Oral Answers to Questions

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

What ongoing facilities there will be to protect staff from covid-19.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne)]

The House of Commons Commission will continue to ensure that all necessary measures are in place to protect everyone in the parliamentary community from the risk of covid. The specific measures to be retained or implemented will be informed by the current Government guidance in place at the time, public health advice received and the parliamentary covid risk assessment. The covid risk assessment has been continuously updated in the past year to reflect the changing position, and will continue to be so as long as covid poses a risk to the health and wellbeing of our community. At its meeting on Monday 8 March, the House of Commons Commission agreed that the House makes all necessary arrangements to ensure the resilience of business and the safety of all passholders in relation to covid through to March 2022.

[Mrs Murray]

Will my hon. Friend please pass on my thanks, and I am sure those of all Members, to all staff who continue to work through the pandemic in this place? Will a review take place into the procedures used, so they can be improved to protect against the threat of disease in future?

[Sir Charles Walker]

I will certainly pass on my hon. Friend’s thanks to all staff who have worked in the House of Commons during the past difficult 15 months. I think I speak for everyone when I say they have done a simply outstanding job. Learning lessons from our response has been a key priority throughout this time. It has allowed us to refine and improve our response as time has progressed. The House service, through the business resilience group, will ensure planning is conducted to prepare for a range of public health emergencies, alongside identifying and mitigating against a number of other novel risks if they occur.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Oral Answers to Questions

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, what recent assessment the Commission has made of its effectiveness in making the House of Commons a covid-secure environment.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne)]

The House of Commons Commission has ensured that the House Service has implemented the working safely during coronavirus guidance and is a covid-secure workplace. Measures in place are continuously reviewed to ensure they are in line with any changes in Government guidance. This is further supplemented through the expert advice received from Public Health England and the parliamentary safety team. The Commission receives regular updates from the Chair of the House Service covid-19 planning group.

[Patrick Grady]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place. He has the big shoes of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) to fill.

We all thank those in the House service for the amazing job they are doing in keeping us safe during the pandemic. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as we return to a new normal the last thing we need is a big bang moment where one day all these practices are in place and the next day everybody is crowded back into the Lobbies, the canteens and the Chamber? Does he agree that that kind of approach might not instil confidence across the community on the estate, and that the best option would be to adapt gradually and continue to act in line with the best advice from Public Health England?

[Sir Charles Walker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The House services have done a fantastic job in keeping the show on the road, and the Commission congratulates them on that. The Commission also recognises that many members of the House service, many colleagues and the staff of colleagues want to return to the House of Commons, their place of work, and look forward to doing so. However, the Commission also recognises that this needs to be done in as safe a way as possible, as outlined in the road map published by the Government. So the Commission will be working closely, as is always the case, with the trade unions and the representative bodies in this place to make sure that the return to work is a safe one.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Environment Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, I will have to reduce the time limit for Back-Bench speeches to three minutes, but with four minutes, I call Sir Charles Walker.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak to my amendment 3 to clause 82, which is signed by me and 16 colleagues, and which has also secured support from other speakers tonight. The Minister said that I was going to give an impassioned speech. I am afraid I am not, because it has been so easy doing business with her. Is not it wonderful in this place when we can sit down with Ministers and do business?

Before I move on, I would like to thank some chalk stream campaigners: Paul Jennings of the River Chess; Charles Rangeley-Wilson; Dr Jonathan Fisher; Jake Rigg of Affinity; Richard Aylard of Thames Water; and of course the Angling Trust and Fish Legal.

To support rich biodiversity, chalk streams need two things: high flows and high-quality water. A lot of debate in this place centres on rewilding, and rewilding often centres on beavers—wonderful little creatures; I knew a lot of them when I was in Oregon—but the fact of the matter is that proper rewilding of our chalk streams requires good-quality water, and plenty of it. Without those two things, we do not have freshwater shrimp and fly life at the bottom of the food chain, we do not have trout and grayling, we do not have water voles and we do not have otters.

Clause 82 provides the Secretary of State with powers to modify abstraction licences without compensation where

“the ground for revoking or varying the licence is that the Secretary of State is satisfied the revocation or variation is necessary—

(i) having regard to a relevant environmental objective, or

(ii) to otherwise protect the water environment from damage.”

Our amendment would add the words

“including damage from low flows.”

The Secretary of State and the Minister at the Dispatch Box today said that they could not accept that amendment because it might limit the scope of the clause, and I understand that. However, I received a welcome letter from the Secretary of State and the Minister on 25 January, and that letter made it clear that the accompanying guidance to the Bill once it becomes an Act, in giving life to the legislation, will make it clear that—I quote from the Ministers’ letter—“the reference to damage includes damage caused by low flow levels in a river due to unsustainable abstraction.”

That is an important commitment. I have discussed it with the water companies—with Water UK, which is their representative body—and they are very keen for that guidance to be issued. They want to do the right thing. In doing the right thing, they will have to have negotiations with Ofwat, and they will need to be able to point to guidance that has legal force in support of their position.

[Steve Brine]

As a fellow signatory of amendment 3, I congratulate my hon. Friend on getting that commitment. He knows that I am fortunate to have the River Itchen in my constituency. This is a preventive measure. We have good flows and good-quality water, which is why we have a world-class chalk stream, and we want to keep it that way. The amendment really helps to do that, so on behalf of the River Itchen lovers, I thank the Minister very much.

[Sir Charles Walker]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that intervention, which is important. Sixteen people signed the amendment along with me, and my hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for the Itchen, was one of those valuable signatories.

In the time left, I will refer briefly to my other amendment, amendment 42 to clause 78, with regard to drainage and sewerage management plans, regulations and procedures. I tipped the Minister off that I would raise this briefly. The amendment seeks to deliver the National Infrastructure Commission’s recommendation that water companies and local authorities should publish plans to manage surface water flood risk. In short, it seeks to ensure that everyone operating drains or pushing water into rivers, and all flood risk management authorities, such as the Environment Agency and local authorities, co-operates and shares information on the preparation of drainage and wastewater management plans. The water companies want to make sure that this is a team effort. Lots of nasty stuff goes into our rivers from a lot of different places. The water companies want to get on top of the situation and to work with other agencies to make sure that happens.

I conclude by thanking the Minister for how she has dealt with me and the other signatories to amendment 3. It has been an exemplar of how to do business with Back-Bench Members of Parliament.

Local Clean Air Targets

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Hon. Members should please respect the one-way system. Clean your microphones before you leave. Only speak from the horseshoe. You do not have to stay for the full debate, but please listen to the two speeches after you. We have had a few dropouts, but please be mindful that there are eight of you, so if Back Benchers speak for no more than six minutes, that will probably get everybody in. If the sitting ends early, I apologise for my bad maths, but this is a co-operative event.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith]

My hon. Friend anticipates some of the comments I am about to make, and I am grateful to him for making that point—it is really important, as the current crisis has shown. Many of those drivers are self-employed, and whenever I talk to a taxi driver in Manchester, they tell me that the trade is on its knees and that they really need support to get through this crisis, but also longer-term support for changing their vehicle.

More broadly, it is Greater Manchester’s ambition to secure more walking and cycling, which could be a positive legacy of lockdown—we have seen a lot more people walking and cycling. That could mitigate the bounce back to more reliance on car travel and encourage people to improve air quality for the long term. The combined authorities’ “Transport Strategy 2040” is focused on changing travel behaviour towards greener travel, aiming to reduce car use from 61% of trips in 2017 to no more than 50% of trips in 2040, although those will of course be largely in zero-emission vehicles.

There is an important point here. I gave up my car about two years ago and I now mostly walk, cycle, use a bus or take the Metrolink in Manchester. I can do that because I live in a part of Manchester that has good transport links. We have the Metrolink and we have a very busy bus route 100 yards from my house. When I am in London, I cycle to Parliament along a well-designed and segregated cycle route. If we want to change behaviour, we have to invest in public transport and infrastructure, from cycle lanes to zero-emission vehicle charging. The money is there. ClientEarth has suggested that the £27 billion that is currently allocated to the road investment strategy could be repurposed. That is something that the Government could usefully look at.

As well as investment in infrastructure and transport, the clean air zone proposals also need to be resourced. Greater Manchester’s proposals include Government assistance to help businesses and individuals upgrade to cleaner, compliant vehicles. Greater Manchester has requested funding from the Government totalling around £150 million to cover clean commercial, taxi and bus funds, and a hardship fund. The hardship fund is particularly important, as we have mentioned. It is designed to support those most vulnerable to the financial impacts of the clean air zone. The Government initially awarded £41 million, for which we are grateful, but there is a lot more to do. The leaders are currently in discussions to, I hope, secure the rest of the money. Can the Minister address that issue later?

The clean air plan was developed before the pandemic. The current consultation will take into account the impact of covid and any changes required as a result of the crisis. Local leaders in Greater Manchester are acutely aware of the fact that businesses, such as the taxi and private hire vehicle sector, have been severely impacted by covid. Government policies to stem the spread of the virus mean that they continue to be impacted. The consultation is considering extra support so that those businesses are not doubly penalised.

It is crucial that the final funding package from the Government recognises the changed economic circumstances we are operating in. It may be that more money is required to offset the financial impacts to individuals and businesses that have already been hard hit by covid. We might need more money even than was initially requested. I ask the Minister to ensure that the Government take that into account and stand ready to provide in full what is needed for the plan.

There is more I could say in terms of urging the Government to intervene to better support these efforts, but I need to wind up. Local authorities are responsible for the local road network and their own fleets, but responsibility for the strategic road network lies with Highways England, which has not been directed to reduce NO₂ in the network in the same timescale or using the same processes. I encourage the Government to look at that anomaly. Greater Manchester has consistently called on the Government to issue a clear instruction to Highways England with regard to air pollution from the strategic road networks that it operates, so that our efforts in the region are not undermined. I encourage the Minister and the Government to act on that.

Greater Manchester is proposing the largest clean air zone outside London, but the funding support guaranteed so far by the Government has not matched the scale or ambition of those plans. Measures that could positively impact on carbon targets, such as an increase in electric vehicle infrastructure and facilitating sustainable journeys, are still considered separate from the clean air plan by Government. There is a strong argument for the various policy frameworks and funding settlements aimed at addressing nitrogen dioxide, PM2.5 and carbon to be better integrated and dealt with as one, rather than as separate disparate pots. I urge the Government to look at combining them and creating a generous clean air fund that all local authorities can use to fund their important air quality improvement work.

My final point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who is speaking for the Opposition, might refer to, is that as well as complementing local clean air plans, we need meaningful, legally binding targets and real accountability when the Environment Bill comes back to the House. Can the Minister give us an indication of when that might be? I urge her to incorporate the World Health Organisation’s air quality standards into the Bill when it comes back to the House.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

If all Members could stick to about six minutes, I would be extremely grateful.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Absolutely, Chair—in fact, I am due to speak in the main Chamber very shortly, so I will probably have to leave Westminster Hall straight after my speech.

When the books are written about this period in our history, what will they say? Will they say that 2020 was a time when human beings were confronted with a problem—a pandemic—which, with difficulty, we struggled through and that we then went back to normal? Or will they reflect on a lost opportunity to learn the ultimate lesson—that for all our technical advances and complex social structures, we can still be undone by a single sub-microscopic cell? While we try to put out the fires caused by coronavirus with drastic, difficult and restrictive measures, each one causing damage to businesses and families, we must also keep one eye squarely on the kindling of our next crisis, which is burning, for the moment, away from the media’s attention.

Just as the current public health crisis came with warnings from the scientific community—warnings that were too inconvenient to be properly heard, about a problem whose solutions were too expensive to be funded—our next public health crisis will be no surprise to those who are looking. Our next crisis is an environmental crisis, when the price of Government inaction and lacklustre policy will be paid for by our citizens, particularly the most vulnerable. Words that were not in the common parlance of 2019 are features of 2020: covid-19, coronavirus and the R rate. Without action now, the following words will, in the not-too-distant future, be repeated in living rooms up and down the country: nitrogen dioxide—or NO₂—PM10 and black carbon.

As with coronavirus, we are seeing the impact of our poor air quality right now. The World Health Organisation estimates that 7 million deaths worldwide each year are due to exposure to air pollution—500,000 of them in Europe. Air pollution is outranked as a risk factor only by high blood pressure, high blood sugar and smoking, and it poses particular risks to the unborn, young children, the elderly and those who are vulnerable because of existing underlying medical conditions—we are all now well aware of those conditions. It is estimated that outdoor air pollution contributes to 40,000 premature deaths in the UK each year. Indeed, a report by Public Health England describes poor air quality as

“the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK, as long-term exposure to air pollution can cause chronic conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as lung cancer, leading to reduced life expectancy.”

Given those stark facts, the problem can no longer be ignored.

Four and a half years ago, eight cities were mandated to solve a problem. One of those cities was Leeds—my city—and it rose to the challenge. It presented the Government with a plan to tackle our air quality issues. Before discussing that, however, let me first give some background information. Leeds, once known as the motorway city of the ’70s, is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit solution. Research by Public Health England shows that PM2.5 concentrations are estimated to cause over 1,000 adult deaths a year in West Yorkshire, with 350 of them occurring in Leeds. That represents 5.5% of the total mortality in the city, and has been calculated to be the equivalent of 3,825 life years being lost.

Constituents of mine see HGVs hurtle along the congested and over-subscribed A660. I have met people from local primary schools in Pool who describe their fear as these lorries pass through their village, due to its position as a thoroughfare connecting North and West Yorkshire. I walk my own children through streets that regularly miss their air quality targets.

Leeds put forward to the Government its plan for a clean air zone costing £40 million. This ambitious policy proposal, which would have taken high-polluting vehicles off our streets, came into being following hard negotiation, including having to challenge the then Secretary of State for the Environment. However, in January 2019, £29 million of funding was given. The charging clean air zone was meant to have been implemented by now, but last week we had the announcement that it would not be coming forward.

There are some stark warnings here. We have seen our air quality improve, due to new vehicles being brought in by First Bus, by HGV operators and by private hire drivers, but what will now become of those vehicles without the charging clean air zone? There is a real risk that those vehicles will go elsewhere.

What of the legal limits themselves? The UK targets ensure that readings of NO₂ do not exceed 40 micrograms per cubic metre; the target for PM10 is also 40 micrograms per cubic metre, and the target for PM2 is 25 micrograms per cubic metre. However, the World Health Organisation limit for PM10 is 20 micrograms per cubic metre, and its limit for PM2.5 is 10 micrograms per cubic metre. So the Government’s targets on air quality are set at much higher levels than those recommended by the World Health Organisation. The solution to our air quality problem in Leeds and in the rest of the country is to raise the clean air levels and to have a new clean air Act.

There are no safe levels of air pollution; there are no levels that will see mortality levels decrease. If current events have taught us anything, it is that we must prioritise tackling not only the current public health crisis but every public health crisis. If we are not to see the same things continuing to happen in Leeds, Manchester and other places, we need more stringent legal limits. That is what the Minister needs to take back to her Department today and what she needs to implement. Otherwise, we will see this public health crisis also spiral out of control.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I think we can probably afford colleagues seven minutes, until I let them know otherwise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, and to contribute to this debate initiated by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). He clearly set the scene and the subsequent speeches, which covered different angles, were excellent. We in Northern Ireland are committed to clean air targets, and I hope that in the short time available to me I will confirm that.

I sincerely believe that we must take all steps possible to be good stewards of this beautiful land that God has granted us, of which clean air is an essential component. I am blessed and privileged to live in the countryside. During my recent period of self-isolation, I appreciated being able to go out into my back garden and the fields to enjoy the crisp, clean air. There is no question but that I notice a difference in the air when I am here in London compared with that in my home on the Ards peninsula and my most beautiful constituency of Strangford. Even in Northern Ireland, we are finding that there is work to be done not simply to keep the quality we have, but to return to the quality that we had when I was a boy—and that was not yesterday.

I live in the countryside. Buses are few and infrequent, so a car is essential in getting to the shops, to work and to school. We must always recognise when we debate clean air targets the balance that must be struck for rural communities. The Minister lives in a rural area and will understand what I am saying, as will the shadow Minister.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland recently announced the findings from its consultation on air pollution. Its report provides details on air quality, gives a summary of results and long-term trends, and sets out information on the progress being made by councils in managing local air quality. It highlights the redesign this year of the Northern Ireland Air website and the development of the Northern Ireland air quality app. What DAERA is doing works only because the councils are also committed to it. The partnership between the Assembly and the Minister’s departmental portfolio and councils is important.

Among the key findings of the report on Northern Ireland’s collected data from 19 automatic monitoring stations in 2018 was that objectives for the key air quality pollutants were met in full, but that the objectives for nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant closely associated with road traffic—were not met at three sites close to busy roads. It was further highlighted that levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were lower at three sites than the previous year, after a recorded exceedance of the EU target in 2016. Against a stricter UK air quality strategy objective for PAHs, all three sites exceeded the objective.

One of the spin-offs from the coronavirus pandemic has been less car use and less air pollution. It has been one of the positives to take out of all the negative things, and it reminds us to use our vehicles only where necessary. As hon. Members have mentioned, we should also look at the use of electric vehicles, electric bikes and even electric trains. I read in the paper the other day that there is also the potential for electric planes. My hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) has a company in his constituency that is working on that.

I commend the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) for what she said about broadband. I have a large number of small and medium businesses in my constituency—probably one of the largest numbers in the whole of Northern Ireland, although that is based on pre-covid figures. If we were to have good broadband in place, we could keep people at home and reduce covid levels even more.

Along with DAERA, district councils have a duty to carry out air quality monitoring. Where air quality falls below acceptable levels, they are required to declare air quality management areas. In 2017, there were 19 AQMAs in Northern Ireland. Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council redefined its AQMA to encompass the whole borough. It took important steps to improve air quality at that time, which was certainly good news. The Department works closely with district councils—again, it is important that it does so, because it can provide dividends—and with other Government Departments to ensure that progress is made towards meeting all air quality targets and objectives.

However, it is clear that we must redefine UK-wide targets as a whole and press for local, updated targets. Yes, we might meet objectives for an EU member state—our status will change come 31 December—but it is clear that we need local targets to keep areas with a good quality of air, which is vital.

In conclusion, I believe that the Government must work closely with the devolved regions to update a UK target and to keep us as the beautiful green nation that we have been and that we must aspire to be in the future. Can the Minister confirm what discussions she has had with the regional Administrations, particularly with the Northern Ireland Assembly but also with Scotland—the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) will follow me on that—and Wales, to ensure that the regional Administrations can collectively make those targets with Westminster? It is always better if we do it together.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Thank you, Mr Shannon, for a beautiful bit of timekeeping. We have been juggling speakers. Nadia Whittome, you have two minutes.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am grateful to you for fitting me back into the call list and for allowing me to go and tend to my migraine. I promise I will not take any longer than two minutes— I do not think my head would allow it anyway. It is important for me to speak in the debate, because poor air quality is a silent public health crisis that is harming the lives of my constituents. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) for securing the debate.

Public Health England figures show that over 6% of adult deaths in Nottingham are attributable to manmade air pollution. That is more deaths than from alcohol and road traffic accidents combined. More than 400 people in my city die prematurely every year because of the quality of the air that they breathe. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) mentioned, the figure rises to 40,000 across the country. This year, the number could have been even higher, because there is growing evidence that exposure to polluted air increases someone’s risk of dying from covid-19. That risk is not borne equitably; we know that it is the poorest people, and disproportionally people of colour, who are suffering the most.

It is no surprise that cities and towns across the country are taking matters into their own hands. I am extremely proud that Nottingham City Council has done that, leading the way in tackling the problem with policies such as a ban on motorists leaving their engines running in stationary vehicles, investing in a large fleet of electric and biogas buses, and retrofitting older diesel buses.

My plea to the Minister today is that local action is not enough. We in Nottingham, and cities and towns across the country, need national action too. If we can afford to spend £28.8 billion on roads, as the Government have pledged, we can invest in green and affordable transport too. We can decarbonise and give the support that our private-hire and taxi drivers need to join the fight in decarbonising our country and our planet. The right to breathe clean air should not be a radical demand.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Brown has been very generous with his offer of five minutes. Thank you, Mr Brown, for allowing other speakers to get in.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, and I am sure that everyone in the Chamber is delighted that I have pledged to speak for only five minutes.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) on securing the debate. He set the scene excellently, highlighting that air pollution is killing 40,000 people a year, that it affects child development and learning, its possible impact on mental health and Alzheimer’s disease, and that it exacerbates existing inequalities and increases the likelihood of covid impacts. Many other hon. Members highlighted that as well.

It is a mystery to me, when we look at the 40,000 premature deaths per year and at the strong, serious action we are rightly taking to combat covid-19, why there has been so much reticence to do more about air quality over the years. It really is a mystery. The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington said correctly in that it is shameful that ClientEarth has been the conscience that has held the Government to account, winning three times in court. We need to see much better leadership on the subject.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 7 million people are killed worldwide every year. This is a global problem. Although people are rightly concentrating on their constituencies today, this is a worldwide issue. It is estimated that lower life expectancy of some three years across the world is attributable to air pollution, so again, it is a global problem. We need to work with other countries to fight it. Hon. Members have talked about not relocating issues locally by cleaning up one part of a city and moving the problem elsewhere. That is important, but equally, we need to make sure we do not do that on a worldwide scale. That is something else to take into account.

Many hon. Members spoke about low emission zones, which are required to protect public health and improve the air quality in city centres. Many spoke about funding and Government support, and those are certainly needed. In Scotland, the Scottish Government run the low emission zone mobility fund, which offers cash incentives and travel better vouchers to help remove non-compliant vehicles and provide alternative transport options for people. That is something the UK Government could consider as a wider issue. In Scotland, low emission zones will be introduced in our main cities—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee—in 2022.

Unlike other hon. Members who have spoken today, I admit that I am lucky in that, like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) I am quite lucky, I stay in a rural area with fantastic air quality. I am lucky that I can go for walks in the hills and enjoy the beautiful countryside, but I recognise that poor air quality is a big problem in cities that needs to be addressed.

There are things the UK Government need to look at on a strategic level if we are to tackle this issue. Aberdeen has introduced the world’s first hydrogen-powered double-decker buses. In other words, a whole clean fleet of buses has come into operation in Aberdeen. That could be rolled out across other cities. The UK Government are supposed to be commissioning a fleet of electric buses, so I want to see where that bus fund is. It also supports manufacturing in the UK at Wrightbus and Alexander Dennis Ltd. The Scottish Government have procured 35 electric buses from Alexander Dennis Ltd through £7.4 million of funding, so I ask the UK Government to look at that. We also need to look at the refrigeration of HGVs. The refrigeration units themselves pollute more than the actual lorries that move the goods about, which the Government need to tackle.

On a kind of national infrastructure-type basis, the Government also need to look at the energy efficiency of homes. We badly need a heat decarbonisation plan from the Government, because this contributes to air pollution as well. On that strategic overview, I will leave it at that.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We need to leave two minutes at the end for the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I will leave the Front-Benchers to do the arithmetic, but they have about 11 minutes each.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Charles. It is lovely to be back in Westminster Hall this afternoon and to serve under your chairmanship. It is also a pleasure to be able to speak for Her Majesty’s Opposition in this important debate. It is good to see the Minister in her place. I am sure that we will see a lot more of each other in the coming weeks.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) for securing the debate and for raising the issue of clean air on behalf of his constituents in south Manchester, the Greater Manchester region and all the people we in the House represent. I know that many other Labour Members would have liked to have been able to contribute to the debate but were in the main Chamber for the Black History Month debate.

This is a timely debate, coming in the wake of Clean Air Day on 8 October. It gives us the opportunity to highlight the importance of clean air, but more importantly to repeat the demand for sustainable, long-term and comprehensive action. Colleagues across the House will know that there are many responsibilities on the Government and on us as parliamentarians, and one of the most important, if not the most important, is our responsibility to protect our environment and preserve our world. A key element of preserving our environment is clean air. It is vital that we remember that our ecosystems are damaged by toxic air and air pollution, as are our waterways and the natural habitats of our wildlife. Of course, there is also the impact on human life, which has been ably mentioned already.

Toxic air contributes to the equivalent of 1,200 deaths a year in Greater Manchester alone, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) highlighted the premature deaths in her constituency, too. During oral questions last month, I raised the fact that almost 60% of people in England now live in areas where levels of toxic air pollution exceeded legal limits last year. We cannot go on as we are.

The covid-19 pandemic has devastated families, communities and, of course, our economy. The lockdown that started in March 2020 led to an improvement in air quality across the Manchester city region, like it did in other parts of the country, as a result of the reduction in road traffic and the significant increase in active travel journeys. That showed that better air quality is achievable, and that vehicle emissions are key to reducing nitrogen dioxide exposure. However, the relaxation of travel restrictions since June has led to increasing vehicle flows.

Following a number of legal challenges by ClientEarth in the High Court, the Government have to date directed 61 local authorities to bring nitrogen dioxide levels on local roads within legal limits as soon as possible. Ministers have delegated the responsibility to address nitrogen dioxide compliance to local authorities and have set out the process and timescale for doing so, with local authorities now responsible for local road networks and their own fleets. However, responsibility for the strategic road network lies with Highways England, which has not been directed to reduce nitrogen dioxide on strategic road networks under the same timescale or process. That is mixed messaging, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) highlighted, and needs sorting, so I hope the Minister will issue a clear instruction to Highways England with regard to air pollution caused by the strategic road network.

We want action, but we want the right action in the right way, weighing up all the factors. That means taking steps to discourage drivers and to charge where necessary on the one hand, and financial support for local authorities and businesses on the other, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) highlighted. That is vital, because Greater Manchester, for example, is proposing the largest clean air zone outside London, but that ambition is not being met by Tory Ministers in Whitehall. Indeed, the funding provided by Government to date has not matched the scale or ambition of these plans. When the Minister replies to the debate, I hope she will commit the necessary funding to achieve that.

Active travel has an important role to play in developing solutions to this crisis. During the lockdown, walking and cycling played an increasingly important role in essential journeys and exercise, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West. The hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) highlighted the need to reverse the Beeching cuts, in order to increase train travel in a bid to decrease car use. I know it is a priority for my colleague Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has been standing up for his region so well, to secure more walking and cycling as a positive legacy of lockdown and to mitigate against the bounce back to greater reliance on car travel.

The Environment Bill, which has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington and which I prefer to call the “missing in action Bill”, should be used to tackle toxic air in England. Disappointingly for many in the sector and out in the country, nothing in the Bill will stop the UK falling behind the EU when it comes to the green agenda and our environment. Indeed, the Government’s air quality plans have been ruled unlawful multiple times. Green Alliance does brilliant work on these issues and I pay tribute to Ruth Chambers of Greener UK and all her colleagues for everything they do. In a recent blog, she noted that

“existing air pollution targets expire in 2030, so it is vital to seize the opportunity now to set new limits, exposure reduction targets and emissions targets for all harmful pollutants.”

In the Chamber last week, the Minister announced that there is now an end date for the Committee stage, which is great. It is good to know the end date, but we need to know the start date, and we need to know it now. The Bill has been missing in action for over 200 days and it is simply not good enough to be told it will return soon. Can the Minister give us a date, once and for all?

We all know that air pollution is a public health crisis. This summer the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Partnership surveyed about 14,000 people with a lung condition and found that the vast majority noticed an improvement in their symptoms, likely due to better air quality during lockdown.

Welsh Ministers in the Welsh Government recognise that we must learn from changes in behaviour and design those changes into tackling toxic air pollution levels going forward. Their plan has a big focus on tackling air pollutants from many sources, including reducing emissions from industry, agriculture and the heating of our homes. I want UK Ministers to reach out and engage with ministerial colleagues in the devolved Administrations, because we need a coherent focus across all four nations if we are going to clean our air in the way we need to. It is good to see the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) here to demonstrate that clean or dirty air knows no boundaries. It goes across the whole UK.

Before I was elected to Parliament, I spent more than 30 years working in the NHS as a physiotherapist, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). Every day I saw the damage that toxic air can cause to the lungs, health and mobility of people of all ages and from all communities, including those whose lungs are damaged while still in the womb and those suffering from asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other serious lung conditions. The task of making air cleaner starts with each of us.

It is important that we are all aware of the air pollution levels in the communities we live in, so we know the local challenges facing us all. That is why the Greater Manchester city region, under the leadership of Andy Burnham and my noble Friend Lady Hughes, is right to be ambitious for the area in the fight to tackle toxic air. I hope the debate, the comments we have heard and the determination of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington shows Ministers that we need more than warm words: we need action too.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, if you require nearly 15 minutes, you can sit down at 3.58 pm and allow the proposer of the debate two minutes at the end. You do not have to speak for 15 minutes if you do not want to, but I thought I would say that to be generous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith]

It has been a while since I spoke in a debate with you in the Chair, Sir Charles, and it slipped my mind that since the last time you have been awarded a knighthood, so belated congratulations, and apologies for misaddressing you at the start.

We have had a rhetorical tour of the UK in the past hour and a half. I am pleased that hon. Members have been able to speak up for their area. There have been two or three themes. First, we need to act quickly, because the more we learn about the effects of air pollution, the more worrying it becomes. Secondly, we need better targets. I welcome the new targets the Minister has just referred to, but we really need to do more and I hope that the forthcoming Environment Bill will put some of those targets in legislation.

Finally, we have heard many times about the need for Government support. The Minister referred to the £77 million that Manchester has been given; we need £150 million. It is expensive, but there are big economic and health costs to not acting. I urge the Government to act.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

The debate was a great credit to Parliament and Westminster Hall. Please clean your microphones on the way out. We need to leave quickly.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Environmental Protection

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree, and we both will have been on beach clean-ups and seen the awful amount of rubbish that is either left there or has washed up.

With the work of nature documentaries such as “The Blue Planet”, and environmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Keep Britain Tidy, Surfers Against Sewage and others, the public mood has shifted dramatically on plastics. I remember in 2002 at the world summit on sustainable development our talking about not being able to garner public support for action on plastics. How things have changed, and that is to be celebrated. That is why, of course, the Government have been able to pledge, in their 25-year environment plan, to eliminate avoidable plastics by 2040. Will the Minister set interim targets for this plan and will she bring forward further plans to demonstrate how she will achieve the overall target? Without milestones, there is a danger that we will not realise that we are off course before it is too late.

I would like to hear from the Minister what assessment her Department has made on the impact of covid on the use of plastics. Companies such as Just Eat and Deliveroo are reporting huge increases in sales. I have seen restaurants that were no longer using plastics but have returned to plastic items. While of course we recognise that there is a public health emergency, we need to do all we can to lower transmissions while ensuring that businesses have confidence in their knowledge about the risks of items, but let us return to the age-old—centuries-old—idea of a washable spoon, rather than a paper, plastic or wooden stirrer. It does not seem beyond the wit of man to return to something that we have used for a very long time—

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

We want cutlery!

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Proper cutlery! I hear lots of support.

To highlight the problem of single use, in 2018, McDonald’s UK faced a huge public backlash after the images of their distinctive striped plastic straws on picturesque beaches around the world, and it made a move to paper straws—laudable, fantastic, we would all say. But today it uses 1.8 million paper straws a day and that is 675 million a year. The tragedy is that these straws cannot be fully recycled, so they end up being incinerated, adding to landfill or even getting into our seas—the very thing that they were meant to prevent.

Replacing one dangerous product with a slightly less dangerous product or energy-exhausting product defeats the point, when the reality is that most people do not need to use plastic straws. We can move away from the idea of unnecessary consumption. Huge numbers of supermarkets and food outlets have already moved away from plastics to wooden or compostable cutlery, but these too end up in incineration. As we know, incineration in this country has a particularly poor energy generation ratio compared with other European countries.

DEFRA’s own impact assessment on the regulations has assumed that plastics will be replaced on a like-for-like basis, so while we are pleased to see the Government trying to eliminate plastics, it is very disappointing to see this missed opportunity to tackle the problem of single use. The Government are patting themselves on the back because of a ban on three items of plastics, when we need to shift our throwaway culture. We urgently need the extended producer responsibility scheme that is being considered in the European Union, and we should be taking the lead. Such programmes put an obligation on the producer to create more sustainable products. They incentivise companies that are doing the right thing, as well as disincentivising the wrong thing. When will we see the plastic bottle deposit scheme actually introduced in this place, and when will we see it reflecting the material used, rather than just the one-size-fits-all model that, unfortunately, has been adopted in Scotland?

With fast fashion and the inability to repair, we have not just straws and cotton buds being thrown away, but almost everything we can consume being thrown away. We are creating and destroying at alarming rates.

Environment Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and we will be consulting on when to deploy the powers in the Bill. It is important that we have greater consistency on recycling and on what local authorities are required to do, so that people play their part and know exactly what is required of them.

Part 5 will facilitate more responsible management of water, so that we have secure, safe, abundant water for the future, supporting a more resilient environment. We know that nature needs our help to recover.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend will know, England has 80% of the world’s chalk streams, and successive Governments have failed those chalk streams miserably. The abstraction reforms in this Bill are welcome, but they do not go far enough; nor is there any explicit commitment to building reservoirs, particularly the Abingdon reservoir. Will the Minister reflect on that?

[George Eustice]

Obviously, I am happy to discuss these matters with my hon. Friend. The Bill has powers to strengthen the abstraction licensing regime and to limit licences that have been established for some time. It will also give us powers to modify some of the legislation on water pollutants, so that we can add additional chemicals to the list, should we need to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I refer hon. Members to my speech on 28 October when we had the dress rehearsal for this Bill—at least we all know our lines now. None the less, the concerns remain the same, because they have not been addressed: the Bill still lacks in ambition; the Office of Environmental Protection still lacks teeth; the Ministry of Defence is still exempt; the armed forces can still cause environmental havoc; national security is still off limits for environmental consideration; renewable energy still does not get the big licks it should be getting; and this Bill is still, in my view, insipid and weak.

Worse than that, clause 18 should force Ministers to consider the environment when making policy, but, as I have already said, it exempts the military and national security. It also exempts tax, spending and the allocation of resources. In other words, it exempts the main thrusts of Government policy—the biggest tools in the Government cupboard. If resource considerations do not take environmental concerns into account, we will hardly be driving Government policy towards good environmental goals.

If taxation policy does not have a weather eye on environmental policy, it misses the opportunity to ensure that the polluter pays. It misses the chance to engage Government’s biggest lever of public policy. Equally, if spending decisions are not environmentally aware, then the Government are not environmentally aware. If the Government were serious about delivering environmental benefits, that would have been the key point of the Bill —it would have been proclaiming a commitment to change, to improvement, to making a future unlike the past.

If there really were an environmental heart to this Government, it would be at the heart of this Bill. It would tie all governmental resourcing decisions into improving the environment, and into considering the environmental impact of policies. It would put the environment at the middle of decision making. It did not happen; it has not happened. This Bill is just ticking a box to say that the gap left by Brexit is being filled, but that filler is not reaching the edges of that gap.

Even the hiatus of an election and the inordinately long time it has taken to bring this Bill back have not offered the Government enough time to make improvements to the Bill. Still, there is nothing that will force England’s water companies to address the leakage from their pipes to conserve that resource. The clue to decent performance there, of course, is to remove the profit motive and have water publicly owned, as it is in Scotland.

The Bill still does not lend strength to enforcement. There are still no strong compliance powers for the new watchdog, the OEP, in the Bill and those that it will have will be restricted to wagging a finger at backsliding public bodies. This was an opportunity to make a clear case for environmental improvement and protection. This was an opportunity to lay down markers on protecting the marine environment, putting protections in place for the oceans, improving river health and securing decent bathing waters.

[Sir Charles Walker]

Let me just say something about protecting the marine environment. By the way, the hubris of this House is just stunning when it comes to the environment. We talk about saving the world, but instead, in England, we have trashed our chalk streams. In Scotland, the salmon farming industry has entirely destroyed the sea lochs of the west coast of Scotland, made them barren of sea life, and destroyed the salmon runs coming in and out of the rivers. If we could perhaps act locally, we might be able to talk in a more informed way globally.

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. Certainly, there is much hubris in this Chamber about such issues. Something that I will come on to is the Scottish Government’s environmental strategy, which was released in the past couple of days, in which issues such as those are certainly being looked at.

Agriculture Bill

Charles Walker Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that agriculture is a devolved matter, but the Government’s manifesto does commit us to maintain the same overall levels of support for our farmers in each year of the current Parliament. We do clearly recognise the importance of ensuring and securing prosperity in the farming community in Northern Ireland, and we will work closely with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs on these matters in the weeks and months ahead.

We are going to put the broken system of the CAP firmly behind us. We are replacing it with an approach based on the principle of public money for public goods. We have committed in our manifesto to support that new approach with an overall level of funding to match 2019 levels for every year of the current Parliament. The Chancellor has already announced that the Government will provide £2.852 billion of direct payment support for the 2020 scheme year.

The objective of the Bill is a productive, profitable, resilient farming sector, empowered to produce more of the high-quality food that is prized around the world and appreciated so much here at home, all the while meeting the highest standards of food safety and traceability, animal health and welfare, and stewardship of the natural environment. Now more than ever before we need to recognise the vital importance of the work that farmers do because our climate is changing, because our ecosystems are under increasing pressure and because by the end of this decade 9 billion of us will share this planet.

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I say to my right hon. Friend that we must not get too misty-eyed about farmers. There is far too much cattle slurry, from dairy farms in particular, going into our rivers and destroying those rivers, and we really do need to make sure that farmers are held accountable for what they do with the slurry their cattle produce.

[Theresa Villiers]

Through a combination of regulation and farm support payments, we are certainly doing everything we can to ensure that farmers play their part in addressing and reducing pollution, and contribute to cleaner water and cleaner air.

Finding a way sustainably to feed a rapidly growing global population is essential if we are to have any chance of tackling the climate and nature crisis that we face. Getting Brexit done means that we are able forge ahead with the reforms that the United Kingdom has sought for so long from the European Union, but never managed to secure. For 40 years successive UK Governments of all political complexions have vowed to secure reform of the CAP, and for 40 years Ministers returned from Brussels and stood at this Dispatch Box with very little to show for their efforts. This Bill will therefore deliver one of the most important environmental reforms for decades. It shows that we can deliver a green Brexit, where we have a stronger and more effective focus on environmental outcomes than was possible while we were a member of the European Union.

Degraded Chalk Stream Environments

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me for my Adjournment debate this evening. I am delighted that I did not try your patience with a spurious point of order, as that really would have been naughty. If I had tried your patience with a spurious point of order, it would have been on an environmental matter, and I would have just wanted to know how I could bring to the attention of this House the fact that, on Friday afternoon, the Secretary of State refused a planning application by Veolia to build a massive incinerator in my constituency. I was delighted with the refusal, and I now hope, as do all my constituents, that Veolia will give up its plans to put the incinerator in my constituency, give up trying to put one in Hertfordshire and disappear. If I had made a spurious and bogus point of order, that would have been it.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Walker]

I will give way on that point, but I would like to get to the substantive part of my speech.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that mine was not a spurious point of order? I have seven chalk streams and I want to make a speech.

[Mr Walker]

Of course, and there was nothing spurious about my delight at Veolia failing to get its application through—it was just that I wanted to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

My point of order was not a spurious one. I wanted to inquire whether the Secretary of State for Transport had indicated that he was going to make a statement on the escalating costs of HS2, which will damage the chalk streams in my area, as my hon. Friend well knows.

[Mr Walker]

I thank my right hon. Friend for alerting the House to that very important point. HS2 does pose a risk to chalk stream and riverine environments. No doubt if time allows, my right hon. Friend will bring her concerns to the attention of the House.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I had miscounted; I have eight chalk streams in my constituency.

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. and learned Friend is such an honest and decent man. He could have misled the House that there were seven chalk streams in his area, but he has corrected the record without being summoned back—in fact there are eight.

Let us now get to the serious part of this debate, because this is a very serious matter that causes a great many colleagues on both sides of the House a huge amount of concern. The Colne; the Beane; the Mimram; the Gade; the Ver; the Chess; the Misbourne; the Wye; the Rib; the Hamble; the Bulbourne; the Quin; the Hogsmill; and the Wandle. The list could go on, but these are all chalk stream rivers that are degraded or dying around my constituency in Hertfordshire and the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) in Buckinghamshire. This country has over 85% of the world’s chalk streams, and these streams are a unique habitat.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman and I share many loves of the countryside—particularly a love of country sports, but also a love of the environment. Does he agree that there is a delicate balance to be struck to ensure that companies can continue to operate as they attempt to find alternative sources of water rather than chalk streams? What more does he feel can be done as a matter of urgency to protect these environmental treasures, because treasures is what they are?

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is very perspicacious in his observations. I shall come to the matter later in my speech. He is absolutely right to raise that point and I hope that both the Minister and I will be able to address it, as I know other colleagues share his concerns.

The degradation of our chalk streams is one the two greatest environmental scandals of the late 20th century and the start of the 21st. Of course, the other great environmental scandal is the destruction of the marine environment off the west coast of Scotland through salmon farming—an industry that has laid waste to numerous sea lochs off the west coast of Scotland and has destroyed the native fish runs in many of the rivers that feed those sea lochs.

It is important that I put the situation in context. As I said a moment ago, we have 85% of the world’s chalk streams and most of them are highly degraded. I find it extraordinary, given our own poor environmental record, that colleagues in this House lecture Indonesia and Brazil so freely on their responsibility to the rain forests. Of course, those two countries have a huge responsibility to the rain forests, but if we cannot save the chalk streams that are literally in our own backyard, what are we doing lecturing other countries on their environmental responsibilities? Saving the world does not start with the rest of the world. Saving the world starts right here, right now, doing our bit locally with our chalk streams—think locally, act globally.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has just pointed out, our chalk streams are literally being abstracted to death. Parts of the streams that I named at the start of my speech do not flow. In fact, a few of them barely flow at all from their source to where they join a bigger river. That is our record and it is one that none of us should take any pride in—and it is getting worse. We have had three dry years in a row. There is this myth that we live in a wet country. Certainly, parts of our country are wet but the east and the south-east are actually dry, and they are getting drier. The aquifers are not being replenished by rainfall and they are getting more abstracted, so even less water is going into our rivers.

Let me give an example from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. In the last 10 years alone, there have been five dry events in the Upper Chess—the most stunning river, which I have the great privilege of visiting once a year as a guest of Paul Jennings and my right hon. Friend.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

It is always a great pleasure to welcome my hon. Friend to Chesham and Amersham, particularly at the invitation of Paul Jennings. Does he agree that Paul Jennings is one of the most outstanding advocates for chalk streams and our environment, and that he should be praised for all the efforts that he and the River Chess Association put into trying to maintain and preserve this chalk stream for our children and our children’s children?

[Mr Walker]

I entirely agree. I know Paul Jennings well; he is one of the greatest friends any chalk stream could have. He is a conservationist of the highest order, and he deserves our full congratulations and respect for the tenacity that he has shown in ensuring that the issues that afflict so many of our chalk streams are kept somewhat in abeyance on the Chess. However, I am afraid that even he would admit that he has not always been successful in doing that.

In the past 10 years there have been five dry events in the Upper Chess. In the 20 years prior to that, there were three. Drier years mean more abstraction, and things are only going to get worse. Affinity Water serves the home counties north of London, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) will know. Affinity has no reservoirs. It only abstracts waters from the chalk aquifers—that is the only place it can get its water from. As we know, the aquifers it abstracts from are those that feed the rivers that are dying. Affinity serves 3.6 million people. In 20 years’ time that number will be nearer to 4.5 million. Where on earth is the water going to come from? If we go on as we are now, the water will come out of the aquifers and we will not have a single chalk stream running in Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire. That is not an exaggeration; that is where we are at.

Affinity has tried, within the constraints that it is operating under—bearing in mind that it has no reservoir. It reduced pumping at one pumping station on the River Beane by 90%, which was actually a very brave thing to do. Yet that part of the river has not started flowing again because the long-term damage to aquifers that have been used and abused for the past 30, 40 or 50 years is so extreme that it may take decades to recover.

It is not just abstraction that kills rivers; it is what happens after the abstraction. If companies are abstracting water from chalk streams, they either dry them out—and that does kill them—or they reduce the flow. When there is low flow in a river, it cannot get rid of pollutants; pollutants concentrate. A river that is flowing well can move pollutants on down it, dilute them and dissolve them. This does not happen when a river is being extracted to death. So what is the next consequence of extraction? We get topsoil run-off, which just sinks to the bottom of rivers and depletes them of oxygen. It sticks to the chalk at the bottom, destroying any oxygen that can get into the chalk for the small invertebrates that live in it. Then there is phosphorus from agriculture and sewage works, which causes oxygen depletion from algal blooms and eutrophication. Basically, we have environments that cannot support life, or which support limited life, because there is no oxygen. Agricultural pesticides wash in off the fields, destroying biodiversity and wiping out invertebrates and the fly life that comes from them. Then there are the many septic tanks up and down the country that are unregulated and leaking into groundwater that finds its way into rivers. The challenge is immense.

This is an environmental crisis of a monumental scale that we are failing to address. Fundamentally, we need to reduce abstraction now. Thames Water, which I have worked closely with at times, has done that on the River Chess and the River Cray, but it wants to do more—and quite frankly it needs to do more. So what is Thames Water doing? It is making efforts to reduce leakage, and those are to be welcomed and applauded. It can introduce metering, promote water efficiency, and go into schools to educate children as to the importance of water, but, at most, these efforts will reduce consumption in the area it serves from 142 litres per day to 136 litres per day. That is just not a significant decrease. It is an important amount of water, but at 3.5% it is not going to save the day. Thames Water estimates that by 2045 there will be a shortfall of 350 million litres of water a day between the amount available and the amount needed.

There is only one game-changing solution to this crisis, and that is to create more storage capacity, which we do by building more reservoirs. I think that the last major reservoir we built was the Queen Mother reservoir for the east and south-east of England in 1974, so we have grown the population by millions but we have not put in any additional water storage. If we want to save our chalk stream rivers, of which we have 85% of the world’s resource, we really have to build reservoirs. The spade-ready reservoir that has been on the books for 12 years but has been blocked by a well-organised group of 20 people is the Abingdon reservoir in Oxfordshire. That is a game changer. If we get the Abingdon reservoir built, that starts to create the capacity we need, but at the rate the population of London and the south-east is growing, we will need more than one Abingdon—we will need two or three Abingdons. Until we start capturing water at the times of plenty and using it during dry periods like we are experiencing now, we will remain in trouble. We will be in a position where our own environmental record falls well short of where it should be, and we will limit our ability to change the way that other countries handle their natural resources, because they can look at us and say, “What on earth are you doing? You are in no position to lecture us.”

I could go on at great length, but I am not going to. In fact, I may have already gone on at great length, but this subject warrants some exploration. Finally, I would like to thank the Angling Trust, particularly Martin Salter—a former Member here—and Stuart Singleton-White, for the amazing document they have published, “Chalk Streams in Crisis”. It really is an extremely good, but somewhat depressing and sad, read. It is a call to arms. If we are to be taken seriously, we have to make changes to the way in which we approach our valuable and precious ecosystems. One of the most valuable and precious is our chalk streams, and, as I said, we have a lamentable record in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for his remarkable and important efforts in this area.

In my constituency, we have eight chalk streams: the Upper Rhee, the Rib, the Ash, the Quin, the Beane, the Mimram, the Lea—near Bayford, where I think my hon. Friend fishes—and the Ivel. There has been some progress with the Beane and the Mimram following the WWF campaign “Rivers on the Edge”, of which Martin Salter was a strong supporter and about which we had debates in this House. There has been a 90% reduction in abstraction at Whitehall pumping station near Watton-at-Stone, and the Fulling Mill pumping station at Welwyn Garden City was completely decommissioned; that represented some success.

As my hon. Friend said, however, the condition of the northern part of the rivers is very dry. The Upper Rhee is dry, and there is a lot of concern about the Rib in the Standon area and north of Standon. The situation is similar with the Ash and the Quin. The Beane at Walkern, north of Watton-at-Stone, is short of water. There is a campaign in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) about the Mimram. The Lea is low, and the Ivel springs in Baldock are so dry that people regularly write to me to express their concern.

It is worth thinking about what the unique chalk stream environment is like. My constituency has small hills, between which are the chalk streams, and they create a unique environment with unique flora and fauna. Nestling in the environment provided by these ecosystems are flowers such as saxifrage, as well as small English crustaceans and the water vole. Tewinbury nature reserve is a very good place to measure the activity of flies and little creatures, and that is a remarkable thing to do. I pay tribute to the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which does so much to support that.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I am sorry to cut my right hon. and learned Friend off as he is paying tribute to the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, but I want to pay tribute to it as well. Jeremy Paxman recently wrote that we no longer have to clean our windscreens, because there are now no insects splattered on them. There are so few insects because our rivers—and, in our part of our world, our chalk streams—have been so degraded that insects can no longer live there. Without insects, we have no fish and no kingfishers; the whole ecosystem and food chain begin to collapse. My right hon. and learned Friend is entirely right to raise that concern.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. People such as Jeremy Paxman, Feargal Sharkey—he used to be a pop star but now spends his time campaigning on this issue—Charles Rangeley-Wilson, whom my hon. Friend will know, and Martin Salter, on the angling side, are dedicating their lives to trying to make people realise that this environment is as precious as the Brazilian rainforest. We have a major part of a unique environment. The water that comes up—or should do—from the aquifer is so pure, and that is a wonderful thing.

As my hon. Friend said, the problem is a mixture of abstraction; climate change, which means that in the next 25 years we will have 20% less water than we do now; and growth in housing, which means that we are trying to do more with less water. Some of the predictions that house builders and developers make in planning applications—they say that they will be able to get people to use no more than 100 or 120 litres of water a day—are just not in the real world. In my constituency, the average is about 175 litres a day. The first thing that people do in a water-efficient house is to put in a power shower, spoiling the good work of the designers. My hon. Friend is right to say that those predictions do not add up.

Soil erosion is a big issue, on which I have campaigned with WWF; it recently ran a campaign about the subject. As has been said, one of the effects of not having strong rivers is that they end up with soil in them, particularly if farming techniques are not respectful of the surrounding environment. In an area such as ours with hills that have chalk and soil on top, it makes a lot of sense to go for no-till farming, so that the soil is not blown off the tops of hills and into rivers. There is a lot that can be done.

I pay tribute to the societies in my constituency—including the Friends of the Mimram, the River Beane Restoration Association and the new organisation for the River Rib—which are trying hard to highlight the plight of the rivers. Despite the campaigns, the work that has been done and the reports in this House going back some years, we have made only a little progress against a background of deterioration. It is a question of one step forward and two steps back. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue and giving us a chance to highlight the importance of this environment and ecoculture. Much more needs to be done.

On the Abingdon reservoir, I came into this House in 1992, and Thames Water was lobbying us then about building the Abingdon reservoir. Here we are 27 years later, and it has still not been built; it is still a few years away. We need to get on and do this. The background is against us, and action is needed.

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[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western). When I was growing up politically, one of my great mentors was Sir Keith Joseph. He said that one of the greatest challenges we were going to face in the future of the world was water shortages and the resulting movement of populations around the world, and I think that is starting to come very true today. My mother was always very keen on saving water. I do not know how many hon. Members will remember doing so, but she used to put a brick in the cistern to make sure that she did not use too much water when flushing the lavatory.

Aside from that, may I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on obtaining this debate? It would be fair to say that he and I have spent many a happy hour, with Paul Jennings, sitting beside one of the purest and clearest chalk streams, the River Chess, just outside London. It is not even at the end of the Metropolitan line; it runs alongside the Metropolitan line. It is accessible to the public, and it is one of those wonderful habitats and environments that can really bring people peace and tranquillity. People can leave this world behind as they sit there and, in the case of my hon. Friend, try to attract a trout to the end of his line.

[Mr Charles Walker]

The great sadness is that, to the uninitiated eye, the river looks beautiful—and it is beautiful—but as Paul Jennings would say, it is clinging on by its fingertips. Its flow is a fraction of what it should be; although it remains beautiful, its ability to support life is just draining away.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I am afraid my hon. Friend is right. I came into the House at the same time as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), in 1992. That reservoir is not overdue, but long overdue and should have been built many years ago.

May I also pay tribute to the authors of “Chalk Streams in Crisis”? Four of the organisations that contributed are closely associated with my constituency. The Chilterns chalk streams project—a fantastic project started in 1997, prompted by the low flows in the 1990s—was expanded in 2000 to include all the rivers. It is led by the Chilterns Conservation Board, with the River Chess Association and the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire wildlife trusts. All these organisations work constantly and tirelessly to try to protect our environment.

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[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I think the points made by colleagues across the House have been very accurate in that we are busy lecturing other people around the world about how they should save their environment, but we are not actually looking over our shoulders at our own backyard, which is deteriorating.

The point that we have 85% of the world’s chalk streams is not lost, particularly in the south-east, because about a fifth of those are in the Thames Water region. The combination we have talked about—the climate and the geology of where these chalk streams are—means that they have the most amazing characteristics. They support special wildlife habitats and species, including things such as the brown trout and the water vole. Chalk streams are really important not just for angling, but because they are fed by groundwater aquifers. That means the water is clear, pure and inviting, which is of course why the water companies always wants to take water from them.

The hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) spoke about the Thames Water briefing that was put out. He said he was struck by the predicted shortfall of 350 million litres a day between the amount of water available and the amount we will need by 2045. Population growth, climate change and environmental regulations will dramatically affect our demand and need for water. I echo the call made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, because unless we build in safeguards and build in the reuse of water, we are going to find ourselves in a desert and in a drought like no drought we have ever seen. We take water for granted in this country; it is such a shame that we have that attitude. We will have to change it if we are going to preserve our environment, particularly our chalk streams.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says, and she is absolutely right. There is nothing more irritating than to hear weather forecasters on the BBC, ITV or radio programmes such as on Radio 4 going, “Good news, it’s going to be a dry week.” or, “Good news, it’s going to be a dry weekend.” This country needs rainfall. We do not have it in abundance—and when we are not having it, we really do suffer.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

The point is well and emphatically made: that is absolutely right.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I genuinely apologise to the House for not being here at the start of this important debate, because I know how passionate right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken about this issue are. One of the joys of being the Minister responsible for the Environment Agency is seeing that the environment matters to so many people in different ways and seeing the important role of the Environment Agency. I hope, by the end of the debate, that I will have been able to persuade hon. Members and those still watching—there were four people in the Public Gallery at the start of it—on this matter, including Feargal Sharkey who is a great advocate of what we need to do to support chalk streams. The Environment Agency also has other roles and I was stopped on the way here to talk about Grenfell and some of the situations in which we are involved there. I apologise to the Chamber for that.

I have had three years in this very special role as Minister for the environment. I am very fortunate that, by and large, neither an official drought nor an official flood has been declared. I am conscious of the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on what happened recently in Wainfleet; I visited his constituency to discuss floods. The issues that have been raised about drought worry many of our farmers around the country, who are also considering the impacts of abstraction reform. I am very conscious that my constituency of Suffolk Coastal is one of the driest in the country. That said, at the Latitude festival, which was held this weekend in my constituency, there was a hailstorm, in the middle of July. Who would have thought that in Suffolk, when we are all having a heatwave? That just shows how important it is that we look after the habitat that is special to our country and to our world, while the impacts of climate change do what they do.

I will come to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) shortly, but I want first to refer to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who was in the Chamber for much of the debate, because he has one of the most special chalk streams in his constituency—the River Test, which many people have mentioned and in fact fished in, including my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). The Test is regarded as one of the most special chalk streams in the country, as right hon. and hon. Members will recognise. I used to live in Whitchurch, which is 2 miles from the source of the river, so I am well aware of how special it is.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne on securing today’s debate. It is well known in the House that he is an active champion of chalk streams and that he recognises their importance for nature and for good fishing. I will never forget the day after the 2017 election, when I was not sure if I would be reappointed to this role, when I joined him in Hampshire on the River Itchen. He had a good day’s fishing and I had a good day being shown around by the WWF and being told about the importance of chalk streams. Having lived in Hampshire, I was aware of this, but it brought to my attention some of the particular challenges that the Environment Agency regularly faces from water companies wanting to abstract more water further upstream, which has a damaging impact on the environment and the flow, as others have mentioned, as well as on the quality of fishing. That is when I met the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who was also very passionate on this topic, which is why he contributed to the debate on 12 December 2018 on the Thames Water reservoir in Abingdon and why he strongly supported that measure.

On this matter, I have been given a very strong message by my civil servants, who are in the Box and provide excellent advice, and I am conscious that the water resource management process has not yet been finalised, but I can genuinely say, even though the Secretary of State has not yet agreed the plans, that I believe that Thames Water and Affinity Water, both of which are promoting the reservoir in their preferred plans, will receive a very warm welcome when those are put forward, so that, as many others have mentioned, we can finally get on with the Abingdon reservoir, which will do a lot of good for the people of south-east England. I am conscious that when speaking in the House I have some leeway with parliamentary privilege and that my comments will not prejudice any quasi-judicial decision that the Secretary of State might take in the future.

I return to the main topic of the debate. While chalk streams contribute to our health and wellbeing, they are principally unique habitats supporting a diverse range of invertebrate and fish species and have long been held in high regard for the quality of the fisheries they support. Only 200 chalk rivers are known globally, and it is amazing to think that 85% of them are found in the UK in the southern and eastern parts of England. It is well recognised, however, that our water resources are under pressure and that this pressure is growing as the climate changes and the demand for water increases from a growing population and greater housing need. As my hon. Friend outlined, our chalk streams are facing an unprecedented challenge, having been heavily affected by human activity, including abstraction, pollution and historic modification.

[Mr Charles Walker]

The role of Ofwat has not been mentioned yet. It has no duty to have any environmental regard. Its only interest is in driving down bills, but it should take a great deal more interest in the environment. I think we have all had enough of Ofwat in this place. I hope the Minister will take that on board.

[Dr Coffey]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. Ofwat is a champion of the consumer, and I hope that in its recent interventions with the water companies he will recognise some of the progress it has made, but I hear what he says. The Environment Agency challenged Ofwat in its initial 2019 price review over the fact that it and some of the companies that had come up with particular plans and made some good progress were none the less not fulling their environmental obligations. I am pleased therefore that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State last week met the water companies and challenged them by saying that, while we recognised the strength of the investment they had brought to the water industry in the last 25 years, they must not forget the environment and we would continue to press them on that point. I am pleased that the Environment Agency is pressing the case with Ofwat so strongly. I hope that the next Government, to be formed this week, will proceed with the environment Bill, which will strengthen Ofwat’s powers. Who knows? There may be opportunities for even further consideration of a duty relating to the environment.

[Mr Charles Walker]

It is really important for there to be people in Ofwat who share the Minister’s passion for the environment and the passion displayed by so many colleagues here, not only in this debate but in others.

[Dr Coffey]

I entirely agree, and I hope that that will happen. I think that the term of the current chair of Ofwat, who is a doughty defender of the consumer, is due for a short extension until 2020. I also genuinely believe that any future holder of the great office of Secretary of State—if that person is not our excellent right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who has done so much for the environment and, indeed, so much in challenging water companies—will take that point into account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I am afraid that I will not give way on that point, because I am still trying to answer the points raised by other hon. Members. We may have time at the end of this debate, but I feel there is another time for another debate on the glory of glyphosate—I am sure that I will be slandered on social media tonight for having said those words. My right hon. and learned Friend also mentioned how long it has taken to get a new Thames reservoir, and I genuinely hope we will see the plan come forward soon.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington referred to his childhood roots, and in this House it is always important to recognise that, although we represent very special parts of the country, we sometimes have our roots elsewhere, which I think makes us better politicians. I appreciate that he has stayed here to talk about the impacts. He also mentioned grey water resources and how they might help water consumption. Indeed, there is a theory that the consumer is not keen on grey water, and we might need to do more work to promote the use of grey water resources in the water challenge of new homes, which I am sure he will recognise are important to his constituency, as they are to other parts of the country.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham also talked about water consumption, and I hope she will participate in the consultation. Importantly, she mentioned the challenges faced by the River Chess and the River Misbourne. It is astonishing to hear that the average consumption is 173 litres, which we need to change. I am sure she will be an active champion on that matter, as we already know she is an active champion on behalf of her constituents when it comes to High Speed 2. She referred to a number of different issues, but I am conscious that her work on the possible impacts on Ox-Cam will not have been lost on the Housing Minister, who was present for the majority of the debate—he had the wisdom perhaps to leave for my contribution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) told us of her intention to go up the River Chelmer on a canoe, and I hope she returns with a paddle. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, who I am delighted to say is leading a review on highly protected marine areas, does not forget the rivers and streams in his own constituency. Indeed, he referred to a number of them, including the River Lambourn.

On the number of years of drought—just make it rain—it is perhaps of some comfort to the Prime Minister that, in her three years in office, she has never had to worry about a flood or a drought. Who knows how long that luck can last?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury highlighted that 80% of species are invertebrates, which get ignored in our debate on the environment, and I am glad he is here today. He also talked about chemicals going into the water. That is important, and in the development of our chemical strategy over the next year, the Government will take account of how we get the balance right on chemicals, which produce much magic for our everyday lives, but we need to be very conscious of the impact they can have. Of course, he also referred to the River Kennet and to water transfer.

A number of issues have been raised about how we need to preserve these habitats, and I fully agree. The habitats in our country are so special. They are quite a small part of our British Isles, but they are so important to the world, which is why this Government will continue, in the 25-year plan, to make sure we pass on an environment that is in a better state than this generation inherited. We will do that domestically and internationally.

I thank the House. I know this has been a long debate, but one of the special things about this Chamber is that something that might seem quite parochial has huge global significance, and I am delighted to have shared this debate with so many right hon. and hon. Members tonight.

[Mr Charles Walker]

That was a great debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Indeed it was. Very informative indeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Environment and Climate Change

Charles Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am now happy to give way, and I will do so first to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker).

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State and his ministerial team for their leadership on chalk streams. This country has 85% of the world’s chalk streams, many of which are in my constituency and are degraded. The Secretary of State recognises that, so may I urge him to bring forward the Abingdon reservoir plan as soon as possible?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Biodiversity is declining precipitately not just in chalk streams, but in Scotland’s salmon rivers, and we need to take action. We need to work with water companies, landowners and farmers to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to restore our rivers to health, for the sake not only of recreational anglers but of all who believe in biodiversity.

World Health: 25-Year Environment Plan

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon]

Does the hon. Lady share my increasing anger that our conversation in this place and the conversation in this London postal district of SW1 among the commentariat is obsessed with one issue, which will pass and will be, in history terms, a blip in the road? What we are talking about in this debate is an existential issue, and we have to wise up to that. The young people who campaigned recently on the doorsteps of MPs need to be listened to. This is their future. We as a Parliament have to start reflecting the anger that people are starting to feel about their future, and we have to start doing something about it.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Let me just say to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) that I would like to get one more speaker in, so if she could finish at three minutes past 5, I would be very grateful.

[Mary Creagh]

Thank you for that guidance, Mr Walker. I totally agree with the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). This issue is a passion of his, and I agree with him. Young people are starting to campaign on the issue. They are being educated—this generation is certainly better educated than ours was about these issues. I pay tribute to the work of schools such as Horbury Bridge Academy in my constituency, which is doing a series of workshops on the sustainable development goals—that is the plan that the Government have signed up to—to educate primary school children about the small actions that they can take to make the big changes that we need in our world. One problem is that we can feel overwhelmed, so one of the things that we need to do is to say, “We have to start here in the UK. We have to start in our own families and in our own Parliament.” I pay tribute to the parliamentary authorities for doing so much to clean up our plastic use.

I will skip on to how the environment changes health. For example, environmental pollution causes up to 16 million premature deaths a year. That is three times the number of people killed by malaria, AIDS and TB put together and 15 times the number killed by violence and war. It is amazing that we are tackling AIDS, TB and malaria, but we are not tackling pollution because, as economic activity, it falls under “too hard”. There is something for us to think about there. We know that there are impacts here in the UK. We are seeing a rise in non-communicable diseases. Incidences of diabetes have more than doubled in the past 20 years. Two thirds of males and more than half of females in England are overweight or obese.

Another inquiry that our Committee did was on heatwaves. We have warned that a 2° rise in temperature could see the average number of heat-related deaths in the UK more than triple, to 7,000 a year by 2050. The Environment Agency has warned that within 25 years England will not have enough water to meet demand, and that problem is particularly acute in the south-east and east of England. We have rehearsed the dangers of air pollution over and over again, and I welcome the Mayor of London’s introduction of the ultra low emission zone. As I cycled in yesterday and cycled home last night, there was a notable drop in the number of cars and vans that were circulating. Perhaps that was to do with the Easter holidays, or perhaps it was all in my imagination, but it certainly felt a lot cleaner. We await the Committee on Climate Change’s review of how we cap emissions at a 1.5° rise.

To finish, I will briefly talk about the Government’s 25-year environment plan. That plan is necessary because of the decision to leave the European Union—a decision that I profoundly regret and that many of my constituents also profoundly regret. A tricky third of environment legislation on air, waste, water and chemicals cannot simply be cut and pasted through the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. We need to put into practice the environmental principles that we have signed up to in international law. We want our climate change commitments to be actionable and measured by any new Office for Environmental Protection, and we want an architecture of long-term, legally binding environmental targets that is supported by a five-year planning cycle and takes the Climate Change Act 2008 as its model. I welcome the plan, but I am worried about the lack of targets.

I am also worried about the lack of measurable targets to increase our green space. We on the Committee recommended that we should get urban green space back to 2001 levels to reduce the urban heat island effect. These issues are not just for DEFRA; they need to be dealt with across every Department. Great work is being done in my constituency. We are getting a new garden at the Hepworth gallery, and we have some brilliant groups, such as Friends of CHaT Parks. That group helps to run the nurseries at Thornes Park, working with adults with learning disabilities. I was also proud to plant some trees to mark the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy locally. However, achieving net zero emissions simply cannot wait. We need action across Government. We need greener cities, greener cars, greener diets, greener finance and greener Government if we are to meet that challenge. I look forward to working with the many people of good will across all parties, and of course with the Minister—who I know is working hard on these issues—to make that a reality.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

The wind-ups from the Front Benchers will start at 5.8 pm. The Opposition parties get five minutes, the Minister gets 10 minutes, and the proposer gets two minutes.

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[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this great debate. I must tell him that I visited his constituency some time ago on a painting holiday. It is obvious that he values the role of communities and I can honestly say that, like my mum Rosa, he appreciates the importance of how great little things are in our communities. That came across very well.

When reporting on the Government’s 25-year plan in July 2018, the EAC welcomed cross-Government ambition for the restoration and recovery of our natural environment, but what worried the Committee was the lack of detail on how to achieve those objectives. We all know that behavioural change is required worldwide, within Government, in our towns, cities and streets, and across our communities.

As the Scottish National party spokesman on the environment, I will take this opportunity to speak on Scotland’s role in planetary health. All political parties in Scotland have placed the environment at the heart of the Government’s plans. Indeed, other countries are now looking to Scotland for a lead. For example, our progress on climate change was praised as “exemplary” by the United Nations climate change secretary; for your information, Chair, the Scottish Government are on course to smash our goal to reduce emissions by 42% come 2020.

Some examples of the Scottish National party’s progressive government have resulted in praise from Norway for our proposed deposit return scheme, an initiative that is soon to be introduced. Confor—the Confederation of Forest Industries—the aim of which is to support sustainable forestry and wood-using businesses, welcomes the Scottish Government’s pragmatic and positive approach to forestry and land management. Those are good examples of working with and listening to professionals.

If I may be a wee bit self-indulgent, I should like to point out the contrast between the Scottish Government’s thinking and Westminster’s dismissive thinking. On 12 February, I petitioned the Department for Transport to consider using the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to issue penalty points to drivers caught littering from their vehicles. The Minister’s reply was disappointing. He said that the courts issue penalty points, not the DVLA. To me, that showed more concern for process than for progress.

In contrast, last week Rosanna Cunningham MSP said:

“There can simply be no excusing the practice of littering from vehicles”.

She has committed to bringing forward new legislation, as part of the Circular Economy Bill, to tackle that avoidable national embarrassment. Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform not only says what she means, but means what she says.

Scotland’s rich and diverse natural environment continues to offer fantastic opportunities to our economy. The Scottish Government recognise the link between access to quality natural spaces and the benefit to health and wellbeing. Scotland accepts its responsibility for leaving a better planet to future generations and is taking a leading role in reducing carbon emissions by setting the most ambitious statutory climate change targets of any country in the world for 2020, 2030 and 2040. That means that Scotland will be carbon neutral by 2050.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government are encouraging reduction of energy use and promoting more energy-efficient lighting to reduce Scotland’s overall carbon emissions and maintain the quality of our skies. I have attended busy meetings in our local communities to promote better lighting, the more efficient use of everyday products and products that use a traffic light warning system to reduce water waste. In short, our communities care about their environment.

In Scotland, we have a rich and diverse natural environment. My job here is to speak up both to protect that environment, which supports a huge variety of opportunity for our community, through jobs and a sense of wellbeing, and, importantly, to prevent any slip back to the UK becoming known as the dirty man of Europe once again.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended for 15 minutes for a vote in the House. The SNP spokesperson has 50 seconds to wind up when he gets back.

[John Mc Nally]

Thank you for your generosity.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We might make it run to a minute—just to be generous.

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On resuming—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Mc Nally, your final minute, and I will hold you to it.

[John Mc Nally]

Apology accepted; it is not your fault, Mr Walker.

It is important that we all do our bit to help the environment and the wellbeing of our wider world. Biodiversity is at the heart of a thriving, sustainable Scotland. I believe that if we want to change the world, we should get busy in our own little corner. In Scotland, we are doing just that.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate my fellow west country MP, the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), on securing this important debate, and for introducing it so eloquently. I especially liked his phrase that we have to “up our game”. He rightly encouraged ministerial colleagues to do that. Our environment needs to be taken more seriously by all Members of Parliament and all those in public office if we are to meet the challenge that we face.

It has been a good debate. The Division has led to a slightly emptier Chamber than we had a moment ago, but we heard some fantastic contributions from speakers from right across the political spectrum. I especially pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who spoke about the importance of bird nesting—a subject that now has media attention, not only because of the horrendous footage on social media today of sand martins trying to get through nets to get back to their nests.

There is also concern about the practice of developers netting trees to prevent birds from nesting, and the sense that that is being done against the best interests of our natural world. Hon. Members on both sides of the House feel aggrieved by that, but we have the powers in this place to do something about it. We must call out developers who use cruel, inhumane tactics against our wildlife and, if they persist in such behaviour, we must introduce regulation to prevent it.

I also pay tribute to the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who spoke so eloquently about microplastics. We need Ministers to rise to the challenge of how we test for microplastics, ensure that we are using common science across all forms of testing and create a safe level and an action plan not only to reduce microplastics and microfibres but to tackle what is already in the natural world.

I pay tribute to those Members across the House who mentioned insect loss, a subject which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) led a good debate on only a few weeks ago. Despite many of us not being huge fans of creepy crawlies, we need to spend more time on that. We need to focus not only on bees but on a wide variety of insects that are vital to our natural world.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Ives for talking about public engagement with nature. If we are truly to value and protect our natural habitat, we need to ensure that people visit it, understand the value of it, and get something from it. It is deeply disturbing how few people engage with our natural world. I am leading the campaign for Plymouth Sound to be designated the country’s first national marine park—the first, but I hope the first of many. Some 20% of our young people in Plymouth, Britain’s ocean city, have not even seen the sea, and 50% have not visited a beach. Those were the findings of the fairness commission that was run by Plymouth City Council. Those should be the type of statistics that scare us all. That is a city right on the coast, so much more needs to be done.

At the last DEFRA questions on 28 March the shadow Environment Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), declared a climate and environment emergency, on behalf of the Opposition, at column 534. She challenged the Minister to join us in cross-party working to jointly declare a climate crisis. Ministers did not agree to do that, but I hope that the Minister will recognise the importance of cross-party working in relation to declaring a climate crisis. In local government up and down the country, Conservative, Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors, and others besides, have been working in collaboration to declare local climate crises. The public and the young people whom the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) spoke about expect politicians in this place to do something similar and declare a climate crisis at national level. We can then take cross-party action against it.

The 25-year environment plan is a good start, but we need much more besides. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) spoke with passion about the need for action and that is something I want to impress on the Minister. Since the Environment Secretary took office there have been 76 DEFRA consultations, but only one piece of primary legislation. It is not good enough to be the Secretary of State for consultations. We need to tackle climate change properly, which means that we need proper action. I implore the Minister to tell the House when the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill will make a comeback, and when the environment Bill, for which the hon. Member for St Ives made a good case, will be seen. We need action, not just warm words.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

A beautifully timed speech from the shadow Minister.