Environment and Climate Change

George Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I welcome this debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and all who have spoken today in the spirit of cross-party urgency.

I welcome, too, the chance to highlight the importance of this issue at the heart of this Government and the urgency of us all working together—across party, across generations and across these Houses—in the interests of the next generation, who in much of our politics feel pretty dispossessed at present. Secondly, I want to highlight the importance of innovation, science and good business and insist that we do not pursue this in an anti-business spirit but instead harness the power of the market to help us solve these problems. Thirdly, I want to insist—not in any spirit of partisanship but merely to contribute to the debate going on on this side of the House for the heart and soul of conservatism, a debate similar to that on the Opposition side of the House—that good environmental stewardship and policy is central to good one-nation conservatism.

Before coming to this House I was lucky enough to have a career in the field of science and innovation, founding and financing companies with incredibly exciting solutions to some of the great, grand challenges we face, mainly in the field of medical, clean tech and agri-tech, and as an MP I have been lucky enough to work in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and as Life Sciences Minister. It is important that we all agree that there is an environmental emergency in the world, and that we send the message that we get it. It is also important that we admit that this is very complex and that, as the great David Attenborough himself put it to me, we should be every bit as worried about biodiversity and the damage to habitats around the world as about the impact of climate change and the importance of mitigating it. The truth is this problem is being driven across the world by massive industrialisation, deforestation and urbanisation, and those seeing their life chances transformed by the agricultural and industrial revolutions driving those changes do not want us in the west to hold back their prosperity; instead they want us to reach out and help them deliver a model of clean green growth.

I absolutely agree with those who suggested this should also be at the heart of our DFID strategy. I would like a much more muscular alignment of our aid, trade and security, including our biosecurity, because economic resilience is key to prosperity around the world.

Secondly, on science and innovation, I want to pay tribute to some of those who have not just jumped on the bandwagon but have spent their careers in science trying to develop the science behind this important debate. I am thinking of those at the British Antarctic Survey, the scientists I have been lucky enough to meet and work with at Cambridge and the University of East Anglia, and those who have been working on battery technology, which holds the key to unlocking the power of electricity and electric sustainable power. I am thinking, too, of those in agri-tech; I was lucky enough to launch the agri-tech strategy, and incredible work is going on to reduce plastics, water and soil impact in modern farming. I am thinking of those in the automotive and aerospace industries; I recently visited Lotus in Norfolk, which has developed a Formula 1 car powered by biofuel, made by genetically modified bugs breaking down agricultural waste. This is great science holding great potential for our green economy. Indeed, the aerospace industry is currently embarked on taking 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide out of its footprint. Let us not criticise those on the cutting edge of trying to develop the technologies, and let us neither be complacent.

Thirdly, on the Conservative party’s track record and legacy, may I support the Secretary of State in his work and remind him and my colleagues on this side of the House that it was this party that led the first Clean Air Acts, it was this party’s leader Lady Thatcher who first put this challenge on the agenda of global leaders, and it was this party that, through its values of stewardship, conservation, incentives and responsibility and its belief in prosperity—in giving and taking responsibility and in the principle of mutuality and harnessing rewards and incentives—has used the market to drive an economics of shared values as much as of share value?

This party understands how we achieve green growth and, at the risk of going all Monty Python on you, Mr Speaker, and asking “What have the Conservatives ever done for the environment?” let me say that this year we have reached a high in renewable energy, we are reducing emissions faster than any other G20 nation, and we have put £92 billion into clean energy and created 400,000 jobs. I do not mean to be complacent for a moment but let us inspire the next generation by resisting tribal politics, being led by science and being inspired by what innovation can achieve.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I expect that that will be concluded by the end of the transition period.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not “Project Fear” when the National Farmers Union and all the agricultural unions warn of an embargo on animal product exports, which are currently worth £3.15 billion, in the event of no deal? In the case of the lamb industry, 94% of its exports go to the EU. This is not “Project Fear”; this is serious “Project Business”.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There have been some exaggerated claims about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, and the British economy is resilient. He is absolutely right, however, that farmers in some of our most vulnerable sectors, in constituencies that Members across this House represent, would be significantly adversely affected in the short term.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I will speak about public trust in Parliament as a backdrop to this debate. I hope you will indulge me, Mr Speaker, if I start by paying tribute to our former colleague, the late, great Mark Wolfson, who served Sevenoaks with great distinction between 1979 and 1997. He was a great friend and parliamentary mentor to me.

I approach the debate with the clear principle—a principle that long ago inspired me as the great, great, great, great nephew of the “Grand Old Man” Gladstone—that because of a great and glorious truth, this Parliament is sovereign. I still believe that elected MPs, as the sovereign representatives of our constituencies, serve in the highest office, and that to be elected to this House is one of the great privileges and responsibilities that our citizens can bestow. This is a moment to remember that.

Parliament is the institution that, more than any other, defends the liberties and order that we enjoy. Parliament historically defied the tyranny of the King, and in the 19th century, it was Parliament that granted rights to so many who had been denied them. Parliament said that all of us are entitled to equal human rights. In moments of crisis, Parliament has always come together, with parties coming together to put country before party. It is now Parliament that confronts this crisis and the biggest decision facing our generation. It is a decision that will redefine Britain’s place in the world and, almost more importantly, the trust of a whole generation in our democratic Parliament and politics.

Parliament—yes, a majority of us in this House—decided to ask the people, and in June 2016, they gave us their answer. For that reason, I remain deeply opposed to a second referendum. The people have spoken and it is our job to implement their instruction. However, that instruction was not clear. People voted to leave by a narrow margin. In my constituency, 58% wished to leave, but nationally the result was 52% to 48%. That is not an overwhelming, thumping majority—it was a narrow margin. Many of my constituents who voted to leave said to me, “George, I voted to join a common market; I did not want to be in a political union.” Those people who voted to leave wanted to be in a common market. I put it to the House that there is no majority in the country for taking the result as an instruction unilaterally to pull ourselves out of all European institutions, including by cutting ourselves off from the single market. That is not our mandate, although we do have a duty to implement the will of the people we serve.

Public trust in our politics and parliamentary democracy is at a dangerous low. As well as getting the outcome right, we must ensure that we conduct ourselves in the spirit required of the day—a spirit of repairing the damage done by that appalling referendum campaign, reuniting a divided nation, and restoring trust in Parliament and parliamentary democracy, not least for those who did not get to vote in that referendum and the people whose futures and interests we will shape.

I voted remain in 2016, and as a Minister responsible for a £60 billion industry employing 250,000 people, in which not one man or woman I could find supported leaving, I felt that was my duty. As the MP for Mid Norfolk, I was—and remain—deeply worried about the impact of this decision on our economy and on the economic prospects of my citizens and constituents. However, I always vowed to respect the result, and I have done so ever since the referendum.

I may have voted remain, but in the previous Parliament and the coalition I was one of the leading champions of European reform. Colleagues may remember that I led the Fresh Start Group report, warning of the dangers of Europe’s precautionary principle on holding back UK leadership in science and innovation, which threatened to risk a European dark age at a time when the world is embracing extraordinary technologies in agricultural genetics, accelerated access for new medicines and genomics. Such technologies can transform the life chances of our global citizens. It is a time when we in the UK, through Europe, could lead on taking those technologies around the world. I fought this battle as a Back Bencher and then as a Minister, but the plea for a more innovative and enterprising Europe fell largely on deaf ears.

Yes, I was a remainer, but one who understood all too well the flaws of the European Union. Let no one accuse me of being a lily-livered, root-and-branch pro-European—I am not. [Interruption.] And neither am I a snowflake, as someone chunters from my side of the Chamber. I wanted Britain to lead the reform of Europe so that we, together with Europe, could embrace the extraordinary opportunities for UK science and innovation around the world in agri-tech, health-tech and clean-tech; in food, medicine and energy; to feed, heal and fuel; and to take around the world the technologies that this country leads in, and that, with our European scientific partners, could help to accelerate global development.

The people have spoken and now we have to deliver. The truth is that all parties are split. It is a truth that Opposition Front Benchers would do well to confront. I know that it suits them to position themselves as remainers in London and the south-east, and as Brexiteers up north, but the truth is that all parties are split. I believe that we ought to be pursuing this in the spirit of cross-party co-operation. In my view, we always needed a cross-party council of Brexit, and I was appalled to hear the other day that the shadow Brexit Secretary has apparently received no contact from Ministers about the possible basis of an agreement. It seems to me that unless we reach out across the House, listen to the electorate and signal that we will put party behind country, we are unlikely to find a solution. We have less than 100 days. We are running out of time. There is an angry mob outside Parliament, and they speak for an angriness in the nation. We need an orderly withdrawal.

Despite our differences, it seems to me that we are all agreed on one thing: this deal is not perfect. I have said so myself and I have many reservations. I had hoped that the Prime Minister would come back from Europe before Christmas with a concession on the backstop. She has come back with a concession, and I hope that there will be more before the vote next week. Let me be clear that I have supported no deal as an option for two and a half years in order to get the best deal. The negotiation is over. In my view, it would be woefully irresponsible of the Government to pursue no deal. I will do everything to ensure, yes, that we leave the European Union with an orderly deal, but not with no deal. When I hear Lord Wolfson, an ardent Brexiteer, warn as the chief executive of Next that the cost of food and clothes—basics that our constituents rely on—would go up dramatically with a no-deal Brexit, when I hear the Royal Society warn that a no-deal Brexit would be catastrophic for our science and when I hear the National Farmers Union warn that British agricultural would be hit without a deal, with a potential trade embargo affecting our £3 billion food export industry, please do not accuse me of “Project Fear”; this is serious “Project Business” for the people we serve.

If the Prime Minister’s deal does not pass next week, it seems to me that we need a plan B, and I have made it very clear that I personally support colleagues on both sides of the House pushing for the European Free Trade Association model. It would give us access to the single market, but we would be out of the customs union and we would have freedom to do trade deals and to take back control of farming and fishing. Yes, it has a problem, which is free movement, but remember that it is the free movement of workers, not citizens, and I believe that it would require—I relish this—a bold package of welfare eligibility reforms, along with skills and training reforms, here in the UK.

I will, with a heavy heart, vote for this deal on Tuesday, because we are now in the dying stages and leaving with no deal is unconscionable, but I beg colleagues to ask their Front Benchers to work together across the House in pursuit of something we can all be proud of.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

This Parliament is on trial. The public voted very clearly in the people’s vote of 2016. They were told by Parliament and the Government, by the remain and leave campaigns, that they—the people—were making the decision. They were promised that this Parliament would get on with the task, and they now say to this Parliament, “Do just that. Get on with it.”

The public recall that this Parliament is dominated by Members of Parliament serving in the Labour and the Conservative interests. In the 2017 election, every one of us was elected on a manifesto that made it clear that our parties supported implementing the verdict of the British people. The Conservative manifesto went further and made it very clear that we were going to leave the single market and the customs union, as had been pointed out by both remain and leave campaigns in the referendum. The Labour party manifesto set out an interesting and imaginative trade policy for an independent Britain that is clearly incompatible with staying in the customs union. So Labour too, along with the Conservatives, said to the public in 2017 that we would be leaving the customs union as well as the European Union when the decision was implemented.

There are many leave voters now who are extremely angry that some Members in this House think they were stupid, think they got their decision wrong, and think they should have to do it again. Many people in the country who voted remain, as well as many who voted leave, think it is high time that this Parliament moved on from every day re-enacting the referendum debate as if it had not happened and thinking that we can go back over the referendum debate and decision because it did not like the answer. All those who stood on a manifesto to leave the European Union should remember that manifesto. Those who deeply regret the decision and did not stand on such a manifesto should still understand that democracy works by the majority making decisions. When a majority has made a decision in a referendum where they were told that they would get what they voted for, it ill behoves anyone in this Parliament to know better than the British public and to presume that this Parliament can take on the British public and stand against them, because we are here to serve that public. We gave them the choice and they made that choice.

I want us to be much more interested in the opportunities that Brexit provides and to have proper debates about all the things the Government should be doing for when we leave, as I trust we will on 30 March 2019. I see nothing in the withdrawal agreement that I like. It is not leaving; it is sentencing us to another 21 to 45 months of these awful, endless debates and repetitions of the referendum arguments as we try to get something from the European Union by way of an agreement over our future partnership, having thrown away most of our best negotiating cards by putting them into the withdrawal agreement in the form that the European Union wants. That would be ridiculous, and a very large number of leave voters would see it as a complete sell-out. That applies to a very large number of remain voters as well, many of them in my own constituency. They have written to me and said, “For goodness’ sake oppose this withdrawal agreement, because while we do not agree with you about the ultimate aim, we are united in thinking this is even worse than just leaving”, or, in their case, staying within the European Union. I find myself in agreement with the overwhelming majority of my constituents on this subject. For both those who voted remain and leave, this is a very bad agreement that suits neither side.

The opportunities we should be discussing today in respect of fishing, agriculture and business are very considerable. I again ask my oft-repeated question of the Government: when are they going to publish our new tariff schedule? The United Kingdom can decide how much tariff, if any, to impose on imports into our country. I think that the EU tariff schedule on imports into our country is too high. I proposed to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that he remove all tariffs on imported components. That would be a huge boost for manufacturing in this country. Instead of having to say to manufacturers that we might end up with some tariffs on components coming in from the EU, because we have to charge the same to everybody, let us be bold and say that we are going to get rid of the tariffs on the components coming in from non-EU sources so that we cheapen the costs of manufacturing in the United Kingdom and give people a better choice on components.

[George Freeman]

Will my right hon. Friend address the worries of farming families, communities and industries up and down the country facing tariffs on their products going into Europe? This is a £3.15 billion industry facing a very serious tariff threat.

[John Redwood]

I was going to get on to food, and I will do so immediately as I have been prompted. We run a massive £20 billion a year trade deficit in food with the European Union, and tariff-free food competes all too successfully against some elements of our farming industry. I want the Government to choose a tariff structure on food that provides lower overall tariffs against the rest of the world but produces some tariff against EU production so that we will produce more domestically. I want to cut the food miles. I want to see more of our food being produced and sold domestically. Our domestic market share has plunged seriously during the time we have been in the European Union. I think it was well over 90% in 1972 when we entered, and it is now well under 70%. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot get back there.

We need to know urgently from this Government what tariff protection there is going to be against EU food once we have left; whether they will take advantage of the opportunity to get rid of tariffs on food coming in that we cannot conceivably grow or produce for ourselves; and whether they will lower the average tariff, because some of the tariffs that the EU imposes are eye-wateringly too high, to the detriment of the food consumer. As we will be collecting more tariff revenue in total when we start to impose some tariffs on EU products, we should be having a debate on how we are going to spend that money. I trust that the Government would rebate it all to British consumers by direct tax cuts of the right kind. There is no reason why the consumer should be worse off, because we are heavy net exporters and we are going to collect an awful lot more tariff revenue on the EU’s goods than they are going to collect on ours, unless we do something very radical on our tariff schedule. We therefore need to discuss how to spend that money.

We also need to discuss how we rebuild our fishing industry. I am impatient to get on with this. I do not want it to be delayed. We need to take control of our fish and our fishing industry this year, not sometime, never. Under the withdrawal agreement, we have no idea if and when we would get our fishing industry back. Doubtless it would be in play as something to be negotiated away, because the Government have given everything else away that they might otherwise have used in the negotiation. I want to get on and take back control of the fish now. I want a policy from the DEFRA Secretary on how we can land much more of the fish in the United Kingdom, how we can build our fish processing industries on the back of that, and what kind of arrangements we will have with the neighbouring countries both within and outside the EU whereby we will be free to settle the terms and negotiate our own conditions.

This is a huge opportunity. The fishing industry is one of the industries that has been most gravely damaged by our membership of the European Union, and we owe it to our fishing communities around the country to take that opportunity. From landlocked Wokingham, I can assure colleagues from coastal communities that there is huge enthusiasm throughout the country to rebuild our fishing industry and to see those fishing fleets again expand and enable us to land much more of our own fish. We can, at the same time, have a policy that is better on conservation by getting rid of many of the big industrial trawlers that come from the continent. We can get rid of the system where there are discards at sea or, now, the system where people are actually going to be prevented from fishing completely because the fishery cannot be managed sensibly, to the detriment of the fish and the fishermen and women undertaking the work.

There is a huge agenda there. Above all, I want the Government to set out how we are going to spend all the money that we will be saving. The Government say that we are going to give away £39 billion—I think it will be considerably more—under the withdrawal agreement. I would like to take that sum of money, which they have clearly provided for as it is their plan to spend that money, and spend it in the first two years when we come out in March 2019. That would be a 2% boost to our economy—a very welcome Brexit bonus.

Pet Theft

George Freeman Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill]

I agree entirely. Yes, farm dogs are working dogs, but they are also family pets; they are part of the family.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on holding the debate. I just want to point out that the House is on a one-line Whip today and this debate has achieved a huge turnout, from all parties. I suspect that had the House been sitting formally with a Whip, this Chamber would have been packed. The hon. Gentleman has struck a chord in bringing this issue to the House, and I am sure that there will be unanimous support for the motion. I am here on behalf of my constituents whose dog Daisy has been stolen. They share the outrage that at the moment more than 2,000 dogs a year are stolen, that only 5% of thefts lead to a conviction and that a dog has to be proven to be worth £500 to count as property. For many families in this country, a dog is both a working animal and a pet. I fully support, as I am sure we all do, Dogs Trust in its work: we have to correct the law so that people who steal dogs are punished properly.

[Mike Hill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am proud to be leading this e-petition debate, but yes, the issue does have cross-party support.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman supported a Government who did nothing about the disease. Thanks to the policies of the Government he supported, 305,000 otherwise healthy cattle were hauled off to slaughter at a cost to the British taxpayer of £500 million. If we go on as he left it, the disease would double over nine years, we would be looking at a bill of £1 billion and we would not have a cattle industry. The pilots were set up to establish the safety, the humaneness and the efficiency of a controlled shooting by skilled marksmen. It is quite clear that, after the first six weeks, we have succeeded on all three criteria.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Schools across Britain recently celebrated world milk day—milk is produced by cattle, Mr Speaker—which I saw for myself when I visited Pavilion nursery school in Attleborough, Mid Norfolk. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House applaud that initiative as a key opportunity to highlight the benefits of milk as the health drink, and the enormous pressures facing the UK dairy sector, not least the threat of TB in cattle. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to ensure that the dairy market is working properly for consumers, processers and farmers?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That was an extraordinarily strained attempt on the part of the hon. Gentleman to shoehorn his personal pre-occupations into Question 2, but the Secretary of State is a dextrous fellow, and I dare say he can respond pithily.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the meaning of the term “food security”, which was the question I was asked and gave a response to. I have said clearly that there is an issue about rising food prices and about poverty across the country, and the fact that families sometimes find it difficult to buy the food that they need. If he thinks there is a direct correlation between the number of food banks and poverty, will he explain why the number of food banks increased by more than 10 times during the previous Administration? Was that the result of the same factors or not?

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

With world population set to rise to 9 billion, we need to nearly double world food production with half as much land, energy and water. Does the Minister agree that British agriculture science and research from GM to a range of other technologies has a major part to play in helping us feed the world?

[Mr Heath]

It is absolutely right that we have the know-how in this country to exploit a wide range of technologies which could make a real difference to being able to feed the rising population not just in this country, but across the world. I hope the agri-tech strategy that we are in the process of launching will make a real difference in getting research into the right areas, making that usable in terms of applicability, and then sharing that expertise with those people who can put it into effect on the ground.

Badger Cull

George Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I come to the debate as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports. Only this morning, I helped to launch the report by Team Badger, which has effectively exploded all of the myths that are being put forward by the Government to justify this unjustifiable cull of badgers in our country. Ministers seem to have come to this decision with a sense of predetermination. Since the election in 2010, the Government have been determined to institute a cull of badgers, and were not interested in alternatives.

The problem is that the scientific evidence does not back the Government’s stance on this matter. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) stole my thunder a little bit. The Secretary of State referred to a number of international comparisons in his contribution at the beginning of the debate, and I was going to refer to the rabies situation on the continent of Europe. It is clear that continual culling of the fox population was singularly unsuccessful, and it was only when vaccination was tried that rabies was all but eliminated there. We have had a licensed vaccine for badgers since 2010 in this country, and I simply do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to use it.

One reason for the spread of bovine TB is bad and lazy husbandry in certain circumstances. It is important to say that, because farmers need to step up to the plate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made the point that some farms in infected areas are TB-free. How do they manage to achieve that? Better standards of husbandry, improved biosecurity and reduced cattle movements would have a significant impact in reducing this scourge.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) nearly had me in tears when he made the case that he was all worried about badgers dying in agony. One wonders whether he is a member of the ministry of truth. What does he think will happen to badgers who are shot by marksmen? We know from veterinary expert opinion that they will die in agony. I think that DEFRA itself has acknowledged that badgers will be dying in agony as a result of the cull. We will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman—who I do not think is in his place at the moment—who claimed that he was concerned about badger welfare. DEFRA has made the argument that, somehow, killing badgers is good for their welfare. What a ridiculous and ludicrous argument. It must think that the British public are absolutely bonkers.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The Opposition have called Members to the House for this debate, and the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Front-Bench team have proposed the motion:

“That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.”

This is the biggest animal health crisis is Britain and it is costing £1 billion, with 28,000 cattle slaughtered last year—and the Opposition have no policy, no alternative. Do they have a feasible alternative that they would like to put forward?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have suggested short interventions, and if Members want to pass judgment on others, it would be better if they had been here at the beginning.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Many colleagues behind me are asking, what about the 13 years of the Labour Government when nothing was done? I have already said that we plan to bring proposals forward soon. My noble Friend Lord de Mauley is working closely with the Home Office on a variety of associated issues, and we will make an announcement shortly.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his impassioned speech at the Oxford farming conference in defence of agricultural innovation. As we consider areas in which we might renegotiate our relationship with Europe, will he comment on the importance of a European framework that supports science and innovation in agriculture?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his work in pushing for development of the agri-science sector. That was one issue that I discussed with Commissioner Borg last week, and we are determined to push ahead and examine every technology that could help advance our agricultural industry.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

George Freeman Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend makes a couple of important points and I know that he is an assiduous campaigner on behalf of farmers in his constituency. He will be delighted that our hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is responsible for farming, will sum up the debate tonight. He will be able to outline some of the actions the Government are taking to ensure that farmers are empowered.

The other point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, which is important, is that we must be clear about expectations. The groceries code adjudicator will, I think, be widely welcomed by the various parties in this House, but is not in itself a panacea. It is being introduced for a specific purpose on which there is much agreement, but there are obviously many issues that it does not cover and that will need to be addressed through other means. The Government are committed to taking those actions.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the measure and commend my hon. Friend and those on the Government Front Bench. I encourage them to get the Bill through this House as quickly as possible, because it will be a huge relief to many farmers in my constituency, particularly in the dairy sector. As someone who used to work for the National Farmers Union, I know how long many of us have campaigned for this measure. However, as the measure is in fact a schedule relating to an order under the Enterprise Act 2002 rather than a statute, will she assure us that the code is mandatory and will be entirely legally enforceable by the adjudicator?

[Jo Swinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his support for the Bill. The code is already legally enforceable by suppliers should they take legal action, but yes, it will also be legally enforceable by the adjudicator, who will make recommendations to supermarkets, which will recognise that they have a legal duty to comply with the code as it is. If the adjudicator thinks that they are not complying with the code, I suspect that that will be taken as a clear sign that they need to change their behaviour.

Ash Dieback Disease

George Freeman Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I am going on the empirical evidence, and I shall spend an extensive part of my speech reviewing the scientific facts, seeing how they have changed since they were first published last Wednesday—because they have—and going into great detail on that point.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady develops her theme of the Government’s having been caught short and not reacting properly, does she agree that the Department was alerted to the problem as far back as 2007, two years earlier than has been reported, and that the budget for studying tree disease was cut by more than half in real terms in the years leading up to 2010?

[Mary Creagh]

There has been confusion on both sides of the House about what the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who is in his place, did or did not do. He asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to do a thorough search of all the ministerial papers he saw on ash dieback, which has shown that he did not see the correspondence between the Horticultural Trades Association and the Forestry Commission about a possible import ban. The only mention of ash dieback was in a briefing note in February 2010, in which the disease was listed as absent from the country. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) chairs the all-party group on life sciences, so he should know that the way the disease has been discovered is still evolving.

In 2009, it was thought that the fungus that caused ash dieback was already present in the UK. It was only subsequently that a new virulent species causing ash dieback was discovered. The science changed in 2010, when a new pathogen, Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus, was identified as the fungus causing the disease. I advise all hon. Members to read an article by Andy Coghlan in the New Scientist of 31 October that gives the scientific chronology of the disease. I also have a copy of the scientific paper in Forest Pathology in which the change was first discovered, which was printed in 2011.

What did my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central do? He published the “Forestry Commission: Science and innovation strategy for British forestry 2010-2013” on 1 April 2010. It stated:

“Over the next five years we will increase our budget for monitoring and biosecurity research particularly with regard to tree health to 15% of our research spend.”

Even as late as autumn 2011, the Forestry Commission pathology bulletin confirmed that Britain was clear of the pathogen.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I speak as the Member of Parliament for Mid Norfolk, which sits right at the heart of the Norfolk cluster of the disease, and as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on agricultural science, which is taking a close interest in the matter. I know that all colleagues agree that this outbreak is a serious problem for our forestry industry and our landscape. I welcome the urgency of the reaction shown by the Secretary of State and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team, and the professionalism with which they have handled the issue. More than 100,000 trees were felled in the summer, and the biggest ever survey of ash trees has been conducted. We have also seen several Cobra meetings, a national summit and an immediate ban on imports.

Outbreaks of disease that affect our biodiversity are never easy to manage, and it ill behoves the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) to criticise the Government in the way she did. Her words were somewhat at odds with the reaction of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who I think all colleagues would agree has dealt with the matter in an extremely responsible way. He has also sat in the Chamber today and listened to the entire debate.

The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) is a former forestry envoy, and it was interesting that he devoted his speech largely to criticising the Government, rather than talking about the responsibility of the previous Administration. The truth is that this is a wake-up call for us all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) has said, and it is unhelpful wilfully, negligently or merely incompetently to distort the scientific evidence, to peddle petty personal conspiracy theories or to scaremonger.

I welcome the Minister’s clear, careful account of the issue. I particularly welcome his reassurance that the disease is not spreading, and that funding for plant health has not been cut—indeed, it has increased. I strongly endorse his acknowledgement of the role of the many voluntary groups and charities that have helped to support the Department’s work. The key now is to focus on what we can do to prevent the spread of the disease. We must use the British science base to explore all possible avenues—not least, resistance—and to put in place a proper framework for biosecurity.

The Government have taken a series of important steps in relation to prevention, and it is important to acknowledge the Minister’s assertion that the disease is not spreading now. We have some time in which to put in place a proper framework, which is why a responsible reaction from Members on both sides of the House is important. I also welcome the launch of the tree health action plan and the imposition by the Secretary of State of an immediate ban on imports. Unfortunately, however, the scientific evidence shows that because the disease has been allowed to incubate in this country for many years—probably between 10 and 15—we might not be able to eradicate it. Our ash population could be facing a serious epidemic.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Seven or eight outbreaks of the disease have been identified in mature woodlands in my constituency, yet in one of those woodlands no ash trees have been planted for 20 years. Is it not therefore plausible to suggest that it could be carried in on the wind or by birds, especially in the light of the maps of the infected sites?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point based on the evidence in her own constituency, which also sits at the heart of the East Anglian cluster. She allows me to draw attention to the map, which is extremely compelling. It shows that 90% of all incidences of the disease are down the east coast, and most of those are on the bit of the east coast that is closest to Europe and that is affected by the prevailing winds from the east.

I am quite pessimistic about the long-term prospect of our controlling and stopping the disease, but there is a glimmer of optimism in the science of resistance, and it is to that subject that I shall now turn. There are signs that some of our older ash trees might have developed a resistance to the disease, and we now have an opportunity to show scientific leadership by throwing as much resource as possible into identifying a solution.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

May I make a small technical point? The hon. Gentleman just mentioned prevailing winds from the east, but I think that he meant the west.

[George Freeman]

The hon. Gentleman has obviously not spent enough time in the east of East Anglia, where there are often winds from the north and from the east.

[Mr Harris]

Prevailing winds?

[George Freeman]

I stand corrected if I said “prevailing”. There are frequently winds from the east and the north-east and, as the map demonstrates, it is perfectly possible that the disease could have been carried over from mainland Europe.

The scientific research into resistance offers us an important opportunity to identify genetic markers and traits that would allow us to establish a breeding stock of clean, new ash strains, and to unlock as much funding as possible from the European budget to support UK leadership in that field. This is an opportunity for us to promote British plant and forestry science in the context of the European market. I should like to make a small plea to the Minister on behalf of Norfolk. It is perhaps the worst-affected county. It is also home to the John Innes Institute and the Norwich research park, and if there is any scientific work to be done in this regard, I should like us to be at the front of the queue. Our county has a lot to offer.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has considerable knowledge of these matters, and I am sure he is aware that where the disease has been established for longer, there is a greater chance of finding resistant varieties. The Poles believe that they might have some resistant varieties, but there is now great disappointment in continental Europe because it was thought that we might have resistant varieties because there was no incidence of the disease here.

[George Freeman]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State. I am sure that the Minister will pick up on her extremely well-made point.

In the context of biosecurity in the UK, this is a wake-up call for us all. For far too long, we have not taken our biosecurity seriously enough. Over the past 15 years, we have seen a significant—and generally all to the good—globalisation of trade in commodities and products. We have also seen substantial climate change.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we must have a clear understanding of the threats to our biosecurity, and that we should develop international contacts to enable us to identify those threats?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point.

This outbreak presents us with an opportunity to establish our leadership in this important area of science. Over the past 15 years, we have seen a huge globalisation of trade in agriculture, plants and other commodities, as well as substantial climate change. That changes the context in which we should view the import and export of those goods. The UK’s biosecurity is of strategic national importance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park eloquently pointed out. Colleagues who have visited Australia and the USA recently will know how seriously those and other countries take these matters. A person can hardly leave an aircraft without being sprayed, disinfected and checked, and without having their luggage checked for seeds. The outbreak represents a wake-up call for us in that context as well.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s strong leadership on this matter, and his highlighting of the potential for Britain to grasp the nettle and set out a new framework for biosecurity. If we can draw on our strengths in plant science, we will be able to turn this crisis to at least some advantage for the UK, and to establish ourselves once again as an island of biosecurity in a Europe that is awash with a number of plant and animal diseases, to the benefit of our landscape and of our agriculture and forestry industries.

Common Agricultural Policy

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

The shadow Minister is exactly right, and he leads me down a path towards making a point on which not all will agree with me, which is that the one thing that is being denied to European and British farmers is biotechnology and science. No other industry in this country is hampered by not being able to use the best science. A blight-resistant potato used for starch production is in existence. Eventually, we will have a blight-resistant potato fit for human consumption; will we then deny ourselves the use of it? Many in the House are better historians than me, but was it not potato blight that caused the potato famine in Ireland? Solving the problem of having to spray potatoes 20 times a year—probably more this year, because of the terrible weather conditions—would be a great bonus. Similarly, as always promised, we might soon have nitrogen-enhancing wheats and oilseed rapes. Will Europe deny itself those, too?

As a Government, we need to be a little more proactive in discussing biotechnology. It is not for the Monsantos and Syngentas to promote it, but perhaps for our universities and others, so that we can tell people about the possible green bonus from crops that need to be sprayed less and that use less artificial fertiliser—all part of science and technology.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

On science, technology and innovation, as my hon. Friend knows, because he has attended meetings of the all-party group on science and technology in agriculture, of which I am chair, the Government have just launched a call for evidence on precisely that—a strategy for agricultural science and research, as part of a comprehensive life sciences strategy. Does he agree that, as we think about greening the CAP, we should consider how Europe’s farming and its agriculture, science and research base, often led by this country, can play a part globally in tackling the challenge of sustainable intensification, as laid out in the foresight report?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I congratulate him on chairing the all-party group. We need to bring to the attention of the world what is needed, with biotechnology. We have a moral duty not only to look after the environment, but to feed people. As there is more and more global warming, northern Europe, and we in particular, will need to produce more and more food, and using biotechnology is the way forward. Europe, however, has dragged its feet, as has this country. The debate would be worth having if the potential for environmental and productive gains and slightly cheaper food could be presented to the British public, and if they could see some financial benefits—people’s hearts are on the left and their pockets are on the right.

If we look at the protein that we feed our chickens, our pigs in particular, and our dairy cows, most comes from South America and America, and most is genetically modified soya, so the idea that we are living in a world free from GM is absolutely wrong. The Americans, dare I say it—I never was politically correct—might in part be slightly overweight, but they have not died from eating GM products, which have been used to good effect in America. If we want a more competitive agriculture in Europe and Britain, denying ourselves GM in the future would be wrong. A Government who brought up that subject for debate would be brave, although I think that the public might just about be ready for it. I am interested in what our new Agriculture Minister will say. I am tempting him, ever so slightly, to comment on the subject.

We have some good stewardship schemes in this country, probably among the best in Europe. The trouble is that the Ciolos reform is trying to go down to the lowest common denominator. Of the 27 countries, some have monocultures of maize, maize and more maize, so Ciolos is trying to bring in such things as a four-crop rotation, but if we have land in stewardship schemes or permanent pasture, or hill land that is extremely valuable for its landscape, the last thing we want to do is encourage farmers to plough up part of it. Some of what is coming through from Ciolos, therefore, is complete madness. One idea is that every farm has to have 7% set aside, but some farms have anywhere between 20% and 40% of their land in a stewardship scheme—some more—while other, highly productive farms are much better off producing food and getting on with it. That is why “one size fits all” is not the way forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said.

We will have to fight hard in Europe—I look forward to the Minister fighting his corner—because in this country we run very productive farms. We farm pretty competitively. When some of my farmers in the west country get excited if the Commission talks about small farmers, I warn them, “Don’t get too excited,” because the Commission means farmers of about 5 acres, or 2 hectares, not farmers of 50, 100 or 150 acres. Poland has more farmers than the rest of the European Union, or certainly did when it entered, because it has so many small farms. Be careful when the Commission offers handouts to small farmers, because it does not mean ours.

That brings me to a key point. As we green the CAP, what is needed is agricultural environmental policy, and at the moment too much social policy is involved. Many member states will talk about labour requirements that very much favour the huge amount of labour on the very small farms in some countries, which will put British farming at a disadvantage. That will also take the CAP from where we want it to go, because the whole idea—probably with cross-party support—is to see farmers not only farming in a green way, but producing food competitively, and we also want them to get more money out of the marketplace. That is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who spoke before me. It is not a matter of finding more money from the CAP to support farming; it is about enabling farmers to be competitive and produce food well. I do, however, agree with the need to look much more at what land is given the CAP payments; that is where Scotland may well benefit.