Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend makes a relevant point. There is a lot of evidence—albeit anecdotal evidence—that people trap urban foxes and release them in the countryside. I suggest that that is very cruel, because those foxes are not accustomed to living on their own or to hunting for their prey, because it is all there for them in the refuse bags in urban areas. Farmers and others will bear witness to the fact that many of them wander round the countryside in a somewhat dazed state.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

10. What proposals she has to reduce the incidence of fish discards.

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

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

[Karl Turner]

Will the Minister outline exactly what he is doing to give incentives to the UK fishing industry to reduce discards?

[Richard Benyon]

We have promoted the catch quota scheme, and this year we will see no discards in the North sea from the boats in that scheme. We are extending the scheme to the south-west and I am delighted to announce that four vessels from that region are entering the scheme for the channel sole stock. We are also promoting the “Fishing for the Market” scheme, which I mentioned earlier. Of course, there is the success—applauded abroad and by the Commission—of the 50% project in the south-west. All those examples show how if we work with the fishing industry, we can have a serious impact on the scourge of discards.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Karl Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I seem to spend a lot of time following the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and agreeing with his criticism of his party and the Government on the nuclear deterrent, so it is a great pleasure to follow him and agree with his criticism of the Government Front-Bench team on the issue of the nation’s forests.

The Secretary of State, in her rather long speech, invited Members to go to Grizedale forest and have a look around to see what they think. I wish that she had been there last Sunday for the rally that I attended, as did Lord Clark of Windermere and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), whose constituency neighbours mine. We all spoke at the rally and saw the great, diverse and angry crowd of people who gathered to make their points. I have been surprised by the tone adopted by many Members who have participated in the debate, because the people who attended the rally were not in the main Labour party supporters—I have been to a few Labour rallies and trade union do’s. Although there were many Labour party members present, there were voters for all parties there. Indeed, if one party represented there was in the majority, I speculate that it probably was not my own.

Those people did not feel that they had been duped, and if anyone had put it to them that they were being dishonest in their concerns, I think that they would have given the accuser very short shrift. They are people who honestly and rightly believe that the rights of access that they are vaguely being promised through the consultation are not worth banking on. They are people who, because of the huge deficit that the hon. Member for New Forest East so amply laid out, do not buy the idea that there could be a great renaissance in the voluntary sector, in charitable bodies and in people coming together to buy woodland. They believe, absolutely rightly, that they already own that land; it is owned by the British people.

We all know, from the past 13 years, that we cannot have a referendum on every issue—on the many difficult things that people disagree with. On an issue as fundamental as this, however, we have to have the consent of the people before we go ahead. On Sunday, like the thousands of people who have made their views known and written to hon. Members, people at the rally made it very clear that the Government simply do not have that consent and should think again.

I hope that Liberal Democrat Members will pay heed to the stand that their party president, my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, has taken, and consider voting with us today and in opposition to the Public Bodies Bill, on which the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) made a good point, when she noted the potential dangers in relation both to this issue and to others if we go down that route. Ultimately, however, on that and on many other measures going through the House, such as that on tuition fees—I am thinking of all the other broken promises that we have seen—there are only so many times that Members, who undoubtedly have genuine grievances with what their party and Government are doing in their name, can credibly go to their constituents and wash their hands of it. Eventually, every Government Member, but the Liberal Democrats in particular, will have to account to their constituents and parties for the way in which they have propped up the Government.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an opportunity for Liberal Democrat Members not to break their promises but to come along and vote with us on the issue?

[John Woodcock]

Yes, it is. I hope that many Liberal Democrats do so today and on the Public Bodies Bill, because no Member, unless they have not checked their e-mail or post, can have failed to see the anger about this issue. I hope that they act on it with us and take into account what their constituents are rightly telling them, but ultimately they will have to take into account what they are doing daily to prop up the Government, who are not listening to the British people, and act accordingly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

3. Which planned flood defence schemes will not proceed as a result of her Department’s planned reduction in expenditure on flood defences.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

18. Which planned flood defence schemes will not proceed as a result of her Department’s planned reduction in expenditure on flood defences.

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

I am sorry to have to tell the House some sad news. A member of Environment Agency staff was tragically killed yesterday in an accident. I hope the whole House will join me in extending our condolences to his family at this difficult time.

No schemes have been cancelled as a result of the spending review. Schemes already under construction or under contract will be completed. The Department has launched a consultation on how national funding should be allocated to flood protection schemes in future.

[Mrs Spelman]

With respect, I think the hon. Gentleman is confused about the figures. The Chancellor in fact gave the figure of 145,000 homes as a minimum to be protected during the spending review period—there was never any suggestion that that would happen by 2011.

I know that the hon. Gentleman has constituents in Chesterfield who are flood-affected. The Environment Agency is currently proceeding with the Avenue coking works remediation project, which is under construction. That should help to provide protection to more than 100 properties in his constituency.

[Karl Turner]

One key recommendation of the Pitt review was that the Government should increase spending on flood defences by more than inflation year on year. With the Government’s 27% cuts to flood defence budgets, have they turned their backs on communities such as mine in Hull East, which is still suffering very badly from the effects of the 2007 floods?

[Mrs Spelman]

Sir Michael Pitt’s review, which was commissioned by the hon. Gentleman’s party when it was in government, says that we

“should not simply assume that the costs of flood risk management will be met centrally…The Government should develop a scheme which allows and encourages local communities to invest in flood risk management”

schemes. The Government have launched a consultation on payment for outcomes, which will help to provide more flood defences to more communities in future.