(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I remember visiting Ramsgate and having to deal with that case, which was even worse than he describes, as Thanet District Council had to pay more than £2 million in compensation to the foreign company, which took it to court for trying to put in place a localised ban. That is the kind of thing that used to happen when we were in the European Union. We now have the power to prevent that happening, and that is why I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries to work with us—with Conservative Members; we are all on his side—to ensure that the Bill is carried through Parliament. We only need about five hours for Report stage. I ask the same of Opposition Members.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, because of the botched Brexit, we have ended up with a situation where we have been forced to have those Australian trade deals, which he has criticised, at a rapid pace, which will give rise to importing badly treated animals? The problems of pregnant dogs being brought over and abused on a great scale, which I mentioned earlier, is also a result of our not having the harmonised border control that we would have in the single market. The idea that we are better off is absurd.
I do not want this debate to drift too far into the historical question about leaving the European Union. Suffice it to say that I strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I want us to have an independent trade policy, but I want us to take a more muscular approach to those trade agreements. I made that point some weeks ago. As I said, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will find the time in the next few weeks to take this Bill through to Report.
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have already planned this year to open the sustainable farming incentive. It will be open to all farmers and universally available. We have also increased the payment rates for countryside stewardship. Half of farmers are already in that, and we are encouraging the other half to join, too.
Our food security review, which was published before Christmas, showed that we have the lowest spending on food as a percentage of household income anywhere in Europe. Overall, food prices in this country are stable and spending on food is low. However, there are challenges for certain individuals. That is why we have things like the holiday funding.
(3 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend speaks for many Members of the House representing coastal communities. Yes, indeed, as we leave the European Union there is an opportunity to build back those coastal communities and invest in aquaculture, port facilities and fish processing facilities. We have launched a new £100 million fund to support such investment.
Did the Secretary of State know, when the Prime Minister dumped his half-empty EU deal on us on Christmas eve, that it might mean export bans for fishermen from south Wales fishing in the Welsh sea for cockles, mussels and oysters? If he did, why did he not make arrangements for those products to be sold for British consumers, and in particular those in food need? Will he make such arrangements so that those fishermen can face a sustainable livelihood and not possible bankruptcy?
We did not know that there would be such a ban since, at that point, the European Commission was telling us that the trade could continue with the exception of wild-caught molluscs, for which it said there would be a short delay while an export health certificate was designed. This is a complete change in position by the European Union that occurred just last week.
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend makes an important point. I was going to go on to say that the temporary barriers deployed to the Beales Corner area of Bewdley were overtopped by the sheer volume of water flowing through the town. Environment Agency staff deployed pumps to mitigate the overtopping, but eventually this operation was overwhelmed. I know that staff have continually provided updates to residents via local media, with live-streamed videos from site and post-strategic command meetings to inform the public.
It is interesting to hear the individual cases, but does the Secretary of State not accept that it is 12 years since the Pitt review and that it is only another 10 years—less than that period—until we expect and predict that climate change will result in a 1.5° increase in temperature? Therefore, we want not a microcosmic look at individual demountables, but an overview of the strategic difference climate change will make—namely, where can we and should we defend? Where can we not defend? Where do we have to change land use management? Where do we have to have rain water capture in urban environments? Where do we have to have underground tunnels and so on? We need an overall review. We face massive and growing risk. He says, “Oh, let’s hope we don’t have more bad weather.” That is—
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI simply say to my hon. Friend that the Bill gives us the powers to set precisely those long-term targets and to monitor our progress towards them. It also contains powers, later in the Bill, to improve our ability to manage air quality and support interventions that will enhance air quality.
I would like to make a little bit of progress. I am conscious of the number of Members who want to speak today.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who did a lot of groundwork on this Bill. I should also like to record my thanks to my colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who has been involved with the Bill from the start.
The Bill is key to this Government’s ambitious environmental agenda. In 2020, as the UK hosts the next climate change conference, COP26 in Glasgow, we will be leading from the front as we write this new chapter for the UK outside the European Union: independent and committed to net zero and to nature recovery. The Government will work to tackle climate change and support nature recovery around the world and here at home, whether through recycling more and wasting less, planting trees, safeguarding our forests, protecting our oceans, savings species or pioneering new approaches to agriculture.
The first half of the Bill—parts 1 and 2—sets out the five guiding environmental principles for our terrestrial and marine environments to inform policy making across the country. These principles are that the polluter should pay; that harm should be prevented, and if it cannot be prevented, it should be rectified at source; that the environment should be taken into consideration across Government policy making; and that a precautionary approach should be taken.
The Secretary of State will be aware that current EU air quality standards are enforced through the courts, with Client Earth and so on having taken the Government to court. Will he accept that this Bill should include an independent agency with teeth that enforces World Health Organisation standards and, ideally, gives the fines to the health service and local government to help treat the damage caused by poor air quality and to reduce pollution locally? The Bill simply does not do that at the moment.
The Bill will establish the Office for Environmental Protection, which will have the power to take public bodies to an upper tribunal if there are breaches of the law. Of course, there are remedies in such a process through the usual mechanism of court orders.
The Bill sets out a framework for setting and taking concrete steps towards achieving our ambitious, legally binding long-term targets, and chapter 2 will establish that new, powerful independent Office for Environmental Protection to provide expert, objective and impartial advice on environmental issues and to take a proportionate and transparent approach to issues of national importance concerning the enforcement of environmental law. The OEP will hold this and every future Government to account by reporting on the progress we have made to improve the natural environment, as set out in our published evidence-based environmental improvement plans and targets.
I want to make some progress, because I am conscious that many Members have put into speak today.
The second half of the Bill sets out measures to improve our environment right now. The Bill will enable British business to be part of the solution by incentivising and supporting approaches in the UK that will deliver for our environment. Part 3 will help us to accomplish greater resource efficiency and a better approach to waste through more circular ways of using the planet’s finite resources. It will encourage manufacturers to develop innovative packaging and strong sustainability standards by making them responsible for the entire net cost of disposing of used packaging. It will stimulate the creation of alternatives to the single-use plastics that wreak havoc on the marine environment, while establishing consistent rules to help people recycle more easily across our country and giving us powers to set up deposit return schemes.
I am going to make some progress.
The Bill will improve how we hold to account those who litter, so we can tackle the waste crime that costs our economy over £600 million every year. It will put pressure on businesses to waste less food and get more of the surplus out to those who really need it.
Part 4 deals with air pollution—the greatest environmental risk to human health. Fine particulate matter is the most damaging pollutant, so the Bill makes a clear commitment to set an ambitious, legally binding target that will drive down particulate levels and improve public health. The Bill will give the Government the power to ensure that polluting vehicles are removed from our roads, and it will give local authorities greater capability to improve their local environment, from green spaces to healthier air for everyone to breathe, so that we all lead longer, healthier lives wherever we live and work.
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy right hon. Friend and I were involved together in the 2014 floods—I remember that well and the incidents we had in Somerset. It is the case that we absolutely want to hold water upstream using nature-based solutions. When it comes to speeding up water downstream, it can sometimes be complicated. Sometimes, it is the right thing to do but, sometimes, if it is a very tidal area, racing water at high speed when there is an incoming tide can cause concerns, and indeed, that was one of the concerns that we had in Gloucester and Tewkesbury last week.
I should declare that I had responsibility for flood risk management in Wales up to 2010. In England, the Environment Agency requires a 8:1 return on investment in flood defences, which discriminates against the protection of low-value property. In the case of Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is particularly susceptible to flash flooding accentuated by climate change, this means a disproportionately low amount of money through the Barnett consequential is given to Wales, and we need extra money because of our topography. Will the Minister give an assurance that the extra money given to Wales is based on hardship, risk and topography, not on population and not on property values?
There is not a specific 1:8 requirement for flooding schemes—it is just that, overall, that is the average return on flood schemes. When we assess where we are going to direct capital, it is predominantly based on the flood risk of a given area and the number of homes that a particular scheme will protect.