Oral Answers to Questions
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Daniel Zeichner
What I would say is that I have had more meetings with Tom Bradshaw over the past few weeks than I have had for a long, long time, for reasons that are entirely obvious. I was grateful to him for congratulating the Government on getting a very good financial settlement for farmers when he addressed the egg and poultry industry conference on Monday in Newport, Wales. I was grateful that he recognised that.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
I point the hon. Lady to the extraordinary transformation that is under way, with the huge amount of extra money going into the sustainable farm incentive and our environmental land management schemes this year. It is the biggest transformation on record.
Ellie Chowns
I recognise the very welcome shift towards nature-friendly farming, which offers environmental, social and economic benefits—not just nature protection, but good healthy food and good jobs—yet the farmer-led Nature Friendly Farming Network argues that the agriculture budget needs to be more than doubled to £6 billion a year. Will the Minister press his Treasury colleagues to put more money into nature-friendly farming to secure a sustainable future for UK farming?
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for the transition that we are undertaking. In fact, I was speaking to Martin Lines from the Nature Friendly Farming Network only yesterday evening. He and many of his colleagues are delighted with the transition that we are making, but, as ever, the Greens’ grasp of economics is limited.
Mental Health: Farming and Agricultural Communities
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Aphra Brandreth
I appreciate the hon. Member’s comments, and I am sorry to hear about the tragic instances in his constituency. We very much need to be collaborative to improve things for the farming community.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. Will she join me in paying tribute to farmer-initiated and farmer-led organisations, such as We are Farming Minds in my constituency? They do such important work to support their colleagues in the farming sector and to tackle mental health challenges head-on.
Aphra Brandreth
I am grateful to the hon. Member for mentioning those excellent organisations; I will note others later in my speech.
For all those reasons, this debate and the actions and commitments from the Minister are important. Women are an often overlooked group when we talk about rural mental health, particularly young women. There are inspiring examples of women who run farms and contribute a great deal to the agricultural sector. Of course, women are almost always involved in a farming operation, even if they are not always hands-on in the yard or fields.
Independent Water Commission
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Steve Reed
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the previous Government deliberately weakened the regulators. They kept regulation too weak to hold the water companies to account and to ensure that we got the investment which could have maintained a better standard of infrastructure and stopped the level of pollution that his and everyone else’s constituents have had to face. We have already taken steps through the Water (Special Measures) Bill to give the regulator more teeth. The commission will be looking root and branch at the role of regulation, governance and the regulator, to ensure we have a system that is fit for the future that will guarantee clean water for decades to come.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
If I heard correctly, at the start of his statement the Secretary of State referred to the River Lugg, which runs through the centre of my constituency. Its catchment has been subject to a planning moratorium for more than five years, because of excess levels of phosphates in the river. The Secretary of State will be well aware that the reason for that is not primarily sewage pollution, but agricultural run-off; more than two thirds of the pollution is from agricultural run-off and only a quarter from sewage. However, the terms of reference for the Government’s water commission essentially make no mention of agriculture, with only a passing reference and nothing specific about addressing that problem; likewise the Water (Special Measures) Bill. With such a narrow approach to addressing water pollution, the Secretary of State will not be able to achieve his aim of cleaning up our rivers and seas. Does he agree that the terms of reference need to be changed to incorporate full attention on agricultural pollution as well as sewage?
Steve Reed
I hope the hon. Lady will look at the terms of reference, which are available at gov.uk. They focus on the whole catchment area of rivers and include agricultural run-off, which accounts for 45% of water pollution. Where there is an interface between agriculture and polluted water, that is indeed in scope for the work of the commission.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ellie Chowns Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The Solicitor General (Sarah Sackman)
It is a privilege to be appointed as His Majesty’s Solicitor General. My fellow Law Officers and I will be working to restore public faith in government and the rule of law, and to support the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor in delivering our safer streets mission.
Sentencing policy is quintessentially a matter for the Ministry of Justice; sentencing is a matter for our judges. Offenders already have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal against their sentences, including when they consider them to be unduly excessive.
Ellie Chowns
Since 4 July, more than 40 people have been jailed in the UK for peaceful acts of conscience: some for protesting climate breakdown, some for taking measures to stop violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. The UN special rapporteur, Michel Forst, has made public statements to the effect that these sentences violate international law and are not acceptable in a democracy. With our prisons in crisis and radical measures necessary, as we have seen with the release of prisoners this week, will the Attorney General issue guidance to judges to ensure that sentencing for peaceful protest is realigned with common sense, democratic principles and international law?
The Solicitor General
Decisions to prosecute, convict and sentence are rightly made independently of Government by the Crown Prosecution Service, juries and judges respectively. As I have already said, if someone wants to appeal an unduly excessive sentence, they can do so and our courts are there to handle that matter.