Waste Incineration Facilities

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Peter Grant

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate. Her parting shot was that her constituents do not want an ecological eyesore as their new landmark, and my constituents feel exactly the same way about the proposals to build a giant incinerator between the villages of Longparish and Barton Stacey. Only two weeks have passed since we last debated this subject, and it is right that we should do so again, because the Minister did not have time to respond. It is imperative that she should have the opportunity to give a fuller answer than she had time to do last time.

I regret to have to rehearse the issue we face in Romsey and Southampton North, where American conglomerate Wheelabrator seeks to build a massive, industrial-scale incinerator the size of Battersea power station in the Hampshire countryside. Billed by the applicants as a green waste-to-energy scheme, locally there are serious doubts that a proposal such as this can ever be green. So enormous is the development that it is to be determined by the Secretary of State—it is classified as a nationally significant infrastructure project—rather than by the local waste and minerals authority, Hampshire County Council or the local borough council, Test Valley Borough Council. I commend both those councils for being resolute in their opposition to it.

I will not rehearse the many good planning reasons why the scheme should be refused, but there are serious questions about whether it will ever generate the amount of power required to achieve the level of a national infrastructure project. On its website, Wheelabrator proudly proclaims that the scheme will have an energy generating capacity of up to 65 MW, but in public consultations with residents, the company has acknowledged that that is entirely dependent upon the calorific value of the feedstock. We know we have to get better at removing plastics from the waste stream, and those plastics have some of the highest calorific values when burned. I commend the steps the Government have taken so far, but much more can and must be done.

I visited a packaging manufacturer in my constituency with the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—we look terribly attractive wearing blue hairnets. The company’s managing director kept making the point that they wanted to use high-quality recycled plastics in their packaging, but it was too difficult to get hold of them. They used a percentage of recycled, but it was easier and cheaper to get fresh plastics than to extract plastics from the waste stream. They wanted Government action to ensure that the plastics that we all know are in the waste stream can be redirected into businesses such as theirs.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

In Scotland, any new incinerator is required by law to remove all metals and plastics from the waste product before it is incinerated. Would the right hon. Lady welcome similar legislation in England?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Peter Grant

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Absolutely, Mr Speaker.

Whose interests were served by tearing Lizanne Zietsman away from her family, business and community, and deporting her against the wishes of the entire community of the island of Arran?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman will understand the distinction between deportation, which happens to foreign national offenders, and removal, which happens to those who are immigration offenders. There is a very clear difference. He will know that I cannot comment on individual cases, but it is worth stating that the Supreme Court has upheld the Government’s minimum income requirement to have dependants and spouses in this country. That is an important principle, which the Government support, because we want people to have an adequate level of income that will enable them to integrate into society.

Immigration

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Peter Grant

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman has perhaps not read the White Paper and seen the additional offer that the Government are making to international students on post-study work. He would do well to read it. He said that the MAC only gives the Government evidence that we want to hear—far from it. He is falling into the trap of being interested in evidence when it suits him.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

No, I will not.

The MAC concluded both that students should not be removed from the net migration target and that there should be no increase in the length of time that undergraduates are allowed to remain in the UK on completion of their studies. The MAC said:

“We do not recommend a separate post-study work visa”.

I look forward to the SNP’s endorsement of those positions, or are they interested in evidence-based policy making only when the evidence happens to support their pre-conceived notions?

The Government have decided to go beyond the MAC’s recommendations. In our White Paper, we committed to increasing the period of post-study leave for both undergraduates and master’s students because, as I have said, we want our education sector to continue to flourish and to compete strongly on the international stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He will be conscious that, when we are looking for cross-party consensus, there are several across the House who agree with me and him that we should have one immigration policy for the whole of the United Kingdom.

The future system needs to uphold our international obligations in relation to asylum, and to support decisions based on human rights. As I set out last week, we continue to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to resettle the most vulnerable people from areas of conflict. We have resettled almost 16,000 people since 2015, nearly 3,000 of whom have been resettled in Scotland. In our new consolidated scheme, starting in 2020, we are committed to resettling about 5,000 of the world’s most vulnerable refugees every year. That strategy is to prevent vulnerable people from falling into the hands of traffickers and making dangerous journeys across both land and sea.

It is firmly our view that people should claim asylum in the first safe country, not the last, but where people are in genuine need of our protection, we will provide it. I am proud that this Government have given protection to over 66,000 people since June 2010. Where an individual does not meet our immigration rules or our obligations under international law, I make no apology for making and enforcing decisions that the public expect as a matter of fairness.

[Peter Grant]

May I take the Minister back to her comments on the Migration Advisory Committee? I note with interest that she wants us to accept everything that committee says, but seems reluctant to accept the findings of a House of Commons Select Committee. The creation of the Select Committees was celebrated by Mr Speaker not so long ago.

Can the Minister tell us which member of the Migration Advisory Committee has direct experience of the impact of migration in Scotland? I have just looked at the committee’s website, and there is no doubt that all its members are very august experts in their own field, but none of them has a job anywhere further north than York and, as far as I can tell from the potted biographies, none of them has ever worked in any of the devolved nations of the United Kingdom. Is it any surprise that we should get an Anglocentric set of recommendations from such an Anglocentric committee? If that is not true, will the Minister tell us the name of the member of the Migration Advisory Committee who has direct experience of working in Scotland and seeing how migration affects Scotland today?

Child Tax Credits

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Peter Grant

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I extend to her an invitation, which I am sure she has already received from others, to visit a local jobcentre, to see for herself how our reforms are working in action.

We also recognise that some claimants are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family as others. The Government have been clear that there will be exemptions for certain groups, and it is worth outlining these groups in some detail. Exemptions apply to third or subsequent children who are part of a multiple birth, where there were previously fewer than two children in the household; to children living long-term with friends or family and who are at risk of entering the care system; or to those children born as a result of rape.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Caroline Nokes]

I would give way to the hon. Gentleman but there are many really important points that I would like to get through in the time allocated to me, and I have already taken a number of interventions from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central and one intervention from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis).

Today, I am pleased to be able to inform hon. Members that, as part of the Children and Social Work Bill, the Government have given further consideration to the position of children who are being adopted from local authority care, and we will extend the announced exemption to all third or subsequent children in these circumstances. This change will support families who care for our most vulnerable children, and they will be provided for, along with the other exemptions, in regulations.

Of course, we are aware that these exemptions are sensitive and complicated, and we want to make sure that we get this process right. That is why we are consulting with a number of stakeholders from charities, women’s representative organisations and indeed religious groups.

The Government recognise that women who have a child born as a result of rape face extremely difficult circumstances. That is why we are considering very carefully the best possible way to deliver this exemption. I want to be very clear that we are not looking to rely on or to pre-empt decisions within the criminal justice system. Instead, we are looking to ensure that claimants receive the help they need at the time they need it, using criteria that are straightforward to apply and not overly intrusive, while providing the right assurance to Government that the additional support is going to those for whom it is intended.

Our current thinking is that a third-party evidence model offers the most promising approach to strike the balance we need to achieve. This is a model where a woman can request the exemption by engaging with a professional third party, such as a healthcare professional or a social worker. This approach would not be new for the benefit system. For example, within universal credit we use a similar model for the relaxation of the requirements to be available for work in cases of domestic violence, where the evidence required is the reporting of abuse to a third party acting in an official capacity, and that model was developed with input from stakeholders. We recognise the sensitivity of this exemption and the need to get advice from experts, so we have sought views from stakeholder groups involved in supporting victims of rape to help us to develop this exemption.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central raised a large number of issues, and I will set out the Government’s vision for a sustainable welfare system that supports working families and encourages them to make similar decisions to those made by people who support themselves fully through work. I will also respond to the intervention from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central regarding the impacts of the policy of limiting support to two children in tax credit and universal credit, while meeting our obligations as set out in the public sector equality duty. The Government have set out our assessments of the impacts of the policy as part of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, on 20 July 2015, in a published impact assessment.

The Government are cutting income tax for more than 30 million people this year and we took 4 million of the lowest paid out of income tax completely during the last Parliament. By 2018, a typical basic-rate taxpayer will pay more than £1,000 less in income tax than they did in 2010. Universal credit now provides for 85% of childcare costs for families with two children; this could be worth £13,000 a year.

The number of people in work is at a record high. With the national living wage, we have given a pay rise to 1 million of the lowest paid, and we have overhauled the welfare system so that it pays to work rather than to claim benefits. The number of workless households has fallen by nearly 200,000 in the past year and now stands at 3.1 million, which is the lowest figure since records began. The number of children living in workless households has fallen by 557,000 since 2010, and there are now 100,000 fewer children in relative low income compared to the number in 2010. In the hon. Lady’s own constituency of Glasgow Central, the employment rate has increased by 2.9 percentage points since 2010, to 62.9% in March 2016. This reflects the fact that there are now 2,000 more people in work in her constituency than there were in 2010. The Government are committed to ensuring that those in work are paid a fair wage and have opportunities to progress and to achieve their potential.

The Smith Commission agreement was very clear that universal credit should remain a reserved UK Government benefit, so that there is a clear and consistent offer of vital support to people in England, Scotland and Wales. Where the UK Government decide to make changes to reserved benefits, such as eligibility criteria, or to how payments for dependent children are calculated, those changes will apply equally across England, Scotland and Wales.

However, the Scotland Act 2016 gives the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Ministers significant new welfare powers. Not only can they now work with us to change certain defined elements of universal credit, such as the way that the housing cost calculation is made, but they will also get responsibility for a range of existing UK Government benefits, which were worth £2.7 billion in Scotland in 2014-15.

Crucially, the Scottish Government also now have new, wide-ranging powers to pay cash top-ups to anyone receiving a reserved benefit, or to introduce brand new benefits in devolved areas. This means that the Scottish Government can tailor the welfare system in Scotland, to meet both their own political aims and local needs.

In conclusion, I would like to reassure hon. Members that the Government are committed to achieving these welfare reforms. Putting welfare spending on a sustainable footing, and in a way that protects the most vulnerable, is vital as we progress to a society that will give working families more control over their lives. It will also ensures fairness for all families—both those who are paying for, and those who are receiving support from, the welfare system.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central is right to raise the issue about the rape exemption; she has made her point and she has made it repeatedly to different Ministers. However, the Department for Work and Pensions is determined to address this issue with fairness and sensitivity, to make sure that women have the opportunity to report in a safe environment to trusted professionals. It is critically important that we extend that opportunity to them and that we do not remove the exemption, because I think that would be a very dangerous and unfair thing to do.

However, it is important that we instil within the benefits system a fairness for all families, for those who make choices about how many children they can afford to have, and that will apply to those who are working and supporting themselves solely through work, as well as to those who are in receipt of tax credit. Our priority remains to help working parents by providing them with the support they need to get on in life, and in doing so we will make life easier for all families.

Question put and agreed to.