World Oceans Day 2021

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing the debate as we celebrate World Oceans Day. The topic is extremely important to my constituents in Truro and Falmouth, as well as to wider Cornwall. It is also one of the reasons I came into politics. My constituency has a north and a south coast. We have the gentle, rolling and calm inlets of the south coast, including the port of Falmouth, Portloe and Portscatho, and the dramatic wind-whipped surf beaches of the north coast, including St Agnes, Perranporth and Holywell Bay. St Agnes is home to Surfers Against Sewage, and I want to thank them for their tireless campaigning.

If you speak to anyone who swam or surfed in the sea in the 1980s and early 1990s, we all have stories of looking down and seeing—how shall I describe it?—objects and matter that had gone straight down the loo and into the sea. Things are generally better nowadays, thank goodness. According to the Marine Conservation Society, 77% of people who visited the sea in the last 12 months said they felt happier and 81% of people who visited the sea in the last 12 months said they felt healthier.

Healthy oceans are vital to life and to the livelihoods of our planet. Ocean protection and the conservation of marine biodiversity are essential for building resilience and adapting to the impact of climate change, as well as supporting its mitigation. Falmouth Harbour Commissioners are actively regenerating the seagrass beds off Flushing, and I went to visit them recently. They are also developing an advanced mooring system to ensure yachts and boats continue to moor there, but that the lines and anchor chains no longer decimate the seagrass beds.

Marine protected areas need to be effectively managed and well resourced, and regulations need to be put in place to reduce overfishing, marine pollution and ocean acidification. Effective management of the oceans, both locally and globally, is fundamental to the future of Cornwall’s fragile but sustainable inshore fishing industry, and I want to echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) about the need to simplify and overhaul our current complicated management system.

I am extremely pleased that the UK has led the way in efforts to secure an international agreement to protect at least 30% of global oceans by 2030. I also welcome the fact that the Government are playing a leading role in negotiations for a new agreement on conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction through the BBNJ agreement. Further commitments are also welcome, including the new £500 million blue planet fund to support developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty as part of the UK’s commitment to spend at least £3 billion on international climate finance and to protect and restore biodiversity over the next five years. There will always be more that we can do, but we should not underestimate the achievements so far.

Turning to the wider point of water quality, we know that it is essential for life on planet Earth. The pollution of our rivers and oceans has had a huge detrimental effect on us and our wildlife. Thankfully, because of the extensive lobbying by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the Government have committed to publishing a plan by 2022 to reduce sewage discharges, to report to Parliament on progress and to place a legal duty on water companies to publish data on storm overflow operations on an annual basis. The legislation will also require the Government to set legally binding targets for water quality.

The earth is warming at a very worrying rate. Increasing ocean temperatures affect all marine life, causing coral bleaching and the loss of breeding grounds for fish and mammals. They affect the things that we rely on from the ocean, threatening our fish stocks, as I mentioned earlier, causing more extreme weather and accelerating coastal erosion.

I am delighted that the Government are accepting the recommendations of the Benyon review and intend to designate highly protected marine areas as soon as possible. I hope the Minister will assure us that, as we host the G7 in Cornwall this week and COP26 in Glasgow later this year, there is a real push for ambitious and accelerated action to improve the quality and biodiversity of our oceans.