Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My Department has been working closely with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to look at how we can help Port Talbot with its energy costs. We have already made announcements about how we are going to reduce the impact of carbon policies on the steelworks in Port Talbot, and we will continue to look at further ways of helping, including considering how energy-intensive industries across the board can reduce their electricity costs by changing the way in which they generate power.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that British steel can be used in energy infrastructure projects not just in the UK but around the world? Last week on a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the International Development Committee, we saw the way in which Britain is leading in helping to provide energy infrastructure in that country.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. A good example of my own efforts to improve the use of UK steel has been to urge the Offshore Wind Industry Council to do more to promote UK content. The UK is one of the biggest deployers of offshore wind to date and we can certainly hope that, once we start building our export markets, British steel will form a part of those exports.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) should not chunter from a sedentary position in evident disapproval of an answer that he had no right to expect in any case. It is principally a matter for DECC, so he ought to be saying thank you to the Secretary of State for proffering some sort of response. In a seasonal spirit, I am sure that that is what he will now do.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T6. I welcome the Secretary of State’s emphasis on the promotion of British food here and around the world. When I try to buy lactose-free milk, I notice that it all comes from Denmark. Will she ensure that the British dairy industry gets a grip on this and starts to produce lactose-free milk for what is probably the biggest market in Europe?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out. There are also huge opportunities in producing UHT milk here and overseas, which I know the dairy industry is looking at. In January we will establish the Great British food unit, which brings together UK Trade & Investment expertise and DEFRA expertise so that we have a one-stop shop for businesses that want to export their fantastic products.

African Lion Numbers

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) for raising this incredibly important issue. Lions matter to us, both in themselves and as a symbol of natural and ecological challenges throughout Africa. They matter in themselves because they are probably the most dramatic, charismatic, impressive and splendid animals that we have inherited in the world. They matter in terms of conservation more generally because the issues that affect them are very similar to those that affect elephants, rhinos and other wildlife across Africa. I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising the issue as a way of getting us to think about it, and because, to some extent, lions have been underrated in comparison with other animals in recent studies on conservation and extinction.

The central question regarding lions recently has been about the decline in their numbers. Conducting scientific analyses of lion numbers is challenging and there has been a lot of controversy about how many lions we have, but there is absolutely no doubt among members of the scientific community that the number of lions has declined. Whether we have 37,000 or 23,000 lions, and whether or not the decline has been exactly 43%, there is absolutely no doubt that we had far more lions 20 years ago and 50 years ago than we have today.

The primary reason for the decline in lion numbers, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, is the loss of habitat. Lions’ habitat, above all, has to accommodate the large range that these predators require and the prey on which they feed. The expansion of human activities has had a major impact on lions’ habitat. Since humans emerged in the very centre of lion territory, they have found ways to live alongside lions. Central to Maasai culture is the way in which people think about living alongside lions. Over the past 50 to 60 years, however, communities that plant crops and try to keep stock in those areas have found it increasingly challenging to live alongside lions.

As a result, lions live predominantly in protected areas, where there are severe restrictions on what humans can do. Such areas fall into two categories. The first category is national parks, which are the ideal place to locate lions. The Serengeti contains incredible examples of the combination of an ideal habitat for lions with one of the great migratory spectacles of the world—with, of course, a serious income from eco-tourism and photography. The second category is protected hunting areas, which account for about 650,000 sq km of territory. In other words, an area about three times the size of England is devoted to hunting areas for lions.

My right hon. Friend is pushing, quite rightly, for what seems to be the ideal solution, which is to convert those hunting areas into national parks. If that happened, the income in those areas would come from tourism and they would not experience the significant problems of conservation and animal welfare that have been associated with hunting. That would seem to be the ideal situation.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I speak as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Tanzania. I pay tribute to the Tanzanian Government for categorising and gazetting so many additional thousands of square kilometres as national parks over many years.

[Rory Stewart]

I will pick up on that issue, because it relates exactly to our current position. The Tanzanian Government are a good example. Just under half the lions in the world live in Tanzania, in areas that are many times the size of Wales. The Tanzanian Government face a series of serious challenges. Approximately 15% of the population have access to any form of electricity, fewer than that have access to sewerage, and many are living on incomes of $1.50 a day. During my lifetime, the population of Tanzania is likely to increase from 10 million when I was born to 160 million by the time I am 70, if I am lucky enough to live that long. Such an increase imposes huge pressures on the protected areas that we depend on for lion habitats.

To return to my argument, the main challenge is not what will happen to the national parks, although there are challenges facing the national parks, such as fragmentation, incursion, poaching and disease—particularly canine-born disease, which has been mapped by Craig Packer in the Serengeti. The question we need to ask is what should be done with the hunting areas. The ideal solution would be to convert them into national parks, and there have been experiments in that direction—a famous ecologist recently took over a hunting licence, established a lodge and tried to run it as an eco-tourism area. The question is whether that is what African Governments would be likely to do with those areas if hunting were removed.

We have two case studies to look at. The first, which has been much discussed, is Kenya, where hunting was banned in the 1970s. It is very difficult to get a good scientific base on Kenya, because the Kenyan population and the pressure on land are so high that is difficult to get reliable indications. The big case study that we need to look at is Botswana. Botswana has now banned lion hunting and will be the litmus test of whether the previous hunting areas will now be protected—indeed, the President and the Minister for Environment, Wildlife and Tourism are heavily committed to protecting those areas—or whether, with a change in Government, the pressure, particularly from the cattle industry, will mean that in three, five, seven or ten years’ time, that land is given over to farmland instead of being protected as national parks. That is relevant because it is predominantly because of farming practices and human population pressure that lions are now largely constrained to areas such as Tanzania and southern Kenya, and have been lost across a great deal of west Africa. That has been the major reason for the decline in African lion populations across the continent. Botswana will be a key litmus test.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Frankly, I think Conservative Members will treat that statement with some derision, given the previous Labour Government’s failure to deliver for rural areas over many years. This summer we launched a rural productivity plan, which is all about ensuring that rural areas get good connectivity, good transport links and affordable housing. Under this Government we have seen the gap in productivity between rural and urban areas closing for the first time in years.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) suggested, it is often in the last 5% that we find some of the most enterprising people, although at the moment they live in areas that are inaccessible to rural broadband. Will my right hon. Friend consider a survey of such areas to see just how many small businesses there do not yet have broadband access?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I recently opened a new cabinet in Mundford, a village in my constituency where I found a textbook publisher who works internationally, a software company, and a company that produces databases internationally. We have some of the most amazing businesses in rural areas. In fact, two of the fastest growing sorts of businesses are consultancy and IT. That is why getting superfast broadband roll-out is a real priority for this Government, and that is why we have set up the digital taskforce.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Yes, we have looked at this, because there was a misunderstanding on the part of some local authorities that a licence to breed dogs was not required provided that people were breeding fewer than five litters a year. We clarified that last year with local authorities because anyone in the business of breeding puppies requires a licence, but we continue to keep this under review.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T4. When on 9 August two cattle visited a supermarket in my constituency, they will have been disappointed to note that the only lactose-free milk was imported from Denmark. There is no such product made in the UK. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is an opportunity for import substitution, to use British milk, and an export opportunity?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right: there are new products where British producers could certainly innovate and also huge opportunities for import substitution of many existing products such as butter and cheese, the majority of which we import at the moment. One thing we want to do is to get supermarkets labelling things more clearly, so that consumers know whether a product is British.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

Our commitment to climate change in no way detracts from the central mission of the Church, which is to encourage people to faith. As part of our faith, however, we have to demonstrate environmental stewardship. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, the Anglican Communion has an unrivalled network through which to encourage laggards in the quest to tackle climate change and to play a positive role at the conference in Paris.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend rightly refers to the Anglican Communion. What discussions and consultations does the Church of England have with the worldwide Anglican Communion to listen to them about the impact of climate change in their own countries?

[Mrs Spelman]

The Church of England devoted a whole day of its General Synod in York to a debate on climate change, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury and I spoke, outlining the ability of our worldwide network to help the nations that are worst affected by climate change. Sadly, they are the poorest nations in the world. That is why the Government’s commitment to an ambitious outcome in Paris is so important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

3. What assessment she has made of the role the public can play in supporting bees and pollinators.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

6. What assessment she has made of the role the public can play in supporting bees and pollinators

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

In November we published the national pollinator strategy, a 10-year plan to help pollinators to thrive, which involves farmers, major landowners and the public. People can help in their gardens, schools or local parks by leaving areas wild for pollinators, or ensuring that food sources are available throughout the year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Last month, at the Stafford green arts festival, “There is no planet B”, I was presented with a book that contained a number of concerns raised by my constituents, including the threat to bees and pollinators. What news can I give them of the work being done across the country to protect and preserve pollinators, which are so essential for food production?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: pollinators are vital for our £100 billion food and farming industry, and are estimated to be worth £430 million to our economy in services alone. That is why we launched the national pollinator strategy, which will include a wild pollinator and wildlife element in the new countryside stewardship scheme. That means that farmers will have a strong incentive to help pollinators on their land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I hope every parliamentary colleague will read the bishops’ pastoral letter. I do not expect everyone to agree with everything in it, but it is a thoughtful and thought-provoking document which makes it clear that the bishops believe that

“the great majority of politicians and candidates enter politics with a passion to improve the lives of their fellow men and women.”

Only yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury made this observation:

“It’s just the reality; decisions have to be made and it is often unbelievably difficult. Politicians know that quite often they are doing the best they can and the more I see of them the more I reckon that it’s very rare to find one who isn’t doing the best they can but often in incredibly difficult situations.”

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

2. If the Church Commissioners will take steps to support St George's cathedral in Jerusalem.

[Canon Sir Tony Baldry]

Like any Anglican cathedral overseas, St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem is financially independent of the Church Commissioners. However, I would hope that everyone possible would support the work of the friends of St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem, a UK registered charity that has the Archbishop of Canterbury as patron.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer and join my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in paying tribute to the work that he has done as the Second Church Estates Commissioner.

On a visit with the International Development Committee last year in the area, I had the privilege of being invited by my constituent, Mrs Hifsa Iqbal, to an interfaith conference hosted by St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem. May I encourage the Church Commissioners to look at the very important work that St George’s is doing in the middle east and see what support they can give?

[Canon Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I entirely agree with him. St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem seeks to support everyone in need irrespective of their faith, but its support for Palestinian Christians is particularly important as they often feel themselves to be twice a minority. It is a sad fact that the number of Christians in the Holy Land has dwindled significantly in recent years, so I hope that we will all do what we can to support the work of St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem, and the schools and hospitals that it runs for everyone in the west bank and in Gaza.

Bovine TB

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that this is a devolved issue, so it is up to him to discuss elsewhere whether the catch, trap, test and eliminate policy is introduced in Northern Ireland. We are not proposing to do that in England. He makes the valid point, however, that trapping badgers is not easy. We estimate that about a third of badgers are trap-shy, which presents real practical problems for those who are enthusiastic about vaccination.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

In my area, we also have TB in dairy goats, but the farmers involved are not covered by the compensation scheme. Will the Secretary of State consider changing that rule, because it is causing desperation among those farmers?

[Mr Paterson]

I was talking to farming representatives who had come over the border into my own patch last Friday, and I am aware that there is a bad case in Staffordshire involving goats. We need to look at this issue. We have made it clear that we are going to consult on bringing alpacas into the regime, and we should look at goats as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has been a long-standing campaigner here and, I understand, even planted a tree at the Eden Project in Cornwall. I am pleased to be able to tell him that protection, improvement and expansion are the three key priorities in our forestry and woodlands policy statement. Ancient woodland remains strongly protected through the planning system, and refreshed advice on ancient woodland to aid planning authorities is being developed by Natural England and the Forestry Commission. We believe that in many landscapes, more trees will deliver increased social, environmental and economic benefits. Next year we will invest £30 million in woodlands, of which £6 million will fund 2,000 hectares of new woodland with about 4 million trees.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the value to the UK economy of food exports.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The 10 years to 2012 saw agri-food exports grow by 40% to £18.2 billion. Exports in the first 11 months of 2013 stood at £17.2 billion, compared with £16.6 billion at the same point in 2012. The Government and industry are working together to increase exports in the agri-food sector. We launched a refreshed action plan last October. It commits us to deliver £500 million of value to the UK economy by supporting 1,000 companies by October 2015.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I welcome the Minister’s answer. Ireland and France are currently our two largest export markets for food and non-alcoholic beverages. Which markets does he think will have the best growth prospects for producers in the United Kingdom, and indeed in my county of Staffordshire, in future?

[George Eustice]

Obviously the EU market will remain a very important one for UK producers. We work closely with the industry to identify key markets and prioritise negotiations, based on industry interest, projected value and achievability. Under the export action plan, our aim is to maintain access to existing markets and negotiate to open new priority markets for food and drink products in countries such as China, Russia, Brazil, the USA, Indonesia and India.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the effects on churches of metal crime since introduction of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The enactment of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act is warmly welcomed by the Church. The additional powers under the Act have strengthened the hand of the important agencies against this crime, which for churches is now at its lowest level for many years.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that statement. Will he provide some information about the effects of this welcome Act, promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), on churches in my diocese of Lichfield, led by the lord bishop?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

In 2011 in the diocese of Lichfield there were 100 claims for lead metal theft costing nearly £200,000. As of May of this year, there were fewer than 10 claims costing less than £10,000. Churches still have a duty to use things such as SmartWater and CCTV, but the fact that it is now no longer possible for robbers to strip churches of lead at night, go round to the scrap metal yard next day and get paid in cash means that we are seeing a considerable drop in lead theft. That is good news and the whole House should be grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) for getting the Bill through Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

The environmental statement is published today and will be available in the Library. We have had meetings, and in February the National Farmers Union and the Country Land and Business Association signed up to a voluntary agreement with HS2 Ltd that sets out the process for contacting landowners to discuss gaining entry to their land. It also contains a fee structure and a duty of care commitment. This will help HS2 Ltd better to understand the impacts of the scheme on farmers in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere along the route.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Will the Minister also discuss with the Secretary of State the problems that farmers in my constituency are facing as a result of proposed business developments on their land to improve the rural economy being put on hold or stopped altogether because of the blight?

[Richard Benyon]

We certainly remain willing to work across Government to ensure that those kinds of concerns about the undoubted impacts are raised. There is huge experience in relation to other infrastructure developments that have taken place over recent years and decades, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we will work closely with him to get this right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

That is complete nonsense. The Chief Secretary and senior Ministers are all working closely together on this issue. I am sorry that we may have nearly shot the Labour party’s fox. We are working closely with the Association of British Insurers and we will deliver a good deal.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T4. What is my right hon. Friend doing to make sure that the new single farm payment forms are as short as possible?

[Mr Heath]

That is a very interesting point, because one of the main principles underlying our negotiation for common agricultural policy reform has been that whatever comes out has to be simple and deliverable. One of the mistakes made back in 2005 was that we had an over-complicated system and a lack of resource to deliver it, and as a result we had a shambles in the Rural Payments Agency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is declared coalition policy to have a free vote on this issue at the appropriate time.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T8. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for launching the global food IF campaign yesterday. The UK runs a large deficit in food, so what can the UK do to increase food production and make its contribution to the global situation?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. When we talk about sustainable agriculture, we need to have in mind our need to feed not only the people of this country but the people of the world. We have to have a clear strategy on how to get to the point where every sector of agriculture in this country has not only maximum efficiency and effectiveness but sustainability.