UK Sea Bass Stocks

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. It is a pleasure to be here debating the important subject of the management of sea bass in the UK.

For many years, those involved in sea bass fishing in the UK have warned that the stock has been left increasingly vulnerable by weak management tools and practices. Now, almost too late and certainly with far too little, the European Union and others have woken up to the potential for a total collapse in the sea bass population in our domestic waters. Some may say that I am being overdramatic, and some may say that we have all been here before and that it will all get better in due course. I say they are wrong. This is happening now, it is happening to us and it needs to be dealt with.

In 2013, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, which advises the European Union on the strategies needed to exploit our fishing resources safely, proposed a 36% reduction in the catch of sea bass. That proposal was not acted upon. Now, less than a year later, ICES advises an 80% reduction. We only have to look at the Irish experience of the early 1990s to know what comes next if we hesitate: a total failure of the stock and a total ban on all forms of bass fishing. The tragedy is that we do not need to go there. We need only grip the problem here and now, to a scale and design that will make a real difference.

The question is: how on earth did we end up here in the first place? By any reckoning, we now pursue bass much more actively and much more successfully than in the past. The exploitation of sea bass has increased hugely across all areas, and current landings run at a level roughly four times that of the early 1990s. In addition, fishing activity is now often targeted at spawning aggregations. Studies show that bass spawn offshore in the English channel and the eastern Celtic sea from February to May, and as they do so they become sitting ducks for pair trawlers, which ruthlessly exploit them. New spawning aggregations in the English channel are being discovered and targeted, including some inside the 12-mile limit off the Kent and Sussex coasts.

On top of all that, nothing like the number of fish that should be reaching breeding size actually do so because of a farcically low minimum landing size. Bass are a slow-growing species, and female bass do not become sexually mature, in UK waters at least, until they are at least 42 cm in length, and some estimates put the figure as high as 46 cm. The current minimum landing size is an absolutely ludicrous 36 cm. That was set back in 1989, when even the Department’s own estimate said that the maximum sustainable yield for sea bass would be reached if the minimum landing size was 50 cm, yet still we sit here with the level at 36 cm.

An increased minimum landing size for bass, coupled with a corresponding increase in mesh sizes, would be a huge positive for the UK bass fishery. Over the years much time has been spent on trying to convince those in charge to increase the UK MLS. The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who is here today, nearly managed to implement the reforms when he was Fisheries Minister in 2007, but alas, just before he could pull the lever, he was replaced and the whole thing dropped through the floor before it could reach the statute book. Unfortunately, his successor did not carry on with the implementation, which is a tragedy. We are now living with the consequences of that change.

In 2012, the then Fisheries Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is also with us today, initiated a further review. That the study is still in train was confirmed by the current Minister in 2013, although it has yet to be published; hopefully we will hear a little more about that later. Technical papers suggest that the main benefit, at least in terms of yield, of management aimed at protecting juvenile sea bass, which increasing the MLS would do, chiefly accrues to fisheries operating within the six-mile zone. The implication is that there is every reason to increase the MLS here in the UK unilaterally, whatever happens at EU level. We will benefit, whatever the rest of Europe decides to do.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend has secured this debate, because this is a big issue in my constituency. Does he agree that enormous damage is done to the feeding and spawning beds of sea bass by pair trawlers, which drag the bottom of the oceans and take away all the seaweed? Does he acknowledge that one solution might be to restrict sea bass to sea anglers? It has been calculated that in Sussex the value of sea angling is more than £31 million, including tackle, accommodation and boats. That is more than three times the value of commercially landed fish stocks. Such a measure would go a long way towards conservation, too.

[George Hollingbery]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I will allude to the study that he is referencing a little later in my remarks. On the ecological damage done by pair trawling and indeed by other sorts of trawling, including otter trawling, there is no doubt that it is very destructive to the environment. Although it is effective and useful for commercial fishermen, all of us interested in sea angling should look to do something about it more generally than just with specific reference to sea bass. That is an important issue.

Finally in the sorry tale that I was outlining, the average recruitment—the number of sub-one-year-old fish being added to the fishery—between 2008 to 2012 was less than a quarter of the long-term average. We are fishing more, we are increasingly targeting sea bass, we are specifically fishing out breeding shoals and we are not allowing the young stock to reach spawning age. How much more is there to say other than that, in an ecosystem that is supposed to be carefully managed, such practices are, to use an American phrase, as dumb as dirt? I do not know how else to describe the situation. There could not be a worse way of managing a fishery that we apparently want to keep for the longer term.

Before looking more closely at the current policy proposals for managing the problem, it is worth spending a bit longer talking about the economics, to which my hon. Friend just referred. There is a crucial difference between the returns in the commercial and recreational sectors. If we are to reach a sustainable, long-term solution, it is critical that we understand that well. The best data we have on the catches of the commercial and recreational bass fishing sectors in the UK are in the “Sea Angling 2012” report published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That study modelled the recreational share of the total as being somewhere between 20% and 33% of the retained catch landed in the UK, but it is clear about the lack of statistical certainty in the data on recreational catches and angling activity:

“Respondents were self-selecting and unlikely to be representative of all sea anglers. On average they were more avid and successful anglers than those interviewed in the other more statistically designed Sea Angling 2012 surveys, reporting higher catch rates, more days fished, and higher membership of clubs and national angling bodies.”

In short, there are good reasons to believe that the likely level of recreational landings is much lower than the report suggests, or is, at the very least, at the bottom end of the report’s estimate.

It is also clear that the economic activity generated by recreational angling dwarfs that of the commercial sector. “Sea Angling 2012” shows that there are 884,000 sea anglers in England. They directly pump £1.23 billion into the economy, and 10,500 full-time jobs depend on that spending. Indirect spend is equivalent to £2.1 billion and 23,600 jobs. Those figures are direct from the Department.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. On a day when we are celebrating our long-term economic plan, does he agree that we need to support individual anglers and the economic activity he describes? If we need evidence of the difference he proposes, we can look to our hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), whose actions in government have directly caused an increase in economic output off the north-east coast by reason of the salmon that is now seen in the Tyne.

[George Hollingbery]

I agree completely. It is always difficult to quantify exactly the economic benefit of fishing done for fun, but all the evidence points inescapably towards it being an extremely important stream of revenue, in particular for less economically advantaged areas, of which there are a great many in the south-west and the part of the world that my hon. Friend represents.

It is also worth noting that the VAT alone that is collected from sea anglers dwarfs the entire first sale value of all commercial fish landings in the UK. That demonstrates the scale of the economic benefit of recreational angling. That was further reaffirmed by a detailed study released last Friday, to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) referred, by the highly respected Marine Resources Assessment Group on behalf of the Blue Marine Foundation. The study took a detailed look at sea bass fishing in the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority—a control area for fishing—and its conclusions are nothing short of startling. Its low-end estimate was that the economic and employment benefit per tonne of fish removed by recreational bass angling was more than 40 times that of commercial fishing—a pretty extraordinary statistic in anybody’s book. Despite the much smaller weight of fish removed by recreational anglers in the Sussex IFCA, the total benefit to the local economy of recreational angling was still, as my hon. Friend said, more than three times that of commercial fishing.

We know for a fact that recreational bass fishing is worth far more to the economy than commercial fishing, and is a great deal more sustainable. That is one of many reasons why the current EU proposals are puzzling to the point of bewilderment. As the Minister knows only too well, they propose limiting recreational anglers to only one fish per day, despite the fact that, as far as I understand it, the EU has no competence over people who go fishing for recreation, and, indeed, the pretty skimpy evidence that recreational anglers are the problem. For one spawning area, area IVc—I will happily share the map of the areas with colleagues who wish to see it—the EU makes an as yet incomplete proposal to limit the daily amount of fish taken during the spawning period by a certain number of vessels. We genuinely know no more than that. How that is supposed to make a meaningful difference to the current situation is, frankly, anybody’s guess. In my view, it is the political equivalent of trying to stop your house falling down by painting it a different colour.

We all know what needs to be done. The French know it, the Dutch know it, we know it—everybody knows it, so for goodness’ sake, let us get on and actually do it, finally, for once. We have to drastically reduce the amount of fish taken. We have to allow fish to reach sexual maturity. We have to stop most, if not all, fishing in the spawning season. We have to do a better job of protecting and enhancing nursery areas. Finally, we have to grasp the undeniable reality that converting the fishery to one dominated by recreational fishing is the only long-term solution that will protect our economic interests and give the fish a future. Any solution that markets itself as long-term but does not deal with all those issues will fail; of that there can be little or no doubt.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing the debate but on making such a powerful case. Does he agree that the Government must also ensure that the IFCAs properly engage with recreational anglers? When I go to IFCA meetings, I see that the commercial fishermen have a far greater influence in the workings of the IFCA than the recreational anglers. That problem must be addressed if we are to get the changes that my hon. Friend rightly identified.

[George Hollingbery]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but that will only happen when the IFCAs and others understand and accept the importance of recreational angling and see the Government outline a direction of travel. Only then will the recreational anglers get a proper bite of the cherry, and only then will the IFCAs and others follow that course. The Government must lead from the front.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the quality of his opening speech and on raising this subject. In Essex, we have a lot of recreational anglers who provide a great deal of employment and generate a lot of tourism, but we also have very small-scale inshore fishermen who catch sea bass. Do they have a future in my hon. Friend’s scheme, or will they be squeezed out by the ban on commercial fishing?

[George Hollingbery]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a vexed issue. There are people who make a very small-scale living out of bass fishing. My belief is that it is likely that in the near term, as has happened in Ireland, the north-east coast of the United States and a great many fisheries where proper regulation has been put in place, people who run sub- 10-metre boats will find that they make a much better living from taking out and guiding recreational fishing than from trawling for a few vulnerable sea bass out in the ocean. Although I would not condone any policy that forced people who fish at that scale from one to the other, particularly in inshore waters, I think that reality will dawn and that most of them will end up in the recreational sector.

In concluding my remarks, I hope you will excuse me, Mr Crausby, for asking the Minister a series of detailed questions. I have given him notice of some of them because they are quite complex, but I would appreciate answers to as many of them as possible.

To protect breeding fish, will the Minister follow the proposals made by the Angling Trust and others and seek a ban on targeted fishing based on catch composition or sufficiently restrictive vessel catch limits to make the fishery unviable from January to May inclusive, to apply to areas VIId, e, f and h and IVc in offshore fisheries beyond member states’ six-mile zones? For the benefit of other hon. Members present, I am simply asking for proper fishing restrictions to be put in place in pretty much all the coastal waters where we find sea bass, and certainly where they breed.

Will the Minister take on board another of the Angling Trust’s proposals and pursue catch limits for all registered EU vessels fishing for bass in areas VII and IV to cap effort, with limits set at a level that reduces fishing mortality by at least 40% across all member state fleets? I have apologised to the Minister for not giving him notice of that question.

To allow fish to reach breeding age, will the Minister work to ensure that a minimum landing size of 46 cm or over is adopted for sea bass at European level? Will he undertake to impose such a limit unilaterally on UK landings in any event? At the very least, will he confirm that the review of the minimum landing size for bass started by his Department in 2012 is still progressing, and will he undertake to publish the results as soon as possible? To help protect the recruitment stocks, will he undertake to look again at the extension of bass nursery areas?

Finally, does the Minister agree that the development of sea bass fishing as a recreational activity is the best long-term solution to both the ecological and the economic sustainability of the fishery, as proved by the Irish sea bass experience, the striped bass fishery of the north-east coast of the US and many other examples?

With the right measures in the right place at the right time and in the necessary proportion, we can make our fisheries policy work for us and for future generations. I hope the Minister will offer us all hope that such a prospect can be realised.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[George Hollingbery]

May I just confirm that the Minister is talking not about the sea angling report, but about the report into the study of minimum landing size?

[George Eustice]

It was the CEFAS report of 2012, which was commissioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, which we will put in the Library. That report concluded that a minimum landing size increase applied at European level could have quite a big impact, but pointed out that, because a lot of fishing mortality is caused by foreign vessels in UK waters, a unilateral, UK-only minimum landing size would not necessarily have the desired effect.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

1. What future plans he has for spending on flood amelioration measures in Hambledon, Hampshire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

May I begin by passing on the Secretary of State’s apologies for not being here this morning? He continues to recover from eye surgery and will be back soon. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery.

As the country continues to experience the onslaught of stormy weather, I should like to express my deepest condolences to the friends and families of those who have lost their lives, and to put on record that our thoughts are with everyone who continues to experience the misery of flooding.

Hampshire county council is discussing a proposal with the Environment Agency, but the business case has not yet been submitted to the agency.

[George Hollingbery]

Yesterday marked the passing of 40 days and 40 nights of flooding in Hambledon since it was first flooded by groundwater, and no one yet has any idea when the floodwater will recede. Every night, the residents sleep in shifts to monitor their pumps, and every day they wake up wondering whether that will be the day on which their house will be flooded. The village has been cut off from the rest of the world for over a month now. An engineering solution that would avert most of this now almost bi-annual flooding has been drawn up and costed, but funding remains a sticking point. Will the Minister meet me and potential partner agencies to try to agree a deal and get this vital work done as soon as possible?

[Dan Rogerson]

I very much applaud the tremendous efforts of the Hambledon community in its response to the groundwater flooding and the issues it is facing. I know that the Environment Agency is working closely with Hampshire county council to support the community in making the strongest case in its bid for flood defence grant in aid, and I would indeed welcome a meeting with my hon. Friend and any representatives he wishes to bring along to discuss the matter.

Flooding (Somerset)

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am afraid that around the coast we have seen significant damage done to our coastal defences, and we are working closely with the Environment Agency and local councils to ensure that it is repaired speedily.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

We all, of course, have enormous sympathy with those in Somerset and elsewhere, including places such as Hambledon in my constituency which has been flooded by ground water for three weeks now, and expects to be flooded for at least another three weeks, or perhaps six or eight. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is at least a crumb of comfort in the fact that the recent Water Bill contains provisions for the creation of Flood Re, which should allow the continued provision of affordable flood insurance to most properties in Somerset and elsewhere?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Flood Re will, I hope, bring relief to 500,000 people with high-risk properties, and as he knows, the Bill is going through the other place this afternoon.

Water Bill

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his statement. I assure him that I take on board the damage that has been done by over-abstraction. However, this is extremely complicated and it is going to take time; we could make a real mess of things if we blunder into it. I am absolutely confident that through the upstream reforms that I mentioned, by holding more water back in various forms, which might be the reservoirs my hon. Friend wants, putting down aquifers, or SUDS—sustainable drainage systems—schemes, we will have water available for these rivers when they run dry. I totally sympathise with his worries about the chalk streams. It is very much our intention that this Bill will provide more water to keep these rivers flowing.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I want to take my right hon. Friend back to his example of the brewery. He says that we will benefit from these upstream reforms and that water will be held back. Does he agree that when he is considering the regulatory framework it will be important to ensure that resources that have been used in one way previously and will be subject to change—for example, by the brewery drawing more water than it would have done in totality before—are assessed by various agencies to make sure that the strain on resources is not overbearing on the system in its entirety?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is no point in over-abstracting from a new source. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said, because of the reduction in heavy industry there are significant amounts of water in various parts of the country, and this is all a question of moving it around according to local circumstances. I know that my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) have a real interest in abstraction. Our clear view is that the Bill will lead to a greater supply of water, which will help the rivers, about which my hon. Friends rightly worry, not to run dry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I do not believe the Labour Government did enough during our time in office to ensure that that was correctly handled, but that is not a reason to allow the water companies off the hook now.

Under Ofwat’s current powers, capital structure and consequent risk are matters for the boards and shareholders of those companies, so any action must come from the Government. We have seen from briefings to the Financial Times that Ministers are considering reducing the interest payments that can be deducted from a company’s tax bill, especially for larger and more highly indebted companies—as many water companies now are—or even putting a levy on the debt held by highly leveraged water companies. Whichever solution—if any—that the Government decide on, it must happen quickly.

Despite the gaping hole left by the Government’s failure to introduce in the Bill measures on water affordability for households, there are measures that we support. That should not be a surprise, given that they arose from three important reviews taken forward by the last Government: the Pitt review on flooding, the Walker review on affordability and the Cave review on competition.

[George Hollingbery]

The hon. Lady has made some candid remarks about the last Government’s failure and some sensible points about what might be changed in the Bill. She also makes much of the Government’s admission of certain issues that she now thinks are terribly important, but nowhere in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s scrutiny of the Bill, published only eight or nine months ago, is there a record of any Labour Member making any of the suggestions that she is making now. Is this not just a transparent device to bring a certain topic in a certain context to the Chamber today?

[Maria Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinions.

The three reviews built on the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which we enacted before the last election. We support the measures to increase competition and enable non-household customers to choose their water supplier, and we want new entrants into the sector and so support measures to encourage that development. We also support the regulatory reforms designed to place a greater focus on the long-term resilience of water supplies and the measures to provide, at long last, the statutory basis for agreement on reinsurance.

We have concerns about several areas, however, many of which are shared by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. First, we agree with the Government’s decision to open up non-residential competition, as there is increasing evidence of a successful market emerging in Scotland. The introduction of competition for business customers is intended to provide choice, drive down costs and improve water efficiency, and we hope that it is successful, but the Government should listen to the Select Committee, which has said:

“We believe that protecting householders from subsidising competition in the non-household sector is a fundamental principle that should be enshrined in primary legislation.”

The Consumer Council for Water has rightly said:

“It is a vital principle that customers who are not eligible to switch retailer should not be disadvantaged. This should ideally be reflected in legislation.”

The statement in the recently published charging principles that household customers will not subsidise the development of competitive markets for business customers is a step forward, but not enough. We agree with the Select Committee and the Consumer Council for Water that it should be included in the Bill, and if Ministers refuse to reconsider their decision, we will seek to amend it.

Secondly, we do not understand why Ministers are being stubborn over enabling water companies to exit the retail market, which seems a perfectly non-contentious but important principle for the effectiveness of a market. The Select Committee is also clear on that point, and I think that the Government should rethink it. Thirdly, the Secretary of State should reconsider his decision not to require the separation of company wholesale and retail arms as part of his package of reforms. The Select Committee has called for a

“requirement for the functional separation of incumbent companies’ wholesale and retail arms. We further recommend that the principle of non-discrimination be included on the face of the Bill.”

We agree with the Select Committee.

Fourthly, we believe that the Government’s concerns about agreeing to the wide-ranging calls to elevate Ofwat’s sustainable development duty to a primary duty are misplaced. The Select Committee said:

“We are persuaded that the increasing pressures on our water resources, highlighted in the Water White Paper, justify such a change.”

The change is also supported by the 15 environmental non-governmental organisations that make up the Blueprint for Water coalition, including the WWF, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wildlife Trusts and the Marine Conservation Society. Without the change, Ofwat could, for example, be forced to strike out investment to deliver demand management in over-abstracted areas by having to place significant financial implications for companies above the principles of sustainable development.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I declare an interest as the riparian owner of a small stretch of the headwaters of the River Itchen in Hampshire and as a small part-owner of similar rights on the River Spey in Scotland. I am also chairman of the all-party angling group.

In an ideal water world, we would have cheap bills for all, plentiful and clean drinking water and sparklingly clean rivers and watercourses, stuffed with myriad fish, leaping with baby otters and surrounded by clouds of fly-life with beds of iris and crow’s foot—okay, this is the bit where we hear the needle being ripped off the Enigma Variations, because unfortunately, that dreamy picture does not match reality.

To be clear, things are not all bad. The industry has invested some £110 billion in the 25 years since privatisation, and much has been achieved in restoring antiquated infrastructure. Let us not forget the scale of the task: the industry looks after 414,000 km of water pipes; 1,380 treatment works; 6,000 reservoirs; 392,000 km of sewers and so forth. In 2012-13 alone, £4.5 billion of investment has been made. A great deal of good work is being done; things are improving in tackling water quality in the environment; and the health of rivers has improved. Point sources of pollution have been tackled, and whole catchment management plans promise improvements in diffuse pollution. However, as the water White Paper so tellingly pointed out, only 27% of our rivers and lakes are fully functioning ecosystems. We surely have a great deal more to do.

What does the Bill contribute? Hon. Members know that we face difficult financial times and that consumers must be protected in a monopolistic market. The Bill will help. The opening of certain retail markets to competition, with the prospect of that widening to all consumers of water, must surely be a crucial step in keeping downward pressure on end-user pricing. That and many other measures in the Bill, such as the change in the byzantine regime that compensated companies for the removal or change in abstraction licences, will help to solve a number of problems that the industry faces and that directly impact on pricing.

We face a problem, however. We must not throw the proverbial baby out with the tap water and get into the position in which the energy sector finds itself. A lack of long-term investment has left us all vulnerable to power outages, as old capacity is closed down and new capacity has yet to come on stream. The few hon. Members who are in the Chamber might think that the two sectors are wholly different. They might think, “Surely, the raw materials of water fall freely out of the sky regularly, sometimes on a prodigious scale.” That is true in part, but it is the how much, how often and where that matters.

As was pointed out to me in an excellent briefing from the Angling Trust, the UK has less rainfall per person than our northern European neighbours. London is drier than Istanbul. In the UK, every person uses approximately 150 litres of water a day, which is one of the highest usages in Europe. The UK—believe it or not—has less available water per person than most other European countries.

Last summer demonstrated how precarious our position has become. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is in his place, has painted a compelling picture of the crisis that we faced. It is not an exaggeration to say that many parts of the country would have faced severe shortages. Many people in the south and east of the country would have relied on standpipes, and there might have been an absolute disaster for our natural environment. Rivers had begun to run dry, as their natural sources dried up and as water companies abstracted yet more to meet demand.

We need to understand that the three-year scenario will happen—it is not a matter of if, but truly a matter of when. We should remember that it does not matter how cheap water is if there is none. I therefore want to make a few comments on resilience. More can and is being done on leakage. There is some success on consumption through metering, through the advent of modern technologies that use less water for the same tasks and through education, but we face a potential structural problem in the regulatory environment.

Resilience necessarily means building infrastructure. Ofwat rightly has a primary duty to protect customers, but it therefore has a perverse incentive not to sanction investment in what is, by definition, redundant capacity. That is why I am particularly pleased by clause 22, which promotes resilience to being a primary duty for Ofwat. The measure is very much helped by the explicit guidance published in May by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and the Department, “Strategic policy statement to Ofwat: incorporating social and environmental guidance”. Paragraphs 3.6 to 3.9 explicitly set out the Government’s expectation that Ofwat should ensure long-term resilience and, crucially, sustainability in the system.

It is important to recognise that resilience is not the same as sustainability. None of us wants a system that creates resiliency in the water supply that relies on sources that are environmentally damaging. In the round, however, I am glad that we now seem to have a regulatory environment that recognises that protecting customers also means protecting a sustainable supply of water. However, I wonder whether we might go a step further. Hon. Members know that one of the biggest problems faced by large-scale infrastructure projects, such as those likely to be needed by the water industry, is delays in the planning system. To that end, I wonder whether the Minister has considered a national policy statement for water. After all, we have one for waste water, so why not have one for water? Such a statement would go a further step towards allowing Ofwat’s two conflicting duties to be resolved in a timely and structured manner. It should ensure that the necessary infrastructure is introduced in a way that is controlled by the Government, at a reasonable pace, and as the economy and consumers’ wallets allow.

As we have heard, one of the most urgent but complex areas of change that is needed is in abstraction. Hon. Members know that over-abstraction is damaging our environment and that the governing regime is antiquated and not fit for purpose. Licences granted in an entirely different social and historical context are still in force and in urgent need of change. I accept that that is a complex matter, but I remain somewhat disappointed that the necessary reform is not tackled in the Bill. I am reassured by the Secretary of State’s remarks this evening on our intentions in that regard, and I hope we hear similar commitments from the Opposition.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I agree with my hon. Friend that water abstraction is complex and that it does obvious damage—that obvious damage is dried up river beds.

[George Hollingbery]

Who could possibly disagree? That is clearly one consequence that we need to reform shortly. I will come to that in a moment.

Those of us who hold our natural environment dear, particularly those rivers and streams across the country that are fed by chalk aquifers, cannot wait for ever for change. Too many of our chalk streams, such as the Chess, the Beane, the Kennet and many others, have been irreparably damaged by over-abstraction. That simply cannot be allowed to continue, as my hon. Friend says. How can we possibly continue to lecture countries such as Brazil and Indonesia on environmental damage when we, the custodians of 85% of chalk streams—unique ecosystems—are complacent and allow them to be degraded over time, doing nothing about it? That simply will not do. We must change the system, and do so soon.

I understand why the Government have delayed reform, but the fact that the Bill does not change abstraction licensing at the same time as allowing new upstream supplies may well present a problem. One of the proposed resilience reforms is that those with unused abstraction licences for purposes other than general water supply and those with water surplus to their needs can sell water on. I welcome that in principle, but one concern is that, if proposals to reactivate old licences or sell bulk water across borders are not very carefully assessed in respect of their impact in source areas—in terms both of the environment and of local pricing incentives and competition—unanticipated damage could easily be done. I am glad to note that the Government have partially recognised that and committed to introducing changes to the Bill in Committee to ensure that permission must be obtained from the Environment Agency before any changes of use of water abstraction rights are made. May I suggest that a similar assessment of the impact on local pricing and competition in source areas also be made?

The same rules must surely apply to the bulk transfers proposed by the Bill. The Government have said that they are considering that, and I hope that similar changes will be introduced. It is worth noting we will need to consider how permitting would apply across the border into Scotland and Wales. No doubt, the ministerial team have that under review. Furthermore, it would be reassuring if the Government considered allowing such arrangements to be terminated on advice from the relevant assessor if it is clear that they are contributing to over-abstraction, causing environmental damage or skewing the competitive environment.

Finally, on water metering, as undertakers have made more progress on leak reduction, measures to reduce demand will become more important. Measures in building regulations and the advent of new technologies that reduce the amount of water needed to perform certain tasks have a part to play, but so does water metering. That is another complex matter. Hon. Members know that water metering increases costs for some people and reduces them for others. We should never allow companies to cut off supply to those who cannot pay their bills. However, water metering reduces consumption and allows householders and undertakers more accurately to identify local leakage, which can then be dealt with.

The Water Industry (Prescribed Conditions) Regulations 1999 allow universal water metering to be introduced in areas of water stress. I wonder whether it is time to take that a step further. We should consider not standing in the way of rolling out water metering schemes throughout all areas, water stressed or not, if an undertaker can demonstrate that they have a clear, deliverable plan to help customers to deal with the change; that they have similar, robust plans to deal with the difficulties faced by those who are least likely to be able to deal with increased bills; that their request for the roll-out forms part of a long-term strategy to reduce demand; and that the Secretary of State retains the power to remove the scheme if those things are not delivered. All I ask is that the Minister and his team consider such a change.

In conclusion, the Bill is a step in the right direction towards reform of the water industry. Its measures will help to increase competition and so keep down prices. It clearly recognises the need to guarantee long-term supply, but does so in the context of other measures and proposed changes that acknowledge that sustainability of the source of supply is as important as resilience. It would have been hugely preferable if abstraction reform were followed by changes to upstream competition in that order, but, when taken with the licensing requirements that Government are contemplating, the dangers posed can be mitigated. I look forward to joining colleagues in the Aye Lobby should a Division be called.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

I had a premonition that I might get such an intervention from my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee. I know she is pleased that we are, as a Government, making progress towards implementing this process in April 2014. She would like it to be sooner, but we have to make sure that we get it right. The views of the Select Committee have been very useful in making sure that we get it brought in adequately.

We heard a couple of very specific questions on market reforms. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay asked about small charities that operate from residential properties. The reform would affect non-domestic properties, so if a charity is operating from a property that is primarily residential, it will not have access to it, but it will be open to it if it is operating from other premises.

On abstraction reform, I entirely agree with Members’ comments about the need to tackle abstraction, which is damaging our rivers. We are tackling this in two ways. First, we are taking action using the tools already available to address over-abstraction. The Environment Agency has reviewed thousands of abstraction licences and has changed about 80 of them, returning 75 billion litres of water per year to the environment in England. That is equivalent to the annual average water use of a city larger than Birmingham. There is clearly a lot more to do in the individual catchments that have been mentioned, and we have to take account of the stress that is put on them.

The Bill will also help by removing water companies’ right to compensation to ensure that the funding of these schemes moves into Ofwat’s price review process, which is a far better way of tackling over-abstraction. In the longer term, we need a reformed regime fit to face the future challenges, and we will publish a consultation on possible options in December. [Interruption.] These reforms will affect a range of businesses, so we need to get them right.

[George Hollingbery]

An awful lot of gibbering and jabbering and yibbering and yabbering is going on on the Opposition Front Bench. Will the Minister please remind us of how much abstraction reform occurred in the 13 years of the Labour Government just past?

[Dan Rogerson]

Very little, I think is the answer. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Dealing with abstraction gives me an opportunity to welcome the contribution by my predecessor, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), not only because of all the work that he put in and how he has informed our debate, but because by seemingly being very popular across the House he will make it much harder for anyone to oppose what is in the Bill, as it was his work that got us to this stage. I am sure that that will help to develop the consensus, because everyone agrees with the conclusions he drew and the position we are in. The Government are clear that any moves on abstraction and upstream reform must work together, so what we are establishing in the Bill will come into effect alongside the abstraction reform that we are moving towards. We have to get this right because it is crucial that we have the water resources to deliver the growth and environmental outcomes that we want to see.

Many Members covered flood insurance. I am all too aware of the devastation caused by flooding and its financial and emotional impact. I recall the destruction in Boscastle in my constituency. I became the Member of Parliament for North Cornwall a year after that tragedy, where fortunately no lives were lost. It also affected other nearby communities such as Crackington and Canworthy Water. The problem was that flood insurance companies were not up to the task. Fortunately, the Association of British Insurers was able to step in to offer advice and to help resolve the issues. As we have heard, other Members have similar recollections from their constituencies.

Flood risk management remains a top priority for this Government. We have committed record levels of capital spend and more than quadrupled contributions from other sources. As a result, we will have improved defences for 165,000 households by March 2015 and an extra 300,000 by 2021. I recently visited South Zeal in Devon, where residents shared with me their harrowing experiences of flooding. They also showed me the actions the community is taking to become more resilient to flooding, to keep down their insurance premiums in the long term. This Government are committed to providing access to affordable insurance for households at high risk.

We will table new clauses in Committee. Draft clauses have been available for some time and much of our work in Committee will be based on them. Were we to delay the Bill after this Second Reading debate, we would not be able to deliver our programme in a timely fashion. That is our objective. Yes, it is regrettable that those clauses are not in the Bill as drafted, but these are very complicated negotiations to ensure that an industry-led solution works not only for the industry, but fundamentally for communities and residents who need support.

Water Industry

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Time denies me the opportunity to go into the issue in great detail, but I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon has been looking at it with considerable concern, because his constituency, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), is in the Thames sewerage area.

We need to look at how we can beef up Ofwat and give it greater powers in the Water Bill to say, “There’s been a favourable adjustment, so we can adjust and revisit the settlement on an ongoing basis.” If it had those powers, it would be able to have a stronger conversation with the water industry. That is worth considering. It would also be worth looking at allowing Ofwat to give guidance to the water industry on appropriate and responsible corporate governance.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being extremely generous with his time. Does not Ofwat potentially suffer from perverse incentives? We know that it does not matter how cheap water is; if there is none, we need infrastructure to be built. If Ofwat has a primary duty to ensure best value for customers—which, of course, it must—it is almost certain to find it very difficult over time to allow infrastructure development that will help our resilience. Is not that a problem we need to address?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Very much so. I and, I am sure, many other Members would argue that Ofwat should have a stronger role as a consumer champion, but that ought to be done within the framework of the national infrastructure we need. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and I hope he will explore it further during this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

I cannot really do that as I have only just come back to looking at the water industry from the time when I tried to make life difficult for it, with some success. “Hammer the customers for the profiteers” is the motto of the water industry. We have higher charges, and now water companies want to install compulsory water meters everywhere. That is basically their policy, and a lot of people who I think ought to know better have been going along with that.

It costs about £250 to supply and install a water meter, and they have about 15 years of life before the grit and impurities in the water make them not do their job accurately. If it is a smart meter I understand that the situation is even worse. It costs about £50 to install a new meter if one has previously been installed. I think there are more than 10 million unmetered households, so at £250 a throw—according to my calculations—that is £2.5 billion. Does anybody think that investing in water meters is the best way of spending £2.5 billion? Even if they do, I certainly do not.

Another thing is that, as soon as anything goes wrong, the companies come rushing to the taxpayer to bail them out. South West Water could not cope with the problems it faced, particularly its sewerage problems and ended up getting a leg-up from the taxpayer.

[George Hollingbery]

I read one or two historical documents on water management before I came to the Chamber. I believe I am right in saying that the previous Labour Government’s policy was for universal water metering—the policy statement was made in 2008. Is that correct?

[Frank Dobson]

That might be the case, but the statement was not made in my name—let us put it that way. When I was responsible for water in opposition, I was opposed to metering. I remained opposed to it when Labour was in government and continue to be opposed to it.

South West Water is not the only one. Thames Water had sewage and run-off problems and came up with a great £4 billion scheme. Because of how it finances itself, it could not finance the scheme, despite paying £6 billion in dividends over the years. The only way in which it can proceed is by Government guarantee. It is therefore not really privatised; it is a dependency of the Treasury.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Shuker]

The hon. Gentleman makes a passionate defence of his own record in post.

Let us look at some of the specific measures on which this Government had the opportunity to work and legislate but deliberately chose not to do so. First, there is bad debt. I was interested to read a copy of the Secretary of State’s letter to the water companies—sent out today, curiously enough, purely coincidentally—which talked about bad debt. I thought, “Fantastic! At last this Government have adopted the right position on bad debt.” Each household has to pay £15 or so because some people cannot pay and will not pay, and that money is dumped on the bills of consumers who step up and do pay.

On energy bills, is it not interesting that there is a provision that requires landlords to give companies their tenants’ details so that they can reclaim the money? On reading the letter, I thought, “Fantastic. At last the Government have responded to the Opposition’s calls to make the water situation analogous with that of energy.” However, the letter only makes a firm threat to look at the issue in more detail if the companies themselves do not voluntarily make progress on the provision.

My position and that of my party is clear: bad debt as a result of those people who will not or cannot pay dumps an additional cost on every household, so it would make sense to implement the provision. The Government could have taken that action. We made the case for it, but they have had no interest in it until now.

That is not the only issue. Government Members and the press have today mentioned the social tariff. I was the lead Opposition Member on the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill Committee. We sought to amend the Bill so that every water company operating in the UK had to do one simple thing, namely offer a social tariff to those people who find it hard to pay their bills or who find themselves in a situation where they cannot pay for the service provided. The Government chose to vote down that proposal and Government Members voted against it. Instead, they favoured a voluntary approach: if water companies wanted to introduce a social tariff, they could. It is amazing how few water companies have actually done so.

[George Hollingbery]

I think I am right in saying that the previous Labour Government were in power for 13 years and I am struggling to add up the number of water regulation Bills they introduced during that time. If the hon. Gentleman would like to tell me, I will take a round number.

[Gavin Shuker]

Why not start with the three reviews that led to the water White Paper? The Pitt, Walker and Cave reviews looked directly at competition and were conducted in the five years before we exited government and this Administration came in. They laid the groundwork and contained radical ideas that would have resulted in better provisions for water affordability. They would have put in place a framework to deal with the issue in its entirety. The water White Paper, which resulted from those reviews, was quite good, but that has left many of us asking: why is the Water Bill so washed out?

Oral Answers to Questions

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

We continue to press all the opportunities that we can for export potential. Indeed, the Secretary of State was in Shanghai recently pressing for exactly what my hon. Friend is asking for, which is opportunities for dairy exports in China. The industry needs to grasp opportunities, when they are there, to develop new export markets and find the right products for the right place so that we can expand our industry.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

12. What progress he has made on creating long-term sustainability in the fishing industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

We are making good progress towards sustainable fisheries. We secured an excellent, science-led result in the annual fisheries negotiations, setting sustainable fishing opportunities for 2013. We are negotiating genuine reforms of the broken common fisheries policy to eliminate discards, require sustainable fishing rates, and introduce regionalised management. We are working to address over-capacity issues within the English fleet and supporting market-led initiatives to help fishermen to get the best return for their catch.

[George Hollingbery]

The Minister will be unsurprised to know that I have a question about recreational sea angling. What work has the Department undertaken to assess the importance of this sector to the creation of sustainable fishing, and thus to fishing communities?

[Richard Benyon]

I am very grateful for the co-operation of recreational sea anglers in a project that we ran last year to find out how many there are, their contribution to the local coastal economy, what they are targeting, and their huge value in being the eyes and ears of the natural environment. Recreational sea angling is a key part of our policy to support coastal communities and the marine environment.

Fisheries

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Brady. Oh golly, where do I start? I am the chair of the all-party group on angling. Previously, that role was performed by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who is well known for his short speeches, and if he had been here today, I suspect he might have said, “If not now, when can I go fishing?” That is what he and I like to do, and we like to do a lot of it.

I want to concentrate briefly on chalk streams, which are a unique ecosystem. Some 80% of all the chalk stream habitat in the world is in Britain, and 60% of that is in the south. We are very keen to spend vast amounts on climate change mitigation, which is perfectly sensible, but at the same time, we have a unique habitat in our backyard, and it appears that, in the short term at least, we are not prepared to protect it in the same way.

As of Monday morning, I shall be at a hotel in Stockbridge chairing something called the Chalkstream summit. Those of us involved started off by inviting 30 people to it, because we thought it would be a niche issue, and that we would get some interest from riparian owners, managers and so forth. However, the numbers rose to 40 and then to 60, and we now have more than 100 organisations represented at the summit—there is huge interest. Unfortunately, the Minister can no longer, for perfectly understandable reasons, make it to the summit, and we are grateful to him for getting another Minister to come along.

The nub of the concern of those involved in the summit is the draft Water Bill. The White Paper was full of good intentions, particularly about abstraction, but the draft Bill does not, thus far, contain adequate measures to change the extraction environment in the south. It has no proposals for large-scale reform of the current abstraction scheme or means by which that could happen, and it does not tackle the current, unsustainable abstraction, risking further environmental damage.

Let me put the situation in context. A gentleman called Howard Taylor, who runs the Testwood fishery at the bottom of the Test, wrote to me, saying:

“Testwood is facing this pending abstraction by Southern Water and the installation of a pipeline over to Otterbourne as they are no longer allowed to abstract from the Itchen due to its SPA”—

special protection area—

“status.

Southern water are about to invest over £50m at the Testwood pumping station and pipeline and will be legally able to abstract under the historic licence…This investment will enable them to abstract up to the licence maxima of 136 mega litres/day! At present the plant is only capable of 60 to 70 mega litres/day.”

That will mean that, at certain times, 65% of all the water in the Test might be being abstracted. There is a failsafe built in, which states that the minimum residual flow must be 1 cumec—roughly equivalent to 91 megalitres. In the summer, at their lowest, the upper reaches of the tiny River Wylie in Wiltshire flow at 2 cumecs. Can hon. Members imagine what we are doing to this incredibly important environmental asset?

I know the Government take this issue seriously. Their catchment plans are good, as are many of the intentions announced in the water White Paper, but time is running out. We had a near disaster this summer, but we were rescued at the end by the rain goddess—the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman)—but it was too close for comfort. I recognise that sustainable economic growth in the south is necessary, and that that relies on good supplies of water, but that requires sustainable water supplies—we cannot have one without the other. We can have sustainable economic growth if we have sustainable water supplies and, as a consequence of that, a sustainable environment.

Will we honestly look ourselves happily in the eye in 20 years’ time if an ecosystem that we have absolute and direct control over in this country has been destroyed? Surely not. It is time for DEFRA to lay out concrete proposals. The water White Paper’s promises on abstraction regimes must be delivered, and we must know exactly how and when that will happen. There must reform of abstraction licences and strategic management of water resources. We need to build storage facilities in the south; if we do not, we will run out of water.

The new Angling Trust has surveyed 29,000 people, and it has found that up to 4 million people have gone fishing in the last two years, with many more interested in taking up the sport. Fishing generates £3.5 billion a year for the economy and employs 37,000 people. While the debate may be more generally about fisheries in coastal waters, angling is extremely important to this country. It involves a large group of people and is a very valuable industry, so I know the Government will be keen to look carefully at the interests of those involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry]

The Bishop of London’s leadership on that initiative is excellent, and it is an excellent initiative.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

5. Whether the Church Commissioners have considered English Heritage’s guidance on (a) theft of metal from church buildings and (b) replacing lead with modern materials.

[Tony Baldry]

The theft of metal from churches continues to be a very serious problem. About 10 churches a day suffer from theft. Insurance payouts for the theft of metal from places of worship have increased by 70%, and according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the full cost of metal theft to the domestic economy across all sectors is upwards of £770 million.

[George Hollingbery]

The latest English Heritage guidance note on the theft of metals from church buildings states that

“support for the use of…non-traditional materials…would be exceptional.”

However, the guidance note on solar panel installations is relatively liberal. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is hard to reconcile the two, and does he understand why Hambleside Danelaw, an alternative roofing manufacturer in my constituency, is clear that the guidance is not in the interests of churches, their congregations or the wider good?

[Tony Baldry]

On the substantive issue of the theft of lead, the Church remains convinced that making cash scrap metal transactions illegal is the single move that will have the greatest impact on reducing that crime, and it is pleased to see that proposal gaining wider acceptance. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday that the answer

“lies in looking at how the scrap metal market is currently regulated.”—[Official Report, 23 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 296.]

I undertake to investigate in detail my hon. Friend’s specific point about Hambleside Danelaw, and I shall write to him.