Upland Farming

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I greatly appreciate the chance to talk briefly tonight about upland farming, not least because my hon. Friend the new Minister—my hearty congratulations to him—represents Penrith and The Border, a part of the world that we both know well. I know that he has the same problems I do with farmers who are struggling on upland pasture. He is very shrewd, and although he is new to the job he certainly knows his subject. I think we can both agree about one thing—it takes a very special sort of farmer to be able to ply this trade on the moorland and uplands of the United Kingdom.

Cattle and sheep on the lonely but lovely purple-capped landscapes of Exmoor are bred to be tough, and so are the people who tend that land and always have done, but mostly it is not much of a living. In the LFAs—the less-favoured areas, as Whitehall insists on calling them—some farmers, as we well know in this House, barely cover their costs. They have to rely on unpaid family labour to help run their businesses, or diversify. Their savings have dwindled hugely. Holidays, new cars, nights out and even clothes are sometimes luxuries that they can no longer afford.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Of course I give way to my hon. Friend, with pleasure.

[Andrew Bingham]

In my constituency there are lots of hill farmers. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the difficulties facing these farmers in the current climate and operational system are discouraging the next generation of younger farmers? Ultimately, when we look across our beautiful fields, what we see is the result of the work these farmers do, and I have great concern for the future.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

As always, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head; he is absolutely right. He knows as well as I do—we are roughly the same age—about the closure of agricultural colleges across the United Kingdom and the failure to invest in farming and young farmers. Our inability to help finance young farmers to get into farming has proved to be almost insurmountable. A lot of us, including me, should really be farming. That is what we set out to do, and we have ended up in such esteemed places as this.

I am afraid that this entire situation—my hon. Friend put it very eloquently—is not a sob story but a reality. He and I know it to be the truth, because these people are our constituents. They are proud and extremely hard-working people. It is not that they do not want to be farmers—of course they do; it is what their parents and grandparents did, and they want to continue a tradition as much as anything else—but the balance sheets do not add up. They cannot grow cereals or exotic vegetables on unsheltered land at high altitude. They have to graze livestock instead—the most uncertain and least profitable part of cattle and sheep farming. Hill farmers are rightly at the end of the production chain. They are more vulnerable than most to price fluctuations, as we are seeing at the moment. If their costs go up, that comes out of their pockets. In some ways, it is a miracle, given the economics, that they have survived, but miracles do happen.

Let us look at some local things. The best sheep tags in Britain are designed by an Exmoor company—an excellent local company called Shearwell. Despite all the challenges on Exmoor, it still supports two markets at Cutcombe and at Blackmoor Gate—fantastic! However, because cheap imports such as New Zealand lamb and Polish beef are flooding in, prices get squeezed, and I am afraid that our hill farmers and other farmers take the hit. Farm incomes on uplands like Exmoor are way down. Not long ago, the average income was roughly £31,000. That may sound like a reasonable amount of money, but remember it is just turnover—most of it comes from subsidies, not profit. A similar lowland farm would reckon to be getting about double that—possibly £60,000 or more—yet it is our hard-pressed hill farmers who have helped to create some of the finest landscapes in Europe, and not just in our country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I give way with pleasure to the Irish.

[Jim Shannon]

I am always very interested in how we can help upland farmers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one thing we could do for them is encourage more sporting shooting projects in the uplands, thereby giving them more income and finance to help them in their farming projects?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My constituency is the home of the stag hounds and some of the finest shoots in Britain. I have, I think, 11 packs in my constituency and I assure the hon. Gentleman that shooting, hunting and fishing put an enormous amount back into my constituency, as is also the case in my hon. Friend the Minister’s constituency of Penrith and The Border. If there was ever a reason for repealing a ridiculous Act, this may be the time to do so. I thank the hon. Gentleman and hope he will join us in the beautiful Exmoor to ride to hounds.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to Exmoor every year. Hill farming is the driver for wealth creation across whole swathes of our rural economy. Diversification has become a necessity on moorland, encouraged by Governments and imaginative implementation by farmers who will turn their hands to anything legal to keep going. It is, of course, a case of having to do so. Many hill farmers will never break even on farming activity alone. They know it, we know it and I know the Minister knows it, but the burning issue for us all is how to achieve a financial solution that persuades farmers to continue doing what they have always done

Personally, I am not convinced—I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on this—that we have got this right. I hope that we will hear a much more joined-up approach now that this country is being run by our one-party Government. We should strive to achieve an outcome that compensates farmers fairly for the efforts they make preserving, protecting and looking after our landscape.

Some of the hill farmers I meet have become embittered about the system—with some cause. It is, after all, a minefield of baffling bureaucracy with ever-changing subsidies all packaged in deliberately confusing names which keep altering without much warning. Even the most basic subsidy—I am going to go into acronyms, I am sorry—the SPS, or single payment scheme, has now been renamed the BPS to remind the world that it is just a basic payment subsidy. The poor old farmers, however, have to put up with much worse.

Does anybody remember the HLCAs—hill livestock compensatory allowances—which were paid to farmers to look after the land? They were simplified and replaced by the HFAs—hill farm allowances—but just as we were getting used to HFAs, they were killed off and turned into UELS, which, as everyone knows, stands for the upland entry level stewardship scheme. Don’t bother to write this down: it’s too late and I really can’t go on too much longer with this.

The same thing happened to ESAs—environmentally sensitive areas—but probably not for long, as some of these things tend to come back rebranded with different initials. We are going to be talking about something called CS, which is countryside stewardship. That is fine, but we have been getting used to the CSS, which is the same thing but with an extra S stuck on the end. I do hope everyone is taking this in; I will, of course, be asking questions at the end.

A hill farmer in an SDA or LFA who used to be paid an HLCA which turned into an HFA which then became a UELS or perhaps an ESA and is about to transform itself into the CS has probably been tearing out their hair, or what is left of it, for years. Every one of those schemes comes with complex forms which are to be filled in before—dare I say it?—a single euro changes hands and ends up in the farmer’s pocket.

I did a quick trawl on the internet to try to list the number of different schemes and rules that come under the CAP—common agricultural policy—and can see how it would drive anyone batty. I do not have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and run a farm in a bleak climate, or rely on subsidies to put food on my family’s breakfast table, to find that out.

Most hill farmers will tell us that this is a nightmare system. It is like trying to play soccer with both legs tied together and then finding that Sepp Blatter has shifted the goalposts again. The Minister should not be alarmed. I do not hold him personally responsible—he has only been here two minutes. The muddle is caused by a basic conflict between trying to help farmers and looking after the natural world at the same time. This is where common sense starts to break down.

As I have mentioned, the major funding that farmers get is the SPS, which is known now as the BPS. It amounts to roughly £200 per hectare, but to claim the cash the farmer has to have the land in good agricultural and environmental condition—or, believe it or not, GAEC—among the compulsory standards for which is:

“Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land”.

That means that if a farmer wants more money, they have to keep wild weeds in check, presumably by towing cutting gear over the land, which is an awful lot easier said than done if they live and farm on Exmoor—it is a hill.

For decades, farmers have managed the moor by burning off gorse and heather in the spring. It is one of the oldest methods known to man. It fertilises the soil with ash, provides new growth for livestock grazing and prevents raging summer fires that could destroy the soil and lead to erosion. But guess what? Natural England came along and told farmers they were getting it wrong and burning too much. A restriction order was placed at the whim of one official, whose views were based on a practice in—dare I say it, seeing that my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) is on the Front Bench?—North Yorkshire. The problem is that vegetation grows far more rapidly on Exmoor, which is why it has to be burned regularly. I mean no disrespect: we are a few months ahead. The result of such interference is that parts of the moor now sprout 10-foot gorse. It is far too tall to be burned safely, so it has to be chopped mechanically, with no soil benefits whatsoever. It makes the area look—I would happily entertain my hon. Friend the Minister on Exmoor—as though a small thermonuclear bomb has just gone off, and it costs us a fortune.

All that is very hard for any farmer whose family has been managing the same piece of countryside for five or six generations. Just as one example, farmers have been told that they are not doing enough to protect butterflies and beetles, so they have been lumbered with more controls. I do not think that farmers go around wilfully vandalising fauna or flora—I have never met one who does, and nobody else in the House has; farmers love to see it as much as any of us, which is why they farm—but we cannot expect them to be full-time guardians of the countryside for next to nothing.

The problem is that subsidies have not kept pace with the growing list of environmental responsibilities. That is one of the main conclusions of an important academic study produced by the Exmoor Hill Farming Network. I commend that excellent organisation to the House. It wants the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to invest in a thorough analysis of beef and sheep chains to try to secure better prices for producers. How often have we been here before? It is also after a complete review of the current level of support to these farmers to analyse the implications of

“social exclusion and mental ill-health”.

The Minister will already know from his own experience of hill farming how desolate and lonely it can be.

I accept that there are no quick fixes, but I have to wonder about the sense of moving too fast to achieve some of DEFRA’s more bizarre ambitions of reducing farmers’ reliance on subsidies. It may be a good aim, but it surely cannot be done until alternative solutions and sources of income can be guaranteed. I extend a warm invitation to the Minister to visit our beautiful part of the world. As I have said, I would love to host him.

I offer one caution. Almost 400 years ago, Exmoor was just a filthy piece of barren ground. That is what the writer Daniel Defoe called it. Robinson Crusoe would not give it a second look; he had gone to his desert island. But then came the farmers and—guess what?—they tamed the land. They continue to do so. If upland farmers ever called it a day, who would look after Exmoor? Why would the tourists bother to come? What would happen to the hundreds of rural businesses that we depend on to keep it the way it is? One farmer put it to me rather simply. “All I want,” he said, “is a level playing field”—then he winked—“but please don’t tell FIFA to design it.”

Flooding (Somerset)

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Heath]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that was why I called for today’s debate, which is perhaps unseasonable. Now is the time not only when work must happen in Somerset, which it is, but when decisions must be taken that will affect the situation for years to come. That is what I want the Minister to respond to.

I will briefly touch on the background, because we cannot escape the fact that elements of the Somerset flooding were avoidable. We expect flooding on the levels; it is a normal state of affairs. This occasion, however, was unprecedented due not only to the extreme weather conditions, but to now widely acknowledged policy mistakes. I have drawn attention to two glaring errors many times over the years, but they now have a common subscription. First, the landscape is artificial and does not maintain itself. Every drop of water that needs to be pumped away from the fields and the communities in the area must be pumped uphill into rivers that are higher than the surrounding landscape. People forget that and talk nonsense about natural drainage and flood plains when such drainage will never happen. The land is effectively reclaimed. It is land from the great mere of Somerset. Unless the water is pumped, drainage will not happen.

Secondly, an environmental heresy was allowed to develop for far too long at senior levels in the Environment Agency. It was assumed that the environmental benefit of the area was in the watercourses rather than in the land in between, which meant that what are essentially canals were being artificially preserved at the expense of the quite invaluable flora and fauna. I hope that that is now a thing of the past.

What is on the list of things to be done and how have we been managing? There have obviously been immediate acts of recovery and restitution. I understand that farm funding is considerably undersubscribed, but the Minister might be able to provide an up-to-date assessment of whether the funding has reached the farmers who need it. I also wish to add one caveat: we have not to date seen huge damage to orchards, but it is possible that it will appear later on. If we need to come back to the Department, I hope the Minister will be sympathetic if orchards have lost tree stock.

Dredging is now happening. There has been a lot of local cynicism as to whether it has been done sufficiently quickly and properly, and whether lip service has been paid, but I am satisfied that genuine dredging is taking place along the identified stretch. After a slow beginning, it is starting to catch up, and I think six crews are now at work. What a pity it is that we do not have the equipment that was given away or sold for peanuts many years ago. Nevertheless, the relevant area has been reconstituted and we have the hard-standings that enable the dredging machines to do their work. Will the Minister update us as to when he expects the initial tranche of dredging to be completed?

Increasing the capacity of watercourses will not satisfy local people, however. We accept the argument that increasing capacity is the most effective use of early funds, but I am conscious of the fact that the upper reaches of the Parrett were also severely flooded. Around Langport, Muchelney and Martock, there are bottlenecks that need addressing. Are we able to increase capacity under the bridge at Great Bow wharf at Langport? There are also plans to widen and deepen the Sowy diversion stream to provide extra capacity, which is a sensible idea that I would like to see happen, but it needs to be properly planned. We need to consider the potential consequences for other communities and reassure them that they will not be adversely affected by the Sowy being used to a greater extent. That issue would be particularly apparent at Beer Wall, which is where my constituency adjoins that of Bridgwater and West Somerset, and Aller Drove, which saw unprecedented flooding. Aller does not normally flood, but this time it did. I think that there was a miscalculation and that someone made a mistake in lowering the level of the river wall. Those calculations have to be right. As we use the Sowy, we must be sure that adverse effects are not happening elsewhere.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some good points about the Sowy. The Minister is aware that part of the Sowy development must include the barrage or the sluice—whatever we want to call it—below Bridgwater, which would complement what my hon. Friend is discussing. Will the Minister also consider ensuring that the scheme goes into the autumn statement? We need money for the Sowy and for the barrage, but it can come only from central Government. Does my hon. Friend think that that may be a way forward?

[Mr Heath]

I most certainly do agree, because that was going to be the principal point—

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am so sorry.

[Mr Heath]

We are at one on the issue. This is the big ask. This is what we need from the Minister. I know that he will not answer today, because he is not in a position to do so, but this is the most important demand.

Purely local schemes to alleviate flooding are also needed. Thorney is a tiny village—a hamlet—that is now rather curiously described as two different places for the purposes of flooding, because it floods separately at two ends, so we now have Thorney north and south, or greater and lesser—I am not quite sure how to describe the two ends of the village. A bund of some kind—a way to stop the water coming in—would be effective, however. That is a relatively low-cost solution and one that is being considered. I want an assurance that it actually will be built to protect the people of Thorney.

Similarly, we need to look at Muchelney Ham, a small part of Muchelney that was subjected to flooding. We also need to examine the highways situation, where the county council will be taking the lead.

I think we all agree that it is extraordinary in this day and age to have a village such as Muchelney completely cut off for week after week. We must establish at least one way to get in and out. Feasibility studies are being carried out as to whether it should be the Drayton road or whether there is a better alternative, but something must be done to ensure that people can get in and out of the village.

Managing Flood Risk

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

May I apologise to the House for my lateness? Unfortunately, I got stuck on a train from Newcastle for reasons I do not need to detain the House with. I will take as little time as I can so as not to abuse the position that I have been given in this debate.

I thank the Minister and the whole team for all their work—I am talking about the Prime Minister all the way down through the various ministries. I also want to thank Opposition Members too. The Leader of the Opposition visited my constituency. He was extremely magnanimous with his time and he did not, dare I say it, make a spectacle of himself. Unlike many Members, I welcome ministerial visits and Ministers seeing what is happening in the area. This Minister has been to the region more than most to chair a number of meetings.

We are putting together a report that will be given to the Prime Minister and the House later in the week. As the Minister knows, we must change the whole way that we deal with this problem. Members have expressed the hope that we never experience the same thing again, but as sure as night follows day, we will and we must be aware of that. It is as certain as death and taxes. It may not be the Somerset levels that are affected, but it will be somewhere. There must be fundamental change that crosses the political divide and that is agreed on by both sides of the House.

The one hurdle that we all have to overcome is the Treasury. It will try to stop us spending the money that is required to put in defences and the works that are needed to ensure that the flooding does not happen in the future. Members from across the House must make it clear to the Chancellor that we have to be given the money that we need. We are the sixth-largest economy in the world, yet here we are, unable to raise money to defend our own people from the most basic problem faced by man—certainly in my constituency—since prehistoric times, which is water. We manage it well. When my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) was Minister he put in place a lot of changes to try to make the system work. Although I occasionally berated him in the local press, I respect him for his hard work. [Interruption.] I tried to do that without a smile and failed dismally. It is crucial that we take responsibility for the problem and say that each area will have to be defended properly.

[Miss McIntosh]

May I welcome my hon. Friend to the Chamber? I have a question that is vexing the House and other colleagues in Somerset. If we look at the whole management system of the Somerset levels, to what extent could the damage have been prevented if we had had both upstream flood management storage as well as regular maintenance and drainage downstream?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. She is most astute. One of the problems is that we do not have the capacity to pump into the river below a certain level. I am talking about the area on the border between my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath). What happened was that the river backed up. We could not get the water around. We have two points into the sea; one is through the River Parrett and the other is through the King’s Sedgemoor drain. Both are not able to take what we need to pump into them. Nearly 60 square miles of land are underwater, which really focuses our minds on the problems faced by our constituents. Although we have not lost many properties, it has devastated the tourism industry and many other things in the local area. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) knows from his long experience of farming nearby how dangerous these areas can be.

The Minister has made it quite clear that local input is needed. The internal drainage boards and the local Environment Agency—I am not suggesting asking Lord Smith for one second, nor would I—have an enormous input to make, but that must be done in conjunction with local people. That is why the meetings that we have been holding in Sedgemoor or Somerton and Frome have been so important; we have been able to use that local input. I was rather worried when the EA sent John Varley, whom I have met a few times. I find him the most impossible man, although I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury would disagree with me. It is obvious that a lot of people have others’ best interests at heart.

We must do three things. First, we must look at the Bridgwater barrage. That will cost an enormous amount of money, but it is vital. Secondly, we must look at the pump system.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about the barrage across the River Parrett, which is absolutely essential. The £200 million cost of raising the railway across Sedgemoor starts to make the barrage look extremely cost-effective. The railway would not be flooded if that barrage were there to stop the sea going up the Parrett.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This year, we managed to shut the main railway line and the A303, and water was lapping against parts of the M5. We really could have stopped tourism in most of the west country. I am glad that that did not happen; it is obviously good news.

[Mr Heath]

I have worked closely with the hon. Gentleman in this exercise. He will agree that the elements that we need from the Government are, first, the initial dredging; secondly, the commitment to build a sluice, or barrage, across the Parrett; thirdly, a funding mechanism for local IDBs or local authorities to fund the maintenance; and fourthly, the long-term management of the whole river catchment area—something that we knew back in the 1980s and ’90s, when we were working on it, but it was forgotten.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend knows better than I do—he is a Somerset man; I am a usurper from Scotland—that this is an absolute tale of disgrace and woe. It is appalling, and not just one Government are involved; it goes back through many Governments, and it has been an absolute disaster. But he is right: we must sort out the pumps, the rhynes—ditches—the bunds and the dams. We must do this now. Unless this happens quickly, we will be back here, probably next year, with the Opposition asking, “What on earth did you get wrong?” It happened last year; it happened in 2000; it will happen again.

The most difficult thing that we must face is that, basically, everyone thought that Somerset was shut. We had half-term; tourism died completely. That affected the west country because everyone thought that the railway was shut and no one could get through. Therefore, we ended up costing the economy millions.

[Adam Afriyie]

My hon. Friend is making an impassioned speech, after a brisk rush from the train. Things are the same in my constituency; local businesses have been shut down. Some of the longer-term flood defences—the long-term plan to make our country more secure—would actually save the economy money. Perhaps not in the first five or 10 years, but over a 20-year time frame. If the Treasury put the money into schemes such as the lower Thames alleviation scheme, the money would be returned in savings from flood insurance, from businesses not closing and from savings across the economy overall.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. His area has a slightly different type of flooding. We are almost unique. We have massive amounts of land to play with. We can put in the bunds, the pumps and all the rest. Unfortunately, there are buildings right up to the Thames, so there must be a different solution, on which I am sure that my hon. Friend is already making pretty good representations to the Minister, and he will continue to do so.

My hon. Friend’s fundamental point is right: flooding has cost this country millions in the past few months. We cannot ignore that. The Treasury must say what is the cost to the sixth-largest economy in the world of what we have lost. If we can write off the whole of half-term, what will things be like at Easter? We will not have the water cleared by Easter, and the railway will not be open by then. We will still face fundamental problems in Somerset. That will knock on to Devon and certainly Cornwall. Where will we be?

We must sort this out. Therefore, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor must take the brakes off. Allow us to put in our reports—on Thursday in our case, and I am sure soon after in the case of the Thames and many other rivers. The Vale of York needs to be looked after. If we do not get it right, we will be sitting here again discussing the same thing, and that is not acceptable.

Flooding

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I think not. I need to make some progress. I will give way later to the hon. Gentleman, who no doubt wants to say something about firefighters.

In response to the situation, this Government have taken and continue to take decisive action. The risk of river and coastal flooding is now diminishing, although groundwater remains—and will remain for some time—a problem.

Although the signs of spring may be appearing on the trees outside, for some the misery remains. The Government are in daily contact with gold commanders in all areas, continuing to offer Government support. As the weather patterns return to a more typical form for this time of year, coastal and river waters are likely to return to their normal flow. Gold commanders maintain a state of readiness to respond to future flooding should the risk increase again in the coming weeks.

Locally, the transition to recovery is under way and most areas have convened recovery meetings. For those that have not, a shadow organisation will be ready to respond at any given time. The ministerial recovery group is co-ordinating Government support to local areas and infrastructure owners and operators, to enable a return to normality as quickly as possible. That is complemented by a new Cabinet Committee on flooding, to learn the lessons for the future.

Although the floodwaters remain, I reiterate that every resource is available to local communities affected. We will keep providing whatever immediate practical support and assistance is needed, whether it be extra pumps and sandbags, military support on the ground or emergency funds for local councils.

Recognising the particular nature of the situation in Somerset, we have been working closely with all local agencies to develop a sustainable solution to the water management of that area. The Government have announced that the dredging of the Somerset levels will be ready to start by the end of March, provided that water levels drop. Dredging will take place on an 8 km section where the Tone and Parrett rivers meet. It is not a miracle cure, but it recognises that mistakes were made and policies needed to be changed. Sometimes the state should say sorry, and that is exactly what we have done.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The contracts are now out, and we start the work on the 28th. As he says, the important point is that we cannot pump north of Burrowbridge because of the capacity level of the river—it is 40% below capacity. We will only be able to pump in the Somerton and Frome and the Taunton Deane seats when that work takes place. Will he make sure that the Environment Agency and others stick to that timetable?

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend is right. We have an enormous pumping capacity, but we need to be cautious in how it is used on the Parrett and the Tone and, of course, in the King’s Sedgemoor drain. Some of the larger pumps that we have brought across from Holland can take out an enormous amount of water, but we clearly have to ensure that their pattern of use does not lead to a degree of scouring that would threaten the banks’ stability. We are going about that in a very reasoned way: it may take weeks longer than is ideal, but it is important that it is done in a safe way.

Flooding (Somerset)

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I admire the right hon. Gentleman for grabbing the opportunity to promote that project, of which he is a very strong supporter. I remind the House that some are very hostile to it because of the barrage’s environmental consequences.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I can only speak as a local Somerset MP, but we have had nothing but help from the Secretary of State. Cobra has done a damned good job and I assure the House that, other than, I think, two days, the Secretary of State has spoken to me every day about what we require to help us in the area. I am very grateful to him for that.

I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) said, and the Environment Agency people on the ground have done a phenomenal job—they have been superb. The problem lies at the top. There is a disconnect between what goes on here in London and what is going on in the levels in Taunton Deane and Somerset and Frome. We need to sort this out and I hope the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister will get those machines on the levels as fast as possible in order to get this sorted. That will not sort out everything, but it will give people confidence where there is none at the moment.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. He and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) were both present at the two meetings in which we discussed the broad outline of the plan. As he knows, having represented the area for some years, it is simply not possible—[Interruption] regardless of the chuntering from the Opposition Benches—to get machines on the banks in these conditions. We are looking at technologies that could be borne from vessels as a means of getting going. I reassure my hon. Friend that we are absolutely clear—there was virtual unanimity in our meetings—that we want to get on and get the two rivers dredged at the earliest opportunity, and then hand over to the local representative of the internal drainage boards to carry out the routine maintenance. [Interruption.] To respond to the questions being asked by Opposition Members, that will happen when it is safe to do so.

Badger Cull

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As a west country MP, I can tell the House that there is widespread opposition in the west country, in Gloucestershire and in Somerset to this badger cull going ahead. I have had a huge number of e-mails and I also know that there is a diverse, vocal and determined coalition of groups, ranging from non-governmental organisations and environmental charities to people involved in farming and ordinary members of the public.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will not give way, because I only have six minutes and the hon. Gentleman will get his chance to speak.

There has been very vocal opposition and public meetings, and a lot of lobbying. I am sure that the Minister of State, who is the Farming Minister and is also a west country MP, is well aware of that. I invite the Secretary of State to come down to those areas and meet some of the people who have been involved in the campaign so far.

I want to focus on a few issues, the first of which concerns estimating badger populations. As has already been mentioned, the persistent difficulty of knowing how many badgers are in the cull areas has not been satisfactorily resolved and could still make the culls unworkable. We know from the randomised badger culling trial that the only circumstances in which the spread of the disease can be slowed slightly—and even that reduction was only by 16% over nine years—would be if more than 70% of the badgers in an area were eradicated. If the reduction were any less than that, the spread of TB to cattle could increase.

The difficulty of knowing how many badgers there are in an area has been raised many times, including by Lord Krebs and others. Last year, the Government delayed plans to cull badgers as they could not work out how many badgers there were in the cull areas. I understand that according to the Government’s own figures, farmers in Gloucestershire must kill between 2,856 and 2,932 badgers, but according to Professor Rosie Woodroffe at the Zoological Society of London, the estimate of the population ranges much more widely, from 2,657 to 4,079, and there is a 40% chance that the figure for the real population lies outside that range. Professor Woodroffe has concluded that if the real population is below the minimum cull target of 2,856, farmers could kill every badger in the area, breaking the strict condition of the licence that forbids local extinctions while simultaneously failing to kill enough badgers to satisfy the terms of the same licence. The situation is similar in Somerset.

I would be interested to know from the Minister whether the estimates of the number of badgers in the area factor in the number of badgers killed illegally by farmers. A study from the universities of Bangor, Kent and Kingston this year found that approximately one in 10 livestock farmers in Wales had illegally killed a badger within the previous 12 months. In Gloucestershire, there have been press reports of allegations that at the Forthampton estate, an area of 3,000 acres near Tewkesbury that will be one of the main staging points for the cull, badger setts have been illegally filled in. If those allegations prove to be true, the estate may have to withdraw from the cull, which would affect the number of badgers killed and therefore the effectiveness of the cull, as I have explained.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) mentioned the humaneness of the killing. The Humane Society International UK recently obtained from a freedom of information request the heavily redacted document that will be used to monitor the humaneness of the badger cull. I would like to take up the concerns voiced by the society. Will the Minister make public how wounded animals that retreat underground will be included in the humaneness assessment? That is not mentioned in the document. The document admits that no shooter will have prior experience of shooting badgers. My office spoke to Pauline Kidner from the Secret World wildlife rescue, which is based in Somerset and has worked with badgers for many years. She said that badgers are not an easy animal to shoot, and when injured will always go back to their sett. So free shooting is likely to result in a slower death as a result of secondary infections and starvation from reduced mobility, and that will prolong the pain and distress suffered by badgers.

As the Secretary of State will be well aware, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has been involved in looking at the bovine TB issue for over 30 years, and in 2011 was the first non-governmental organisation in England to launch a badger vaccination programme on seven of its nature reserves. I would be interested to know what assessment the Government have made of that vaccination programme so far.

The chief executive of the trust says:

“Bovine TB has had a devastating impact on farmers in Gloucestershire and unfortunately there is no single, cheap or effective fix.”

He goes on to say that the Government have “overlooked” the benefits of a sustained programme of vaccination, and that:

“Vaccinating badgers could play a much larger role in controlling bovine TB while a cattle vaccine is developed and licensed.”

Environment Agency

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. It is so good to see you.

First, I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who I know has just returned from a stunning victory in Europe over fish. I know that he is slightly tired, so I am even more grateful to see him here in Westminster Hall today, fresh from his victory. Today we will try to add a little more triumphalism to his record of achievements.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for this chance to debate the future of the Environment Agency. I certainly applaud their review of the agency and I know that a lot of colleagues are taking it very seriously. As my hon. Friends said at the time, the review is a chance to take a fresh look at how the agency does things. In that open spirit, I want to focus today not so much on what the agency does but on what it fails to do.

Hon. Members may know that the Environment Agency is just 16 years old; in many ways, it is a juvenile. Many of my constituents who are still mopping up after the recent floods regard the agency’s lack of action as—dare I say it?—almost juvenility in itself. There is not the time today to highlight every single human tragedy that has happened or the appalling damage that has been done; I cannot do that. It is also not possible today to give a completely accurate account of the total cost of floods on the levels. However, it is plainly ridiculous to put what has happened down to a quirk of nature, or to an overdose of the “wrong type of rain”, as Lord Smith of Finsbury, the agency’s chairman, informed us all. I am sorry, but I was really rather offended by that.

Much of the overflow of water was manageable, if not preventable. Dare I say that floods are not unusual in Somerset? Flood prevention has been a priority of ours since Roman times, although I was not the MP at the time. Even in the middle ages, a period of history better known for the black death than for engineering excellence, people managed to drain a large part of the moor by building elaborate embankments and causeways. Parliament became heavily involved from 1791, when it needed to pass an Act to dig King’s Sedgemoor drain in order to let excess water flow out into the Bristol channel.

For hundreds of years, we have been fighting battles with floods and holding our own against the old enemy. And for hundreds of years, whatever Lord Smith may think, we have had this stuff called “convective rain”. I hate to disillusion his lordship, who no doubt is a very sensitive soul, with a neatly-furled umbrella and a dislike of getting his feet wet—as we have discovered—but he is no expert on the weather. Convective rain has been gushing down Somerset rivers for centuries. If he examined the historical records, he would find that the floods of 1607 were caused by the very same type of rain.

I noticed that Lord Smith was awarded an academic doctorate for his excellent dissertation on the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. If Coleridge was alive today, he would be my constituent. The great man was inspired to write his greatest and longest poem while overlooking the harbour in the very beautiful village of Watchet. However, Lord Smith needs to take what Coleridge said in one of his poems more seriously:

“Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.”

Down the A39 at Williton, which is near to where those words were written, the highway turned into an impassable river. Out at Blue Anchor, in my constituency, there was havoc in caravan parks and on Exmoor itself there was very serious flooding in Dulverton. Many Members here today will know that the ancient clapper bridge at Tarr Steps was completely wrecked in the floods, although it has now been rebuilt. Tarr Steps is also known as “the devil’s sunbathing spot”, but, as I say, it was swept away by the floods. This cannot continue.

Rivers overflow, and down on the levels the consequences of what happened in the floods can still be seen today. I obviously do not blame the Environment Agency for the rain, but I wonder what it failed to do before the cloudbursts started. It is surely an essential task of a body such as this one to keep the waterways running freely. Rivers have a nasty habit of silting up—that is why we dredge them. However, the Environment Agency no longer dredges rivers such as the Tone and the Parrett, both of which flow through my constituency and that of the Minister of State, Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), because it says that it cannot afford to. This is something that requires urgent forensic scrutiny by my hon. Friend the Minister’s Department.

If we are seriously in the business of protecting the environment, the cost of regular dredging should never be regarded as a capital expense, because dredging has to be done; it is not an option but a necessity. Moreover, dredging is not even expensive, given the reality of what we are looking at. The Environment Agency itself calculates that the cost of desilting the risky bits of both the River Tone and the River Parrett every year for the next 20 years is less than £5 million. In my view, that is chickenfeed. The Environment Agency’s own calculation of the cost of emergency pumping and road closures during this year’s flooding alone was £4 million, and that was just in my area. The agency has done its homework. The price of flooding over 20 years in Somerset—in Somerton and Frome, in Taunton Deane and in my constituency of Bridgwater and West Somerset—has been worked out at £15 million. It is an absolute no-brainer to dredge, but the agency keeps telling us that it has not got the money to do so. I must say that not only this Government but former Governments have been reluctant to offer additional relief to sort out this problem. I am sorry, but that cannot go on.

I am also slightly worried about the way that the views of my hon. Friend the Minister on this matter have been reported. A recent BBC news report implied—it is the BBC—that he had told them that it was not worth dredging the Tone and the Parrett because they will simply silt up again. Yes, of course that is true; we accept that. However, it is also precisely why we should regularly dredge rivers.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I regret to tell him that a similar point of view was communicated in a letter in response to an inquiry from one of my constituents. Where would we be if the fact that rivers will just silt up again after dredging was a good enough reason not to dredge in the first place? What if MPs took the same attitude to their own personal hygiene?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I will leave the last part of my hon. Friend’s intervention to himself, but he is absolutely right otherwise. I know that he is doing a sterling job for his constituents and this is a joint effort, because unless we come up with a proper, forward-looking policy on dredging that the Environment Agency must lead—or the Government must order the agency to lead it—we will continue to have this problem and I am afraid that, as Members, we will see it happening again.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the significant challenges is the Environment Agency’s lack of authority? In my conversations in connection with the flooding in Britford, which is on the River Avon just south of Salisbury, there seemed to be a lot of confusion about exactly what powers the Environment Agency has and about the conflicting motivations of different landowners in their engagement with Natural England and the Environment Agency—to different degrees—meaning that, at the end of the day, there is a complete lack of ownership of the problem and a lack of clarity about how the problem will be resolved in the future.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I must say, first, that one of the issues that I have not touched on today is the role of Natural England; as he knows, there is a review going on. Secondly, this agency that we are discussing is quite simply an “Environment Agency”. One of the debates that we need to have in the future is whether or not it should still be called an “Environment Agency”. Should the “environment” part be split off, and should the “agency” part be reinvented? However, that debate is not for today and I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of my concerns in that regard.

I am ashamed to say that, for 20 years, there has been no dredging of the Tone or the Parrett; silt has piled up on silt. In real terms, almost half the capacity of the River Tone to carry floodwater through Taunton down to Bridgwater has been lost. However, I am glad to say that it has not been lost for ever. The problem can be solved, even though it has been ignored. It is a miracle of nature that floods such as the recent ones have not occurred on a regular basis. I am afraid to say that, at this stage, the name of the game is negligence.

In the proud old days of the Somerset Rivers Catchment Board—similar boards existed elsewhere—local people could pretty well tell the time of the year by the dredging. The board hired a fearsomely efficient engineer called Louis Kelting, who made sure that all the necessary work was done. Mr Kelting even brought in Dutch experts, and the Dutch know a thing or two about water. I am indebted to 83-year-old Bob Heard, one of my senior constituents in Bridgwater, for bringing Mr Kelting to my attention. Mr Kelting was awarded the OBE for his efforts, so he must have been right. The innovations that he introduced probably saved many lives and protected the levels from many disasters. Many of his drainage schemes are still in operation today, but not the dredging schemes.

When the rain fell so hard and fast last year, and at the start of this year, I am afraid that the Government were not of any great help. “We were very concerned”, and that is not my conclusion but that of the National Farmers Union. The NFU points out that the farmers on the moors and the levels lose £900 for every hectare of grassland that is put under water, and that applies to anywhere in the country. Having met a lot of my local farmers, I know that that is true. They are really upset at finding that a lifetime of work is now under water for more and more of the year.

I pay tribute to two villages, Moorland and Fordgate, which have put up with more than any village should have to, in any constituency. They have been stunning. They feel forgotten, in some ways ignored and in other ways expendable. I have heard them use the word “negligence” too, and say some quite rude things about the agency.

The agency is, like all such organisations, perhaps a victim of its own peculiar changed responsibilities. In the days of the Somerset River Catchment Board, everything was so much simpler. It was about water management, land drainage, flood prevention, food production and protecting the communities, which we represent. From 1930 to the 1970s, the people who looked after water management operated under more or less the same strong management structures. They raised money locally through the drainage boards and other organisations and were accountable to local councillors and local people, including Members of Parliament. The efficiency of their operations was consistently improved. To put it crudely, it worked.

Then in 1973 came the creation of the Wessex Water Authority and the culture changed. The WWA was accountable directly to Government and it also had to toe the line, as the Minister will know rather to his cost, to Brussels in the background. Britain became part of Europe. The WWA suddenly found itself having to raise standards for clean drinking water as well as looking after the wildlife habitats of an increasing number of protected species.

The Environment Agency inherited a dog’s breakfast of a portfolio and deserves some sympathy for that, but it seems to have become immune to some of its own illogical behaviour. For example, Steart, near the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, is a small, flat place at the mouth of the river Parrett, where the river trickles into the Bristol channel. We are talking about 1,000 hectares of land, much of which is below high-water level at spring tide. In the 1700s, the Steart peninsula was cut off from the mainland altogether. Even today, the Parrett’s low-water channel regularly shifts. Steart’s defences now rely on what was built back in the 1950s. The system creaks a bit, but it works.

The Environment Agency now wants to spend £31 million of taxpayers’ money on a scheme that will not protect Steart from the sea. It wants to sink the peninsula for habitat creation, saying:

“There is a significant need for additional intertidal habitat on the Severn Estuary to meet the Environment Agency’s international obligations and offset losses due to coastal squeeze.”

This is because Bristol port, which is not that close to me, wants to reclaim some marshland 40 miles away to build a new container port. So Bristol’s birds are to be offered a new nesting place in Steart. We have tried to tell them to come down. The whole process is nonsense. The cost of flooding Steart would pay for dredging the Rivers Parrett and Tone for 30 years. But in an agency with 11,500 people on the payroll and an annual budget of £1 billion, it is probably no wonder that everyone fails to sing from the same hymn sheet.

Criticism of the agency is nothing new. The Public Accounts Committee produced a damning report about its activities some years ago. Even the most moderate body, the Angling Trust, which represents people who go fishing, is currently getting very angry with the agency for not taking proper account of fisheries when it issues licences for hydroelectric power. So the agency is being got at by Europe, bird lovers, fish fanciers and a few politicians like me into the bargain. More pain than gain, perhaps. Or as Lord Smith might put it, the wrong sort of pain.

On the river at Avon, which of course is outside Bristol, is an old mill by a weir at Avoncliff, which was bought for restoration in 2009. The new owners wanted to rebuild it and make it work, producing power from the water wheel. Fabulous. Of course, they had to apply for a licence to extract the water and they paid the fee to the Environment Agency, filled in the forms and waited. Weeks turned into months; no licence came. Then the Environment Agency awarded a water extraction licence to another applicant and told the owners of the mill that there was “no water available”. The owners went to judicial review, went to court, won the case, proved that the Environment Agency had deliberately withheld information and the judges made the agency pay all the costs—our money. A happy ending hon. Members may think, but not quite. It is almost a full year since the judges ruled against the agency and ordered it to issue a water extraction licence, but it still has not done so. This story does not inspire my confidence in an organisation that has become top heavy with responsibilities and seems to be run by people far too light on real substance in the subjects they are meant to cover.

My constituents, and many others throughout the country, have suffered badly in recent floods and they have lost faith in the agency. I ask the Secretary of State, through my hon. Friend the Minister, to visit Bridgwater and West Somerset—he said he would—meet some of those who have had problems and see the situation for himself. While we await the outcome of his important review, this is the only way that any confidence can be restored in what people feel is a failed system. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister’s replying and, perhaps, giving us some reassurance and some answers.

Flooding

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

We are quite clear as a Government that we want to come up with a scheme that is affordable, as universal as possible and not a burden on the Treasury. We are working towards that, as was my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), my predecessor.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I am grateful that the Secretary of State mentioned the Somerset levels and glad that the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), is in his place. One of the problems the levels have had is that successive Governments have refused to spend money on the pumps that are brought in to try to clear them, and they are having to be brought in more and more. Will the Secretary of State, after the statement, please look urgently at upgrading the pump system across the Somerset levels, which cover my constituency and that of my hon. Friend?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I took a train through the levels this afternoon on my way back, and they looked like the Irrawaddy in spate. I must say that it is a huge challenge for any pump system to keep that huge volume of water clear. If he would like to write to me, I would be more than happy to take the matter up with local Environment Agency officers.

Dairy Industry

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Walker, for calling me to speak. It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), because he and I have secured this debate. He has a great knowledge of the retail trade, so perhaps with that knowledge, my own knowledge of farming and some cross-party support we can get a really good price for milk. We want this debate to be about the price of milk, and the fact that we have nearly 40 Members in Westminster Hall who want to speak in this debate shows how important the issue is to everyone in this House. In fact, I suspect that at the moment there are probably more people in Westminster Hall than there are in the main Chamber. I thank all Members who are present for coming, and the number of Members who are here shows the seriousness of this matter. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate; it is a very important one.

Confidence in the dairy industry has been at an all-time low this year, not only because of the prices for its products but because we have had probably some of the worst weather that we have ever seen in the UK. As a result, we have had some of the worst May silage, and all those types of things, coupled with the high price of cereals, have meant that farmers are being crushed between low prices and the high cost of feeding animals.

Ten years ago, there were more than 26,000 dairy farmers; now we are down to fewer than 15,000 dairy farmers. That shows how many dairy farmers have been forced out of the industry, and how things have become more and more competitive.

It is good to see the new Minister here in Westminster Hall today and it is also good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, here.

The voluntary code of best practice on contracts between milk buyers and dairy farmers is an important settlement. It will prevent producers from being trapped in unfavourable contracts and it will add much-needed transparency to milk contracts. I pay great tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), who worked absolutely tirelessly with all parties to reach that agreement. It is a great legacy and I know that Members from all parts of the House are grateful to him for his profound knowledge of farming and for his support.

I welcome the new Minister to his post, and I hope that he can pursue the voluntary code as quickly as possible. The contract between producers and purchasers should set out a clear price. It should also set out that in future producers must receive at least 30 days’ notice of a price change; that retrospective price adjustments will not be accepted; that dairy producers are allowed to supply more than one processor when their primary milk buyer seeks to cap their production; and that supermarkets setting farm prices must engage meaningfully with farmers and their representatives, rather than just driving farmers into a corner and every now and again adding a sop, when what farmers need is a long-term future. The code must be implemented and then monitored for compliance and effectiveness. If it is not working, the Government must consider what statutory powers and mandatory powers can be added to it.

The Government have also made a very welcome and long-overdue move to introduce the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill. It was presented to the House of Lords only last week and we now look forward to its Second Reading.

This issue is about fairness. It is also about supermarkets, particularly the few large ones that dominate the retail market and that have been able to increase their profits at the expense of food producers by using—

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

There is one issue that my hon. Friend forgot to mention just now. He lives in Somerset and I represent a Somerset constituency. However, he forgot to mention the Wiseman dairy at Bridgwater, which is one of the processors, and the processors are equally culpable in this matter.

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will be talking about processors shortly, but he is absolutely right to make that point. However, we should not forget that processors, especially when there is a fixed price with the supermarkets, are very often the ones that get squeezed, because there is a guaranteed price to the farmer and then the farmers enter into a trade war with their supermarket friends—or enemies—and at the end of the day it is probably the processor that actually pays the price.

We must move more swiftly to make the Groceries Adjudicator Code Bill law, so that supermarkets play by the rules, producers have confidence that their complaints will be taken up and third parties can also raise issues with the buyers. If the supermarkets and other larger retailers are not doing anything wrong, they have nothing whatever to fear from the groceries code adjudicator. However, some supermarkets and other large retailers are less than enthusiastic about the adjudicator, so I feel that there is much to answer for.

It is also very important that third parties, such as unions and trade associations, are able to submit complaints to the groceries code adjudicator on behalf of producers, so that producers are able to benefit from the legal advice and support that those third parties may be able to offer.

All supermarkets can and should do more when it comes to responsible sourcing of all dairy products. The pursuit of ever greater margins, coupled with a short-termist approach to sourcing British dairy products, is jeopardising the future of the British dairy industry. Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s should be acknowledged for introducing more transparent pricing mechanisms into their milk groups but, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said earlier, they have got to do much more about the cheese market. Retailers that have promised to do more, such as the Co-op, Morrisons, Lidl, Farmfoods, Iceland and Spar, have got to be brought to the table actually to do something, rather than just promising to do something, because let us not forget that all the time they are driving the price of milk down.

The point that I want to make very strongly to everybody here in Westminster Hall today is that consumers already pay enough money for their milk. The problem is that many of the large retailers are taking 16p in profit out of that money. That is where the problem is, and therefore some percentage of that profit needs to go back to the farmer. It is not just a case of farmers breaking even; they need to be able to make a profit to reinvest.

Steart Point

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

It is nice to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Chope, and I am sure that you will keep your hands warm.

I am grateful for the chance again to debate Steart in my constituency, although I am actually also disappointed that we are debating the matter again. In January this year, I stood, I think on this very spot, to deliver a robust speech on the shortcomings of the Environment Agency, the body responsible for many things in my constituency, including flood prevention. At the time, the agency had concluded a ridiculously expensive consultation exercise to try to convince local people of the merits of a long-term plan. It basically wanted to flood Steart peninsula and create a new habitat for visiting sea birds, and it intended to spend a shed load of public money—roughly £28 million—to do that. I believed then, as I do now, that that would be the wrong thing to do.

For a while in the aftermath of the original debate, and prompted by the common-sense attitude of the Minister, there appeared to be an outbreak of sanity and a chance for a sensible conclusion to the matter. Just a few weeks ago, the Minister kindly wrote to me and two of my colleagues who represent neighbouring constituencies—my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). He had quite rightly called in the Environment Agency to discuss the concerns about the Severn flood risk management project, of which Steart is a part. In the letter, the Minister said:

“The Environment Agency is now reflecting on the response to its public consultations and reviewing its initial proposals”.

That was a great relief to the three of us. The meaning of a review, which the Minister referred to quite clearly, is crystal clear in my book—it means a fresh look. However, just a few days later, a briefing note was sent to me directly from the agency, which seemed to completely contradict the Minister’s words. It said:

“Steart Peninsula is not a location which is under review”.

The author had even underlined the word “not”. That is extraordinary, and it prompts a number of serious questions about the credibility and trustworthiness of the agency.

My constituents need and want to know what is going on. I am forced to conclude that the Environment Agency is suffering from delusions of grandeur. It regards itself as guardian of the planet—we know that anyway—with its dangerous mixture of King Canute and old mother nature, pushing back the tide and issuing pompous decrees all the time. It is, as the Minister knows, unelected, untouchable and, in many cases, unloved. It does not seem to take any notice of Ministers, and I am afraid that it is not just the Minister here, but former Ministers. Perhaps it has a hotline to God? I do not know. It certainly has a hotline to Brussels, which of course you, Mr Chope, are a fan of. Brussels has vested it with enormous legal powers to flood perfectly good land. The agency behaves rather like Judge Solomon. It thinks that if natural coastal erosion is to be stopped in one place, territorial sacrifices must be made in another, and it decides whose fields go under water.

What worries me more than anything is the methods that the agency uses. The plan to flood Steart is not new—it has been on the cards for well over a decade—and the agency has got thus far by a relentless drip, drip, drip process. For nine years, it has argued that Steart should be returned to the sea. It operates on the principle that if it keeps saying the same thing, sooner or later someone will believe it.

Hon. Members may be surprised to learn that the Environment Agency is also a fearsome land-grabber, quite capable—I say this advisedly—of using dirty tricks on unsuspecting victims. Several years ago, the agency started buying up real estate in and around Steart, which is fair enough. One farmer was approached and warned that if he did not sell up straight away, there would be a compulsory purchase order later. That has now gone from one farmer to a few farmers. In my book, that is sharp practice, bordering on—again, I say this advisedly—blackmail. At the time, the plans were not even finalised and there had not been proper consultation. Yet the agency made threats and bought people out at a fraction of even today’s prices. I only wish that those people had approached me, as their MP, before they signed up.

I have never seen a compelling scientific argument for flooding Steart, and I doubt whether one exists. The agency makes all sorts of woolly comparisons with how the coast is being protected on the Welsh side of the Severn estuary to justify letting in the tide to do its worst beyond Otterhampton and Stockland. It calls that approach “realigning defences”, which in Steart’s case means not bothering to defend anything. I fear that the Steart peninsula has been picked because it is under-populated, low-lying and has a history of getting wet. It is the sort of place that the agency thinks that it can get away with quietly drowning. Well, we have some news for the Environment Agency, because Steart is not going under without a struggle.

There is another player in this strange tale of mystery, myths and half-truths, which is the Bristol Port Company. Bristol is 40 miles north of Steart, but the firm that runs the port is now pouring cash into Steart, and one might be forgiven for wondering why. The port has big ambitions. It wants to attract huge container vessels, and it needs to build a deep-water terminal to load and unload them—there are no problems there. However, the Bristol Port Company has had an eye on European law and directives. It will need to remove a section of the Severn estuary coastline, which the law says must be replaced by flooding some other unsuspecting place. Therefore, the Bristol Port Company rolled into Steart, with —I say this openly—cheesy grins and cheque books at the ready.

The Environment Agency did not mind, because having the company on board seemed to help its case a little. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wetlands Trust, and even Natural England jumped on board, promising a brave new world for Bristol’s homeless buff-breasted sandpipers. “Come to sunny Steart,” they squawked. “All you need is a beak and a few feathers.”

Unfortunately, locally, the argument does not hold much water. The Bristol Port Company may have secured planning permission to dig up the sea shore for its new deep-water terminal, but it has not raised the vast sums of money needed to pay for the work. The company does not own Bristol port, but leases it from the city council. Do not tell anyone here, but now is not a good time for raising capital on the scale the company is going to need. Most investors require a firm guarantee of returns, and a leased port is not good.

There is a clear question mark hanging over the new development. If that question mark remains in Bristol, there must be serious questions about Steart, too. The case for flooding Steart depends on scientific evidence, which the Environment Agency cannot produce, and on the loss of a wetland habitat in Bristol, which has not been lost, because the container port will be built on a man-made structure. In other words, the Steart flood plan is based on protecting birds that have not been evicted at all.

I have two words for the Environment Agency and the Bristol Port company: get busted, the pair of them. If Steart were flooded, it would drive away rare, large birds. The great bustard is one of our locals. The birds were once hunted—we were talking about badgers just now—to the point of extinction and were reintroduced only seven years ago. Now there are bustards that winter on the Somerset levels and drop in and out of Steart from time to time.

The Environment Agency believes that it has a legal obligation to flood Steart because of coastal erosion elsewhere. The only thing that the Steart plan has in its favour is the fact that it has been dressed up to look like a plan—and a bad one at that. The agency admits:

“Without this scheme we will not be able to develop measures to manage flood risk to people and property elsewhere around the Severn Estuary.”

In other words, it will be up the Parrett without a paddle if it does not flood Steart. However, I find it hard to believe that there are no viable alternatives, which brings me back to where I began. The Minister believes that the agency is reviewing its plans, but the agency believes that it is doing no such thing—certainly not with Steart.

There is a worrying lack of clarity, which I gently urge the Minister to address. The Environment Agency and the Bristol Port Company intend to apply to the district councils of Sedgemoor and West Somerset for permission to flood Steart. We already know that the Agency intends to spend roughly £28 million on its share of the operation. Remember, we are talking about public money here, and this is at a time when all other public money is rightly subject to the most clinical accounting procedures. Why on earth has the agency escaped the axe on this proposal? The scale of expenditure is far too high at a time when the nation is feeling the pinch.

Somerset is already losing libraries, and some of my local schools really need refurbishing, which we cannot do. We also urgently need a new hospital and a road to take construction traffic to Hinkley Point, which is our nuclear power station. I am sure that this is not the right moment to embark on flooding Steart.

I also invite the Minister to address the subject of planning gain. That is part and parcel of the planning process in which authorities such as the Environment Agency are obliged to provide compensation to communities. What will local people get out of the scheme? The agency has said:

“Creating wetland habitats will provide benefits, not only for people who live on the peninsula but also for birds, fish and other wildlife.”

Such a twee vision would have made more sense coming from the lips of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La-La or Po. The agency, which trots out such drivel, is meant to be staffed by experts. In reality, the only thing that Steart will get out of the flood plan is a huge pile of bird droppings and, hopefully, an invasion of twitchers.

The Environment Agency has bullied landowners and it is now contradicting the Minister. Its reputation in my constituency is not good at the best of times. The danger is that some of the mud will rub off on my hon. Friend the Minister, because there is an enormous amount of misunderstanding. I invite the Minister to think about his response. Many people in my constituency are worried about where this will end. I ask him to clarify what is happening at Steart peninsula. Both the Environment Agency and the Bristol Port Company should be aware of what the Government want rather than the Environment Agency just telling us what is going to happen.