Draft Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(2 days, 17 hours ago)
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Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Hobhouse. I will not say a great deal, but the Minister is quite correct to introduce this statutory instrument. Plainly, its provenance is in measures taken by the previous Government. Since she mentioned where most of this work is under way, I am interested to know how much she expects the legislation to boost the sector in this country, and whether she has had any discussions with the European Union, which will probably take a dim view of some of this. One of the benefits of leaving the European Union is that we can make such legislation, whereas it was previously extremely difficult to do so.
How does the Minister believe that the legislation will impact growth in the sector, and can she assure us that in applying this basic research, we will be able to capitalise on it? Unfortunately, the story in this country is that we are exceptionally good at doing basic research, but other countries and jurisdictions take on that research and we see very little of the uptick or benefit from it. It seems to me that this is a case in point. It would be unfortunate if we were to carry out such research—it will be expensive—in England, only to find that it was exploited elsewhere, particularly in America. What is the Minister doing to make sure that will not be the case? Does she intend the Government to offer any fiscal or other encouragement to companies that might seek to exploit our basic research?
Emma Hardy
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, which was thoughtful, as always, and demonstrated our care for other countries around the world. We have talked about resistance to pests and changes owing to climate change, and this is generally a good and innovative technology that can be used to benefit many people. As I said, although the EU seems to be moving in this area, we are diverging and we do not have time to wait.
Emma Hardy
I will try to answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question and then he is welcome to intervene. A report by the Breakthrough Institute and Alliance for Science estimates that the EU’s current regulations on gene editing could result in an annual economic opportunity cost of $182 billion to $356 billion for the EU. That is why we want to act now to place English scientists and breeders at the forefront across Europe to make the most of opportunities presented by precision-breeding technologies.
Dr Murrison
The Minister has pretty much answered the question I was going to put to her, which was: what assessment has she made of the competitive advantage? I am trying to be helpful to the Government. I know that they say they want lots of growth, and this is an opportunity to get growth, is it not? But to get growth we need competitive advantage, not just with the States, but with the EU. So my question really is: how much does she think we will be advantaged by the legislation? She has given me a figure, which sounds like a lot of money. I encourage her to go further and, as Europe becomes more and more restrictive in the technologies that it appears to be fighting scared of, the UK must be able to be rational in how it positions itself. In this area, that means being encouraging to our science base, of course, as well as our ability to exploit the findings of that research here in the UK.
Emma Hardy
As I said, there is an opportunity of $182 billion to $356 billion that we can perhaps not exploit—that is maybe the wrong word—but utilise, or take advantage of.
Rural Communities: Government Support
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
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Caroline Voaden
The hon. Member’s point comes back to what I am saying about having people at the top table who really understand how these economies work, because so often those smaller communities are lost under the larger voice of the big cities.
In peripheral rural and coastal communities, which have higher levels of high occupational risk groups—for example, farmers and vets—social isolation and loneliness is a cause for concern, with higher levels of suicide and self-harm admissions and lower levels of referral to psychological therapies.
Rural isolation is particularly acute for older people who do not drive. With every pub, café or post office that closes, the opportunity to socialise with others, or even just have a conversation, disappears. It is also damaging for younger people; rural living means fewer opportunities for leisure, sport, socialising and part-time work, embedding disadvantage through a lack of opportunity to gain vital employment skills.
That all sets the scene for the challenges of living in and providing services to rural areas, and I am sure that colleagues will elaborate on many of them, such as buses, banks and broadband, but I would like to finish by looking at funding, because that has a real-world impact on rural communities such as mine, and the figures are—quite frankly—shocking.
Under the 2025-26 local government finance settlement, Government-funded spending power in predominantly urban areas will be £573 per head, compared with £407 in predominantly rural areas. Urban councils will get a huge 41% more per head than rural councils. Over 10,000 people, that equates to £1.66 million a year. Council tax per head will, on average, be 20% higher in rural areas than in urban areas. And, now, predominantly urban areas are to receive over seven times more of the proposed £600 million recovery grant than predominantly rural areas.
Last week, the Government announced continued funding for the rural England prosperity fund, with up to £33 million directed to the fund to
“improve local infrastructure and essential services that benefit rural communities and help businesses…to expand, creating jobs and kickstarting the rural economy.”
From 2023 to 2025, that fund was £110 million, so, while £33 million is welcome, it does equate to a 36% cut in annual funding.
We welcome DEFRA’s announcement of up to £5 million to go towards the continuation of important services for rural communities, such as capital funding for the refurbishment and development of much-needed community-owned assets, such as village halls and community centres. I have seen several of these projects in my own patch, with upgraded community centres doing vital work in bringing the community together.
However, the Liberal Democrats are concerned by the Government’s decision to allocate additional funding within the local government finance settlement on a need and demand basis. The new system of allocation will not recognise that the sparse and isolated nature of rural areas drives higher costs for the delivery of essential services, creates challenges in recruitment of staff for key services, and requires local authorities to provide a greater subsidy for the provision of public transport. We know that the challenges of recruitment are having a direct impact on inward investment into rural areas, because companies who want to invest in South Devon are anxious about doing so because they know that workers cannot afford houses in the area, so where will the workforce come from?
Likewise, the Government’s suggestion is that funding previously allocated to rural local authorities under the rural services delivery grant will be repurposed under the need and demand basis that jeopardises rural local authority funding. That is despite the grant providing rural local authorities with £100 million for the roll-out of essential public services, including emergency services and the provision of social care in 2024-25. We therefore urge the Government to provide rural councils with a funding settlement that reflects the impact of the rurality and sparsity of the areas they serve, through the application of the fair funding formula.
There is a lot to unpack here, but I have secured this debate to urge the Government to think about working more across Departments, and to bring people together to really consider the impact of departmental spending decisions, not only on that Department, but on each other. How do Transport decisions affect Education, and, with it, the wider skills agenda? How do the Health decisions that are made impact the economy in a rural area? How does the closure of hospitality businesses affect rural isolation, loneliness and mental health outcomes? I could go on, but will leave it to colleagues to give examples from their constituencies to highlight many of these issues.
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called. Members will have observed that the debate is oversubscribed, with a long list of people who want to contribute. Therefore, I urge discipline and an indicative limit of two minutes, and if you were not here at the start of the debate, you will not be called. We will start the winding-up speeches from the Front Benchers at eight minutes past 5.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.
Representing a rural area and having spent a lot of my career working with rural communities and the land, I am keenly aware of the challenges that the communities in my constituency face. When services fail, it is our rural communities that are hit first and hit hardest. Because of their size, small rural schools and doctor’s surgeries are already working with smaller margins than their urban cousins. When budgets have been cut, those cuts have gone straight to the bone. Rural broadband and phone services lag behind, making it more challenging to set up businesses to work from those areas.
I have seen areas where rural bus services have been reduced to almost nothing—when they have not disappeared completely—cutting off communities and massively affecting the lives of elderly and disabled people. The big bus companies have pulled out of many of our rural areas, but I know that those routes can work. Hornsby Travel, a local family company in the Isle of Axholme, is doing amazing work in finding ways to provide vital connections for rural villages. Even roads, the one lifeline to country villages, are falling deeper and deeper into disrepair, as squeezed budgets force local authorities to focus on only the busiest roads.
I recently visited Wroot Travis primary school, which has fewer than 30 pupils. The children had sat down and worked out the one thing that they wanted to speak to me, their MP, about: they wanted a sign outside their school, warning drivers about children crossing the road. I was happy to write to the local council to champion their cause, but I cannot help but feel that a school in a town or city would not even have had to ask; it would have been done automatically. That is such a small thing, but it is symbolic of the way that rural communities have been treated as an afterthought or not even thought of at all.
If that street sign is a symbol of how things have been, I hope that the steps this Government are taking are symbolic of a new relationship with rural communities. The rural England prosperity fund is one such step, helping to support local businesses to establish, grow or diversify and supporting charities and community groups to enrich their areas. Another is the additional funding brought by the rural community assets fund, which will help to preserve and improve cherished local community facilities. Finally, the Action with Communities in Rural England grant will help rural community groups and others to offer social inclusion activities. I am sure that the Minister will talk about many of those measures and more, but I welcome them, and especially their focus on empowering and developing capacity within our rural communities and working with people to give them the tools they need to make their communities flourish.
The knowledge and expertise of generations that have worked and bring great value to our local communities need to be recognised, particularly as we start to meet the challenges that climate change brings. New blue-green engineering will be a huge and vital part—
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing this debate.
South Cotswolds is an area rich in heritage and beauty, but it faces distinct challenges in, for example, public transport and access to NHS services. The cancellation of the 84/85 bus route last year severed connections from Hillesley and Alderley to Yate. I know of a young man who was raised by his grandparents, who could not afford to run him around the place, so he relied on the bus to get to college. His college course offered him a real opportunity to train for a job with decent prospects, allowing him to escape the cycle of poverty. When the bus route was cancelled, he could not get to college and had to drop out of his course.
A second example is an older lady who used the bus to get into Yate to do her weekly shopping. When the bus route went and she could not get into Yate, she lost her freedom and independence. She became isolated and lonely, the health consequences of which are well documented. Those examples demonstrate the false economy of cutting public transport, which leads only to greater reliance on the state and fewer opportunities for individuals.
Access to NHS dental services is a serious problem. I know of a lady in Tetbury who had severe toothache and had to rely on Bonjela until she was able to arrange for transport for treatment. Meanwhile, I am engaged in an ongoing battle with the local integrated care board to ensure continuity of private care provision in Sherston. The ICB has admitted that its toolkit, the algorithm it uses to decide the distribution of resources for primary care, was designed for an urban context, not a rural one. Coupled with the lack of public transport, this is causing real problems.
Environmental Protection
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I beg to move,
That the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 25 November 2024, be approved.
It is a red-letter day, is it not, Madam Deputy Speaker? Back in 2017, the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chaired, reported on the UK’s appalling record on recycling plastic bottles, and recommended the introduction by Government of a deposit return scheme. I have the report and the then Government’s response with me. Previous Governments promised that such a scheme would be put in place, yet here we are. The Conservatives recycled Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs up to seven times, but they did little to reduce the millions of empty plastic containers littering our high streets, washing up on our beaches and polluting our rivers.
We have known for decades that the “take, make, throw” model causes harm. It leads to littering, landfill and incineration. Keep Britain Tidy estimates that two waste streams, plastic bottles and drinks cans, make up 55% of all litter across the UK. When it comes to addressing waste, this Government will not waste time. We are turning back the plastic tide and moving to a circular economy that keeps valuable resources in use for longer.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Minister will know that incinerators are now the dirtiest way in which we generate electricity—dirtier than coal. Further to her Department’s advice note dated 30 December, what will she do to place a moratorium on the construction of new waste burners, thus bringing us in line with more enlightened Administrations—in this respect at least—in Wales and Scotland?
Mary Creagh
The right hon. Gentleman is right that we made an announcement on that issue. We will bring forward further guidance and work with local authorities as they examine what is before them, so there will be more to say on this at a later date.
Returning to the issue of getting money back on bottles and cans, deposit return schemes and other such schemes are a well-established method of keeping resources in use for longer. Many of us generation X MPs will remember using these schemes in our school days. Over 50 countries run money-back bottle schemes, creating an incentive to return drinks containers for reuse or recycling. Germany had a 98% return rate—the highest in Europe—in its deposit return scheme last year. I met the Irish Minister Ossian Smyth just last week; Ireland’s deposit return scheme was introduced only in February 2024, and it is already achieving a 90% return rate. The UK is way behind, with collection rates ranging from 71% to 76% for plastic bottles and metal cans. We can, must and will do better.
Andrew Griffith
I hate to intrude on socialist grief, so let me move on.
Business leaders make decisions only when they have considered the context of all external factors, so it is important—I hope the Government agree—that we consider the statutory instrument in the context of the current headwinds faced by British business.
Right now, businesses across the land are working through the tough choices they will have to make to keep their businesses viable in the face of this Government’s job-killing, investment-crushing, growth-destroying Budget, because of choices this Government have made. It was this Government who chose to place enormous burdens on business with their new tax on jobs. It was this Government who chose to halve business rates relief for retail and hospitality. It is this Government who are choosing to push through their Employment Rights Bill, which will increase unemployment, as we saw today, and prevent young people from ever getting their first chance of a job. Business confidence has been knocked down and jobs are at risk, and it is no surprise when we consider that not a single person sat around the Cabinet table has real experience of running a business.
No sectors have been hit harder than retail and hospitality. The British Retail Consortium has said how Labour’s Budget will increase inflation, slow pay growth, cause shop closures—the very shops that will have to participate in this scheme—and reduce jobs. The CBI has said that retail businesses have gone into “crisis containment”. The Institute of Directors found that economic confidence has fallen for a fourth month running—does anyone know what those four months have in common? The number of businesses closing has increased by 64% since the Budget. That is the shocking reality and the context in which the Government seek to bring forward today’s statutory instrument, putting more burdens and more cost on business.
Dr Murrison
Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government were really serious about reduce, reuse, recycle, they would put a moratorium on the construction of new waste incinerators, as we put in our manifesto in July? If we now had a Conservative Government, there would be no more waste incinerators, including in Westbury, in my constituency, which would be matching what the Welsh and Scots have already done.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point—I hope the Government are listening. That measure would not cost the economy anything, unlike this measure, which, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, will cost the economy. In fact, it will represent a £288 million net cost imposed on business every year, which is a £2.7 billion indirect cost over the 10-year appraisal period. It will be another unsustainable cost heaped on business, and an unwelcome addition to the growing headwinds on enterprise that this Government have created.
Rural Affairs
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Steve Reed
The changes have been signed off by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the full impact assessment will be available when the Finance Bill is published, before they come into force in 2026.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State understand that a farmer coming towards the end of his career is hardly likely to invest either in improving his land or in the hundreds of thousands of pounds that a piece of agricultural plant costs these days, knowing that there will be a surcharge when, sadly, he deceases?
Steve Reed
The vast majority of farmers will be unaffected by the changes, so that point will not apply.
We are also rapidly releasing £60 million to support farmers whose farms have been devastated by severe flooding. That is £10 million more than the previous Government were offering and, unlike their fantasy figures, we have shown where the money to be paid out will come from. Flooding is just one of the many challenges that farmers have faced over the past year.
Farming and Food Security
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Steve Reed
I had the pleasure of visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency and a farm there during the election campaign, and I thoroughly recognise the point that he raises. It is a little hypocritical, is it not, for the Conservative party to complain that not enough is being done on flooding, when their Government left flood defences in the worst condition ever recorded?
Steve Reed
I will now make a little progress. I have taken quite a few interventions, and other Members want to speak.
Our new deal for farmers will boost Britain’s food security, protect our environment and drive rural economic growth by tackling the root causes of the long-term issues they face—climate change, rising prices for energy, feed and fertiliser, unfair supply chains, and access to labour. We will ensure that environmental land management schemes work for farmers, and where funding is allocated for farmers we will make sure it reaches farmers, ending the Tory underspends that saw hundreds of millions of pounds held back. We will improve these schemes by working with farmers to boost food security and promote nature’s recovery, including upland, lowland, grass and tenant farmers.
Upland farmers have been left behind. Farmers in the uplands have been losing their basic payments each year, but have not been able to access new schemes. We have arrived in office to find no credible plan to address that, leaving thousands of the most remote and isolated farmers without a clear path for their families, businesses or communities. We need a fair approach for all farmers.
Dr Murrison
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s remarks with a great deal of interest. Does he agree that the vast majority of people in this country, given the choice, would rather buy British food? Certainly, all the surveys that have been done would bear that out. However, one of the principal problems is the information they are provided with by the supermarkets and, I am afraid, the cynical way in which many of those supermarkets approach the labelling of food, suggesting it is British when in fact it is not. What does he suggest we do to give consumers, who have not yet been mentioned in this debate, the genuine choice they are seeking and to help our farmers along the way?
Tim Farron
The right hon. Member is absolutely right. I support the NFU’s call for accurate labelling that is enforceable, and he is right to say that.
To move on, if we are losing farms and losing farmers, which we are as we speak, not only are we losing our ability to feed ourselves as a country, but we are undermining our ability to deliver for the environment. Let us not fall into the mistake of thinking that this is a debate between caring for the environment and producing food; we either do them both or we do not do them at all. Some 70% of England’s land mass is agricultural, and the figure would be greater across the UK as a whole. If we think we are tackling the climate and nature crises without farmers, we are kidding ourselves. The greenest policies in the world will just be bits of paper in a drawer if we do not have the farmers on the ground to put them into practice.