Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

I join the House in thanking His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen for their dedicated service and continued example to us all. I welcome all the new Members to this place and I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) on his maiden speech.

It is a great privilege to be returned to this House, having served the people of Rutland and Melton for four years. However, I am returned to represent the wonderful people of Rutland, Stamford and the Harborough and South Kesteven villages. I would like to take a moment to reflect on the new communities I serve, because it may not be known that service runs deep in south Lincolnshire.

In world war two, our communities on their own raised enough money for a Spitfire to fight for our country. It is also in our communities where the apple dropped for Sir Isaac Newton in 1687. And a long, long time ago, Bytham castle was known to have a Lady Alicia, the lady of Bytham. I suspect I shall not be getting that title. [Interruption.] I bless you all! It is also home to Easton walled gardens, a place President Franklin D. Roosevelt described as

“a dream of Nirvana...almost too good to be true.”

So it is no surprise that Stamford’s honey stone streets, whose patterns have essentially remained the same since Saxon times, often grace the pages of the best places to live in this country. It was also a filming site for “Pride and Prejudice”, “The Da Vinci Code” and “Middlemarch”. Most recently, Grimsthorpe castle was home to “Bridgerton”.

Somewhat uniquely for a parliamentary seat, Rutland and Stamford sits across three counties, Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire, so I have my work cut out for me. What unites us is the rural landscape and traditions we share: our rural way of life embodied in the fields, farms and natural environment we are blessed to inhabit and hope to bequeath to the next generation. But protecting our green and pleasant lands is not about sentimentality. Our rural environment is the true workhorse of our country. Lincolnshire and Rutland alone produce 30% of the UK’s vegetables, 18% of our poultry, 30% of our turkeys and 20% of all English wheat. We are the agriculture super-producer of our country.

Yet the King’s Speech offered very little for us. It continued in the same vein as the Labour party manifesto, which did not mention the word “rural” even once, by ignoring the concerns of rural communities and ignoring farmers. It has put forward a different approach to development, setting out centralised powers for Westminster to impose projects on the countryside and stripping away the voice of local people. The consequences of that approach were apparent last week when the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero imposed three mega solar plants on communities, two of which sit within Lincolnshire and Rutland.

During the last Parliament, I consistently opposed the Mallard Pass solar plant and was dismayed to see the Secretary of State wave it through after only three working days in the job. Yesterday, he referred to himself as a “super-nerd”. I would never question his self-classification, but I do question how somebody could read over 3,000 pages of quasi-judicial documentation in just that time, while also getting to grips with a new Department. That perhaps explains why he missed or ignored the fact that even the Planning Inspectorate told him to turn down one of those applications.

There are well-documented links between Uyghur forced labour and the primary developer behind Mallard Pass. Labour has said it wants a renewal in public life and a focus on public service, but I ask where the sense of duty is to responsible and considered governance when decisions are made, frankly, for a propaganda announcement to say what the Government have done in their first seven days—decisions that solely affect Conservative-voting communities. Together these three solar plants will remove 6,000 acres of good-quality agricultural land, the land that feeds our country and powers our nation.

I want to delve more into the issue of slave labour. For years I have spoken out against what is taking place in Xinjiang. This House—including the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero—voted to declare what was taking place a genocide. In opposition, Labour promised that should they become the party of government they would not only declare it formally a genocide, but would take the Chinese Government to court—I look forward to updates on that activity—but in government they have decided to carpet our countryside with solar panels produced by the blood of Uyghur slave labourers. The company behind the Mallard Pass, Canadian Solar, was found by our Foreign Office to have the highest complicity in Uyghur forced labour. It has been sanctioned by the United States Government for its

“ongoing campaign of repression against Muslim minority groups”.

This is a company whose representative rang my office and asked what I wanted to drop my opposition. Is that a company that we want operating on our land?

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech. Does she agree that there would be full support on the Conservative Benches for measures to ensure that the supply chain for solar panels does not include slave labour?

[Alicia Kearns]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend, who has an incredible history as one of the greatest parliamentary advocates for tackling slave labour.

Will the Minister apologise, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, to the 32 anti-slave labour non-governmental organisations that opposed the Mallard Pass development. Will he apologise to the British people for signing over thousands of acres of prime agricultural land to such a company, and will he apologise to the 3,400 people whose petition I presented in the Chamber, with the highest number of wet signatures ever presented in this Parliament? Does he accept that the loudest statement made last week was not that we stand four-square behind renewables in this place but that we are giving the green light to all companies complicit in Uyghur slave labour to flood our country with bloodied solar panels? This Government are happy to go green on blood labour, and I will not stand for it.

Very briefly, in respect of rural economies, I want to express my absolute opposition to the Government’s intention to charge VAT on independent schools. There are 10 in my communities that employ more than 2,000 people and are attended by well over 1,000 children with special educational needs. Furthermore, one in five of my constituents who are military personnel or veterans send their children to those schools. This is ideology and dogma, and there is also no plan to support our comprehensive schools.

Flooding: Staffordshire

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) for securing the debate.

It has to be said that although I am an MP in Staffordshire, we are the most hilly bit of the county, as the name of my constituency might suggest. In many ways I feel a slight fraud for standing here and taking part in the debate when I know many of my colleagues have such dreadful, systemic problems with flooding. On the whole, we in the Moorlands tend to create the water and send it to them, and I therefore feel a bit guilty about that. That is not to say that we do not have some areas of significant flooding; I have residents who suffer enormously with flooding in their homes whenever there is even the slightest rainfall. On the whole, however, the Moorlands is home to the heads of the Rivers Trent and Dove. We have the heads of many brooks and streams, which all feed into the big rivers. I am afraid that they feed into the back gardens and roadways of many of my hon. Friends present, and I have great sympathy with them.

I will touch quickly on some of my local issues. There are some very specific issues in the Moorlands. I want to raise the matter of the village of Endon, which is on the main A53 road between Leek in the centre of my constituency and Stoke-on-Trent. Endon is at the bottom of the valley and therefore suffers from flooding. I was due to visit and see the work that the locals were doing and what support they needed, but unfortunately lockdown happened and we have not yet been able to find an opportunity for a physical meeting. I want to go and see my residents there and find out what is happening and what we can do to help. The idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford has for an individual phone number is very good, and I know lots of people in Endon would welcome that.

There are newbuild homes in the Moorlands, and some of them have been built on floodplains. Looking at the topography of the Moorlands, it might seem extraordinary to think that there might be floodplains, but there are. Homeowners in the area really suffer, and I urge the Environment Agency and others to work really hard whenever there is contact from those homeowners, to make sure that they have the protection they need.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Griffiths) about drains and gullies. There is no doubt that the proper cleaning of drains and gullies would stop many of the problems. The fact that I am starting to see such problems in the Moorlands tells me that we really need to deal with this issue at source.

My final point is about what we can do in the Moorlands to help our work on flood defences. I have visited many of the examples of natural flood defences, including Tittesworth reservoir, just inside the Peak District national park, where Severn Trent Water has been putting in special watercourses, woodland areas and log chicanes in order to slow the water down and to try to stop the flood risk further downstream. Likewise, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust does incredible work. I was at Gun hill—anyone who does cycling will know the Gun hill climb on the Tour of Britain. Right at the top of Gun hill, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is ensuring that rewilding happens and that protection of the natural peat bogs is maintained, so that the flood defences are the best they can be and are sustainable.

I have to mention that we had a dreadful fire on the Roaches a couple of years ago, which was the result of a barbeque that was left during very dry weather. It caused absolute devastation. It was not just devastation for the wildlife in that area; it was the impact on the peat that really will affect my hon. Friends’ constituencies. I fear that the damage that was done will be very long lasting, but Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is doing great work to repair that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford on securing the debate. I support her idea for a phoneline, and I hope that the Minister can take account of the natural flood defences that we can introduce and help to support the Wildlife Trust and others to do the best they can with that.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. I have a new map for my office wall that shows the constituencies by colour, as per the recent election result. It is noticeable that rural Britain is overwhelmingly blue in representation, because we are the party of the farmers. I am sure we will continue to make the arguments positively and that Ministers will continue to do the same.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I would like to build on the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) in his recent intervention. My farmers in Staffordshire Moorlands contribute so much to the local economy. They often say that what they really want is a fair price for what they produce, but they need support to be able to achieve that. Does she agree that the challenges that the farmers in Staffordshire Moorlands face are different from those of the farmers in her constituency and that therefore we need a scheme for rural payments that recognises the differences across the country?

The Climate Emergency

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I welcome the Queen’s Speech and some of the many measures that it contains. I also thank my right my hon. Friend the Secretary of State for mentioning from the Front Bench the curlew—a bird that is the symbol of the Staffordshire Moorlands district. We are delighted to hear that it is going to be protected. Given the time limit, I will not go through the many elements of the Queen’s Speech that I did want to cover. There is much that should be celebrated, and I am sure that we can get the cross-Chamber consensus that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke about to get these measures through.

I want to mention just two points that are particularly pertinent. The first is a subject that the right hon. Lady also mentioned, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—that is, buses. Rural buses in constituencies such as mine have suffered dreadfully over the past few years. Bus services and routes are being reduced or eliminated, and routes are going. This is not good for our towns and villages. Regular, clean buses make for vibrant towns and villages. May I ask that a real emphasis is put on ensuring that there is support for rural bus services, especially given the impact on climate change and carbon emissions in our rural areas?

Staffordshire Moorlands experiences a particular issue with regard to school transport provision. A recent case, which I have raised with the Transport Secretary, has meant that county councils are unable to allow children to travel on school buses if they are paying passengers unless those buses are fully disability compliant, because the payment for the empty space turns the bus into public transport. From next month, children in some villages in my constituency will be unable to get to school. A bus will leave their village with empty seats on it, and they will be unable to get on it, causing more carbon emissions as their parents have to find alternative arrangements. I urge the Government to look for some form of exemption in the short term for these county councils, and then to provide support for the county councils—this is an issue not just in Staffordshire—so that they can replace the buses with disability-compliant, green buses that will help us all.

My second point concerns the immigration Bill, and it is a subject with which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be very familiar: the rights of those people in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement was in no way a result of both the United Kingdom and Ireland being members of the European Union; it would have happened anyway because of the determination and strength of resolve of so many people across Northern Ireland. But the fact that we were both members of the European Union meant that some issues regarding the rights of citizens did not need to be codified because the citizens’ rights accrued to citizens of the European Union were accrued to everybody.

Those people in Northern Ireland who choose to identify as Irish—which they are absolutely entitled to do—are therefore now extremely concerned about how they will be able to maintain their Irish citizenship, living in Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, but not wanting to be British. I urge the Government to ensure that measures are included in the immigration Bill to ensure that those rights are respected and that people in Northern Ireland who choose to identify as Irish can continue to live in their homes as they have done for years and years—peacefully and happily, prospering after the Good Friday agreement and able to exercise their rights.

Bovine TB

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

To be clear, I do not have a romanticised notion either. Like anyone who loves nature, I love the badgers too, but we must be clear about the humaneness and efficacy of what we are discussing. As regards new science, the science published since 2007 by Christl Donnelly and peer reviewed is an important factor in the decision. On the compensation, if farmers do not get their cattle regularly tested in a timely fashion, as they are required to do, they will have their compensation reduced. This is a balanced package and people must take responsibility. The farming industry has shown its willingness to do that and I commend this balanced package to the House.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State expand on the criteria that will be used for granting a culling licence, and can she confirm that licences will be granted only when the recipient has a clear commitment to acting in a humane and safe way?

Forestry (England)

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

It is only humiliating if we are afraid to say sorry, and one of the things we teach our children is to be honest. It is not a question of humiliation; it is my choice.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

When the Labour party was in office, were any consultations held in which the views of the public were actually listened to?

[Mrs Spelman]

The one that comes to mind is the Post Office consultation, which we all remember really was a sham.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I can confirm that the future of the Agricultural Wages Board is being considered as part of the whole review of arm’s length bodies and non-departmental public bodies, and that there will be an announcement soon.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

13. What recent discussions she has had with the farming industry and other interested parties on reform of the common agricultural policy.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

I have attended the Agriculture Council twice and have discussed the CAP with Agriculture Ministers from other member states. Last night, I hosted a dinner attended by the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Commissioner Ciolos, my colleagues here and from the devolved Administrations, the Secretary of State for Scotland and other key UK stakeholders. We discussed a number of issues, including CAP reform, and I have more European visits planned in the coming months.

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. She will be well aware of the problems caused by the Rural Payments Agency’s remapping exercise, particularly in non-flat areas such as Staffordshire Moorlands. Can she reassure farmers who are still waiting to agree their revised maps that the single farm payment will not be delayed and that they will not suffer undue hardship?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am sure that my hon. Friend’s farmer constituents will be very grateful to her for bringing up this issue. If she gives us the details of any significant problems with the mapping in her area—I understand that they might relate to the slopes and gradients of the land—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will look into it closely, as he has offered to chair the board of the RPA.