Storm Henk

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for inviting me to Gloucester this morning. It was an excellent visit to meet his residents and speak with those who have experienced flooding on Alney Island. It was clear that the investment that this Government put in place and the flood improvement measures put in place in 2006 have worked up until now, but we know the implications when the River Severn catchment is as saturated as it has been. I am willing to meet not only him but the other 38 colleagues who form the caucus, to put a strategic plan in place for the whole River Severn catchment.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his very sensible comments on dredging. When does he expect some further movement on that? Can he say where he thinks the priorities should lie between protecting the farm land we need to grow our food and maintaining wildlife habitat?

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, because I want to make it absolutely clear that no options should be off the table. It is important that we quite rightly have nature-based solutions upstream, but also that where Environment Agency assets need dredging, we review that and consider what more could be done in that area, while ensuring that we are working with our internal drainage boards, which are doing a fantastic job. On my visit to Lincolnshire over the weekend, it was clearly communicated to me that the internal drainage boards are going above and beyond to protect our productive agricultural land. I want to reassure all those in the agricultural community that the Government will do all we can to protect productive agricultural land. It is completely unfair for a farmer to experience crop loss when that crop has been under water for 10 days and then fails. That is a huge financial loss to our farmers, who spend thousands of pounds putting that crop in place. I want to reassure my hon. Friend that we will review all options.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to speak in support of this excellent Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). Many constituents have contacted me with very strong feelings on this issue and I am here to represent their views, as I always seek to do.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of killing an animal simply for a souvenir. I am told that trophy hunters perhaps feel a thrill when they hunt an animal. Perhaps it is just about the opportunity to take something home that they can use for a piece of furniture or to display there. I do not know what is in the mind of a person who chooses to do this—that is a matter for them—but it is absolutely right that we have this discussion today.

The animals most coveted by trophy hunters include lions, hippos, rhinos, elephants and zebras. Their populations have all declined over recent generations while trophy imports to major economies, including ours, have increased. Our import numbers pale in comparison to the US, the EU and China, but we have played our part in facilitating that trade. Indeed, the number of trophies coming into Britain has risen about tenfold since the 1980s. That is in part because of the international agreement on which the wildlife trade is regulated, known as the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora.

Although CITES restricts the trade of listed endangered species, trophies are considered to be personal and household effects that warrant an exemption. As a result, a number of countries across the world have a trophy hunting tourism industry for foreign visitors. Wealthy hunters from across the world travel to those countries, hunt their animal of choice and then bring that animal’s remains back home. We have heard the arguments about the positive monetary benefits that this business model may produce, but I hope we can also recognise the perverse incentives that there are around the industry.

My constituents have raised many problems and concerns. First, trophy hunters naturally opt for animals with desirable features, as we have heard from many hon. and right hon. Members from across the House. They ultimately want the elephant with the biggest tusks, the lion with the widest mane or the tiger with the sharpest, whitest teeth. In doing so, the industry is picking off the members of the species that are most likely to survive and reproduce in the wild. I am told that African lions are now less genetically diverse than they were 100 years ago. The average tusk size of African elephants has halved since the mid-19th century. If the strongest members of a species are targeted, the best genes are removed from their populations.

Secondly, South African landowners have adopted a business model of breeding lions in captivity, known as canned hunting. The practice is a much cheaper way of organising a hunt than a wild pursuit, meaning more people can hunt a vulnerable species as a trophy. Canned hunting excludes lions from the wild and serves no conservational purpose. With lion numbers plummeting over the past 20 years, and the global exports of canned lion trophies going up, we have to ask ourselves whether our country wants its hands in this.

I am conscious that I represent an area of the UK; it is not my place to tell South African landowners what their business model should be. However, I do think it is right that we control our part in it, and control the ability of those hunters to bring the product of that hunt back into our country. That is where our approach should lie, and I think it absolutely right that the Bill does that. The United States’ decision to suspend imports of lion trophies in 2016 helped to bring down the number of lions held in canned hunting facilities.

Finally, we must ask if the industry itself is doing enough to offset the results of the practice and to improve conservation efforts. For example, Safari Club International’s diamond award requires hunters to shoot at least 80 different species, including all of the big five African mammals. Its cats of the world award requires hunters to kill at least four types of wild cats. I find that quite distasteful, and many of my constituents feel exactly the same way.

Further losses of vulnerable and endangered species would have disastrous effects for our environment, not only ecologically but for the economies in which those practices take place. I hope we can send a very strong message to the world today that bringing into the UK parts of animals that have been hunted in this way is not something that is acceptable to the British public.

Food Price Inflation

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The action that the Chancellor has taken so far was announced earlier this year in the spring statement. It included a £150 rebate on council tax bills, and a £200 rebate on energy bills to dampen and spread the cost of the spike in energy bills. We increased the national living wage in April to £9.50 an hour, and that puts an extra £1,000 in the pockets of the lowest-paid. Obviously, we keep this matter under constant review, as the Chancellor has made clear.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

My constituents in Scunthorpe and the surrounding villages well understand the global factors affecting the cost of living and of course food price inflation, but they are worried about what is to come. I know the Government have set out a number of measures, and we are doing a lot. When does my right hon. Friend think we will start to see the effect of those measures at the supermarket till?

Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lia Nici]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. What the industry has been telling us for the last few years, and for the last few months that I have been working with him to ensure that we are listening to it, is that although we hear the EU talk about reciprocal arrangements, there is nothing reciprocal about the current arrangements. The fish that the EU catches in our waters is eight times the value of what we can catch in EU waters. We talk about the common fisheries policy following sustainability, but it does not. It does not do what we need it to do it all. To take a particular cod species, under the common fisheries policy we can currently catch 20% of the North sea saithe. If we had zonal attachment where the fish are actually in our waters, we could catch 75%, but at the moment our fishers have to steam away from our own fish. It is therefore absolutely vital that we are able to build on that.

The common fisheries policy, as we all know, is not fit for purpose. We need to make sure that we change it so that we are in control of what we want. The common fisheries policy is what really tore the heart out of Great Grimsby. For 40 years we have struggled to recover from that. The decline in the fishing industry in Grimsby is because we are not able to catch in the way that we want to or do what we want to ensure future sustainability. The reason for a decimated fishing industry in my town is not that we were not efficient in catching or because our customers did not want to buy fish from us.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and allowing me the opportunity to mention the great British fish and chip shop. I grew up enjoying delicious fish and chips from Jimmy and Jenny’s chippy in Scawby. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that they fry a lot of British fish. Does she agree that across the House and across the country we can all help to support our fishing industry by being a part of her excellent campaign to encourage us all to eat more British fish?

[Lia Nici]

I thank my hon. Friend. Yes, I heartily agree with her. We would like to process and fry more British fish, but unfortunately we are not able to catch it at the moment. I had a meeting with Seafood Grimsby and Humber a few weeks’ ago. It said that if every household in the UK had one extra portion of fish, it would bring in an additional £2 billion per annum for the Grimsby fish processing industry—and that is just to Grimsby. Think of the power of us being able to have more influence on how, when and where we catch our own fish in our own waters.

The decline in the fishing industry is something we really need to consider. Our constituents in Grimsby are looking for us to make a change. What happened with our fishing industry was caused by political events and decisions over which people in Grimsby had no power or say, and our industry was cut. After 40 years there is ongoing anger and resentment about that, but we can change it. We now have the ability to become an independent coastal state.

Today’s debate is the first step in this Parliament to making sure we are able to bring these decisions and accountability back home. The people of Grimsby are under no illusion that we will go back to the glory days of the 1950s, when they say you could walk from one side of the dock to the other on trawlers and not get your feet wet. What they are looking forward to is having a new modern fleet that they can welcome to the port. Our local trawler companies, with whom I have been speaking, have said that they have the men, they have the trawlers and they are ready to go from 1 January 2021. Today—

Flooding

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

It is good to hear the Government Benches so united in their support for Scunthorpe. It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I pay tribute to my predecessor, Nic Dakin, who represented Scunthorpe county between 2010 and 2019 with a great deal of dedication and a genuine desire to help our residents.

I am very glad to represent my home town as part of a varied and beautiful constituency, which includes not only Scunthorpe, but Messingham Bottesford, Yaddlethorpe, Kirton, Holme, East Butterwick, Redbourne, Scawby, Scawby Brook, Hibaldstow, Gainsthorpe, Cadney, Howsham, Cleatham, Manton and Greetwell. As a proud Scunthorpe lass, the granddaughter of a 30-year steelworking veteran, I am particularly proud to stand here today as the first MP for Scunthorpe county who was actually born in Scunthorpe Hospital.

Across the land and indeed the world, when people hear the word “Scunthorpe” they think of steel. We have had a very challenging time in Scunthorpe over the past months, and my thoughts are very much with our steelworkers today. But we are still living up to our heritage. We are still making steel, and we look forward to doing so for many years to come. Few who visit our industrial cathedral will ever forget the sight of red hot metal, and I was delighted to welcome the Business Secretary to Scunthorpe only a couple of weeks ago to feel the heat on his face, in our rod mill. We were very well looked after, and I was extremely proud to show him how hard we work in Scunthorpe. Unfortunately, when I suggested during the visit that I could go and watch the steel being tapped, as we had done as kids, I quickly discovered that health and safety has tightened up somewhat since the 1990s—a little extra training and a flame-proof suit is now required for that activity.

Scunthorpe emerged in the 19th century as an extraction point for ironstone and later as its own iron producer, eventually becoming our nation’s greatest steel hub. Our steel is known for its exceptional quality and durability. We have supported infrastructure projects throughout the nation’s history. Our works are truly powered not by coke, but by our steelworkers. They are strong, stoic people who have genuine pride in their work, and I know that the friendships forged there can last a lifetime. I am not saying all this purely because my granddad is watching at home but, because of him, my memories of our steelworks are of steel toe cap boots, a soot-covered donkey jacket and trips around the site on a train, and I am very excited to have been invited by the Appleby Frodingham Railway Preservation Society to relive some of those memories. I truly believe that Members of this House and people across the country will agree on the importance to our nation of keeping a truly integrated steelworks. Having home-produced, genuinely world-class steel not only serves various strategic interests for our nation; it is also integral to the Prime Minister’s mission to level up the north, and I thank the Government for the support that they have shown Scunthorpe over the past months.

Steel is our backbone, but it is by no means all there is to the Scunthorpe constituency. We are blessed with wonderful countryside, down-to-earth, generous and decent people, and a proud history of small businesses, many of which have expanded over generations to employ lots of people in our area. North Lincolnshire was described in a recent poll as the best place in the UK to bring up a family. As a mum and an aunty, I can attest to that. A few days after I was elected to this place, I was invited by Scunthorpe Cheerleading Academy to open a fantastic new cheerleading facility in Scunthorpe. I was lifted into the air to be a flyer in a pyramid, which is frankly not a sentence that I ever expected to say. My constituency has a vibrant selection of community groups —people who give their time freely. Volunteers truly make our area better, and I thank them for their work.

Now that we have got Brexit done, and having worked with the Government towards securing the future of our steelworks, I will work to see more funding for our schools. I will be fighting to widen the A15. It is a Roman road and, frankly, it is now time that it was widened. I will also be fighting to upgrade Scunthorpe Hospital, where I was born, and I thank the Health Secretary for agreeing to visit and to discuss the challenges we face. There will always be more to do, and I look forward to working with our council leader, Rob Waltham, on many future projects.

My thoughts today are very much with those affected by flooding. I am particularly aware of the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) as he seeks to help those in his constituency. I will be working with colleagues in a bid to secure a national flood resilience centre on a site in Scunthorpe. I thank colleagues on both sides of the House who have supported that project. It is an oven-ready scheme that would allow us to provide world-class training, planning and research to mitigate future flooding events.

I look forward to continuing to work with my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, who has been a huge help and support to me in my early weeks in this place. He knows that I see him very much as a father figure.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Or grandfather figure.

[Holly Mumby-Croft]

Or, indeed, a grandfather figure—him being a generation older than I am. [Laughter.]

I am proud to represent a constituency that has quietly given so much to the nation over the years. If you came to this place by train, we probably made the tracks. If you came in a car, we probably made the wire in the tyres. And it is thanks to Russell Ductile Castings that we are dry, as it is a foundry in my constituency that made the tiles on this roof. For many years, the people of Scunthorpe and its surrounding areas have played a quiet but crucial role in the success of this country, and I look forward to fighting for Scunthorpe to be levelled up.

Flood Response

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

I am more than happy to look at this, but I would emphasise that there are many successful examples of where funding has been sought from a range of sources, including businesses, which has led to very successful results, including in Sheffield and South Yorkshire.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

The recent flooding incidents show very clearly that there is a need for better resilience and better planning for flooding events. May I ask the Secretary of State to look closely at the bid submitted by Humberside fire authority, along with Hull university and North Lincolnshire Council, for a national flood resilience centre at a site in Scunthorpe?

[Theresa Villiers]

Yes, I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance, and I understand that DEFRA officials have been engaging with the people putting forward the bid, which will be looked at very seriously.