National Policy Statements

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I am pleased to be called to speak in this important debate. Like many MPs, I believe that the first responsibility of any Government is the security of its citizens, and I take that responsibility very seriously. Securing our energy supplies is vital for the well-being and prosperity of the people who sent us here to represent them. The failure of the previous Government to invest, despite the so-called boom years and their great appetite for spending other people’s money, has led to our being far too dependent on imports to supply our national energy needs. Why? As we are discovering from so many other areas of policy that we have inherited, the reason is the previous Government’s failure to fix the roof while the sun was shining. There has been a lack of coherent and consistent policy to enable the UK to have a secure energy supply.

Like any industry, the providers of energy need a clear and timely planning process, and the national policy statements are a step in the right direction. Along with proposals that we anticipate in the localism Bill, they will create the right processes that will enable the development of sustainable and secure energy supplies for the UK. I believe that the new policies should provide an efficient and democratically accountable system, and a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects. There is no doubt that there is an urgent need for a new energy structure in the UK. In developing that structure, the right balance must be struck between consenting to and building new energy infrastructure and the importance of protecting our environment and the quality of life for those who live in the communities where that important infrastructure is located.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend might also emphasise the great importance of ensuring that energy is affordable for the poorest people in the country. There are some high-falutin’ ideas that seem to add cost for consumers, and they should be opposed.

[Sarah Newton]

I very much agree. Far too many people in constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s and mine, especially in rural areas, are living in real fuel poverty and enduring the hardship associated with high energy bills.

In establishing the right balance between environmental protection and the need to build new infrastructure, my hon. Friend the Minister must take very seriously the points my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) made about Natural England. Many of us up and down the country face the problems he described.

I welcome in the draft statement the recognition of the important role that local authorities will play in the development and consideration of proposed major energy projects. The extent to which local authorities wish to be involved in the planning process has always been, and will continue to be, up to them, but the new regime is a significant improvement, giving local government statutory rights in the process and ensuring that its views are adequately taken into consideration. In addition, rather than imposing additional costs, there are potential savings for local government from the new regime, as shorter hearings and quicker decisions should ensure that in future local authorities do not incur the costs incurred now.

As hon. Members will be aware, I represent a constituency in Cornwall, where we aspire to be world leaders in the new low carbon industrial revolution. As a result I have a particular interest in how the relevant parts of the NPS support the development of renewable energy. We are blessed with an abundance of natural resources that make us ideally situated to develop significant quantities of low carbon electricity to feed into the national grid. In the universities of Exeter and Plymouth and the Camborne school of mines, we have a world-leading knowledge base in renewable and sustainable energy. In local companies such as GeoScience and Kensa Engineering, we have pioneering and highly skilled engineering companies. The wave hub off Cornwall’s north coast is the first of its kind in Europe and it enables the testing of prototype wave and tide devices. We have great light for photovoltaics, an abundance of onshore wind and the hottest rocks in the UK. What we do not have is a national grid infrastructure able to take the anticipated volumes of electricity that can be generated locally to be fed into the grid. I believe that the NPS will help to tackle that wholly unsatisfactory situation.

Although I understand the Government’s reasons for feeling that there is no urgency about including technologies such as wave and tide in the NPS until large-scale commercially viable schemes have been developed, I urge the Minister to keep them in mind for the next round and subsequent revisions and, in the meantime, to do all he can to support that sector of renewable energy generation and to keep a watching brief on how the Marine Management Organisation handles its responsibilities. He will not be surprised to hear a similar plea from me for deep geothermal energy generation, which has the potential to contribute 5% of the UK’s electricity. That technology, which is tried and tested in other countries—often developed by UK engineers—is yet to receive the support it deserves from Government in this country. With my hon. Friend’s assistance, I hope to reverse that.

Given the scale of the challenge ahead, it is vital that NPS is capable of being revised and updated, so that, as we learn more about new and emerging technologies and develop an evidence base for their capacity to deliver energy into the grid and to contribute to the Government’s aim of decarbonising electricity production, they are supported and given the chance that inclusion in the NPS will provide.

Sustainable Livestock Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sarah Newton

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I will be happy to do so, because I have a great interest in locally produced food and organic food, particularly as I grew up in a rural area and am very aware of the high standards of animal husbandry in this country. People in Italy have a great passion for their food, so when I lived there I was interested in meeting farmers and those in food production. I was surprised—as surprised as I expect my hon. Friend is—to visit a large-scale organic farm just outside Milan where all the cattle were kept indoors all year round. As anyone who knows that part of the world will know, it is hot, and pasture cannot be grown sustainably to enable the livestock to graze outdoors as dairy cattle can in Cornwall. It brought home to me that we should not always be so judgmental about how other nations go about farming in a sustainable way that has, by its very nature, to respond to the natural environment that they find themselves in.

I hope that hon. Members will agree that rather than persist with the Bill in its current form, with all the issues that have been so ably raised by my hon. Friends, we should build on the very successful publicity that it and today’s debate have received, and work with the various Ministers who are already working on a range of plans and policies that will address the complex and often interrelated issues that the Bill raises. In doing so, we will be assured of more effective outcomes and policies that balance the needs of environmental protection and climate change adaptation with economically sustainable farming.

In the last Parliament there was cross-party support for the Climate Change Bill, and I urge Opposition Members to work constructively with the coalition Government in this Parliament to bring in the changes that are needed today, tomorrow and in the years to come, so that there is a future for sustainable British livestock farming.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I have listened with enormous interest to my hon. Friend. Does she agree that it would be unsuitable to do this on a national level? If ever there was something that had to be dealt with at a United Nations level, it would be this type of issue, and we simply cannot do it from this Parliament.

[Sarah Newton]

I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend, and that point was ably demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, with his considerable experience of farming and farming practices around the world, and our important role in helping developing countries to develop in a sustainable way. It is vital that we proceed in the way suggested and I am sure that we will hear from the Minister about the considerable lengths to which the Government will go to achieve that.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman says the Bill does not say where the money is going to be spent, but that is an absurd point to make because the public finances are in such a weak condition that, at this moment, money needs to be saved. The first principle for the Government—their first ambition and intention—must be to get the finances of this country on to a stable footing so that they can then, with economic growth, ensure that the money is there to help people in the future.

[Sarah Newton]

I quite understand that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) might not know about this—his partner may never have had a child—but folic acid should be taken before and during pregnancy to avoid the dreadful condition he mentioned, and all the supplements are available on the NHS.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good and important point. The payment of this £190 comes too late in the process to be of benefit to people whose children may be at risk of spina bifida.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) wonderfully and accurately pointed out, the hon. Gentleman had got the wrong part of the pregnancy; we have to go back, not forward.

[Sarah Newton]

The whole issue of maternal health is incredibly important. The problem with this benefit is that how the mum is to spend the money is completely unspecified. There is absolutely no guarantee whatever that the money will be spent in the way that has been suggested. It is far better, therefore, that a mum is supported through comprehensive care in the NHS so that she is informed of the choices and provided with the resources to enable her and her baby to thrive.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and spot on. That is a most helpful intervention. There is no point in giving money late in the day to everybody—those who need it and those who do not need it alike—for an unspecified purpose when other ways of spending money may prove to be more useful.