Rural Transport

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Neil Hudson

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

The Heads of the Valleys road is indeed south Wales.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate on such an important issue. He is talking about the roads as vital capillaries that keep people connected. I am sure he will be well aware of the report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last year on rural mental health. One of the key findings was that connectivity is pivotal to people’s health and wellbeing in rural communities, and part of that is our rural bus network. Often, that is run by volunteers, such as the Fellrunner and Border Rambler services in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that our rural bus network must be supported to keep people connected and well in our rural communities?

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I will come to buses in a moment. I am not convinced that the very fat buses that we have nowadays that hardly fit down rural lanes and are usually empty are necessarily the best way to transport people around our rural communities. However, my hon. Friend’s point about mental health is fundamental to the wellbeing of our constituents, so more innovation, better delivery and better transport will be at the heart of that issue.

Heating Rural Homes

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Neil Hudson

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to address this important issue. We all want to beat climate change, cut emissions and leave the planet in a better condition than we found it, so we do need to address the challenge of heating rural homes. It is perhaps ironic that we should be discussing this topic during a heatwave, but

“pleasant as it may be to bask in the warmth of recovery… The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”.

As North Herefordshire is a rural constituency, I urge the Government to ensure that there is an equitable solution for heating rural homes. Around 1.1 million homes in England are not connected to the gas grid and currently use some of the most carbon-intensive heating fuels, such as oil and coal. Some rural homes do not even have the option of an electricity supply.

In the past year, we have seen the price of fuel fluctuate wildly due to Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine. In the wake of the invasion, heating oil hit an unprecedented 110 pence a litre, well over double the regular cost.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and on highlighting how different rural areas are from urban areas. As he mentioned, so many households —up to 76%—are off grid and on things like heating oil. Does he agree that decisions made in urban Whitehall need to understand that rural areas are different? Some well-intentioned schemes, such as the sustainable warmth scheme, have not worked well in practice. There needs to be flexibility in these policies so that, when we talk about phasing out heating oil or, indeed, phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles—things that are so vital to rural areas—we can make sure the Government listen to rural areas.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend is a rural champion, like myself. With his background in animal welfare, he feels the beat of the countryside in his veins. He is absolutely right about having that rural priority for vital things such as climate change, where we all want the right things. We all want to do the best we can for our constituents, but what works in inner London is so different from that which would affect his constituents, those in Brecon and Radnorshire, or the wonderful people of North Herefordshire.

As I said, the fuel price hit an unprecedented 110 pence per litre, double the regular cost, or even more. The Government moved commendably quickly to help secure our energy supply and to protect consumers through the energy price guarantee. However, for those off grid, that support was not forthcoming. The energy price guarantee ensured that gas and electricity bills were capped at about half of what they could have been, but those using alternative fuels received a £200 payment and there was no cap on the price. As a result, they were subjected to massive price increases, with little to safeguard them from factors completely out of their control. During this period, I received emails from people in Herefordshire whose houses are off the mains grid and who were deeply concerned by the rapidly increasing price of alternative fuel.

With the UK target of reaching net zero by 2050 in mind, the Government are pursuing a heat pump-led approach to secure energy independence for the UK. Their well-meaning boiler ban, set to take effect in 2026, will force homeowners to replace their gas and oil boilers with low-carbon alternatives. Although that ban may be well-intentioned and appears to align with the target of reaching net zero by 2050, we have forgotten the impracticality of such a ban for those people living off grid. With 75% of rural properties off the gas grid, these homeowners rely on alternative heating methods. Of all the off-grid homes in the UK, 55% are heated with heating oil, just 18% with electricity, 11% with solid fuel and 10% with liquid petroleum gas. That means that 76% of off-grid households will soon have to replace their heating systems.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Neil Hudson

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy).

It is a pleasure and privilege to speak in the debate on a very important Bill that Opposition Members will be pleased to hear this Member of Parliament strongly supports. I declare a strong professional interest as a veterinary surgeon; the Bill will be so important in recognising animal sentience in UK legislation.

In the current political climate I am loth to get into intricate debates about the difference between the words “implicit” and “explicit”, but, as the Secretary of State said, animal sentience has been implicit in UK law since the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822, and it remains implicitly acknowledged in current animal welfare legislation, including the Animal Welfare Act 2006. I feel that this House and the Government missed a trick in 2017 by not transferring into UK legislation the part of article 13 of the Lisbon treaty that recognised that animals are sentient beings, because that would have been easy to do. That said, by not doing it, we now have an amazing opportunity to put animal sentience at the heart of UK legislation, and that is very important. I also welcome it as the Government’s fulfilling of a manifesto promise, which I strongly support.

I very much welcome the fact that cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans are now included in the Bill. That sets a really good example. The Government have commissioned a piece of work from the London School of Economics and they have listened to it. I am very encouraged by that; I just wish they would do it a little more often.

Although I welcome the Bill, I very much recognise the contributions from Opposition Members who say that we need to be clearer on some of the details and specifics. I recognise that, by definition, this is a brief and general overarching Bill, which is probably quite sensible. That said, I would very much like it to define the term “sentience” in some way. In the 2017 Bill consultation, 79% of responses called for the inclusion of a definition in the Bill. A useful definition made by the Global Animal Law Project and endorsed by the British Veterinary Association states:

“Sentience shall be understood to mean the capacity to have feelings, including pain and pleasure, and implies a level of conscious awareness.”

The Minister said in the other place, and also before us in the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, that it might well be difficult to put the definition into primary legislation because the science is evolving and so potentially it could evolve. We could get round that by placing it in secondary legislation that would be easily updated, so I think that the Government can move forward on that.

         I very much welcome the formation of the Animal Sentience Committee, but we need to be clear about its independence and to make sure that it has strong expertise and experience in animal welfare, animal health and veterinary matters. It needs to have some teeth and some power, including power to roam across Government. I am very glad that the committee will be based in DEFRA; although I want it to have a roaming feature, I am more comfortable with it being in the Department that is the custodian for animal health and welfare, which I think makes a lot of sense.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

Given my hon. Friend’s expertise and professional experience, what examples does he have from his own life of such a committee being necessary? Why does he therefore want it based in DEFRA?

[Dr Hudson]

I will come on to some examples of why I think the committee will be important, and how the Government and the Secretary of State respond to it will be useful in formulating policy.

I am glad that the committee will be embedded in DEFRA, but I very much hope that it will be listened to. I draw a contrast with the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which I and many hon. Members on both sides of the House called for, as did the National Farmers Union. We were really pleased to have it scrutinising trade negotiations. It produced a report, but the Government were very slow in responding and were a little partial in their response. I very much hope that the response to the committee from DEFRA, a Department in which I have a lot of faith, will be unlike some of the responses from the Department for International Trade to the Trade and Agriculture Commission.

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will respond within three months. There has been a lot of fear that the Bill and the committee might be open to judicial review, but the fact that the Secretary of State needs to respond within three months may go some way towards mitigating that risk. I recognise that there have been concerns, however.