Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Mark Tami

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that fair and square on the record. So he exercised self-discipline, and I must congratulate him on that. We will live in hope, as the hon. Member for Bristol East said, about when, if ever, the Government bring forward some of the other measures that she and, indeed, my hon. Friend talked about.

The Bill leads people to believe that our prisons will be filled up with a lot more people who are guilty of abusing animals. The explanatory notes are not just notes made up by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. They come with the authority of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which provided them. They explain what each part of the Bill will mean in practice and provide background information on the development of policy.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is about not so much putting people in prison, but trying to stop them doing these crimes in the first place?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Absolutely. I agree that the deterrent effect of legislation is a very important aspect of it. However, there is nothing clear as to what the evidence is on that. One of the shortcomings of private Members’ Bills is that there are no procedures to enable us to have a regulatory impact assessment. We would not have known about the financial implications of the Bill unless they were set out in the explanatory notes.

Mobile Homes Act 1983 (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Mark Tami

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to introduce this Bill. It is a two-clause Bill, but the second clause covers only the Bill’s extent, commencement and short title, so it essentially has only two provisions. It arises directly from my long-standing interest in the welfare of park home residents. I have been privileged to be the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on park homes for more years than I can recall.

Mobile and park homes provide residential accommodation for about 85,000 households on some 2,000 sites in England. Most of those residents are of pensionable age. They normally own their own home, and they pay rent to the site owner for the land on which the home is stationed. Let me put it on the record that they are not bungalows. Some rogue firms out there are marketing new park homes as bungalows. I have written to the Advertising Standards Authority on the subject but have yet to receive a satisfactory response.

The Bill will make two changes to the Mobile Homes Act 1983 that will help all residents. The changes were set out by the Government in their response to their own call for evidence in their 2017 review of park homes legislation. On page 6 of the response, which was published on 2018, it says at paragraph 12:

“Some site owners pass on their repair, maintenance and other ad hoc costs to residents by requiring them to pay variable service charges in addition to the pitch fee.”

The Government response goes on to say, in a subsequent paragraph, that the

“Government wants to ensure that residents only pay for services that they are required to pay for through the pitch fee and will introduce legislation in due course to amend and clarify the definition of a pitch fee and prevent the use of variable service charges in written agreements, when parliamentary time allows.”

Well, parliamentary time does allow; it needs the will of Government. I hope we will hear from the Minister that the Government do have the will to implement what they said they wanted to do.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the charges that are made; does he agree that quite often those charges are made but the work is not actually carried out? Many owners are just interested in cramming as many mobile homes on to sites as possible.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The tenor of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that there are a heck of a lot of rogues out there and they are up to no good, and he is absolutely right. There are, however, quite a lot of good park home owners, and it is important that we try to support them and to prevent the rogues from taking over the whole industry. That is why it is so important that the Government take seriously the changes—albeit quite modest—in the Bill to try to improve the lot of residents on park homes sites.

Voter Registration Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Mark Tami

Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill relates to electoral fraud and abuse, so I hope that it will receive the Government’s warm support. There is a lot of voter abuse of our electoral system, which undermines our democracy. The Government have undertaken various initiatives to try to build public confidence in the system. They have launched various inquiries, including Sir Eric Pickles’ inquiry, and engaged with the Electoral Commission.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman not say that the scandal of the number of people who are not on the register is bigger than the need for measures to keep people off it?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The fact that some people do not register when they are entitled to do so is an issue, and everything is being done to try to encourage more people to register. That is the Government’s policy and I certainly support it. If the hon. Gentleman had wished to introduce a Bill to deal with another aspect of our electoral system, he could have done so, but this is a narrow Bill to prohibit people from being registered to vote in parliamentary elections in more than one constituency.

It seems to me that it would be a good idea to tidy up our system. Currently, large numbers of people are registered to vote in UK parliamentary elections in more than one constituency. It is, of course, against the law to vote more than once in a general election, but after the most recent general election, several people bragged that they had voted more than once because they had been able to vote in more than one constituency.

Overseas Voters Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Mark Tami

Friday 26th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

Fraud is rife in most electronic transactions, but despite that, a very large number of people are prepared to trust their banking arrangements to being dealt with online. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is now going to make it more or less compulsory for small businesses to do their tax returns online on a quarterly basis. My hon. Friend makes a perfect reasonable point: there is always scope for fraud. That is why I would not suggest massive internet voting on a universal basis from the outset, but it would be sensible to start off with a reasonable experiment. For example, we could perhaps start with members of our armed forces who are serving overseas. We might be able to develop a secure system for dealing with them.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think it odd that he wants to make it a lot easier for people living abroad to vote, but this Government want to make it a lot more difficult, through individual registration, for people to register to vote in this country?

[Mr Chope]

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s premise. The Government are keen to ensure that we have individual voter registration so that there is less identity fraud at polling stations and through postal votes. I supported that when I was a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the previous Parliament.

Control of Offshore Wind Turbines Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Mark Tami

Friday 16th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

As so often, my hon. Friend is spot on.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about subsidy. Nuclear power, which I support, needs a subsidy, and we have security of supply, which is very important, as a result. Is he opposed to nuclear power on the same grounds?

[Mr Chope]

This Bill is about offshore wind turbines, and the subsidies going to those are twice as much as any subsidy going into the nuclear industry. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what was said in an article in The Economist on 4 January 2014:

“Unfortunately, offshore wind power is staggeringly expensive. Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University, describes it as ‘among the most expensive ways of marginally reducing carbon emissions known to man’. Under a subsidy system unveiled late in 2013, the government guarantees farms at sea £155…per megawatt hour for their juice. That is three times the current wholesale price of electricity and about 60% more than is promised to onshore turbines. It is also more than the £92.50 which Britain’s new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point will get—though that deal is for 35 years, not 15.”

That is the situation succinctly expressed, showing beyond doubt that the taxpayer subsidies going into offshore wind are obscene. The only people who support offshore wind are those whom I must describe as subsidy junkies.

[Mr Chope]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the ironies of the situation is that because of pressure from people such as my hon. Friend and members of the public concerned about onshore wind turbines, the Government reduced the subsidies for onshore wind turbines, but in so doing chose to increase the subsidies for offshore wind turbines. I am sure he will be pleased to know that one of our hon. Friends is to have a Bill on the Order Paper to remove subsidies from onshore wind turbines as well, and that will have my support in due course. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

On that buoyant note, let me go on to describe the provisions of this Bill. As is implicit in the fact that support for it is largely centred on Members of Parliament in the area around Christchurch bay and Poole bay, a developer is intent on constructing there a wind farm that would be the largest in the world and would have an enormous environmental impact on the local community. It is a joint venture between Eneco Wind UK Ltd and EDF Energy Renewables. The developer wants to construct and operate what it calls Navitus Bay wind park, which would be bigger than any other wind farm currently in operation and the first to be proposed adjacent to a vibrant leisure economy, adjoining a coast of outstanding natural beauty, and bordering a world heritage site. It would comprise up to 194 industrial-scale 200-metre-tall wind turbines; each one would be 15% taller than the Spinnaker tower. They would dominate Poole bay, occupying 153 sq km—an area similar in size to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole combined. At their nearest points, they would be 9.1 miles from Swanage, 10.9 miles from the Isle of Wight, and 13.3 miles from Bournemouth. The Government guidelines say that no wind turbine should be constructed offshore within a 12 nautical mile limit, and these proposals do not comply with that.

The wind farm is controversial and contentious. As evidence of that, the plans for the development have received almost 2,700 interested representations—the highest number for any proposed offshore wind farm that the Planning Inspectorate has handled. I have not been able to bring along the filing cabinet containing all the representations that I have received from outraged constituents, but I know that I am speaking not just for my constituents, but for those of my hon. Friends along the south coast, in expressing our concern and outrage at what is being planned.

Bournemouth borough council believes that the wind farm

“will cause serious harm to the intrinsic appeal and beauty of Poole Bay’s natural seascape. The industrialisation of our beautiful coastal setting will have an unprecedented and damaging effect on the local economy.”

Surveys carried out by the developer in 2012 and 2013 show that over 1 million visitors a year will stop coming to the area, taking more than £100 million of income from the local economy. As a result of taxpayer subsidy going into developments in Hull, the economy there may receive a temporary boost, but as a direct consequence, on the admission of the developer, there will be a loss of £100 million a year to the local economy, mainly the tourist economy, in the area that I have the privilege to represent. That loss of real spending in our area would negatively affect local businesses and potentially result in business failures, with an estimated loss of some 2,000 jobs. For that reason, the local councils have joined together to spend a lot of money on campaigning against this wind farm development.

I think it is a useful exercise to reinforce those concerns by introducing this Bill. Clause 1 covers the location and height of wind turbines. Subsection (1) says:

“No wind turbine shall be constructed or erected within fifteen miles of the coast”.

That is a necessary minimum requirement that has particular regard to the Government’s guidelines.

Subsection (2) says:

“No wind turbine shall be constructed or erected within twenty miles of the coast…to a height exceeding 100m as measured by the highest point of the turbine blade above sea level from the date of commencement of this Act.”

That means, in effect, that if there are going to be very tall wind turbines that will be more visible, they need to be situated further offshore than those that are not so tall. The article in The Economist referred to the situation in Edinburgh, where a wind turbine under construction was nudging 200 metres in height—and what a monstrosity it was. We are talking about not just one such turbine, but getting on for 200, off the coast of Dorset. Subsection (3) says:

“No wind turbine shall be constructed or erected off shore if it would form part of a group of wind turbines which totals more than one hundred and no group of wind turbines shall be constructed or erected off shore within fifteen miles of any other such group.”

That is designed to reduce the visual and other impacts of such developments, and to stop them appearing like an industrial landscape out at sea.

We now come to a very sensitive matter. Subsection (4) states:

“No wind turbine shall be constructed or erected offshore within twenty miles of any World Heritage site.”

I would have thought that that was a fundamental point and I am amazed and extremely disappointed that the Government have been so laid back in their response to UNESCO’s concerns about the impact of the Navitus Bay wind park on the world heritage site known as the Jurassic coast. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is supposed to be the guardian of the Jurassic coast. It is promoted as a great tourist centre and we are trying to attract visitors to admire the coast.

UNESCO says that the project’s potential impacts on the natural property of the Jurassic coast

“are in contradiction to the overarching principle of the World Heritage Convention as stipulated in its Article 4, as the completion of the Project would result in the property being presented and transmitted to future generations in a form that is significantly different from what was there at the time of inscription and until today. Specifically, the property will change from being located in a natural setting that is largely free from human-made structures to one where its setting is dominated by human-made structures.”

That is slightly flowery language, but what UNESCO is saying, in essence, is that putting 200 wind turbines so close the Jurassic coast would turn it from being a natural landscape into an industrial landscape. UNESCO wrote in its letter to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 4 May 2014 that it wanted its comments to be taken into account in deciding whether the matter should even go to a public inquiry. Instead of responding to that request, DCMS Ministers simply shuffled off UNESCO’s representations to the public inquiry itself, which was a completely wrong-headed way of dealing with such major concerns.

There are a lot of examples around Europe and the rest of the world of UNESCO withdrawing world heritage status from sites that have been adversely affected by development. Only yesterday, a colleague from elsewhere in Europe drew my attention to the fact that, because of an insistence on building an unsightly bridge, part of the city of Dresden lost its world heritage status. We cannot be complacent. We need to look at the substance of the issue. Surely it does not make sense to build such monstrosities so close to a world heritage site, and that is what clause 1(4) covers. Subsection (5) sets out the way in which the

“distance between a wind turbine and the coast shall be measured”.

Clause 2 covers the operation of wind turbines and states:

“No wind turbine situated in or within five miles of an established area used by migrating birds shall be operated during the season for bird migration.”

This is a very big issue. Unlike perhaps the coast of north Wales, the coast of Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight is frequented by migrating birds. It is extraordinary that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has not been more active in campaigning against the development, because it could have an enormous adverse impact on the migrating bird population.

In the summer months, almost all of the 4,500 nightjars in this country are located in and around New Forest and the Dorset heathland. People cannot develop within 400 metres of the heathland because their dogs or cats might attack the habitat of nightjars, Dartford warblers and so on. We are at great pains to protect the habitat of the nightjar on the Dorset heathlands, but when those nightjars wish to migrate in August they will have to go through a mass of enormous wind turbines extending to 200 metres in height. As their name suggests, nightjars travel at night and the impact of the turbines on their migratory pattern will be immense.

One of the main reasons there has been a significant decline in the number of migrating birds coming into the United Kingdom—this has been witnessed by lots of bird watchers—is the impact of wind turbines, not just off our shore, but off the shores of other countries through which those birds migrate during spring or autumn.

[Mark Tami]

What evidence does the hon. Gentleman have that the birds seem to know that the wind farms are there and therefore do not come? That seems to be what he is saying. Is there any evidence to show that wind farms have that effect?

[Mr Chope]

There is actually a mass of evidence. I have a great volume of material, largely from America, because that is where most of the data come from—

[Mark Tami]

America?

[Mr Chope]

Yes, the United States—the hon. Gentleman may not have heard of it. The material shows clearly the impact of wind farms on migrating birds. Obviously, given that these wind turbines are stuck out in the middle of the ocean, it is very difficult to show that so many birds have been killed by their rotating blades at night. We should, however, give the benefit of the doubt to the migrating birds, and one way of doing that would be to ensure that the wind turbines do not operate during the migrating season. That should not be a great burden, because whenever there is a patch of really cold weather, they do not operate anyway, so when we really need that energy and have high pressure, if there is no wind and the turbines do not rotate, they do not generate any electricity or make a contribution to the national grid. Clause 2, therefore, states that we should extend the non-operation of wind turbines to the period when birds migrate, rather than confine it to those times when there is no wind. If we were talking about just one or two wind turbines, it would be possible to argue that the birds can go round them, but we are talking about wind turbines that are close together and that each has a 200-metre wide reach—there is also vortex that they generate—and birds in their vicinity almost certain to fall foul of them and die as a result.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, certainly from the evidence I have seen, bird numbers as a whole are suffering as a result of pesticides and other pollutants? Many of them come from coal-fired power stations, of which, after getting rid of wind turbines, he would no doubt want to see more?

[Mr Chope]

I am a great bird lover, and I do not want any decline in the bird population, but we are talking about particular species that migrate to the south of England after travelling hundreds of miles. We already have restricted numbers of them, and certain species of migrating birds will probably be in effect wiped out at a time when we are saying that we want to look after heathland habitats, which I support.