Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman is right on that point. My right hon. Friend the Energy and Climate Minister and I have instructed our officials to draw up measures that could be helpful. We also have a letter to go to Ofgem once we have that advice. I am very concerned about this happening through an enforced process. We are on the public’s side and trying to fix it.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The alternative fuel payment scheme is being applied to people’s electricity bills where they have their own direct supply, but, for people in park homes or on houseboats without their own electricity, such support is difficult to access, and they are often the types of people who struggle to get online. Will the Secretary of State consider a better public information campaign for those households and support with access to applying for the scheme for those who struggle to get online?

Fracking: Local Consent

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered local consent for fracking.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank colleagues who have sponsored the debate, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who joins me here. I was grateful to receive cross-party support for my application from colleagues from six different parties, on both sides of the House, but it is a little disappointing that nobody from the Government Benches has joined us today.

I made the application for the debate to the Backbench Business Committee some six weeks—and one Prime Minister—ago, at a time when the Government had lifted the moratorium on fracking, claiming that it was necessary to increase our domestic fossil fuel output to cut costs and increase energy security.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)]

I very much welcome the debate and congratulate the hon. Lady on securing it. I just want to make it clear that there is somebody from the Government Front Bench here: I am sitting here and listening carefully to everything she says.

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the Minister for that intervention, but I was referring to Back Benchers in my previous comment.

The former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), argued that fracking would only happen with local consent, but repeatedly declined to outline the detail on how consent might be obtained and whether it was synonymous with compensation. As I have said before, compensation is not consent, and I firmly believe that affected communities would oppose fracking in their area.

Since then, the current Prime Minister has U-turned on that U-turn. That is welcome, but with much of the Government’s 2019 manifesto abandoned, the Prime Minister pledging his own support for fracking over the summer and the Conservatives having voted to allow fracking just one month ago, I believe it is worthwhile obtaining some clarification from the Minister on the matter. I ask him to guarantee that fracking without consent is never forced on our communities, either in my constituency or anywhere else in Britain. We must prevent the Government from making yet another U-turn.

There is no mandate for fracking. It was outlawed in the manifesto of every major party in 2019 and only a tiny minority appear to believe that there is a benefit. The Liberal Democrat manifesto mentions “banning fracking for good.” “Permanently ban fracking”—the Labour party manifesto. The Conservative manifesto states,

“We will not support fracking”,

and the Green party manifesto reads

“Ban fracking, and other unconventional forms of fossil fuel extraction”.

Some 90% of the electorate voted for one of those parties. It is clear that people do not want fracking, and there are very good reasons why.

Britain cannot produce enough gas from fracking to reduce the global gas price, so it will not reduce our energy bills, especially when electricity from renewable sources is the cheapest form of energy we can produce. Investing in renewables—not only the cheapest, but the cleanest form of energy—is the best way to bring down our bills and our carbon emissions. As COP27 meets in Sharm El Sheikh and the lack of progress on the climate emergency is brought to international attention, it would be disastrous for the UK to start novel types of fossil fuel extraction. We need to find ways to keep fossil fuels in the ground, not waste effort looking for ever more inventive ways of extracting them.

The fundamental scientific evidence surrounding fracking and its safety has not changed either. Fracking is still unsafe and unproven. Last month the British Geological Survey refused to endorse fracking as a safe practice in its report for the Government. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has previously warned that fracking poses a “risk to groundwater” and a

“risk of polluting surface water”,

and that the need for considerable quantities of water for fracking

“could pose localised risks to water supplies”.

This follows one of the driest summers ever; we cannot afford to take the risk.

Research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that fracking caused 192 earthquakes in 182 days at one active site in the UK. That is more than one a day. A 2.9 magnitude earthquake was recorded near Cuadrilla’s site near Blackpool in 2019. Residents reported their shock at houses being shaken for two to three seconds. A report by the Oil and Gas Authority said it was not possible to predict the probability or size of tremors caused by the practice, so people do not want fracking for good reason. When they have had the opportunity to express their opposition, they have done so in numbers.

When fracking was last proposed at Dudleston Heath— a small village near Ellesmere in my constituency—a huge number of residents rapidly organised opposition to the proposed site. One constituent who led the protest said that they

“crammed about 300 people into the village hall”

in a public meeting about fracking. At the end of the meeting, a show of hands was requested, and he reported that

“everyone bar one person was against”

fracking.

Lovely as they are, I doubt whether the views of people in Dudleston Heath and Criftins are unique, and every MP in a potentially impacted area has had countless emails from constituents opposing the plans. Furthermore, the huge number of well-organised grassroots community groups that have cropped up across the country is evidence of a groundswell of opposition to the fracking plans.

We also saw well-organised opposition on a national level in the well-publicised campaigns by organisations such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England and Friends of the Earth, signalling the depth of support among many who do not live anywhere near one of the proposed sites.

In North Shropshire, a licence exists covering a small area of land by the Cheshire border, but whose impact zone extends to the market towns of Whitchurch and Market Drayton. There was huge concern in October when the then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset, said in response to an urgent question that

“the moratorium on the extraction of shale gas is being lifted”.

He also said, in response to a question from me:

“Compensation and consent become two sides of the same coin. People will be able to negotiate the level of compensation and it will be a matter for the companies to try and ensure widespread consent by offering a compensation package that is attractive.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2022; Vol. 719, c. 790-95.]

I find the suggestion that anyone will agree to something if they are paid enough slightly odd, although perhaps I am being a little idealistic, but I also believe that if the Conservatives refuse to impose an outright ban on fracking, a valid consent process must be put in place now to protect local communities in the event that the moratorium is lifted in future.

I propose a local referendum process—not just for those in the area covered by the fracking licence, but for the people living in the surrounding impact zone. When a council was approached for planning permission, it would have to gain the express consent of those in the affected areas before granting such permission. That should follow a period in which the full facts of the impact on the area were not only publicly available, but actively communicated to those affected. The planning inspector should not be able to overrule the decision reached in the local referendum and the subsequent council planning committee decision.

Local councils have been impacted by the cost of living crisis and are struggling to balance their budgets as it is, with many reporting financial distress, so the cost of administering those public information campaigns and subsequent referendums should not fall on the local council, or indeed the local taxpayer, but should be met by the company making the planning application. An application to exploit the resources of the British countryside should in no way be foisted on the taxpayer, but should be met by the companies that are making huge profits as a result of the global gas price. Will the Minister comment specifically on those suggestions for safeguarding communities that could be impacted by fracking in the event of a further Government U-turn?

Local communities affected by fracking have already expressed their opposition to the lifting of the moratorium; so, too, have the vast majority of the British people, who in 2019 voted for parties that opposed fracking in some form or another. Fracking simply will not bring down our energy bills, and if we are to address the energy problems the country faces, we must rapidly invest in renewable energy sources. The science has not changed either, and fracking is just as unsafe and unreliable as it was three years ago. I would welcome the Government’s confirmation of that point.

Given that the Conservative moratorium has been demonstrated to be fragile and temporary in nature, and that the Prime Minister pledged to overturn it in the summer leadership campaign, and given that Conservative MPs voted in favour of lifting the moratorium only a month ago, it is essential that a watertight process of local consent be put in place. If Conservative MPs will not pledge to honour their manifesto commitment and keep the ban on fracking, we must safeguard our communities from this unnecessary, disruptive and dangerous practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

The hon. Member has made an important point. I will not attempt to answer it because I am not the Minister for Climate, but I will flag it with him and ask that the hon. Member gets a proper answer.

As well as our groundbreaking leadership in the transition of our existing energy system to net zero supply, we are investing heavily in the technologies of tomorrow to ensure that we can be a global player in the great challenges we face. Agriculture and transport are the two biggest industries after energy that generate and use the most carbon and greenhouse gases, and we are hugely advanced in research and development in those sectors. I say that as a former Minister for future transport and for agritech. This country has a huge opportunity as part of the science superpower mission to generate solutions that we can export around the world, and I am proud of what we are doing.

Given the crisis in Ukraine and the extraordinary pressures on everybody this year when it comes to paying their energy bills, the Government made a huge commitment to cap those energy bills and provide support, but it is right that our customers—the constituents we serve, taxpayers, households and businesses—would expect any responsible Government to look at whether there are easily and quickly accessible supplies of clean gas in the UK that could be extracted in a sensible and environmentally satisfactory way. People would think it was daft and weird if we were not prepared even to look at doing so in such a context. But let me be clear: that cannot in any situation go against our own environmental commitments, the environmental advice we have received or, crucially, local consent. As others have said, the British Geological Survey has made it crystal clear that there is no evidence to suggest that fracking can be pursued in any way that would pass that test. Again, I am delighted to repeat how pleased I personally am that we—the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Government —have made it clear that we are back to our 2019 effective moratorium.

[Helen Morgan]

Given that the Government are happy to express their commitment to stopping fracking, would they be willing to put that into legislation so that we do not always have a shadow of doubt hanging over us that the issue might raise its ugly head again?

[George Freeman]

I hear the hon. Member; she has made her point and put it on the record. I am slightly adverse to the idea that we put into legislation every single thing that we are not going to do. We would be here an awfully long time to reassure everyone. I am not sure that that is a sustainable way for Parliament to proceed. The Prime Minister made it clear through the written ministerial statement to the House, and the sector and community generally have understood that the idea mooted in September is now dead and buried, and we will not go back there.

I turn to the important point regarding local consent, which a number of colleagues have made. There is little I can say about pockets of local consent in particular areas. With regard to the situation in North Shropshire, in response to which the hon. Member for North Shropshire partly brought forward this debate, the licence for fracking that would potentially impact the Market Drayton and Whitchurch area is an indicative licence. No work has been done and no application for work has been received. In the light of the announcement of the return to the 2019 position, it is difficult to envisage any situation in which that licence could be of any use. I reassure her that we are not expecting any activity in that area.

We all—and the Government certainly—recognise that community support is important. We generally want planning to be something that is done through and with local communities, not to them. Some sort of balance is always required. Obviously, there is a huge difference between a loft extension and the siting of a huge piece of critical national infrastructure. However, a good developer will and should always engage with the local community and listen to real concerns.

I have seen consultations in my area where concerns have been expressed but have not been listened to or reflected in the proposals, and no change has been made to anything that was promoted. That often drives the view of sham consultations, in which people are not being heard. We need to be wary of assuming a one-size-fits-all approach would work for local support. Difficult though it is to see how this would take off, we have left open the possibility that if an area—north, south, south-west, Scotland or Northern Ireland—found itself sitting on an easy and geologically stable opportunity to exploit shale gas and came to the Government with strong local consent, strong environmental data and a strong business and environmental case, the Government would consider it. That is very different from us setting an ambition and encouraging this industry around the country.

My constituency is home to the first two major substations, connecting the first two offshore wind farms in the southern North sea. As the local constituency MP, I watched as the scheme promoter came forward with a proposal for a substation, which I naively thought 10 years ago was a thing the size of a shipping container that hums behind a yew bush, but this thing is the size of Wembley stadium and its proposed location was on top of a hill, so the whole of Norfolk could see this huge piece of industrial development. I was not against hosting the substation in Mid Norfolk, but through decent consultation with the company, we ended up siting it in low-lying ground, out of sight, with minimal light and visual impact.

For our thanks, we have had another one; we now have two next to each other in Mid Norfolk. It is critical infrastructure, although if we were better connecting all the offshore wind farms, we could reduce the need for individual substations and cabling all across the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. The Minister for Climate is looking into that, because it would support the infrastructure for trading out of the southern North sea. I have seen at first hand that communities are often not properly consulted. As other hon. Members have said, without in any way opening up the risk of community benefit creating an opportunity for some sort of inappropriate payments to buy consent, I believe it is important that when a village is hosting two vast pieces of national infrastructure, it might get a park bench or some swings or something from the developer, which is making a huge amount of money.

There is a difficult balance to strike, but we all know good consent and good consultation when we see it. We know when a company is listening and when a community has been properly heard. I do not think that has been the case often enough and I am delighted to have the chance to put that on record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Morgan]

I thank you, Mr Paisley, for your chairmanship, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. I also thank the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), for attending the debate. To clear up any confusion, at the start I was expressing my disappointment that there were not more Back Benchers here to put on the record their concern about their communities being able to consent to a very controversial process.

I am also grateful to the Minister for clarifying the Government’s position; I think that we all agree that that U-turn is welcome. However, while there is still this shadow of doubt, it would be nice if the Government committed to putting some formal consent process in place to safeguard communities in the event of a future change of heart.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his kind words, for giving us the Northern Ireland perspective, and for clarifying that the issue is controversial across the whole United Kingdom, not just in rural England.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for her kind comments. She is a formidable environment campaigner, who we are proud to have in our party, and she made an excellent speech, expressing that local empowerment is at the heart of what Liberal Democrats stand for and believe. I am grateful for her contribution.

I cannot remember the last time that anyone described me as exciting, so I thank the Minister for that kind comment; I hope that it was well intended!

I am grateful for the comments made today. Everybody has made valuable points. We strongly feel that the local consent mechanism should be put in place to safeguard our communities.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on leading her first Westminster Hall debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered local consent for fracking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is a certain eccentricity in the Scottish nationalists’ boasting of the amount of oil and gas they get when they have been opposing efforts to increase the licensing round. They really cannot have it both ways. They have this fantasy approach to politics where they spend money that they have not got, they rely on the UK taxpayer to support them and then they complain that it is all the fault of Westminster. I am afraid that without Westminster the hon. Gentleman and his merry band would be bankrupt.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

3. What support his Department plans to provide to businesses with increased energy costs after April 2023.

[The Minister for Industry (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

We will publish a review by the end of the year which will consider how best to offer further support to those most at risk due to energy price increases. The review will consider which groups of non-domestic customers remain particularly at risk to energy price rises; and how best to continue supporting those customers, either by extending the existing scheme for some users, or by replacing it with a different one.

[Helen Morgan]

The Horse & Jockey pub in Northwood in my constituency closed before the Government’s assistance package was announced. It is one of many businesses that will not continue beyond April. Many others that have managed to remain open are struggling to secure bank facilities and to reassure suppliers and customers, because they need certainty to be able thrive. I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are going to do to provide some certainty for these critical businesses beyond the winter period.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right—businesses deserve certainty, and we will give that to them as soon as we can, and well before the end of the scheme. It is important that we make sure, because this is a very expensive scheme for taxpayers, that we give that support where it is needed, at best value for the taxpayer. That means that we need to target it at those businesses that are at most risk of being damaged. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady some reassurance in the meantime—we are determined to give some advice before the end of the year.

Energy Prices Bill

Helen Morgan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I am most concerned about what is missing from the Bill, particularly the lack of support for those in rural areas who are off the gas grid and rely on heating oil or liquefied petroleum gas. As an off-grid homeowner, I can verify that the cost of heating oil has almost doubled since this time last year, meaning that the average off-grid household is spending £1,200 more than last year to heat itself. I am afraid that £100 will not go near helping those families who are struggling to make ends meet in rural Britain. Beyond that, the scheme is confusing. It is unclear how consumers will be able to prove that they are eligible and submit a request for the grant to be applied to their electricity bills.

However, it is not just rural off-grid households that are struggling, as I am sure a number of Members will testify this evening. Many on-grid users are also feeling the squeeze, given that £2,500 for an average household is still almost double what it was paying this time last year. Today Cornwall Energy predicted that next April bills would be more than £4,300, over 70% more than households are paying this year and more than 3.5 times more than they were paying last year. What will the Chancellor be saying to the millions of people who are worried about their energy bills next year, despite the Government’s promising them certainty. How will he help those who, while also dealing with spiralling mortgage costs, will struggle to make ends meet? The Government could have provided much more responsible assistance by extending the windfall tax on the oil and gas giants which continue to rake in extraordinary profits at the expense of British consumers, instead of botching a Budget and leaving taxpayers and mortgage holders to pay for this mess for years to come.

The Government have also failed to take any steps to encourage reductions in energy use. Last week’s flip-flopping on the most simplest of options, a public information campaign on energy efficiency, highlights just how chaotic the plan for this winter is. The Conservatives have scrapped energy efficiency schemes, despite UK homes being the least efficient in Europe, and have reduced the standards for new homes, which means that 1 million homes have been built since 2015 to lower standards than before. Insulating homes is an important, practical step that would have helped people to help themselves. Also missing is the certainty that is needed for businesses to plan for the future. Six months of assistance is welcome, but, as with the rest of this Bill, it does not go nearly far enough. If the Prime Minister wants to promote economic growth, she must recognise that stability and certainty are vital preconditions for businesses to invest. This assistance is too little, too late: many businesses have already closed, and many more do not see how they can operate beyond the winter.

The need for large-scale intervention to prevent many households from facing unimaginable difficulty this winter is beyond dispute, but the Government have made the choice—the wrong choice—to allow heating costs to double while refusing to properly tax the eye-watering profits of oil and gas companies.

Energy Prices Bill

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

We—both this country and the entirety of Europe—are in an energy price war. It is an honour and a privilege to speak in support of this Bill and to make my first speech from the Back Benches in, I think, about seven and a half years.

It is unquestionably the case that I support the key measures. It is quite right that we support households up and down this great country, who are facing such difficulties over the next year. The measures come on top of the £37 billion package brought forward by the previous Chancellor bar one in spring this year, which offered £400 in support to every household in October, and the £1,200-plus support for the most vulnerable, including pensioners, who are particularly supported by that.

I have three points. First, I urge the Government, as I urged the Prime Minister and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer last week in questions on the Floor of the House, to conduct a communications campaign to send a message out to households and businesses about the nature of the support and how they could save money on an ongoing basis.

That is not the nanny state; it is outlining the support that people can take advantage of, and I urge the Secretary of State and the esteemed Minister to take that forward. Doing so will save the state money, because the state is subsidising the energy consumption of people up and down this country. If there is less usage, the state needs to provide less subsidy, providing savings to the Chancellor. Surely that is both self-evident and a self-fulfilling prophecy of reduction in expenditure.

Secondly, there is genuine concern about the proposed contracts for difference for biomass, given that there is already a renewables obligation subsidy that expires in 2027. I hope that the Minister will address the question of a severely subsidised biomass sector competing for timber and forestry with a non-subsidised sector that struggles to compete in those particular circumstances. I hope he will give some assurances on that.

Finally, I urge the state to follow the precedent enjoyed by Germany, Italy, France and other countries that have embraced energy saving on a much wider basis than we have here. You will be aware, Mr Evans, that in the House of Commons some rooms are heated to 30°. That is utterly ridiculous. In Germany and France, they do not heat their buildings to more than 19° and they have proper localism to drive forward energy reduction. They do not light buildings at night and they turn off hot water on a regular basis. Why does that matter? It matters because potentially they can save 2% of their energy consumption. We need that sort of leadership from the Government on energy consumption. I hope that as this matter progresses, the Minister and the Secretary of State will go away and consider how we can have either direction by the state or empowerment of localism so that our local public sector institutions, which are paying the most on energy, can be encouraged to reduce their expenditure—which, after all, is in all our interests.

[Helen Morgan]

I will not speak for too long, but I want to draw attention to the amendments tabled in my name, which I would have liked to see incorporated into the Bill.

One of my greatest concerns about the support available is for non-domestic users, which have only been given six months of certainty. As I alluded to on Second Reading, businesses need certainty to be able to plan ahead and invest. We also have local authorities raising distress calls about their budgets. To enable them to plan for the future, I would have hoped to see two years of support. That is why I tabled amendment 5. For the same reason, I support new clause 18, which provides support for non-domestic users.

Non-domestic users who signed a fixed-tariff agreement between December 2021 and April 2022 have also been left high and dry by the Bill. Amendment 7 would ensure that they also benefit from capped energy charges. Again, I draw Members’ attention to the plight of local authorities, many of which are struggling to balance their budgets for the remainder of the year.

Many businesses in my constituency are off grid, as everyone will be aware, and some of them are not covered by the energy bill relief scheme, so amendment 6 would provide them with support that has parity with that given to other non-domestic users. I urge the Government to consider that because rural businesses are up against it and struggling to see a way forward.

That brings me to off-grid homes, which have been hardest hit, but the Bill provides only £100 of support for them. People living in rural areas are hit hardest by the cost of living crisis. Not only might they be off grid and living in an older, poorly insulated home, but they face higher fuel costs to move around and higher food costs at supermarkets, so £100 of support is not enough. As I have mentioned, their heating bills have risen by about £1,200, so new clause 12 would ensure that those off-grid homes received energy cost support equivalent to those who are on grid, and amendment 9 would ensure that such payments were made directly to their bank accounts, making it easier for them to access that support. These changes would support the rural areas hit hardest by the cost of living crisis and would stop people being penalised for the misfortune of being off grid.

Shale Gas Extraction

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful: my hon. Friend makes exactly the right point, both ways around. This is in the national interest and will make the country richer, but it is absolutely right that those affected should be rewarded. To my mind, that means direct financial reward, not a theoretical one. The last time that we discussed fracking, the idea was that communities would be delighted if they got £10 for the village hall. I do not think that is the right way to do it. This needs to be direct, to the individuals who are affected. I have had preliminary discussions with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, but I do not have a formal thing to announce.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Residents in the northern part of my constituency are rightly concerned about the impact of tremors on their often older buildings, and they are worried about the impact of the extraction of coal bed methane through fracking on their rural way of life. Will the Secretary of State explain in detail—he has not so far—exactly the mechanism through which communities will be able to refuse consent for coal bed extraction and shale gas fracking? Compensation is not consent.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Compensation and consent become two sides of the same coin. People will be able to negotiate the level of compensation and it will be a matter for the companies to try and ensure widespread consent by offering a compensation package that is attractive. [Interruption.] Opposition Members howl and wail about this because, actually, we are trying to use market forces. It is amazing—a Conservative Government using market forces!

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very happy to speak to the hon. Lady about the details of that fiscal change. The energy profits levy was announced by the Chancellor and the details will be worked out in consultation with us, but they are ultimately a responsibility for the Treasury. However, I am very happy to talk to her about those details.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Diesel and petrol prices have hit a record average high this morning, with diesel costing more than £1.85 a litre. Along with labour shortages, that is having a devastating impact on haulage businesses in North Shropshire and across the rest of the country, as well as driving inflation in the economy. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to support this critical industry through these dual crises?

[Greg Hands]

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), we are engaging constantly with the sector and the CMA to make sure that the tax cut is passed on. However, I find it a bit rich for the Liberal Democrats, who, if I am not mistaken, voted against all the fuel freezes and this year’s Budget, to then claim that the reduction in fuel duty, which they opposed, is now not being passed on to their constituents. If they had voted for the reduction in the first place, I would have a lot more sympathy with their position.

Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

In Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee year, it is an honour to make my first contribution to a Queen’s Speech debate. I very much look forward to celebrating the platinum jubilee with my constituents.

The topic of today’s debate is fairness at work and power in communities, and as I am sure the House would expect, I will focus on rural communities. I am incredibly proud of my rural community of North Shropshire. On Sunday, I was lucky enough to attend a “Songs for Ukraine” concert in Oswestry involving nearly 200 local schoolchildren, brilliantly hosted by Ukrainian sixth-formers Lisa and Myra, showcasing the amazing talent of young performers from across North Shropshire and bringing together hundreds of families to raise over £11,000 for vulnerable people fleeing a dreadful war. This is North Shropshire at its best.

It is abundantly clear to me that rural communities like mine and so many others across the country, from Shetland to Somerset, feel taken for granted by this Conservative Government. “Levelling up” is a catchy slogan we have heard time and again, but there is very little of substance for those in rural areas, and I am afraid that the Queen’s Speech offers nothing to help them. In fact, the Government compiled a 140-page background briefing note on the Queen’s Speech, but the world “rural” is used only four times, and two of those were in a list of Government Departments.

I will describe the situation in the lovely town of Market Drayton, which is a fantastic place to visit for those who can get there. It is a pretty, medieval town with attractive buildings and, since fairly recently, a large amount of housing development, but it has only one, very infrequent, bus service, which is being reduced. By the end of August, there will be no weekend bus services at all. Those who do not drive will have to rely on friends and family to make the 25-minute journey for out-patient appointments at the hospital in Telford. A taxi costs more than £50 and, on the minimal public transport available, the round trip will be in excess of four hours. It may as well be an island. Young people here struggle to access work, let alone achieve fairness when they get there.

Limited and decreasing public transport is not unique to Market Drayton. Across the market towns of North Shropshire and the rest of rural Britain, isolation from work, social opportunities and health services are limiting opportunity and quality of life for rural communities, which need access to reliable bus services.

Colleagues might think that the Government are on this—after all, they committed to “bus back better”—but I am afraid to report that this is yet another catchy slogan with no meaning. How many times does the briefing paper on the Queen’s Speech mention buses? Have a guess. The words “bus” and “buses” appear once, which highlights this Government’s complete disregard for rural communities like mine that are seeing their local public transport cut to the bone. The “bus back better” funding, as with other levelling-up funding, has been allocated via a bidding process in which money is apparently allocated with very little direct reference to need. There is nothing for Shropshire.

Since being elected in December, much of my time on the Floor of the House has been spent on ambulance waiting times, so I will not repeat the shocking stories of dangerous delays, but I note that a report by the all-party parliamentary group on rural health and social care and the National Centre for Rural Health and Care found stark levels of inequality between rural and urban areas when it comes to health and social care services. This resonates strongly with the emails in my inbox from concerned constituents who are struggling to access GPs, dentists and even domiciliary care in an increasingly centralised model.

There is a theme emerging for rural communities in which critical infrastructure—whether public transport, adult social care, community ambulance stations, banks, post offices, swimming pools or even driving test centres—is being shut down, centralised and removed from where it is most urgently needed. If we need anything in our market towns and villages, we are expected to get in our petrol car—there are no electric charging facilities—and drive to reach the most basic services. Those who cannot drive, for whatever reason, are being isolated in these rural islands. They are far from empowered, and I am afraid that voting on their neighbour’s extension will not compensate for waiting 17 hours for an ambulance when they need one.

The Conservatives have taken rural Britain for granted. The farming industry forms the backbone of the rural economy, producing our food, protecting our countryside and gluing rural communities together, but the Government are dicing with its future. Offering trade deals to countries with lower standards and phasing out the basic farm payment scheme before its replacement is in place would be bad enough, but there has been no response at all to the rising costs of feed, fuel and fertiliser that are leading farmers to shut up shop altogether.

When many of these critical businesses are facing the biggest challenges for a decade, the Conservatives are cutting their lifeline, taking their votes for granted and refusing to consider other options, even in the short term, to save this critical industry, but they have cut taxes for banks. That shows us all we need to know about the Conservatives’ commitment to rural Britain: cuts for farmers, shortages in healthcare, cuts to public transport and tax breaks for bankers. We have 140 pages, thousands of words and barely a mention of rural Britain and the problems facing it.

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are proudly championing rural Britain. We have tabled an amendment to the Humble Address that focuses specifically on rural issues. We are calling on the Government to protect farmers from the effect of new trade deals that would lower environmental and animal welfare standards. We are urging them to use this Queen’s Speech to reverse the closure of rural ambulance stations and to do far more to tackle the chronic shortage of GPs, dentists, consultants, nurses and the other clinical professionals that we so desperately need. We are calling on the Government to protect our rivers by preventing water companies from dumping raw sewage into them, damaging our wildlife and reducing our access.

I am proud to represent the rural constituency of North Shropshire. In my very biased view, it is the best rural constituency in Britain. The people there are caring, creative and extremely resilient, but the Conservatives are taking the good, hard-working people of rural Britain for granted. Far from levelling up, they are risking decline. I urge them to think again and to act now to prevent that from happening. Act now on the crisis in rural healthcare, of which dire ambulance response times are simply a symptom. Act now to save our farming industry and improve our food security. Act now to improve the services and transport infrastructure that are critical to growing the rural economy. And act now to give rural constituencies the fair deal they deserve.

Storm Eunice

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), reminds me, the Government and her Department are looking at Flood Re and how it responds to these very affecting natural disasters. However, I would be happy to discuss with my right hon. Friend the specific issues of business resilience and support that arise in his constituency.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The aftermath of Storm Eunice and Storm Franklin has taught us what many in Shropshire and across the rest of the country already knew: whenever a storm hits, the Government do not seem to be prepared to support the thousands of people in rural areas who are really badly affected. This is the third year in a row that villages along the Severn and Vyrnwy rivers have faced record or near-record levels of flooding—this includes the records being breached just a few hours ago in my constituency. People have been left cut off, often without power, water and, in some cases, accommodation. In order to help those impacted by these winter storms, these communities also need the food, water, emergency accommodation and electricity generators that have been mentioned while those services are restored. So will the Government commit to providing that assistance to people in the aftermath of these storms and to working with the Environment Agency to deal with the catchment areas in the upper Severn?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Perhaps belatedly, I welcome the hon. Lady to her position; I believe this is the first time I have encountered her in BEIS questions or statements. On the substance of her remarks, we engage readily with colleagues across the House who represent Shropshire seats. We have looked into how we can be more resilient against flooding in the Severn area, and my colleagues in DEFRA are very focused on this issue. I would be happy to engage with her on the business side of this resilience package.