Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

We cannot pre-empt the outcome before the consultation, but institutional investors want this information in order to be able to make a more accurate assessment of companies. Most big companies already report their greenhouse gas emissions, but this is the perfect time for the hon. Lady and her colleagues to take part in the consultation, so that views may be ascertained.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Although we all want to encourage companies, particularly big companies, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, does the Secretary of State agree that there is a risk of over-burdensome regulation, particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises, which will result in only a very small reduction in carbon emissions?

[Mrs Spelman]

The coalition Government are committed to relieving the unnecessary burden of red tape on all of business, but we understand that pressures can be particularly burdensome on SMEs. If my hon. Friend looks at the proposals in the consultation, he will see that these concerns have been taken account of, and I am sure that if he participates in the consultation and further reinforces the views he has expressed in the Chamber, it will all add weight to the outcome of the consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

I share the hon. Lady’s passion for the protection of biodiversity and the enhancement of biodiversity where there has been biodiversity loss. I am sure that every sinew will be strained by every member of the DEFRA family to make sure that the United Kingdom does well out of any resources that are being made available through the European Union so that we can benefit by putting those resources where they will make a difference—with the protection of biodiversity.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

T4. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) and I were campaigning long and hard against the introduction of compulsory horse passports—identification cards for horses—legal advice to DEFRA was that Ministers had three options. The first was to seek to extend the EU derogation on the subject for a further 10 years, the second was to bring in a minimal regime so that horses at abattoirs would have to have some kind of documentation, and the third was an all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles option, requiring every zebra, donkey, horse and pony in the land to have an ID card. Will the Minister re-examine that legal advice from 2005 to work out whether it might be possible to make horse ID cards voluntary rather than compulsory?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s passion for this issue, some of which I share. The advice I have received is that the decision that the previous Government unsurprisingly made to develop the most bureaucratic and regulatory option is irreversible, but I am more than happy to look at it again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that on the eve of the millennium the Conservation Foundation charity presented churches throughout the country with some 8,500 young yew trees, propagated from trees estimated to be at least 2,000 years old. We are now asking churches that planted millennium yews to record their growth and condition on Biodiversity day, which is on Sunday 22 May. I hope, however, that a number of churches up and down the land will follow the example of Holy Trinity, Stratford, and consider planting 12 new yew trees to represent either the 12 tribes of Israel or, indeed, the 12 apostles.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

5. What steps the Church Commissioners are taking to encourage churches to develop and foster biodiversity in churchyards.

[Tony Baldry]

The Church of England, through its own environmental campaign “Shrinking the Footprint”, along with Natural England is supporting an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund by the charity Caring for God’s Acre to extend its work encouraging and supporting churchyard biodiversity schemes nationwide.

[Mr Gray]

North Wiltshire has some of the finest and oldest churchyards anywhere in England—one thinks of Malmesbury abbey, St Bartholomew’s in Wootton Basset, St Mary’s in Calne—and dozens of tiny, ancient, hidden churchyards miles from anywhere. What can the Church Commissioners do to encourage greater biodiversity in them while preserving their peaceful, quiet charm?

[Tony Baldry]

The Wiltshire living churchyards project has 45 participating churchyards, helped and supported by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, Wiltshire Churches Together and Social Responsibility in Wiltshire. As my hon. Friend tells the House, Wiltshire has a unique and rich diversity of landscape, and there are annual seminars at which Wiltshire living churchyards awards certificates for continued wildlife management. The Bishops of Bristol and of Salisbury and the Church locally are determined that churches throughout Wiltshire should be opportunities to celebrate biodiversity.