Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The Church urban fund would acknowledge that food banks do not tackle the causes of food poverty. We need to know more about why people use food banks, which is why the Church urban fund is undertaking detailed research on this matter. The report was published in September.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

5. What progress has been made in the Church of England’s campaign to save 100 church treasures.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The 100 Church treasures campaign seeks to protect 100 of the unparalleled array of artworks, including monuments, wall paintings, stained glass, textiles and mediaeval timberwork, which are at risk in our parish churches, in order to keep our buildings open, and our national and local heritage on public display for years to come.

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. It is remarkable that for only £3 million 100 Church treasures can be preserved. Obviously, I am particularly interested in what is happening to those in the Durham diocese: the William Morris carpet at Monkwearmouth; the Church masonry at St Hilda’s church in Hartlepool; and the painting in Holy Trinity church in Darlington. Some of those communities will find it difficult to raise the money. What more might we do to support them?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right: for quite modest sums, really important pieces of national heritage can be protected. Let me deal with just one of the examples she mentioned. Holy Trinity church in Darlington needs just £16,000 to restore a painting by the wartime artist John Duncan. The whole point of this campaign is to try to lever in funds from other donors, trusts and individuals who might not normally give money to supporting Church heritage but who would be minded to give money specifically to support a particular piece of artwork or heritage in this way. The campaign is already having some success.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

Rural crime is a real concern and needs to be resolved locally, which is one reason why we have directly elected police and crime commissioners who can now be held accountable to their local electorate. But there is also a firm role for Members of this House to make sure that local police forces are making this a priority.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

T8. The Government’s rural broadband roll-out is such a disaster that I have farmers in my constituency who are expected to upload data both to the Rural Payments Agency and to HMRC online when they have no possibility of getting a connection. Will the Minister stop this demand?

[Richard Benyon]

One of the absurdities under the last Government was that they wanted things done online but farmers did not have the ability to do so. That is one reason why we have made roll-out of rural broadband so important. The hon. Lady knows that it is on the verge of being rolled out in her area, which will be of great benefit to some remote communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Those are all matters that I suspect the House of Bishops will give thought to in its considerations following the Pilling report.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Further to the important question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), is the Second Church Estates Commissioner aware that one of the weaknesses of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill is that the rights given to children of same-sex couples are not planned to be the same as those for children of traditional couples? Will he have a word with his colleagues on the Front Bench about rectifying that?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Perhaps she would like to talk to me about it in greater detail afterwards. If this is an issue that needs to be resolved, it will have to be resolved in the other place, where the Bill currently lies.

Upland Sheep Farmers

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies]

That was the very point I was coming to.

I spoke to another farmer who came to see me with his wife yesterday, desperately worried about how his family business was going to survive. Normally, his flock produces 340 lambs to sell in the autumn. This year, he will have but 120, and some of those will have to be retained as replacement stock. The only chance of survival will be from off-farm income, and so many others are in the same position right across Britain.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech on an extremely important subject. From what I hear from my sheep farmers in Teesdale, I know that they face similar issues. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the media coverage. It seems to me that we have heard endless news from the United States over the last fortnight, but extremely little coverage of this problem. I hope that his excellent speech will be heard beyond “Farming Today”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

It is important that we all learn from one another. The answers will not be the same in every part of the United Kingdom, and the proportional scale of difficulties will be different. We must listen to what each other are doing and hopefully come towards the right solution, but also listen to what the farmers themselves in the constituent parts of the United Kingdom are telling us. Certainly that is what I wanted to do with regard to England. I cannot speak for what happened in Northern Ireland and say whether it was the right solution, and similarly for Wales. I can see what has been done, but it seemed to me that my responsibility was to listen to the farmers and their representatives in England, and to do what they asked me to do so far as I could, in order to mitigate the difficulties that farmers were facing.

[Helen Goodman]

My constituent, John Warren, has specifically asked me to raise this point with the Minister. He is concerned that in Scotland the National Fallen Stock Company was used to distribute state aid. He asked me to urge the Minister not to go down the same route in England. He was concerned that if he did, the aid would not necessarily reach the right farmers and the farmers who had been most severely affected. He asked if a more direct mechanism might be used for distributing the aid that will be consequent on the losses due to the bad weather.

[Mr Heath]

I will come back to that point in a moment if I may, but the most important thing is that we reach those farmers who are severely affected, irrespective of whether they are registered with the National Fallen Stock Company. I want to make that absolutely clear, and I hope that that will help the hon. Lady’s constituent.

I want to put on record how grateful I am to the local NFU in Cumbria and the farmers themselves. I will mention Alistair Mackintosh and Robin Jenkinson in Corney Fell who gave their time to explain the consequences to me and to help me to understand what they were up against. I strongly feel that as a Minister one of the best ways to respond to a problem of this kind is simply to talk to people and see for oneself, and then, I hope, take the appropriate decisions.

I also want to put on record the strong impression that I had in Cumbria that the farming community and the wider rural community have responded in a positive and big way. A lot of mutual support went on and continues to go on. People helped one another, and farmers who were not affected searched for sheep on their neighbours’ holdings when they realised that they were in trouble. That is the country way and it is what we expect, but it was happening.

People who were not connected with farming also lent their support. I will mention one group of people, an organisation that occasionally we have differences of opinion with. It was pointed out to me how profoundly helpful the RSPCA officers in the area had been, lending a hand and getting stuck in, not in strict pursuance of their duties as RSPCA officers but because they cared about the animals and the farmers and wanted to do their bit.

I will also mention the banks, because they almost universally get a bad press. It was pointed out to me how helpful HSBC has been in the area and how it has gone out of its way and bent over backwards to offer local farmers support at a time when they desperately need it. I do not know whether that was universal and whether other banks followed suit, but it is important to put it on the record when people help and are prepared to be supportive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman has an Adjournment debate on this issue on Tuesday, and I suggest that he put those issues to Ministry of Justice Ministers then. As for the Church, we believe that in a situation such as this the remains should be reburied in the nearest possible church, which, as it happens, is Leicester cathedral.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My constituents have been raising with me questions about the legality of what is happening at the moment about this, and although I am sympathetic to the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), I would like to press the case for burying Richard III in Barnard Castle, where he lived happily for many years and where his insignia, the white boar, can still be seen engraved in the castle.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I suggest that the hon. Lady seeks to intervene in the hon. Gentleman’s Adjournment debate with Ministry of Justice Ministers on Tuesday.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

1. What recent representations the Church Commissioners have received on the ordination of women as bishops.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

3. What recent progress has been made in finding a way forward on the issue of women bishops which maintains the unity of the Church.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

Following the statement I made on 22 November, the Archbishops Council has met and concluded that a legislative process to admit women to the episcopate needs to be restarted at the next meeting of the General Synod. It was also agreed that the Church of England needed to resolve this matter through its own process as a matter of urgency. The House of Bishops is meeting early next week and has been urged by the Archbishops Council to put in place a clear process for discussions in the new year to inform the decisions that will need to be taken on the shape of the new legislation.

It may be for the convenience of Members of this House to know that they and Members of another place will have the opportunity to discuss these matters further at the meeting that I have arranged with the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the current Bishop of Durham, next Thursday at 9.30 in the Moses Room in the House of Lords.

[Helen Goodman]

I am very grateful for that full answer. When I was in church on Sunday, of the 14 people sitting in front of me 13 were women. I think all Members of this House understand how urgent the question is. If fresh legislation is to be passed by the current Synod, it is very important that members of the Church can lobby Synod in a proper way. The Church has published how members of Synod voted but not indicated to which dioceses they belong. Could that also be put up on the website so that people can lobby intelligently?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I see absolutely no reason why that information should not be made available and I will ensure that it is. The process should be perfectly transparent and every member of Synod should be accountable for how they voted.

Flooding

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am happy to confirm that at official level we are working and talking with Department for Transport officials on a daily basis. One of the first calls I made after leaving Taunton today was to the Secretary of State for Transport, who had already been on the case to get the Exeter line reopened. We hope to see services resume tomorrow.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Unpredictable weather events are one of the main consequences of climate change. Does the Secretary of State not understand that if he continues to resist the scientific evidence and refuses to take sensible policy measures to prevent climate change, his successors for years to come will have to come to this House to make statements such as the one he has made this afternoon? [Interruption.]

[Mr Paterson]

I wish I had such extraordinary powers. The fact is that we have to react and adapt to the weather, and that is what the Government are doing.

department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I, too, value the opportunity to bring the issue before the House. I attended the meeting of 3,500 farmers in the Methodist central hall. They were very angry and unhappy. The Minister handled the situation well, but it was a real demonstration of our dairy farmers’ frustration about their treatment.

At a time when British agriculture is doing relatively well, milk prices have fallen dramatically. A year ago, the average price of milk was about 35p a litre; now, it is less than 25p a litre and, as we have been told, the cost of milk production for the average farmer is about 30p a litre. When people have to sell below the cost of production, we will undoubtedly see farmers leave the industry.

In September 2002, there were 3,100 dairy farmers in Wales, but by May 2012 the number had fallen to 1,900. Across the whole of my constituency, there are fewer than 10 milk producers, which is a huge fall in numbers. There has been a downward trend in the production of milk. In 2003, 14.5 billion litres of milk were produced, but today the figure is around 13.5 billion. If those trends continue, the implications are bad not only for farmers but also for consumers. In the medium and long term, they are bad news for retailers and processors.

What can be done to avert a crisis? There is no single bullet, but we need action at every stage of the supply chain, from farmers, processors, retailers, consumers and the Government. As has been said, farmers need to work together. The voice of one farmer carries little weight in the marketplace, but when they join together, their negotiating power is much stronger.

Processors and retailers need to start paying a fair price for milk. Robert Wiseman Dairies, Arla Foods and Dairy Crest must scrap the scandalous price cuts they have imposed on farmers.

Consumers can reward retailers that are doing the right thing. Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer have a price formula based on cost. I commend them for that. Consumers should show their appreciation by voting with their feet, and indeed their purses, and punish the Co-op, Asda and Morrisons, which do not have a similar scheme.

We need to start adding value to liquid milk. Our European friends are far better than we are at increasing profits from milk by processing it into cheese, yogurt and the like, which means it can be exported around the world.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. In my County Durham constituency, many milk producers are suffering. I also agree that milk producers need to sell to wider markets, but does he agree that is no excuse for the behaviour of the wholesalers and the supermarkets?

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. People who are powerful in the marketplace, such as the processors, use their muscle to bear down on the prices paid to producers, who are suffering.

Finally, I turn to the Government. At the summit, the Minister said that a voluntary code between farmers and processors was close to agreement. Will he update the House on the latest progress?

I commend the Government on the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, which is making its way through the other place. Let us ensure that the legislation passes quickly, with the teeth it needs to do its job.

I welcome the work the Minister has already done on lightening the load of regulation on British farmers, but more can be done. I know he will continue to implement recommendations from the Macdonald report as and when he can.

The dairy industry is in crisis, but the crisis can be averted. Let us work together, so that our dairy industry will have a brighter future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Williams]

My hon. Friend graphically illustrates the inconsistent role of some supermarkets. Along with the groceries code adjudicator, we need to look at how we can bring about fair contracts, to which everyone who has spoken has alluded, to stop the exploitation—an emotive word, yes, but that is the perception on the farms that I represent, as well as that of the National Farmers Union and the Farmers Union of Wales. The contracts that farmers are required to enter are simply unfair, as they are required to give 12 months’ notice or more to pull out of them whereas, as we have heard, processors can change the price they pay for milk at a few days’ notice, or quite literally overnight.

The Government are right to move towards a voluntary code. Like other Members, I look forward to an update from the Minister but I hope that if necessary, the Government will proceed with regulation. As Lord Plumb said in another place, rule books without referees generally have limitations. We all agree in the House that farmers deserve to receive the production cost for their milk, but Robert Wiseman Dairies has announced that from 1 August it will pay 24.73p per litre for milk. Arla Foods milk price will fall to 25p a litre, and the First Milk price to 24.35p a litre—5p less than the cost of production. Any situation in which farmers have to accept less than the cost of production is unsustainable. I commend Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Marks and Spencer on the positive work that they have undertaken, but we need to ensure that those agreements are made across the board, from retailers to processors, with all major buyers of milk and dairy products agreeing to commit to a sustainable purchasing strategy.

[Helen Goodman]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is a problem with milk imports from countries with lower animal welfare standards and costs, and that those imports are not labelled in the UK?

[Mr Williams]

The hon. Lady served in the previous Parliament when, to be fair, the issue of labelling rose to prominence. It is critical, because it enables consumers to make informed decisions.

Given the feelings in the farming community about the recent price cuts, compounded by difficult weather conditions and rising input costs on-farm, the Government need to make it clear to processors and supermarkets that their failure to deliver fair prices may lead to severe disruption to the supply chain with dire implications not just to farmers but ultimately to us as consumers.

It is always worth remembering that the losses in the dairy sector will have a huge—I do not use that word lightly—impact on the broader rural economy. Welsh Assembly Government statistics indicate that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) said, the number of dairy farms has reduced by 800 over the five years from 2006 to 2011. The number of dairy farmers in Wales alone halved in the past 13 years. This figure will rise if we do not take action over the current price slash and unfair contractual obligations, because they will mean many job losses across the industry among suppliers.

Next week the Welsh farming community, in its widest sense, will gather for the Royal Welsh show in Builth Wells in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams). We will see there the breadth of the farming community. The supermarkets, the farming unions and the Young Farmers will be there, as will the machinery contractors, the feedstuff merchants and the farming families from Wales and beyond. I make this prediction: whatever the weather, the sheer number of people there will illustrate how important the industry is to rural Wales. The stakes are high.

It is election time in Ceredigion, when we have hustings with the farming unions—the FUW and the NFU. Before elections, I am always asked this question: “Would you encourage a young farmer, the son of a farming family, to go into the industry and continue with the family farm to earn a living and contribute to the broader rural community?” With hand on heart, if things do not improve and we do not have action, I would hesitate about whether I could say yes to that question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paice]

No, I am sorry, I need to press on.

Hon. Members also raised the issue of supermarket power. As has been said, we are introducing the groceries code adjudicator. I have always tried to be honest with farmers and say that on its own it will not increase the price of milk, but that it should increase fairness and transparency.

The big problem that we face, which has been mentioned this afternoon, is what I view as the absurd level of price cutting by some retailers, particularly those in what is known as the middle ground. One retailer is openly selling milk at 99p for four pints.

[Helen Goodman]

Name them.

[Mr Donohoe]

Iceland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The uplands review obviously came out of the excellent report produced by the Commission for Rural Communities last summer. Will the Secretary of State explain why she has attempted to frustrate the clearly expressed will of the other place by cutting the CRC’s budget by some 90%?

[Mrs Spelman]

It is not a question of frustrating the will of the other place. There has been a change of Government, and the two parties that together form the Government have Members of Parliament who mostly have rural constituencies. It is thus easier for us to champion rural causes, as in our uplands policy review. The hon. Lady’s Government had 13 years in which to do something about the uplands, but it has taken a change of Government to achieve that.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on introducing the debate, because it is absolutely clear that the way in which Ministers incorporated the power to sell the forests in the Public Bodies Bill was designed to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. Furthermore, the Bill was published before the consultation document, which I suppose we can take to be part of the Maoist approach that the Government are now taking to the management of public business.

Hamsterley forest, in my constituency, is a Forestry Commission forest that has 200,000 visitors every year. It is the largest forest in County Durham and includes two sites of special scientific interest, Low Redford meadows and Frog Wood bog. A huge number of my constituents are concerned about what is going on, and they are right to be concerned.

One of the most important points about people being able to visit forests is that it makes them a source of economic regeneration. That is absolutely vital in many parts of the country. People need access for physical and spiritual restoration. What is the point of the Prime Minister giving speeches on the importance of well-being when he denies people access to the sources of well-being? He said in November last year about well-being:

“I am excited about this because it’s one of those things you talk about in opposition, and people think ‘well of course, you say these things in opposition, but when you get into government you’ll never actually do anything about it’”.

But the reality is on page 42 of the impact assessment that the Secretary of State published last week, which states that the Government

“did not see it necessary to carry out a Health and Wellbeing Impact Test, because if access is reduced at preferred woodland it is likely users would substitute their preferred woodland for another”.

In other words, “Your wood is closed, go to the one 60 miles away.”

The main problem with what the Secretary of State is doing is that she does not seem to understand the importance of landscape in developing our national consciousness and identity. She has seriously misjudged the national mood. In his wonderful book “Landscape and Memory”, Simon Schama writes:

“If the entire history of landscape is indeed just a mindless race towards a machine driven universe, uncomplicated by myth, metaphor and allegory, where measurement not memory is the absolute arbiter of value, then we are indeed trapped in the engine of our self-destruction.”

He illustrates that point with a poster from world war two of somebody walking through the countryside, and the caption is, “Your Britain—fight for it now”. That is true today, as well. Do the Secretary of State and other Ministers think it is an accident that Robin Hood has such a hold over the imagination of the nation’s children? Of course it is not. It is because every child knows what eludes Ministers—that the forest is a place where we can be free. The Secretary of State evidently wants to take on the role of the sheriff of Nottingham.

Since 1500, the central argument on the true purpose of the nation’s forests has been the same. It is a question of development or conservation. The Prime Minister is not the first to see the value of green photo opportunities. Charles I was always sure to be painted under a spreading oak tree. The similarity between them does not end there; Charles I was the last king to sell the Forest of Dean. The Prime Minister should reflect on what happened to him after that.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is the one who promised the north-east that the region would suffer more than most from Tory policies. The Forestry Commission owns 67,000 hectares of forest in the region, more than anywhere else in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have abandoned the people of the north-east, and now want to sell or give away their forest heritage and their play places?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Cunningham, everybody quite rightly wants to intervene, but we have six minutes per speaker, and every time someone makes an intervention, another minute is added. All I am bothered about is getting as many Members in as possible. If we are to have interventions, they have to be short and very quick.

[Helen Goodman]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I notice that the heritage forests, which are to be saved, are in the south of England, not the north.

People need forests for the physical, mental and spiritual freedom that they get from them, but the Treasury has succumbed to what used to be called political arithmeticians. Nothing has changed. A parliamentary committee of inquiry in 1763 was told in evidence that there would be a loss of hedgerows and a decline in the linnet population. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Trevelyan, the great historian, became a founder of the National Trust. His view was that

“without access to wild nature the English would spiritually perish”.

I am therefore calling on Ministers and the Secretary of State to stop this fire sale. The hastily-put-together retreat of selling the forests to community organisations is utterly ludicrous. Why should people pay for what they already own? The forest is a place for free spirits. Those spirits will not be quenched by this pathetic, mean, small-minded Government. The inestimable Teesdale Mercury has launched a “Hands of Hamsterley” campaign. I am calling on everyone who cares to come to Hamsterley forest on 26 February for the ramble in aid of keeping Ministers’ hands off Hamsterley.

Biodiversity

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I, too, am pleased to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. Last year, the UN climate change convention met in Copenhagen. It attracted the most incredible media frenzy, and something of a political frenzy as well, as Prime Ministers, Ministers and politicians from all over the globe made sure that they had a suitable photo opportunity.

In a month’s time, its sister convention on biological diversity will meet in Nagoya, Japan, to discuss why whole species are moving into extinction at a rate that, barring the loss of the dinosaurs, is unprecedented in the entirety of the fossil record of life on this planet. So far, the convention has met with total silence from the world’s press—why? How do the world’s most eminent scientists propose that we tackle the problem of extinctions?

One of the first things I was told in the Department that the Minister now occupies was the wonderful target that had been set to halve the rate of decline in species loss by 2010. That was the UK’s national target. I said that that was wonderful and asked the civil servant what was the rate of loss that we were going to halve. He said that the rate of loss was not known, and I asked how we would halve the rate if we did not know what it was. He replied that we would use indicators. We started without a sufficient baseline. The European Union tried to bail us out, of course, and said that it would substantially reduce the rate of loss. That European target was a bit woollier. With such an assessment at the beginning of the project, it is not very surprising that we reached 2010 to find that even those indicators have not enabled us to say that we have had any real success.

Where will we go in Nagoya? Top of the agenda will be natural capital. I welcome the Minister’s comments on the subject, and all that he said about the TEEB report and Pavan Sukhdev’s astonishing work. We must take on board the fact that one of the great advances in the past 100 years in classical economics was acknowledgment that there is such a thing as human, social and intellectual capital. We have come to realise that a well functioning judicial system and an excellent education system are as much a part of the wealth of a nation as its roads, ports and factories. The irony is that economists and economies have not caught up with the most important capital—natural capital.

Natural capital may be defined as the benefits that accrue to human society from the different species of life that inhabit the natural world—the biodiversity that is the subject of our debate. Classical economics values things such as forests by adding the sale price of the timber that can be harvested, and the alternative use to which the land may be put. A pine forest in the mountains will be worth a lot less per hectare than a forest of oak and ash close to good arable land and a river. Soft wood pine sells for pulp or low-grade timber, but oak and ash sell for designer kitchens. The mountain land has few alternative uses, but river land may raise prime beef. So that is how forests are valued. Wrong.

The true value of forests lies in far more than that. They stop soil erosion, prevent flooding by absorbing moisture, and control climate, often regulating local as well as global weather patterns. They are a source of medicines and food, and they have recreational and aesthetic value. All that is before carbon sequestration has been mentioned. In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 1,360 of the world’s top scientists showed that classical economics captured only one third of the actual value of the services that forests provide. The same is true for rivers, reefs, salt marshes, mangroves and all other natural ecosystems. We fail to factor in their actual economic value to our policies and decision making, but because most of the other services that they provide are not bought or sold in markets, they are normally not taken into account, so the forests, reefs and rivers are lost or degraded.

Another important consideration is that those wider benefits, although immensely valuable, do not accrue to an individual property owner. The benefits are experienced by a community at large. They are regarded as free goods by the wider economy and the wider community, which would no more think of paying for flood protection provided by the local forest than of paying for the air they breathe, which is also provided in part by the local forest. In classical economics, such free goods are called externalities, but because they are not directly captured by the landowner they do not feature in their decisions on how or whether to dispose of them.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting point. During the last Parliament, we updated the legislation on commons. The previous update had been during the 14th century, so it was in some need of reform. One of the most interesting issues that arose was that there are more SSSIs on common land than on private land because on common land people were under communal pressure to farm sustainably and that such pressure did not exist on private land. There is real-life evidence to back up what my hon. Friend is saying.

[Barry Gardiner]

As always, I was delighted to sit down when my hon. Friend stood up. She made an excellent intervention and highlighted the importance of seeing land, and land use, and land use change, in a fundamentally economic way, and looking at property ownership and tenure is absolutely part of that. All hon. Members in the Chamber and those who care deeply about the subject will know of the issues relating to indigenous people. There are different forms of communal property ownership in tropical forests throughout the world. That applies not just in this country, as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, and it is essential to bear in mind the conflict that can arise from land tenure and the different forms of property ownership when considering the future of our tropical rain forests throughout the world.

A country may experience economic growth while becoming poorer, and an example may be helpful. A Government may sell a large timber concession to a logging company. They will achieve for that land only the classical measure of value for the logs or fuel wood, plus any alternative land use. The logging company, perhaps being afraid of political instability somewhere in Africa, may not even cut the logs into timber in the country itself. Instead, it may export them to a neighbouring state where it has a production factory that cuts the logs and produces furniture for export to European markets.

It is important to note that no one in this example has done anything wrong or corrupt. The Government have increased their export sales by the value of the logs and have seen a corresponding rise in GDP. The logging company has paid the market price for its logging concession and made a rational business decision about the management of the company’s political risk. The neighbouring country happily welcomed the jobs and economic growth that come from the re-export of those logs as much more valuable furniture, but the original country is poorer. The value of the ecosystem services that it has lost is far greater than the value of economic GDP growth that it has achieved.

In 2000, Kofi Annan commissioned an assessment of the state of global ecosystems that aimed to describe and evaluate the full range of services that we as human beings derive from nature. In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 1,360 scientific experts reported on the 24 key services on which human life depends. Of those, only four services were found to be increasing, 15 were assessed as being in decline and five were said to be stable although under strain in certain regions.

On the positive side of the balance sheet, agricultural production is increasing the amount of crops and livestock available to feed an expanding world population. On the negative side, marine fish stocks are dangerously depleted, fresh water is declining in quality and availability, and services such as pollination, pest control, soil stabilisation, climate regulation and air and water purification are all in marked decline.

Recognising that those essential services provide 50% of the GDP of the poorest people on our planet, the report pointed out:

“The loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger and disease.”

It concluded that

“human activities have taken the planet to the edge of a massive wave of species extinctions, further threatening our own well-being.”

Just as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was being published in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of Louisiana, killing 1,800 people, displacing 1 million more and causing damage assessed at up to $125 billion. The US army engineering corps is spending $16 billion on building a 350-mile long system of levees to replace those that failed in 2005. That failure was not due to a natural disaster; it was the result of 100 years of policy decisions supposedly to “improve” the navigation and economic efficiency of the lower Mississippi basin, and the consequent loss of wetlands that followed from that.

Today, the sewerage and water board of New Orleans plans to pipe thousands of tons of semi-treated sewage into a bayou to help to regrow a cypress-tupelo wetland and protect the lower ninth ward from flooding. Recently, the US army engineering corps made an astonishing admission: during Katrina, every levee that had wetland protection remained intact but every levee that had no wetland protection was breached.

It has been estimated that since the 1930s, 120,000 square miles of wetland habitat has been lost on the lower Mississippi basin. Currently, one acre—the size of a football pitch—is lost every 48 minutes. The wetlands are of various types, but a freshwater or intermediate marsh wetland is estimated to reduce surge swells during a hurricane by as much as 1 foot for every mile width of wetland. A cypress swamp wetland is estimated to reduce storm surges by an incredible 6 feet for every mile width of wetland. The ring of concrete and steel that is being constructed around the city at such enormous cost—$16 billion—sets in context the true value of the natural capital that makes up Louisiana’s lost wetlands.

In 1956, the US Congress gave approval for the construction of the Mississippi river-gulf outlet—MRGO, as it is known locally. The economic case seemed overwhelming. The man-made navigational channel would connect the gulf of Mexico to the city of New Orleans, bisecting the marshes of lower St Bernard parish and the shallow waters of the Chandeleur sound. That would reduce the passage by 40 miles and straighten the route, making it a safer and more efficient passage for shipping than the Mississippi river below New Orleans with its winding channels.

The habitats that the MRGO was cut through are shallow estuarine waters and sub-delta marshes. Much wetland was lost by the original excavation, but more importantly, the soil erosion and rise in salinity have led to the destruction of the cypress swamp. Ironically, the MRGO has not been the economic success that Congress supposed it would be. Today, it carries a mere 3% of the region’s waterborne freight, with fewer than five passages a day. The US army engineering corps estimates dredging costs to be $22.1 million per year. That means that every vessel that passes through will cost $12,657 per vessel per day.

As early as 1958 the US Department of the Interior warned that

“the excavation of the (MRGO) could result in major ecological change with widespread and severe ecological consequences.”

Ecological consequences—the process was not seen as a contribution to the economic debate surrounding the case for the MRGO, but rather as an unimportant, if factual, environmental comment. In those days, the concepts of natural capital and ecosystem services were simply not understood by legislators, but today we have no excuse.

What would a Government who incorporated the valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services into their framework of national accounting look like? What would they do differently? Principally, they would make explicit and visible the estimated value of nature’s multiple and complex benefits. By incorporating that value into their procedures of decision making and cost-benefit analysis, the Government would provide a more complete evidence base through which to improve outcomes. Factors previously regarded as externalities would become essential elements of increased efficiency in policy design.

It is important to understand that the values of natural capital do not exist objectively and independently of a community of potential beneficiaries. Therefore, they cannot simply be imported into a set of national accounts as a constant given. However, that is equally true of other forms of capital and it should not be allowed as an argument against a proper valuation of ecosystem services. The kickback given by Finance Departments and Treasuries is always, “It is very difficult to estimate the value of a river or a forest.” Well, it is difficult to estimate the value of a bridge. Nobody would try to measure a bridge by its height or length, but instead by the economic savings in time and fuel multiplied by the number of people who might use it as opposed to the alternative easiest route. One must estimate. It is the same with forests, wetlands, swamps and peat bogs, but the Treasury will always kick back and say, “No, it is too difficult.” That is the area we have to look at.

In the same way, the value of a coral reef will vary, not only in accordance with the quantity of marine life that it spawns, but with the level of dependence that a community may have on it for food. It may also fluctuate in value in accordance with its suitability for use as a tourist destination generating recreational dollars. Thus, the value of natural capital in one part of the globe cannot easily be translated across borders. Economic values are not a property of ecosystems; they are a measure of those ecosystems’ utility to human communities in a given geographical and socio-economic context. For that reason, Governments who take natural capital seriously would do well to estimate the value not of the ecosystem as such, but of the economic effects that a proposed or envisaged change might have were a particular policy to be pursued.

The successful integration of the value of natural capital into UK Government accounts could see the elimination of perverse subsidies in fishing and agriculture and in the use of nitrates and fossil fuels. It could create financial incentives to encourage proper environmental management that preserves ecosystem services and a rigid application of the “polluter pays” principle throughout industry. To achieve that, a number of undertakings would be required from the Government, and, in that respect, I thank the Minister for the positive and constructive meeting that we had with GLOBE the other day. As he knows, I do not lay these issues simply at the door of his Department; the key point is that these undertakings must be given by Governments, rather than Environment Departments. Environment Departments know and understand them very well; the difficulty is getting them appropriated by Government colleagues more widely.

First, inventories should be required of all Departments. They should identify as far as possible all the natural capital assets for which a Department is responsible or whose value may be affected, whether adversely or positively, by departmental activity. Secondly, in adopting the latest methodology set out in SEEA—the “Handbook of National Accounting: Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting”—Departments should be obliged to co-ordinate with the Treasury and agree a valuation for all the natural capital assets in their inventory.

Thirdly, all policy proposals and recommendations should be obliged to incorporate a costed explanation of how they will enhance natural capital or transform it into other forms of capital so that overall national wealth is increased. Fourthly, where a policy proposal or recommendation is estimated to deplete natural capital or result in declining ecosystem services, that depletion must be clearly costed and agreed by the Treasury.

Fifthly, an equivalent post to that of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury must be established with the aim of regulating the Government’s use of natural resources and signing off all allocations of natural capital. Sixthly, that post should have the further challenge function of questioning why Departments are pursuing a technological solution to a problem that might be more efficiently dealt with through an imaginative use of ecosystem services. For example, why build a chemical-based sewage filtration plant when the lugworms on one hectare of mud flats can provide a remediation service for 100,000 people’s effluent?

Seventhly, the Treasury should prepare a set of green accounts for natural capital and ecosystem services, which should be published initially for three years in parallel with the Red Book. Eighthly, after the initial trial period, those green accounts should be fully integrated and incorporated into the Budget and the Red Book.

Ninthly, the National Audit Office should be requested to monitor and report on the effective application of the incorporation of natural capital into the national accounting framework. Tenthly, Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee should be requested to hold the Treasury and all Departments across the Government to account for their use of natural capital and ecosystem services. Eleventhly, the Treasury should be tasked with preparing and publishing an annual report on the status of the country’s natural capital and ecosystems.

Are there better ways to achieve this objective? Are there better uses for these resources? The Government have an obligation to their citizens to ensure that no policy, programme or project is adopted without Ministers first having the answer to those questions, and it is not possible to answer them unless the Government unequivocally embrace a transparent system for the valuation of natural capital.

In October 2010, I will chair the GLOBE legislators session at the United Nations convention on biodiversity in Nagoya—the conference of the parties. One hundred legislators will press to have natural capital incorporated into national accounts. They will establish legislators’ role as that of providing a vital monitor and audit function, overseeing their respective Executives. Many scientists regard success at the Nagoya convention as even more important than success at the convention on climate change. After all, what would a change in climate matter if species could keep pace with the rate of change? The fact that they cannot, and the demise of the ecosystem services that are lost with them, is the greatest threat to human well-being on this planet.

A decade ago, the United Nations set the world the target of reducing the rate of species loss by 2010—the international year of biodiversity. Well, here we are. The UN willed the objective but not the means. The integration of the valuation of natural capital into Government accounting frameworks is that means.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

What a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Crausby. I am pleased to have the opportunity, in this, the international year of biodiversity, to speak in this debate. I know that all hon. Members say that their constituency is the most beautiful, but mine is the most beautiful in England, because it includes upper Teesdale, which is part of the North Pennines area of outstanding natural beauty. One of the most important aspects of upper Teesdale is the Teesdale array—the collective name given to the unique set of plants that grow there. Some of those plants grow only in that part of Great Britain. A small number of them also grow in the Burren in Ireland, and some grow in the Alps, but on the mainland, that particular collection of plants grows only in Teesdale. The most famous is a beautiful blue flower called the spring gentian, but there are also lady’s mantles and bogworts.

I wholeheartedly agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) said about valuing and taking account of the economic value of the natural environment, but I also hold out for the notion that those plants have an intrinsic value. Even if the spring gentian is of no use to anyone, it is valuable because it is there. It is there because it is left over from the last ice age. The collection of plants in question is on those rather cold, wet hills in the middle of the Pennines because the climate has not changed significantly since that time. It is the combination of the unique climate and the traditional farming practices of the hill farmers that has enabled the plants to survive.

I want to pay tribute to a botanist, Dr Margaret Bradshaw, who is an expert on the plants of Teesdale. We are fortunate to have her expertise because she originally went to survey the plants there in the 1950s. In this instance, therefore, we have an extremely good record of what has been going on over half a century. In May she took me out to sites where some of the rare plants grow. We went on to Cronkley fell and Widdybank fell, and up to Cow Green reservoir, where they grow. I shall send the Minister some of the charts and tables, because I cannot possibly do justice to them in a speech, but I shall give the highlights of Dr Bradshaw’s findings.

A plant called Alchemilla vulgaris was extremely prevalent in the 1950s in both Teesdale and Weardale, but more than half the subspecies have been lost. Two of them—Alchemilla monticola and Alchemilla subcrenata—have disappeared completely from Weardale. Dr Bradshaw has also done surveys comparing the number of Gentiana verna and Primula farinose in the 1970s and the early 2000s—that is, over a 30-year period. Her method was to survey about nine sites on a fell, seeing how many plants there were, and to go back every year. Whereas, for example, in 1970 there were more than 250 plants of Gentiana verna, by 2007 there were fewer than 50. That is the pattern among those plants in Teesdale. The violas have also fallen in number, as has Gentiana amarella. A plant called Draba incana has disappeared.

I want the Minister to understand why those plants have disappeared, and what we might do to stem the flow. There are two basic reasons for the loss of a suitable habitat for that collection of plants. One is change in the climate—the global warming problem—and the other is changing farming practices. The low point in over-grazing was in the 1970s. I think there is now, pretty much, a good agreement between the hill farmers, Natural England and the AONB about farming practices. There are still some disagreements and technical questions, but the problem is nothing like as bad as it was 30 years ago, and in some cases one can see the biodiversity improving as a result.

There has also been a loss of peat on the fells. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the fact that the peat in the Pennines is a major carbon sink. In a way, it is our forest. A lot of work has been done by the AONB to protect the peat. It has done that by blocking the grips, because previously the peat was being washed away down the streams, into the River Tees and out into the North sea.

My major plea to the Minister is to continue with the scheme, despite the pressure that the Treasury will put on him. It is very important that farmers should continue to be supported to farm sustainably. There must be a balance; they must be able to make a living and to continue to farm in the traditional way. We have had many successes in recent years. The number of meadows has increased and their quality has improved. It would be a big mistake and extremely short-sighted to lose those successes at this juncture. The AONB has also done a lot of excellent work. As I have said, it has been working on the grips. There are some technical problems with the way the legal agreements are set up, and the Minister might look into those at some point. However, there have been significant successes, such as the restoration of black grouse to the area; he has probably heard about that.

My overall concern is that the Government should not do something very short-sighted to bring the deficit down in four years rather than six. If we lost plants that have been in upper Teesdale for 20,000 years, it would be the height of absurdity. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has its big “Letter to the Future” campaign at the moment. I expect that the Minister has been inundated with postcards. I want to give that campaign 100% of my support; the RSPB is right. It would be absurd for the Government to take a short-sighted approach. I endorse the slogan that the RSPB has adopted: “Don’t cut the countryside”.