Basic Payment Scheme

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The issue has caused significant distress. When I reflect on some of the correspondence I have had from farmers in Somerset, I find that their anger subsides very quickly to real worry and concern for their livelihood and those of their families and the people they support through their business. The issue is hugely important.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The Rural Payments Agency said that it would make the vast majority of payments by the end of January. Does he agree that we need much better communication to farmers who will not be paid by the end of January, so that they know and can plan for when they might receive payments? Furthermore, does he agree that we need much greater certainty going forward that the RPA will deal with this year’s applications in a much more expeditious way than it did last year’s?

[James Heappey]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The term “vast majority” is rather loose, and we will come to that in a second.

There are three key issues in the debate. First, what is the current state of play? How many payments have been made as of today? How many will be made tomorrow—the last banking day of the month? How many payments will therefore be made by the end of January—the line the RPA previously drew in the sand? Secondly, what is the understanding of the Government and the RPA of what has gone wrong this year? How deep has their analysis been? How willing are they to apply the lessons learned to next year’s process? Thirdly, I invite the Minister to assure us, and all the farmers in this country, that these things will not happen again next year or, indeed, at any point in the future.

The difficulty is that there has been a shocking failure of expectation management by the RPA, and that comes down to the agency’s use of the term “vast majority”. When the RPA’s chief executive appeared before the NFU council on 13 October, he implied that about 90% of payments would be made by the end of January—that appeared to be the definition of “vast majority” at the time. However, shortly afterwards, about 17% of farmers were written to and told they would not be paid by the end of January, which indicates that, by default, the vast majority was to be defined as 80% to 85%. As of yesterday, however, only 70% of payments had been made. With one banking day left this month, therefore, we might conclude that 70% is the vast majority. The real problem is that “vast majority” is an awfully hard term to define, although I can say with absolute certainty that the vast majority of farmers agree with what I am saying today.

I hope the Minister will take this opportunity to confirm exactly how many payments have been completed. I hope he can also say with absolute certainty when we will reach the 95% threshold. In the previous year, 95% of payments were completed on the very first day that payments were made—1 December—and 98.5% were completed by 6 February. The year before, 92.3% of payments were completed by 4 December, and 97% were completed by 28 January. The year before that, 91% of payments were completed on 3 December, and 93.5% were completed by 31 December.

Technology is supposed to speed up advances, but in this case it seems to have slipped us into reverse. We need to say as quickly as possible when the remainder of farmers will be paid, and we need to be precise—we can no longer say, “You have an eight or nine-week window in which you will be paid.” People need to know now, with certainty, whether they will be paid in February, March, April, May or June. I hope the Minister agrees that the RPA should have that responsibility for everybody who is left unpaid after tomorrow.

For complex payments—involving, say, common land—we need to make split payments. We need to say that we will make the payment for the home farm now and that everything else can come later. People with complex claims are in real difficulties. Although they might ordinarily expect to be towards the back of the queue, they would still expect to receive their payment around now, and certainly within the next few weeks. This year, however, because of the backlog of more simple payments, they could have to wait much longer, and we must avoid that.

The impact of the delay is very serious. Tomorrow, we across the parliamentary estate will be paid, as will many other people across the country. Next week, standing orders and direct debits will almost certainly come out of our bank accounts to pay our mortgages and whatever other bills we have, and we will be confident that we can meet those bills, because we know what we will be paid tomorrow. Farmers, however, do not have that luxury, and they have not had since they received a letter towards the end of November telling them that the vast majority would be paid at some point in December or January. They expected that to mean that at least 80% to 85% of them, and perhaps even 90%, would be paid, but it appears that only about 70% have been paid in that window.

However, the issue goes further than that. A farmer has told me that he has £12,000 of unpaid invoices on his desk in his farm office. Those invoices are not to big feed suppliers or other big companies, but to small, local companies servicing the agricultural sector. Those companies have been made to wait for their money, because the farmer has not had his basic payment scheme payment. I understand from farmers down at the market in Bridgwater that the value of store lambs this year is depressed because farmers simply do not have the cash in their pockets to go to the market to buy livestock. That is having an impact, too.

There is also the cost of extra credit, as farmers have to go cap in hand—again—to their bank managers to secure an extension to their overdrafts or credit facilities. That comes at a cost, and it is a cost that farmers will bear, not the Government. We must take the impact of the delay seriously. We need to be able to say with absolute certainty when the payments will be made.

If Members will indulge me, I would like to suggest what lessons might be learned. I do not expect the list to be exhaustive—it is based on my reflections on what I have heard and on the wish list of the NFU, the Country Land and Business Association and others who have been in touch. However, I hope the Minister will take note of it. Indeed, I would hope that DEFRA and the RPA have already spotted all these things and more, and that work is already well under way to make sure that the lessons are applied to next year’s scheme.

First, what is being done to increase the capacity of the IT system? It crashed because it became overloaded. We need a guarantee that the system will be able to cope with the pressure placed on it next year when all farmers seek to apply for their payments.

Secondly, what is being done to preserve half-completed applications when connectivity is lost? We in rural areas are well used to trying to make a purchase online and going through that awful experience of seeing the broadband fall over at the crucial moment when we have clicked “Pay”, with the result that we do not know whether we have completed our purchase. Buying something on Amazon takes 10 minutes, but someone could have spent a couple of hours filling in their basic payment scheme application this year. If their broadband then fell over, as it so often does in rural areas, they would have had to go all the way back to square one and start again. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to develop an application system where, every time someone clicks “Next”, the application is saved. In that way, if the connectivity failed, or if the site could not cope with the demand, everything someone did beforehand would be there when they returned to it.

Furthermore, given all the problems this year, why not make sure that the data that have been verified for each farm are automatically carried over into next year’s applications? If the data need to be amended because of a change in a farmer’s circumstances, that is fine. What a wonderful help it would be to farmers, however, to know that data they submitted this year, which have been verified, will already be there waiting for them next year.

What is the reversionary option for those with poor connectivity? I believe that the Department has indicated—the Minister might like to nod if this is the case—that farmers will have the option to choose a paper application next year. If that has not been announced, perhaps it would be prudent to announce it in the near future. Many farmers simply cannot soldier through incredibly poor connectivity—below 1 megabit per second—to go through the online application process. Until we can improve their connectivity, it is unfair to expect them to endure that.

What can be done to improve the mechanism for confirming a successfully completed application? The feedback loop at the end of the online application is not particularly reassuring, and that seems to be a bit of an open goal. I am not particularly talented when it comes to IT, but even I have managed to figure out how to put an auto-reply on my email so that someone who sends me something automatically gets something back. People might quite welcome having something as basic as that as part of the online application process so that they immediately get confirmation that their application has been submitted. Thereafter, they could get progress checks, as happens with many mortgage companies, so that they could see how their application was progressing.

What can be done to better communicate an application’s progress and to provide greater certainty over when payments will be made? This year, we have been able to tell people only that their payments will be made within fairly broad spans of time. If we are going towards an online system, why can we not guarantee that once someone’s application has been made and they have been notified when each check has been gone through, they will immediately get an email saying that the payment will be in their bank account on a specific day?

What if the IT fails again? What is the RPA’s contingency plan for processing paper applications in 2017 more quickly? This year the system fell over and the Government rightly said they would accept paper applications, but the RPA clearly was not immediately capable of setting about the verification of those applications—hence the delay.

What sanction do the Government have in their contracts with those who provide the IT system, should it fall over this year or next year? Equally importantly—many farmers will be keen to hear about this—what is the sanction against the RPA and its senior leadership if it all happens again and there is no improvement in its communication? What is the timeline for scrubbing the payments portal to make sure that all the lessons learned this year will be incorporated into the process, both to improve the applications mechanism and to make sure that the guidance that farmers receive for next year’s application will fully incorporate everything that has been learned? Farmers are only two or three months from the time when they will need to apply.

What are the plans to maintain RPA staffing and resource at current levels until the Government are absolutely certain that the 2016-17 payment process is running smoothly? As I see it, the problem is that at the moment the RPA is fixed on having to make this year’s payments. It makes me very nervous that because of the immediate requirement to make payments now, no one has gone off into a dark room to work out what has gone wrong and what needs to be improved, and to make sure all those things get done before people make their applications for next year. It seems trite to say it, but I think it is important to do so: a mistake is a mistake, but repeating it is incompetence. I hope the RPA is painfully aware of how it will look if the same mistakes happen next year.

That leads me to perhaps the biggest issue in the debate, and the one that I suspect farmers are most nervously awaiting: the Minister’s absolute assurance that he and his Department are 100% confident that what happened is just a teething issue for year one, that all the lessons will be learned and applied, and that next year we will be back to the same success rate for the making of payments at the start of December as in previous years.

There is another area of uncertainty. This year has gone badly. We hope next year will be better, but what of the year after that, if the nation votes in a referendum to leave the European Union? That is causing great uncertainty for farmers, and although I do not necessarily want the debate to descend into that issue, I will quote a comment made in June by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart):

“It is vital that, whatever happens in the vote on the European Union, the Conservative party—indeed, all parties in this House, I hope—and this country continue to provide deep support for farmers…We must take responsibility ourselves; we must say we believe in the support farmers currently get from Europe, and, whatever happens in the vote, we must continue to provide it”.—[Official Report, 1 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 431.]

The NFU and farmers generally are rightly nervous about the outcome of the referendum, and I hope that the Minister, who is the Farming Minister, will agree with the Under-Secretary that it is inconceivable that the UK Government would not support agriculture if we were outside the European Union, in the same way that the EU currently supports it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I apologise to you and to Mr Speaker, because I did not intend to speak in this debate and that is why I have not written a letter asking to catch your eye, but I am delighted to be called. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) not only on securing the debate, which is of critical importance at this particular time, but on his clear and detailed understanding of the whole issue, which was very impressive. I am pleased to be following my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham). I, too, would like to talk about farming conditions in Norfolk, because I farm there, but I will limit my speech entirely to my constituents in Gloucestershire.

In common with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells, the south-west generally has experienced an extraordinarily wet year. Conditions have been difficult for all farmers in the south-west. Mercifully, as yet, we have not yet suffered the severe flooding that we have suffered in the past, but that does not mean that conditions for farmers have not been extremely difficult.

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members have mentioned the volatility of commodity prices. I am sure that his farmers have things in common with my constituents, and I have a number of dairy farmers who have been clinging on, although I do not think that some of the smaller ones will be able to cling on for too much longer. As a result of volatile, low commodity prices, I think I am correct in saying that farming is at an all-time high of indebtedness. For many farmers that means that cash flow is critically important. In particular, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk said, they have tax bills to pay this week, and if they do not pay them by Monday they will start to incur late interest payments, although no such payments are paid to them if their basic farm payment is late. I join others in appealing to the Inland Revenue to be sympathetic. If those farmers who have not yet had their basic payment are late with their tax returns, they should not be charged late interest. That would only be reasonable of the Government.

I cottoned on to the whole business way back in March. I am sorry to remind the Minister of this, but I asked him then if payments would be late this year and he assured me that they would not. What I would like from the debate is a full reply from the Minister as to what my farmers can expect going forward. Others have made detailed points, but we need to ensure that we understand and learn the lessons of the mistakes made this past year.

We all know about the IT systems, but I do not quite see why they have led to some 13,000-odd people not being paid by the end of January—that “vast majority” phrase I used in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. What does the vast majority look like? When can those 13,000-odd farmers expect to be paid?

We then want to move forward and to ensure that the 2015 data of those who put in claims during 2015 are validated, so that they can start with that validated, prepopulated data on the system to make the whole business of the 2016 claim easier. I guess that claim will have to be done by the May deadline this year—it was extended to June last year—and that is not too long hence. We need to ensure that they have as easy a task as possible, and my hon. Friend made a number of really good points about that.

In common with many rural Members in the debate, a problem I have in many areas of my constituency is that they have no or very poor broadband connections. People find it difficult to make their claims. My hon. Friend made some good points about that as well, in particular about when the system drops out in the middle of a claim, so we need to ensure that up to that point it is saved, so that the whole thing does not have to be started again.

I have some questions about the IT system. Please will the Minister give us some realistic, concrete assurances that the IT system will be completed and up and running well before farmers have to start making their claims this year so that we do not repeat the poor start of last year? Is the IT system in-house or is it sent out to IT specialists? If the latter, will the same specialists be used next year and what lessons have they learnt?

We need assurance about 2016 payments because—while I do not want to cast gloom and doom on the industry—I suspect that if commodity prices stay where they are at the moment, conditions will be even more difficult by this time next year. It is therefore really important that farmers have certainty that their 2016 payments will be prompt, because when they speak with their bank managers they want to be able to negotiate a proper cash-flow system. I really hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies, he can give us some cast-iron assurances that turn out to be the reality.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I will come to that, but we should remember the experience of 2005. Some hon. Members have said we should learn lessons. Let us remember that in 2005 no one was paid in December, no one was paid in January, no one was paid in February and no one was paid in March. The first farmer to be paid was paid in March. Then, the last Labour Government decided to switch to a part-payment system and got themselves into a complete muddle that took a couple of years to sort out because of all the reconciliation that had to be done afterwards. They found that farmers had received inaccurate payments and it caused all manner of difficulties. For that reason, we should be cautious.

We should realise that, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, the payment window does not open in May, but closes in May. The next application window opens in March, which is not long to go—five or so weeks. I want staff in the RPA to be working on making sure we get next year’s applications right and through, rather than messing around doing part-payments of this year’s applications.

I want to say what we have done. We have introduced a hardship fund. We have worked closely with groups such as the Farming Community Network that provide a triage process. If a farmer is suffering real hardship and cannot, for example, buy feed for their cattle, they are fast-tracked. In some cases, if we can we speed up an application, we make we sure we get it through as quickly as possible. In other cases when we suspect they will not be paid in a hurry, we have in many cases made part-payments on account cash-flowed by the Treasury—not EU-funded, which would expose us to difficulties, but on account from the Treasury.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I will not give way because I want to cover a few more points and leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Wells.

Some hon. Members have talked about the banks. I have been meeting them regularly and encouraging them to show forbearance to farmers. One reason why we sent a letter last November to those who were not expected to get their payment at the end of January was that they could take it to the banks, which were ready for that.

A number of hon. Members talked about communications. As I said, a letter went out in November and a further letter has gone out to those not receiving payments now, in January. The RPA has held almost weekly meetings with key NFU office holders and regularly attends NFU councils, so I do not accept the allegation that people have been kept in the dark and not informed. What I can understand is the understandable frustration among farmers who have not yet received their payments. That is spilling out in criticism of communication, which is probably a little unfair.

I want to talk about next year. A number of hon. Members asked about lessons. The reality is that we now have all these data on the core system. For next year, farmers will start from the position they left off in this year. We are confident that having done all the difficult work to get those applications on, from here forward it will be far easier. We will offer paper applications to those farmers who want them next year, but we hope that those who were previously online—about 70% up until 2014—will return to being online.

I want quickly to cover the issue of commons, which was raised by a number of hon. Members. We had a legal challenge from a local authority in Minchinhampton. It challenged the very basis on which we used to make payments and it caused huge difficulty for everyone. The issue is not about just having a plan B; the problem is that the methodology that it has now forced on us through its challenge means that it is impossible to pay anyone on a common until we have resolved all those claims. Our biggest difficulty in relation to many of these commons is that the National Trust has a large, complex claim that has always taken a long time to resolve. That has caused us a particular difficulty with common land, but we are recognising that and doing what we can to try to speed things up.

I want to leave a bit of time for my hon. Friend the Member for Wells, but I will answer these questions. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) asked about the deadline for this year. It will be May; it will go back to the normal time. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) talked about some of the difficulties that the Welsh Government have experienced with requirements imposed by the EU, particularly in relation to accurate mapping and the difficulties with shade from woodlands. This goes back to my initial point. We are now in an era with an incredibly complex CAP, causing many difficulties.

We have had a very important debate, covering many different issues. We have not got on to the exciting issue of the European Union and the potential impact of the referendum, but we will have much more time to discuss that in the months ahead.

Flooding

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

One of the successes of our flood defence programme is that we have been able to secure additional money through partnership funding. From 2005 to 2010, we saw £30 million of funding under the Labour Government, whereas under the previous Conservative Government there was £134 million of funding, and this Government have already secured £250 million. We have plans in place to secure additional funding.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ask the national flood resilience review to look at where we build houses? Increasingly, we are building them on floodplains and in areas local people know will flood. We are building up a bigger and bigger problem for the future. Will she ask the review to co-ordinate with the Department for Communities and Local Government on where to build houses in the future?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Communities Secretary is here and I am sure he will take those points on board. The national planning policy framework makes it very clear that inappropriate development on floodplains should be avoided, but ultimately this is a decision for local people to make, as is the case throughout the planning system.

Lead Shot Ammunition

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I begin by reminding Members that I am the chairman of the all-party group on shooting and conservation, which enjoys wide membership from both sides of the House. Secondly, I draw attention to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I participate in shooting sports.

Shooting and conservation are highly important to the UK economy, contributing £2 billion to GDP and supporting the equivalent of 74,000 full-time jobs. Members of the shooting community spend £250 million a year on conservation. Most importantly, they actively manage 2 million hectares for conservation as a result of shooting.

Lead shot ammunition has long been used due to its superior ballistic qualities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said, and I am disappointed by calls to ban it. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s calls for such a ban seem to derive from the Oxford Lead Symposium’s report and the Lead Ammunition Group’s submission to DEFRA, which I understand is still being considered by the Government. I will not say too much about that group—the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) already referred to it—but it had two arguments against lead shot ammunition: in game meat, it damages human health, and it poisons birds exposed to it in the environment. I would like to deal briefly with both arguments.

With regard to the assertion that lead shot damages human health, there has been significant scaremongering without a full review of the facts. Lead is found in all food types at a variety of levels. The threat from game meat specifically is extremely small. The European Food Safety Authority has stated that lead from game meat represents 0.1% of average total dietary lead exposure—significantly less than other groups such as beer and substitutes, which expose the average European consumer to 62% more lead than game meat. When game meat is consumed in high quantities, the threat of lead poisoning naturally increases. However, only 0.1% of the British adult population consumes game meat at higher levels than the Food Standards Agency’s guidance. The FSA’s guidance on lead is the same as for other food groups such as oily fish and tuna. Indeed, further evidence shows that removing damaged tissue from lead shot game meat can reduce its overall lead content by 95%. That is the current advice in Sweden.

The group’s second argument is that lead shot ammunition damages the environment. There are claims that between 50,000 and 100,000 birds die of lead poisoning each year, although there is no evidence of any population-level impact on species. It is accepted, however, that lead has potential environmental risks—for example, due to the way certain water birds feed, some species are susceptible to ingesting lead if it is left within their feeding area. However, there are international agreements and UK legislation to protect areas where those migratory and water birds exist. I agree with the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney that our compliance levels with that legislation are not good enough and that we should all condemn those who shoot duck with lead shot in prohibited areas.

The report used by campaigners against lead shot ammunition—the one that comes up with the 50,000 to 100,000 figure for birds—was produced by the Oxford Lead Symposium. However, it uses data from research that was carried out between 1960 and 1983, before the current restrictions on lead shot were introduced, so it is clearly not a rigorous piece of academic work.

In conclusion, I see no reason to support a ban on lead shot ammunition. There is no clear alternative, as those that do exist are either more dangerous to human and environmental health or significantly more expensive. The claims that lead shot is damaging to human and environmental health are exaggerated and based on inaccurate data, and do not take into account the restrictions that already exist on shooting with lead shot in protected areas.

Finally, the impact would be significant on the current contribution that the shooting community makes to the UK economy and conservation management, which I outlined at the beginning of my speech and which is very significant in rural areas. I hope that Members across the House realise that a move to ban lead shot would be counter-productive and would not produce the significant human or environmental health benefits that the hon. Gentleman claims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Just because there is a level of tolerance does not mean that it is not dangerous. Somebody may smoke over a lifetime and then suffer deterioration or a specific condition, and that can apply in this case too.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified inorganic lead as being “probably carcinogenic to humans”, while no safe blood lead level in children has been identified below which negative health effects cannot be detected. In March 2013, a group of 31 eminent scientists signed a consensus statement on the health risks from lead-based ammunition in the environment. Based on “overwhelming evidence” and “convincing data”, and alongside the availability and suitability of non-lead alternatives, they recommended the eventual elimination of lead-based ammunition and its replacement with non-toxic alternatives.

Just last month, the Oxford Lead Symposium published research further confirming what we already broadly knew about lead and the risks to humans, wildlife and the natural environment. The Lead Ammunition Group, which the Government set up, submitted its draft report this summer and I would welcome confirmation from the Minister of the date this evidence was received along with a timeframe for the release of its findings and recommendations.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Can the hon. Gentleman point to any evidence of any premature deaths caused by lead poisoning? Indeed, on the contrary; I have known many people who have eaten game regularly and lived to a ripe old age.

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Gentleman makes a great point: I cannot provide that particular piece of evidence, but what I am told by health organisations and others is that ingestion of lead over a period can be quite dangerous. As others have said, as a responsible society that recognises the inherent dangers, we have already taken action and regulated to cut lead from petrol, paint and water pipes, so most exposure to lead in the general population now comes from diet. However, despite the evidence and our previous moves to regulate other sources of exposure, we have not yet completely banned the use of lead by shooters. Instead, we have stopped short, although in response to the UK’s obligations under the African-Eurasian migratory waterbird agreement to phase out the use of lead shot for hunting in wetlands, it has been illegal to hunt certain wildfowl over certain wetlands since 1999. The long and short of such patchy regulation is that lead continues to find its way into the food chain and on to our dinner plates. Compliance with regulations is sporadic at best, and most consumers are simply unaware of the contamination risk to themselves and wildlife.

My hon. Friends have alluded to studies showing that 76% of game bought from supermarkets, game dealers or game shoots have lead shot fragments present. Indeed, a DEFRA-commissioned study found that 70% of ducks sampled were illegally shot with lead. If that were not enough, almost half of respondents to a British Association for Shooting and Conservation survey admitted that they did not always comply with the law. To top it off, a repeat study in 2013-14 showed that compliance had not improved, revealing that 77% of sampled ducks had been shot illegally with lead. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no primary prosecutions and only one secondary prosecution for non-compliance with the regulations. That is a law that is not working in this land, so we need a change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I recently met the Scottish Agriculture Minister to talk about how to promote British food. I look forward to meeting my Northern Ireland counterparts very soon to discuss that issue, too.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Ever since I have been a Member of Parliament, the amount of home-grown food as a proportion of the total has dropped and dropped. If we could increase it, it would be good for our balance of payments and good for jobs. What does my right hon. Friend propose to do to increase it?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to grow more, buy more and sell more British food. We produce fantastic food in this country. At the moment, for example, we are importing two third of our cheese. There is more we can do to encourage investment in the dairy industry and we have a massive opportunity with exports. By 2018, China will be the world’s biggest food importer, and we have just put in place a food and agriculture counsellor in China to promote that fantastic British produce.

Rural Payments Agency: Basic Payment Scheme

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point; the Labour party did not grip the problems with the RPA, so there was over £600 million of disallowance and farmers were often paid over a year late—as he said, only 15% were paid on time.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister. At least farmers now have certainty and know that they can apply and that they will receive their payments, but can he give an utmost assurance that he will do everything he can to ensure that this delay in applications will not result in any delay in payments?

[George Eustice]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We will be seeking to ensure that the claims are processed as quickly as possible and paid as speedily as we have demonstrated our ability to do in recent years.

Badger Culls (Assessment)

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a farmer, although I do not keep any stock so I have no financial interest in this debate.

We have again found ourselves having a debate about an incredibly important scientific issue before the scientific evidence has been fully analysed and published by the Minister’s Department. The debate is premature and speculative and will be incompletely informed. The second year of the culls ended on 20 October, and we have not yet seen the results of either of the trials in Somerset or Gloucestershire, so how can we have a reasoned and fully informed debate assessing those trials? I suspect that the debate will be centred on rumour and uninformed results.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman once only.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the Government’s decision to disband the independent expert panel? Surely it would have provided the comfort blanket of impartial evidence.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The Government have said that that they will fully audit the results. When they are fully audited and analysed and properly published, I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman and others will want to examine them in great detail and return to the House with comments.

One point of fact is the dreadful disease that bovine TB is and the pain it causes to badgers, cattle and farmers. Significant attention has been given to the relatively small number of badgers being culled in these trials, but less attention is given to the 314,000 cattle that have been slaughtered in the last 10 years at a cost of £500 million to taxpayers. Indices of TB in cattle show that it increased ninefold between 1997 and 2010 in England, which now has the highest incidence of TB in the whole of Europe. The cost will rise to more than £1 billion over the next decade if nothing is done to eradicate TB from our communities.

It is important to remember that culling is simply one aspect of the Government’s comprehensive strategy to eradicate TB within 25 years. I hope that no one speaking in the debate will disapprove of that.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I will give way to my hon. Friend once.

[Martin Horwood]

My neighbour and hon. Friend and I share a concern for Gloucestershire farmers, and I am sure we share the ultimate aim of seeing both cattle and badger populations healthy and TB-free. Does he agree that preliminary data that seem to be emerging in the press, and which the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) referred to, suggest that less than half the target number of badgers were killed in Gloucestershire this time? If those data are correct, we may worsen the risk to Gloucestershire cattle because of the perturbation effect.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

That is speculation, but even if it proves to be true, we will need to have a debate over what the target numbers were, and I shall come on to that later in my speech. We will begin after this second year, and certainly in the third year, to be able to analyse some of the results and see what is already known through some anecdotal evidence, which is that some farms that have had TB reactors for six or eight years have, this year, for the first year in those six or eight years, had no reactors. That may be anecdotal evidence, but it begins to point to the fact that the culls are having a beneficial effect.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that during the course of the randomised badger culling trial there were 472 new confirmed breakdowns to TB in the proactive culling areas? Would he therefore argue that the culls did not work in those instances?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but I think she is drawing a false analogy, because the numbers removed in the randomised badger culling trial per square kilometre were considerably lower than the numbers removed per square kilometre in either of these two trials. Let us give the trials a chance—[Interruption]—instead of chuntering about it. These trials are trials—they are exactly that. What we need to do is evaluate the science and see whether it is in favour of the trials or not. I think that would be a constructive way forward.

The cost will rise to £1 billion over the next decade if nothing is done to eradicate TB from our communities. I ask the hon. Lady what her party’s policy is going to be: is she just going to let this disease continue to spiral out of control? Does she want our farmers to continue to slaughter cattle, and does she want to continue to have to pay more taxpayers’ money in compensation? Her public statements so far—I am happy to let her intervene if I am wrong—suggest that she would discontinue the trials, so we will have gone through all the pain, yet we will not have the scientific evidence to be able to evaluate them properly.

[Maria Eagle]

In my view, there is no point in going ahead with a policy that has been shown not to work, as is the case with this one.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

With great respect to the hon. Lady, it is too early to say. If she will not begin to take some of the anecdotal evidence of people on the ground who have to make their living from farming with cattle, I do not know what else I can say to her. Let us let these trials go ahead and evaluate them. Instead of setting our face against them, let us give them time and see if they work, and then let us hope that we can begin to eradicate this dreadful disease. I repeat what I have just said: this is part of an overall policy to eradicate TB in this country in 25 years. I will allow the hon. Lady to intervene again on me—does she agree with that aim or not?

[Maria Eagle]

Of course I agree with eradicating TB, but I do not see how one does that by pursuing a policy that does not work.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Well, that is the hon. Lady’s prejudiced view. She does not know yet whether it will work, because this is a four-year trial.

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Gentleman draws our attention to the public cost of this illness, but the cull that is now taking place is actually at the farmers’ expense. Does he agree that if there is no improvement or if, in fact, it makes things worse, farmers will not be willing to pay for something that acts against their interests?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman must have been reading my notes, because I make that point very well. As he said, these two trials are entirely at the farmers’ expense, and there would be very little cost in policing them were it not for the activity of the protesters. If we set the cost of culling against the cost of what the farmers are providing, there is no doubt about it: this cull is very considerably cheaper than the cost of vaccination, which is not yet proved to be working either. I would be interested to know, when the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) speaks, whether she thinks vaccination is working in Wales.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The reality is that the Labour Government in Wales fully recognise that they cannot measure the impact of vaccination yet, and what reduction there is of bovine TB in Wales is just the same outside the vaccination area as it is inside, so the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) can point to no evidence that the alternative Labour method is working in Wales.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I had better make some rapid progress, Mr Caton, or else you will call me to order for not making my six-minute deadline. Let me make one or two brief points.

As I said, it is welcome that vaccination is taking place in certain parts of the country to try to prevent the further spread of this awful disease, but the simple fact is that vaccination does not work for an already infected badger. If it does not work, that infected badger, by going to the bottom of its sett, continues to infect the whole of that sett. It also must be remembered that vaccination generally works better on young badgers. Young badgers do not emerge from their sett for six months or so, and therefore do not get vaccinated for that first vital six-month period of their life when they are likely to be infected by the infected badgers. The other point to remember about vaccination is that badgers have to be vaccinated every year for five years before it is effective.

I have referred to some anecdotal evidence about how the trials have worked, but I can also give the House some actual evidence of where vaccinating is not working. On the Killerton estate in North Devon, where TB is a huge problem, the National Trust has been vaccinating badgers at an annual cost of £45,000 for the past four years, and there have recently been as many as six additional herd breakdowns due to TB, which seems to show that vaccinating alone is not the solution.

Many people cite vaccination in Wales as an example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) mentioned, but that is not the whole story. Although TB has been reduced in Wales, the current vaccination programme is only being conducted in 1% of the country and it is only in its second year. It is therefore difficult to see how the Welsh experiment—as he said, the Labour party in Wales does not think it is working—has led to a 25% reduction across the whole of Wales, where other factors must be at play.

Therefore, culling must be part of the solution. No less than the president of the British Veterinary Association has said:

“Badger culling is a necessary part of a comprehensive bovine TB eradication strategy”.

I really hope that the Labour party will think carefully about what one of our foremost experts in the country said about that. Vets are the very people who want to see a humane strategy for tackling this disease, because they of all people know what suffering the disease causes to badgers.

Nobody wants to see animals culled. I am an animal lover. Farmers are animal lovers. This is not an enjoyable solution, but it is a necessary one. Clear evidence tells us that no country in the world has got its TB problem under control without removing it in the reservoir of the wildlife. We have seen that in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, all of which are now virtually BTB-free.

On top of that, evidence also tells us that every time there has been a culling programme in this country—any of the six previous trials, including the Krebs trials— there has been a reduction in bovine TB. I accept that in some of the Krebs trials the reduction was relatively small, but that was related to the number of badgers that were taken out. The higher the number of badgers in an area that are taken out, the higher the reduction in BTB, and that, I think, has been fairly well scientifically proven.

In conclusion—because I think I have exceeded your patience and my allotted time, Mr Caton—it is too early to tell whether the culls have been successful. Anecdotal evidence tells us that they are beginning to have some success. Let us hope, for the sake of the farmers who are affected by this dreadful disease and the cattle that will have to be culled, that they are having some effect. The culls will be rolled out only in the very worst areas of BTB. I am all in favour of ring vaccination around those really bad areas, but let us see it as part of a comprehensive strategy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government for being steadfast in their desire to eliminate this dreadful disease.

Sale of Puppies and Kittens

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this important and well-attended cross-party debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for having secured it, and I agree with many of the points he made. I also pay tribute to my constituent, Carol Fowler, who has been campaigning on this issue for many years. Her campaign led to the television documentary “Pedigree Dogs Exposed”, which raised such disturbing issues on dog breeding that the BBC temporarily suspended its coverage of Crufts the following year.

First, let me start with puppy farms. We need the Government to introduce strategies for improving conditions on those farms. I pay tribute to the Dog Advisory Council and to Professor Sheila Crispin, who runs it. The council has made recommendations on regulation and legislation to address the issues and to reduce red tape in relation to the farms. There are poor conditions on puppy farms, and they need to be addressed by the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which places a duty of care on the person responsible for pet animals. That duty of care must be enforced.

The issues relating to puppy farms have already been rehearsed in this debate, but they are so shocking that they need repeating. There is often a failure to provide veterinary care, including vaccinations and simple health checks. Puppies suffer from lack of exercise, stimulation and socialisation. Breeding establishments are generally unsuitable and not fit for purpose. If puppies do not have suitable exercise, they are much more likely to suffer from problem behaviour.

Puppies are often prematurely taken away from their mothers, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) said, the mother is often then expected to produce another litter and is left exhausted from repeated breeding.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I also have a number of constituents who have been campaigning very hard on this issue. Hopefully, they can find common cause with my hon. Friend’s constituents. Does he agree that the role of pet shops is crucial, as they should be putting more pressure on the relevant agencies and other bodies?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree, but as the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), said, legislation on pet shops is already in place. The thrust of this debate is on new legislation, but I say to the Minister that we should better enforce existing legislation, because then we might all get on a lot better.

Poor puppy farms are responsible for many health problems, including infectious diseases such as parvovirus, internal and external parasites and a range of breed-related and inherited diseases such as heart disease, epilepsy and glaucoma. It is crucial that puppy farms are not only properly licensed, but properly scrutinised—the powers are there to scrutinise them—so that we can root out the ones that operate with inappropriate conditions. As I have said, we need to enforce existing legislation better.

Secondly, the breeding of dogs for specific desirable traits can lead to serious genetic health problems as a result of inbreeding and closed gene pools. The body shape of some dog breeds can also cause immense suffering. Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is illegal to beat a dog with a stick, but there is nothing to stop a breeder mating dogs to produce offspring that will then suffer from health problems.

Thirdly, I recommend that all breeders adopt puppy contracts, which are produced by the RSPCA, the British Veterinary Association and the Animal Welfare Foundation. Too often, buyers are not aware of the possible genetic problems related to poor welfare and breeding conditions.

Fourthly, the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England, which was set up by this Government, could be in a perfect position to assist with the welfare of dogs. However, its performance to date has not met the desired level. The board should take a more active interest in the welfare of dogs, which it does not do at the moment. I urge the Government to give it a role in devising light-touch regulation, ideally based on the Dog Advisory Council’s recommendations on regulations under the Animal Welfare Act so that we can see active improvement in the welfare of dogs.

The Dog Advisory Council, under Professor Sheila Crispin’s chairmanship, was funded entirely through the generosity of patrons, principally the Dogs Trust, the RSPCA, the Blue Cross and the PDSA. It operates with a budget of only £25,000, yet the Government give £225,000 to the Farm Animal Welfare Council. There seems to be a slight imbalance within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the treatment of farm animals and companion animals. I hope that the Minister will take those facts back to his Department. If nothing else, we are a nation of animal lovers, and we need to take more seriously the welfare of companion animals such as dogs and cats.

Obviously, it is welcome that micro-chipping will be mandatory from April 2016, but I urge the Minister to bring the date forward. We need a comprehensive list of registered dogs as soon as possible, and I see no reason to delay this for another two years. Currently, more than 100,000 dogs are stolen, abandoned or lost each year. If lost, the owner can suffer huge emotional turmoil. If a dog is abandoned, it is a crime. The urgent introduction of micro-chipping will help us to reduce dramatically the numbers of stray dogs on our streets.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for so generously giving way. I know that time is running short, but I hope that he will get an extra minute as recompense. I agree with him that this is about the enforcement of existing laws. Is not one of the key issues inspection? What we need are random inspections and a zero-tolerance approach where there are clear breaches of the standards already in place.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We should enforce existing legislation with random inspections so that the owners and operators of puppy farms do not know when the inspectors are coming. That will hopefully ginger them up to improve their standards.

The Minister will also need to address an amendment made to the Deregulation Bill in Committee which seeks to remove the requirement under the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973 for local authorities, when deciding whether to grant a dog breeding licence, to have regard to the need for dog breeding records to be kept in a prescribed form and to specify licence conditions to secure that objective. The Dog Advisory Council has written to the Cabinet Office and DEFRA Ministers asking them to reconsider the decision to repeal the relevant provisions as a matter of urgency, as not to do so would further undermine the effectiveness of the existing legislation.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you have been generous with the time. This is an important debate. I hope the Minister will take away with him the fact that we are a nation of dog lovers. We need to enforce the existing legislation. There is too much cruelty in the dog world in this country.

Common Agricultural Policy

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spencer]

I recognise that new technologies may be able to assist, but there will always be not spots—those little black holes—where people are left out of the system. We need to find a way to help those farmers.

I think that the three-crop rule is one of those well-intended European Union rules that will have unintended consequences. My right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) has referred to the fact that many areas are block-farmed. Large contracting companies that help their neighbours with farm contracts and that block-crop from farm to farm will no longer be able to do that, which will lead to a number of extra road miles, inefficiency and environmental damage as a result of the amount of fuel burned and road traffic. That is not a desirable consequence and it will not benefit the environment at all.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I draw attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my hon. Friend agree that a solution to this problem would be that every single piece of land eligible to claim should grow three crops in three years, which would eliminate the problems of the mono-cropping of maize in Germany and, as I saw last week, between Paris and Strasbourg?

[Mr Spencer]

If I could extend my hon. Friend’s proposal to three crops in five years, that would allow for a normal cropping rotation of two weeks for oil seed or pulse, followed perhaps by a spring crop. We do not recognise some of the challenges that face UK agriculture today as we take more and more agricultural chemicals out of our toolbox. The rise of resistant black grass, certainly in the midlands and East Anglia, is a real challenge and we are going to have to allow spring cropping to deal with it.

On the 5% greening, I am glad that the Government are allowing hedgerows to be used. We must, of course, move as quickly as we can to incorporate stone walls and other environmentally beneficial margins at the same time. If the mapping has to be digital, I remind Members of the challenges the previous Administration faced while trying to move to a mapping system. If I may use a Sherwood expression, the Minister must make sure his ducks are in a row and that, when we get to that system, farmers can get their payment as soon as possible. If there are delays, and if the system is complicated and farmers have to wait for their single farm payment, will the Minister engage with the banking sector to make sure that the banks support farmers through that break in cash-flow and that there is other such support?

In summary, three things matter to this nation: that we are well fed; that the environment is maintained and protected; and that, in order to deliver those things, we have profitable farmers. At the end of this monumental process of CAP reform, I hope that we can deliver all three of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Well, I think there was quite a degree of consensus. I suppose we have to recognise that the last Government gave up a chunk of our rebate supposedly in order to get CAP reform, but that did not work either. I want to stay on the substance of the issue before us this evening, however.

In terms of applying this basic approach of keeping the pillar one payments as simple as possible, when it came to greening we were clear we wanted to have the flexibility to allow farmers, for instance, to use hedges to count towards their environmental focus areas.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The inclusion of hedgerows as being eligible for pillar two payments is one of the Government’s successes. On that point, while many areas of the country have hedgerows as field boundaries, there are other areas, such as the Cotswolds, that have stone walls as field boundaries. May I ask him to press the Commission hard that those sorts of landscape features should also be included for payment?

[George Eustice]

There were serious administrative difficulties in terms of allowing hedgerows and all landscape features to count towards the environmental focus area, because each one has to be mapped, and we took the decision in the end that hedgerows were so important to many parts of the country that in the first year we should include those hedgerows and endeavour to get the mapping done, and where it could not be done in year one—we have three years to complete the mapping— farmers would self-declare the hedgerows. We do not rule out adding things like stone walls in years two or three, once we have got hedgerows in place. The task of mapping every single individual feature on every farm is an enormous one, however, and we therefore wanted to start first with hedges, before moving on to things such as dry stone walls.

Badger Cull

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for his point of order. It is not in fact a point of order for the Chair, but it is a point that the House has noted. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) has been helpful in providing information to the House.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I always understood it to be a convention of this House that if any Member quoted from a document in the public domain, the document should be tabled before the debate, to be available to every hon. Member so that they, too, may quote from it. I do not believe that the document is yet in the public domain—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. That rule applies to Ministers; it does not apply to a Back Bencher addressing the House.

The matter is now at an end. The hon. Member for St Albans is referring to the report, which may come up and be debated for the rest of the afternoon; it is not for the Chair to rule on where the report ought to be. The hon. Lady is quoting from it, and I am sure that Members will listen carefully to what she is saying. They will then be able to deal with her points, with or without the report before them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Wiggin]

We would love to know. We would love to know what the Government think of the report, but we have not seen it yet.

I have always preferred vaccination, and I believe that it should be targeted at healthy badger populations where the chance of a badger being infected is low but likely to increase due to their proximity to infected populations. This means vaccinating healthy badgers working inwards, geographically, towards the centre of infection. Professor Woodruff gives an excellent speech on the benefits of an immune population and how we can achieve that. This should also apply to cattle, and I am more than willing to do everything possible to help the Government achieve cattle vaccination.

There are endless arguments to suggest that vaccination is better than culling. I am more than willing to accept those arguments, but they cannot apply unless they apply to both species. We need to redouble our efforts to prevent damage to our export markets from vaccinating cattle. It is not widely known that meat from infected cows showing less than one lesion already makes its way into the food chain. It is also the case that milk from an infected cow is safe to drink after it has been pasteurised. Therefore, there is no reason why pasteurised milk and vet-inspected meat should not be available for export from vaccinated cattle. I think the House may find that it already is.

After the pathetic European response to the horsemeat scandal, I do not believe that the European Union has a strong case to ban our exports. The response from the European Commission is unhelpful and is another reason why, if for no other, we should leave the EU. I hope the Secretary of State will join me in campaigning to leave the European Union and one of the benefits will be that we can vaccinate our cattle.

If we are going to base our decisions on science, we should ensure that the scientists have been heard.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am delighted, Madam Deputy Speaker, to catch your eye in this debate. I draw Members’ attention to my declaration of interests. However, although I am a farmer, I do not have any cattle and therefore do not have any financially beneficial interests to declare.

I take no pleasure in talking about this dreadful disease. I am sure that everyone here today can at least agree that we have a serious problem. Given that the UK has the third largest dairy production and the fourth largest beef production in the EU in an industry worth about £8.4 billion, I want to ensure that that industry is not in any way jeopardised. We should all agree that badgers are at least part of the problem. Professor Donnelly has stated that nearly 50% of bovine TB incidents can be attributed to infectious badgers.

I think that this should be a cross-party issue. I hope that Members on both Front Benches can agree on a TB eradication policy, because whoever wins the next election will want to continue with it. I think that this debate is premature, and that it is impossible to come to some of the conclusions mentioned in the motion until the full copy of the report is available. I gather that the Government are about to publish a TB strategy, and until it is available and the Secretary of State has had a realistic chance to consider the report and the way the Government will go forward, we should not have this debate. Indeed, the timing now is unfortunate.

On 2 April, the Royal Society is to hold a high-powered seminar on the subject, to which I intend to go to learn the very latest scientific opinion. I agree with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that we should proceed on the basis of sound science—that obviously makes sense—and of cross-party agreement.

I stress to the House that we are talking only about trials. Let us try to learn the lesson from the trials. The lesson may be that we do not continue with them, that we do continue with them or that we continue with them in a different way. Let us at least try to learn it, and do it sensibly and maturely and in a low-key manner.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that we should learn lessons from other countries? The fact is there is no country in the world that has got on top of bovine TB without addressing its presence in the wildlife population. Ireland, which has culls, has reduced bovine TB by a third in recent years.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend brings me to the very last paragraph of my speech. In the Republic of Ireland, from 2008 to 2013, there has been a 50% reduction in the number of reactors—from 29,900 down to 15,612. For the first time ever, the Government of the Republic of Ireland think that they may well be able to reach TB-free status, which is what we should be aiming for in this country. What we want to see is healthy cattle and healthy badgers.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have a choice over whom to give way to.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend also aware that Northern Ireland, which has never culled badgers and has no badger intervention in any place, has achieved a reduction of 12%, compared with only 8.9% in the Irish Republic?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Common sense and logic should say to my hon. Friend that a 50% reduction in the south must have an effect on the north because there are fewer badgers. Without the culling in the south, there would not have been the reduction in the north.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, but it will be the last intervention I take as we have been asked to be brief.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman talked about countries. Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, and in February the Minister said that, between December 2012 and November 2013, 33% fewer cattle have been slaughtered because of TB. That is evidence from an area within the United Kingdom where no culling has taken place.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am not an expert on Wales, and I am sure that others who are situated in Wales will wish to speak in this debate and to refute that point. I simply note that there have been only three expressions of interests to extend the injectable trial in Wales. I suggest that that is because it is proving more difficult to carry out than the Welsh Government expected.

I wish to address my final few remarks to the culls and the lessons that are available to us. Although peaceful demonstration is perfectly acceptable, deliberate obstruction is not. Even less acceptable is the destruction of several hundred traps, which are private property and expensive items. That is what happened in Gloucestershire, and it was unacceptable. On learning the lessons, I concede—this is contrary to my former opinion—that the free-shooting of badgers is proving more difficult than was originally intended. In future trials, I expect that we will move towards the cage trapping of badgers and humane dispatch, which seems to be a more satisfactory method than free-shooting. None the less, we will always need free-shooting to back up that system, because some badgers will never go into a trap; they are trap shy.

Much has been said about the one leaked sentence from the report that stated that a number of badgers took five minutes to die. I understand that that was how long it took the person who shot the badger to reach the badger and verify that it was dead. If there are a lot of obstructions in their way, it could well take more than five minutes to get from the place where the shot has been fired to retrieving the badger and proving that it is dead. However, those are all matters of speculation. We simply do not know, because we have not seen the report. When we get the report, we will be much better informed.

Many people seem to be concerned about the number of badgers that are being culled—roughly a few thousand in both trials. They should contrast that with the 30,000 cattle that have to be slaughtered each year under the TB regulations. I understand that many Members in this House are deeply concerned about animal welfare, as indeed am I having had a parent who owned stock all their life, but they should think of this. When a cow is slaughtered under the unacceptable halal regime, it routinely takes more than five minutes to die. If the anti-cull brigade would focus its attention on that, it really would be doing some good.

Much has been said in this debate about vaccination. I understand that the Secretary of State, in a recent conversation with the EU Commissioner, was told that it is likely to be at least 10 years before a licensed cattle vaccine is available. We simply cannot leave our farmers in limbo for that long. Even when a licensed cattle vaccine becomes available, we need an acceptable skin test—a DIVA test—that will distinguish between vaccinated cattle and cattle that have the disease. Under the current BCG—Bacille de Calmette et Guérin—test, if an animal is vaccinated it will show up as having the disease. Members seems to think that a cattle vaccine is an easy thing to achieve, but the real question we must ask ourselves is whether countries around the world, let alone in the EU, will take our cattle exports if they have been vaccinated. That is a really big matter.

I am clear that culling on its own is not the answer, but neither is vaccination on its own. It would be if we had an oral vaccine that we could deliver to badgers, just as we did to foxes when we got rid of rabies on the continent. An oral vaccine has been just around the corner for the entire 22 years I have been a Member of Parliament, yet we still do not know when it is likely to appear.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said, all around the world it has not been possible to eliminate a disease in cattle where there is a large wildlife vector. Whether it is white-tailed deer in Michigan, badgers in the Republic of Ireland or possums in New Zealand, in order to eradicate the disease in cattle we have to eradicate it in wildlife. I want to see a cold, sober debate in which the scientific evidence is fully evaluated, and I want the Government, hopefully on a cross-party basis if the Opposition will agree, to introduce a policy that will work. Let us ensure that we eliminate this dreadful disease once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for choosing the debate and the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for introducing it—with great fortitude, I might add, and I commend her for that. I also thank the cross-party group of MPs who secured the debate, which is hugely significant and timely, because the Minister is considering wider roll-outs. We have seen cross-party support for a new way forward and a new consensus based on vaccination and cattle measures.

I thank all Members who have spoken, even those whose opinions I respect but disagree with. There were many good contributions, including by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who has great experience, and the hon. Members for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams)—we go back a long way—for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). I may not agree with many of the points that they made, but they spoke with passion for their constituents.

Those who have spoken for the motion today and for a considered, cross-party and scientific consensus on the way forward include the hon. Member for St Albans, who made the point that this is not a case of one side against another; my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), for Copeland (Mr Reed), for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for Derby North (Chris Williamson), for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith); the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George), for Southend West (Mr Amess), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for Torbay (Mr Sanders) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); and the right hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) and, lately, for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell). In every part of the Chamber, on every Bench, there have been calm, rational and methodical arguments on why we should have a different way forward.

A number of questions face Ministers today. Why continue to pursue a policy of eradicating bovine TB in cattle involving mass culling of badgers? It proved hugely costly to taxpayers and farmers and was critically flawed, from the first principles, through the methodology to the application in the field. It failed to meet the Government’s own limited tests of effectiveness and humaneness. In short, not enough badgers were culled, and too many were not killed cleanly, but suffered before dying. Culls have diverted stretched police resources from front-line duties to deal with protesters and to ensure public safety, prompting police and crime commissioners to speak out in opposition. Culls are deeply unpopular with the public throughout the country, in town and country alike. Culls are scientifically controversial to the point of flying in the face of mainstream, expert advice, from which, as we have seen today, increasing numbers of Government MPs are making the right and intelligent choice to seek alternative, workable strategies for TB eradication.

Why pursue such a policy when it is so clearly contested scientifically, so deeply flawed methodologically and so evidently failing, and when there are proven alternatives, which are more humane, more effective, cheaper and more publicly acceptable? Why do that when scientists, many farmers, MPs from all parties and Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition are willing to work with the Government on an alternative strategy that will be enduring and effective and garner widespread stakeholder and public support? In all sincerity, despite—in fact because of—those flawed and failed culls in Gloucester and Somerset, it is not too late for Ministers to think again and for us to work together on a better way forward.

Before addressing what has gone wrong with the culls and what can now be done, let me make it clear that Labour agrees entirely and unequivocally that the scourge of bovine TB must be eradicated. It must be eradicated because of the terrible waste of productive cattle, the destruction of pedigree herds, the cash-flow and wider economic impacts on family farms, the psychological trauma for farmers and their families, and the unsustainable cost of compensation payments. Some have pointed out that many more tens of thousands of cattle are slaughtered each year for many other reasons—mastitis, lameness, old age, inability to calve and so on. That is true, but 1% of the total cattle herd, dairy and non-dairy, in the UK is slaughtered because of bovine TB, and that is unacceptable. What also distinguishes that from other reasons for slaughter is that it is a notifiable disease. We have a public and legal duty to bear down on it, and pressing trade reasons to do so, too. On that, we are at one with the Government.

We support the UK and the Welsh Governments for their increasingly stringent efforts, working with farmers, to clamp down on the disease by use of cattle measures. As this is a disease in cattle, the primary resolution will be in cattle measures. Some Ministers give the impression that badgers are the main culprits, yet we know from exhaustive in-field studies that although there is some direct transmission of TB from infected badgers to cattle—it is about 6% of the total—and that that may indeed play a role in subsequent onward transmission, cattle-to-cattle transmission is the major element.

We know also that the most significant spike in TB was linked to the rapid spread of the disease in the immediate aftermath of foot and mouth disease, when the restocking of cattle took place northwards and westwards, often from areas further south where TB was present. In addition, there have been sporadic occurrences in parts of the country and farms where there has been no history of TB, and we must note the presence of TB-free farms in the midst of hotspot areas. All that reinforces the scientific conclusion that stringent cattle measures are key to a successful strategy of eradication. Movement restrictions, risk-based trading, rigorous biosecurity and other measures will play the most substantial part in eradicating the disease.

However, we also need fully to recognise the need to tackle reservoirs of the disease in wildlife, where appropriate. Our disagreement with the Government—it is a profound disagreement—is over the best means of addressing the wildlife reservoir. We believe, as do many farmers and leading scientific opinion, backed by mounting evidence of success, which has been set out before the Minister today, that there is another way to tackle badger TB which has greater certainty of success and avoids the significant risks of a mass-culling programme.

Before I expand on an alternative approach, we have to examine what went wrong with the Government’s culls last year. There was a sequence of dire policy miscalculations, each of which compounded the other and led to wholesale failure. The crucial baseline population of badgers was first overestimated, then underestimated; a risky and wholly untested “free-shoot” approach was adopted, which promptly but predictably failed; more costly cage-trap-shoot methods were rapidly then introduced, yet still too few badgers were culled in the time frame allowed, posing an increased risk of spreading TB; the six-week time-frame was then controversially extended and, again, still too few badgers were killed; and, meanwhile, police patrolled the country trying to maintain order for deeply unpopular culls, and running up bills for the taxpayer.

We now understand from a delayed but leaked Government report that too many badgers died inhumanely, enduring suffering before death. As an aside, I note that the British Veterinary Association, of which I am proud to be an honorary member, predicated its support on these culls being humane—watch this space.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Between 1998 and 2010, the number of herd breakdowns tripled from 1,226 to 3,334, and the number of cattle slaughtered rose sixfold, from 4,102 to 24,000. Given what I am hearing from the Labour Front-Bench team today, can our farmers, who are suffering so terribly from this disease, expect more of the same?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

No, and I refer the hon. Gentleman, who makes a valid point, to the figures for the past three years, which have shown a downward trend.

I say to the Minister that the two key tests for the Government of effectiveness and humaneness have been failed. So let us not keep inflicting this costly policy failure and public relations disaster on farmers, taxpayers and wildlife. Let us learn the lessons from these two failed and costly culls, stop them now and look at the alternative way forward, which can be cheaper, more humane and more effective.

Look instead to Wales, where there has been a significant and substantial reduction in TB, at twice the rate of the decline in England. That happened without culling, but with vaccination and stringent cattle measures. Look to Northern Ireland, where BTB is declining faster, without culling, than in the Republic, where culling is taking place. Look closer to home, in England, where the incidence of BTB began to decline even before the culls started. We repeatedly pointed out that trend to Ministers, who either ignored or denied it. The trend is even more apparent now that Ministers have admitted that the figures incorrectly overstated BTB.

More and more MPs from across the parties, including independent-minded Government MPs, are calling on Ministers to pause and think again. There is a different approach to tackling TB in cattle and wildlife, if only Ministers would listen to the evidence, and to the increasing numbers of MPs of their own party who have lost faith in these deeply flawed culls. We want the Government to work with the science and across political parties to seek a new, lasting consensus on the way forward. Labour, scientists, and many farmers want to do that, so I repeat the offer that I made to the Secretary of State in writing in December: work with us, with farmers, and with the evidence to agree a new, better way forward.

Managing Flood Risk

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am delighted to catch your eye in this important debate, Mr Speaker, and I will certainly adhere to your strictures. I am grateful for the opportunity to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and I congratulate her on chairing the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and on her clear knowledge of this subject in her speech.

I want to cover succinctly aspects of the performance of the Environment Agency’s and the statutory water undertaker in my constituency, Thames Water. I will then consider some of the problems with the planning system, in particular building on a floodplain and the unknown and uncertain liabilities that has caused, and the difficulties with drainage and with insuring some of those houses under the new Government Flood Re system.

In common with a number of my hon. Friends, a number of houses in my constituency—often the same houses in the same streets—have been flooding for a number of years. This is not just water flooding; it is also sewage flooding. Water flooding is bad enough, but if a house is flooded from a sewer, it is twice as bad because it takes even longer to clear up. I want to examine critically the performance of Thames Water’s underinvestment in the sewerage system in my constituency. Areas of my constituency that are affected cover Moreton-in-Marsh, Fairford, Lechlade, Cirencester, Siddington and South Cerney, to name but a few.

I hold regular half-yearly public flooding meetings in my constituency. They are recorded, with action points, and bring together all the agencies—Thames Water, the Environment Agency, the county district council and relevant town and parish councils. In that way, I can hold officials to account.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about bringing together the community around flood issues, but one point about resilience, particularly in my constituency, has been the work of the Halesowen flood committee led by Claude Mosseri and his wife Ruth. They have brought together the relevant agencies to do vital work around the Illey brook area of Halesowen. Resilience is very much about local communities taking local action to bring the agencies together.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Before I held the public meetings I found that each agency was shuffling responsibility off to one of the other agencies. It is essential that all agencies and all tools in the box are unleashed to try to solve these flooding problems.

The meetings have produced results in parts of my constituency, but there is still a lot to be done. In particular, problems with sewage flooding arise because the sewerage systems are very old. The moment we have any sort of flooding the water table rises, water gets into the sewerage system, and the pumps are incapable of removing the sewage from people’s houses, leading to very difficult issues. I will be encouraging Ofwat to take a greater interest in this subject—indeed, I will invite it to my public meetings—to see whether we can encourage Thames Water to carry out what it says it will, and invest more in our sewers.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

One problem seems to be that there is no way we can control the water table from going up and down. That is a severe problem, and there does not seem to be a technical solution to sorting it out. That is happening in my constituency more and more.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend that whether or not climate change is taking place and is caused by human activity, there is no doubt that we are getting an increased number of events with increased rain intensity, and we must therefore have better defences against flooding. There is no reason in the 21st-century why we cannot have sewerage systems that cope with such events. In particular, as I shall come on to say, we need sewerage systems that will cope with new development, which often adds to existing problems.

There is a perception that the residents of the Cotswolds, who live 100 miles away from London but who are still in the Thames Water area, are getting a very poor deal. It is outrageous that all Thames Water customers will be charged an additional £70 to £80 a year for at least 10 years to pay for the huge Thames tideway tunnel, when we in the Cotswolds cannot get the increased investment we need to deal with sewage flooding. The regulator Ofwat has to look at that. The time for talking in the Cotswolds is over. Thames Water has had more than enough time to carry out all its design work. We need more sewerage investment.

Equally, we need the Environment Agency to take the lead in planning how to deal with catchment areas. An exchange took place with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The answer is not just dredging, but considering the whole catchment area using all the keys in our locker to deal with the problem. That is what I am asking the EA to do in my constituency. For at least three years, it has been talking about coming up with an upper River Churn catchment area plan, but I have still yet to see that plan. Not only do we need to see adequate investment from the EA to deal with river flooding problems, we need to encourage Thames Water to invest adequately to tackle sewerage problems.

On new developments, we have, unfortunately, seen a rash of developers in my constituency. I accept that we all need new houses because the population is rising, but we need—I say this most emphatically to my hon. Friend on the Front Bench—new houses in the right areas. If we build houses on floodplains we cannot complain when we get subsequent problems. In South Cerney, for example, a recently passed new development is right next door to an estate that has had sewerage flooding problems. How daft is that? Fairford and Lechlade have each seen new developments passed for developments to be built on the floodplain. That is also daft.

We need to examine the system we have at the moment. The Environment Agency is a statutory consultee for large investment, but it has to take into account only one-in-100-year events when considering whether a development on a floodplain is viable. That is completely unrealistic and should rapidly be brought down to a design phase of one-in-25-year events. The statutory water undertaker, Thames Water, is not even a statutory consultee; it is consulted by the local planning authority often only as a matter of principle. Even then, all it has to do is to say that the sewerage system is capable of being connected to the new development, not whether the new development will make existing sewage flooding worse or whether the sewer needs upgrading. This is a legal grey area. Thames Water has been taken to court several times for trying to exceed its powers. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister: for goodness’ sake let us look at this and try to get the legal framework correct.

An even more important aspect of the planning system is drainage: sustainable drainage systems. We are building up for ourselves a huge and unknown liability from the lack of proper design of drainage systems. Currently, the local planning authority monitors the drainage system for a new development. Developers, with plenty of funds behind them, employ clever drainage engineers who take their percolation tests in the summer when everything is nice and dry—when, of course, the drainage works properly—instead of being made to take them in the winter when the water table is high. They then ask the developer for a section 106 payment. Often, that payment is inadequate. Under the Water Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton knows, SUDS will have to be licensed by the county council. Until that happens, we have a huge and unknown liability from SUDS, which are often completely inadequate and designed for one-in-100-year events. I say again that they should be designed for one-in-25-year events. We should not be building willy-nilly on the floodplain without thinking seriously about what we are doing.

A lot of my constituents have difficulty getting insurance. The new Government Flood Re system will not cover houses built after 2009, so, in relation to all recent applications where houses have been built on the floodplain, we are creating a problem for ourselves. They will undoubtedly flood at some stage, yet the owners of those houses will not be able to get flood insurance.

I welcome the Government’s efforts to ensure that everyone who buys a house on a floodplain is aware of having done so, but it is one thing for people to be aware of it during the sunny summer months when they buy their houses, and a completely different thing for them to be aware of it in the winter, when the rain falls in bucketfuls.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend’s constituency, mine has been pretty much under water. Does he agree that if we go ahead with many of the proposed flood alleviation schemes—the bigger schemes that are intended for the future, such as the extension of the Jubilee river all the way down to the Thames—far more land will come back into use, and we shall need better planning control to ensure that the flood meadows are not removed from the current system?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. If we concrete over vast areas, particularly on the floodplains, they will no longer be able to absorb water, which is what they were designed to do in the first place. In many instances, they were designed specifically as flood meadows. Worse still, in the event of heavy rainfall they will empty the water into the catchment very quickly. That is what has caused flooding downstream.

I suggest to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion that we should consider the catchment areas as a whole, and decide how best to deal with what are to remain floodplains. In my constituency there is a scheme enabling water above Cirencester to be impounded so that it can be gently released when the rainfall has subsided. We should be doing much more of that sort of thing, because it is much cheaper than building expensive houses and then having to provide flood defences retrospectively.

Let me say to my hon. Friend the Minister that, while I commend what the Government have done, we need to look carefully at investment, particularly investment by the water undertakers. It is not a question of public funding; it is simply a question of equity between the profits that are given to shareholders and the profits that are reinvested in sewerage systems. I repeat that it is outrageous that Thames Water is being allowed to charge my constituents between £70 and £80 a year for the Thames tideway tunnel when they are not benefiting from the investment in sewerage flooding systems that they justly deserve.

Let us, for goodness’ sake, look at the planning system. Let us not keep building on the floodplains, because doing so is creating a great many uncertain liabilities for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I am sorry; the Minister is wrong on that point. The 290 projects that I referred to are those that were shovel-ready and scheduled within that four-year period; the 996 projects are the ones that were not. Significantly, 13 of those schemes were in the north-east Thames valley, where more than 350 homes have been flooded, and 67 of them were in the south-west, where 100 homes have been flooded.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made the further point at Prime Minister’s questions that the EA is planning to make 550 flood defence posts redundant. I specifically questioned the Minister in the Westminster Hall debate last week on whether those redundancies will go ahead. He was pressed for time in his summing up and was unable to explain how he considered that the EA could give people the sort of assistance that we have seen over the past two months and to which many hon. Members have paid tribute this afternoon, and I join them in doing so. How will the EA do that with 550 fewer staff? Today, I ask him to tell the House what roles the people in those posts currently perform. Are some of them the people who actually manage the flows of water in the waterways, by monitoring and operating the sluice gates, the weirs, the locks and the pumps? Do they include the people who survey and assess the condition of flood defences. Do they include the people who prepare the maintenance schedules for those defences? Do they include any of the people who have been helped with the clear-up operations? What is of enormous concern is that those skills and expertise might be lost with these redundancies, with the corresponding loss of service and safety to the public in the future.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am afraid that I cannot give way because I have to give the Minister time to respond. I have given way quite a lot.

Now the Government have set out their forward projects for capital, by saying that they will spend £370 million a year in 2015-16 and every year through to 2021. The Minister needs to be open with the House today about what percentage of that money in each year will be used for new build flood defences and what will be used for major capital repairs and maintenance. The Committee on Climate Change has been astute in analysing the figure of 165,000 properties that the Secretary of State told our Select Committee were “better protected” in the current spending period when he gave evidence to us last year. It warns that flood risk will actually reduce only for a proportion of the 165,000 properties. Many capital schemes are simply replacing or refurbishing existing defences on a like-for-like basis and to the same crest height. With climate change, many of those homes will be less well protected than when the defences were originally built. The defence may have been repaired, but the risk that it will be overtopped as a result of climate change has increased. Far too many homes and properties are still at risk because the defences that we have are less effective than they once were because of the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor pointed out in his op-ed for The Daily Telegraph just over a week ago:

“Investment in flood defences is now £500 million below what is needed and this risks £3 billion in avoidable flood damage”.

The point that he makes is as simple as it is clear:

“we need to make long term decisions now that can save money in the future”.

He has promised that our zero-based review of public spending must not only eliminate waste and inefficiencies but

“prioritise preventative spending that can save money in the long-term.”

That is the sort of commitment that people get when they have a Chancellor who understands the science of climate change, rather than one whose guru is the chief climate change denier in the other place.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said on Wednesday last week, the assessment of how much to invest in flood defence depends significantly on an assessment of the risks posed by man-made climate change. If we are properly to protect the British people against the threat of flooding, we cannot have doubt and confusion within the Government on climate change. But doubt and confusion are what we have from the two Secretaries of State in charge of protecting our homes, infrastructure and industry. The Environment Secretary’s unscientific opinions on climate change and his refusal to be briefed by his chief scientist on the subject are a matter of public record, as is his decision to downgrade flood defence as a priority. The link is clear.

The confusion reached a new height last Wednesday when the Communities Secretary, given the opportunity to show some scientific understanding and rigour, chose instead to cite Lord Lawson. The noble Lord’s dangerous, unscientific opinions on climate science are well known and have no place in the Government, let alone in the answers from a Secretary of State with responsibility for flooding. The fact that the Prime Minister has refused to distance himself from those comments shows that the Government cannot be trusted to get this right. The Met Office has been very clear that such extreme weather events as we have seen are only likely to become more severe and more frequent.

Is the Environment Secretary still refusing to entertain a briefing from his chief scientist on climate science? Will the Minister at least put his own opinion on the record? Does he accept the climate change risk analysis prepared by his officials, which estimates that 1 million properties may be at serious risk of flooding by 2020? Up from the current figure of 370,000, that 1 million estimate includes 800,000 homes. If so, will he tell us whether his Department’s flood insurance proposal—Flood Re—takes account of those additional properties? The Committee on Climate Change adaptation sub-committee has warned that it does not.

The Minister will know that Lord Krebs, as chair of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change, wrote to the Secretary of State in January and made it clear that the committee was available to the Department to ensure that sound science was the basis for all the Government’s long-term funding decisions on flood defences. Will the Secretary of State accept that offer?

I wish to identify one of the most fundamental recommendations made by the Select Committee in its excellent report. The Committee stated:

“We regret that the current regulatory framework does not permit innovative investment in natural flood defences by water companies and expect Ofwat’s next Price Review to rectify this.”

All too often, we reach for concrete and steel solutions to the problem of flooding instead of looking at soft, green infrastructural approaches. There are notable exceptions, and Wessex Water, for example, operates a catchment management system that pays landowners to manage the uplands in a benign way that retains water and purifies it, instead of allowing contaminated water in need of treatment to run swiftly down the catchment. Land management plays a vital role. The retention of flood water upstream through woodland and ground cover in the uplands is every bit as important as dredging in the lower levels of the catchment. Landowners always seek to dredge the river as it passes through their land. That is the quickest way to try to ensure that their own land is not flooded and the problem is passed downstream. This approach was contained in the Pitt review under recommendation 27. When will this most important element of flood risk management, adverted to in the Select Committee report, be implemented?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

The figures that I am setting out into the future are for capital spending, and we expect revenue amounts to be settled as budgets are introduced for each year. However, the points that the Chair of the Select Committee makes about seeking contributions from all those involved in water management are entirely valid. In her speech she spoke about water company investment in water management that goes beyond the “hardware” side of things and looks more at the softer side of managing water through land management solutions. Ofwat is considering what it does with totex—total expenditure. It is looking at expenditure across the piece, rather than just at capital—the sort of things that appear on balance sheets that, in the past, would have been the focus. I accept that many people want to change that, so the fact that Ofwat has allowed water companies to do more of that will be beneficial.

The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who is not in the Chamber today, but who took part in the Westminster Hall debate, pointed out the involvement of South West Water, along with my Department, landowners and managers, in an initiative looking at how water can be retained on Exmoor, which has made a difference to the moor’s catchments. That is a good example of the sort of work that can take place. The Chair of the Select Committee often speaks about what is happening in her constituency with the “Slowing the Flow” project, which is working on land management solutions. She is absolutely right that we need to emphasise the economic importance of investment in flood defences and, indeed, in water management. If we can prevent flooding and take that blight away from land that could be developed successfully, that would make a big contribution. If we can avoid the impacts that hon. Members have discussed, we can make a huge difference to local economies.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will my hon. Friend address the points that I made in my speech about building on the floodplain and, where it is not his ministerial responsibility, undertake to have a discussion with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to address the uncertain but doubtless growing liabilities in Flood Re and SUDS, so that we do not build up a bigger and bigger problem for ourselves in future?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend made that point earlier, and a number of other Members referred to the planning process. The good news is that the advice that the Environment Agency gives is taken into account in the vast majority of circumstances. However, there may be examples where we could look at that. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who has discussed the response and recovery aspects of these flooding events at the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions, will have heard that cry, and the national planning policy framework, which the Government have set out, makes it clear that we should not build on floodplains. There are locations, such as those, as we have heard, in the Humber area and so on, where that means no development at all, and the guidance makes it clear that we should see more resistance and resilience built into existing properties. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made that point in response to an intervention.