Dairy Industry

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

It is great to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Roger—I accept your strictures and will try to get in under four minutes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) on securing the debate; obviously, Lancashire leads the way, as per usual, on this issue. In Lancashire, according to figures from the National Farmers Union, we lost 28 dairy farmers last year. That still leaves over 500 firms—mainly family firms—such as the prize-winning Whitlow dairy herd in Preesall. As my hon. Friend pointed out, many of those families’ tenancy or ownership of small-scale farms goes back hundreds of years and they often have 50 to 500 cows.

I shall try not to repeat what others have said, but the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) spoke about scale, and in these debates, we need to point out that this is not some minor rural issue. It is a major British industry. We are the third biggest producer of milk in Europe, and the 10th biggest in the world, with nearly £4.5 billion of product. That is what we need to mention to break down some of the barriers that people who are perhaps not from rural areas have in understanding what we are trying to do.

The recent price volatility is complex. There is almost another cold war, with Russia cutting back on dairy imports. Since 2010, Members have seen this extremely volatile market going up and down, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) pointed out in a very important Select Committee report.

On the slashing of milk prices in supermarkets, rather than focusing on the retail price, perhaps we need to focus on what the supermarkets are paying the milk producers. That is where the issue lies, not in whether supermarkets run a loss leader at the front end. We should not tar all supermarkets with the same brush. I add my praise for Booths supermarkets in the north-west, and Edwin Booth, for maintaining the highest prices paid to producers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley said.

However, there are no quick fixes. We have gone through the general agreement that the EU intervention price is set too low to be helpful, and that needs to be reviewed. We all agree on the Groceries Code Adjudicator. Some farmers still do not see what that means and how it will have an impact on their lives; we need to do something about that, and I am grateful for the Select Committee’s support on that issue.

The labelling pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) is absolutely key. We need to get the labels right, so that people are able to buy what is made and produced in Britain—which actually tastes like cheese, unlike some of the competitors one finds abroad. I want to mention Garstang blue, made near to me at the Dewlay cheese production, just below my constituency.

We need producer organisations, such as Bowland Fresh, which has been mentioned. I understand that Yew Tree Dairy in Skelmersdale has now introduced a milk drying plant, which might help prevent volatility over time. The NFU’s suggestion for a futures market in dairy—again, to smooth out the price—has not been mentioned so far today, and it seems to be a practical way forward. All these bits and pieces have been suggested, but what we want to see from the Minister is those bits and pieces starting to come together in a policy to save a vital part of British agriculture.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Fishing Industry

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I always seem to be the tail-end Charlies in these debates in the House. Like other Members, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) for the advice that he has given to me on the fishing industry. I also wish to thank him, on behalf of many families in Fleetwood, for the work that he and the late Mark Hamer did in fighting for proper compensation. They owe him a great debt of gratitude, and I am glad to have put that on the record.

I will try not to repeat what others have said, but I should like to touch on the matter of quotas. Although I am no expert on fishing, I, like other Members, have found that fishermen tend to be extremely generous with their advice, and I am most grateful to them for that. In particular, I thank Steve Welsh for all his help.

In the 1970s, something like 9,000 people worked in the fishing industry in Fleetwood, 8,000 of whom have now gone. When the Prime Minister renegotiates terms with Europe in the next Conservative Government, he must ensure that there is something on the common fisheries policy. If he does not, we do not need a crystal ball to know how the people in Fleetwood will vote when it comes to a European referendum.

Steve Welsh goes out to sea in one of the three remaining over-10 metre boats. He is concerned about the constant expansion of wind farms in the Irish sea. I encourage people to stand on Fleetwood front, as they will see lovely views of the Lake district, but in the past, they would also have been able to see the Isle of Man. But now between us and the Isle of Man is an array of wind farms. I do not know whether anybody has produced any studies on the impact of those wind farms on marine life. Perhaps the Minister could tell us if he knows of any, because all I have seen are contradictory views. Obviously, the wind farms have reduced our fishing grounds, but they are also posing a threat to both fishermen and ferries.

The other issue raised by Members, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), is that of quotas. I will not repeat what has been said, but let me mention William Bamber, William McGough, John Worthington and Rod Collinson, who are the under-10 metre fishermen in Fleetwood. Their livelihood in winter depends on hauling in the skate and the ray. As Members have so eloquently put it, what happened in October has had a dramatic impact on the few fishermen in Fleetwood.

We have heard about the science behind the quotas, but, like other hon. Members, I really do not understand where the figures come from. Funnily enough, the fishermen say that the skate is plentiful. They say that the measurements have been cut down. We only have their subjective analysis of what is going on and they say that there is no problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) said, rather than having a regional policy towards quotas, we use a one-size-fits-all policy. Will the Minister comment further on that?

Let me give a practical example now. One fisherman arranged a meeting with the Marine Management Organisation. Funnily enough, I had been trying to arrange such a meeting myself, but all I got was its staff asking my staff, “Why does an MP want to meet us?” I will continue to pursue that. The fisherman met the staff. He said, “Why can’t the under-10 metre boats have the logbooks that the other fishermen have?” The MMO said to him, “There’s nothing against you having a log, but we are not giving you one.” He was making a practical suggestion to improve what was going on and was simply turned down by the bureaucrats saying, “Logs are not for the under-10 metre boats, so we can’t give you one.” How crazy is that? Fishermen in our most sustainable fleet—the under-10 metre boats—are offering to help out by providing evidence that the Minister needs when he goes to his meetings. Like other Members, they do not want to see any cut in the quota. They want to challenge the fact that the under-10 metre boats have only 4% of the quota. The fishermen’s livelihood in winter is based around hauling in skate and ray, and at the moment that has gone. Soon there will be nothing left in the docks of Fleetwood.

Let me finish on a far more positive point. I know that this is not in the Minister’s area, but we still have fish processing in Fleetwood. We have 600 jobs in 29 companies in Fleetwood scattered around the docks. Some are based in 19th-century buildings. Tonnes of shellfish and fish come into Fleetwood nightly by truck, and are dealt with by our workers. It is a credit to them that their skills are still used to support a work force of 600.

There is one company that is trying to expand, but it is being held back by its premises, which are old-fashioned and do not meet the standards on which supermarkets insist for fish processing. An application has gone in to the Minister with responsibility for regional growth funds. I know that it is not the Minister’s area, but I assume that with this holy grail that we all want of Government singing from the same hymn sheet, he might be willing to have a word with the Department for Communities and Local Government about this application to build a centralised fish park in Fleetwood.

We want a modern building to house and sustain all the existing businesses, with a potential to increase employment by 25%. That bid is currently with the regional growth fund, and I am asking the Minister for his support. It has the support of Wyre district council, the county council, the Member of Parliament and all the businesses that flourish around fish processing in Fleetwood. It would be the new Billingsgate for the north, and possibly a great tourist attraction, as it would be displaying the traditional skills from which Fleetwood has benefited. Those skills have enabled the area to survive the depredations to the sea-going fleet. Such a development would put Fleetwood back on the map as a major centre of the fish industry.

Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I will try to keep to five minutes, Mr Bone, to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on this timely, important debate.

I shall talk about a constituency issue in the parishes of Pilling, Thurnham and Winmarleigh, two of which are quite low-lying. The Minister is well aware of Thurnham, where we have had huge arguments with the Environment Agency, which continue, about its failure to commit to protect the sea defences beyond 30 years. The Minister will be relieved that I do not want to talk about that today.

Last winter, many of the fields of Winmarleigh, which is 2 or 3 miles inland, were covered by water, because the dykes and ditches had not been maintained regularly enough by the Environment Agency. For the last four years, I have had meeting after meeting with parishes, farmers and the Environment Agency. I was also trying, occasionally and now more regularly, to get Natural England at the same meetings, so we can get decisions. We even got to a situation a few months ago where Natural England and the Environment Agency agreed that some local farmers could remove weed from those ditches, although they could not dredge those themselves. The argument was about dredging, but of course when it got to the point we could not get official permission to do that. There was also the problem for farmers of who pays for what and the problem of liability insurance, so we are back to the same issue. Many dykes are higher than the neighbouring land, because once upon a time Pilling and Thurnham were undersea and they need the protection of sea defences.

The other week, at a meeting of Pilling parish council, the measurements on the two rivers concerned—the Broad Fleet and the River Cocker—were discussed. Measurements on the Broad Fleet had reached 1.6 metres, with 1.7 metres being flood-imminent or flood-liable. We have had the highest markings. The farmers’ argument is that that is happening because the ditches had not been dredged. However, more importantly, the Broad Fleet and the River Cocker, which all the dykes drain into, go out to sea and apparently that makes that situation the responsibility of the Marine Management Organisation. Those channels, which go into the Irish sea as part of Morecambe bay, have not been dredged for years. Anyone who knows the tidal range there will know that it is massive. Silt has built up and the tides have not cleared it, so even if we get some agreement with the Environment Agency regularly to clean out the land-based dykes, we will be trying to shove the water uphill through the channels beyond the sea wall, because nobody will take on the responsibility of going out there. I contacted the Marine Management Organisation and was asked why, as a Member of Parliament, I was contacting it, because apparently I should have contacted the Environment Agency.

I have got to the point of writing this week to the Secretary of State, saying, “If I get floods in Pilling and Thurnham this winter, then I know where the responsibility is.” The question is exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) put it: who has the responsibility, out of all these organisations, to come down to Pilling and Thurnham, look at those channels and say, “We need to dredge them; otherwise, hundreds of farms, and hundreds of residents—and caravan parks—will be under water”? That is the problem.

Pilling parish council has appointed an emergency committee, together with representatives from Winmarleigh and Thurnham, to meet weekly to try to deal with the land-based dykes, but the problem is out in the tidal range. I am trying to arrange a meeting, finally, with a strategy team at the Environment Agency and the Marine Management Organisation—hopefully that will happen—but at the end of the day I am still lost and hope that the Minister will answer my question. Who takes the responsibility, above all those organisations, to clear out the channels of the Broad Fleet and the River Cocker which go out into the Irish sea?

Animal Slaughter (Religious Methods)

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

There is a balance to be struck. New Zealand exports a lot of meat to the middle east. It still does partial stunning, and the Muslim community seems largely to accept that. Work can therefore be done on the issue. There is also an argument that stunning in the slaughterhouses makes things easier and safer for the slaughtermen. There are therefore issues about the welfare not only of the animals, but of those doing the slaughtering.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I add my congratulations on the way my hon. Friend chaired the work on this fairly balanced report. One of the issues that we did not get to the bottom of, certainly in the meetings I attended, was the sheer scale of mis-stunning. That was raised by Shechita UK. Nowhere did there seem to be any particular figures on how much mis-stunning there is.

[Neil Parish]

Yes. I am hoping that in a moment the Minister with responsibility for farming will give us more figures. I think we should have closed circuit television cameras in all slaughterhouses, whether they are using shechita or halal methods, or stun systems for the general meat trade. I think that the amount of mis-stunning is sometimes exaggerated. On the other hand, mis-stunning of animals should not happen. It is very bad animal welfare, and we need to stamp it out. We need to be certain how big the problem is. If the system of stunning in a slaughterhouse is not correct, it should be replaced. I have no time for mis-stunning.

Grimsby Seafood Manufacturers

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) on securing this debate. I want to balance his Yorkshire passion with the Lancashire side of things, and I take this opportunity, as this is his last year in Parliament, to thank him on behalf of the fishermen of Fleetwood for all the work he did in the past. He still has a great name in Fleetwood for standing up for fishermen across the country, alongside the late Mark Hamer, from Fleetwood. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Again, he hits the nail on the head. Fleetwood is very similar to Grimsby now, because although the fishing industry is almost gone—there are just three boats that fish—a large fish-processing industry is left behind, with more than 30 separate companies based in old-fashioned accommodation on the dockside, employing more than 600 people in Fleetwood. The majority of fish comes in by truck, as in Grimbsy. Much of it is shellfish and much of it—some 80% to 90%—is exported. That huge industry is able to take on new contracts, but unable to meet the specifications of supermarkets because of the old accommodation and all the health and safety regulations. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s view about the EU would be that expressed on any street in Fleetwood, which has seen the EU’s depredations on its once-great industry. However, we are where we are.

I should like to add to the hon. Gentleman’s appeal to the Minister. We still have huge skills and talents connected to the fish industry, and those are in fish processing. However, companies in Fleetwood are telling me that they are having to turn down orders because they do not have room, or accommodation with the capacity to meet health and safety conditions. With support of the Wyre district council, they want to come together in new buildings and create almost a northern Billingsgate. That would enable them to expand and increase their export markets—they reckon they could take on another 150 to 600 employees to meet that market—and create a centre for tourism, because the site would be open, like the new Billingsgate in London. Everything is there. The land is there; much of it is derelict. The old land would then be released for new developments along the dockside.

One would have thought that the whole thing was a straightforward regeneration bid, but we are stuck on where to go to find the wherewithal. As the hon. Gentleman said, we cannot go to Europe about the fishing industry, because for some reason this is seen as a separate business, although it is tied utterly to the historical skills of families in Fleetwood, who have been connected, from the earliest days, not just with fishing, but with processing fish. Those skills are still there.

We have gone to the LEP, and we are now looking at trying to get a regional growth bid, to help fuel this and get it working. I am taking the selfish opportunity, following on from the points made by the hon. Gentleman, to say to the Minister that the case in Fleetwood is exactly the same. Would it not be such a plus to revive these deprived fishing areas, which thought the whole thing was dying, and which still believe that there is no support anywhere, whether from Europe or central Government? I suggest that we could revive the industry in Fleetwood, with real jobs, new export markets and tourist attractions. Through that, we could reverse the damage done, including by the European Union, to what used to be a staple of England—its fishing fleets.

Flooding

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Very few water shortages have been reported, but we have had incidents of sewage flooding, which she has touched on. Apart from all the other problems of flooding, that is horrendous. We will certainly look at that issue and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, will talk to the water companies about it.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

In thanking the Secretary of State for the £67 million that he agreed to in the autumn for the renewal of the flood defences around Fleetwood at Rossall, may I ask him whether there is any chance of his persuading the Treasury to increase the valuation that it places on agricultural land so that we can justify greater investment that goes beyond 30 years in the sea defences around Glasson and Thurnham in my constituency?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We have the conundrum that we must protect agricultural land that is of a lower value than land on which property is built and land in the cities. Of course, the risk that lives will be lost is also lower than in cities. The Environment Agency faces that conundrum. There is a matrix to evaluate each project. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, and I are more than happy to talk to him about the details of the case that he mentions.

Flood Defences (Thurnham, Lancashire)

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Streeter, to serve under your chairmanship and to welcome the Minister to his post. I congratulate him on his appointment; I am sure his response at the end of this debate will show him to be a wise and listening Minister.

Thurnham is a small part of the parish of Glasson Dock, on the edge of Morecambe bay. The sea defences are situated in the Cockerham and Thurnham areas of north-west Lancashire, running approximately 7.7 km from Cocker Bridge on the A558 in the south to Janson Pool in the north, south-west of the port of Glasson. They form an integral part of the west Lancashire coastal defences, providing protection against tidal inundation from what is essentially the estuary of the river Lune as it goes into Morecambe bay.

The area has been subject to flooding damage through overtopping and breaching of the existing defences in the past. The most recent floods occurred in 1977, when approximately 540 hectares of land were affected, and in 1983 and 1990, when approximately 50 hectares were flooded. As one can tell from the description, it is mainly a lowland mixed farming area, with sheep and some dairy. There are also important tourist facilities in the form of caravan parks, scattered residential housing and one listed monument in the remains of Cockersands abbey.

In 1999, Jacobs Engineering completed a business case for Cockersands sea defences, which proposed a “hold the line” option. In January 2004, a reappraisal of the economic business case to refurbish the existing defences was undertaken by Jacobs. It concluded that no capital scheme could be promoted, although it recommended that further options, including managed realignment or continued maintenance, could provide a better business case.

In November 2004, a further study was undertaken to consider the recommendations of the economic reappraisal, and that determined that a managed retreat scheme could be the right economic method, even when all the land and buildings were written off from tidal inundation and purchased at their market value. In arriving at the conclusions, Jacobs recommended that a physically based model to simulate onshore tidal inundation and onshore wave inundation for different return periods was undertaken as its conclusions were limited by the quality of the available flood spread information.

Consequently, maintenance activities continued, in line with the original recommendations from the shoreline management plan. In January 2008, Jacobs completed a technical report, investigating the effects of tidal flooding should the existing defences be removed, as well as the several managed realignment options identified in the 2004 studies. In 2009-10, the shoreline management plan was updated by Halcrow and recommended that a “hold the line” policy should be adopted for years nought to 20, followed by managed realignment for years 20 to 100. The shoreline management plan updated the economic appraisal in line with the latest guidance.

I have raised this debate because I am trying to establish something. Since 2010, there has been a series of meetings between Environment Agency officers on the ground and the Cockersands Forum steering group, which was established by the parish council. All those meetings have been open and transparent, and shared information has gone backwards and forwards, but we are now getting to the point where certain fundamental policy decisions need to be made by Ministers if we are to make any kind of progress.

The Cockersands Forum steering group, which is formed of residents, considered that the flood defence rebuild costs that were put in by the Environment Agency were inflated, and that the reports of the overtopping events from past flooding were inconsistent with their own knowledge of the history of what had happened. Interestingly, I understand that in the middle of the discussions between the agency and the local residents, through the forum, when the sea defences were looked at properly and people walked them, the agency was prepared to admit that the defences were in a better state of repair than was perhaps first apparent.

The discussions have got to the point where the Environment Agency has been prepared to say that it will hold the line for 30 years. That was something better. Clearly, however, the fact that the defences will be maintained for only that amount of time will have a significant impact on the value of residential homes and businesses. How can people in this area now sell or invest for the future, knowing that there is possibly a 30-year time limit, after which the defences will not be manned? The issue for them is this: how can any Government simply let good farming land, good housing and good businesses be slowly ruined, based on assumptions about possible sea levels in 30 years’ time?

It seems ridiculous that lives can be ruined on such speculation when there is no exact science, yet the plans in place already mean that there is blight in the specific area and particular residents are unable to sell their properties, despite wanting to move on because of age or family circumstances. In a sense, it is a death knell to Thurnham and the surrounding area that there can be no movement in and no movement out.

The residents are practical people; as you and the Minister well know, Mr Streeter, we are all practical people in Lancashire. So the residents took the matter further and looked at all the past evidence they had, in the form of photographs and written evidence, about the 1977 flood. They came up with an extremely sophisticated diagram of what had happened in that year. What they proved to the Environment Agency—to be fair, the agency accepted it—was that it was possible to see in some of the historical detail that the flooding covered a much wider area than was set out in the original Environment Agency plan. That, at least, is my understanding.

Now we are in a strange position. My understanding is that the Environment Agency has accepted that local residents, through their knowledge of history and what they have produced, have demonstrated that if the defences go down, a much wider area will be flooded than was set out in its original statement. However, strangely enough, that does not affect any of the agency’s cost-benefit analysis between its original assumptions and its present-day assumptions. It still wishes to stick to a policy of “hold the line” for 30 years and after that to manage retreat, leaving the area, as I have said, to the depredations of the sea and whatever we can predict about the sea and rivers in 30 years’ time. So the strange position is that although residents, to my knowledge and that of the Environment Agency, have demonstrated that a bigger area will be flooded in the future, that will not affect the cost-benefit analysis.

One of the key determinants appears to be the cost-benefit figure that the Treasury established in respect of losing farming land in particular. I understand that this is a long-established Treasury figure, which takes no account of rising population, both here and across the world, or of the increased concern that we all have—in whatever country we live—about food security.

I wish to ask a particular question of the Minister. If my assumptions are correct about this cost-benefit analysis, are his Department or the Treasury, or both, doing any work to look again at revising the old cost-benefit of farming land, given the national situation in terms of population growth and the political concerns among all parties about food security?

Secondly, let us take the boundaries of my constituency and that particular part of the west coast of Lancashire. At the end of my constituency is the town of Fleetwood, where the Government have just agreed—I am grateful for it—that £65 million is to be used to improve flood defences. The Rossall sea wall needs to be demolished so that a new wall can be put in. It will protect 12,000 homes.

However, from the outside it looks as if the Lancashire coast is being dealt with in separate sections. Fleetwood, quite rightly, gets £65 million; the sea wall there needs attending to. If anyone sees that sea wall, they will know that it is like the Berlin wall. The poor residents need something that might look better and might do a better job. However, just along the coast, there is another village called Pilling, where I have regular meetings. Again, that is a lowland area, next to Thurnham, where there are also concerns about flooding and land drainage. Yet at the Pilling meetings, there is no mention of what is happening next door in Thurnham. That might be because Thurnham comes under Lancaster district council and Pilling comes under Wyre district council. Nevertheless, it seems a bit odd, because my understanding of water is that when it comes through the dykes or over or through the sea defences, it does not worry whether it is flooding Pilling or Thurnham, which are next to each other.

One question that I have for the Minister has already been asked by people in local parishes—what happened to the old land drainage boards, which used to cover wider areas? Also, is there a bureaucratic impasse because of different council boundaries? Do we need to consider a better structure in the long term? That might not be the land drainage structure of the old days, which I understand was somewhat bureaucratic—but at least it involved local landowners, on a wider scale, in the nature of drainage and flooding of their areas.

Will the Minister consider looking at a different vehicle, which could involve, yes, the parishes, villages and local residents in some form or fashion and enable them to cut across the district councils and look at land drainage areas as they are—that is, as geographical drainage areas that do not respect council boundaries? Perhaps we could deal with some kind of operation in those terms.

My understanding is that there has been some discussion on the east coast of this country about such schemes, and that there are still some leftover remnants of the old land drainage boards around the place. They might give us some pilot schemes to see whether the boards could be revamped in the ways I have outlined.

What the people of my constituency, in my part of Lancashire, are looking for is a wider look at what the Government’s plans are for the future. How can a Government spend so much money—quite rightly, in the case of Fleetwood—to protect one part of the coast, and then leave another part to the vagaries of what the science presumes will happen in 30 years’ time: sea levels will be somewhat higher and farming land will not be as valuable as it could be? Farming land is not as valuable as people’s lives, of course; I accept that. Somehow we do not seem to see what the wider plan for the area is. If my residents were able to see and understand that wider plan, they might have a better way of grasping what the Environment Agency’s and the Government’s policies are.

I am particularly interested in learning what the new Minister—the new broom, as they say—might want to do to offer some succour to people across my constituency, whatever district council they belong to. Some have suggested that there is a deliberate attempt to carve off one village against another. I would never support such conspiracy theories; I simply think that it is good old bureaucracy again.

The third thing that I want to raise is a little blue-sky thinking; although we are practical in Lancashire, we can think outside the box. If the Environment Agency is going to hold the line and if the Government are going to supply the money to keep the sea defences going for 30 years and then make a decision—we have not discussed this with the parish council, although it has been talked about in the area generally—could there be a special levy in the area as part of the parish rate, which could go into a fund to be invested for 30 years? We wanted to describe it as a sinking fund, but since we are talking about flooding, let us talk about a floating fund.

If the levy was £25 a year, let us say, with 500 residents paying it, in 30 years there would be more than £300,000 before interest. Any parish or group of residents would be in a very strong position, whoever the Government were in 30 years’ time. If they had a body of money to contribute, it would make it much more difficult for the Government of the time to say, “We are still going to abandon the defences.”

I have discussed the levy with the district council. If there were such a charge, and if somebody wanted to buy a property, would it appear in the land charges office? If it did appear, would the fact that it was offering another stage of protection help to maintain the values? This is anecdotal evidence, but various estate agents in Lancaster feel that it would help to maintain values and keep that exchange of property and businesses going on, because there would be further protection building up over time.

Interestingly, the council said there was nothing in law that would allow it to specify such a measure on a land charge. However, that might not be needed. It might simply need a parish rate and a parish flood defence rate. I do not know. I assume that when searches are made, the council charge and parish charge come up, so perhaps we could come up with a flood defence charge.

As I said, this is blue-sky thinking. The residents have jobs to do, and we are all trying to find a practical way to assist Government and the Environment Agency. It would be really helpful if some of the experts, who I know exist in the Department, could look at the idea. It might mean talking to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The residents of Thurnham are trying to find a way in which they can be seen to be helping themselves, but, for 30 years—perhaps even longer—they need Government support to protect the land that they have bought, where they have built their businesses, or have retired to, or where they run their farms.

I did not secure this debate because of any angst with the Environment Agency. I can see an officer here from the Environment Agency; we have met on several occasions. The agency has dealt with the matter absolutely transparently in an up-front way and with a great deal of sensitivity and understanding. We are talking about people’s lives, businesses and properties, and I pay due credit to it. However, we have now hit an impasse and we need Ministers to start looking at the policy implications.

If the problem exists in Thurnham, which is a small part of Lancashire—obviously dear to me as part of my constituency, and even more dear to the people who have built their lives and businesses there—it must exist across the piece. It cannot be right for any Government to take a 30 or 50-year view that somehow, because it is mainly agricultural land, it will be worth less than it is today. If people are willing to try to find a vehicle to help themselves and to join with the Government in maintaining the sea defences, it cannot be impossible to find the time, effort and brains to provide them with a little extra help.

I will be delighted to hear the Minister’s comments about those three points. I understand that he cannot say yes, but if he could stand up and say that Thurnham will be protected for the next 100 years, I would be more than grateful. I understand his position. He might need to take the issues away, but Thurnham in Lancashire is willing to help and to offer ideas. It desperately wants to keep the livelihoods of people who have farmed there for generations. Generations of family life have gone into that particular area, and they simply want a future for themselves, their children and the people of Lancashire, and to keep a beautiful part of Lancashire safe from the sea.

EU Fisheries Negotiations

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I think the chief executive’s comments were a pity, because if he had looked closely at what we achieved he would have seen an improved prospect for the year ahead across all sectors and around all our coasts. That includes some valuable stocks that are of particular interest to his members, so I accept my hon. Friend’s point.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

May I add to the chorus of congratulations from Members on both sides of the House on the Minister’s his genuine achievements? In particular, the increase in the nephrops quota will be most welcome in Fleetwood and is a real success. Now that he is back, may I ask him to keep an eye on the new wind farm applications in the Irish sea so that there might be some space left for my local fishermen to catch the new quota?

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend may try you, Mr Speaker, but I listened to what he said. I want to ensure that we get away from the silo mentality in managing our fisheries of talking about fishermen in one forum, conservation in another and other marine activities in a third. Following the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, we are moving towards much more holistic management of our seas, which is right.

Fisheries

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark, and to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and congratulate his father on his birthday. I also congratulate Hartlepool on having a fishing fleet left. Unfortunately, precious few ships are left in Fleetwood, and much of our quota goes to the Anglo-Spanish fleets. To be fair though—this is part of the complexity of the industry in our region—much of our catch is hake, and I am told that there is no market for hake in Britain. The precious few boats that we have are under-10 metres. Like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is not in his place, I want to thank the Minister for securing a deal that ensures that there are no cuts in the nephrops catch in the Irish sea, which has benefited the few boats that commercially fish from Fleetwood.

Let me now come on to another area of complexity in our industry. Despite the fact that we have very few ships—only two or three ships fish for nephrops—tons and tons of fish come into Fleetwood, by road, from across the United Kingdom to be processed by families who have been processing fish for years and who have developed their skills alongside the fishermen. Therefore, although we have seen this decline in actual catches on the dock in Fleetwood, we have extremely thriving fish processing businesses. Can we acquire any kind of support to modernise the premises from which those businesses operate so that they can gain further orders? At the moment, they are stuck in buildings constructed in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, which supermarkets will not go near. It is down to the local and county councils to get some support for a new fish market for Fleetwood. That illustrates the complexity of the fishing industry: from the catch, to the processing and, most importantly, to the market in Britain. We have a simplified market in this country and we need to maintain it.

Fishing is still in the blood of Fleetwood, even though the main fishing fleet has gone, but the key point I want to make is about wind farms at sea. Many hon. Members have questioned, with my support, wind farms on land, but it is convenient to think that wind farms at sea cause no problems, are more viable and do not lead to complaints from local villagers and landowners about how they look. In February, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change opened two new wind farms in the Irish sea, Walney 1 and Walney 2, which I understand are the biggest in Britain, but are now to be extended by DONG Energy. At the same time, the Isle of Man, which is also positioned in the Irish sea and can be seen from Fleetwood on a clear day when it is not raining—

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Seldom then.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

Indeed. There is a proposal for another wind farm to be built on the Isle of Man by Centrica. We have already lost our ferry from Fleetwood to Larne, and if the wind farms go ahead there would be no possibility of a ferry.

Furthermore, when we look for some solid science about the impact of wind farms on fishing grounds, we find much contradictory evidence. Fishermen tell me that they change the nature of what is there, and if that is so, can they get in to fish them anyway? Others say that they drive fish away. I can find no solid evidence—perhaps the Minister will point me to some research—about the impact of the creeping development of wind farms out at sea.

Another aspect of the complexity is the effect on fishermen of the cables that go out to the wind farms, which is often discounted. In about 50 years’ time, I imagine the whole Irish sea will be layered with endless cables like the London underground. There will have to be new transmitters for those cables that come out of the sea, and that will cause further problems for Lancaster and Fleetwood as a coastal constituency.

The few fishermen that are left in my area have raised with me the issue of compensation. Why must they negotiate single-handedly with giant companies, with no statutory system of compensation, and why is the compensation simply for disturbance? The fishermen are “disturbed” for good; there is no way back for them after those wind farms have been built.

Then there is the issue of community compensation. We have seen absolutely no community compensation in Fleetwood. Having spent years in local government negotiating section 106 planning agreements, I find it unbelievable that community compensation is being decided by the companies themselves, with people having to ask for something as if it were a charity involved. The company is judge and jury, deciding how much compensation it hands out.

I have great respect for the Minister, but I am aware that wind farms are a matter for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, so I will finish my contribution on the point that other Members have made about the complications faced by fishermen in trying to deal with different Government Departments. They have to deal with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on fishing and marine conservation zones; with DECC on wind farms and cabling; and with the Department for Transport on shipping and ports. In all that confusion, the poor fishermen could end up spending week after week attending meetings about compensation on a particular matter, or asking, “Where is this new wind farm going to go?”, without actually doing the fishing that they want to do and are capable of doing.

I will finish by repeating a suggestion that I have made elsewhere, which may seem slightly out of bounds. Perhaps we could consider for the future a long-term reorganisation of Government and the creation of a “Secretary of State for British Seas and Coastal Communities”. If we were to do that, I suggest that my hon. Friend the Minister would make a really good Secretary of State.

Dairy Industry

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). He made some important points, which I would like to come back to, without repeating what other more experienced hon. Members have said. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) is rapidly becoming my farming guru—alongside the Minister, I hope.

Probably two-thirds of my constituency, Lancaster and Fleetwood, is rural—upland and lowland. I will not repeat the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) made extremely well about the particular issues for upland farmers. The dairy farms in my area are not very big, probably mixed, with about 40 head of cattle maximum—that kind of scale. To be honest, in the middle of all the erudition today, I am extremely new to the topic—a new MP and new to farming, particularly dairying.

I would like to promote Lancashire cheese—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned Cheshire cheese. I thank the individual farmers in Lancashire who educated me. They have small-scale, family-run farms that have gone on for generations. The Hewitts from Poplar Grove farm in Cockerham, the Joneses from Sand Villa farm in Cockerham, and the Whitakers from Park Lane farm in Winmarleigh, all educated me in this process.

My father ran a small business that was so small it was sometimes a one-man business, or a two-man business if my grandfather was working. My father was an asphalter by trade. When the farmers showed me some of the contracts that milk producers sign, I could not believe it. My father would never have been in a position to run a business based on deals with such exclusivity, with the inability to transfer what is produced, and the person being supplied able to vary the price on a whim. On that point, I want to return to what the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said. He made an important point that others have made before and farmers have made to me: it is about not only the retail end, but the milk buyer in the middle, who is becoming the issue. The farmers are grateful, as others have said, for all that the previous Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice) has done—the adjudicator and so on—but they now want that middle bit policed and to see how it is going to be policed. They have raised specific issues.

The previous Minister, in a written statement earlier this month, stated that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would consult on the arrangements needed to implement dairy producer organisations. Is the Minister able to tell us now when the consultation is likely to be under way? In reference to my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), whom I call my fishing guru for South East Cornwall, will we learn from the history of the fishing industry and the producers, both the good and the bad?

There was a DEFRA written statement from Lord Taylor in July about marketing, which other hon. Members have mentioned. Lord Taylor said that there would be discussions between the Department and the industry about greater sourcing and promotion of British dairy products, which we have all been on about. Has there been any progress? Has the Minister considered, or is he willing to consider, what others have said about common sense? We all campaign for fair trade, which many others have mentioned, and it is common sense to have fair trade milk, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) said.

I am new to the subject, but I recognise that generations are involved. I remember a particular farmer who, when I wandered over and asked how long she had been there, said, thinking me a townie, “Oh, only 300 years.” As other hon. Members have said, some farmers are now considering whether it is worth passing the farm on any more. That tragedy seems to be happening. Next Tuesday, I will speak to the Wyreside young farmers’ dinner, which can apparently be quite an event. I want to be able to say to them—and, as a result of what hon. Friends and hon. Members have said, I hope to say—that there is concern and there is support for getting the industry moving, so that they will have a future, because they are considering whether it is worth while.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) mentioned 1984, and I, too, am a little older than some here. To me, it seems that dairying continually goes through these spasms, to the extent that it is has got to the point where farmers are considering whether dairying is worth while.

As others have mentioned, if we get to such a point, the greenery that is Lancashire will be no more and the nature of this country will be no more. I hope that the Minister will reassure both me and other Members, and particularly my Wyreside young farmers, so that I can tell them next Tuesday that there is a future in dairying that this Government will protect.