Restoring Nature and Climate Change

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me first on this side of the Chamber, Mr Hosie. I declare an interest, in that I am a member of the Conservative Environment Network, and before that I was a member of the Tory Green Initiative in the 1980s. My commitment to the environment is sincere.

I congratulate the constituents of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on their ingenuity in using a petition, which is a very unusual way of bringing their concerns to a Chamber of the House, formed, as it is, of general Members. I hope that those constituents will feel satisfied with the response they receive today from my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who has done so much in the field of the environment, long before he was promoted to be a Minister.

I congratulate the Government on what they have done so far, particularly on setting carbon limits, dealing with deforestation and their work on plastics. Last year, I was in India, in Bangalore, and I was astonished by the amount of plastics there. This autumn, I was in Delhi, and I saw very little plastic. I asked my host why, and he said that they had taken action in India, and that had made a decisive difference.

The issue of carbon emissions goes beyond the countryside, and it has to be faced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and others. During the Queen’s Speech debate, I drew it to the Health Secretary’s attention that the NHS’s carbon footprint in England is around 27 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, and suggested to him that all new hospitals and health facilities in this country should take carbon footprint into account. The carbon footprint is high and it takes into account health service buildings, but we also have to look at the carbon footprint of healthcare services and medicines; the carbon footprint is measured without taking into consideration the pharmaceutical products provided as medicines.

I refer colleagues to an article published last year by Agence France-Presse, which said that large numbers of pharmaceuticals had been found at levels dangerous for wildlife and the environment. It said:

“River systems around world are coursing with over-the-counter and prescription drug waste,”

which is extremely harmful. If this trend persists, the amount of pharmaceutical effluence leaching into waterways could increase by two thirds before 2050, according to scientists speaking at the European Geosciences Union conference in Vienna in April 2018. Francesco Bregoli, a researcher at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, said:

“A large part of the freshwater ecosystems is potentially endangered by the high concentration of pharmaceuticals”.

He said that a large number of drugs—analgesics, antibiotics, anti-platelet agents, hormones, psychiatric drugs and antihistamines—have been found at levels dangerous for wildlife. As part of a study, he focused on one drug, diclofenac, which both the European Union and the US Environmental Protection Agency have identified as an environmental threat; its veterinary use in India has driven a subspecies of vulture on the Indian subcontinent to the brink of extinction.

For scale, healthcare in the world’s largest economies, including China and India, accounts for 4% of global emissions, while carbon dioxide emissions from healthcare in the world’s largest economies account for about 5% of their national carbon footprints, according to a recent study. Scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany have said that climate change and medicines are inextricably linked, with rising global temperatures associated with everything from the spread of infectious diseases to the impact of dangerous weather events. They say that this is the major threat to human health of the 21st century.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am listening attentively to the hon. Gentleman. A cross-party group of us are very interested in the quality of water in our rivers and streams. Indeed, in Huddersfield, I chair Greenstreams, which looks at the issue locally. Will he look with us at the quality of the Thames, and how its high levels of pollution were turned around right on our doorstep? Of course, building the new Palace of Westminster will have a vast impact on that river.

[David Tredinnick]

I certainly would. Representing Bosworth, a hosiery and knitwear constituency in the midlands, I have spent much of the last 30 years in the House—not quite as long as the hon. Gentleman, I think, from memory—looking at the problem of phosphorescent dyes, which are very popular in the clothing industry, getting into sewage works and water streams. Of course I would be happy to become involved in that.

I turn to the importance of the UK’s having a sustainable healthcare policy. At the moment, one third of the world’s population already has, in part, a sustainable healthcare system. The two most populous countries in the world are, colleagues will recall, China and India; China has a population of 1.4 billion and India has a population of 1.3 billion. I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that the challenge for us in this country is to develop—or to take forward from their small base—zero-carbon medicines and healthcare. We cannot ignore this subject.

China has 65,000 hospitals that use zero-carbon treatments in the shape of acupuncture. They also use traditional Chinese herbal medicine, which has a carbon footprint close to zero. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that India is light years ahead. Not only does it have a family health Ministry; it has the Ministry of AYUSH—the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy, which is a sustainable health Ministry that is very much supported by Prime Minister Modi, who has just been elected for another five years. The Ministry has seen its budget increase four times in the last six years.

I say to my right hon. Friend that it is a mystery to me why the authorities in this country—the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NHS England and, to a certain extent, the Department of Health and Social Care—do not look far afield beyond our country and take note of what is happening in other parts of the world. NICE decided to query the effectiveness of acupuncture, a zero-carbon treatment, for lower back pain. In January, I asked its chief executive, Sir Andrew Dillon, whether he had looked at evidence from China. He said no, on cost grounds; admittedly, NICE’s budget has been reduced. However, that is a mistake; we should look further afield.

Today, the head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, made a blanket attack on homeopaths over the issue of vaccinations. I personally support the Daily Mail campaign for vaccinations, which is a good campaign. What I think is mistaken is to attack a movement. Again, we need to look abroad, at what happens in India, bearing in mind that homeopathy—I will not dwell on it for long—is a zero-carbon treatment. Some would say that there is nothing there in homeopathy, but in Delhi there are 6,000 homeopathy clinics and 15,000 registered practitioners; 80% are doctors with five years’ training. I went to a clinic in Calcutta that is treating 2,000 patients a day in the off-season, with 100 doctors on duty each day. I really think that we should look at this.

I will finish on homeopathy on this point. In the whole of India, there are 300,000 homeopathic practitioners, a quarter of a million of whom are doctors with five years’ training. How can it be that at a time of environmental crisis and the shocking carbon footprint of the health service, we are not taking this, the second largest medical system in the world, seriously? I have to say that I think the head of our health service, Simon Stevens, has been very badly advised, and I say the same to Andrew Dillon. I think they have been badly advised. They should get out there and see what is happening in the rest of the world and bury their prejudices.

I met and would like to thank Shripad Naik, the Minister in charge of AYUSH; Dr Rajesh Kotecha, his Secretary; and Pramod Pathak, the Additional Secretary, for the courtesy extended to me when I visited the Ministry on a week-long tour of facilities in India. I am most grateful to them and I wish them well as they look after their 700,000 practitioners, 700 teaching institutions and 200 postgraduate institutions; manage an annual intake on degree courses of 46,000 students and an annual intake on postgrad courses of 6,000; and look after 28,000 dispensaries and 9,000 Government manufacturing units. They provide six practitioners per 10,000 of population. That is what we should be looking at.

Colleagues wish to speak, and I certainly do not want to monopolise the time this afternoon. I suggest that we have to broaden the scope of our environmental thinking to look at the whole issue of healthcare. I have seen this elsewhere and I do think that we need to think about zero-carbon treatments and zero-carbon medicines. They are out there, used by one third of the world’s population. We need to wise up, as my kids say—“Daddy, wise up.” We need to take note that three babies a day are born addicted to opioid drugs. We need to realise that the new antibiotics that we need are not coming online fast enough. We have to go back to the future, if I may quote Alvin Toffler—I think it was him—and look for new solutions in 4,000-year-old medical systems. If we do, we will have a happier, healthier world, with a better carbon footprint.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Zac Goldsmith)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir David, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate. It is similarly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who has given a typically wide-ranging, thoughtful and knowledgeable speech on this hugely important issue. I will attempt to answer his questions; the “coked-up eels” debate is probably one for another day, but I look forward to it, not least learning what the impacts are. I do not doubt that human cocaine use has had a marked impact on the river environment, but it is not an area about which I know a great deal, so I look forward to hearing more in a subsequent debate.

The hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned his constituent Maggie, who I believe is 12 years old. He can tell Maggie that I agree with her, and have done since I was her age; indeed, I have committed most of my life to campaigning and working on these issues. Nature clearly matters. Given that it is the only source of our wealth, our health, and our very lives, one could say that it matters more than anything else that preoccupies us in this ever-madder place in which we work. All the research, including the recent “State of Nature” report that a number of hon. Members have mentioned, paints a very gloomy picture of nature loss in the UK, with 41% of our species having declined since the 1970s. That report does point to some success stories, and it would be wrong to overlook them. Many of those happened as a consequence of Government, conservation groups, farmers and land managers all working together. Nevertheless, those success stories are the exception; we need there to be many, many more.

The situation globally is even worse. Scientists have warned that even a 1.5° rise in temperatures would be absolutely devastating for humanity, ecosystems and the natural world as a whole, but we are not heading towards a 1.5° rise. Currently, without radical intervention, we are heading towards a 3° rise, which—if we believe the majority of scientists—would be almost apocalyptic. Earlier this year, we saw the results of the most comprehensive assessment yet of the state of nature around the world, and again, the news is really bad. It tells us that today, 1 million species are on the brink of extinction. Over my lifetime, since the early 1970s—I was born in 1975—we have lost a staggering 60% of the world’s land animals in just those few years, and continue to destroy an area of forest the size of 47 football pitches every minute. Someone better at maths than I am would be able to tell hon. Members how many football fields’ worth of forest has been destroyed since this debate began. It is utterly shocking.

Our oceans, meanwhile, are under siege; we are told that by 2050, they will contain more plastic than fish, measured by weight. Fisheries that once seemed inexhaustible, such was their abundance, have either collapsed entirely or are on the verge of collapse. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister referred to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss as

“two sides of the same coin”.

He was right. We cannot protect nature unless we address climate change, and we cannot properly address climate change unless we restore nature. I would add that unless we do those things, we have no hope of tackling base poverty around the world, either.

If that seems alarmist, we need only look at the facts. More than 1 billion people depend on forest for their livelihoods, more than 1 billion depend on fish as their main source of protein, and about 200 million depend on fishing for their livelihoods. All of us, of course, ultimately depend on the free services that are provided by nature, without which we simply could not survive. For the sake of nature, of climate and of people, it is critical that we step up our response, at home and internationally.

The good news, as a number of hon. Members have said, is that nature-based solutions have the potential to provide up to a third of the climate change mitigation that we need globally by 2030. Done properly, those solutions can turn the tide on the extinction crisis we are experiencing and provide sustainable, secure livelihoods for millions of people. Given that protecting and restoring nature provides a cascade of solutions to so many of the world’s pressing problems, it is extraordinary that it receives such a tiny proportion of global aid support. Of all the money invested by the world’s Governments in tackling climate change, just 2.5% goes to nature-based solutions. Such solutions should not become a substitute for decarbonisation on a massive scale, as was said by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is no longer in the Chamber. However, those solutions clearly merit a far greater share of resources.

I was therefore thrilled when the Prime Minister announced at last month’s UN climate summit that we in the UK intend to double our climate spending to £11.6 billion between 2021 and 2026, and—even more importantly—that much of that uplift will be invested in nature-based solutions and biodiversity protection. We have already announced a £220 million fund to protect the world’s biodiversity, including £100 million for a biodiverse landscape fund that will protect a large range of cross-border, ecologically biodiverse and important landscapes. We are also trebling annual funding for the brilliant, long-established, and—as some hon. Members will remember—threatened Darwin initiative. Ten years ago, a number of Members had to step up to protect that initiative, because it faced closure. It is an extraordinary initiative, of which we can all be proud.

We are also committing an additional £30 million to tackling the grimly destructive illegal wildlife trade. We are on track to deliver the $5 billion of finance for stopping and reversing deforestation that we pledged alongside Germany and Norway in 2015, and are making big efforts to protect the world’s oceans. We have dedicated £23 million to supporting communities to maintain and enhance 20,000 hectares of mangroves in Madagascar, Indonesia, Latin America and the Caribbean. We have directly helped 100,000 people through building resilient jobs and supporting marine life. We are on track to protect more than half of UK and UK overseas territories waters by 2020 through our world-leading Blue Belt programme, and have announced that we intend to expand that programme much further, with an initial £7 million put aside to protect some of the most diverse marine systems on Earth.

At the UN General Assembly, we announced a global ocean alliance of countries committed to a new global target: to protect at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. Countries are lining up to sign up to that commitment—I forget the exact number, but it is a relatively new campaign, and over 10 countries have already signed up to it, with a number of other countries flirting with doing so. Hopefully, they will sign up in the next few weeks and months. We are also working with our friends across the Commonwealth to tackle the scourge of plastic pollution in our oceans. As one hon. Member pointed out, 1 million birds and 100,000 mammals lose their life every year from eating, or getting tangled up in, ocean plastic. As part of the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance, we have invested in programmes worth up to £70 million to tackle that issue.

We have also invested in research so that we can better understand the role of the oceans. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport mentioned the value of seagrass, and he was right to do so: we know that seagrass has an extraordinary capacity to absorb carbon, but we do not fully understand the role of the oceans as a whole in relation to climate change. For example, we do not know the full impact on the ocean floor of bottom trawling and dredging, but science is emerging that suggests it plays a gigantic role in releasing emissions. That is something we need to know, so we are investing in that research. In the meantime, we are investing in protecting fragile ecosystems in the oceans. We are working on a number of other big interventions on land and at sea, and I look forward to telling hon. Members who are interested in these issues more about those interventions in subsequent debates.

However, this is not just about aid. As we negotiate new free trade agreements, we must be confident that we are not importing deforestation through environmentally damaging goods, as was noted by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). The hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) made the point about our environmental footprint here in the UK; I believe that we rely on an overseas land area more than half the size of the UK just for imported commodities such as palm oil, soya and things that we feed our livestock. Whether we like it or not, despite the fact that most people in this country would be appalled to know it, we are importing deforestation daily. Under our global resource initiative taskforce, we are working to create a plan to end our contribution to global deforestation through our supply chains. It is incredibly complex, but we have to find a way to do it. We have no alternative.

The OECD estimates that the top 50 food-producing nations spend about $700 billion a year subsidising landowners and farmers. At the moment, they do that pretty badly, with little regard for sustainability. We have to find a way to encourage as many of those countries as possible to shift the way that they subsidise farming, as we are trying to do here through our environmental land management schemes. We have set up the Just Rural Transition to do that.

2020 will be a gigantic year for nature and the climate. We will do all we can to deliver meaningful commitments at the convention on biological diversity in China and at COP 26, which we will host with Italy in Glasgow. We want to focus international attention on the importance of and opportunities inherent in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss through investing in nature-based solutions.

I will turn my attention back home, which has been the focus of most hon. Members’ speeches and where, as I said, biodiversity is undoubtedly suffering. We need to reverse that and we are taking steps to do so. The UK was the first major economy to set a net zero emissions target in law for 2050. The restoration of nature will be a big part of our response to that challenge. We are already committed to planting 11 million trees in England, plus a further million trees in and around our towns and cities. Despite the scepticism of several hon. Members, we are on target to do that. I am fully confident that we will meet that target, but, equally, I will not pretend that it is anywhere near ambitious enough. We will have to do much more.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport rightly laid out the challenge: we need to ramp up our efforts. In the next few months, we will consult on a tree strategy for England. Earlier this year, we announced a new Northumberland forest, which will be delivered through a local partnership. This year, we will launch the woodland carbon guarantee, a new £50-million market-based mechanism to provide long-term payments to land managers in England to plant trees.

I will move on, briefly, to peat, which was raised by almost all hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). Peat, including blanket bogs and peat soils under agriculture, acts as the UK’s largest terrestrial carbon store. When peatlands are working and healthy, they sequester carbon, nurture wildlife, act as water regulators and contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Some 86% of peatland emissions come from lowland peat in agricultural use. This year, we launched a lowland agricultural peat taskforce that will deliver recommendations for a new, more sustainable future for agriculture on lowland peat in England.

Several hon. Members talked about the problem of burning peatlands. There is no doubt that they are right; the Government share that view. There has been an attempt, through voluntary initiatives, to scale back—to reduce and eventually eliminate—the burning of fragile and important peat ecosystems, but that has not proven 100% successful as had been hoped. We are developing a legislative response to the problem and we will come back to the House in due course with our plans. There is no disagreement with the hon. Members who have spoken today about the need to address the issue, but we have to do that through legislation, because the alternative simply has not worked.

We are funding the restoration of more than 6,000 hectares of degraded peatland, much of it in the uplands, and we are allocating £10 million to 62 sites across England. We will publish a peat strategy for England that sets out a vision to reverse the decline in England’s peatlands and peat soils.

Much of what I have described, here and overseas, involves what some people refer to as rewilding, which is effectively integrating natural closed processes into land management. Rewilding is already happening across the UK in lots of projects, many of which deliver huge benefits. The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned the Knepp estate in West Sussex, where agri-environment funding has helped to create extensive grassland and scrub habitats, with huge benefits for declining bird species such as the nightingale and turtle dove. I have not been to the Knepp estate, but I long to go and I will be going. I am told by those who have been that it is magical.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for quoting my brother’s article in The Spectator in which he promotes the value of untidiness in nature. He has also been a huge promoter of the release of beavers back into the countryside, so I would not get away with not mentioning the return of beavers, more than 500 years since they were eradicated by us. It seems to be unambiguously good news; it is an extraordinary thing.

Beavers are the ultimate keystone species. They build small dams along river tributaries and streams, which play a big role in holding back water following rainfall and help to mitigate flooding and drought, while at the same time breathing life back into the landscape in an extraordinary way. Science is only beginning to understand how that simple species has such a magnificent and transformative impact on the natural world. I am in total agreement with my brother on that, and he would have been furious if I had not mentioned the beaver.

In the marine environment, domestically, we are expanding our network of marine protected areas. The recent designation of 41 new marine conservation zones means that we have 355 sites covering 25% of UK waters.

Our new Environment Bill, which has been mentioned by several hon. Members, includes measures that will address the biggest environmental priorities of our age and ensure that the Government are held to account if we fail to meet net zero by 2050. It will place a duty on the Government to set long-term, legally binding targets on biodiversity, air quality, water, and resource and waste efficiency. It will lay the foundation for the nature recovery network that will create or restore half a million hectares of wildlife-rich habitat in England, which will encompass woodlands, peatlands, grasslands and coastal ecosystems.

[David Tredinnick]

I recommend going to the Knepp estate and talking to the Burrell family who run it. It is a wonderful wildlife centre.

I am listening attentively to the Minister. I apologise that I was not here at the beginning of his speech, because I was in the Chamber listening to the Prime Minister. Earlier, I raised the issue of zero-carbon medicines and treatments and sustainable healthcare. Will he have a word with the Health Secretary and share some of his experience in that field?

Homeopathy: Veterinary Medicine

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

This debate is very timely because of the recent changes that the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has made to its guidelines, which have angered the public and homeopathic vets alike and triggered two marches to the headquarters of the RCVS and a rally in Parliament Square, at which I had the honour of speaking. I am happy to see the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), in his place, not least because my family come from Redruth and were mining engineers—I am attempting to engender a little sympathy from him before I proceed.

The key issue is a new requirement in the guidelines that homeopathy should only be used in conjunction with conventional medicine. The second issue is the highly contentious assertions made by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons about a lack of evidence and safety and animal welfare, which are apparently related in this instance. The third issue is a lack of consultation.

The RCVS did not consult at all the people who know the subject—the Faculty of Homeopathy, the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons, the International Association for Veterinary Homeopathy, the European Committee for Homeopathy and the Homeopathy Research Institute. None of those organisations was consulted prior to the issuing of these guidelines. After the second march, the RCVS graciously agreed to meet a delegation, but sadly the delegation wrote to me afterwards saying:

“It became apparent that there was a total lack of understanding of the principles of homeopathy.”

It invited the RCVS to visit a practice, but I am not sure that that offer has been accepted.

I wrote to the RCVS, and it replied to my letter with, I regret to say, three glaring errors. First, it cited the 2010 report of the Science and Technology Committee, which it said

“concluded that the evidence base shows that homeopathy is not efficacious”.

It never did anything of the sort. I attended that Committee, and it was an evidence check. It only found that there was no evidence; it did not make any findings about effectiveness.

Secondly, the RCVS claims:

“we have not sought to remove choice as this remains”.

It does not. Choice has been removed, because before these guidelines came out, homeopaths could practise without using homeopathy and conventional medicine together.

Thirdly, the RCVS made claims about animal welfare issues. This is very important, and I asked a parliamentary question, to which my hon. Friend the Minister graciously replied:

“The Department does not have any evidence that shows that homeopathic vets are a risk to animal welfare by using homeopathy as an alternative treatment to conventional medicine options.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I sought the hon. Gentleman’s permission to intervene, and I thank him for letting me do so. Does he not agree that with the rise in antibiotic use in animals—it is very pertinent at this time—anything that can prevent the introduction of antibiotics can only be a good thing and must be given full consideration? Perhaps the Minister could tell us in his response what he is doing through his Department to reduce antibiotic use in animals.

[David Tredinnick]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with wisdom and experience. No doubt, he too has looked at the European position, which is completely the opposite of the one taken by the RCVS. There is a European directive on organic products, which states in article 24(2) of Commission regulation (EC) No. 889/2008, that

“Phytotherapeutic”—

that is, herbal—

“and homeopathic products, trace elements…shall be used in preference to chemically-synthesised allopathic veterinary treatment or antibiotics”.

That was because the European Union as a whole was so worried about the abuse of antibiotics, and I started speaking about the use of antibiotics in animals in the 1987 Parliament.

Let me give my hon. Friend the Minister the view of a farmer, who wrote to me, saying

“did you know that farmers often like using homeopathy for cows with mastitis because if they do so, they can sell the milk. If they use antibiotics, the milk must be thrown out.”

Safety is very important, and I hope the Minister will dispose of that point later as some homeopathic vets have simply stopped practising because they perceive themselves to be under a legal threat.

This is at a time when, according to the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons, there is an explosion of interest in homeopathy, largely I would suggest because of the antibiotics problem. It says that

“there is an explosion of interest in CAM”—

complementary and alternative medicine—

“including Homeopathy”, in the agricultural sector where the drive is to reduce and replace dependence on antibiotics in light of Antibiotic Resistance…concerns”.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that this threatens biodynamic agriculture, which is a particularly interesting and growing part of the agricultural sector?

[David Tredinnick]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. The most successful methods for coping with this antibiotic problem are actually complementary and alternative medicines, of which homeopathy is proving one of the most successful modalities.

The placebo argument—that this is all in the imagination—is often used against homeopathy, but Buttercup and Daisy do not understand double blind placebo-controlled trials. Farmers do understand them, and when I sat on the Science and Technology Committee during the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, Roger Williams, the then Member for Brecon and Radnorshire from the Liberal Democrats, told me, “As a livestock farmer, I of course use carbo veg”—Carbo vegetabilis, which is known colloquially as the corpse reviver—“when I can’t do anything else with an animal that I think is going to die.” It is very often the medicine of last resort both for animals and, of course, for humans. Farmers will not waste money on something that does not work, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister agrees.

As I mentioned at Prime Minister’s questions two weeks ago, the World Health Organisation says that homeopathy is the second largest medical system in the world, with 300,000 doctors treating 200 million patients annually. I suggest to my hon. Friend that that is pretty powerful evidence—they would not otherwise be training and practising—and we should look at that. There are actually 700 vets in 36 countries who are members of the International Association for Veterinary Homeopathy. The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture backs homeopathy. In January 2018, it said that it

“supports the use of homeopathic remedies and the free choice of therapy for veterinarians.”

Why are we getting all these attacks? It actually has nothing to do with healthcare—it is to do with protecting vested interests, and a sense of defensiveness against the perceived threat to conventional practitioners, to drug companies supplying drugs and to currently held scientific beliefs. The scale of the vicious attacks that colleagues have had over the years by those opposed to homeopathy is testament to that. Given the hate mail that has been sent to MPs during past Parliaments, jamming their mail boxes, I believe those people could now face prosecution under new legislation. They ridicule and humiliate anybody who supports this very valuable branch of medicine. They use legal threats to clinical commissioning groups. I am kind of curious about this—I have a feeling that the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was itself threatened with legal action by this group. Once there is a writ and something is through the door, of course, the whole legal process starts; that is why I had a letter from a lawyer of theirs.

The antis also claim that there is no scientific evidence that homeopathy works, but of the 189 randomised control trials up to 2014, 41% were positive, finding that homeopathy was effective. The figures for conventional medicine are just about the same, at 44%. There is no difference. There is good statistical evidence that both homeopathy and conventional medicine work.

I also had the honour to serve on the Health Committee in the 2010 to 2015 Parliament; in fact, I chaired it for a while, when we got the long-term care and conditions report out. In 2014, I cross-examined the Secretary of State for Health about his views. He said:

“the system we have is that we allow GPs to decide whatever they think is in the clinical interests of their own patients.”

If my memory serves me well, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who has subsequently signed a motion, was one of those under attack for supporting homeopathy. He said in answer to a question:

“Complementary and alternative medicine treatments can, in principle, feature in a range of services offered by local NHS organisations, including general practitioners.”—[Official Report, 14 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 149.]

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I should first declare an interest: my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon and a partner in a veterinary practice.

I gently suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he needs to be a little careful about conflating medicine for humans with medicine for animals. As a human, I am able to make these choices for myself; animals are not in a position to do that for themselves. That is why we have to approach the two disciplines differently.

[David Tredinnick]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point. They are different: as far as animals are concerned, we cannot run trials; we can only take a view on how the medicine or treatment is working. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that farmers are not so foolish as to spend a lot of money on something that does not work. They see it working over a long period of time.

I have an informal arrangement with the Minister to give him the full time of a quarter of an hour to respond. In the past, I have noticed that colleagues can run away with themselves, leaving only five minutes for the Minister, who says that they do not have enough time to speak. This Minister will have lots of time to speak.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has clearly raised the fact that the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons very much opposes homeopathy, but we have not mentioned the British Veterinary Association, which was equally opposed. My understanding is, however, that its mood may be mellowing towards homeopathy. Has my hon. Friend’s hard work paid off, I wonder?

[David Tredinnick]

One or two things have been “going off”, as they say nowadays, for the last few weeks, including questions and marches.

To sum up, in veterinary medicine there is room for all. Of course there is room for conventional medicine; we cannot produce a calf from a struggling cow unless we use conventional medicine. There is room for conventional and homeopathic medicine: on that much I agree with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. But there is also room for stand-alone homeopathy, as there always has been—there is no need to change the playing field. Nearly two weeks ago, I asked the Prime Minister, during Prime Minister’s questions:

“Does she agree that homeopathic vets should be able to make their own minds up about whether to use homeopathy on its own or with other treatments, too?”

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister replied:

“As regards all the issues he has addressed, it is right that those who are professionally able to make these judgments are left to make them.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 877.]

We should mark the Prime Minister’s words and agree that properly regulated homeopathic vets should be free to make up their own minds.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

No, I have not had any advice to that effect, but there are other approaches. For instance, one thing that we know can reduce the use of antibiotics in pigs is the gentle acidification of the water. We also know that turning animals out to grass in the spring can reduce the disease load and reduce the need to use antibiotics. Turning animals out to grass is quite difficult to measure, but we know that it is good for animals. On his specific point, no I have not had any such advice, but we are doing a great deal to reduce our use of antibiotics, since it is a very important issue.

In conclusion, we have had an interesting debate. I commend my hon. Friend for raising this issue.

[David Tredinnick]

I am nervous that my hon. Friend is about to sit down, in which case the debate will be over, so, as we have a little time, I want to take this opportunity to thank him for coming. That a Minister of State, not an Under-Secretary, is responding indicates the deep concern in DEFRA about this. Given the exchanges and public interaction, and his own conversations with the RCVS, surely we are all on the same side and what we need is for the RCVS to go away, take cognisance of what has transpired in the last couple of weeks and see if it cannot come up with something that might make everybody happy.

[George Eustice]

As I said, the RCVS has sought to be very clear that it is not banning the use of homeopathy by vets; it is not even its place to do that—were that to happen, it would be for the VMD—but my hon. Friend raises an important point. The RCVS might want, in its council and among its members, to clarify what it actually means, which I understand to be as follows: it is not banning the use of homeopathy, but vets who use it should use it to complement other approaches, possibly where those are not proving effective, and not refrain from using approaches that might be more effective in order to practise homeopathy in isolation. I think that was its point, but I am sure it would be happy to clarify the matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

What I said, as quoted by the right hon. Gentleman, is entirely correct. There were, or are—[Hon. Members: “Were!”] At that time, there were such newspaper reports, as I reported to the House, so that was a perfectly accurate statement. It now transpires that those newspaper reports, and therefore my comments, were incorrect. That is why I have come to the House to clarify the fact, which I have done.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to zoos in this country, which have steadily improved conditions for wild animals? For example, Twycross zoo in my constituency has wide open spaces for elephants, lions, tigers and giraffes.

[Mr Paice]

I endorse my hon. Friend’s comments about the measures taken by our zoos. If animals cease to be allowed in circuses, or if circuses are unable to meet the licensing conditions, I suspect many animals will move to zoos.

Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

Parties on both sides of the House were committed to high-speed rail and it is crucial that we make progress on this agenda, but the hon. Lady would not expect me to announce quite the detail that she is awaiting at this stage of the Government’s work. There is no doubt that we will be making serious progress on that agenda.

Internationally, we will work towards an ambitious global climate deal that will limit emissions. We will explore the creation of new international sources of funding to support countries both in limiting emissions and in adapting to the unavoidable consequences of climate change. Often the very poorest and most vulnerable countries are at greatest risk from the impacts of climate change, yet they have the least resources to participate in discussions that directly affect their future, so we will explore ways of helping those countries to take part in the international climate change negotiations—for example, in providing technical support.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that 2010 is the United Nations year of biodiversity and the very countries that he is mentioning are losing many species? Our own bumble bees and other species are under threat. Without a Bill, what specifically will he do to help stop the loss of species?

[Chris Huhne]

Biodiversity is absolutely crucial, particularly in those tropical areas where concentrations of biodiversity that are under threat potentially have enormous implications for our collective human future if they are lost. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will address that point in detail when she winds up.