Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

We are dealing with two separate things here, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) for recording her cross-party support for the forestry report. To reiterate for the House and to make it perfectly clear, the public forest estate will remain in public ownership and there is no programme of sales, but, as I have just said in response to the question from the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), DEFRA has to help to reduce the deficit that the Labour party left this Government to clear up. Every DEFRA agency is playing its part, but we have given assistance specifically to the Forestry Commission with its restructuring programme.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

3. When she plans to establish a network of marine protected areas to conserve biodiversity in England’s seas.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

This question would normally be answered by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is currently representing the United Kingdom at the International Whaling Commission.

We already have a network of 84 marine protected areas in English seas out to 12 nautical miles from the coast, and we plan to complete the set designated under the EU habitats directive this year. In addition, we are working to designate more sites under the EU birds directive and more marine conservation zones, as provided for in the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, to add to the network from 2013 onwards.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am sure the whole House will wish to send its best wishes to the right hon. Lady’s colleague at the International Whaling Commission. I bear the scars of a number of those conferences and, in particular, I hope that the Under-Secretary delivers a tough message on the outrageous South Korean decision to resume so-called scientific whaling. No such thing exists.

Marine protected areas are absolutely vital if we are to protect fish, seafood and other aspects of marine biodiversity in the seas around our coast, including around Devon. Their designation is already running two years’ late, however, and there are worrying reports that the Government intend to reduce the number from 127, which the right hon. Lady’s own independent scientific advisory group said was the minimum required, to just 30. I hope that she can dispel those concerns now. Thirty would be totally inadequate; we need the 127 that her own advisory group recommends.

[Mrs Spelman]

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

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

6. What advice the Church Commissioners have given on the implications of a decision to agree to the appointment of women bishops.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

9. What representations the Church Commissioners have received on recent amendments to the Women Bishops Measure made by the House of Bishops.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

I made my own position very clear in a speech to the General Synod shortly after my appointment. I had hoped that the Synod would give final approval to the legislation for women bishops next Monday, but as a result of an amendment made by the House of Bishops in May, it is possible that the Synod will ask the House of Bishops to think again, in which case we may be in for a short period of ping-pong between the Synod and the House of Bishops.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I agree entirely with everything my right hon. Friend has said.

[Mr Bradshaw]

It is terribly sad that, yet again, the bishops have threatened this measure by trying to water it down. A couple of weeks ago, they accused this House of jeopardising the status of the established Church because we are likely to vote for equal marriage. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the bishops that establishment is a two-way street, and that by putting themselves so far away from mainstream opinion on women bishops—in this House, in the country and even in the Church of England—it is they who are threatening the established status of the Church?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I take the point, but let me say, in fairness, that I think the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops were trying hard to find a piece of territory on which they felt that everyone could stand. Many of us in the House are familiar with that concept. As the archbishop said, it is rather like one of those Christmas cracker games that involve trying to get three ball bearings into a hole: you always get two in, but one falls out. I think that a genuine attempt was made, but it obviously backfired, and we shall have to review the position.

The House of Commons well understands the concept of ping-pong. I hope that if the General Synod sends this back to the House of Bishops, the bishops will reflect on what has been said by people including my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). I also hope very much that, before the year is out, the House will have an opportunity to pass legislation that will make it possible for the Church of England to have women bishops.