Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

My constituency has vast swathes of high-risk flood area—zones 2 and 3—and we see flooding every year; we saw it most notably in 2014, but also in January. Will the right hon. Lady’s planning reforms protect areas at high risk of flooding, so that they are not built on, making our flooding worse?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. We have a lot of speakers to get through, including some maiden speakers, so I urge Front Benchers to make shorter speeches and take fewer interventions. Otherwise, we are not going to get through these maiden speakers.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will take your advice, and I apologise to Members for the fact that I will not take more interventions.

We have to grapple with these issues and work with those in these areas. Obviously, flooding has been a major issue, and the Government will look at it. It is devastating to people when their homes are flooded, and we have to look at these things in the round when looking at planning.

We will unveil the next generation of new towns, and we will learn the lessons of the past to create safe and beautiful homes and the sustainable green communities of the future. This Government are fully committed to the 13 targets set under the Environment Act 2021, and we will work closely with my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary to ensure that we protect the environment and nature. We will work with local leaders to ensure that these towns meet our gold standard of having 40% genuinely affordable housing, with homes for social rent a priority. In some places, we will extend urban areas and regenerate them so that everyone benefits from better public transport and extra public services. We are building not just homes but communities.

Our first port of call will be brownfield land. Previously used land will be developed first wherever possible and those sites will be fast-tracked, but brownfield development alone will not meet the country’s increasing urgent need. The green belt was designed for England in the middle of the 20th century. It is right to keep that principle but make it relevant for today. That is why we will release lower-quality grey-belt sites, disused car parks and garages, and ugly wasteland to meet the needs of 2024. Our golden rules will require developers to enhance local nature and public access to green spaces and provide the local services for communities’ everyday needs, such as schools and GP surgeries.

We will also reverse the damaging changes that the previous Government made last December. While they backtracked in the face of vested interests and scrapped mandatory housing targets, Labour will govern in the national interest and take the tough choices to get Britain building. We will do so under an updated national planning policy framework, which we will have by the end of this month, because the current system just is not working, either for housing at a local level or for projects at a national level. These are projects such as data centres, labs and research sites, which should unleash a modern economy, not to mention large-scale projects that help improve the environment.

Onshore wind is the cheapest form of electricity going, but planning policy has effectively banned it for nearly a decade. We are starting it up again, and we will go further. As part of our plan for cheaper household bills and achieving net zero, we are taking the brakes off the planning system. In the first three months of this year, just a fifth of major applications were determined within the 13-week period. As for nationally significant infrastructure, the average time for consent is now more than four years, compared to two and a half years as recently as 2021.

Our Bill will speed up and streamline the process from start to finish. It will modernise planning committees and increase the capacity of our local planning authorities. By reforming compulsory purchase, it will support land assembly for development in the public interest. We will unblock new grid connections, roads, railways and reservoirs—game-changing reforms for national renewal.

The leaders of our communities are best placed to take forward that mission, and I was delighted to invite our mayors to Downing Street with the Prime Minister, days into a Labour Government. They represent our biggest cities and our most beautiful countryside, and I know only too well the diverse challenges that our people need to overcome. There are now so many Labour mayors that I have lost count of how many we have. I also noted the positive words from Ben Houchen about the constructive engagement that local leaders have already experienced under this new Government. Along with their local citizens, we will give them a bigger say on how to transform their neighbourhoods and high streets. We will hand them the powers to transform their regions, so that they become the best places for people to live, work and enjoy.

We are under no illusion about the hard yards needed to repair the economic and social damage that the last Government left behind. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said, we have the worst inheritance since the second world war. Back then, it was Labour that rebuilt Britain from the rubble of war, creating the NHS, the welfare state and council homes for our returning heroes. It will be a Labour Government who now rebuild Britain once again.

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Several hon. Members rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. Because we are trying to get in as many Members as possible, I shall have to impose a seven-minute time limit on all Back-Bench speakers. I urge maiden speakers, who will not have a formal time limit imposed on them, to stick to that sort of limit. Obviously, the time limit will not apply to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, but I know that she will try to be brief.

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[Helen Morgan]

I do not know the details of that individual case, but we need to ensure that planning departments are properly funded so that the decisions made by planning officers are appropriate. Without knowing the details, I do now know whether it is a good development or a poor one, but those departments need to be empowered to make decisions correctly.

Some proposals for development are inappropriate and some are downright dangerous—we mentioned the building of houses on floodplains earlier. The only insurer to re-insure houses on floodplains is due to close its operations in 15 years’ time. We cannot build houses on floodplains. It will not be possible for them to be insured or sold; homeowners will be trapped.

We should also not be building housing developments without additional schools or GP surgeries. Most importantly, we should not be building housing developments where the developers do not prepare the roads and green spaces to an acceptable standard and do not allow them to be adopted by the local authority, but set up a shared management company and leave the homeowners fleeced for the rest of their home ownership experience. I encourage the Deputy Prime Minister to consider that in the forthcoming legislation.

Good councillors approve planning for good developments. That is why, on the days when the Conservatives are not accusing us of being nimbys, they are telling people that we are going to concrete over their countryside.

Planning is not just about housing. We have many demands on our countryside: housing, renewable energy, nature restoration and, importantly, the growing of food. We need to simplify planning so that all those things can happen. Housing, renewable energy and job creation are incredibly important, but I urge the Government to ensure that when they go ahead, it is not at the expense of food production. The Liberal Democrats have called for the development of a land use strategy so that these important and competing demands can be balanced, and so that we use land in the optimal way, protecting the highest grade arable land for food production and putting the infrastructure of renewable energy and housing in less prime places. I therefore hope that the Government will consider a land use strategy as part of their planning reform.

That brings me to another important area of the countryside: our waterways and our beaches. It is a scandal that raw sewage has been allowed to be dumped into our rivers and on to our beaches, while water company executives have taken home huge bonuses and their—often overseas—shareholders have taken huge dividends. The Liberal Democrats are proud to have led the campaign to end the sewage crisis. We welcome the water (special measures) Bill and will be watching closely to ensure that the water regulator is given the powers it needs to finally end this sewage outrage.

I will move on to rural affairs. There was no mention in the King’s Speech of rural communities or priorities for the countryside, which I hope means that the new Government will be ensuring that every policy is rural-proofed and that the demands of delivering public services in rural areas, where the population is spread over a large area, are being considered.

I also want to mention the English devolution bill. The Liberal Democrats are the proud voices of local communities and community-led politics, and we absolutely welcome steps to devolve power away from Westminster, but I ask the Secretary of State to confirm what that will look like for those councils without a devo deal, a metro mayor or a combined authority mayor. It is important that all local councils have the powers and funding to deliver for their communities. That funding must reflect the cost of delivering services in rural areas. Rural councils have been taken for granted for far too long. We need to ensure that people who live in rural areas, who also see increases in their council tax, are getting the public services that they deserve.

Rurality affects the delivery of all types of services, but I want to touch on just a few key areas. Health is an important issue in my North Shropshire constituency, where we have seen huge problems with GP and dentistry access and a crisis in our A&E service. While I welcome the Government’s plans to tackle the crisis in mental health service provision, which is also a big problem in rural areas, we really want to see rural-focused policy to deal with the recruitment crisis in rural areas and the cost of delivering health services over large distances, and to ensure that people who live a long way from a hospital or diagnostic centre can travel to it more easily.

That brings me to public transport, which is quite problematic in Shropshire. We have lost 63% of our bus miles since 2015, which makes it difficult for anybody to access work opportunities, social opportunities, educational opportunities and, indeed, health services. I am really pleased that the Government will allow local authorities to franchise their own bus services—the Liberal Democrats have long called for that—but I would like to see the detail of how that will work and how we will get the funding to kick-start those routes and get labour moving properly around our countryside.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. Can the hon. Lady bring her remarks to a close, please?

[Helen Morgan]

Of course.

I was briefly going to mention mobile signal, but I will rush over that because I have talked about it a reasonable amount in the House. I want to talk about farming and the rural economy, because that is the backbone of our economy and food production is extremely important. Farmers have faced a crisis over the last few years, with the botched introduction of the environmental land management scheme, the input costs they face and the fact that vast tracts of farmland are underwater and have been for the last 18 months. I must encourage the Government to look at trade deals to ensure that farmers are working on a level playing field, and to ensure that the sustainable farming incentive deals with the consistent problem of flooding following prolonged rainfall, given how our farmers are storing an enormous amount of water upstream.

I will draw my remarks to a close because I am keen to hear the maiden speeches of all these new Members, who I welcome to this place. To reinforce the points I have made, community-led planning is so important, and we would love to see a land use strategy. We need to ensure that the cost of delivering public services in rural areas is properly considered and funded, and the infrastructure needs to be there. Finally, please do not forget about food security, which is so important to national renewal.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I call Sam Rushworth to make his maiden speech.

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[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on his maiden speech. We are all much more knowledgeable about his constituency now than we were a few minutes ago, so well done for that.

I acknowledge that the planning system is in need of reform. We cannot have a process that takes months—in many cases, years—for major projects, crucial to economic growth and associated jobs, to grind through an endless system. In my constituency, most such projects are located in an area that is, and has been for many years, mainly industrial. Although we should not trample on local opinion, we have to get those projects through the system more quickly than we do at the moment.

The Gracious Speech included this:

“My Government believes that greater devolution of decision making is at the heart of a modern dynamic economy and is a key driver of economic growth and my Ministers will introduce an English Devolution Bill. Legislation will be introduced to give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities. This will support local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities.”—[Official Report, 17 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 39.]

Of course we need to increase the supply of housing, but how do Ministers square devolving decision making with strengthening central direction of the planning process and tying the hands of planning authorities? The Labour manifesto said that the Government would

“make full use of intervention powers”.

That does not sound like good news for local democracy.

Experience from my constituency shows that local communities will, in most cases, accept more housing developments, but they make the justifiable complaint that recent developments in all parts of my constituency, from Humberston, through New Waltham, Waltham, Scartho, Laceby, Wootton and Barton, to name just a few, mean that the already stretched highway infrastructure and public services, such as school places, GPs and the like, are now stretched beyond what is acceptable. What assurances can Ministers give that they will ensure new build will run in parallel to the provision of infrastructure and public services?

Another aspect of the planning process that angers people is that many appeals are determined by planning inspectors who frequently overrule council decisions that have been made after careful consideration of local circumstances. In some cases, such decisions have even overturned the local plan. That is not acceptable. Local plans go through various stages of consultation, including public hearings, all of which passes by the overwhelming majority of the public, until an application is lodged that could change the whole character of the neighbourhood. Clearly, the process needs to be reviewed, as I have previously argued, including in a ten-minute rule Bill I introduced some years ago.

If devolution and local decision making is to mean anything, planning issues should be determined at a local level, wherever possible. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned that there are current Ministers who lodged objections to planning applications for developments in their own areas. That went under the radar to some extent while they were in opposition, but now there is no hiding place for them. Every Labour Member who votes for proposed planning changes to some village or some part of the town will have to justify not supporting their constituents when they are up in arms about the application.

As someone who spent their childhood and early adulthood in a council house on a Grimsby estate, I have always supported the ability of local authorities to build council houses where that is appropriate. The ones that I lived in were built in the early 1950s when a Conservative Government were in power. They were of high quality and have stood the test of time. Sadly, that is not the case for much of the social housing that is imposed on new developments. I certainly would support the Government if they had a programme to encourage and support councils in house building, but I would be interested to know how they would finance it.

One proposal that is causing considerable concern, not just in my Brigg and Immingham constituency, but in many other constituencies along the east coast of Lincolnshire and through into East Anglia, is the National Grid upgrade on the Grimsby to Walpole route. These proposals could result in a network of 50-metre-high pylons running through some of the country’s most beautiful countryside, including impacting on the Lincolnshire Wolds area of outstanding natural beauty. I secured the final Adjournment debate on this matter before the election and the then Minister said that he was minded to order a review of the scheme. I urge the Government to honour that commitment and follow through with that review.

Finally, let me return to devolution and the policy to create more combined authorities. The proposals for the Greater Lincolnshire Authority have already passed through all stages of consultation, and a statutory instrument has been prepared, but, unfortunately, the election intervened. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that this is an opportunity for an early win in her wish to create combined authorities. If she were to put forward that SI, I think most of the Lincolnshire MPs would give her some support.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I call Dr Scott Arthur for his maiden speech.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I agree. That is why we are increasing fourfold the number of inspections, so that water companies are not marking their own homework. It is why we have the plan for water, introduced by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), and significant additional investment. It is why we are taking tougher enforcement action, with the biggest ever criminal prosecution of water firms by the Environment Agency. It is also why we are taking action on things such as bonuses for companies that commit serious wrongdoing.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to support farmers.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

5. What steps he is taking to support rural farmers.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)]

Food security is more important than ever, which is why we need to back British farmers to keep putting food on our tables, while protecting the environment. We are supporting farming with £2.4 billion of annual spending, an average boost of 10% for the sustainable farming incentive payment scheme, and new rules to ensure that farmers get a fair price for their products.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Obviously farmers in low-lying areas of Lincolnshire are suffering from flooding, so any update on the support that they can be given would be very helpful. I have a specific question for the Secretary of State: will the Government update us on when they will announce the long-term funding solution that they promised for internal drainage boards, to address the pressure on local authorities through special levies?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is right to focus on the importance of drainage boards, particularly in Lincolnshire. He knows that I have a particular constituency interest in the adjacent area. We have announced £65 million of funding, and the Minister for water, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), will make further announcements on that shortly. We are looking more widely at the huge pressure on farming from the wet weather, particularly in areas such as Lincolnshire. There has been a 60% increase in rainfall—these have been our second wettest six months—and we are looking at a series of easements, particularly with regard to SFI, to ensure that farmers get their payments.

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[Mr Speaker]

We will try Lincolnshire: I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T2. In response to my earlier question, the Secretary of State said that food security was of urgent national concern. Has any Agriculture Minister ever met a farmer who has denied that 3b land is just as good for growing arable crops as 3a land?

Pet Abduction Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth]

It is unbelievable, isn’t it? Incredibly, two of the cats later reappeared in Leigh-on-Sea.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I support the Bill, especially in memory of my dear friend David Amess. I am a dog owner, but one thing that slightly worries me is that cats are prone to wander, which is why we love them. Kindly old ladies sometimes see a wandering cat, pick them up and take them home, feeling that they are looking after them. Can my hon. Friend assure me that innocent ladies who pick up cats will not be enmeshed in this law?

[Anna Firth]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making an important point. The two offences are slightly different. The offence of dog abduction will be the taking and detaining of a dog, whereas only the taking, and not the detaining, of a cat will be criminalised, because cats roam. The behaviour of the two animals is different. There is also a defence of reasonable excuse. We do not seek to criminalise the good behaviour and good intentions of old ladies and many other people.

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[Anna Firth]

My hon. Friend raises a very important and interesting point, which we could discuss because there are already obligations on the statute book, as he knows. I will come on to deal with some of the points he has raised.

I want to turn next to the purposes of the Bill. The golden thread running through this Bill is that dogs and cats are sentient beings. They are not mere property; animals and humans can and do form emotional bonds and there is a devastating impact when animal abduction takes place, both on people and on pets. That needs to be properly reflected in our criminal law.

Hon. Members will know that the theft of a cat or dog is already a crime under the Theft Act 1968 and the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, but under those Acts the sentience and intrinsic value of animals is not recognised. So currently, in sentencing, a stolen rescue labrador is treated as no different from a stolen power tool, mobile phone, or computer—indeed, the theft of a labrador is probably treated as lesser since computers and smartphones are often of high value and considerations of financial value run through the Theft Act.

Pets are of course not mere property; we have heard many examples of that already in this debate. This Bill will create two specific offences of cat abduction and dog abduction in England and Northern Ireland. So if a pet is abducted, that will not be treated in the same way as the theft of a watch or a mobile phone or a power tool, all of which can easily be replaced. They might be worth a lot of money and replacing them might be inconvenient, but the item itself is not affected by the crime, whereas a pet is. The Bill recognises that pets are family, not property, and the trauma suffered by both the owner and the pet when the pet is abducted is very significant, and it is the intention of the Bill to allow the courts to consider this impact on both the owner and the welfare of the animal when deciding on the penalty.

The second issue the Bill addresses is that pet theft and abduction do not currently have a unique identifier in crime datasets. That is why it is so difficult to identify the number of pets stolen every year: it is impossible to distinguish in many police records between the theft of an inanimate object and the theft of an animal. Of course, some dogs and cats will be taken as part of a burglary or a robbery, so the fact that an animal has been involved will not be mentioned at all in police records.

In preparing for this Second Reading debate I issued freedom of information requests to all 45 territorial police forces in the UK asking for the number of pets stolen each year since 2019. The responses I received perfectly articulate the problem we face. As of this morning I had received responses from 30 of the police forces, but 12 of those 30 told me that they are unable to provide the information requested as their records do not distinguish theft of pets from general theft of objects. That means that I have only been able to compile for myself information on the covered areas, making up around 29% of the population of the UK. By introducing this unique identifier, we will help the recording of the crime and see the true extent of it.

The offences themselves will cover the taking of a cat or a dog, but also the detaining of a dog. Cats and dogs are the most commonly kept pets in our country. It is now estimated that over a quarter of all adults own one or both of those pets, so dogs and cats seemed the appropriate place to start, but the species are different, and are treated differently in the Bill. The detaining offence, which we have already talked about, does not apply to cats, as they generally have more freedom to roam without their owners. The Bill is not intended to punish incidents where there has been no malice or ill intent in looking after a cat that has voluntarily come to another person’s home. Many of us will have read the children’s book “Six Dinner Sid”, in which Sid the cat has his dinner at six different houses on the same street.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

This is a really important point. I am thinking of my wife’s grandmother, who in our family was known as Granny Meow, because she had 14 cats. None of those cats had arrived in her home—she had gone out and picked them up, because she thought they were strays. She was a completely innocent old lady; there was no question of her stealing anything. I just want to be absolutely sure that Policeman Plod cannot knock on her door and take her to court, or could not have knocked on her door—she is long since dead, of course. I want to be absolutely assured of that, because it is important that people have that reassurance.

[Anna Firth]

I can absolutely assure my right hon. Friend that it is specifically stated in the Bill that it is a defence that a person is picking up stray animals, or is involving themselves with someone else’s animal for good, honourable and noble reasons.

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[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who spoke with passion about her devoted pet. Her story will be repeated millions of times across our country, bearing in mind our reputation—I think, in the main, our justly held reputation—as a nation of animal lovers. I will come on to some of the exceptions that we all know about in a moment.

If it is true that pets take on the characteristics of the people who look after them, then in the case of the cat who lives in my house—I put it that way rather than saying “my cat”—I would say that her propensity to be demanding and voluble may well bear some similarities to me. I leave it for the House to draw its own conclusions. Our cat is, of course, a Cats Protection cat. She is the second cat we have had in our family, both from Cats Protection, and I pay tribute to that wonderful organisation. We need never buy a cat in this country: there are tens of thousands of deserving cats who need a home, and charities such as Cats Protection provide a wonderful source of cats that need love and a home.

Our cat is named after Mrs Landingham—devotees of “The West Wing” will know that she was a great character, the President’s secretary in the first two seasons of that wonderful drama—and she has been with us now for several years. As I say, the relationship between cats and their families can be a complex one, and ours is no exception, but she is well loved, particularly by my daughter, who really enjoys her company. That is another story to add to the millions of others for whom the prospect of losing their pet would be one of real trauma—and we know the cases of trauma that exist.

Back in 2021, when I was in office as Justice Secretary, together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who was then the Home Secretary, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who was then the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we set up the pet theft taskforce. The taskforce consisted of not just officials from our three respective Departments but two police and crime commissioners—Katy Bourne, the Sussex PCC, and Chris Nelson, the Gloucestershire PCC—along with police leads and representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service and animal welfare groups.

We took evidence from a wealth of organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Dogs Trust and the Kennel Club, and indeed the Sentencing Council, bearing in mind the need to consider the interrelationship between any sentencing regime and sentencing for existing offences. It had been put very strongly at the time that we had the law of theft to cover the taking of animals and pets, and quite rightly, many lawyers said, “Well, what on earth are we doing? We don’t need another law and another layer of complexity for prosecutors and police to consider.”

However, it became abundantly clear that the treatment of animals as chattels, goods or property just does not meet the way in which society regards our pets. They are sentient beings—sentient creatures. They are much more than mere property, and therefore the definitions in the Theft Act start to become strained to breaking point. More than that, the Theft Act requires a test of dishonesty, defining theft as the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it. Those elements all have to be proved in order to prove theft. It is not just dishonesty, but an intention to permanently deprive. Herein comes the obvious line that many perpetrators would deploy, which is, “I was not intending to take this animal. I was taking it in for its welfare, and I was not going to permanently keep it.”

You can already see, Mr Deputy Speaker, some of the evidential challenges that might present themselves in proving the offence of theft, which is why the analogy with abduction seemed to me to be much more sensible. The law of child abduction has been part of our law for many decades and was last revised in the Child Abduction Act 1984. Those of us who are criminal practitioners—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) in the Chamber—will be familiar with it. No doubt he has done cases involving child abduction, and I certainly have. It is nothing to do with dishonesty, and nothing to do with the dishonest state of mind of a person. It is all about the taking of a child from a family situation, sometimes out of the country. The consent of the child, when the child is under a certain age, is immaterial.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am getting a bit confused now. The whole point about the Theft Act is that intent has to be proved—mens rea. What happens when somebody takes a cat or a dog—this is precisely the point that my right hon. and learned Friend was making—and says, “I thought he was a stray so I was doing it for his welfare”? We are not going to have a great court case about the state of mind of that person, are we?

Storm Henk

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

It was harrowing to see that tornado in Tameside over the winter, and many of us were shocked as to the impact and stark devastation that it caused. It is important that the Government are working with devolved Administrations and local authorities. I will do exactly that across Government as well, working with my colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that we are delivering for those one-off events rather than just for frequent occurrences such as flooding.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for visiting Short Ferry in my constituency, which has flooded several times. In conversations that I have had with farmers there in recent years, they have constantly said the same thing. They are fed up with the Environment Agency in recent decades not doing its job in clearing out the dykes so that the water can escape; it seems to be prioritising the preservation of wildlife and habitat rather than getting the dykes cleared. That is what they say, and they want proper compensation for flood plains as well. There is a National Farmers Union report on that, and I am confident that the Minister will work with the NFU to get it done right.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for contacting me over the Christmas period to raise his concerns, not only about the farm at Short Ferry. It was good to meet his constituent Henry Ward at the weekend to see the EA asset and the implications of the water flooding his farm. I also saw on that visit how the vegetation in the River Witham and the delphs, which sit alongside it, needs attention. As my right hon. Friend will know, I am minded to look at options including dredging and removing vegetation in EA assets to ensure that we deliver a system that moves water further down the system more efficiently, which better protects our farming community. I have seen the report from the NFU and look forward to working with my right hon. Friend, his Lincolnshire colleagues and the NFU to try to get to some conclusion on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to manage waterways to help reduce the risk of flooding.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)]

The Government are investing £5.2 billion in flood protection between 2021 and 2027. This builds on the previous six-year investment of £2.6 billion, showing the increased investment that the Government are making in flood protection.

Food Security and Farming

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for securing this debate. On food security and farming, Strangford is an important constituency for beef and dairy farming. They are prominent exports and a major part of our economy. We all want to go forward together, as the Minister understands and knows very well. But one of the changes that we are experiencing in Northern Ireland—I say this respectfully to the right hon. Lady and the Minister—is that, as DUP colleagues have stated before, exports face a delicate issue when it comes to the small print of the Windsor framework, which disadvantages my beef and dairy farmers. Does the right hon. Lady agree that we must move forward together?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we have a short intervention? It is only a half-hour debate, Jim.

[Wendy Morton]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is important that we continue to look closely at regulation and some of the bureaucracy around food production and farming, and ensure that the journey from farm to fork, and from one market to another, is as smooth as possible.

The production-to-supply ratio of food in the UK has been declining since it peaked in the mid-1990s. For me, the question is not so much why, although that is important, but what we are doing about it and what more can be done. We can start by recognising the dual role that farmers play as both food producers and custodians of the countryside. I am a farmer’s daughter, so I have a bit of experience in this, although it is a few years since my dad gave up farming. We need to get that important balance right, because farming must be viable and economically sustainable, as well as environmentally sustainable.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady is being very generous, and I thank her for bringing an important debate to this House. Like me, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has demonstrated that, while the official Opposition may not be here, the unofficial one is deeply concerned about the future of farming across our great family of nations. In Westmorland, and indeed across the rest of England, 100% of farmers will lose more than a third of their basic payment by the end of this year. Less than 10% are in the sustainable farming incentive so far, so there is a real gap in farm incomes. I can tell the right hon. Lady, just from my own experience of talking to farmers in Westmorland last week, that that is forcing some farmers out of business and some to intensify farming. Would it be wise to address that, so that we can continue food production?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. This is only a half-hour debate. It is not normal to have many interventions in this sort of debate. The Back Bencher produces his or her argument and the Minister replies.

[Wendy Morton]

Thank you, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he makes a crucial point. Farmers in my constituency have highlighted to me the challenge they face in getting the balance and the mix right. For me, it comes down to how we keep farming sustainable while producing the food we need and looking after our environment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s desire to know the cause of that terrible disaster. The scientists have looked at this, done a report and come to the conclusion that it was probably a pathogen that is very difficult to detect. Unless there is another event, which I sincerely hope there is not, we may never know the cause of this event.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to help strengthen long-term global food security.

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

The Government are supporting Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, to export grain to countries most in need, including contributing £5 million to President Zelensky’s Grain from Ukraine initiative. The Government are also focused on the long-term drivers of global food insecurity, including climate change and biodiversity loss. We are supporting international programmes to improve the sustainability and resilience of global food systems.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The best form of food security is to grow more of our own food. Lincolnshire is the breadbasket of England, so it makes no sense that there are planning proposals to cover 10,000 acres of my constituency of Gainsborough with solar panels. We are all in favour of solar panels, but there are millions of acres of flat warehouse roofs they could go on. Will the Minister change the planning guidelines so that there is a presumption against building solar panels on 3b as well as 3a land? In reality, there is no difference in growing good wheat and barley between 3a and 3b land.

[Mark Spencer]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is responsible for planning. The best and most versatile land is defined as land in grades 1, 2 and 3a of the agricultural land classification, and the national planning policy framework sets out that local planning authorities should consider all the benefits of the best and most versatile land when making plans and decisions on development proposals. Where significant development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, they should seek to use poorer-quality land in preference to higher-quality land.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, and I really appreciate his interest in these matters. As I have said, the Church Commissioners are increasing the funding to the frontline by 30% over the next three years —£1.2 billion—and it needs to go on exactly the type of initiative that he suggests.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

3. What role the Church of England will have in the coronation of King Charles III.

[Andrew Selous]

A service of holy communion will be at the heart of the coronation. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl Marshal and the coronation committee are planning the service, which will be a moment of great national rejoicing and deep spiritual significance.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am glad my hon. Friend has emphasised that point. By immemorial custom, the coronation is a deeply religious and spiritual event. Will he convince us that the Church of England will use its influence to ensure that it remains as such, particularly the anointing, and does not degenerate into a kind of dumbed down, wokefest celebration of so-called modern Britain?

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman; although CF Fertilisers has chosen to consolidate its UK operations into Billingham, the Ince plant remains viable and the best commercial exit from that plant for CF Fertilisers would be to progress an offer based on selling it as a going concern. There are many skilled people in his constituency who have been working at that plant, and the best outcome for all concerned would be for it to be sold as a going concern.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has just mentioned that we lack total self-sufficiency in wheat production. Presumably, given the skyrocketing prices in the wheat market because of what is happening in Ukraine, the Government food strategy is more about producing more of our own wheat. I do not ask him to comment on a particular planning application, but what does he think of an application to build a solar farm covering 7,000 acres of good agricultural land in my constituency? I am not asking him to comment on that proposal around Gainsborough, but will he consult his colleagues to ensure that we maximise food production on our farmland?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. Some years ago, we changed the planning guidance from the chief planning officer in the then Department for Communities and Local Government to make it clear that there should be a powerful presumption against the construction of field-scale solar on the best and more versatile agricultural land—that is defined as grade 3b land and above. I am aware that there are concerns that in some parts of the country that advice is no longer holding and applications are being approved, and we are discussing that across Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

5. What steps the sponsor body plans to take to ensure that historically significant stonework is protected throughout restoration works to the Palace of Westminster.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)]

Following decisions by the House Commissions in February, the sponsor body paused its work on producing a business case for the restoration and renewal programme. The two Commissions have now proposed a new approach for how the programme should be governed and delivered. The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that the Commissions recommend that a priority area for the work should be

“Conservation of the building fabric including stonework.”

It is intended that the new proposals will be put to Members of both Houses for debate and decision before the summer recess.

[Margaret Ferrier]

I recently took a restoration and renewal Palace tour and saw historically significant artwork painted directly on to the stone in parts of the building that are at risk of flooding. How it can be ensured that that artwork is not lost for future generations to enjoy and that it is properly protected during restoration works?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is an extremely good question. As I sit on the sponsor board, I can say that that is an absolute priority for everybody working for the delivery authority. A huge amount of work has already been done in listing and understanding every part of the fabric and every piece of artwork; the hon. Lady can rest assured that, once the works commence, every effort will be made to remove those artworks so that they are not in any way damaged.

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

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

No, that is not a good enough answer. We support the strengthening of that Act and I hope that the Environment Secretary will too. Forestry England has just announced a ban on hunts using its land in response to the exposé. Should not other landowners now follow this lead and ban trail hunters from their land as well?

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

No!

[Mr Speaker]

Sorry, is someone shouting at the back? Sir Edward, silence a little more—come on.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I apologise, Mr Speaker.

[George Eustice]

The Government believe that the Hunting Act is sufficient. Where there are breaches, it should be enforced. It is for individual landowners to choose, as they always have done, whether they would like hunts on their land.

--- Later in debate ---

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

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What representations the Church of England has made to the Government on the importance of public worship during periods of covid-19 lockdown.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

Both archbishops joined other faith leaders earlier this month in writing to the Prime Minister to highlight the importance of public worship. The worship of Jesus is the spiritual fuel that keeps the engine of the Church running.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Over the past 1,000 years, we have had a fair proportion of saints and sinners as Archbishop of Canterbury, but one thing that we demand of our established Church is that it provides robust leadership against arbitrary government. I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed that 90 colleagues and I wrote to the Prime Minister on the subject of the closure of churches, but can he assure me, as a voice of the established Church in this place, that if there is any future proposal to prevent public worship, the Church of England will demand evidence—there has never been a shred of evidence—and we will try to save this very important part of public life?

[Andrew Selous]

I not only noted my right hon. Friend’s letter, but was one of the signatories to it. Like him, I know that clergy have worked extraordinarily hard to provide covid-secure services. I felt safer in church than in any other public space I have been in during the pandemic. My right hon. Friend makes a very valid point. I have registered that point very strongly, and I will absolutely feed it through to the leadership of the Church of England.