Renewable Energy Providers: Planning Considerations

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on her diligence in obtaining this important debate about the nuts and bolts of how our country gets to a low-carbon renewable energy outcome.

I take it that, with the possible exception of one hon. Member present, there is pretty much a consensus that our country needs as much renewable power as possible, both offshore and onshore, so that we are on target for our climate goals. I also take it that we can organise our energy structures so that they mindful of how our landscape and community work while maximising the output of renewable and low-carbon energy in all circumstances. Clearly, decisions will have to be made about where things are sited, how they are sited and what the most productive use of land is under different circumstances, but those will be made within an overall view that we want to move forward on renewable energy as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Stroud identified the problems in a number of those areas, and I would say there are three: the small print, time, and connections. Those problems stand within the choices that we have to make, and resolving them does not undermine the principle that we must move forward on renewables on the basis of an acceptable use of the landscape, acceptable support from local communities, and an acceptable outcome in terms of the national stock of power and connections. We will have to do a lot of work across the landscape in different ways to ensure that we have not only the renewable plant, but the connections for that renewable plant, the planning arrangements for that renewable plant and all those things that work together strategically to enable us to get the best result for renewable energy across the country.

For example, the hon. Member for Stroud identified a number of things in our planning regulations that quite absurdly stand in the way of perfectly good schemes that everybody wants—the local community and so on. It seems to me that there is an overriding responsibility on Government to get that right. Planning regulations should not impede good schemes that are wanted and agreed just because of the small print. There is therefore a substantial job to be done by Government in actually going through those regulations to ensure that they presume in favour of renewable development wherever possible, with proper concern where there are exceptions, but are not written in such a way as to impede those perfectly good schemes.

By the way, in the most recent alleged amelioration by the Government of the problem of planning for onshore wind, it is claimed that they have pretty much come to terms with the development of onshore wind in their most recently announced changes to planning arrangements. They are no such thing in reality. The small print of those changes still effectively bans onshore wind from moving forward, because of the way that footnote 54, in particular, is to be written in national planning frameworks. Alongside the examples mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud, that is an example of how the small print can have big effects on stalling, overthrowing or frustrating renewable and low-carbon development. It needs to be removed.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made the point about just how much time is taken on offshore applications. Time is so important in not only getting these arrangements over the line, but ensuring that the investment happens in the first place. Someone faced with a 12-year process of getting their application sorted out, permissioned, thought about and given the go-ahead faces, among other things, a severe gap—a valley of death, as it were—between their application being progressed and the revenue from that application being arrived at. In many instances, those people will simply go away and not develop. Getting the time right, reducing the amount of time that the Secretary of State can take to make decisions and speeding up the process for renewables across the board are of vital importance. That is another thing that the Government can really have a hand in getting right.

The third question is on connections. We have increasing examples of the distortion of decision making on the siting of ground-mounted solar farms, because the developers of solar farms are faced with virtually no connectivity at distribution network operator level as far as their applications are concerned. They are therefore not necessarily looking for the best site for their solar farm in a particular area; they are looking for the small windows of remaining connectivity that might be possible for their solar farm to develop. They are looking for those permissions before, say, 2035. I have a direct case of that from some people I was talking to recently, who have done exactly that in their application for a solar farm. Unless we can quickly get the connectivity sorted out both offshore and onshore, planning schemes will increasingly be distorted. The Government can do a great deal on that. I hope the Minister will be able to comment on that this morning.

The hon. Member for Stroud has given us a good lesson on the detail and how we need to get the details right to bring the schemes forward.

[Siobhan Baillie]

I was hoping to hear from the shadow Minister, who is so diligent and always gets in the weeds of the details, which I say with the greatest respect, because he looks very carefully at issues, about his leader’s position on planning. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) says that he will override local views to get planning applications through—I appreciate he was talking about homes rather than renewables—but how does that work with local people’s concerns and what he says about issues with councils? There is a lot of confusion out there about Labour’s policy, which we know can change with the wind.

[Dr Whitehead]

I think that what is being referred to is entirely in the context of what I have been saying about the impediments that we have at the moment. It is well known that we have broad support—this has been mentioned in the Chamber today—for particular proposals and a deep, narrow objection among certain people. I am afraid the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) is in that category of people who are just fundamentally opposed to these things, and he has various techniques that he puts forward to underpin that.

[Priti Patel]

Perhaps I could phrase the question in another way for the hon. Gentleman. His party is the largest party in local government and is in control of the London Government Association right now, where the focus is on net zero. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is a disregard in the policies of his party for local communities and that it comes at net zero at all costs? That is effectively the stance that he advocates.

[Dr Whitehead]

No, I am not saying that at all. Indeed, if right hon. and hon. Members have been following what I have said, they will recognise that what I have said from the beginning is that the role of local communities in assenting to arrangements is vital and should not be eroded, but there is a difference between communities dissenting from various things and one or two people completely holding up something because of their particular positions.

We therefore need to achieve a balance in which the planning system recognises what most of the public want, while ensuring proper rights of consultation and objection, and taking broad support through to the end of the planning system. One reason why onshore wind was banned for a long time in this country was that one person could object to a local scheme under the rules that were in place from 2015 onwards, and that would effectively turn the whole thing over. That is just wrong. It should not be tolerated in a planning system that should, in principle, be in favour of renewables and low-carbon energy. That is the balance that needs to be struck with these developments, and the Opposition are committed to achieving that.

I hope the Minister will take from today’s debate that there is a lot of work for Government to do on getting the planning arrangements right for the development of renewable energy and on getting the development right, in terms of the proper arrangements that should exist for local consultation, reputation and possibly compensation. For example—

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Dr Whitehead]

I am happy to bring my remarks to a close, Ms McDonagh, which I anticipate is what you are going to suggest.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Thank you.

[Dr Whitehead]

I just want to briefly mention the great work that the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) is doing on the Celtic sea. I think she will agree that we must get the offshore planning right for those developments so that landing can be assessed in terms of a planned arrangement at the start of that process, as it should increasingly be for the North sea, and so that the issues that she raised do not fall outside planning arrangements. That is another thing that the Government can get right; I hope the Minister was listening to the hon. Member for North Devon about how, among other things, they should go forward with the Celtic sea.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to increase the provision of social rented housing.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

21. What steps he is taking to increase the provision of social rented housing.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

Before I answer the questions, may I on behalf of the Government extend my congratulations to Humza Yousaf on his election as leader of the Scottish National party? We look forward to working with him in the future. It has been noted that he won by 52% to 48%, so I hope that SNP colleagues will agree that there is no need for another vote.

Everyone should have access to a high-quality and safe affordable home. Our affordable homes programme is investing £11.5 billion to deliver tens of thousands of new affordable homes, and a significant proportion will be made available for social rent, directly helping those most in need.

[Dr Whitehead]

I was shocked to read recently that only 6,400 new social rent homes were built in England last year, when pretty much everybody agrees that about 100,000 are needed every year to deal with present and future housing needs. What figure between those two numbers does the Secretary of State think would be acceptable in developing social and rented housing in future years?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. Actually, I believe that the figure was closer to 30,000 overall, but I believe, as the National Housing Federation and others have made clear, that we need to increase the proportion of new homes for social rent, and that is one of the aims as we reprofile the affordable homes programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

There already is a statutory requirement in place for local planning authorities to consult water and sewerage companies on the preparation of local plans. Developer contributions can also be used to secure infrastructure improvements, including for wastewater. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already been in touch with the office of the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), on these matters and that the Minister is happy to meet him to discuss this in greater detail.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)]

I had the enormous privilege on Wednesday last week of attending the unveiling of the Windrush memorial, which marks the fantastic contribution made to this country over more than 70 years by migrants from the Caribbean and the wider Commonwealth. I wish to place on the record my thanks not just to the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), but to Baroness Floella Benjamin for the fantastic work she undertook to ensure that that fitting memorial could be unveiled.

[Dr Whitehead]

I welcome the proposals to extend the decent homes standard in the private rented sector in the just published, “A fairer private rented sector” White Paper. Is it the Government’s intention to include their stated targets on private rented sector energy efficiency in homes in the decent homes standard? If they do that, what sanctions will the Government be proposing for landlords who fail to make their properties energy-efficient?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is right that energy efficiency is a critical part of making sure that homes are decent, safe and warm, and we will be considering what steps and what proposals we might be able to put in place to ensure that landlords live up to their responsibilities.

Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We have had an excellent debate, with a very high degree of agreement among those taking part, not only about the failings of this particular scheme but about the imperative at the heart of what we have been talking about this afternoon. That is the imperative of ensuring that, within a very short time, we have secured in this country a massive uplift in the energy efficiency of homes across all sectors of housing—not just the easy-to-treat homes but the ones that have single cavity walls, for example, and are difficult to treat. We have to put into those homes different forms of heating to go along with the energy efficiency uprating, and the reason why we have to do that is of course to decrease very substantially the emissions from buildings, which contribute so substantially to CO₂ emissions overall, which could lead us well away from our target of net zero by 2050. Indeed, buildings in the UK emit some 19% of emissions overall, and the vast, and a substantial, majority of that is in residential homes, so the targeting of schemes to uprate energy efficiency in homes is vital.

The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), made an excellent contribution. By the way, I congratulate his Committee on its hard work in looking forensically not just at this particular scheme, but at the things we need to do in order to get to where we want to go on home insulation. He mentioned the figure of 13.6 million homes—not new homes but homes of all kinds. As he said, all homes have different requirements when it comes to their retrofit. There are 13.6 million homes that will basically need work to be done on them over the next nine years. He estimated that that equates to about 1.5 million properties a year over the next nine years needing to have those measures.

Although I welcomed the Treasury’s initial announcement in summer 2020 that what looked like a substantial amount of money would be made available for retrofitting homes, we have to understand that, even at that point, it was substantially less than the sum required to meet the ambition set out in the energy White Paper to make all homes EPC conform to EPC band C. I fully accept the Environmental Audit Committee Chair’s strictures about the use and accuracy of EPCs. Nevertheless, the ambition is that all properties should be band C or above by 2035. That date, I think, should come further forward, but that is the area that we are looking at.

The idea that we could make some reasonably rapid initial progress with a scheme in the private sector involving vouchers was a welcome start. I think that the only lesson or conclusion that we can draw from the allocation of this particular fund, the particular way it was done and the subsequent requirement placed on BEIS to draw up a scheme is that we should never do it in this way again, as far as our targets are concerned. Perhaps there is a lesson from what has happened over the last few months.

I am interested to hear from the Minister about this. My understanding of how the scheme progressed is that the Treasury, without any idea of what was involved in the process, announced that money would be made available—£1.5 billion, with £500 million for the local authority delivery scheme—with about as much detail as I have set out this afternoon. The Treasury then said to BEIS, “Go away and work up a scheme to make it happen, and we want it on the ground as quicky as possible.” Had I been a fly on the wall during those discussions, I would have hoped to have seen BEIS kicking back at the Treasury and saying, “Look, this is ludicrous. You can’t do it this way. You can’t expect a scheme to be worked up in this way. And, by the way, you can’t expect a scheme to be conceived, put into operation, undertaken and closed within a year. You just can’t do it that way.” That is what BEIS should have said to the Treasury. Instead, it rapidly produced a scheme and, in so doing, undertook the services of a consultancy company based in America which had no experience of doing these sorts of operations.

Frankly, the scheme was doomed not to work from the start. Indeed, that is what happened. The final figures, which came out in May, show the frankly pathetic number of measures that arose from the scheme. We also heard, while we ran through that period, dreadful stories of building companies that had geared themselves up to do the work but did not get paid for it. There were immeasurable layers of bureaucracy involved in getting voucher schemes going, even though many householders desperately wanted to take advantage of them.

I have the figures from the end of February, which were released before the final figures were made available. At that point—the scheme was still going but it was nearing its end—123,000 vouchers had been applied for, but only 28,000 had been issued. What was the company running this organisation doing by working out the scheme in such a way? There were only 5,800 installations at that point, and of those, only 900 or so were for low carbon measures. This scheme was not just a pathetic failure; it has put the cause of retrofitting homes back substantially. Companies that wanted to do the work were burned yet again and will perhaps be reluctant to undertake further work. Disappointed householders were grievously misled on the energy uprating process, and precious time has been lost for getting to grips with this. To say, “This is a lesson learned in how not to do it,” is a bit of an understatement.

I hope that the considerations raised by every contributor this afternoon will be at the heart of the lessons that the Department will take on board for future projects on energy efficiency uprating. The scheme has to be serious. It has to have the right amount of money to make a difference. The timescale has to be long enough for people to be able to do the work properly and have confidence in the system, and for the variety of necessary measures to be put in place, including, as the Chair of the EAC said, measures that suit the different circumstances of each household and the time required to get the work done.

We also ought to take lessons from the element of the scheme that had some purchase—namely, the local authority part, which has been a relative success. Although it made local authorities adhere to breakneck timescales, they were nevertheless often able to deliver because they were not an American consultancy firm trying to do things by numbers overseas. Rather, they were on the ground with their local communities, engaged in the work. That is another lesson that we ought to draw from this fiasco—give it to local agencies that can actually do the work properly on the ground and make it happen on a daily basis, rather than run it remotely from the centre.

We can draw some valuable lessons from this fiasco. I am tempted to say that it is such a dreadful catastrophe for the cause of energy efficiency activity that, in the words of Stanley Holloway,

“someone’s got to be summonsed!”

It is a shocking failure of Government.

I hope that the lessons will have been at least partly learned by the time the heat in buildings strategy comes out, which, as hon. Members have mentioned, has been delayed on several occasions. I should not say this as a shadow Minister—it should be for the Minister to say this—but I am confident that it will come out shortly. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that it will come out in the next few days or weeks and that it will contain a number of the lessons mentioned this afternoon for bringing forward the ambition of energy efficiency.

All of that is contained in the energy White Paper. I hope that the heat in buildings strategy will address itself to the width and depth of the task in front of us. We know that that we have not appreciated the scale of the task, but I hope that the strategy will, finally, address what we actually need to do to achieve our energy efficiency targets.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We need to leave a couple of minutes for Mr Dunne to wind up at the end. We now go to the Minister, Paul Scully.

DRAFT INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS (DELEGATION OF FUNCTIONS) (EU EXIT) REGULATIONS 2021

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 General Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I ought to indicate immediately that we do not intend to oppose this regulation. Indeed, we see the need to ensure that the international standards, which have now been put in place across the world, are properly placed into a UK context, particularly given the UK withdrawal from the EU. There is also a context in terms of an independent body that can bring those standards forward and into the mainstream of UK accounting life, in good order, with confidence behind it so that the UK can be seen to be playing its part in the international structure that is now the norm for those accounting standards.

However, I have a couple of questions for the Minister about the process by which this has been set up. I thank him for going substantially beyond the explanatory notes in his introductory comments this morning; he has fleshed out one or two things that I wanted to focus on.

My concerns are that the SI itself, by way of a preamble declaration, states that:

“It appears to the Secretary of State that—

(a) the UK Endorsement Board is able and willing to exercise the functions transferred by regulation 2 of these Regulations, and

(b) that body has arrangements in place”,

and so on. I suppose the Secretary of State would say that, since it was the Secretary of State who very recently indeed created the UK Endorsement Board, as the Minister has set out. It is difficult to see how the Secretary of State could know that this brand new board is indeed

“able and willing to exercise the functions”,

as it has no track record and it has not undertaken any significant activities.

The only activity of the UK Endorsement Board so far has been to bring itself into being, and that has been done by a rather curious route. First, the chairman was appointed—by the Secretary of State, I assume—and the chairman then essentially constructed her own board. That is not absolutely normal practice: the board usually elects the chairman, rather than the chairman electing the board, but perhaps that is a part of the process of bringing these things into being.

Then we have the question of the independence and accountability of the board; I wonder to whom exactly the board is accountable. It is barely accountable to Parliament. One could say that it is perhaps rather more accountable to the accountancy profession, as most of the members of the board who have been appointed are accountants. The potential danger for the board is that, in a circular way, it reflects its own view of the profession on the profession itself. I would like reassurance from the Minister that that, in his view, will not happen as a result of the work of the endorsement board as it goes forward.

The other matter, as far as independence is concerned—I always look for it when such things happen—is how the board is funded. Has it got independent pay and rations, and can it guarantee the funding that the Minister elucidated was £2 million or so?

[Paul Scully]

It is £2.9 million.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

Okay, £2.9 million. How is that actually guaranteed? It turns out that it is to be sorted out and guaranteed through a subsidiary company of the FRC, which, again, is a slightly unusual procedure for guaranteeing pay and rations and organisational independence for such a body. It is especially unusual in view of the fact that the FRC is about to be abolished. It is to be replaced by the interestingly named ARGA—the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority, which does not exist yet. We are still awaiting a paper promised for the spring of 2021. Cold weather notwithstanding, I am assured that it is now the spring of 2021, so we await the detail of what the new body is expected to do, how it will be set up and organised, at what point the FRC ceases to exist, and how the functions of the FRC will be transferred to ARGA.

There is a particularly important element: the guaranteed transfer of financial independence from that subsidiary of the FRC to, I presume, something relating to ARGA at the point when FRC ceases to exist. Can the Minister give a brief assurance that there will be no hitches and that there will not be any necessary further secondary legislation to secure the proper transfer of the financial arrangements relating to the board from the subsidiary of the FRC to a possible subsidiary of ARGA? I think he will agree that this looks a little rickety at the moment.

As I have said, the really important international regulations will be placed in the hands of a body that has only just come into existence and that is funded by a body that is just about to go out of existence. I hope the Minister can give us some assurances about the solidity and continuity that we should be able to expect from such an arrangement for the future. I am sure he will be able to satisfy us on those matters this morning.

Fireworks

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on bringing forward the debate, which I think hon. Members across the Chamber will agree has been thorough and thoughtful, with the issues before us put squarely on the table, as they should be. Indeed, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to some of those points and suggestions, which I sincerely hope will be much more constructive than the response given to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) when she recently raised the issue with the Leader of the House.

E-petitions, including the one that has brought about this debate, have attracted nearly three quarters of a million signatures in just three years. As the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) pointed out, we have had three Westminster Hall debates on fireworks in recent years—it is more or less an annual debate—and today marks our fourth. That demonstrates not only the strength of public feeling on fireworks, but the extent to which there is a feeling that things are not really moving forward and that greater activity on the issue is needed. I very much thank the instigators of the petition and everyone who took the time to sign it, including, since we are talking about numbers, the 400 in my constituency.

Clearly, the recent announcement that we will have a national lockdown from Wednesday this week will have an impact on people’s plans to celebrate bonfire night on 5 November. We have heard about that in the Chamber this afternoon and I will touch on it later. However, this debate is about far more than just this year; it is about what we do to improve the situation with fireworks well into the future.

I think we can all agree—indeed, we have agreed it around the Chamber this afternoon—that firework displays run by local groups and charities not only can provide a safe, predictable and organised space for firework displays, but can bring about a sense of place, promote community cohesion and raise funds to be invested in good local causes. That is quintessentially the way to frame firework displays for the future.

The fireworks evidence base published last Friday afternoon by the Office for Product Safety and Standards tells us that, while approximately 10 million people now buy and use fireworks each year, 14 million of us attended a public display led by members of the British Pyrotechnists Association in 2019 alone. That shows that there is a big appetite for those public displays, with their safe and organised ways of letting off fireworks, and also for the standards of control that the British Pyrotechnists Association brings to those kinds of displays.

However, it is absolutely right for MPs to consider how we can better protect people, animals and the planet, not from the realities of firework use under those circumstances, but from the particular circumstances of firework misuse. We are lucky to have some of the world’s most respected animal rights advocates operating here in the UK, including the RSPCA, the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, for example. Those organisations are not calling for an outright ban on fireworks in the UK, but they do want to mitigate, where possible, the significant animal welfare concerns that have been raised this afternoon. There is broad consensus among those groups that the Government could and should be doing much more to protect animals.

Some of those organisations are calling for a ban on sales to private individuals in order to limit firework displays only to public events. We have had a big debate on that this afternoon, but it is well understood that loud, high-pitched and intermittent noise can adversely affect large proportions of animals, whose hearing is often much more sensitive than that of humans. We have heard of the effects that fireworks, set off in an inconsiderate and unpredictable way, can have on horses, cats, dogs and many kinds of animals.

There does not seem to be quite so much definitive evidence out there to call on regarding the effect that fireworks have on wildlife in general, but it is something that MPs on both sides of the House have also raised with the Government, and it is important that we get more information on the effect of fireworks on wildlife in the country. I urge the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to do some work on that and to see what results come forward.

We have also heard a lot about firework safety. We know that there were almost 2,000 A&E visits linked to fireworks in 2018-19, and more than 35,000 people had to seek advice on how to treat burns and scalds from the NHS website. Some of those injuries are serious and life-changing. Let us be absolutely clear that fireworks, in the hands of people who are not trained to use them safely, can be very dangerous indeed.

Although the evidence available at this point is limited, it suggests that the majority of those firework-related injuries in the UK occur at private displays in homes or on the streets, rather than at organised displays. As colleagues have said, given the lockdown, it appears that organised displays will be replaced with greater use of fireworks in the home, because of the cancellation of organised events and social distancing. Blue Cross recently found that 25% of people in the UK are considering firework displays at home this year. I hope the Minister will update us on what measures he is taking to prepare local authorities and our fire services for these circumstances, as there will inevitably be a greater call on health services and public bodies to response to that switch from public to private displays.

I want to raise a point that has not been discussed much this afternoon. Fireworks packaging and the paraphernalia that comes with them can fall to the ground and litter our green spaces. They are not biodegradable and can cause considerable environmental damage in the process. Gun powder is still used in modern fireworks. It throws sulphur particulates, metal oxides and some organic matter into the atmosphere, some of which falls to the ground. The bright colours and the effects that fireworks dazzle us with are the result of complex chemical concoctions, which can emit carbon dioxide, other gasses and residues.

A study by Environmental Protection UK has suggested that there are notable increases in air pollution from particulates and dioxins on and around 5 November. There is widespread disagreement, however, about the extent to which deposits and pollutants caused by fireworks actually affect soil and water sources. We need to be clearer about that. With smaller displays happening at home this year, the effect on air pollution in many of our towns and cities will be quite substantial.

At the moment, we are governed by the Fireworks Act 2003, which Labour brought in. The Act gave powers to impose licences on retailers selling fireworks outside predetermined dates—bonfire night, new year, Chinese new year and Diwali. It also brought in noise restrictions, banned the sale of F2 and F3 category fireworks to people under the age of 18, and ensured that F4 category fireworks—the most explosive—could only be possessed by fireworks professionals. It introduced an 11 pm curfew for most of the year. A breach of that curfew can, in theory, lead to an immediate £90 fixed penalty notice, considerable further fines and potential imprisonment for serial offenders.

As legislators, we know that these laws are largely meaningless without enforcement. The Minister needs to be clear that a decade of cuts to local authorities, for example to their trading standards and environmental health teams, has left them woefully under-resourced to tackle rogue traders or those flouting the rules under the existing legislation. If the Government are serious about protecting the public, animals and the environment from the negative aspects of fireworks, we need to see investment that allows for a proper enforcement of existing legislation. Like many others, I sometimes sit in my bedroom at 1.30 am listening to the sound of fireworks going off across my city, as they do in many other parts of the UK.

A survey run by YouGov for Dogs Trust found that over half the British public think that fireworks should now be limited to public display only, and over three quarters believe that fireworks should be used only at certain times of the year. It is clear that the case for the Government to consider these proposals is building. I would like to hear the Minister address those suggestions directly.

Many advocacy groups feel that so-called silent or quiet fireworks, although not a panacea, could reduce some distress across the board. We heard this afternoon from the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) about decreasing decibel levels for firework displays. I think that it is time for the Government to consider the current decibel level cap and see what can be done to bring it down.

For centuries, fireworks have brought joy and wonder to us mere mortals. Throwing luminous bursts of colour, light, sound and energy into the night sky, fireworks are wondrous to behold. But existing legislation is simply not being enforced. The public need to see the Government moving from merely understanding their concerns about animal welfare and all the other issues to actually taking more action. I look forward to hearing from the Minister this afternoon what that action will be.

Public Interest Disclosure (Protection) Bill

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I will be both brief and supportive, as all the speeches this afternoon in this debate have been: brief, because I want to ensure that we get the Bill through this afternoon, and supportive, because it is a Bill that needs the support of the whole House over the next period.

We need whistleblowers across our country to keep businesses and public activities clean and straight and, indeed, to avert the tragedies that may result from internal cultures of denial when things go wrong. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), whom I warmly congratulate not only on bringing this Bill forward this afternoon, but on her tenacity and hard work over a period of years in bringing attention to this issue and what we can do about it, has given a number of examples of where whistleblowing could have made a difference. There are many other examples that we can all think of: Grenfell, the collapse of Carillion and the North Staffs hospital, which we know from the Francis report, and indeed internationally, where maybe one whistleblower might have saved hundreds of lives with the Boeing 737 MAX disasters. We know that the current legislation that we have, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, is not adequate—good though it was at the time—to ensure that whistleblowers get the protection and support they need.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but my concern, having learned what happened in the Labour party with the antisemitic complaints and staff members who blew the whistle and were ignored, is that the Labour party itself has questions to answer regarding whistleblowing. Does he agree?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes indeed; as the hon. Lady will know, that is happening at the moment, in terms of the support for those whistleblowers at that time in the history of the Labour party and what is now being done about that. That is an example of what is important in this debate.

As I said, the current law is simply inadequate to support whistleblowers properly. As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire has said, it dissolves down into employment tribunals, where individuals must face their employer, and there is no other way to access justice at the moment. Relevant individuals such as trustees, trainees and volunteers are excluded from the law; there are no official standards for whistleblowing that employers must meet or recognised procedures for them to follow; regulators are unaccountable for the way they treat whistleblowers, and whistleblowers cannot bring a claim against a regulator, but only against their employer. Whistleblowers do not get legal aid and must pay for all their legal fees personally, as I believe the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) mentioned. Even if they win, they face not being able to recover those costs.

This Bill puts most of those problems right. It extends the types of wrongdoing that can be reported to cover gross mismanagement, serious abuse of authority and so on. It extends protection of those who are perceived as whistleblowers. It provides remedies for close relatives who suffer detriments following whistleblowing. Civil penalties are provided for in relation to a range of infringements, and criminal offences are introduced as a backstop for certain types of non-compliance, including retaliation against a whistleblower.

Inevitably, in addition to those remedies, there are other things that could be done to support whistleblowing. The Labour party has suggested giving protected status to whistleblowers and imposing a statutory duty on employers to prevent victimisation. What I think is not in dispute is that this Bill covers light years in the distance between where we were with protection for whistleblowers in 1998 and where we should be now, and for that reason I think it deserves the support of the full House.