We heard yesterday from one of Wales’s largest employers, Airbus—I draw attention to my declaration of interests—which employs a number of people in the defence and space industry next door to my constituency and many people across Wales. Its chief executive, Tom Enders, said that the “wreckage” of Trump will be easier to repair than that of Brexit, given the increased costs and the challenges for competitiveness.

The Welsh people, the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly need to have a proper say in where we go on this process, given the implications. As the consequences become clearer, the Welsh people, and indeed the British people, have the right to change their minds on this entire process.

Tesco House, Cardiff: Job Losses

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anna McMorrin

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

Yes. Some staff members who were not there that day only actually found out that they had lost their jobs through social media. There also seems to have been no formal means of contacting them or managing their concerns.

Following the announcement, I met Tesco executives to press them on their reasons for the job losses and why jobs in Dundee have seemingly been prioritised over jobs in Cardiff. We were told that there is more space in Dundee and that the company had already taken the decision to have one site where customer relations staff would be based. They were unable to provide any reason why they had not entered into discussions with either the UK Government or the Welsh Government.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I, too, have constituents who have been affected by this absolutely absurd decision. Does she agree that it is completely bizarre for Tesco to not provide those reasons, particularly when Cardiff has gained a reputation as an excellent place for customer care centres? Many different companies choose Cardiff because of the excellent skilled workforce there.

[Anna McMorrin]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I think that these job losses are the latest in a string of cuts implemented as part of the so-called turnaround plan by Dave Lewis, the group chief executive, who joined Tesco in autumn 2015.