Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I have just explained, we do not want to set a specific target. However, we are successfully providing support to organisations that then go on to help people to switch. I love the idea that if anybody listening to this really wants to help their grandparents, neighbour or whomever, who may not have the confidence to switch themselves, they could go and help them switch, possibly saving them several hundred pounds. Instead of setting targets and blaming people when they are not met, we need to persuade people of the advantages of switching.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and congratulate her on her appointment as Home Secretary. Under her charge, the Department of Energy and Climate Change played an important role in securing the Paris climate agreement, and she was a strong and enthusiastic champion for it. Only two weeks ago, some might have suspected that today she would be more likely to be standing at the Dispatch Box saying goodbye to me, but in this place we are beginning to learn to expect the unexpected. She was always courteous and often actually helpful in our exchanges, and we wish her well in her new role.

The CMA report states for the past five years the big energy companies have been overcharging customers by more than £4,657,000 every single day. Can the Minister name any other swindle of such enormous magnitude where the Government would simply say, “It is the customer’s fault. People should have shopped around and switched to another provider”?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I completely refute the suggestion that the Government are saying it is the customer’s fault. We have been clear that we support the CMA’s recommendations; some huge changes are being undertaken. We are rolling out smart meters; simpler tariff rules are coming in; we will enable newer suppliers to pitch cheaper deals to inactive consumers; and there will be improved accuracy of quotes on price comparison websites. A range of remedies are being undertaken, and in no sense is there inaction on the part of this Government.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady said that she was going to be meeting the industry and the big six. The Government’s own figures state that in England 2.38 million households are living in fuel poverty. Her Department could today take action to force—not to talk to, but to force—energy companies to pass on changes in wholesale prices immediately to customers through their tariff structures. In that way, customers would benefit directly from the drop in wholesale prices. Why is she failing to do this?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am afraid that just shows that the hon. Gentleman does not really understand how the energy market works. His party’s proposal to cap energy bills to consumers was a grave mistake, because we have seen wholesale prices come down and all consumers have benefited from that. I say again that this Government are absolutely committed to getting bills down for consumers at every opportunity, to implementing the CMA’s significant reforms and to looking at what else is available to be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman looks surprised. This could be a first—is this a question on which he does not wish to give the House the benefit of his views?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am always happy to abide by your ruling, Mr Speaker.

One year ago, DECC’s estimate for the total lifetime cost of the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C was £14 billion. Recently, that estimate was revised to £37 billion. Following the referendum vote, the Government’s expert adviser has said that Hinkley C is extremely unlikely to go ahead. Does this mean that the Minister now does not have to worry about justifying the extra £23 billion cost to the Treasury, or does she just feel that she does not need to explain about the additional burden on taxpayers?

[Mr Speaker]

Splendid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see, but I can tell him that the commitment to our energy trilemma, smart meters and all our polices will remain as strong as ever.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Smart meters can reduce our energy usage, but there were 43,900 excess winter deaths last year and a “Panorama” investigation revealed that more than 9,000 of them were directly related to living in cold and poorly insulated homes. Will the Minister explain why there has been an 80% drop in the installation of major energy efficiency measures in British homes over the past four years, and will she agree to have urgent talks with Lord Adonis to ensure that energy efficiency is a top priority for the National Infrastructure Commission?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that fuel poverty in this country has to be tackled, and that is an absolute priority for my Department. He may be aware that we have launched our consultation on the energy company obligation to ensure that we refocus it on the fuel-poor and do everything we can to ensure warmer homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Some 23,000 businesses in the UK have solar panels on their roofs. If proposals in the current review of business rates go ahead, instead of paying £8 per kW, those companies could end up paying between £43 and £61 from next April. Up until last week, the Minister’s Department did not even know about that. Will she find out why her officials have been sleeping on the job, and speak to Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government to get this mess sorted out?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am not aware of any sleeping on the job. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to liaise with DCLG I will look into that, but we are certainly not asleep on the job.

EU Referendum: Energy and Environment

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the uncertainty created by the result of the EU referendum for the protections currently in place for the UK’s energy security, climate change commitments and the natural environment; notes that the discussion leading up to the EU referendum made little mention of environmental protection or climate change and considers that regulations and ambitions in those areas should in no way be diminished as a result of the outcome of that referendum; has serious concerns about the signals being sent to investors in those sectors by continued uncertainty; and therefore urges the Government to identify and fill any legislative gaps in environmental protection that may arise from the removal of EU law.

The motion stands in my name and those of other right hon. and hon. Members in the shadow Cabinet.

Before the referendum vote, the Government were already facing major problems securing the energy needs, emissions targets and environmental protections that the UK requires for the 21st century. These problems were mainly self-inflicted: an energy policy that left companies and investors confused, with feed-in tariffs for solar changed retrospectively; an effective moratorium on onshore wind power, despite its being the cheapest form of renewable energy; the subsidy for offshore wind cut; and the Government failing to indicate what would happen to the levy control framework beyond the cliff edge of 2020.

Investors were told that the Government were simultaneously incentivising new unconventional gas and phasing out unabated coal by 2025, yet the £1 billion still remaining for the development of carbon capture and storage was cut just four weeks before the final bids were to be made, with the consequent announcement by Drax of the abandonment of the White Rose CCS project and the announcement by Shell that it no longer saw a future in the near term for the Peterhead project. The Secretary of State’s energy reset speech last November ended up leaving us the equivalent of 54 million tonnes of CO₂ further from achieving the fourth carbon budget.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

For many of the companies involved, the investment lead-in times are quite long, resulting in a very uncertain environment in which to work. That is leading to some of them pulling out of the UK altogether.

[Barry Gardiner]

I must, reluctantly, agree with my hon. Friend. This is not good news; it is really bad news for all of us. The investment climate in the UK is in a really dire state. In fact, the UK has now fallen from eighth to 11th to 13th in the Ernst & Young index of the best countries for investment in low-carbon technology, when we have previously never been outside the top 10. These are really worrying matters.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I recently asked the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what action she was going to take to promote zero-carbon homes, given that the Government had announced last July that they were going to scrap the target set by the previous Labour Government for all homes to be carbon-neutral by this year. She replied that she could reassure me that an EU directive was due to come into force in 2020 and that she believed near-zero carbon emissions would help to reduce bills. Given that we are leaving the EU, does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should take immediate action to reintroduce ambitious targets for zero-carbon homes?

[Barry Gardiner]

What an excellent point my hon. Friend makes. She knows, as I do, that the Secretary of State was someone who saw the value in the UK’s staying in the European Union and in all the directives and regulations that came from Europe, which afforded the sort of environmental protections and energy policies that would secure our future. No doubt the Secretary of State will respond responsibly to today’s brief, but I think she will feel a great deal of sympathy both with the remarks that my hon. Friend has just made and indeed my own remarks from the Dispatch Box.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case about the lack of investment and about economic instability. Does he agree with me that now is a good time for the Government to reverse their decision to privatise the Green Investment Bank, and that when they negotiate withdrawal the Government should make a strong case to remain in the European Investment Bank? If those two things do not happen, we will be in really difficult times.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady, whom I regard as an hon. Friend, particularly on these matters, speaks with great knowledge. She is absolutely right about the Green Investment Bank, which was set up for a particular purpose: the Government recognised that there was a market failure. It was quite right of the Government to put the Green Investment Bank in place, but unfortunately the borrowing powers did not come quickly enough, and I think it is a huge mistake now to privatise the bank. It is a matter of deep regret to all who work in this environment. As for the hon. Lady’s remarks about the European Investment Bank, I shall come on to that subject later in my speech.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

On the subject of insecurity in investment, National Grid has said that fuel prices are about to rise as a result of the Brexit result. My “Prepay Rip Off” campaign showed that consumers were being overcharged to the tune of £1.7 billion a year. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the Government outline what they are going to do to ensure that consumers are not ripped off further by having to pay more for their fuel?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour has run a superb campaign on fuel poverty. She makes reference to the £1.7 billion that the Competition and Markets Authority report showed UK bill payers were being overcharged—overcharged by quite obscene amounts. It is, of course, right for the Government to come up with clear proposals about how to tackle that abuse, without just saying, as they have to date, that people need to be enabled to switch more easily.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

This is one of the first of our debates to mention the result of the EU referendum. I know that the hon. Gentleman was on the other side of the argument, so it would be useful if he told us whether, when it comes to a vote, he will vote to leave the EU despite his heavy heart or will he vote against the wishes of the British people?

[Barry Gardiner]

I always try to look at the motion in front of me on the Order Paper and make a judgment on it when I see what it says. I have done so for the past 19 and a half years, and I suspect I shall probably do it for the next few years as well.

Even the Government-dominated Select Committee has warned that what it calls the “hiatus” in project developments could threaten the UK’s ability to meet its energy and climate security targets, so when the Department’s own figures show the need for £100 billion of investment by 2020 to make our electricity infrastructure fit for purpose, the Secretary of State really does have to explain where she believes that investment is going to come from, given that investor confidence in her Department is at an all-time low.

Before the Secretary of State does so, however, perhaps she will confirm whether she instructed her Department not to prepare in any way for a leave vote, as the Prime Minister apparently directed. If that is so, can she explain why, because that is what business leaders out there are asking? It seems incomprehensible to them that the Prime Minister took such a gigantic risk with their future—a risk that will increase their cost of capital and the cost of energy to bill payers, both corporate and domestic alike—yet made absolutely no preparations for what might happen when that risk went the wrong way.

The IIGCC—Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change—a group of institutional investors representing over €13 trillion in assets, said in the aftermath of the vote to leave that it had brought

“considerable uncertainty and market turmoil.”

That only goes to prove that the art of litotes is not yet dead!

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the light of that dramatic uncertainty, does my hon. Friend agree that one thing the Government should do is to give a cast-iron guarantee that they will honour, post-Brexit, the environmental standards and undertakings that we have made in the EU to date?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend, who takes a consistent and committed interest in these matters, is absolutely correct, and the precise intention of this motion is to flush out those issues and ensure that the Government do precisely as he says.

In the aftermath of the leave vote, the Government’s own external adviser has stated that a future for the Hinkley C nuclear power station is now “extremely unlikely”. Vattenfall has said it is now reassessing the risk of working in the UK, which could jeopardise its plans for a £5.5 billion wind farm off the east coast of England, while Siemens has announced that it is putting a freeze on its future—not its current—clean energy investments in Hull as a result of what it called the “increased uncertainty” from the leave vote.

I must say that for all the talk from the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), about the “sunlit uplands” of the post-Brexit world, there is really no use in the Secretary of State trying to pretend that she thinks the vote is anything but a disaster when she herself is on record quoting the analysis of Vivid Economics warning that the result of an exclusion from the EU’s internal energy market could cost the UK up to £500 million a year by the early 2020s. The stock response of the right hon. Lady that Labour Members should not “talk Britain down” will simply not serve, given that these quotations come from her own advisers, industry leaders and, indeed, her!

Bloomberg New Energy Finance was not scaremongering when it said of the upcoming Brexit negotiations that they were

“likely to cause project investors and banks to hesitate about committing new capital, and could cause a drop in renewable energy asset values”.

That was an authoritative, independent commentator telling the unvarnished truth.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I always follow the hon. Gentleman’s comments with a great deal of interest, but is it not about time that he and his party moved on? The British people have delivered their verdict. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is not terribly helpful of people like him to continue to talk the British economy down in that way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I understand that there is a need to move on, and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must now look to the future, but I think that if he bears with me, he will find that that is what I am trying to do. Yes, I am critical of where we are, but the criticisms that I have adumbrated so far are not my own. They are criticisms made by the Government’s own advisers, they are criticisms made by industry itself, and, indeed, they are criticisms made by the Secretary of State. I am not talking the UK economy down; I am trying to set out the present situation with clarity, and then see whether we can move on from it.

Perhaps the Secretary of State could do the same as Bloomberg in telling the unvarnished truth, and inform the House what assessment her Department has made of the increased price of imported energy as a result of the falling pound. I will happily give way to her if she wishes to do so.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)]

indicated dissent.

[Barry Gardiner]

Perhaps, then, the Secretary of State could tell us what assessment her Department has made of the price premiums on loans that will be demanded by investors in energy infrastructure to cover the cost of political uncertainty. Is it 1%? Is it 2%? Again, I will happily give way to the Secretary of State if she wishes to inform the House what assessment her Department has made of those matters. No? In that case, I will give way to the spokesman for the Scottish National party.

[Philip Boswell (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman take the Secretary of State to task on what she intends to do to achieve the climate change targets in respect of completely decarbonising the transport and heating sectors in order to achieve 2050 targets?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is clear from what the Committee on Climate Change has said that the area in which the United Kingdom is falling behind most badly is not the power sector, but the transport and heating sectors. Of course, dealing with that does not rest solely with the Secretary of State; it also rests with her colleagues in the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Perhaps the Secretary of State would find it easier to explain how the UK might continue to benefit from the EU internal energy market—or does Brexit mean Brexit in this regard as well? We really do need clear answers to all these questions. Perhaps the right hon. Lady can tell us what will happen to the four clean energy projects that are currently being assessed by the European Fund for Strategic Investments. She knows that the European Investment Bank has been the UK’s biggest clean-energy lender, having put €31 billion into clean energy over the last five years. Has she identified a replacement source of funds for such projects?

Perhaps the Secretary of State can explain why, last week, the Government pulled their funding for the only large new gas plant that had managed to secure finance under the capacity market scheme after Carlton Power was unable to secure the investment that was needed for the Trafford plant. The capacity market has resoundingly failed to secure the new gas build that it was introduced to incentivise.

Perhaps the right hon. Lady can explain—after the failure of the green deal, and after acknowledging that neither the warm home scheme nor the energy company obligation is sufficiently well targeted to reach those most in need—precisely how she proposes to address energy efficiency and tackle the fuel poverty experienced by 2.38 million of our fellow citizens. Let me correct that, Mr Speaker: 1 should have said 2.38 million households, in England alone. Perhaps the right hon. Lady might also explain why National Grid warned on Friday that the lights were kept on only by emergency measures last year. The fact is that the Government’s energy policy has pushed us further towards energy insecurity.

Our purpose in securing this Opposition Day debate is precisely to ensure that the Government cannot ignore such pressing concerns following the referendum. The vote to leave was not a vote for blackouts and soaring energy bills; it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that those things do not happen.

The Committee on Climate Change, which has a statutory duty to advise the Government on the most cost-effective route to decarbonisation, has always made it clear that early action is cheaper action. As its chief executive warned us last week, leaving the EU calls the mechanism of how we reach our targets into question. The Government’s policy failure has created a 10% gap in emissions projections towards our legally binding climate target for the mid-2020s, and they are nearly 50% short of meeting their intended target for 2030—that is, if the Secretary of State ever gets round to actually complying with her statutory obligation to set the target. I believe that that is now due to happen on Monday, which would make it only 18 days beyond the legal statutory limit.

Last year, the Environmental Audit Committee gave the Government a red card for their record on managing future climate change risks. The chair of the Infrastructure Operators Adaptation Forum concluded:

“we simply do not know the capability of the vast majority of stuff out there for current weather, never mind the future”.

The National Security Risk Assessment cites flood risk to the UK as a tier 1 priority risk, alongside terrorism and cyber-attacks, and, of course, it is our most deprived communities that face the greatest increases in flood risk. However, new evidence released today by the Committee on Climate Change renders starker than ever the threat to British households and businesses from a failure to manage climate change. Its published estimates show that, without increased Government action on climate adaptation, the number of homes at high risk from flooding will rise to well over 1 million even if we meet our current climate targets.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

I apologise for intervening so early, Mr Speaker. Will the hon. Gentleman please explain the precise relationship between the European Union issue and the questions that he is raising about flooding?

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is not intervening that early, although some people might think that the hon. Gentleman was approaching the conclusion of his preliminary remarks.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am sure you are correct, Mr Speaker, in referring to “his preliminary remarks”.

I am happy to explain that relationship. Unless we have clarity about the post-Brexit scenario, unless we know where we will be able to secure funds to replace all the funds that fell within the common agricultural policy to finance measures to mitigate flooding, and unless we are able to deal with land management in the way that was allowed by the European Union, we will not have clarity on these matters, and clarity is vital to adaptation.

We are living at a time of increased risk, and robust planning is required to limit harmful impacts on British communities and businesses. I say in all seriousness that, following the devastation of communities and cities around our country by recent floods, this new assessment requires a new response from the Government. Cuts in the budgets, and in the staffing capacity of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency, have left the UK increasingly vulnerable, and the Government must take responsibility for that.

The UK’s ability to face up to energy and environmental challenges—more than almost any other area of policy—was strengthened by our EU membership. Given that the Treasury’s principal response to the leave vote so far is a U-turn on the Chancellor’s core election pledge to balance the books by 2020—

[Dr Murrison]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I think you would like me to press on, Mr Speaker, so I will not. I have, I think, been most generous in giving way.

Given the Treasury’s response, it would be helpful to hear from the Under-Secretary, when he winds up the debate, precisely where he proposes to find the additional resources that are required for adequate flood defences to meet the new assessment. Last week, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told the House:

“It is absolutely clear that it is business as usual while we remain members of the EU.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2016; Vol. 62, c. 1030.]

Perhaps she will understand that what concerns many of us is that, as soon as we are no longer members of the EU, many of the protections the UK natural environment currently enjoys will fall away. The clean air directive has been strenuously opposed in Europe by this Government, who tried to water it down for years; indeed our own Supreme Court has now found them to be in breach. I pay tribute to ClientEarth and its work in holding Government to account for the 52,500 excess deaths every year as a result of polluted air in the UK, and I pay particular tribute to Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London who used the 60th anniversary of the Clean Air Act 1956 to unveil a new clean air programme.

The Government must remember that they have a job to do, and that includes taking concrete action to meet the legal air quality standards as ordered by the UK’s Supreme Court. The Government need to explain to the House if they will incorporate the provisions of the clean air directive into UK law and then begin to comply with its provisions in a way that they have, tragically, failed to do for the past six years.

The birds and habitat directives may well already be fully transposed into UK law, but we need to know if our beaches will still be protected from sewage by the bathing water directive or whether swimming through sewage will once again become a feature of a day at the seaside. We need to know which elements of the waste and electronic equipment directive were not transposed into UK law under the 2013 regulations and what the impact of leaving the EU might be for our recycling industries and our commitment to the circular economy.

[Dr Murrison]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

No, I will not.

The fact is that fish and birds and insects do not carry passports; pollution is oblivious to the strictures of national airspace or inshore waters. If we wish to manage all of these, whether as pests, problems or resources, then it is better to do so in concert with our regional neighbours. The vote to leave the EU has made that harder. The Government must outline how they propose to overcome that problem.

The Environment Secretary told the House last week that the subject of continued subsidies to farmers up to 2020

“is not a decision I can make at this stage.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 1028.]

Surely it is a decision that should have been made long before anyone asked farmers to vote to leave the EU. Much of the subsidy that farmers receive is for environmental stewardship schemes and other land management practices that benefit biodiversity and wildlife. To turn round to farmers now and say that the £3.5 billion total of subsidy that used to flow each year from the EU into their pockets is no longer secure is not just an attack on farmers’ livelihoods; it is an attack on all the work that farmers do to enhance our environment and protect our landscapes.

These are not abstract challenges. Managing the risks born of the uncertainty from the referendum outcome is a responsibility for Government. Ministers must urgently identify any legislative gaps in environmental protection that may arise from the removal of EU law, and develop plans to replace any protections so that the UK does not become a riskier, unhealthier or more polluted place to live in or do business in.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the CAP, but he would be hard-pressed to find any conservation or environment group in the country that believes it provides a net benefit to the environment. There are bits that are good for the environment, but overall I do not think anyone would defend it as a net good for the environment. Surely Brexit gives us an opportunity to take those funds and tailor them in such a way that they genuinely are used to subsidise farmers in delivering a genuine public good? This is a massive opportunity.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that I have been a critic of the CAP, as he has, for many years, but the pillar 2 arrangements under the CAP and the environmental stewardship arrangements under the CAP were positive and there was a net benefit from those. I want the Government to set out the new arrangements they propose, so that we can be sure that the environmental protections remain in place, and that that money is not frittered away on something else.

The Government must provide answers to Parliament and the public, who want to be reassured that our environmental protections are not to be weakened in some Brexit bonfire of the regulations. The environmental protections we have enjoyed under the EU are not bureaucracy to be done away with; they are part of what it is to live in a civilised country that respects the natural world and believes that the only prosperous future is a sustainable one.

So, finally, I ask three key questions. Will the Government now move swiftly to ratify the Paris climate agreement? How will the Government press for access to the internal energy market? How will the Government ensure that energy bills do not go up as a result of the increased investor uncertainty following the vote?

Ultimately, the Government must commit to safeguarding environmental protections to at least the same level we have enjoyed within the EU, by passing into UK law all those regulations that would otherwise fall away upon leaving the EU.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has become a doughty champion of the hedgehog. The most important thing for hedgehogs, which are a much-loved species, is their habitat, and we are dealing with that by means of our hedgerow schemes, as well as the woodland planting schemes that the Secretary of State is promoting, which include the planting of 11 million more trees over the next five years. The real challenge for all of us, however, is to see hedgehogs in a suburban context, and, in particular, to consider the possibility of providing them with access and corridors through garden fences.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The 12 nature improvement areas were the right response to the Lawton report, but they were supposed to create 1,000 hectares of new woodland, 1,000 hectares of new chalk grassland, and more than 1,500 hectares of new wetland. How many hectares of each of those have actually been created?

[Rory Stewart]

I cannot give every one of those figures, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, the target for chalk grassland was 1,000 hectares, and a single project achieved 1,773 hectares.

Flooding

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner).

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who has been generous in giving way. She said that in real terms the Government were spending more. Perhaps she could explain to me and to the House her own Department’s “Funding trends” paper of December last year, which shows the total real-terms spending from 2005 right the way through to 2015-16. In the last year of the Labour Government spending was £724 million in total in real terms—that is, in 2015-16 prices. In no single year since then have this Government matched that funding, except in 2014-15, when an extra boost of £140 million emergency funding was given to repair the defences that had been destroyed in the floods. The figures are £608.5 million—

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said that we should not play a blame game. The floods were unprecedented, but they were not unpredicted. It is the job of the official Opposition to hold the Government to account. We have listened to hon. Members backslapping in the Chamber this afternoon, saying, “We have learnt the lessons. We were quick in the response,” but that is not the point. The point is that this is a national tragedy that, according to KPMG, is likely to cost the country £5 billion, £2 billion of which will simply repair the existing defences and restore them to their pre-flood inadequate level. Twelve years of the entire 2014 maintenance budget of £171 million will be squandered. So, follow the money. In the last full year of the Labour Government we spent £633.1 million in cash, £703.4 million at 2015-16 prices.

[Rory Stewart]

Will the hon. Gentleman please expand on where this £2 billion figure for repairing flood defences comes from? I have no recognition of the figure whatsoever.

[Barry Gardiner]

It comes from KPMG.

In 2010-11, we spent £670.1 million in cash, £724.4 million in today’s prices. In no year since then did this Government exceed that in either cash or real terms until last year, when they put in emergency funding of £140 million to repair the damage done by the 2013-14 floods. Without that emergency money, the budgeted figure was only £662.6 million. Again, that figure is lower. If the Minister wants to check where it comes from, I can tell him that it comes from his own DEFRA figures on his own website. That emergency money cannot be equated with normal maintenance. We are talking of wholesale repairs, rebuilding bridges and floodwalls after they have been destroyed. Most people would say that when someone repaints the windows of their house or repoints the chimney stack that that is maintenance, but when a bulldozer slams into their living room that is a disaster. Only this Government appear to count the rebuilding of the living room as normal maintenance. It is not. That is the con trick—the smoke and mirrors that the Government are using. Instead of congratulating themselves on spending that money in the first and only year in which they spent more than we did in 2010-11, the Government should be apologising for cutting the programme so badly.

In 2014, the Government’s long-term investment scenarios report recommended an optimum overall investment—the Secretary of State was right to point out that it was an overall investment—of £750 million to £800 million a year. If that were to be achieved, the Government would need to spend £417 million a year on maintenance, which is also in her report. That adds up to a £2.5 billion gap in flood defence spending between 2015 and 2021, exactly as my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said.

Grouse moors and sheep farming lead water to run straight off hills into populated valleys. Burning back heather reduces areas of peat and the ground’s ability to retain water. Climate change affects how much rain falls and how much water ends up in our towns and cities. That is our problem. We need catchment management and we absolutely need to see what the Natural Capital Committee will do and what it will advise the Government, but we must take on board the fact that land can no longer ignore the public good that it must provide. The grouse moor economy brings £100 million a year into this country, but its cost is incalculable. The Minister must take note and sort this out.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

May I begin by paying tribute to the debate, which has been very detailed and serious and has properly reflected the fact that this has been a very unusual and very complex situation? The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) talked about the unprecedented nature of the rainfall. As has been said repeatedly, every kind of record has been broken, including those for rainfall in 24 and 48 hours and that for rainfall in a month.

As right hon. and hon. Members across the House have emphasised, it has been the most extraordinary and horrendous experience for people. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for highlighting the impact on the Traveller community in York Central, who are among thousands of people affected—we now know that more than 12,000 separate homes were affected by this extraordinary experience.

The emergency services have been astonishing. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has paid tribute to the fire and rescue service. We should also pay tribute to the police gold commanders and the sergeants and policemen standing on the streets, in the rain, day in, day out, securing the safety of communities, and to the Army, from the company sergeant-major standing in the streets of Appleby and the 100 men clearing out houses, to the commanding officer of the Light Dragoons working his way up and down the Calder valley. We also note the work of the Environment Agency and people such as Adrian and Phil, who struggled with the problems with electricity to the Foss barrier, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has said, the actions of councils up and down the country. The council response has been fantastic

The hon. Members for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) paid tribute to the Muslim communities, which in their different way have contributed, as have the Sikh and Hindu communities. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), I saw church representatives out with hot cross buns at 4.30 in the morning. We also note the sea cadets standing up to their waists in rain water, as well as mountain rescue, the boats and Team Rubicon, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) has pointed out, we also note the thousands of anonymous members of the public who got out of their cars and then continued on their journeys.

I also want to take a small moment to pay tribute to Members of Parliament themselves. On that first evening, I saw the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) out on the streets of Cockermouth. I saw the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) working with the Methodist Church, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle working from dawn to dusk. I also saw the hon. Member for York Central and my hon. Friends the Members for Selby and Ainsty and for Shipley, as well as colleagues in St Michael’s and at Hebden Bridge—and they are just the Members of Parliament I happened to see as I worked my way around the country.

I also pay tribute to the Flood Forecasting Centre and the work done by the Met Office, which gave us the important warning. That was also central for our colleagues in the devolved Administrations. The floods in 1953-54 killed 450 people, and one of the reasons we have been more fortunate this time is that we have the warning systems in place.

In the short time available to me, I want to touch on some of the issues raised by right hon. and hon. Members in relation to recovery. Elland bridge was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I reassure them that we are working very hard, particularly on the telecoms challenges in relation to that bridge. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty raised the issue of Tadcaster bridge. I reassure him that we have been able to get Balfour Beatty to work for the next three days. We have located a temporary footbridge, which will be put in place.

The hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) raised the issue of the A591. For the first time ever, Highways England has agreed to take over, from beginning to end, the project management of a county council road, and it will deliver that in the quickest time possible.

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned the challenges with regard to electricity. My hon. Friends the Members for Carlisle and for Calder Valley raised the challenges for schools. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Education will be there to deal with those issues herself. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley mentioned household grants and the hon. Member for Rochdale raised some of the challenges for businesses. I am pleased that the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, who is in her place, is addressing that problem directly. The hon. Member for Workington raised the issues in respect of insurance, which we are dealing with along with the Association of British Insurers.

I want to set all the other issues in context in the very limited time available. Whether, like the many right hon. and hon. Members from Leeds, we are talking about specific defences; fairness in other parts of the country, as was raised by the hon. Members for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson) and for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) and my hon. Friends the Members for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and for Newbury (Richard Benyon); the unintended consequences raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy); building on floodplains, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) and the hon. Member for Workington; the challenges of culverts, which were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley; the disagreements about dredging, which were evident in the conflict between my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley and for Newbury; farmland, which was raised by the hon. Member for Workington; upstream alleviation, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury; forestry, which was raised by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts); or the overall strategy, which has been pushed hard by the hon. Member for Copeland, we come again and again to the importance of having an independent objective judgment by the Flood Forecasting Centre and the Environment Agency that is respected by this House.

These decisions cannot be made through party politics. The resources must be allocated on the basis of flood risk, the number of households that will be protected, the position of those households on the deprivation index, the businesses that will be affected, the agriculture that will be affected, and the impacts on productivity, infrastructure and electricity. Those issues of cost and complexity will be central to the debate.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Rory Stewart]

I am afraid that I have only a minute and a half to go, but I am happy to continue the discussion with well-informed Members such as the hon. Gentleman.

Perhaps a hundred different arguments have been raised in the House today, but to come to a close, there seem to be four main conclusions to be drawn from this debate. The first is that in an emergency situation, we must, above all, act decisively. We must think big and we must think early. It was very important that the Environment Agency moved 85% of its assets up immediately. The Cobra meeting was held on 23 December, even when there was uncertainty about the floods, to deal with an issue that would come up on Boxing day. The military deployed immediately.

The second thing to be taken from the debate is the importance of understanding and compassion. This can become a technocratic debate about numbers, but it is really about the horror that is experienced in individual households. Our ability to listen to those households will be central to our ability to go forward.

The third lesson from this debate is one of humility. We are dealing with extraordinary issues of climate and uncertainty. We are breaking records in a way that has never been seen before in this country. There needs to be a joint cross-party response that is not limited to this House, but that reaches out to the very best scientists, commentators, experts and members of the Environment Agency who are available to deal with the challenge.

Finally, this debate is about localism. It is about local knowledge. Every scheme and every response needs to respond to local knowledge. In one community it might be about dredging, in another it might be about a pump, in another community it will be about the clearing of trees and in another it will be about upland storage. We need to look at what we are doing with forestry and what we are doing with peatland restoration. We need to understand that some schemes take 25 or 50 years to succeed, but that they should be undertaken nevertheless. As the Secretary of State said, we need to start the 25-year planning now.

Whatever our other disagreements, this country has responded very well to the emergency nature of the floods. There has been a good emergency response in Scotland, a good emergency response in Wales, a good emergency response in Northern Ireland and, I believe, a good emergency response in England. The only way in which we can go forward is with the utmost seriousness—seriousness about science, seriousness about evidence and seriousness about the formulas we use to allocate the funding in a way that is fair to the entire United Kingdom. If we get that determination correct, I believe that we can move forward with the humility and attention to local detail that will allow us to deal with perhaps one of the most serious crises of our generation.

Question put,

Flooding

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in ensuring that we had all the right information on the ground in Croston, and we had support from the RAF and the Environment Agency to keep the village protected. We are looking at the issue that she raises specifically in Cumbria, and I am sure that the floods Minister would be happy to meet her to talk about how we could extend those efforts to Lancashire.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Environment Secretary is aware that, of the 1,086 projects in the environment development programme, almost 519 are waiting for approval subject to securing other funding contributions. At the moment, the funding contributions that are lacking amount to £350 million, yet the projects are supposed to start in two months’ time. How will the Government ensure that those works go ahead?

[Elizabeth Truss]

One of the successes of our flood defence programme is that we have been able to secure additional money through partnership funding. From 2005 to 2010, we saw £30 million of funding under the Labour Government, whereas under the previous Conservative Government there was £134 million of funding, and this Government have already secured £250 million. We have plans in place to secure additional funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Let me join in paying tribute to the members of the teams in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I was in St Michael’s on Wyre, where I saw some of the wonderful work they and other volunteers were doing. I am pleased that he is paying tribute to the work along the Fylde coast, which is an investment of almost £80 million in total, and I would be delighted to look in particular at the missing section on Rossall beach.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Has the Minister explained to his Back Benchers that the 300,000 properties he is talking about have been those at low risk and the lowest risk, and not, substantially, those of residents living in areas at the highest risk, as the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management has pointed out? In other words, the money is going to fund those least at risk of flooding, not those most at risk.

[Rory Stewart]

We disagree strongly on this. I am happy to sit down to talk about it in detail, but along the Fylde coast, the Humber, the Lincolnshire coast and the Thames these defences will have a serious impact on houses that are at serious risk of flooding.

Climate Change and Flooding

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Floods are clearly devastating at any time, but never more so than at this time of year. We have heard a number of eloquent speeches about the devastation that the floods have wrought, but we also need to remember that we are in a fortunate position, as a rich advanced nation, in that we can afford to rebuild, to rehouse and to protect those who are affected by flooding. Those who are affected by climate change in other parts of the world will not be so fortunate.

For me, the stand-out aspect of the Paris agreement was the $100 billion for the mitigation of climate change. That will allow the poorest nations access to the finance they need to develop in a way that will allow the planet to be protected. It will also give us the opportunity to lock in low carbon emissions without locking in poverty. That is fundamental to the way in which we deal with what has rightly been described as the greatest threat that humanity is facing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr) mentioned the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund, and we as a party are rightly proud of that. This is not a devolved matter, but we have sought to put our money where our mouth is. That money has to be seen as an additional contribution, however; it cannot be taken out of the pot because of what we have done. That needs to be respected nationally and repeated internationally.

We have had many debates in this place on the changes that have been made to the renewables obligation and to the green economy more widely. It disappoints me to state that our target in Scotland of a 100% renewable electricity generation is under threat because of changes to the renewables obligation and the prevarication over contracts for difference. There has also been much slower progress over heat, which represents a bigger challenge in relation to carbon reduction. It is pleasing that there will still be some form of support through the renewable heat incentive, but in the context of what we are dealing with following Paris, the £700 million that has been taken out seems like yet another short-sighted move.

Speaking of short-sighted approaches, the decision on carbon capture and storage is one of the worst that we have heard, and I will continue to bang the drum about that. There has been prevarication over CCS for a number of years. This process just needs to be done. We are talking about spending billions of pounds to prevent the symptoms, but we are not trying to tackle the cure. If we were to put £1 billion into carbon capture and storage, the reduction in the impact of flooding would be a potential game changer. Using carbon capture and storage is the most straightforward way of dealing with the matter. It also has the least impact on our economic model. It allows us to extract the fossil fuels that we discussed—shale, North sea oil or whatever—without having to invest. We will still have to invest in other technologies, but this gives us an opportunity.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Did the hon. Gentleman share a sense of comedy yesterday when the Secretary of State spoke on this matter? She said:

“I believe that CCS is going to play an important part in decarbonising in the future”.—[Official Report, 14 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 1297.]

She then went on to say that, just for now, the Government are cutting the £1 billion subsidy towards it.

[Callum McCaig]

It was comedy of the blackest sort. It is short-sighted and it does not take into account how we can target the reduction at industry, as has been ably suggested.

The action here falls very short of the rhetoric, and very, very short of what is required to deliver and protect those people, both at home and abroad, from the impact of climate change. We need to up our game. It is time that we reset the reset button. I am happy if we in the Scottish National party join the high ambition coalition of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) here in the UK. The SNP is more than ready and willing to play our part in achieving that ambition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Amber Rudd]

I am going to make some progress now, because we are very short of time.

There is a link between climate change and an increase in extreme weather events. I do not share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who always speaks with enthusiasm. Let me say to him that, while we cannot attribute every storm, drought or flood directly to climate change, all the evidence from our scientific understanding of weather systems suggests that our changing climate will lead to more intense and more frequent events. Last month, the Met Office released papers from its study of the exceptional rainfall of 2013-14. It found that, given the same weather pattern—a persistent westerly flow—extreme rainfall over 10 consecutive winter days might be about seven times more likely now than it would be in a world without man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course natural influences will still be an important factor, but it is clear that the impact of climate change is already being felt, especially in vulnerable countries, which is why the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) was right to comment on the need to assist developing countries with additional funds. Unless we limit the rise in the global average temperature, we shall have to live with more extremes. That is why the global agreement that was reached in Paris this week is so important. As we heard from the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the French played a very important role in ensuring that it all came together.

No single country, acting alone, can hope to limit climate change. Only by acting together can we hope to succeed. With nearly 200 countries coming to an agreement, the Paris conference was a clear turning point towards a sustainable and low-carbon future. If we limit the global average temperature rise, we will limit the intensity and frequency of extreme weather such as the flooding we have seen recently.

[Barry Gardiner]

On limiting that extreme weather, the Secretary of State will recall that the Chancellor mentioned 300,000 properties whose flood risk was being reduced. Is she aware of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management report, which has said that

“this largely moves properties from a low risk to an even lower one”?

In other words, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has asked officials to achieve the maximum number instead of the most—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme and Scheme Administrator designation) regulations 2015 DRAFT FLOOD REINSURANCE (SCHEME funding and administration) REGULATIONS 2015

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 General Committees

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to rise to talk about these regulations under your guidance, Mr Nuttall. I do not intend to oppose either of the regulations before the Committee, but I must highlight two serious concerns that I have with the transition to risk-reflective pricing that the scheme is designed to achieve.

First, it is likely that the transition will compromise the availability and affordability of flood insurance, and that needs to be recognised. It is also likely that Flood Re will prove to be a waste of public money. Before I go to the specific points about the wording of the regulations, I want to put those remarks in context.

Flood risk is increasing because of climate change and new developments in flood-risk areas. Awareness of flood-risk households, where the risk is above one in 100, has declined. Government spending on flood defences fell over the past Parliament, although by setting a six-year framework the Government claimed to have spent more than the previous Government, though that was, of course, over a five-year period. It is set to fall further in this Parliament.

The risk of flooding is increasing and more properties are being built in high-risk areas. There is declining spending on flood-risk reduction and declining awareness of flood risk. That is the context for the Flood Re scheme. The possibility of loss, damage and injury from flooding is, therefore, increasing—in every sense, flood risk is increasing.

The scheme does not address the rising cost of flood risk for affected households or the public purse. The Government voted against six amendments that we tabled in Committee on the Water Act 2014 that would have required Flood Re to reduce the cost of flood risk. Those amendments would have required the scheme administrator to take account of actual and projected future flood risk as set out by the Committee on Climate Change and the Environment Agency. The Government refused to do that.

We would have given the scheme administrator powers to require flooded households to repair to a higher flood-defence standard. The Government say that that might be considered at the first review. In my view, those powers should be with the scheme administrator from the beginning and I believe that the industry would probably share that view.

The amendments would have required that the scheme administrator had to increase awareness of flood risk among policyholders, and actually take a proactive stance on liaising with policyholders on those matters. The scheme administrator would have been required to ensure that insurance is available to households that are unable to afford insurance on the free market.

The Government declined to support those amendments. I was delighted to hear that the Minister had spoken to Lord Krebs earlier today; when we tabled those amendments, it was Lord Krebs, as chair of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change, who provided the supporting evidence. I am keen to hear what Lord Krebs had to say to the Minister about those aspects of the scheme. Of course, that view was also supported by evidence from the London School of Economics at that time.

As I said, our amendments were disregarded; the Government are using this publicly funded flood insurance scheme to insure against the cost of their own potential failure. As investment in flood defence is cut in line with the Government’s plans, thousands of families may find themselves stuck in homes that become more and more expensive to insure. Climate change has already increased the frequency and severity of flooding, and the costs are rising. This publicly funded scheme allows the Government to transfer these costs on to households across the country, pushing the cost of climate change on to the most vulnerable. That is what risk-reflective pricing means in practice.

I return to my two specific concerns with the regulations as they stand. The public consultation on Flood Re, which ran from 22 July to 16 September 2014, stated that the aim of the proposed flood insurance scheme would be

“to ensure that domestic property insurance continues to be widely available and affordable in areas of flood risk, without placing unsustainable costs on wider policyholders or the taxpayer”.

However, there is no mention of the availability or affordability of flood insurance in this enabling legislation. They are mentioned in the explanatory notes and were referred to many times during the debate on the enabling legislation, but they are not in the regulations, so it is not a duty of the scheme to ensure the availability and affordability of flood insurance.

Many responses to the public consultation counselled that to ensure availability and affordability, the scheme must be required to work in the public interest, with that being defined in the regulations. It is not defined in these regulations. Many responses, including that from the London School of Economics, also warned that the absence of a transition plan would threaten the availability and affordability of Flood Re.

It was my view, and still is, that a Flood Re transition plan should be produced by the Government, in consultation with the scheme administrator, the industry and the Committee on Climate Change. The primary delivery body for the transition plan should be the Flood Re managing agent, the scheme administrator, and DEFRA should take responsibility for reviewing their performance against the time-bound goals of the transition plan. Transition needs to be planned within the context of the overall flood risk management strategy, including details of future investment levels.

The decision to delegate transition planning to Flood Re, as currently proposed, is really a mutually convenient abdication of responsibility. The Government do not need to assess the likely efficacy of Flood Re against their flood risk investment plans, and the insurance industry can be confident that it can deliver its only objective: to manage the transition to risk-reflective pricing. I do not mean to labour the point, but the industry has simply got to produce risk-reflective pricing, which, if the risk goes up, may be as high or much higher than what is today deemed to be an unaffordable cost.

Everything depends on the amount of money that the Government are prepared to put in. This scheme is a way of avoiding the problem and any need to make the uncomfortable acknowledgment that the price that reflects increased risk will be greater where the risk of flood becomes greater as a result of lower Government investment in flood defences, increased building on the flood plain or adverse climate change. That is the fear. Quietly and stealthily, the Government have delivered a new flood tax.

The adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change suggested an amendment to the levy arrangement, which I believe the Government should have considered. The amendment would reduce the cost and the opportunity cost of the Flood Re funding arrangements.

The sub-committee also suggested that a more efficient model would be for Flood Re to collect a primary levy and to build reserves, but not to hold reinsurance at all. Instead, claims in excess of reserves would be mutualised—spread between the relevant insurers—on an annual basis via the ad hoc levy. If that resulted in a large claim on insurers, they would be able to call on the existing reinsurance treaties that they are required to hold in any event. That approach would have significantly reduced the costs of Flood Re and, in my view, it would improve the value that the public purse was getting from the scheme.

In summary, Flood Re could help to reduce flood risk, the cost of flooding and the pain and suffering of the households that the Minister eloquently discussed at the beginning of this debate. It does not do those things currently, and I fear that it may well waste public money that could be better spent on reducing those flood risks by increasing our flood defences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

I am grateful for that statement. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will be able to communicate to their constituents and those concerned with flooding not only that we have managed to get to this stage, but that we are looking forward to next spring when the scheme is formally launched.

I want to touch briefly on the various points and criticisms made by the hon. Member for Brent North. I find some of them a little bewildering, and I would like to tease them out a bit more. His arguments seem to focus on four areas: awareness, affordability, the transition plan and the model of insurance.

To reassure him on awareness, an obligation is imposed through the regulations on Flood Re to communicate with the insurance industry and on the industry to communicate with the policyholders that they have entered the Flood Re scheme and that by definition they are therefore in the approximately 2% most vulnerable homes. Through the Environment Agency and our investment in new technology, we are absolutely committed to increasing our contact with people in the most vulnerable homes.

We have also been meeting in detail with different parts of the industry that are interested in providing flood resilience measures to individual households. There should be a potential market, and we need to develop it. Just as house and contents insurance has delivered developments in burglar alarms and other protective measures, it should be possible for flood insurance schemes eventually to drive a movement towards people taking resilience measures to drop their premiums. That is where we need to get to. We need a thriving, vigorous industry with a reasonable basic standard that can be offered to a household, saying, “If you do, x, y and z, the insurance industry will recognise that and drop your premium.”

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification of the points. Given that he believes there is not yet a certifiable standard for resilience measures to be put in, why does he seek not to give the power to the scheme administrator and Flood Re at this stage? They believe that such a facility is in place and that they can insist on resilience measures being put in as a condition of reinsurance. Why not give that power so that the industry can decide how it uses it, when it uses it and whether the market is ready to provide the appropriate benefits or not, rather than waiting for the Government to do a review and then decide whether they want to give the scheme administrator those powers?

I understand the problem. It may be that the market is not yet ready, but surely it is better to give the power to the scheme administrator straight away, so that the insurance companies can take the necessary action the moment they are ready, rather than waiting for a Government review.

[Rory Stewart]

There are essentially three separate problems with that proposal. The first is that the Flood Re administrator has no direct relationship with households. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Flood Re administrator’s relationship is with the insurance industry, and the relationship of the individual insurance companies—for example, Direct Line or Axa—is with the individual household. Whatever measures one is trying to put in place, there needs to be an interaction between the insurance company and the individual household.

The second issue is around the nature of the financial regulations that set up Flood Re. Flood Re, like all reinsurers, is only permitted by financial regulation to carry out the business of reinsurance and related operations.

The third issue—perhaps the most important—is that within three months, Flood Re will produce a transition plan and within two years those resilience measures will be in place. However, in the end it is primarily the responsibility of Government to work with Flood Re, the insurers and the households to get those measures in place; the constraint on that, as the hon. Gentleman has indicated, is that the industry is not yet sufficiently developed to offer a standardised package. A burglar alarm is a much more straightforward thing.

Every one of these properties—not quite every one, but many of them—are in quite difficult, unique situations. The insurance industry is not yet in a position to be comfortable saying, “This exact measure on your door will reduce your insurance premium by £50”, in the way that it can with burglar alarms. It will take some time for what is basically a structure of small and medium-sized enterprises to be able to develop those products for the insurance industry.

The way in which the hon. Gentleman and I can engage in this process most directly is through the measures taken by the Environment Agency and, for the hon. Gentleman, more specifically through Parliament, to which Flood Re is accountable. It will be through Parliament’s review of that three-month transition plan and the two-year actions that we will be able to put in place the measures that we need over the next 25 years.

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the fact that the period is 25 years should not mean that we all go to sleep for that time, do nothing and end up dropping off the edge of a cliff. Twenty-five years should be able to give us the right path to get those proper structures in place. It is Parliament’s responsibility to stay on top of that issue.

The second thing that the hon. Gentleman touched on was the question of affordability. He is correct that these statutory instruments do not deal with the duty of affordability. However, he will be aware that the duty of affordability is contained in the Water Act 2014, the debates on which he himself contributed to. Therefore, I do not believe that the duty needs to be in these statutory instruments.

Again, a statutory obligation is imposed through these statutory instruments to push forward with a transition plan. The most sophisticated arguments that the hon. Gentleman has made are around the question of mutualisation and insurance.

[Barry Gardiner]

There is something I would like to get on the record, Mr Nuttall. Importantly, the Minister has said that he believes that as the duty of affordability is latent within the 2014 Act, it need not be in these regulations. I do not want to tie him down, because I want clarity, but I would like him to write to me, perhaps after this debate, to set out absolutely clearly that that is the position. That would be extremely helpful.

[Rory Stewart]

I will be delighted to. To clarify, we have to be very careful about what we mean by affordability. Clearly, under both domestic and European legislation, we are not allowed to fix prices. This is a market mechanism. We are relying on competition in the market to operate, the theory being that there would be no reason for an individual insurance company to place a £250 contract with Flood Re if it was not necessary to do so, because a competitor insurance company would be able to offer the same insurance for £50 to the householder and there would be no recourse to Flood Re.

All our affordability calculations are predicated on the assumption that normal market competition will operate. The affordability works through setting the individual premiums and guaranteeing that the £180 million pot will stand behind those individual payments, capping both the premium payment and the excess payment. That is its basis.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am really grateful to the Minister for engaging in this way. I understand what he says about affordability. On his definition, as long as the market is operating to have competition in place, the result is affordability. However, it is important to recognise that the risk of climate change is increasing and the severity of floods may also increase.

Although, in the purely technical sense that the Minister outlined, if the market is operating people are likely to get the lowest market rate, the ordinary householder may not experience affordable insurance premiums because the risk is increasing and the Government are building on the floodplain. In fact, all the industry has to do is ensure that the price reflects that risk.

[Rory Stewart]

From the insurance company’s point of view, in the case of the households that are most at risk, Flood Re provides the ability to lay off the flood component of its household and buildings insurance, which for a basic rate council tax payer is in the region of the £220 to £250 mark. There would be no reason for an individual insurance company to make the flood component of its insurance exceed that amount—that is the purpose of the £180 million pot.

I agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman on the basic questions with which he began, and we certainly need to look at this during the next 25 years: building on floodplains, climate change and increasing flood risk. That will have an impact right across the industry.

Common Fisheries Policy (Reform)

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It must be your benign supervision, Mr Walker, but every debate that I attend when you are in the Chair involves a remarkable degree of consensus. This debate has been good natured and exceptionally well informed. I put that all down to you, sir.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate about an industry that has been in decline for far too long. I pay tribute to the courage and sheer hard work of our fishermen, who brave the dangers of the coastal seas and the open oceans to bring fish to our tables.

No one present can remember the time when our fish stocks were at their most productive. Old postcards show harbours crammed with fishing boats, about which the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous)—for Lowestoft—and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) were trading stories. Sepia photos show giant fish dwarfing the men who caught them, and those who represent fishing communities today have heard the stories of quaysides buried in haddock and cod—but they are stories from their grandparents. The truth is that the UK fishing industry was at its most productive not a few decades ago, in the 1980s or before, but more than 120 years ago, in the 1880s. The peak year was 1889.

Today, even with satellite navigation systems and sophisticated mechanical gear, not to mention sonar and metal-hull vessels, our fishermen have to work 17 times harder to catch fewer and smaller fish than people did in the age of sail and steam in wooden-hull vessels. Decades of poor fisheries management have led to a collapse in the productivity of our fisheries and a continual loss of jobs and livelihoods. For every hour spent fishing today, fishers land only 6% of what they did 120 years ago.

In June this year, the Commission set out its proposals for fishing opportunities for 2016. This debate will be able to inform the Minister’s contribution to that consultation and, I trust, will shape the recommendations and suggestions that the UK has to make to the Commission by 1 October. The fishing opportunities for 2016 will operate under the objectives of the new CFP, which was so ably set out by former Commissioner Damanaki. In particular, it will aim to bring fishing mortality—what the Commission refers to as

“the impact of fishing fleets on the stocks”—

into line with the levels required to allow stocks to rebuild to biomass levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield, or MSY, and to do so in the shortest possible timeframe.

The Commission wants to achieve good environmental status in European seas by 2020 and to reduce the impact of fishing on the marine ecosystem, as set out in the marine strategy framework directive. The Commission proposals for fishing opportunities are based on the available scientific advice that it receives from ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and other scientific and technical bodies. Where no such advice is available, the Commission has stated that it will apply the precautionary approach in line with the CFP objectives.

The Minister knows that I have had occasion in the past to challenge his Department’s failure properly to apply the precautionary principle on a number of fronts. I trust that he will be able to provide assurance to the House today that the UK will argue on the side of the Commission against increasing total allowable catch for those species for which the science is less than secure, and that he will not risk giving a green light to overfishing.

With that in mind, it is worth noting that 2016 is the year in which the landing obligation for demersal fisheries in the North sea and the Atlantic EU waters comes into force, bringing an important part of the EU fleet in the north-east Atlantic under the obligation to bring, retain on board and land all catches. The discard ban, as it is more popularly known, will ensure that quotas for stocks falling under the landing obligation take into account catches rather than landings. That has been controversial with fishing communities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby outlined, but it will enable everyone to get a far better picture of precisely what is happening with the stock as it has to be landed and recorded. If we are to proceed on the basis of sound science, as all parties say they want us to, the landing obligation will improve our capacity to properly assess the biomass and health not only of the target species that people like to eat but of the whole marine ecosystem. That is fundamental.

Many hon. Members are aware of the issues that the landing obligation creates in the short term for fishing boats beset by the problems of choke species. Fishers can find themselves unable to pursue a stock for which they have remaining quota because of fears of catching a stock for which they have no quota or no quota left. Various suggestions have been made as to how to resolve that problem, including quota leasing and even transferring 10% of quotas from year to year. Will the Minister outline the Government’s preferred way of addressing those real, live issues for fishermen up and down our coastal waters?

After the reform of the CFP, a taskforce was set up to solve the inter-institutional deadlock on multi-annual plans. It finalised its work in April 2014 and concluded with a framework to facilitate the development and introduction of multi-annual plans under the CFP. The new generation of multi-annual plans should include targets for MSY, with deadlines, for the stocks that define the fisheries. The plans may, in addition, introduce ranges of exploitation rates considered to be in accordance with MSY.

On the basis of the taskforce conclusions, the Commission just last week tabled a proposal for a multi-annual plan covering Baltic sea fisheries that includes proposed target values and deadlines for achieving MSY. The proposal for 2016 sets the total allowable catch from the Baltic sea’s 10 main commercial fish stocks for EU fishermen. This year, for the first time, the TAC for plaice has been set in line with the MSY approach, bringing the total number of Baltic stocks covered by MSY to seven out of 10. For seven out of 10 stocks, the available data from the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has allowed the Commission to propose catch limits at sustainable levels for more stocks than ever before. The EU aims to achieve MSY for all fish stocks by 2020 at the latest.

Under the proposals, the TAC for all stocks except salmon would decrease by about 15% compared with 2015 and would be set at approximately 565,692 tonnes. The catch limit for salmon, which is measured in pieces rather than tonnes, would increase by 6%, to 115,874. The Commission proposes to increase the catch limits for herring in the western and central Baltic, as well as for main basin salmon and plaice. Decreases for the remaining stocks either reflect the natural fluctuations within the MSY range or are linked to the improved perception of stocks’ status as a result of recent data revision. The European Council will discuss the Commission’s proposal at its October meeting. Will the Minister indicate whether the UK will be supporting this new and more scientifically rigorous approach to quota setting at that meeting?

Other proposals are under discussion with stakeholders for both a North sea and a western waters demersal mixed fisheries plan, and a multi-annual plan for the Atlantic pelagic fisheries is under consideration. In preparation of its proposals for these plans, the Commission has requested that ICES provide MSY ranges for the stocks concerned where quotas are fixed by the Council for use in the management of mixed fisheries under plans. I understand that ICES has provided such ranges for an important number of those stocks. Will the Minister advise us as to whether he has had the opportunity to examine that scientific evidence and advice? If so, will he be minded to accept it and argue that it should be respected when the Council meets in October?

The Council has achieved significant progress in setting TACs in line with MSY over the last few years, from five in 2009 to 36 for 2015. That has resulted in an increase in the number of stocks that are fished at levels corresponding to MSY to 26 stocks in 2015. The Commission has made it clear that it believes it is necessary to continue along that path for 2016 and 2017, and to create the conditions for achieving MSY as soon as possible, and by 2020 at the latest. It therefore intends to propose total allowable catches in line with achieving MSY in 2016.

The Minister will be only too well aware, however, that there are those who would like to ignore the science and look for short-term gain by arguing for an uplift in TAC. Will he confirm that he shares the Commission’s view that it would be unacceptable to delay the objective of setting TAC in line with MSY beyond 2016 unless doing so would imply very large annual reductions in quotas that would seriously jeopardise the social and economic sustainability of the fleets involved?

A few weeks ago, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) has already said, I had the pleasure of visiting Lancaster and Fleetwood and discussing the challenges facing the fishing community. It is a perfect example of the sort of local community I spoke of at the beginning of my remarks. The glory days of the past, when Fleetwood was a major fishing port, are no longer, but for those still carrying on the great fishing tradition of their grandparents the dangers of their trade seem not to have diminished at the same pace as the rewards have.

I was privileged to go out with one of the under-10 fleet there and discuss with skippers the problems they face. I thank them for the robust honesty with which they shared their fears and concerns about the challenges facing their industry, and pay tribute to the way in which many of them have embraced wider net gauges and other progressive ways of restoring biomass.

On behalf of those skippers, I want to ask the Minister one final question. It echoes the remarks of the hon. Member for Waveney—I will call him my honourable friend—whose admirable speech was absolutely spot on, on so many fronts. The Government won a significant court battle that established that the UK fishing quota was the UK’s to dispose of, and that we could effect a redistribution of quota that took little away from the offshore fleet of larger vessels but could be of significant benefit to the smaller under-10 fleet that is the mainstay of fishing ports such as Fleetwood. When will the Minister begin to exercise that right and redistribute quota to the under-10 fleet so as to redress the balance and make it easier for these brave individuals to carry on the livelihood of their grandparents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We have given £1 billion of aid to the region, and 18 million food parcels.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In the infrastructure debate, the Government promised they would safeguard our groundwater and sites of special scientific interest from the dangers of fracking. These promises have now been abandoned. The Government now permit fracking in SSSIs, and four out of five of the old water protection zones are no longer frack-free under the new water protection areas. Was the Secretary of State consulted by her Cabinet colleagues about this U-turn on fracking in protected areas, and if so, why did she agree to downgrade these important protections?