Plastic Pollution

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Patrick Grady

1st reading: House of Commons & 2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to set targets for the reduction of plastic pollution; to require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy and annual reports on plastic pollution reduction; to establish an advisory committee on plastic pollution; and for connected purposes.

You have 10 minutes to rest your voice, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Plastic pollution has attracted massive amounts of attention and coverage in recent years. For those of us fortunate enough to live in coastal and island communities, it is far from a novel problem. Walk along any of the magnificent, if occasionally breezy, beaches of Orkney and Shetland, and the evidence is there for everyone to see for themselves: plastic washing up along our coastlines, despoiling some of the most spectacular, and the last genuinely wild, environments to be found anywhere in Europe. In the northern isles, every spring, we have an impressive and well-drilled series of litter-picking operations—the “Bag the bruck” campaign and Da Voar Redd Up—but as much as we can pick up off the beaches, we know that when the tide comes in again the pollution will start again. We can pick up only what we can see and what we can see is only the tip of the iceberg—there are bigger concerns about what we cannot see. Plastic breaks down to become microplastics, and once they are in the ocean they are next to impossible to remove.

Much of the credit for the rise in interest in this issue can be given to the excellent work of the BBC’s “The Blue Planet” series and Sir David Attenborough. They have raised awareness and forced us to confront the impact of our throw-away culture. In particular, they told us how these microplastics have an impact on our food chain and they have challenged us to do better at protecting our valued marine life. May I also pay tribute to Friends of the Earth and the Women’s Institute, which have been staunch in their continued support for this campaign and given me invaluable support in the drafting of this Bill? Other organisations I have been privileged to work with include Surfers Against Sewage and City to Sea, among many others. But this now goes beyond the campaign groups; in our coastal and island communities, the challenge of plastic pollution is being taken up in every walk of life. From microplastics infecting the food chain to marine life swallowing plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish, our throw-away culture has now become an existential threat to many of our indigenous industries, especially our fishing industry.

Therefore, it is perhaps no surprise that some of the leading voices calling for a reduction in plastic pollution in my constituency come from among the Shetland fishing industry. For years, these people have supported campaigns such as “Fishing for Litter”, and just this week the Shetland Fishermen’s Association has been highlighting the environmental damage caused by the practices of gillnetting and longlining. I would like to think that all right hon. and hon. Members are sufficiently acquainted with the different means of fishing that I would not need to explain what gillnetting is, but 18 years in this House makes me suspect that that may not be the case. So if the House will indulge me, I will just give a little explanation of what I am speaking about.

Gillnetting is a type of fine mesh twine, which works by being placed in the water and left there for prolonged periods. The fish swim into the holes in the mesh, which then tighten around them, trapping them. Gillnetting is brutally effective, but it results in vast nets being placed in the water and left there for a long time. These nets are sometimes several miles long and will be laid end to end. The practice is predominantly to be found among Spanish-owned and licensed vessels fishing within our waters, and it is pushing out many of the local boats, excluding them sometimes from several hundred miles of our territorial waters and doing so in a way that is drawing increasing attention. The aggression that is shown towards local fisherman by the Spanish boats that lay these gillnets is increasingly a problem and it will require to be addressed. More often than not it is the local Shetland boats, which then trawl the waters, that pick up the gillnets and longlines left behind by the Spanish trawlers and that are left having to bring them into port for safe disposal.

We are all acquainted with the phenomenon of finding one Department acting in a way that is contrary to the actions of another, but I must point out that the Department responsible for the fight against plastic pollution is the same Department responsible for fisheries management. It is remarkable that this situation has been allowed to continue in the way that it has and to come to a head in the way it now threatens to do. I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), in her place this afternoon, but I hope she will take the message back to her Department that, from the point of view of sustainability as well as plastic pollution, this now requires urgent attention. We must have cross-Government, joined-up thinking to ensure that from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs regulating fishing practices, through to the Department for Education procuring sanitary products for school, some of which, regrettably, involve single-use plastic, the Government are testing every proposal and policy to ensure that it is plastic pollution-proof. On cross-Government work, colleagues across the House will, no doubt, be aware that about 90% of the world’s plastic pollution comes from 10 rivers in Africa and Asia. So while we in the UK must ensure that we do our fair share to end plastic pollution, the Department for International Development should be giving that leadership around the world, working with our partners and friends to cut plastic waste around the globe.

Before we can lead, however, we must get our own house in order. In the northern isles, as is often the case, we look to our nearest neighbours in Norway to see how that can be done. Norway has one of the best stories to tell on this. It was always fairly low in the amount of plastic waste it disposed of, but it has now reached a recycling rate on plastic bottles of about 97%, with 92% going on to be plastic bottles once more and 1% ending up as waste. Norway’s example shows what we can achieve, and it sets an example to the rest of the world. We, too, must have the ambition to eliminate plastic waste for good, which is why this Bill and the campaigns that inform it are so important.

The Government have already outlined policies for reducing plastic pollution and I welcome the high-level consideration that there has been on this issue. We can disagree and debate whether those policies are enough. I have concerns that the Government are not doing enough and not doing it fast enough, but it is good that the debate is about how much we should do, rather than whether we should begin to do it. So I do give some credit to the Environment Secretary for his engagement and recognition of this as an issue.

Behaviour changes are going to be key in winning the war against plastic pollution. Interestingly, the Conservative leadership candidates are today debating the efficacy of “sin taxes”, but this is an area where I hope the sin tax will not come under any challenge, because it is clear from what we have seen, for example, with the tax on plastic bags, that such a sin tax is effective and urgent, and we need to see more of this. Plastic is merely one part of our unhealthy approach to litter and waste, and we must build a more circular economy, where everything, or as close to everything as possible, is recycled or reused. This is a process and it is never going to be an event, and never has that been more clear than in this case.

I am realistic about the prospects of success for my Bill, which starts as a ten-minute rule motion today, but it deals with an issue that is not going to go away. That is why there is enthusiasm beyond the walls of this House today for meaningful change. The Government have to listen to people across the length and breadth of this country to deliver meaningful change in order to protect our natural environment for generations to come. This Bill would be a start to that process. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mr Alistair Carmichael, Tim Farron, Ben Lake, Scott Mann, Kerry McCarthy and Alex Sobel present the Bill.

Mr Alistair Carmichael accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the first time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 415).

Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No. 3) Bill

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 56), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Question put forthwith, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the time it took the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to pour himself a glass of water, the House authorised the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No. 3) Bill, which, among other things, includes

“authorisation for the use of resources for the year ending with 31 March 2020”

to be

“increased by £348,553,768,000.”

It goes on to authorise all the rest of the expenditure of similarly great magnitudes that the Government expect to use over the next couple of years, without any possibility of debate or amendment, which is not what Members from the Scottish National party were led to believe when the English votes for English laws process was introduced. We were told then that the estimates process would be how we would scrutinise the Barnett consequentials of estimates.

The Bill represents the supply element of the confidence and supply arrangement that one of the other parties in the House has with the Government—it is good to see that at least a couple of them are here, which is more than there were the last time the supply estimates went through the House. Will you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to whether any other mechanisms are available to groups of Members to secure £1.5 billion of funding for their constituencies without any of them really having to show up very often?

Sewel Convention

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Patrick Grady

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman has a far more rural constituency than I do. Perhaps the farmers in his constituency are happy with the idea that this Parliament will simply legislate on those issues and ride roughshod, without the elected Members of the Scottish Parliament having a say, but I am not sure that the farmers in my constituency of Glasgow North would share that view.

The saddest thing is that it did not really have to come to any of this. This simply has not been on the Government’s radar. Whether that is because of a failure by the Secretary of State for Scotland to make Scotland’s voice heard in Cabinet or because Scotland is simply not important to the Tories does not really matter. The reality is that on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, we saw Government Whips running around the Benches negotiating with their rebels and Ministers at the Dispatch Box negotiating amendments to the withdrawal Bill in real time. Months of meetings in the Joint Ministerial Committee and of messages, statements, questions and debates led by Members from all the different parties in Scotland in this House seem to have had absolutely no effect on the UK Government. That is a demonstration of the contempt, of the power grab and of them riding roughshod over the views of Scotland expressed in the Scottish Parliament.

Ironically, and I have raised this before, there are still ways out for the Government, but they have so far refused to take them. On Thursday, I raised the issue of Royal Assent. It is up to the Government when the final version of the EU withdrawal Bill is put forward for Royal Assent. The Minister could stand up now and commit that they will not do so until agreement has been reached with the Scottish Government. Otherwise, presenting a Bill for Royal Assent while consent has been withheld is in blatant breach of the Sewel convention, which was put on a statutory basis in the Scotland Act after 2015—the greatest, most devolved Parliament in the entire history of the known universe snapped out and snuffed out just like that by this House of Commons after a paltry 19 minutes of debate, or one minute of debate for every year of devolution.

Let me say this on devolution and the Scottish National party—I say it with the greatest of respect to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). In 1997, when I was 17 years old, I was out on the streets of Inverness knocking on doors for the yes, yes campaign. I do not remember that many Liberal Democrat activists joining us, and that was a Liberal Democrat seat at the time. The reality is that the Scottish National party helped, on a cross-party basis, to deliver devolution and it has consistently delivered success in devolution, and the only people isolated throughout that period have been the Scottish Conservatives.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman remind us of the role in the constitutional convention, building the blueprint that created the Scottish Parliament, of the SNP?

[Patrick Grady]

Of course, in the early days the Scottish National party had an interest in the process of the constitutional convention, but the constitutional convention decided that it would not consider independence. There was a founding document of the constitutional convention—I am very happy to discuss it, because this is of fundamental importance to the Conservatives. I defy any of the Scottish Conservatives to get up now and say that they will endorse the claim of right for Scotland; it is one of the founding documents. The claim of right for Scotland says that it is the fundamental sovereignty of the people of Scotland to determine their own constitutional future. The only party that has never signed the claim of right for Scotland—it refused to sign it in 1989 and it refused to endorse it when it was put to the Scottish Parliament in 2012—is the Scottish Conservatives. If one of the Scottish Conservatives wants to get up now and say that they endorse the claim of right for Scotland, I will be very glad to hear it. No? And a silence fell upon the assembly.

Of course, the great irony in all of this—this is the question which the Minister for the Cabinet Office must answer—is the fundamental damage that is being done to the UK constitution as a whole. We regularly have the farce of the English votes for English laws procedure in the House of Commons, when the English Grand Committee—the English Parliament—is asked to grant a legislative consent motion to whatever it has already debated and already consented to. What is the point of that EVEL procedure now if legislative consent motions from the Scottish Parliament—and potentially from the Welsh Assembly and, indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly—are not even going to be paid attention to?

The reality is that the Government have completely failed to respect the outcomes of both the independence and the Brexit referendums. They have refused to respect the differential result in Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and Gibraltar. This goes beyond the simple question of the Sewel convention as it applies to Scotland; it is about how it applies across the whole of the United Kingdom. The Government are so determined simply to cling on to office that they do not seem interested in the consequences of the decisions they are making and the constitutional havoc they are wreaking.

Whether by accident or design, things have changed. The 20th anniversary of the Scotland Act heralds a new era of devolution and it is not the era that was promised by the no campaign in 2014. I am very fond of Alasdair Gray’s saying that we should

“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation”.

There is another saying that the darkest hour comes just before the dawn. This is a very dark hour for devolution, but perhaps that means the new dawn of an independent Scotland, where full powers are in our own control, is on the way and those really will be the early days of a better nation.

Scotland-Malawi Relationship

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing it.

The links between Scotland and Malawi were well documented by the hon. Gentleman. They have their roots in history, but they are still flourishing now. I suppose that traditionally they existed through the links between the Church of Scotland and the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, which remain strong to this day. Indeed, my own presbytery in Orkney is linked with the Thyolo Highlands Presbytery in Malawi. These are the sort of direct and meaningful links that exist.

Like other hon. Members, there are schools in my constituency that have direct links and partnerships with schools in Malawi. Westray Junior High School and Sanday Junior High School in particular have done a lot in recent years to offer their pupils an opportunity to see the life of their contemporaries in Malawi and to offer people in Malawi a chance to come in the other direction.

Those are very commendable links—the sort of links that should give us confidence that the civic links between Scotland and Malawi will continue to grow and endure, built as they are on links between communities and individuals within those communities. Indeed, at this point I should also pay tribute to the Scotland Malawi Partnership, which provided me with a briefing for this debate. I suspect that it has done for other hon. Members what it has done for me—namely, listing the links that exist within our communities.

In fact, there is another link that the Scotland Malawi Partnership was obviously not aware of, because it did not appear on its list. Nevertheless, it is an absolute exemplar of the sort of project that we should see and indeed do see across Scotland. It is the Malawi Music Fund, which is based in Orkney. It was set up by a constituent of mine, Glenys Hughes, who taught music in secondary schools in Malawi in 2006; she took a year out to go there. She came back and with her knowledge and experience she then built up links. The traffic between the two countries has continued to this day. Malawi Music Fund runs residential workshops and also raises funds for bursaries for secondary education, which, as hon. Members will know, is not free in Malawi.

Just this weekend, I met a dance teacher in Orkney, Joanna Davies, who had just been in Malawi with Orkney’s Malawi Music Fund. She told me, with some excitement, of her plans to bring a dance teacher and dancer from Malawi to Orkney—a link that she had built during the visit. I listened with a curious mix of inspiration and despondency. I could not help being inspired by the enthusiasm of somebody who had gone out and made a connection with somebody she had identified, from her own professional experience, as very talented. I was despondent, however, that by encouraging her to go forward with a visit or programme for this young man, I was almost certainly creating my own casework, because from the profile she described, I just know that getting him a visa will be an absolute nightmare.

It need not be like that. As a constituency MP, I have seen a number of projects over the years in which visitors come from Malawi to the United Kingdom. I have lost count of the number of times I have sat at my desk, bashing the phones and trying to get some common sense out of UK Visas and Immigration, the UK Border Agency, Border Force or whatever it was called at the time. It is the same old story every time: “We don’t believe that these people are going to go back, notwithstanding the basis on which they have been brought here.”

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate; pepani chomene, as we say in Chitumbuka. Is it not one of the greatest ironies of visas that the visitors who apply have so often been funded by Government institutions? These are UK Government and Scottish Government programmes that are vouched for by highly reliable organisations, but that does not seem to make a blind bit of difference to the Home Office.

[Mr Carmichael]

In calling it ironic, the hon. Gentleman is being kind to those responsible. Whether or not it is ironic, it sure as hell is frustrating and totally unnecessary. I have found myself speaking to Heathrow Border Force staff on a Saturday, with every document that could possibly be required, but it is always the same old story: any ambiguity in any of the information provided is always interpreted to the detriment, not the advantage, of the person seeking entry.