Food Price Inflation

Darren Jones Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I recognise how challenging that situation must be. That is why the Government are putting in huge support packages to try to help households cope with the increase in energy and food prices. We will continue to look after the most vulnerable people in society, offering them support to help them through this challenging time.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

Many food and drink businesses express their frustrations to me, as Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, about the lack of co-ordination between the Minister’s Department and BEIS. Given the influence of inflation, the challenges in the labour market, and the need for technology adoption and automation in the sector, is it not time for a proper, co-ordinated sector deal between BEIS, the Department for International Trade and the Minister’s Department for the food and drink industry?

[Mark Spencer]

We do, of course, talk to our colleagues across government, and we also invest a huge amount in technology to help develop new technologies to reduce the price of food production. We are running competitions to encourage robotics and computerised systems to help in the processing sector. We have also introduced the gene editing Bill—the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill—which I hope will reach Royal Assent very soon. It will help the industry to develop new technologies to reduce the cost of food production.

Waste Incineration Facilities

Darren Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I ought to declare my interests as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: my wife is employed at the Association for Decentralised Energy.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on once again securing a debate on this topic. I am pleased that she has done so, because I had to miss the previous debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and I feared I might miss out on this series of debates about waste processing. Many hon. Members and I return to this issue because of the adverse experiences of our constituents who live alongside waste processing facilities, and whose voices often get lost in the decision-making process.

It has been four months since I secured a debate in this place to highlight the experiences of people in Avonmouth in my constituency. Avonmouth is home to a significant number of waste processing plants, and in the past decade it has seen a hundredfold increase in the tonnage of waste passing through our local facilities. That is not just waste from Bristol or the greater Bristol region; it comes from London on trains every night. We are processing waste from across the country. That exponential growth has real consequences for local people, the most challenging of which has been an annual spike in the fly population during hot weather periods, especially when there are large quantities of bundles of waste stored on open land.

I have had to raise this issue frequently since my election, and it is all the more depressing because so little seems to change. The persistence of the problem has understandably intensified local people’s sense of powerlessness over a decision-making process that has concentrated this number of plants in the area, often without local consent. People are angry, and I share their anger, not least because it is clear where the system has been going wrong. In Avonmouth, as in Sunderland and other parts of the country, these plants have not arrived by accident.

Bristol City Council changed planning policies in good faith in 2011 to try to favour the circular economy approach to dealing with waste, as opposed to landfill. Its intention was not for Avonmouth to become a dumping ground for the nation’s rubbish, but when the city council opted to reject planning permissions for large-scale incinerators and other companies in Avonmouth, those decisions were just overturned by national planning authorities. The Mayor is trying to do his best in Bristol City Council. He has invested a significant amount in the recycling centre and in opening a brand-new reuse centre, where people can reuse white goods and other types of furniture instead of putting them into waste, but on this issue he seems to be unable to fix the problem.

As I have argued in the past, two main things must happen. First, the Environment Agency must be given a much broader range of powers to allow it to deal more quickly and effectively with minor and frequent breaches that do not immediately lead to the revocation of a licence. Secondly, the planning system must better reflect the clear human cost associated with the concentration of individual sites processing waste in a particular area. I have said before, and I say again, that I do not believe the cumulative impact of individual sites or their proximity is properly considered.

Avonmouth is a classic example of those issues. In my debate last year, I drew attention to a series of breaches by a company operating locally that had violated its permit more than a dozen times in the space of a year. It was eventually singled out by the Environment Agency, but a very high frequency of breaches had to occur before action could be taken. It should not take bad behaviour on that level to warrant enforcement action. Even when permits are revoked, the resulting appeals process is long, complicated and costly, imposing an obvious disincentive for the Environment Agency to deal with the individual breaches that collectively create such massive problems for local residents. The agency should have at its disposal a wider range of remedies, sanctions and fines that fall short of outright revocation.

Of course, we recognise that waste processing must happen, and we would rather that it be done in a way that is not landfill and that has wider circular economy implications. However, frameworks for granting permits and planning permissions need to work in tandem to consider the concentration of existing waste processing facilities locally, as well as their proximity to each other and to local residents. The local planning system must therefore work more intelligently and more compassionately, recognising that capacity considerations must be weighed against the wellbeing of the people who are most directly affected by the processes.

I am conscious that there has been quite a lot of change in Secretary of State and ministerial roles, although I am pleased to see the same Minister back again for this debate. I wrote to the previous Secretary of State, I have resent my letter to the current Secretary of State and no doubt I will need to resend it again next week, but I hope to get a response about how the Government can take action on this issue. The debate today shows that this is not an isolated problem in Avonmouth, but a problem right across the United Kingdom.

In my debate here in Westminster Hall last year, the Minister shared my concerns but seemed to suggest there was nothing further that the Government could really do at that time. I find that hard to believe. Will the Minister today set out what her Department plans to do about this issue, perhaps in the Environment Bill that is coming to the House soon, and whether, given the obvious national concern expressed here today, a wider review of waste processing in the UK is required?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

No. Processes will be followed. So much of what is coming down the tracks, through the resources and waste strategy and the Environment Bill, should introduce a paradigm shift in the way we treat waste. The intention is that a tax may never need to be introduced, but one will have to watch the direction of travel and whether we are really cutting down on waste, because that is the intention before we ever have to introduce a tax.

As Members pointed out, incinerating has a carbon impact, but the evidence available is that the carbon impact of most mixed waste streams commonly sent to energy-from-waste plants is lower than if we sent it to landfill. Every day that passes brings new advances in carbon capture, and I am pleased to report that the Government will invest £800 million in this technology to deploy the first carbon capture clusters by the mid-2020s.The technology could potentially be applied to energy-from-waste plants to capture the carbon emissions from incinerating waste, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions even further. I point out, because the shadow Minister mentioned this issue, that all municipal waste incinerators are combined heat and power-enabled. Only nine deliver heat, but they all supply electricity.

The Government are clear that energy from waste should not compete with greater waste prevention, reuse or recycling. Currently, England has enough operational energy-from-waste capacity to treat about 38% of residual municipal waste, including a proportion of commercial and industrial waste. The majority of the 40 or so existing plants use conventional incineration with energy recovery, as that is tried and tested, but other technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, could achieve greater efficiencies, reducing environmental impact and delivering outputs beyond electricity generation. This is a changing space, and science is obviously benefiting the sector. Nevertheless, for the foreseeable future, conventional energy from waste will continue to have an important role in diverting waste from landfill, and it is the best option for most waste that cannot be reused or recycled.

I mentioned on 28 January that the Government are working to drive greater efficiency of energy-from-waste plants. That is largely through Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy initiatives and it includes encouraging use of the heat that the plants produce, in addition to the electricity generated. The Government have in place other, wider measures that help to draw waste away from landfill and incineration. There is an opportunity to deliver significant greenhouse gas savings by converting the wastes into transport fuel, for example. Through the renewable transport fuel obligation—that is quite a mouthful—the Government incentivise the use of organic waste such as cooking oil and food waste to produce renewable fuels. The Department for Transport is examining the potential to support innovative waste-to-fuel technologies that have the capacity to produce advanced fuels, including even jet fuel.

Many hon. Members touched on regulation. Energy-from-waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with the strict emission limits set down in legislation. That includes plants using gasification technology. Every application for a new plant is assessed by the agency to ensure that it will use the best available techniques to minimise emissions and that it will not have a significant effect on local air quality. The Environment Agency will not issue an environmental permit if the proposed plant will have a significant impact on the environment or will harm human health.

[Darren Jones]

Does the Minister agree that the cumulative impact of the number of these facilities in a geographical area must also be assessed and that there must not be just an assessment of the individual application when each application comes forward for consideration?

[Rebecca Pow]

I obviously answered the debate earlier in the year about the incinerator in the hon. Gentleman’s area. He raises an important point. Certainly, local authorities are responsible for their own areas and should be looking to see how they can best deal with the waste in their areas.

Making decisions on planning applications is normally a matter for the local planning authority. They should be determined in accordance with the development plan unless other considerations indicate otherwise. Those would include, among other things, the assessment of the impact of the traffic generated, which has been mentioned. Indeed, when it comes to planning applications for waste management facilities of such a scale as the one that prompted this debate, there is a requirement to undergo an environmental impact assessment.

[Darren Jones]

I am sorry, but will the Minister give way just once more?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am going to plough on, because I want to get some of the points across that I could not make last time.

As the planning application referred to by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West is subject to an appeal, it is the role of the Planning Inspectorate to consider all the material planning considerations that are relevant to the case, and from all parties, including the local planning authority, the applicant and those who might have made representations on the application—and of course all those people who signed the petition. However, I note the request made to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for him to recover the appeal for his determination. As it is a live planning appeal, I am sure the hon. Member understands that it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.

Once operational, energy-from-waste plants are closely regulated through a programme of regular inspections and audits carried out by the Environment Agency, which also carefully considers the results of the continuous air emissions monitoring that all plants must do to meet the conditions of their environmental permit.

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) raised the issue of air quality in particular, but air quality is of course devolved to local authorities, and the Greater London Authority is responsible for what happens in London. However, energy-from-waste plants must report any breaches in respect of emissions to the EA within 24 hours, so there are strict controls.

Health issues were touched on in particular. As part of the permitting process, the Environment Agency consults Public Health England and the local director of public health on every energy-from-waste application that it receives and takes their comments into account when deciding whether to issue a permit. I must point out that our clean air strategy has been commended by the World Health Organisation, and there are aims in it to halve any harm caused to human health by air quality. We therefore have strict controls coming down the tracks, and local authorities are all becoming engaged with them. Hon. Members should note that the position of Public Health England-remains that modern and well run and regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health. That is what that body itself has said.

Waste Processing Facilities: Local Environment

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of waste processing facilities on the local environment.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. However conscientiously we all try to manage our own rubbish, most of us probably do not give a second thought to what happens to it after it is taken away—and to the extent that we do think about that at all, we often assume that the waste is transported, stored and processed in a pretty orderly way, out of sight and out of mind, away from homes and away from people. But for many of my constituents who live in and around Avonmouth, in the west of my Bristol North West constituency, the everyday reality of living close to a concentration of these facilities can be challenging. I know that other right hon. and hon. Members have constituencies where residents live close to these facilities and have had similar issues, so I am introducing this debate on behalf of many other constituents as well as my own.

In Avonmouth, we have seen a significant proliferation of waste processing facilities over the past decade. That has not come about by accident. The leadership of Bristol City Council in 2011 updated its planning guidelines to welcome such businesses to the area of Avonmouth, and as a consequence we saw an increase in the number of planning permissions being granted for them. According to the figures available from the Environment Agency, that has meant that there has been an increase in the quantity of waste being processed locally, from about 6,000 tonnes in 2013 to more than 200,000 tonnes in 2017—that figure is already a couple of years out of date.

The most immediate challenge in the surrounding areas, and my main concern in today’s debate, is the volume of flies that can be associated with the processing of the waste and the impact that that has on local residents and their community. This is a quality-of-life issue for hundreds of my constituents. It features prominently in local media and in correspondence to my office, and it has got markedly worse over the period of the increase in bundles of waste being processed each year. I was born and grew up in the area affected, and it never used to be an issue when I was growing up, but it has become one over the past five years.

There can be a particular problem in the summer months, when heat and humidity combine, alongside an increase in the amount of processing of waste, and we see a spike in the number of flies in the local community. In the absence of a permanent solution, local residents have had to get used to installing nets and flytraps, stocking up on fly spray and keeping windows and doors closed during hot weather. That evidently is not an enjoyable way of life. There have been striking photos of flypaper strips that have been put up overnight and are full of dead flies by morning. Eating and drinking outside, and even making food in the home, becomes increasingly difficult. The fire station, I was told on a visit, often ends up with no food for the firefighters, because if the bell rings, by the time they get back, there are flies all over the food that has been produced for them in the fire station.

The situation is extremely stressful not just for local residents and workers, but for the pubs and restaurants and some of the businesses in the area. They are concerned about return trade, but also about maintaining their health and safety compliance, which of course they take very seriously.

My concern is that this seems to have been an issue at points when we have had very hot weather, but with the effect of climate change—albeit we wish to mitigate that—it is becoming more frequent. We have started to see complaints from local residents more frequently throughout the year and not just in the hottest summer months. The science, from my perspective, is clear that flies will thrive in the presence of decaying organic matter and their populations will grow. That is why the Environment Agency provides permits for the type of activity that we are discussing. There is agreement on what the safe limits are for the amount of waste that can be processed. If businesses do not comply with the guidelines and permits, the Environment Agency is of course able to take action.

In a few cases, there has been significant negligence and action taken by the Environment Agency. One company in my constituency, New Earth Solutions, was found to have breached its permit on more than a dozen instances in the space of a year. Breaches included failing properly to cover the bales of rubbish that are packaged up and shipped out to other countries for burning. The Environment Agency said that the company had “exceeded the quantity” of waste

“that can be processed and removed without causing a build-up of onsite materials”.

To help people to visualise it, I will describe what happens. Our black bin rubbish gets dropped off, poured into large piles, treated, packaged up into bundles that look like hay, wrapped in either black or white thick bin-liner material and stored, ready to be shipped out from the docks in Avonmouth or on lorries to the continent for other countries to burn for energy. Although I endorse the circular economy principles behind that, the issue, when we are processing waste not just from Bristol and the region but from London, is that we often end up with a significantly high number of bundles on open land that can be torn or can have other issues. There are factories where, in the past, doors and roofs have not been fixed properly and where piles of rubbish are therefore subject to the open air.

I have been trying for some time to work locally with the Environment Agency, Bristol City Council, businesses and local residents to fix the problem. It has been an ongoing and difficult problem. Ultimately, I had to write, in June of this year, to the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In that letter, I quoted regulation 22(3) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, which sets out that, to revoke a permit, a 20-day notice period has to be served on the offending operator. Under regulation 31(1)(f), an operator on whom notice has been served has the right to appeal to the “appropriate authority”—normally the Planning Inspectorate—which then can exercise the power on behalf of the Environment Agency. Any revocation notice that comes will take effect only once the appeal has been concluded. That not only imposes costs and time issues on regulators, but provides such a slow response for local residents that often the issue may have come and gone.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I missed the first two minutes of my hon. Friend’s remarks. He will be aware that I initiated an Adjournment debate in the main Chamber on this very issue; the situation sounds exactly the same. It was with regard to the recycling plants at Teal Farm in my constituency. As I came into this Chamber, he was talking about flies, which is a massive issue that can fill my inbox every summer. My hon. Friend is talking about the Environment Agency. I have come to the conclusion that the Environment Agency needs more powers, specifically to issue spot fines, rather than having to go through the current rigmarole. The bar seems to be far too high in terms of the amount of time required and the legal process that has to be gone through, and spot fines could be the answer. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Darren Jones]

I do agree. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for her Adjournment debate on the Floor of the House, which I referenced in my letter to the then Environment Secretary, not least because the Government had promised to bring forward some regulations. To be fair, they had done that, but those measures evidently have not been able to solve the types of issues that my hon. Friend and I have to try to tackle in our constituencies.

This is a very lived matter for us locally. My constituents will make complaints to the Environment Agency, to the council, to me and to others, and often there seems to be something that falls between the cracks. If it is not a major, significant issue that the Environment Agency can tackle, Bristol City Council might rightly not be able to tackle it, and constituents then feel that they have nowhere to go and nothing happens. This is the frustration that many of my constituents face.

Even when actual breaches can be demonstrated, an individual instance in itself needs to be sufficiently big for action to be taken. With regard to Bristol North West, Avonmouth historically was land associated with a stately home in the constituency. Its owner built the village very close to industry, essentially for workers, but that has meant that we have an unusual situation—it may not arise in other parts of the country—in which people are living very close to the processing that is taking place. My conclusion as the local MP is that there seems to be just too much processing of waste, by too many facilities, too close together and too close to local residents.

I wrote to the Department about assessing the cumulative impact—not just the individual impact of a particular site or planning permission—with proper sight of how permits are monitored, managed and enforced as well as the impact on the community. The Environment Agency should have greater flexibility to raise minimum standards for the approval and renewal of permits as part of the lifecycle, taking an evidence-led area-wide view in setting conditions on the types and quantities of waste that can be handled, the processes taking place on site and the acceptable means of storage. For us, that might mean in lived experience that less rubbish needs to be processed at any one time, and perhaps fewer bundles may be stored on local sites. Perhaps bundles should be stored in closed, maintained facilities, not in open-air environments.

At present, operators are required to demonstrate how they will seek to minimise and mitigate negative consequences that attach to their work by submitting a written management plan. In affected areas, applicants and existing operators should be subject to more exacting requirements to explain how their processes adhere to the Environment Agency’s guidance on fly management, and such processes should be frequently inspected to ensure that they are delivered on a day-to-day basis.

As things stand, the only avenue for dealing with the problem is through identifying significant rule-breakers. Therefore, even in the best-case scenario, there is slow, piecemeal progress and no resolution to the issue. My constituents are clear that that is not good enough. The Environment Agency needs to be able to draw on a framework for assessing cumulative impact and have the teeth and the flexibility to take action to deal with that impact.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. In my area, the recycling centres are all enclosed in buildings. Does he not think that the planning system is a better means for controlling this problem?

[Darren Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is part of the puzzle. National and local planning frameworks should better reflect some of these issues when decisions are being taken. For example, a number of early planning decisions were granted by Bristol City Council, but the previous two applications were rejected locally only to be overturned by the national planning authorities, not having taken into account the proper representations made by local councillors about the cumulative impact. We therefore need improvements to the planning process as well as to the rules and the Environment Agency’s ability to take action.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I do not want to spoil the flow of my hon. Friend’s speech. On planning, when a company, which could be rogue to say the least—some of these places can be said to be the scrapyards of our modern age—shuts up shop and goes, someone else can move in without having to apply for new planning permission; the permit still stands. Does he agree that that should be looked at?

[Darren Jones]

I very much agree, because I have had exactly that issue: a company that went into administration was bought by an overseas company, and activity on the site continued with the existing permit. That is a problem. It shows a lack of enforcement, and that is why constituents get concerned about that.

To extend my answer to the planning question, one of the issues is about putting too many of these facilities too close together. I understand why it might seem good to put warehouses to process rubbish in parts of the industrial space in my constituency. We probably would not want to put them in other places. However, I go back to the main thrust of my argument, which is the cumulative impact. Surely there is a threshold at which there are too many of them and someone should think about putting them somewhere else.

I am told waste is a profitable business, and some of these businesses can invest significant amounts in their facilities. For example—not to make any of the companies blush—Viridor seems to be building a well-funded facility in my constituency, whereas New Earth Solutions did not have the investment or capital available to maintain the highest possible standards.

Surely that must be a consideration for planning and Environment Agency powers, because there is an impact on the character and economic prospects of an area. Many Avonmouth residents feel doubly trapped and frustrated. They cannot sell their homes because of the press coverage and local understanding that at points in the summer families are eating their dinners under mosquito nets and the pub has to close because it feels unable to serve its customers. It takes its toll on community life and puts a tone on a community that no one wants where they live. They want to be part of a vibrant community where outdoor spaces can be enjoyed in the summer.

This area, like so many others, deserves a diverse range of high-quality, well-paid jobs in a community in which people feel happy and able to live and enjoy the outdoor environment. We must be careful that in clustering such facilities and not having proper rules and enforcement powers to deal with them, we do not create waste capitals across the country, where for local residents it will have to do. It does not have to be that way. We can make changes.

It is clear that there is no consent from my constituents in Avonmouth, or indeed the surrounding areas of Bristol North West, for this to continue—nor for it to have been put in place. I have therefore been left with no choice but to bring it to the House in a Westminster Hall debate to raise it with the Minister. Like my constituents, I have run out of places to go. I have come to dead ends in trying to find a solution. I can only conclude that the Government and the Minister’s Department are the best and only place left to try to find some solutions to fix these issues for my constituents and those in other parts of the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Local authorities do have power and are required to act for the benefit of local people; I gather that my hon. Friend’s council has decided that its recycling facilities have to be enclosed, so that is the decision it has made for the benefit of its constituents.

Our published guidance makes it clear that when applying for an environmental permit for regulated activities, operators should make applications for both planning permission and environmental permits in parallel whenever possible. This helps the operator, the planning authority and the Environment Agency to join up, to the benefit of all concerned. I know that necessary distinctions in regulatory roles and remits can lead to particular issues on the ground. It is therefore important that all parties involved in the consideration of granting permission to and permitting regulated facilities work together openly and transparently at a local level, to achieve the best outcomes.

[Darren Jones]

The Minister will have to forgive me if I am treading on the next paragraph of her speech, but the issue here is the retrospective view. Planning permissions and environmental permits have been granted, and we are now in a position where we have too many of these facilities, too close to residents and processing too much rubbish. The question is about powers to deal with them now that those decisions have already been taken, whether at local or national level. Are there powers that the Minister can refer to that will deal with the issues already in place, or are we just discussing powers for getting this right on new applications in other areas?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Of course, powers were used in the case of the company he referred to, New Earth Solutions, in respect of the fly infestation. Action was taken, and I am told by the Environment Agency that the situation has improved and the company has subsequently complied. Clearly, the powers worked in that particular instance.

The Environment Agency is working closely with Bristol City Council and, I believe, with the hon. Gentleman, but it has not been able to identify a single source of the fly infestation. The agency would have to be very certain before it could take action, because there are 39 permitted waste facilities regulated by the Environment Agency in close proximity to Avonmouth. They manage a range of waste materials, including metals, healthcare waste, and household, industrial and commercial waste, and they will therefore all have different impacts. Not all of them will be the source of flies, noise, or dust, but all those facilities—both those that are and those that are not currently operational—are regulated by environmental permits that set out the measures with which operators are expected to comply in order to minimise any adverse impacts to local residents, businesses and the environment. So, there is a system.

The Environment Agency has a range of powers that it can use to address shortfalls in operators’ performance. In fairness, the agency has put a lot of effort, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree, into investigating the potential causes of the fly infestations at Avonmouth, and it continues to work closely with local partners. I have spoken to the agency myself about how much it is doing to try to crack the situation.

It is clear that any operator who does not comply with the conditions of its permit will be subject to compliance and enforcement action by the Environment Agency, but revoking is the end of the line. What the agency really wants is to work with the businesses to make the system work, because we need places to send our rubbish. Bristol is a big city, so that is very important. Depending on the action being taken, there are different timescales, but revocation is an absolute last resort. Fly infestations can also be treated as a statutory nuisance and enforced against by the local authority—that comes under the local authority as well, so it has that power.

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the cumulative impact of the facilities. The Environment Agency investigates complaints received from local residents regarding odour, dust, noise and flies. I reiterate that although it has been possible to substantiate historic complaints in some cases, with the Environment Agency taking appropriate enforcement action, in many instances it still has not been able to identify any one source for the issue.

Although it is not in the Environment Agency’s remit to determine the locations of waste management facilities, it continues to meet the council to ensure that they work together to minimise the impact on residents. I believe it has also done a lot of work with the city council over the summer, because that is when the flies are worst, to investigate and monitor local fly populations. Officials from the Environment Agency have even toured the area with the Mayor; I believe the hon. Gentleman may have been there as well.

[Darren Jones]

indicated assent.

[Rebecca Pow]

Going on to the ground seemed to me like an eminently sensible thing to do. I gather that, following that tour, the Mayor decided that they would try to see whether they could help somewhat by looking at how local waste is collected and tasking each collection team with more emphasis on the cleanliness in its particular streets. That is just one of a list of measures that have been used to help. The Environment Agency continues to visit the permitted facilities in and around Avonmouth constantly, although those visits still do not seem to have found the one source of flies.

Water Industry

Darren Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend and the trade union movement in general have pointed that out on a number of occasions. I will come on to one of the trade union movement’s particular campaign issues.

Water companies have become a desirable global financial commodity, bought and sold by big banks, international infrastructure investors, pensions and sovereign wealth funds. Since privatisation, as my hon. Friend just pointed out, dividend payments have been very high, at an average of £200 million a year per company, and £2 billion a year in total. Over the past 30 years, at least £48 billion has gone directly to shareholders.

Analysis by Greenwich University suggests that the more than 40% increase in household bills in that time was driven mainly by the need to finance growing interest payments on debt—a point that the trade union movement in particular has highlighted. That analysis shows that accelerating debt levels are the result of the high dividend payments paid by water companies to their shareholders, which exceeded the privatised companies’ cash balances in every year bar one since 1989. Indeed, it is striking that total payments to shareholders are very similar to the total outstanding debt burden of privatised water companies, with at least £48 billion in payments in the past 30 years and at least £51 billion in total debt.

The Leader of the Opposition and, in particular, the shadow Chancellor deserve considerable credit for highlighting the lower cost of water bills in Scotland, where Scottish Water is publicly owned. While bills in Scotland are 2% less in real terms than they were 18 years ago, English water bills increased by some 13% in real terms over the same period.

Privatisation has not meant more investment. Indeed, annual investment in water supply infrastructure was lower in 2018 than it was in 1990 and has fallen by about 10% in the past 10 years. All of the capital investment made since privatisation could have been covered using only the money generated by customer bills. Instead, much of the income generated by water bills appears to have been used to pay the interest on debt built up by the privately owned water companies, in turn to fund dividend payouts.

Despite similar levels of capital investment, we are now in a situation in which, according to research by the University of Greenwich, consumers in England are paying £2.3 billion a year more for their water and sewerage bills under the current privatised system than if the utility companies had remained in state ownership.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an excellent opportunity to bring consumers into the conversation with businesses, in a way that mutualisation allows, so that we can learn from customers as well as talk about the ownership of utilities?

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I will come on to how mutuals would allow customers to have a lot more say over—indeed, they would give them ownership of—the water services on which we all depend.

Turning to one specific company, Thames Water was owned for 11 years by a complicated string of holding companies and offshore businesses, all ultimately owned by Macquarie bank, receiving returns of between 15.5% and 19%. Research by the Financial Times suggests that between 2006 and 2016, Macquarie and its fellow investors paid themselves £1.6 billion in dividends, while Thames Water was loaded with £10.6 billion of debt and ran up a pension deficit of some £260 million.

Dividend, debt and pension deficit were not the only things to increase under Macquarie’s control of Thames Water; customer bills and complaints also soared. The only thing that went down during this period was customer satisfaction, which is now ranked 22nd out of 23 in the Consumer Council for Water league table.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) on securing this important debate and on making the important distinction between co-operatives and mutualisation, and industries nationalised via the state. That distinction is often missed in these debates.

I will talk about the future of the water industry from the perspective of the fourth industrial revolution and the digitisation of our networks. On that basis, I declare my interests in relation to the various works I do in the technology sector, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Last Friday, I met with the team at Bristol Water, which supplies drinking water to more than a million customers, including all of my constituents in Bristol North West. I had expected the meeting to be run of the mill, but I was somewhat surprised, because Bristol Water turned out to be far more advanced in its digitisation of the water network than many other water utility companies.

Many Members will know that British industry is lagging behind in the digitisation of our businesses, which is a priority if we are to unlock the productivity challenge in the British economy and help meet our climate change objectives. At Bristol Water, sensors have been installed across the entire network and big data analytics have been deployed. Those are new words for many sections of the water industry. In Bristol, we get our water from lakes and reservoirs around the Mendip hills and from the River Severn via the Gloucester and Sharpness canal. Water from the River Severn needs to be pumped into Bristol, which requires large amounts of energy. Water from the Mendips requires less energy due to gravity. Bringing together data on real-time energy prices with real-time water consumption requirements has allowed Bristol Water to build algorithms that decide when to pump water from where to where and at what time, helping to reduce over-pumping and generating significant savings on its electricity bill.

Those efficiency savings will allow Bristol Water, subject to Ofwat’s agreement, to pass on price reductions to Bristol Water customers, which I know many of my constituents will welcome. As we have heard from my hon. Friends, that is an unusual thing from a utility company in the past few years. I am sure Bristol Water itself would say that it is a new positive turn, as it was in something of a bother with Ofwat a few years ago for not being able to agree price rises. I welcome that positive U-turn from Bristol Water for my constituents.

In a very Bristol way, Bristol Water brought in sensors, big data analytics and algorithms through collaboration. It set up a start-up incubator in Bristol where, for example, a big data entrepreneur, Hackett Consulting, has been able to go from being a Bristol start-up of one to a scale-up business from the things it has learned at Bristol Water. It is now able to sell that as a service to other industries across the country.

Beyond the algorithms, sensors have been installed across the network, meaning that leakages can be dealt with more efficiently and accurately. Instead of waiting for someone to call up and say, “There has been a leak of water at the end of the street”, field engineers’ iPads bleep at them when there are leaks, and they know exactly where to go to try to fix them. That reduces the number of customers affected by the closing off of pipes and decreases the time it takes to fix the leak.

Reduced energy consumption and better management of leaks, alongside helping customers to reduce their water consumption, all make extremely valuable contributions to our climate change objectives. As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I have been troubled to hear from Lord Deben, the chairman of the Climate Change Committee, about how far we are falling behind as a country in meeting our climate change objectives.

The Government must take the easy wins to ensure we get back on track to decarbonising our economy. Bristol Water’s approach seems to be an important and useful way to do that. I was therefore thrilled to hear about the work being undertaken in my constituency. I encourage the Government, Ofwat and other water companies to look at how we have digitised the network to improve efficiency and to contribute to decarbonising the economy in Bristol. I hope the Minister will tell the House how she is helping regulators and water companies to move in that important direction.

Draft Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 General Committees

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I welcome the draft regulations. My constituency includes a large industrial site called Avonmouth, very close to the villages of Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston. My predecessor once had to tackle what can only be described as the plot of a low-budget horror film. A waste company called Boomeco packages refuse-derived fuel into bundles, stores them on the port and ships them out for incineration. One hot summer, it had not quite wrapped the bundles properly and fly larvae erupted, covering Avonmouth village with a storm of flies.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Hideous!

[Darren Jones]

It was absolutely hideous. Some may laugh at my joke about a cheap horror film, but my constituents had to eat their dinners under mosquito nets, and the local pub had to close. The primary issue was that no one seemed to have the power to make it stop; the Environment Agency, Public Health England, the landowner and Bristol City Council all said that it was someone else’s responsibility. Meanwhile, my constituents had to use fly spray provided by their local councillors.

I welcome the further enforcement powers for agencies such as the Environment Agency, but I stress that co-ordination powers and resources are as important as granting more powers to any one agency. We need to ensure that the agencies work together so that any situations that arise do not fall through the gaps between legislative powers. Agencies need to be able, and mandated, to come together to find a solution.

More needs to be done. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that this matter should be tackled at primary legislative level. In Avonmouth, there is a high density of waste companies close to local communities and villages. Areas such as Bristol North West expect us to have the powers to ensure that they are protected from either mistakes or abuses by the companies providing services in places such as Avonmouth. That is why I and others have called for measures such as regulated borders around residential areas. Avonmouth village could have a regulated border between it and the industrial estate; any planning applications for these types of business in the area could have to undergo enhanced scrutiny.

I welcome these regulations, but I repeat the message that has been sent, and urge the Government to go further, so that there can be powers to protect my constituents—and, indeed, all our constituents.