Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I will convey the right hon. Gentleman’s encouragement to the Under-Secretary, because the negotiations are indeed tough when dealing with countries that still pursue whaling practices.

May I put the matter of marine conservation zones in context? The Under-Secretary made a statement to Parliament in November last year, making it clear that an independent scientific review had found the evidence base for the designation of those zones to be insufficiently robust. I am sure the House wants the decision to be based on evidence and led by science, so we will not be rushed into making a decision without that additional evidence. On the figures in reports, the right hon. Gentleman should take them with a pinch of salt.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I welcome the introduction of further marine conservation zones, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the intention is not to put out of business those fishermen who engage in low-impact fishing, particularly mackerel handlining on the Cape bank off the Cornish coast? Surely, in designating these zones the intention is to strike a balance and to ensure that we get things right.

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation, which underlines the point about the need to ensure that the evidence is robust and to balance the needs of all those who require access to our marine and coastal waters, but who have at heart the health and welfare of our seas. We need to ensure that the evidence base is robust.

Flooding

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

Yes, I am confident of that because we have reached an advanced stage of negotiation with the insurance industry to secure universal and affordable flood insurance. It is often misunderstood, but the statement of principles was no guarantee of the affordability of insurance. We understand how important that is, and will make a statement shortly.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It seems that the heavens are opening with distressingly increased regularity and intensity. Given that the science of forecasting is improving and the growing responsibility of the Environment Agency, what more can be done to ensure that that science is harnessed and that mobile defences are put in place to respond to it?

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend is right that the capacity to forecast has improved. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gives the Flood Forecasting Centre £2.9 million per annum, which continues the funding position from before we came into government. The accuracy of the forecasting means that we can give communities vital hours in which to give advice to home owners on how to protect themselves and their possessions. I suggest that communities that face flooding regularly, which substantial parts of Cornwall do, consider technical provisions, such as text messaging, backed up by flood wardens who knock on doors personally. I saw people in Sussex resist moving even when all the advice had been given to them. There is no substitute for the human touch.

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that water companies are indeed tightening their belts like everybody else. The rise that he described is the one set out by the economic regulator Ofwat, as an indicator of the overall level of inflation, which has not a little to do with the economic mess that we inherited from the previous Administration. However, the important point for the hon. Gentleman is this. He and I share the use of Severn Trent Water’s services, and companies such as ours will be able to introduce a company social tariff, which would assist the most vulnerable in the water area where we reside. Indeed, it would be open to every company to do so, and we have published a consultation about the company social tariff.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Let me congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing forward this measure and remind her of the cross-party nature of the origins of the Bill and the fact that we have been working towards it across all parties for many years, including under the previous Administration, and not only following the Anna Walker review, as there has clearly been every intention of addressing what has been a clear historic unfairness for South West Water customers.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Indeed, I look across the Chamber to the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) as a demonstration of the cross-party consensus that existed, which I have acknowledged. The diligence with which south-west constituency Members raised awareness of this historic unfairness is the reason our Government have sought, finally, to do something about it and stop turning a deaf ear to families struggling with that historic legacy, which is what had happened for too long.

There are limits to the help that we can give, because of the vast economic deficit that we inherited. However, we believe that the Government should help to correct the historic inequity that has left water bills in the south-west so markedly out of kilter with those elsewhere in the country. We have therefore committed to funding South West Water to enable it to cut bills by £50 a year for all household customers. The payments will start in April next year and will be maintained to the end of the next spending review period. The £50 reduction will be transparent on customers’ bills and, contrary to the impression that might have been gained, will not provide any sort of benefit to South West Water. It will simply be passported straight through to the householder, who will receive that money in full.

We take pride in helping hard-pressed families in the south-west, but we recognise that the challenge of helping vulnerable customers with water affordability problems is a different and more general problem that can be felt in households anywhere in the country, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) suggested. As constituency MPs, we all know the families that we are talking about. That is why our water White Paper has set out definitively the dual approach that we are taking to tackling affordability issues. First, we are taking measures now to enable water companies to introduce social tariffs and to tackle bad debt. Secondly, over the longer term, we are introducing a package of reforms to increase competition and innovation in the industry that will help to keep bills down and improve customer service.

We consulted recently on how water companies could design social tariffs to reduce the bills of those who would otherwise struggle to pay in full. We will publish final guidance in the spring to enable companies to bring forward social tariffs in their charging schemes from 2013. Water companies’ responses to the consultation have shown their commitment to addressing customers’ affordability problems. Many already have schemes in place, such as trust funds, matched payment schemes, referrals to benefits advice and some existing social tariffs, but we have to be realistic in acknowledging that bad debt is also a serious problem in the water industry.

Bad debt adds an average of £15 to all paying customers’ bills, and this Government are taking action to address that. We are consulting on measures to reduce bad debt, and we are considering two options. The first is a regulatory measure that would make landlords liable for the water charges for their tenants’ properties if they failed to supply details of those tenants to the water company. However, we are mindful that the measure has to be proportionate and easily administered, so we are also consulting on whether we should ask landlords to share their tenants’ details with water companies voluntarily.

Food Prices and Food Poverty

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

As I am sure Opposition Front Benchers are aware, the lead Department on the grocery code adjudicator, both for the Government and for the Opposition, is of course the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but we have been very clear as a Government that we are fully committed to introducing the adjudicator as soon as possible.

Free and fair competition is the key to a healthy market, and it is right that the adjudicator should make sure the market is working in the best long-term interests of consumers. In this Session, we published a draft Bill to allow pre-legislative scrutiny. It was a popular measure, welcomed on both sides of the House, and as the Leader of the House said on 15 December 2011:

“There will be a second Session of this Parliament, and the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill is a strong candidate for consideration as part of it.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 937.]

So there is no delay, but it has to be done right.

It is important to bear it in mind that, overall, the Competition Commission found that retailers are providing a good deal for their customers, and they should not be prevented from securing the best deals and passing the benefits on to their customers, but, similarly, we are clear that they should be required to treat their suppliers lawfully and fairly.

During pre-legislative scrutiny, the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee suggested that third parties should be allowed to lodge complaints. Our position remains that it is more appropriate for complaints to be lodged directly or indirectly by suppliers, but we are open to considering further arguments on extending the range of those who can trigger an investigation. That is the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny. We recognise that third parties, including trade associations, have a valuable role to play, so the adjudicator will be fully free to gather evidence from trade associations once an investigation has begun.

The draft Bill provides the adjudicator with the power to name and shame retailers that are in breach of the code, and we believe that, in a highly competitive market, retailers will not risk reputational damage from unacceptable behaviour towards suppliers. If negative publicity proves insufficient, however, the draft Bill contains a reserve power for the adjudicator to impose financial penalties, subject to an order made by the Business Secretary but without the need for primary legislation.

I hope the House agrees, therefore, that these measures represent significantly more progress than was made under the previous Government and should be generally welcomed.

[Andrew George]

It has been suggested, in particular during the intervention by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), that the adjudicator would introduce inflation to the food market, but the Competition Commission itself, which is after all independent on the issue, made the situation quite clear, stating that

“if unchecked, these practices”—

the practices that the Secretary of State and others have described—

“would ultimately have a detrimental effect on consumers.”

It is quite clear that they would have a detrimental effect on prices for consumers.

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Competition Commission clearly keeps the practices of retailers under scrutiny and sees a benefit in independent adjudication of fairness in the supply chain.

I shall turn to other points in the motion. The hon. Member for Wakefield espouses the virtues of the Healthy Start programme, which this Government have continued, and no one will argue with the role of food banks, which are an excellent example of the big society. They are not new, as Churches have been redistributing food in that way down the decades, and we are four-square behind organisations such as FareShare, which do excellent work in the field.

In making it easier for shoppers, this Government have wasted absolutely no time in working with the food industry to simplify food date labelling. Last autumn I made it clear that one date should appear on the label, so that there is no confusion between “use by”, “use before”, “display until” or “store until”. There should be one date: if the product is perishable, the label should state “use by”, for food safety; if it is not, the label should state “best before”. In that way, we can certainly help people to reduce the amount of food that goes to waste.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I shall do my best, Mr Speaker.

If British farmers are to compete on the world market, support systems must not simply allow British farmers to avoid creating the ranch-and-prairie environmental deserts that we clearly do not want. Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State believe that the common agricultural policy reforms are currently moving things in the right direction?

[Mrs Spelman]

Within the CAP proposals, there is an endeavour to balance the need to promote animal welfare and protection of the environment in parallel with producing food sustainably, but the important thing in concluding trade deals with non-EU countries—2012 ought to the be the year of UK trade deals as emerging markets offer great potential to our industry—is to have the higher standards to which British food is produced recognised in the wider world and at global level.

Bovine TB

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

The science determines the level of mortality that must be achieved for the controlled reduction to be effective, and a 70% reduction in the badger population is what the RBCT trial showed had to be achieved. One key point of the six-week pilot is to confirm our assumption that controlled shooting will achieve that level of reduction in the badger population.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this is a devastating disease. We must hope that this policy will help and not make the situation worse. In the implementation of the culling policy, how will she ensure that there is a proper and rigorous estimate of the badger population and also that there is a proper count of those badgers that are culled within the area and not outside it?

[Mrs Spelman]

I commiserate with my hon. Friend because his part of the country has been the most badly affected by this terrible disease. Natural England will carry out a survey of the badger population before any culling takes place and will also check that the percentage of badgers culled fits the criteria set out in the pilot.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I think we are speculating wildly about the future of Europe. My job is to concentrate on getting an improvement in the reforms. It is important to appreciate that the underlying objective of the CAP is to provide good-quality food at a reasonable price. My Department is committed in its business plan priorities to producing more food sustainably, precisely to achieve that objective.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that a primary objective must be a move from market-distorting production supports to supporting public goods, such as the environment and amenity. How much progress does she believe the CAP reforms are making in that direction? How do we ensure that that general direction of progress can be accelerated?

[Mrs Spelman]

That is a helpful question, as it enables me to share with the House the fact that we are on a journey with these proposals. We welcome the fact that the Commission wants to “green” the CAP. Taxpayers have every right to expect other public goods for the subsidy they provide. We feel that the “greening” proposals also lack ambition, and we want proper recognition of the fact that UK farmers go a lot further than those in a lot of other member states in providing stewardship schemes that make a real difference and provide environmental benefits that address problems such as the demise of species.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

This is becoming something of an obsession for the Labour party, but Labour Members refuse to accept or acknowledge that, when in government, they were certainly considering scrapping the Agricultural Wages Board, and only the Warwick agreement and pressure from the unions—their paymasters—caused them to change their minds. Employment legislation has moved on tremendously since 1948, when the Agricultural Wages Board was set up. They are supporting an analogue solution in a digital age.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Notwithstanding the previous question, does my right hon. Friend not agree that potential new, young entrants will be looking closely at the common agricultural policy reform proposals published by the Commission yesterday? Although there are welcome proposals with regard to payments to young farmers, does she not agree that many of the other proposals would undermine the competitiveness of the future of British and, indeed, European agriculture?

[Mrs Spelman]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that. The House will be aware that the Commission has just published its proposals to reform the CAP, and I am afraid that they are disappointing. We will do all we can to improve them. We need agriculture that is competitive, market oriented and successful, to attract new entrants, but at first sight—we need to do more analysis—the Commission’s proposals seem extremely bureaucratic and do not move us in the right direction.

Waste Review

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I have to feed teenagers who are rather partial to chicken tikka masala, and there is very little left at the end of the day. The Government will be working with local councils to increase the frequency and quality of rubbish collections and make it easier to recycle, to tackle measures that encourage councils specifically to cut the scope of collections and to support them where they wish to provide a weekly collection for smelly waste.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I welcome the publication of the review today. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to address the challenge of the regularity of waste collection, we need particularly to look at pages 58 onwards of the report in relation to the management of food waste? What will the Government be doing to reassure people that we will meet ambitious targets to reduce food waste going into the chain?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Further to questions about the grocery adjudicator, I should declare an interest as chair of the Grocery Market Action Group, as well as because last week I met the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), who confirmed that the draft Bill would be published after the purdah period in May. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that she will use every endeavour to work with the business managers of this place and the Business Department to ensure that the measure is introduced this year and that we have effective regulation of the sector as soon as possible?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that I will use all my best endeavours to ensure that we proceed swiftly. I pay tribute to his work on producing a Bill in this Parliament, which I hope will help to inform his colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is anxious that we make good progress on the important Bill that my hon. Friend mentioned.

Forestry (England)

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

As I am sure you, Mr Speaker, and the House are aware, I volunteered to make an oral statement, and an oral statement does not appear on the Order Paper.

I made the decision with the Prime Minister. We have spoken about the matter, as the hon. Lady would expect, on a number of occasions. We spoke face to face about the options open to us, and we made the decision together.

The hon. Lady talks about the savings that I have had to make in my Department without a trace of acknowledgement that the reason Government Departments are having to make savings is the mess that her Government left this country in. I do not accept her argument that the proposals outlined in the consultation would have impacted adversely on the stewardship of our woodlands and forests. Since we are on the subject of stewardship, I remind her that, notwithstanding the savings that we have had to make in our Department, we have protected the expenditure on stewardship, precisely because we know that it is so important.

The many friends of forests that the hon. Lady listed will in many cases have written to hon. Members on both sides of the House to express their concern about their understanding of the forestry clauses in the Public Bodies Bill. In their minds, those clauses gave rise to a concern that their particular dearly loved forest might in some way be under threat. It is clear from my statement that, with the withdrawal of the forestry clauses, there can be no question about the protection of their forests in future.

The hon. Lady asked me about the planned sales. They have been suspended, and we await the outcome from the panel. She asked how many responses we had received. The Forestry Commission has received approximately 7,000 direct responses and 2,500 e-mails, and it has sent out 400 hard copies of the consultation document.

With regard to the composition of the panel, it will represent the broad range of views of all those who share with all of us a love and cherishing of the forests, and want to see them protected. It will be broad. Let me help the hon. Lady with her understanding of the deregulation taskforce, which fulfils a completely different function from that of the panel. We have invited Mr Richard Macdonald to advise Ministers on the simplification of regulation, particularly the regulation of agriculture. The consultation is complete: we have received the responses and we await Mr Macdonald’s report. As I said, this is a completely different function from that of the panel that I have announced today.

I found it quite hard to take the hon. Lady’s comments about the support that the previous Labour Government had given to the countryside—and the reaction of Members to those comments was enough to reinforce that point. Finally, as regards humility—perhaps, ultimately, that is the difference between her and me. I am prepared to come here and show genuine humility. If we heard some acknowledgement from the hon. Lady that her Government sold off forests with inadequate protection, we might begin to take what she had to say more seriously.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is, of course, right in the reassurances that she gave about the Public Bodies Bill, and I certainly welcome the statement she made last week about the 40,000 hectares, as previously announced in the comprehensive spending review. Will she reassure us that the well-constructed questions posed in the consultation will not simply be lost, or submerged by what has been announced today?

[Mrs Spelman]

Yes, I can give that assurance. Those were perfectly reasonable questions to ask, and I would expect members of the independent panel to look at all the questions raised in the consultation document—and, indeed, at some additional wider questions that members of the public asked to be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I do not accept that it puts biodiversity at risk. That is something that I am particularly committed to enhancing and improving, as is set out in the proposals. The hon. Lady’s point will remind everybody that the public forest estate covers only 18% of woodland. Under the reforms that we propose, the Forestry Commission would continue in a regulatory role, and I would expect it to help us to achieve even higher standards of maintenance in both the public and the private forest.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Bearing in mind the Secretary of State’s concerns about public perception of the consultation proposals, does she agree that now may be the time to provide greater clarity about the conditions governing how the 40,000 hectares announced in the comprehensive spending review will be disposed of?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am happy to provide clarity. The criteria for the continuing sales of land as part of the CSR planned release are published and in the public domain on the Forestry Commission website. They look principally for sites that are less accessible and have a large requirement for expenditure. The criteria are set out in the public domain, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can help to point people to the right place.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Debate between Andrew George and Caroline Spelman

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance, because we live in an age of transparency and that is what community groups have every right to expect.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Further to the point about a consultation, would my right hon. Friend care to reassure the House that the Public Bodies Bill seeks to establish enabling powers, rather than duties, and that that will fundamentally enshrine the opportunities proposed in the consultation, not force things through?

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because it is important to note that when we published the consultation document on 27 January it was accompanied by a written ministerial statement. If Members would like to read it in conjunction with the consultation document, they will find an assurance on this point. We will introduce a general duty for Ministers

“to have regard to the maintenance of public benefits when exercising”

the forestry-related powers and the powers in the Public Bodies Bill. [Interruption.] I am sure that Labour Members would be interested to know what those additional powers of protection are, as they have been making a lot of noise about this.

Secondly, the statement mentions

“exempting the most iconic heritage forests from the full range of options so that”

they

“could only be transferred to a charitable organisation or remain in public ownership”. —[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 17WS.]

That is far more protection than currently exists. If the Labour party would stop holding up the business in the other place, we might get those amendments on the statute book.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I read a document—“Operational Efficiency Programme: Asset Portfolio”, which was published by the previous Government just months before the election—and discovered, on page 54, an explicit reference to the case for the “long-term lease” of the public forestry estate. What about this document—the “Operational Efficiency Programme: final report”? It states clearly that “greater commercial benefit” could be obtained from the public forest estate. And what about this document—“A Strategy for England’s Trees, Woods and Forests”—published by none other than the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) when he was the Environment Secretary? It makes the case for local communities actively participating in the ownership and management of the public forest estate. Does that not lay completely bare the hypocrisy of the position now being taken by the Opposition? Their synthetic outrage cannot disguise the fact that they already had the public forest estate well and truly in their sights, so let us have no more of this self-righteous indignation.