Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

The CropLife UK report is clear that the numbers presented are a worst-case scenario. We are building a new pragmatic relationship with the EU, markedly different to what has gone before, which will bring clear benefits with closer alignment. Negotiations are in their final stages, and the Government will set out further details as they conclude.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

My Carlisle constituency is home to one of only two herds of European bison in the country. To expand the herd and maintain a healthy breeding population, they will require access to high-quality genetic material—I will leave that to the imagination. As part of the assessment of the SPS agreement, will the Minister ensure that the UK’s import regime supports the access that herd needs?

[Stephen Morgan]

My hon. Friend is a real champion of these issues, especially the innovation in that industry. We recognise the importance of access to high-quality genetic material for maintaining healthy breeding populations. Zoo technical arrangements facilitate trade in breeding animals and genetic material, but the details of future arrangements will depend on the outcome of the ongoing UK-EU SPS negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

The Leader of the House, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

5. What steps the Church of England is taking to support young people to develop skills to enter the workforce.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Alan Campbell)]

The Church of England educates more than 1 million children in 4,700 schools. Church schools are committed to nurturing the knowledge, skills, character and confidence of young people that are needed to flourish, helping them to discover their gifts, serve their communities and lead purposeful lives. These schools are rooted in a vision of a rounded education, which seeks to ensure that every learner, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, can aspire, achieve and access opportunities to reach their full potential.

[Ms Minns]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, and I put on record my thanks to all the Church of England schools in my constituency for their excellent work. The diocese of Carlisle’s northern young leaders project gives young adults the opportunity to spend a year developing leadership, ministry and workplace skills through placements in churches and community projects. What support might be available from the Church to help dioceses expand such programmes, so that more young people can gain the skills and experience needed for future employment?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

I first of all echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to everyone involved in the schools in her constituency. I would make that point about my own schools, but also Church schools across our country. As she mentioned, there are good examples in the Carlisle diocese of work to support young people, such as Trinity school, which supports pupils into further education and employment, helping to grow young people’s confidence and develop skills for the local labour market. It is important that our young people are supported as they look to enter the workforce. I encourage parishes and local churches to explore local opportunities to better provide that support for young people in their community. With permission, Mr Speaker, I will ask the Second Church Estates Commissioner to write to her about the northern young leaders project.

Sustainable Farming Incentive

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the right hon. Member for the way he is engaging on these issues. Obviously, our annual report sets out how we spend the farming budget, and if he has not yet had a chance to see that, I encourage him to do so. I will certainly take back to the Department the specific points about the RPA and the frustrations of farmers in his constituency, and we will look into the issues he has raised.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

The Government were absolutely right to redesign the SFI to prioritise smaller farming businesses so that taxpayer money supports more farms. However, in Cumbria, 54% of the land is less favourable, which means that my farmers have to hold more land to get a viable farm, pushing them into window 2. Will the Minister, when he looks at the next SFI, please ensure that it recognises that acreage alone should not determine which window farmers apply in?

[Stephen Morgan]

It was a real pleasure to meet my hon. Friend recently to discuss some of the particular challenges her constituency is facing, and wider issues including bluetongue. I will certainly bear in mind the constructive points that she has raised as we design the scheme for next year.

Bluetongue Virus in Livestock

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Member for his question—he brings to the House real expertise on these issues, given his background in veterinary science. I pay tribute to all vets across the country who are supporting farmers at this difficult time. The hon. Member has been corresponding with the Department on various issues related to bluetongue for quite some time, and I am very grateful for the expertise he has been feeding into DEFRA policy. I will take away the specific points he has raised, look into those matters and get back to him.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

Can I add to what my neighbour across the border, the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), has said about the friction we already experience with cross-border trade? Over the summer, I visited the country’s largest sheep auction, which is in my constituency, and that trades right across the border. With the introduction of the zone in the south-west of Scotland, the restrictions on trade that still exist and what the auction house has to go through to be able to trade cattle and sheep from Scotland are now frankly somewhat meaningless. Can I please urge the Government to work at pace with the Scottish Government to get frictionless trade across the Scottish border?

[Stephen Morgan]

It was a real pleasure to visit Scotland over the recess to talk to Scottish farmers about some of the issues and challenges that they face. Indeed, some of those cross-border issues are live to the issues that my hon. Friend describes. I am happy to work with her on those issues, so that we can find solutions as appropriate.

Environmental Protection

Julie Minns Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her opening remarks. This is an overdue and welcome attempt to curb a problem blighting a number of communities. I acknowledge the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett). I worry slightly that we are at risk of entering into some sort of terrible British waste tip competition, but I definitely challenge him, as the one that I am experiencing in my constituency of Carlisle would probably rival the one that he described.

No one relishes living next to a landfill site. However, my constituents in the village of Rockcliffe, a couple of miles to the north of Carlisle, have done so largely without issue for decades. I am particularly glad that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), is in his place. He will be able to testify to the fact—having been the Member who represented Rockcliffe before he moved to Epping Forest—that bar the odd incident, the Hespin Wood site was largely compliant for over four decades. However, that changed last year when the site was sold.

In less than 12 months, the new operator, Seletia, has in no short order turned a once compliant site into a towering mountain of fetid and probably non-compliant waste. Debris from the mountain has been blown on to the adjacent M6. The heap dominates the skyline. The liquid run-off trickles into a beck that runs through adjacent farmland. The smell is stomach-churning and can be smelled on the other side of the city, more than 10 miles away.

I will just read some of the comments that the villagers of Rockcliffe made when the BBC asked them about the site a couple of months ago. One said that the odour was so dreadful he could almost taste it. He said:

“You can’t get away from it, even with the windows shut…It woke me up at one o’clock in the morning once and I was tasting it, not just smelling it.”

Another said that she had become more and more concerned as the landfill had grown in height, and she was especially worried about the fact that the pupils at Rockcliffe Church of England primary school could see the mountain when they played outdoors. Another local resident said that her migraines, she believed, were linked to the smell:

“Migraine sufferers can be sensitive to smells and I’m realising now that that’s what’s triggering it.”

In response to the BBC, Seletia said that it was one of four operators on the site and did not believe that its landfill site was causing the problem. In response to that, I would say that the other three operators on the site have been there over the same period. The only thing that has changed at Hespin Wood is the takeover and management of the site by Seletia. Moreover, people living at the nearby sister site, another Seletia site at Flusco in Newbiggin—in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—have, over exactly the same period, experienced an increase in problems, to the point at which the Environment Agency has now suspended operations on the Flusco site. Thanks to action by the Environment Agency at the Hespin Wood site, it seems to have temporarily stopped accepting new waste, although local villagers doubt that somewhat. The bottom line is that the actions of Seletia and other rogue operators require a new approach, which is why I welcome these new regulations. For too long, our landfill sites and local communities have been targeted by rogue operators.

Driven by the evasion of landfill tax and disposal fees, waste crime has evolved into a highly profitable and organised enterprise. It undercuts legitimate businesses, pollutes our soil, and leaves taxpayers with staggering clean-up bills. The current system for registering waste carriers, brokers and dealers is broken. It relies on a basic tick-box exercise with minimal background checks—a vulnerability that criminals have systematically exploited. That is why I believe that the regulations represent a massive regulatory shift, dismantling the old registration model and pulling these rogue operators directly into the robust environmental permitting regulations framework.

When these laws take full effect, they will tighten the net on waste criminals at landfill gates in three distinct ways. First, operators will no longer just be able to sign their names on a register; they will have to actively prove that they are fit to handle waste. The Environment Agency will enforce strict background checks, mandatory identity verification, criminal record screenings and technical competence assessments before a single permit is issued. Those with a history of illegal dumping will and should be locked out of the system entirely.

Secondly, there is the issue of transparency. Bad actors frequently use anonymous white vans and misleading online advertisements to trick the public and smuggle illegal loads into disposal sites. Under the new regulations, operators must prominently display their unique permit numbers on their vehicles and in all advertising. That simple change turns each one of us into an enforcement officer and enables us to target and identify rogue traders, who will be instantly visible.

Thirdly, heavy penalties are needed. Previously, illegally transporting or brokering waste carried no custodial sentence, which was unacceptable. The draft regulations change that, introducing a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for those who flagrantly break the law and ruin people’s lives. Furthermore, the Environment Agency is being granted expanded, decisive powers to revoke permits instantly and issue immediate enforcement notices to freeze rogue operations on the spot.

As the residents of Rockcliffe know, non-compliance and waste crime are not a victimless nuisance; they constitute an assault on our environment and on our economy, and an assault on people’s homes. By transforming the way in which waste is controlled and transported, the regulations will ensure that only legitimate, heavily scrutinised operators can move material through our supply chain and through our communities. I welcome the closing of loopholes and the crackdown on criminality in the waste sector, and I look forward to a day when the likes of Seletia are forced out of the waste sector altogether.

Farming: Financial Sustainability

Julie Minns Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner.

About 55% of my Carlisle constituency is agricultural land. Farming remains vital to our local economy, our identity and our communities. However, more than half of the farmland in our county—some 54%—is classified as “less favoured area”. As a result, farmers in my area require substantially more land to support their livestock and maintain viable businesses than is the case in other areas. That is why it is important to recognise the distinction between a farm’s physical size and its economic size. A holding may cover a large number of hectares but that does not mean it generates a proportionally large income or profit.

Against that backdrop, in February I wrote to the then Minister of State with concerns about the first round of SFI allocations because SFI funding was open only to farms under 50 hectares. My concern is not with the principle of supporting smaller farms but rather that an approach that focuses solely on physical size does not always reflect the realities of farming across different parts of the country. Farmers in my constituency with holdings of more than 50 hectares will have to go into the next round of SFI and compete with farms that are genuinely large in terms of productive output, with farms that are much larger, and often with land agents.

I therefore have two questions for the Minister. Will he please consider how future schemes will consider the impact of LFA land? Will he also confirm that common land farmers will be eligible to apply for the SFI?

Water Safety

Julie Minns Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important and timely debate.

Although we have heard about the dangers of open water and the importance of water safety in the summer months, it is also important to recognise that the winter months bring their own risks. One of the ponds in my Carlisle constituency regularly freezes over during the winter months, which is important to remember. I am a cold-water swimmer, so I am very familiar with this subject. I know only too well the dangers of open water, the attendant risk of cold-water shock and the perilous after-drop that occurs when the body’s core temperature continues to fall even after exiting the water.

I mostly swim in my county’s beautiful lakes. I have, however, been known to swim in the River Eden, which runs through our great border city, and I am not alone. Tragically, this time three years ago, three young Carlisle boys got into difficulty while swimming in the River Eden. Two of the boys lost their lives. I extend my continued sympathy to their families for their heartbreaking loss. A member of the public, Luke Marwood, risked his life to rescue the third boy and was deservedly awarded a medal for his bravery. I pay tribute to Luke for his remarkable courage.

We should not need such tragedies to remind us of the dangers of water and of the importance of young people learning not only how to swim, but how to stay safe and survive in cold and dangerous water—flip, float, live. I praise the work of North Cumbria Search and Rescue, which works with groups such as the Scouts and Beavers to teach cold water and open water safety in my constituency. I also commend Cumberland council for installing throw lines at key points along our city’s three river—and, to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) about affordability, I commend the council for introducing swimming for 10p during half-terms at a number of our local swimming pools.

Key stage 2 swimming is, of course, a statutory part of the curriculum, and schools are expected to teach water safety. Nevertheless, given the relatively limited pool time available for key stage 2, I ask the Minister whether we should now be giving greater emphasis to water safety education rather than the technicalities of learning to swim, and whether a minimum statutory standard for water safety instruction could be established.

As our summers become hotter, more and more people will choose to swim in rivers and lakes and on our coastline. The RNLI estimates that almost 49 million people will visit the coast this summer. With that in mind, and given the dangers we have heard about today, I believe it would be timely and right to review the current approach to swimming and water safety education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

We are well aware of the concerns of the farming sector, and I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are taking its very strong views and concerns into account. As I am sure he understands, I cannot give him a running commentary on the negotiations.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is estimated that illegal waste dumping costs the taxpayer over £1 billion. Given that this activity can and does happen at permitted sites, can the Minister assure the House that the waste crime unit has access to both the permit return data to the Environment Agency and the landfill tax returns to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so that that fraudulent activity can be identified? Will she meet me to discuss the Hespin Wood landfill site in my constituency?

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

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend. She is right to draw attention to the loss to the Exchequer from landfill tax fraud and evasion. Our Joint Unit for Waste Crime is made up of EA and HMRC staff, as well as other arms of law enforcement, to ensure that all intelligence sources are tapped in to disrupt waste criminals. The waste crime action plan I mentioned earlier will see the unit strengthened by £45 million over the next three years: more boots on the ground and more drones in the air.

Agricultural Sector: Import Standards

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sam Carling]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes his point well. I will touch on EU regulations later.

Our Labour Government have a stellar record on this issue so far. In negotiations with India, we refused to lower protections on goods such as pork, chicken and eggs. In talks with Korea, we have secured new commitments on animal welfare, stronger than any it has signed up to in any previous trade agreement. The next step is to equalise all our import standards, rather than just the standards for new agreements. We cannot go back to full alignment with the EU, either. The EU still allows sow stalls, foie gras and fur farming, all of which fall short of our standards. Switzerland successfully negotiated an animal welfare carve-out in its sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Government are seeking similar exemptions for animal welfare in the UK-EU negotiations. That would ensure we retained the ability to restrict imports that do not meet British welfare standards.

Let me address any arguments about the impact on food prices that changes could have. Over the past few years, food inflation has hit households across the country, and we all want prices to be more affordable, but I think we can all agree that that should not come at the expense of high standards. In the long run, undercutting our farmers will lessen our food security, leaving us more dependent on less reliable markets overseas, and as the Government have repeatedly said, food security is national security. That means that we must defend our farmers from a flood of low-quality imports.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions food imports and illegal imports. Next month will be the 25th anniversary of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak. Nowhere knows better than my Carlisle and north Cumbria constituency just what happens when foot and mouth takes hold. Does my hon. Friend agree that illegal meat imports heighten the risk of animal diseases such as foot and mouth, and that we need a co-ordinated strategy that involves the Government, local authorities and local port authorities to ensure that we counter such biosecurity risks?

[Sam Carling]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the biosecurity aspect of this issue. My farmers, too, have been significantly impacted by foot and mouth disease in the past, and I know how important an issue that is. She puts her point on the record.

I was talking about potential arguments around food prices. Research from Animal Policy International shows that were we to act on this issue, the cost to consumers would actually be very small. Banning battery cage egg imports, for example, would cost just 2p to 4p per person per year. Since all major supermarkets have already committed to phasing out caged eggs, most consumers would feel zero impact, with battery cage imports going to independent retailers and food service as it stands. The boost to domestic farmers, by contrast, would be huge. UK egg farmers could gain up to £15 million annually if battery cage imports were banned. There would also be price stabilisation if we removed imports that undercut UK eggs by up to 20p per dozen. That does not cost the Exchequer; it would be quite a significant benefit to the Exchequer.

Rural Communities

Julie Minns Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

There are going to be 3,000 more police officers on the beat this year, which is far more than the right hon. Lady’s Government managed after slashing 20,000 at the beginning of their time in office.

This Government are determined to crack down on rural crime. Last year, we published the rural and wildlife crime strategy, collaborating with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This strategy is a vital step in our mission to deliver safer streets everywhere—that includes rural areas—and comes as we give the police new powers to take on the organised criminal gangs targeting the agricultural sector. Only last year, rural policing teams recovered more than £12.7 million-worth of stolen farm machinery, leading to 155 arrests. Interestingly, some of it turned up abroad, so there is clearly an organised crime element that needs tackling properly.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I join the Minister in congratulating our rural crime teams on their work. I invite her to pay tribute to Special Constable Susan Holliday who has served almost 40 years as a special constable and was awarded the British empire medal in the new year’s honours. I am delighted to invite the Minister to my constituency to meet Susan Holliday.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I add my congratulations to Susan Holliday. She sounds like a remarkable person, and it is good that she has been recognised for the work she has done in her local community.

It would be impossible to discuss rural communities without paying tribute to the vital work undertaken by this country’s farmers. Supporting British farmers and boosting the nation’s food security are key priorities for the Government. I understand that farmers do not just produce nutritious food; they also need to make a profit, and the margins of farm businesses are often tight, but we are taking action to help farms prosper. We commissioned Baroness Minette Batters to undertake an independent farming profitability review, and we published that last year. We have announced our new farming and food partnership board, which will bring together voices from farming, food, retail and finance to drive profitability, support home-grown British produce and remove barriers to investment.

While the Conservatives failed to spend £300 million of the farming budget, we are investing £11.5 billion over this Parliament into nature-friendly farming. While they sold out our farmers in trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, we are unlocking new markets for British produce in India, China and the United States. We are committing £200 million up to 2030 through farming innovation programme grants to improve productivity and to trial new technologies, and there is an exciting agenda of development out there in that area. We have appointed Alan Laidlaw as the first ever commissioner for tenant farming, giving tenant farmers a stronger voice than ever before.

We have continued to listen and engage with the farming community and family businesses about reforms to inheritance tax. Having carefully considered this feedback, we are going further to exempt more farms and businesses from the requirement to pay inheritance tax, while maintaining the core principle that more valuable agricultural and business assets should not receive unlimited relief. That is why we are increasing the inheritance tax threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million. Couples can now pass on up to £5 million without paying inheritance tax on their assets. That will halve the number of estates claiming agricultural property relief that will pay more in 2026-27, including those claiming business property relief. Of the remaining 185 estates affected in 2026-27, 145 of them will pay less than when the allowance was set at £1 million.

Let us be absolutely clear about what this Tory motion really is. It is not a plan for rural Britain, and it is not a serious attempt to fix the problems that our rural communities face; it is an exercise in political distraction. Every single regret listed in this motion is the direct result of decisions taken by the Tories over their 14 disastrous years in government. They regret raising taxes after crashing the economy and blowing a hole in the public finances. They regret business closures after years of stagnant growth, poor investment and broken rural infrastructure. They regret changes to funding for rural areas after hollowing out public services, cutting rural transport and stripping away neighbourhood policing in the very places where visibility and response times matter the most. They regret the changes to the rural way of life, but sold out our farmers in trade deals and broke their funding promises. Even their own former Environment Secretary admitted that they had failed to defend our agricultural interests. They regret uncertainty when it was their chopping and changing, their political chaos and their lack of long-term thinking that created it in the first place. Rural communities deserve honesty, not selective political amnesia, and from this Government, they will get it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker.

A recent outbreak of avian flu near Wetheral in my constituency affected 43,000 birds and required the culling of the entire flock. Although I welcome the turkey vaccination trial, I am concerned that it will not conclude in time for the vaccine to be rolled out for the next avian flu season. Will the Minister set out what steps she is taking to remove the regulatory barriers that might prevent a roll-out in time for the next avian flu season?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We have to get the science right on vaccination trials. The turkey trial is being carried out because this is one of our most valuable stocks, so we cannot rush it. I would not want to get our turkey industry into a situation where the vaccination trial was rushed and we were not sure of the response, because if there is not international recognition of vaccinations, it destroys the trade.