Marine Conservation Zones

Debate between Adrian Sanders and Ben Bradshaw

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing the debate and on the careful way that he presented the case for his constituency.

I want to make three brief points. First, fishermen are not the only stakeholders in this. Although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) that fishermen should be more involved in the process, their views are not the only ones that the Government have to take into consideration.

Secondly, marine conservation zones work, and that is proved by the marine protection areas that have been extremely successful on the west coast of north America. There is also some evidence of the success of marine conservation zones around Arran and the Isle of Man in Europe.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Sanders]

I will, although I do not have much more to say.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Is the hon. Gentleman also aware of research commissioned by the recreational anglers? It shows that fishing interests are not always allied. Sometimes the commercial fishing sector can be in conflict with the recreational sector, and the recreational sector, in many parts of the country, brings more income in to those local communities.

[Mr Sanders]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct. There are also divers and other people using the seas who contribute financially to the economies of the local areas concerned.

My third and final point—I hope that the Minister will refer to this—is the fact that we have to judge marine conservation zones as a whole, not individually. The network is crucial to their success. By altering one, we perhaps diminish the potential success of the concept as a whole.

Regional Pay (NHS)

Debate between Adrian Sanders and Ben Bradshaw

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am not prepared to reveal the identities of those people without their permission. I have already written to the Secretary of State and his predecessor, and I will come in a moment to the way that they responded, which was totally unsatisfactory. However, I have given the Minister the gist, and I hope that she is not challenging the veracity of my constituents’ concerns.

Another constituent wrote:

“Myself and many nurses are planning to leave or move abroad if this happens.”

Finally, another wrote:

“I have not worked a single shift without working late or missing my break. This has sent staff morale to rock bottom.”

It is clear from the testimony of my constituents—loyal NHS staff—that even before this plan is implemented, the mere discussion of it is having a devastating impact on morale. As the Minister will know, staff morale is an invaluable and extremely precious commodity in the NHS. There is a clear correlation between high morale and safe and high-quality care. Most NHS staff go the extra mile in their jobs, but they have already had two years of pay freezes, and doing unnecessary and avoidable damage to staff morale will inevitably affect the quality and safety of patient care.

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman congratulate the trusts in my area—the Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust and the South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust—which are not joining the pay consortium for the very reason that they think that it will damage morale and productivity and inhibit their ability to recruit the best possible people to the health care service in my constituency?

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, indeed I do congratulate the trusts in Torbay, which have held out against the pressure to join this cartel. I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman will put his money where his mouth is and join Labour MPs in the Division Lobby later today, when we will have a main debate on this very subject in the main Chamber.

Water and Sewerage Charges (South West Water)

Debate between Adrian Sanders and Ben Bradshaw

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I have not had the experience before, but it is certainly a pleasure.

Today, I am raising a matter that is of great concern to the people of Devon and Cornwall and has been for as long as I have been a Member of Parliament, and I suspect for longer than any of us here today have represented our local communities. I had the pleasure of raising this issue in an Adjournment debate previously, but this is the first time that I have been able to do so as a Member of Parliament on the Government side of the House. The fact that the problem has remained almost exactly the same for so long is both a reflection of the intractable nature of the issues involved and a sad reflection on the record of previous Administrations. They had time to tackle this injustice, but sadly they were unable to come up with a solution. I sincerely hope that the Minister who is here today will not let our Government follow the same path.

Of course, the problem is the disproportionately high water bills in the south-west. Although the new Ofwat settlement has only just been released, the indication is that the average bill in the region will be £517 a year and the price rise will be about 8.1%. Rather mischievously, Ofwat had initially told the press and the public that the rise would be only about 5%, but that forecast assumed that customers would adapt their behaviour in the future. It is accepted that more people will move to using water meters. Around 70% of water customers in the south-west already have one and Anna Walker predicted that that figure would rise to 80% by 2015. Moving to water meters would save those south-west customers around £400 per year, but the money still has to be found from somewhere. Metered bills will rise in response to the dwindling supply of high-paying unmetered customers, adding more than £200 to the bills of metered customers.

Metering and in-region social tariffs have long been identified by Ofwat and the Government as an easy solution, but they do not have an impact on the underlying problem. Even if one takes the price rise as a 5% average, that is still far too high for most people to cope with in this age of austerity. It is also important to remember that I am talking about average bills. Many of my constituents now face water bills far in excess of £1,000. That reflects a range of circumstances, from medical conditions that require extra water to simply having a larger family. As always, unmetered customers suffer the worst. The average bill of £517 in the south-west compares starkly with the average bill in London, for example, which even for unmetered customers is only £332 per year.

The privatisation of utilities was meant to open up sectors to competition and to empower consumers, but the privatisation of water has done nothing of the sort. Can one imagine the outcry if electricity prices were 60% higher in Newcastle than they are in London? Any electricity company that tried to implement such price disparities would simply see its regional market share evaporate.

Hopefully, we are all aware of the background to this problem. The privatisation of water in the late 1980s left South West Water with a backlog of infrastructure improvements to invest in. Combined with a tiny customer base and a lengthy coastline, that backlog meant that under the system of regional monopolies South West Water customers would pay higher bills in perpetuity, with their only recourse being to move somewhere else in the UK.

For all its inaction, the previous Government at least recognised the problem. The result is Anna Walker’s report on water charging, chapter 14 of which focuses specifically on the south-west. The coalition is about to respond to her report, which again makes this debate timely.

I want to cover briefly three points that are relevant to what is happening now and hopefully the Minister can take them into account when he is developing the final policy on this issue. First, the role of Ofwat needs to be assessed very closely. Ofwat’s role as the regulator must be to protect customers and as Regina Finn, its chief executive, said herself:

“People can shop around for the best deal on many things, but not water. Our job is to do this for them.”

I am afraid that the overwhelming view of my constituents is that that “job” is not being done. Many of them see Ofwat as hindering rather than helping the situation in the south-west. Whereas bills fell slightly ahead of inflation in other areas, the south-west has seen the very large rise that I described.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Is not the real scandal of this year’s price increase that customers were assured at the time of the last price review under the Labour Government that there would be reductions in their water bills in this price period? South West Water is hiding behind the current Government’s failure to control inflation. That is a sign of gross insensitivity compared with the situation in, say, local authorities, where everybody else is having their pay frozen.

[Mr Sanders]

I only half-share the right hon. Gentleman’s view, because Ofwat is the body that should protect the consumer and it has allowed South West Water to raise charges by the amounts that I described.