Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Debate between Caroline Spelman and Clive Betts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I would like to comment on issues of particular importance to my constituency, now named Sheffield South East. It is virtually the same constituency as Sheffield Attercliffe, but the Boundary Commission decided for some reason to give it a slightly less attractive name, in my view.
First, I want to talk about the situation at Sheffield Forgemasters, which has already been referred to in interventions both by me and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). It is clear that a new nuclear programme and industry will be built in this country. There is majority support on both sides of the Chamber. It is equally important that, if we build this new nuclear industry, as much of it as possible should be built by firms in this country, with British workers getting the jobs. Sheffield Forgemasters is a wonderful success story. The firm was owned by an American company virtually on the brink of collapse. It became a management buy-out when the previous Government, with great ingenuity, used the pension legislation that they had introduced to support not the pensions schemes of people in a bankrupt company, but the pensions deficit being transferred from the American parent company to the new management buy-out company, to enable the buy-out to take place.
Since then, those jobs have been secured, 17 new apprentices have been taken on, the company has full order books, with most of the orders going abroad, and now it has seen the potential to invest in a massive new forging press—one of the biggest in the world—to produce parts for nuclear reactors that only two other companies in the world can produce. If this forging press is not built at Sheffield Forgemasters, that work will go abroad; there is no alternative. That is quite simple.
Sheffield Forgemasters is not the only company that would be affected, given its links with other industry in the city. Davy Markham, which machines the parts that Sheffield Forgemasters make, would also lose out in that process, and Siemens, another firm based in my constituency, would lose out on design work. A whole supply chain will be crippled if this investment does not go ahead. I can understand any new Government wanting to review the previous Government’s decisions, but this is a commercial operation and is supporting a commercial loan. The company is already using that loan and working on, and putting money into, this project, and it will be a tragedy if it is now stopped. We need not only a decision that it can go ahead, but a quick decision, so that this company and the future of British manufacturing in this area does not lose out.
The second issue, linked to the first, is the previous Government’s decision to invest in a new nuclear research centre in the advanced manufacturing park. That is actually in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), but it is right next door to my constituency. That park is a wonderful development: it has the university of Sheffield, Yorkshire Forward—the regional development agency—Rolls-Royce, British Aerospace and Boeing, and all are contributing to turning research into practical measures that could improve the technological efficiency of British manufacturing. They are wonderful examples. We need to take that forward into nuclear research, and consider how British manufacturing can learn from the great research and inventions in this country and turn them into innovations and practical projects that can deliver jobs. That was a challenge in which the previous Government were willing to invest. Is that decision now to be reviewed as well? Will this new research centre go ahead? That is a fundamental question.
That is linked, of course, to the decision to cut back on funding for organisations such as Yorkshire Forward, which has an excellent track record of working with industry in Yorkshire and the Humber to deliver what industry wants. In a recent regional Select Committee report, the Engineering Employers Federation, the CBI, the Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses all said that they welcomed what Yorkshire Forward had done. The problem is that, when the Government say at short notice to organisations such as RDAs, “Make cuts, but protect your investment in manufacturing, industry and schemes with an economic benefit”, RDAs are left in an impossible position.
The only cuts the RDA can make are on schemes that are not committed, and the problem is that, even if the schemes that are not committed are the ones that would have the greatest economic impact and benefit, they will still be cut. It is the fact that those cuts have been rushed through that will cause the damage. They have not been considered and do not leave time for organisations such as Yorkshire Forward to consider them properly. I am concerned about the future of our RDAs and the help they provide in difficult times to industries, in particular our manufacturing industry. The question again is: are the Government committed to the new nuclear research centre, which will give great opportunities for British workers and firms to share in the development of our nuclear industry?
I now turn to the Infrastructure Planning Commission. I had reservations about Secretaries of State giving up their ultimate right to sign off decisions, although I had no reservations at all about getting away from the enormously long and complicated inquiries that we have on virtually every major scheme that we try to bring about in this country, whether on transport, energy or whatever. The process was impossible to deal with. The problem now is not merely that the Government seem determined to turn the clock back and recreate a situation in which inquiries are simply benefit days for lawyers and decisions on schemes are not made quickly or in due time with due process. However, the very fact that they are now proposing a change to the IPC and to replace it with something else, or the old system, leads to uncertainty, which will itself lead to delays.
Mrs Spelman
On the Department for Communities and Local Government brief, I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman some reassurance. All the expertise within the IPC is within the planning inspectorate and will be retained for big projects that need to be dealt with in a timely fashion. There is no question of losing that expertise; it remains within the planning inspectorate. The difference is that the decisions will have to be taken by an elected politician—the Secretary of State.
Mr Betts
That seems slightly different from the information that we were given before. I am not necessarily opposed to the Secretary of State having to sign off those decisions; what I am opposed to is returning to the old method of inquiries and to the length of time that they took. If the right hon. Lady is saying that all that we are having is effectively a name change, so that the IPC will now be a branch of the Planning Inspectorate but the process and procedures in the Planning Act 2008, which introduced the IPC, are to be retained, that is different. It would therefore be helpful for a clear statement to be made at some point about precisely what will happen.
Let me turn to high-speed rail, which I also raised earlier today. Again, we have a clear difference in policy between the two parties in government. The issue is important to transport generally and to making our transport greener and more environmentally friendly. The Conservatives in opposition proposed a ridiculous scheme that was going to take a rail line out of Heathrow up to Birmingham, then up to Manchester and then somehow across the Pennines to Leeds. The reality is that the people in Leeds did not want the scheme, because that convoluted route to Leeds would not have saved time; that was one of the few times when Sheffield and Leeds were at one on the issue. We both wanted the high-speed line to branch off from Birmingham and go up through the east midlands to Sheffield and Leeds.
Unfortunately, the Secretary of State gave an incorrect statement to the House earlier—I am sure that he did not do it intentionally—when he said that the previous Government did not have a clear policy on the issue. The previous Government’s policy was absolutely clear: it was that a branch of the line would go through the east midlands to Sheffield and Leeds. The Lib Dems supported us on that, and the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and I campaigned on the issue. Indeed, we had a cross-party campaign, involving the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) as well. However, the Conservatives in opposition had a different policy—a policy of going up to Manchester and then across to Leeds.
What is the position now? Will someone please tell us? The Government’s announcement the other day said that they supported a high-speed line. However, they mentioned Birmingham and Manchester, but they did not mention Sheffield, Leeds or Scotland. We have all been forgotten about. As I said to the Leader of the House in business questions earlier, the councils on the route of the line to Sheffield and Leeds, which were due to have a meeting in the next few days to discuss the exact route that the line was to take, have had that meeting cancelled, as though the decision has been taken at least to put a high-speed line to Sheffield and Leeds on the back burner. However, no one is telling hon. Members about that in the House. That is another example of the Government seeming to make decisions, but not informing Members about them in the House. Can we have a bit of clarity on that subject, too?
There are two other aspects of trying to get a greener transport system that I would like to be made clear. The tram-train project is due to pilot in Sheffield. The scheme chosen is a Sheffield to Rotherham connection, with the tram-train coming into Sheffield city centre. The scheme offers a great opportunity, in that although the costs of building new tramlines are particularly high in urban areas, linking underused railway lines into a tram system that already runs into the heart of a city offers real potential. Is the tram-train project one of the schemes to be cut, because it is not up and running, or are the Government committed to it?
Another issue that I would like to explore is the complete absence, as far as I can see, of any comment in the coalition agreement on another area where the two parties have distinctly opposite views—quality contracts for buses, which are important for getting people out of their cars and on to public transport, provided that that public transport has a degree of certainty and integration, and is reasonably priced. As we have seen in London, quality contracts work; as we have seen in places such as Sheffield, deregulation does not. The previous Government introduced the Local Transport Act 2008, which gave local transport authorities the right, after consultation, to go for quality contracts, if they considered them the best way of running transport in their areas.
We were castigated by the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker)—now a member of the transport ministerial team—for not going far enough in Committee on that Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) changed the Bill substantially on Report to give greater powers and opportunities to local transport authorities to introduce quality contracts. However, in Committee as well as on Report and subsequently, the Conservative transport spokesperson said that the Conservatives were committed, if they got into government, to repealing the part of the Local Transport Act 2008 that gave transport authorities the ability to introduce quality contracts. What is the coalition’s position on quality contracts? Is it now intent on repealing the legislation, or will transport authorities that are about to consult on moving to quality contracts—such as South Yorkshire integrated transport authority and the transport executive—be allowed to go ahead with their plans? Again, could we have an answer on that issue, which appears to be missing?
I have two final issues to raise. Recycling was not much mentioned. I accept that recycling and how it is done is a matter best left to local authorities, but when the Secretary of State reads Hansard, perhaps he could have a word with the Lib Dem-controlled council in Sheffield. The council is seeking to remove from many of my constituents the green and blue bins for garden and paper waste, which are extremely popular, and replace them with green sacks, which rose thorns poke through and which people complain about, and, for paper waste, with blue boxes about the size of the Dispatch Box, if hon. Members can imagine that—boxes which, first, in many cases people cannot get two weeks of paper waste into, and which, secondly, people who are elderly or have a back problem cannot lift. That is a major disincentive to recycling. We are talking only about a local issue, and in the end it is a matter for the local council. However, now that the Lib Dems have so much power in the coalition, perhaps they could at least encourage some of their local councils to behave a bit more responsibly.
There is a lot more that I would like to say, particularly about the future plans for local government. I would support any moves to decentralise and devolve powers, but I just suspect that part of the agenda is about giving local authorities more power and less money, and then blaming them for the decisions that they have to make. However, we will no doubt have discussions about those issues in future. If the Government are really serious about reforming local government finance and giving more powers to local government to raise money, they will have my support and I will want to engage with them on the issue.
The Government could do an awful lot to reassure me. Let us deal properly with the decision on Sheffield Forgemasters, ensure that the nuclear research centre goes ahead, have a proper agreement on bus deregulation and get the high-speed rail link to Sheffield, and I will be happy.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
First, I thank the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) for his kind congratulations, and I also thank him on behalf of other members of my team. Everyone in the House knows of his commitment to DEFRA, and I extend my appreciation of the dedication that he has clearly inspired in all those in the Department whom we have been fortunate enough to meet so far.
The right hon. Gentleman’s achievements are many. From the passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to the creation of the South Downs as our ninth national park and Lundy Island as our first marine conservation zone, his drive and tenacity have left a lasting legacy for the future. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that there will be continuity on important matters such as illegal logging, fishing and whaling. We should not be surprised at that, for I share with him the view that the issues this Department faces are the great challenges of our age.
I wonder in passing, however, whether we should read anything into his warm praise for the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), and in particular his specific mention of leadership skills. We will watch that space.
I also join the right hon. Gentleman in welcoming the many new Members to the House and congratulating them on their excellent maiden speeches. I had to make my own maiden speech entirely alone on my side of the House as it happened to coincide with the moment when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was proclaimed leader of my party after a ballot in Committee Room 14. I can tell those who have made their maiden speeches today that there is something to be said for safety in numbers.
I also extend my thanks to the established Members who have contributed to the lively debate today and congratulate them on their return to the House. I did intervene on several occasions to provide clarification as I thought that I might not have much time to do so now, especially as I wish to pick up some of the points made in the excellent maiden speeches.
I wish to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) that coastal erosion is an issue that I will certainly treat as a priority in my Department, and I hope that that will also reassure some of her constituents. The hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans)—I hope that I have pronounced that correctly—commended the work of credit unions and I concur entirely that they provide a safe way to access credit, especially for people in straitened circumstances who find credit hard to secure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) was a distinguished leader of his county council and I am sure that he will take an active interest in my Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government. It was a great pleasure to hear from the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who described his father as a history maker. Well, the hon. Gentleman is making the history now and I wish him success.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) evoked childhood memories for me, as I spent many a summer holiday in Folkestone on the beaches of Dungeness bay. I am sure that his quest to regenerate those areas of Kent will be much appreciated. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) spoke warmly of his predecessor, Tommy McAvoy, whom all returning Members will remember as an effective Whip.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) sought some reassurance on the question of dangerous dogs, and I give the commitment to her that we will tackle the conduct of their owners and require greater responsibility from them. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) also made her maiden speech, and I pay tribute to her for her work, which has meant that the environment and green issues have become mainstream in British politics. No one can take that achievement away from her.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) is another new Member who comes here from the European Parliament, where he was chairman of the agriculture committee, so he brings a particular expertise to the House and we welcome that. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned the ports of Lowestoft and Yarmouth, and their potential as a centre for the development of new offshore renewable energy capacity. I have seen that with my own eyes, and his zeal on environmental issues will be very welcome to my team.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) spoke about the importance of the new politics and the need for people to re-engage with politics. His passion for the environment will certainly make a difference to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) paid warm tribute to his predecessor, sought from me an undertaking to reduce red tape, and also engendered great hunger in me as he spoke about Wiltshire ham and bacon. He has certainly done his bit for the vernacular foodstuffs from his constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), yet another former Member of the European Parliament, also brings expertise to the House and stressed the importance of planning guidance becoming more local. I am sure that his constituents will benefit as the new Government deliver a more local planning system. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) said that he wanted to be the No. 1 salesman for a group of people whom I now know should correctly be called Enfieldians—I have been enlightened by him. I concur with the view of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) about his constituency. I have walked its ramparts, and he is fortunate indeed to represent such a beautiful place.
We heard speeches from Members whom I dare to call the old guard, and I hope they will forgive me for dealing with them briefly. I would like to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) that localism will help to relieve the pressure on education in west Kent, but I fully understand his point. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) sought reassurance about the new Government’s approach to biodiversity targets. We are absolutely committed to reversing the trend in the reduction in biodiversity. I give him that undertaking. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) sought reassurance that the new Government will take seriously the pressures on his constituency, particularly from Travellers on authorised sites. I repeat to all hon. Members that the new Government are committed to increasing the number of authorised sites and to providing incentives to councils to do that, so that the burden can be shared across local authorities.
Perhaps I should have welcomed the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) among my responses to the other maiden speeches, but he has been in the House before—he is in a special category. I would like to reassure him that we will take very seriously the latest report from TEEB, and I hope that my commitment to sustainability will become clear as I fulfil my role in the House.
I hope that hon. Members who have been in the House before will forgive me if I move on to make just a few remarks. When I slipped out briefly, I had the opportunity to clarify points with some Members outwith the Chamber, and I am always available to any Member who wants clarification on any of the subject areas we discuss. It is clear that Members on both sides of the House feel strongly—and rightly so—about protecting our environment, growing our food and fisheries industries, ensuring our energy security and mitigating and adapting to climate change. The coalition agreement is clear on the issue of fox hunting and tuberculosis. The former will be subject to a motion on a free vote, but it is not an immediate priority for the Government. Our immediate priority is to tackle the deficit—that is the No. 1 priority set out in the coalition agreement.
The coalition agreed a package of measures for science-led badger control, but the right hon. Member for Leeds Central will know that an incoming Secretary of State must examine the science carefully, otherwise there is the risk of being subject to judicial review.
Mrs Spelman
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind—I have spent quite some time on the maiden speeches and talked with him outwith the Chamber—I would like to make some progress.
My Department deals with many national and global issues on which our future depends, and it is only by putting them at the heart of the Government’s strategy for economic growth that we can deliver the green jobs, green technologies and greener economy that we must have to achieve and ensure a secure and sustainable future. The Queen’s Speech provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to work across Government to make that future happen, and there are a number of pieces of legislation into which DEFRA will have an important input.
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Gentleman was in the House when we spent 700 hours of legislative time dealing with the Fox Hunting Act, and I am sure that he will appreciate that those of us who bear the scars of that have no desire to devote huge amounts of parliamentary time to that when we have inherited a legacy containing a huge hole in the nation’s finances.
I want to talk about practical measures that the Department will proceed with in legislation contained in the Queen’s Speech. They include measures to roll out fast broadband, which will create the opportunity for us at DEFRA to ensure that it is provided in rural areas, enabling better communication with the rest of the country and the world, and breaking the isolation that many individuals and businesses in rural areas often feel. The measure will also provide an opportunity for many to reduce their need to travel, reducing carbon footprints and helping to create jobs in rural areas. We are particularly keen to support community-led broadband in rural areas, as another real example of the big society in action.
At the Department for Communities and Local Government, too, the communities Bill will create a platform for DEFRA to demonstrate the priority that we attach to both market rate and social rural housing. With planning being returned to the local level, we hope that many rural communities, through their parish councils and other forums, will seize the chance to shape local plans for the homes that they need. All Departments are going to have to think about how they can drive down their carbon footprints and contribute to the new green economy. We will be challenging them from DEFRA, as well as challenging all the arm’s length bodies under our umbrella.
At DEFRA, for example, we know that the food and farming sectors account for 14% of the UK manufacturing sector and provide the same percentage of jobs. Our urban and rural communities depend on the services and opportunities that those sectors provide, so my Department will be seeking to build on the strong foundations that we have already laid in our early meetings with EU member states for genuine reform of the common agricultural policy, to ensure that it reflects this Government’s fourfold approach to good value for farmers, taxpayers, consumers and the environment alike. We will also await the outcome of Rosemary Radcliffe’s report, which my predecessor commissioned, before proceeding to recommendations.
We know, too, that climate change and the global race to industrialise are reducing the biodiversity and ecosystems of our planet at an unsustainable pace. We must act now to reverse that trend, so the Government will be offering and seeking firm commitments to address the global loss of biodiversity at the UN General Assembly meeting on biodiversity in New York in September, at the Nagoya biodiversity summit the following month in Japan, and at the meeting of Environment Ministers in Cancun at the end of the year. There is no “either/or” when it comes to climate change and biodiversity; they are interdependent and interlinked. We must act together at those conferences, because to do otherwise would be to rob future generations not only of the infinite variety of landscapes and species that we have been lucky enough to enjoy, but of the natural resources on which we depend for the quality of our lives and, indeed, our very livelihoods. We will act as a Government, with the publication of a White Paper on the natural environment to promote just that.
This debate was elegantly opened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. His Department proposes an energy Bill explicitly linking the threat of climate change to both the need to ensure that our energy supplies are secure and the opportunities that a green economy can provide. I believe that the Bill will be welcomed by all, particularly after a winter that brought home the realities of the current cost of energy to the economically vulnerable. All too real, too, has become the threat of floods, which destroy homes, businesses and tragically, as we saw last November, even lives. We will therefore maintain an increase in the money that taxpayers spend on flood defences this year, with no impact on the number of households that we protect.
For too long, families have been exhorted to do their bit to drive down greenhouse gas emissions without being offered any support to do so. “Pay as you save”, a central part of this Government’s green deal, will directly help householders to benefit from greater energy efficiency, saving money and cutting emissions. In its current form, the Bill is unprecedented in its domestic impact, and we are also exploring how businesses can benefit from it. The Bill proposes the most significant energy framework yet, to bring about our green recovery and build our low-carbon future. That is something to which we surely all aspire.
The energy Bill will be presented by my right hon. Friend, clearly demonstrating this coalition’s commitment to be the greenest Government in the country’s history. For the first time, we are developing an integrated strategy across Government, and across the public, private and third sectors, to tackle the loss of biodiversity, address the way that we use resources, adapt to climate change and grow a greener economy that provides the clean, green jobs and industries of the future. The Gracious Speech looks to that dynamic future, and I commend it to the House.