Back British Farming Day

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Theo Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was about to say that we are an island nation, so it is extremely important that we are self-sufficient as a country. That is why British fruit and vegetables are so important.

Let me take two examples, of apples and pears, which are two traditional fruit trees that have been found in our country for centuries. In domestic production, total apple demand accounts for only about 38% and the figure is 18% for pears. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs data shows that there has been a significant fall over the last 30 years, so I urge the Minister to work with farmers to reverse this declining trend.

On the other hand, strawberry production is a very positive story. Last Friday, I was lucky to visit Littywood Farm in Staffordshire, where they grow thousands of strawberries, raspberries and cherries every year. I was very interested to hear that they are using modern farming techniques to significantly increase their yield of soft fruit and that they have invested in state-of-the-art polytunnels to make the harvesting process more efficient. That means they have been able to extend the strawberry season from two months to seven months this year, so this is a fantastic, positive story that is being replicated across the country, and I note that since 2010, figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that domestic strawberry production has grown by almost 50%. In 2019, UK production reached a new record of 143,500 tonnes; Members will be pleased to know that that is about 350 million punnets of strawberries, so we will definitely have enough to feed the crowds at Wimbledon and our tennis matches next year, and more. This is a very good example of a model for fresh fruit produce items, which shows that it requires people and real investment.

I will now talk about some of the challenges that farming has faced. We are all aware of the role that weather and mother nature have in determining a crop’s success year on year. Does it rain at the right time? Is the sun shining when wheat is being harvested? Of course, this is very much out of our farmers’ hands, but so much of farming does fall within the Government’s remit, and I hope the Minister will agree that it is very important that decisions made in Westminster have a positive impact in our constituencies in the countryside. I would like to share a story that I heard last week from one of my Staffordshire strawberry growers, which is really quite devastating. They told me that 3,000 tonnes of strawberries were thrown away this year due to not having enough labour to pick the fruit. That equates to approximately £1 million of turnover loss by this farm in just one year. I know we all talk about statistics, but let us remind ourselves that this is fresh food that could have been eaten on British dinner tables this year, but is being thrown away and wasted. Those are not just destroyed strawberries: that represents lost jobs for fruit pickers, and lost income for our farmers.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I was vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for fruit and vegetable farmers for quite some time, and we had the then Farming Minister, who is now Secretary of State, come along to us some years ago. He was warned quite firmly by the fruit farmers there that this crisis was coming. Does the hon. Lady not agree that it should have been foreseen, and that steps should have been in place to make sure there was an adequate supply of agriculture workers so that we do not have food rotting in the fields?

[Theo Clarke]

The Government have taken steps to ensure there are seasonal workers, and if I make progress in my speech, I will come on to that topic shortly.

I was interested to read an industry-funded report last year that revealed that during the pandemic alone, labour costs have increased by 15%, which follows a 34% increase in wages over the past five years. I have heard from my farmers in Staffordshire that they are very concerned about the cost for growers: they have been told that they may have to pay for workers’ visas, travel, and covid tests in future. To put that in context, one of my local farmers told me that this could cost his business an extra £1,000 per seasonal worker, and on the basis that a farmer might employ 200 or 300 workers on their farm, that is hundreds of thousands of pounds of additional investment. A lot of my constituents will be asking, “Should fruit and vegetable farming remain? Is it economically viable?” That is why I urge the Minister to look into this issue.

It is very clear from the conversations I have had with local growers and businesses that it has been very difficult to recruit domestically. Very admirably, they worked hard to try to recruit domestic workers, but I was told that unfortunately, the manpower just is not there. I will give the Minister a particular example from my constituency, which I heard about at my meeting last week. One farm received 7,500 applications to be a seasonal worker. One hundred and fifty people were shortlisted, and 85 were offered jobs, of whom only 48 turned up. Thirty-two of those left after one week, 24 after two weeks and five after three weeks, so we can see that that farm put a huge amount of effort into recruiting workers, but the labour was simply not there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing the debate. I am sure we will all—including the Minister—profess to be united in our support for British farming, but over recent years not everyone has been prepared to back up their words with action, which is what British farmers need right now.

We have spent a long time in this place discussing the future of farming, through the passage of the Agriculture, Trade and Environment Bills. It was clear what the farming sector needed, which was for British standards to be protected, but the Government and many of their Back Benchers consistently voted down amendments to achieve that. That means that farmers have been badly let down by the Government. We see that now with the Government stalling over the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission and, in the trade negotiations with Australia, brazenly allowing unfettered access to Australian imports produced to unacceptably low standards, and trading away references to limiting global warming to 1.5°, just to get the deal over the line.

That is not the only way in which the Government are failing British farmers. We also see empty shelves in our supermarkets and food left to rot in our fields because of a lack of forward planning. We have a shortfall of 90,000 lorry drivers, as well as a critical shortage of agriculture workers, which we have just heard about. One producer in Scotland this week reportedly had to waste 3.5 million heads of broccoli and 1.9 million heads of cauliflower due to supply chain disruption. That is not just a scandal when farmers are struggling to earn a living and families are struggling to put food on the table. They will struggle even more if the £20 cut to universal credit and the rise in national insurance go ahead. It is also contributing to our environmental failure, given that 8% of global emissions are attributable to food waste.

Backing British farming should mean the Government pulling out all the stops to fix the supply chain shortage, rather than what I see as a shadow Transport Minister, which is Ministers across Departments burying their heads in the sand and just hoping it will sort itself out. On a more positive note, backing British farming also means supporting a sustainable agriculture mode fit for the future. It means embracing agroecological practices that ensure farming and nature benefit each other. It means pursuing rewilding, protecting biodiversity, promoting agroforestry, reducing reliance on pesticides and farming less intensively to protect topsoil. The Agriculture Act 2020, with its “public money for public goods” approach, goes some way towards promoting those practices. That is a welcome step in the right direction, but there is more to do on that front, to make those practices the norm, rather than the exception.

We cannot ignore the contribution of industrial animal agriculture to many of the issues we are facing, from the routine overuse of antibiotics and intensive systems to the destruction of the rain forest for cattle ranching and producing livestock feed. It was reported this week that in the Netherlands they are considering plans to force farmers to cut livestock numbers, due to the sheer scale of ammonia pollution. I am glad the NFU has thrown its weight behind the ambition for net zero but, if net zero is to become a reality and we are to have a genuinely sustainable food and farming system, all these issues must be addressed.



I am proud to be a Member of this House who backs British farmers through my words and my actions. I have consistently supported better scrutiny for trade agreements, pushed Ministers to embrace more sustainable models for agriculture, and called for action on the growing crisis in our supply chains. With both COP26 and the Christmas rush approaching, I hope that all Government Members, not just the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), will join me in pushing the Government to act.

COP26 Conference Priorities

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe.

We have come a long way since the Paris agreement, which was secured at a time before it was commonplace to have national targets for emissions. Six years later, many nations have set unilateral net zero targets and are beginning to publish plans to meet them. I am pleased that the UK has now significantly scaled up our nationally determined contribution to 78% by 2035, although, as the Minister will know, I have many criticisms about the progress we have made to date.

The problem is that not all countries are prepared to pull their weight. Many have yet to set net zero targets, have set targets after 2050 or have failed to present more ambitious NDCs ahead of COP26. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on small island developing states, or SIDS, I want to focus today on the impact on them. They are in the frontline when it comes to the consequences of climate change, whether that is rising sea levels, extreme weather events, ocean acidification or collapsing biodiversity. These are all existential threats to these states. If we act to save them now, we will all benefit from the global scale of the action that is implemented.

Nation-based solutions have a real role to play in both mitigation and adaptation, whether that is reversing the collapse of our natural carbon sinks or restoring the coral reefs, planting mangroves and so on. There is much more that could be done. As one of the Marine Conservation Society’s blue carbon champions in Parliament, I know that measures to protect the marine environment are particularly important for these countries. They are vital, given their dependence on the blue economy. I hope that the Government will seek to prioritise agreements on protecting and restoring blue carbon stores at COP26, along with stopping the global decline in marine biodiversity and protecting our oceans.

While mitigation is, of course, crucial, I am pleased that a day at COP will be dedicated to the theme of loss and damage alongside adaptation. SIDS often do not have the funds to pay for the work that is needed—for example, the shift to renewable energy or the work that has to be done to rebuild after natural disasters. The pandemic’s impact on tourism has made the financial situation much worse for many of them. The recent volcanic eruption in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines could cost up to 50% of GDP, which shows the inherent economic vulnerability of these nations.

I am pleased that there is a day dedicated to climate finance at the conference, which will be vital for less developed countries. In 2009, richer nations committed to mobilising $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020 for vulnerable nations, but that commitment has not yet been met, and much of what has been delivered has been via loans with standard repayment rates, which tiny little countries such as the SIDS would struggle to pay.

Developing nations saddled by debt are often trapped in a vicious cycle. Belize, for example, has defaulted on or restructured its debt five times in the past 14 years. The cut to the UK aid budget has already been mentioned, but many SIDS do not qualify for official development assistance because of the flawed metrics used, which do not take into account their vulnerabilities. We need a multidimensional vulnerability index, with looks particularly at climate vulnerability.

Finally, we need to make sure the voices of the small island states, including even the tiniest little islands, are heard in Glasgow. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us what arrangements are in place to make sure that is the case.

Grouse Shooting

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I took part in the 2016 debate, which I think it is fair to say was not the best-natured debate that we have had in this place—it is an issue that arouses strong feelings. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for at least trying to do justice to both sides of the argument. I wrote to both Mr Speaker and the then Chair of the Petitions Committee after the last debate, because I felt that the person supposedly speaking on behalf of the petitioners sneered at them and spent the whole time rubbishing their arguments. To be respectful to the petitioners, a Member who takes on the role of speaking ought to do a neutral job in outlining what a petition is about. The hon. Member for Ipswich did that. He slightly spoilt it at the end with the argument about posh people, because that is something that was wrongly levelled at opponents of foxhunting. I do not think that is the case, and certainly the people involved in Wild Justice are absolutely passionate about conservation and are genuine in their concerns about the impact of driven grouse shooting.

The petition was interrupted by the 2019 general election. Just after that election, I joined the Petitions Committee for a few months. We were trying to get the petition debated—I think we even had a date in the diary—but covid put paid to any possibility of that. It was a good move by the Chair of the Petitions Committee to ask me to interview Chris Packham instead, and there is a transcript of my putting questions to him that we perhaps could have debated back then, which people can read on the House of Commons Petitions Committee website. I will refer to quite a bit of what Chris says in that interview during the course of my speech.

Chris has had a huge amount of abuse for speaking out on these issues—from dead animals tied to the door of his house, to death threats and so on. Whenever I speak about shooting issues, I get abuse on social media. There was a guy who sent me pictures of bacon sandwiches and spare ribs every day for 11 days—he got bored because I was not paying any attention to him. It does get quite nasty, and Chris has been on the receiving end of a lot of that, which I think is very unfortunate. He has done brilliant work with young naturalists, particularly those from neurodivergent backgrounds, and I pay tribute to him for that.

In the interview—as I said, the transcript is available—Chris started by talking about the fact that we are now facing dual climate and ecological emergencies. People are increasingly worried about what he describes as catastrophic biodiversity loss, and driven grouse shooting produces a very unhealthy landscape. That is the background context to the concerns. I asked him what he thought of the Government response—when the petition gets to 10,000 signatures, there is a brief written Government response—and he said he would be polite, but then he described it as “pathetic and derisory” and said it

“showed a depth of ignorance and wilful blindness that we didn’t want or expect.”

If that is him being polite, I would love to see what he really thinks.

In the written response, he said, “At least the Government acknowledges the importance of the peatlands and moorlands habitat. Our uplands have 75% of the world’s remaining moorland and about 13% of the world’s blanket bog.” People do not actually realise how unusual the UK is in having that as a natural resource, and we should be managing this precious habitat not for the dubious benefits of grouse shooting, but in the interests of biodiversity and ecosystem services—as valuable carbon sinks, offering flood protection and so on.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that those two are not mutually exclusive?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I might go on to say why it is problematic in the way they are managed. One of the problems that the campaigners supporting the petition have had is that they have got to the point where they are saying that the only answer is a ban on driven grouse shooting, because the people who manage the moorlands have not been prepared to meet them halfway and to address some of the issues—for example, the hen harrier persecution, the burning of the heather and so on.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

On hen harriers, is the hon. Lady aware that there were 50 hen harrier chicks in 2006, zero in 2013 and 60 last year? It is really important that we look at the evidence and do not move to emotive arguments, and it is really important that we look at the facts. Does she not accept that there is work going on to improve hen harrier breeding?

[Kerry McCarthy]

There is work going on, but the hen harrier population declined across the UK and the Isle of Man by 24% between 2004 and 2016, with just 575 pairs remaining. Estimates suggest that there is sufficient habitat and food availability to support a population of over 2,650 pairs. We know that in England there is available habitat for more than 300 pairs, yet we are down to a very small number.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is the point: the numbers did decline from 2006 to 2013, but now they are on the rise again. It is really important that we look at the positive work that is going on in these areas rather than just thinking that it is all about the way that moors are managed.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The figures are nowhere near where they should be, in terms of what we could support, and it is not just—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

They are going up.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Member says that the numbers are going up, but they are going up from a very small base. As I say, the figures are nowhere near where they should be.

However, the fact is that raptor persecution is illegal and should not be happening, but it is happening on the grouse moors. Regardless of what the numbers are, the death of even one hen harrier is illegal and it should not be part of grouse moor management. That is the point that we should not lose sight of. It is not just a conservation measure to protect these birds; it is illegal to kill them.

Protecting this habitat could allow it to act as a valuable carbon sinks, offer flood protection and so on. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) might have something more to say about its role in flood protection. When I went to those areas after the floods of 2015-16, and when I have spoken to people after the more recent floods in those areas, I found real concern about the impact that the management of the moorlands is having.

As Chris Packham says, a healthy upland habitat should be covered with trees, blanket bog and deep layers of sphagnum moss that act like a great sponge, with deep peat storing all the water. However, the management of grouse moors directly militates against this, with the burning of the heather, the illegal raptor persecution that I have mentioned and the extermination of mountain hares. Chris Packham also spoke about weasels and stoats being caught up in spring traps, crows caught in cage traps, foxes caught in snares and endangered protected species also accidentally being caught up, and about the use of medicated grit and the leeching of toxins from lead shot into the groundwater. The bottom line is that all these measures to protect the grouse are not in the interests of conservation; it is just so that the grouse can then be shot.

Just as I do not accept the conservation argument, I do not accept the economic argument either. As Chris Packham says, the Government have never quantified this matter. The lack of data and the lack of transparency mean that we cannot say with any degree of accuracy how much money is going where, who is benefiting and who is not benefiting.

Chris Packham says that in Scotland a bit more information has been released. Nevertheless, if Scotland was thought to be the size of Ben Nevis, the economic benefit from grouse shooting there would be the size of a small banjo. That seems to be the official interpretation. I do not know why banjos have been brought into it; I do not know the difference between a small banjo and a large banjo. He is saying that, given that the area of land given over to grouse shooting in Scotland is between 12% and 18% of the total land, something far more worthwhile than the equivalent of a small banjo, in terms of economic benefits from that area, could be produced.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I hope the hon. Gentleman is going to explain why the banjo comes into it.

[Mr Djanogly]

I am not sure about banjos, but the premise that the hon. Lady gave before was that grouse management is there for shooting birds. I would say that that is not the case. Shooting is part of the environmental process that is going on. People who engage in grouse shooting involve themselves in environmental management. Just to kill all the grouse would mean, very simply, that there would be no grouse next year. The process has to be managed for the environment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I do not accept that. If we look at the way the moors are managed, we see that it is to create the largest possible number of grouse, it is to avoid anything that might be a threat to the grouse, including natural predators, and it is destroying a lot of other wildlife at the same time. All that is not so that people can stalk through the undergrowth with their gun, in the way that we might think of the country sport of shooting. It is so that busloads of people can come in, stand there and just shoot, shoot, shoot—it is very much a numbers game. I would not say that has anything to do with conservation.

The birds would not be there in those numbers if they were not being artificially managed, in the same way that we get the imported pheasants and partridges when it comes to that form of shooting; they are there to be shot. As I have said, the way that is managed is related to that intensity and the sheer number of birds that people want to produce, rather than it being about any concern for conserving the natural habitat. As I said, we just do not have the numbers. I do not know whether the Minister will come up with numbers to tell us who is benefiting from this and what contribution it makes.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady asks who is benefiting, but that is quite clear. There are gamekeepers in my constituency and hundreds of people are employed in the broader hospitality sector supported by shooting. Those people are benefiting. If the hon. Lady would like to meet some of the people who benefit economically from this activity, I would be delighted to host her in my constituency, where she could actually meet some of the people involved in the industry.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I suspect they are not benefiting to anything like the same extent as the people who own the land, many of whom are extremely wealthy. They are raking in money from this: I have seen the amount charged for some of the packages for people to come to these areas and take part in shooting days, and I suspect that not an awful lot of that trickles down to the local economy.

We need to see more action from this Government. It is very disappointing that they refused to accept Labour’s amendment to the Environment Bill on the burning of heather and peatlands—again, I think we will hear more about that from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam. I do not believe the measures introduced by the Government on 1 May go far enough. I note the comments of the Climate Change Committee in its latest report, which was released last Wednesday: that there is an increasingly urgent need to restore degraded upland peatland and manage it more sustainably. I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks can be done, because obviously, that comment from the Climate Change Committee came after any action that has been taken by the Government to date. I hope that in light of what the Committee has said, the Minister will consider talking to her colleagues in the Lords and strengthening the Environment Bill to address that concern.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. A great deal of Members wish to speak in this debate. If you make and take interventions, some of those people are going to be excluded—and we hope to get everybody in. We also hope to keep a good atmosphere in this debate, and not to replicate what I understand happened during the last debate on this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. Like her, I am a great fan of family hubs. The families and households commission will be looking carefully at how family hubs can help families to flourish and how churches could be involved in this important work.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to promote rewilding in new tenancy agreements.

[Andrew Selous]

I commend the hon. Lady’s continued focus on this vital area. Our new farm business tenancies strongly encourage good environmental practice, such as ensuring that watercourses are kept clear, hedgerows are well maintained and topsoil is preserved. We are reviewing tenancy obligations as our new environmental strategy is developed.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Member for his engagement with me on this issue—and his tolerance, in some cases. I am pleased to see that the commissioners will be carrying out a natural capital audit of their 105,000 acres of land. Can he say whether that is likely to result in recommendations on conservation and rewilding? If so, will he consider looking at the National Trust’s model tenancy agreements to see whether that is something that could be put in future tenancy agreements on the commissioners’ land?

[Andrew Selous]

I continue to be grateful to the hon. Lady. The Church wants to be an exemplar in this area. I can tell her that we expect the results of the natural capital audit shortly and will use it to see where we can enhance the environment of our rural land after we have listened to and collected the necessary data from our tenants.

World Oceans Day 2021

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie, and I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing the debate and on an excellent speech. I do not think there was anything in it with which I could disagree.

Sadly, World Oceans Day has increased in importance each year as our seas fall victim to the impact of climate change and our abuse of our planet’s precious resources. Like the hon. Lady, I have signed up to be a blue carbon champion in this Parliament as part of the project run by the Marine Conservation Society and Rewilding Britain. I also support the WWF Ocean Hero campaign. I pay tribute to all those groups for their campaigning, along with the likes of Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, Surfers Against Sewage, and Pew, to name but a few.

The challenges facing our oceans are huge and numerous. Rising temperatures, over-fishing, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, bottom trawling, bycatch and extreme weather events are wreaking havoc on our ocean environments, threatening the rich biodiversity within them and the livelihoods of those who depend on the blue economy. The prospect of deep-sea mining is also deeply alarming. Our oceans’ resources should be protected, not plundered, and I am pleased that we are proceeding with caution on that front, but I would be very concerned if, on the basis of the current evidence, any licences for exploitation were granted. I know that they are up for review soon, so I hope the Minister can offer us reassurance on that point.

As an island nation and with so much of the world’s seas and oceans falling within our territorial waters, the UK should lead the way on the issue. We hear talk of ambition with the 30by30 target, but what we have in reality is marine protected areas that are little more than paper parks, as the review by the Environmental Audit Committee found in the previous Parliament. As with the Fisheries Act 2020, the Government have been actively stripping marine protections out of legislation. I welcome the Benyon review and the announcement on highly protected marine areas, but I am slightly cynical about what that will mean in practice. I hope it represents an improvement on the marine protected areas.

As the hon. Member for North Devon said, we need a proper commitment to outlawing destructive practices such as over-fishing and bottom trawling, and we need sustainability to be put at the heart of our fisheries strategy, with the ramping up of monitoring and enforcement. The Government must also press forward with a ban on the detonation of munitions, as those detonations harm marine life, and the adoption of less damaging deflagration techniques. We need to think long term about ocean protection, setting out how we can reach net zero emissions in our marine activity and developing a blue carbon strategy to rewild our oceans, protect blue carbon stores and develop low carbon fisheries and aquaculture. I am glad that the Marine Conservation Society has called for exactly that today.

As chair of the recently formed all-party parliamentary group on small island developing states, I have been speaking regularly to nations that have contributed least to the changing of our climate, but which suffer the worst effects of that. Rising sea levels are an existential threat to many small island developing states, as are climate-related extreme weather events. Those nations rely heavily on the blue economy for food, resources and tourism, and they have been badly hit by covid and the closure of countries to tourism in the past year.

Small island states desperately need support for ocean conservation measures and climate change adaptation, including natural climate solutions such as restoring mangroves and coral reefs. During sessions of the group, it has been really interesting to hear that instead of giving money for the building of concrete sea barriers, it would be far better to rely on natural carbon solutions. Reforming access to climate finance and investing in the blue economy—for example, through debt-for-climate swaps and blue bonds—will be central to that.

This is a pivotal year for ocean protection with the convention on biological diversity, COP26, and the global ocean treaty being negotiated internationally. We know that our oceans have an immense capacity to heal themselves if they are given the space to breathe, but that requires us to be much bolder at home and abroad to ensure that those precious resources are protected and restored. When we talk about ocean protection, it is obligatory to talk about “Blue Planet”, which, as I never hesitate to point out, was made by the BBC’s natural history unit, based in Bristol. As Sir David Attenborough said last year:

“We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us.”

Environment Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government’s proposals on planning reform will actually make the proposals in the Environment Bill on net gain and protecting habitats far more difficult, in that they are a developers’ charter and the wishes of local people are likely to be overridden?

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why Labour is arguing for a comprehensive, joined-up approach from Ministers, in which DEFRA’s policies align with those of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and with Treasury funding. They do not do so at the moment; we have a developers’ charter that does not match the protections that the Minister is talking about. I believe the Minister when she says she is passionate about this, but I just do not see that read-across in Government policy. The peripheralisation of DEFRA in the Government debate is not helping to protect our habitats when other Ministers are able to get away with habitat-destroying policies and seemingly all we have is a Minister patting himself on the back for this Bill. That is not enough, and I am glad my hon. Friend raised that example.

I am worried that the Government’s approach to species conservation is seemingly ad hoc and represents an unambitious approach that seems to have overtaken DEFRA. Labour’s amendment 46 demands a strategic approach to species conservation through protecting, restoring and creating habitats over a wider area to meet the needs of the individual species that are being protected. It acknowledges the vital role that species conservation can play in restoring biodiversity and enabling nature’s recovery. Indeed, it builds on Labour’s amendment to the Bill tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the last stage that would see a nature recovery by 2030. I welcome the steps forward on that but I would like to see more detail, because at the moment it seems like a good press release, but without enough action to ensure that the delivery is ensured.

Mr Speaker, you will know that I am a big fan of bees. I should declare an interest because my family keep bees on their farm in Cornwall. Since 1900, the UK has lost 13 of its 35 native species of bee. Bees are essential to our future on the planet, to pollinating crops and to the rich tapestry of biodiversity that depends on them. Bee health is non-negotiable; we must do all we can to protect our precious pollinators. On the first day on Report, the Conservatives voted down Labour’s amendment that would have restored the ban on bee-killing pesticides; on day 2 on Report—today—will the Government back or defeat Labour’s amendment 46 on species conservation? This really matters because bees really matter, and I think the concern is shared across party lines. The steps that the Minister has taken to support sugar beet farmers, especially in the east of England, is welcome. I want to support sugar beet farmers as well—I want to support British agriculture, which is especially needed given the risk of an Australian trade deal—but lifting the ban on bee-killing pesticides is not the answer. It will not help us in the long term.

Like many campaigners and stakeholders, we on the Opposition Benches are concerned that the overt focus on development in the explanatory narrative on clause 108 supplied by the Government suggests that it could fall into a worrying category. Labour’s amendment 46 seeks to correct that by putting nature-recovery objectives, underpinned by evidence, into the heart of the strategies and ensuring that each one abides by the mitigation hierarchy, starting with trying to conserve existing habitat and then moving to habitat compensation only when all other avenues have been exhausted. That will ensure that each strategy serves to recover a species, rather than greenlighting the destruction of existing habitats that are important to that species, in return for inadequate compensation elsewhere. Our amendment is common sense, it would strengthen the provisions in the name of the Secretary of State and, if passed, will show that this House cares about getting the most out of the Bill. I hope the Minister will give additional attention to those provisions when the Bill enters the other place.

On the other amendments that have been tabled on the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations and Government new clauses 21 and 22, I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—she and I share an awful lot in common on this matter—because on the face of it we are minded to agree that we cannot rely on the Government not to dilute the environmental protections currently in the nature directives. I heard what the Minister had to say and think her heart is in the right place, but I want to see things put in law. She may not be a Minister forever and we need to make sure that whoever follows her will have the same zeal and encouragement. I am afraid that unless it is on the face of the Bill, there is a risk that that might not happen.

We support amendments 26 and 27, tabled by the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on deforestation, the extension of due diligence requirements to the finance sector and the strengthening of protection for local communities and indigenous peoples. That is a good example of a Select Committee Chair proposing something meaningful and important that might not always get the headlines. He is playing an important role and we encourage power to his elbow.

In conclusion, the Bill has been stuck for too long. I had hoped that the delay in bringing the Bill forward caused by the Government would have altered the Government’s pedestrian approach and resulted in bolder action, with more amendments to the Bill to take on the concerns of non-governmental organisations, stakeholders and, indeed, the constituents we all represent. But on air quality, it fails to put WHO targets into law. It fails to require enough trees or seagrass to be planted. It fails to look at our marine environment in a meaningful way. On targets, it is weak, and the difficult decisions required to hit net zero seem to be parked for future dates. It is absent on ocean protection, which is surely a key part of our environment as an island nation.

Labour’s amendments would strengthen the Bill. In all sincerity, I encourage the Minister to look closely at them, because they are good amendments. But that is precisely why I fear that the Government will Whip their MPs to vote against them. I do not think that Ministers want a strong, landmark Bill; I think they want a weak Bill that allows them the freedom to park difficult decisions, delay urgent action and act in their own best interests rather than the planet’s. This Bill is enough to look busy—to do something—but not enough to make meaningful change. It is in that grey area that a real danger lies: enough to convince the public that something is being done without fundamentally changing the outcomes at the end of it—to lull people into a false sense of security that change is happening and does not require the difficult decisions that we all in our hearts know are coming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I would like to begin by praising the work of Wild Justice, whose members are far from ill- informed, absolutely passionate about nature conservation and do some excellent work. I was waiting for the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) to mention Labour’s amendment on peat burning. I know that is in the next group, but it was quite surprising that he—

[Bill Wiggin]

I ran out of time.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Yes, well, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can come back for the next debate and make an intervention to show that he supports that amendment. [Interruption.] He can intervene on me, of course.

I would like to speak primarily in favour of amendments 26 and 27, tabled by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish); I believe that birthday congratulations are in order today. Deforestation, which destroys vital carbon stores and natural habitats, is both one of the central drivers of the climate emergency and a driver of the devastating decline in biodiversity. As we have heard, it also plays a role in displacing people from their land and leads to modern slavery and exploitative working practices. It is clear that we need a no-tolerance approach to any deforestation in our supply chains, legal or illegal.

The Bill comes before us in a slightly better state than its many previous incarnations due to the Government’s new proposals on due diligence in deforestation, but unfortunately they fall far short of what is needed. The primary issue is that they act only to eliminate illegal deforestation. That ignores the fact that some nations, most notably Bolsonaro’s Brazil, are chipping away at legal protections on deforestation and enforcement mechanisms to identify and prevent it. For instance, the Brazilian Parliament is set to approve new legislation dubbed “the destruction package” that will accelerate deforestation in the Amazon by providing an amnesty to land grabbers and allowing deforestation on indigenous lands for major construction projects. Preliminary WWF research shows that 2 million hectares of forest and natural ecosystems could be legally deforested in the Brazilian territories that supply soya to the UK.

This Bill is a unique opportunity to send a message to those states that fail to act to protect our planet. That is why I urge the Government to think again and to strengthen their proposals to include legal deforestation to show true climate leadership ahead of COP26. I am sure that, if we do not accept these amendments today, the noble peers in the other place will have strong words to say about that, and I hope they will send the Bill back to us suitably amended.

Amendment 27 would prevent financial services from working with firms linked to illegal forest-risk commodities. We cannot claim to be tough on deforestation if we allow British financial institutions to support firms linked to it. These damaging investments are deeply embedded in our economy and sometimes even in our own personal finances. Shocking analysis from Feedback published today shows that even the parliamentary pension fund has investments in companies such as JBS Investments that have been repeatedly linked to deforestation. It is not good that we are being drawn into complicity in this situation through our parliamentary pension fund. I therefore hope the Government will accept these amendments and begin to show global leadership.

I very much support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench, including new clause 25 calling on the Government to prepare a tree strategy for England. We are trying to do this in Bristol in terms of doubling the tree canopy and with our One City ecological emergency strategy, which I encourage other cities and towns to emulate. I also support amendment 22, which would embed the net gain of habitats in perpetuity. I urge colleagues across the House to accept these amendments. If we fail to do that today, as I said, I am sure that the noble Lords in the other place will take up these causes with their customary vigour.

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this landmark Bill, which aims to ensure that the environment is at the heart of Government policy. I am pleased that it intends to better conserve our environment, tackle biodiversity loss and regenerate parts of our great countryside.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for his tireless efforts on environmental issues, including his work on food labelling and environmental sustainability. I was very proud, in the previous Parliament, to co-sponsor his Bill on that matter, much of the contents of which are set to come back to this House later today. This, along with new clause 4, demonstrates that so much more can be done to strengthen our commitments to the environment by protecting vulnerable species. I welcome the Minister’s statements today and her commitment to review ways that we can reverse the decline in hedgehog numbers.

I think we can also help the population to make informed choices. Recently, I visited Rodbaston College in my Stafford constituency. I was delighted to tour the animal zone, where a number of my young constituents are learning to work with a variety of animals, learning how to protect our native species such as the otter and learning to train for careers in conservation. New clause 4, which aims to insert hedgehogs into the Bill as a protected species, is an important reminder of how interconnected nature is, and the important need to retain and to protect species such as the hedgehog.

It may surprise some people to know that a key factor in the reduction of the number of hedgehogs is in fact keeping gardens too tidy and the lack of wildlife corridors in fenced-in gardens. Last week, I was pleased to re-form the all-party parliamentary group for fruit, vegetables and horticulture, which I co-chair, and I led a conversation with Alan Titchmarsh, in which we discussed how gardeners can work with nature to improve habitats for other wildlife, including hedgehogs. New clause 21 aims to protect habitats better. I think we can all do our bit by providing wildlife corridors and creating hedgehog homes, as I have in my own garden. No Mow May is an initiative that is very popular with my constituents: people do absolutely nothing to their lawn in May, which can significantly improve the ecosystem of their garden. The wonderful thing about nature is that it wants to recover. We just need to give it the opportunity to do so.

I believe that the measures in this Bill lay the groundwork to significantly improve our environment. The Bill, particularly new clause 21, clearly demonstrates our Government’s commitment to protecting the unique and diverse habitats that we have in Britain. I was pleased recently to visit the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust’s Wolseley Centre to see at first hand its project to replicate a wide variety of habitats in Staffordshire, including woodlands, ponds, and wet and hay meadows. These habitats are providing homes for a range of flora and fauna. The measures in the Bill ensure that we can protect these for generations to come.

One of the reasons these steps are so effective and increase biodiversity is that we are helping other species in the ecosystem to thrive, which in turn leads to a richer and more resilient environment. That is why I believe it is so vital that we reverse the biodiversity loss we have already suffered in the UK, and that is why I welcome the focus in the Bill. I welcome the Bill along with the new clause I have discussed due to their aim to conserve our environment and increase biodiversity. We need to protect and improve our precious environment for generations to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome for the housing commission report—a sentiment I very much share. The new housing executive team, led by the Bishop of Chelmsford, will focus on implementing the commission’s recommendations wherever we are able to do so across England, hopefully including east London.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What plans the Church of England has to make the recently commissioned map of the landholdings of the commissioners, dioceses and parishes publicly available.

[Andrew Selous]

I reassure the hon. Lady that the process initiated by the archbishops’ housing commission of mapping as much of the Church of England’s land as possible has begun. It includes not just the commissioners’ landholdings, but land owned by dioceses and parishes, as well as glebe land.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for that response—it feels like we are starting to get somewhere. As he knows, I am keen for there to be transparency, because it will help campaigners identify sites for rewilding, agroforestry, social housing and other public goods. Accessing maps of all the land held by the Church Commissioners from the Land Registry would cost £37,428. Will he commit to making that information publicly available and free of charge? Will that be on the agenda at the General Synod, which starts tomorrow?

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady’s intervention is timely, as the housing commission report has been timetabled for debate at the General Synod’s July session. The Church Commissioners are in close contact with the housing executive team, who are implementing the housing commission’s recommendations, about their plans for the future ownership and use of this map.

Offshore Wind Farms: Unexploded Ordnance

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

A number of constituents contacted me about this issue last year, so I am pleased that the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) managed to secure the debate.

Offshore wind is absolutely essential to our efforts to decarbonise the UK grid and combat the climate emergency. Although I welcome the Government’s commitment to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030, and the funding package announced last October, we need much more sustained financial support and real leadership from the Government if we are to maximise the true potential of wind power as a clean energy source and promote green jobs and enterprise for the UK supply chain. We still need to see much more from the Government on a green recovery package to take us along that path.

As we have heard, the unexploded ordnance in British waters—the figure I have is 500,000 or so items—remains a considerable threat. That terrible legacy of two world wars is not just an obstacle to the construction of offshore wind farms, but a danger to marine life, so it is vital that we safely clear those mines. We cannot let their detonation come at the expense of biodiversity and marine life; we need to identify environmentally sensitive ways to clear them.

The traditional method of detonating the explosives can prove extremely damaging, as we have heard. The images on the Stop Sea Blasts website, which I congratulate on its campaign, are shocking, as are the reports about the mass stranding of pilot whales, the death of porpoises, and how detonation deafens many marine mammals, confusing their navigation systems and causing long-term harm. The blasts also spread toxic chemicals into our oceans, further damaging marine life.

It does not have to be that way, however: there are deflagration methods that burn out the explosive content of mines and cause considerably less damage to surrounding marine life. The Government have stated on the record that they are investigating deflagration as an alternative to detonation. The first phase of the ongoing study by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has shown positive results, so I hope that we see a shift to that method as soon as possible, and I would welcome an update on that from the Minister.

Despite their boasts, the Government’s record to date on marine conservation in UK waters is pretty woeful. They have really dragged their feet on creating the ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas that we need, which was first set in motion during the last days of the last Labour Government. The MPAs that have been created are essentially paper parks and offer no significant protection to marine life. The Government recently stripped out of the Fisheries Bill amendments promoting conservation and marine stewardship. With those past failures in mind, we need a firm commitment from the Minister that the Government will act now to protect our marine life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to increase public transparency of its landholdings.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

The Church Commissioners have been working through the process of registering their land holdings with the Land Registry, which can be searched publicly. In addition, on page 81 of the Commissioners’ annual report there is a list of the 20 largest real estate holdings.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

When I met the Commissioners, I was told that they did not have comprehensive digital maps of their lands that they could publish. However, a recent report from the Archbishop of Canterbury recommended that the Church map all of its land holdings by using the Good Steward Mapping Tool. I note that its website features digital maps of the Church Commissioners’ lands. In the interests of transparency, will the Commissioner make those maps public?

[Andrew Selous]

As part of the work of the Archbishop’s housing commission, the Church has indeed commissioned a draft map of the land holdings of the Commissioners, dioceses and parishes, to improve planning and joined-up working between all parts of the Church. This is work in progress, which is currently being trialled by a number of dioceses.

Environment Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

A number of my constituents have contacted me to stress that the Office for Environmental Protection should be an independent and powerful body capable of ensuring that the Government uphold environmental laws on everything from plastic pollution to air quality. They are concerned about clause 24 of the Bill and have pointed out that, if the Government have the power to tell the Office for Environmental Protection how to do its job, the office cannot be truly effective; I very much share their concerns. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has remarked that it is

“essential that every step is taken to ensure the Office for Environmental Protection is as independent from the Government as possible, to give the public confidence that the Government will be properly held to account on its duty to protect the environment.”

I therefore support amendment 23, which would delete clause 24.

The quality of the air we breathe is vital to our wellbeing. One of my constituents wrote to me last week to say that air pollution is a daily issue for her and others like her suffering with lung conditions. She told me how, on days when air pollution is high, her symptoms can flare up so badly that she is unable to leave her home. The Government have already committed to adopting a new binding target for PM_2.5 through the Bill. However, as Friends of the Earth has pointed out, the Bill does not set a minimum level of ambition or a deadline for its achievements. Amendment 25 is intended to set parameters on the face of the Bill to ensure that the PM_2.5 target for air quality will be at least as strict as the 2005 World Health Organisation guideline of below 10 micrograms per cubic metre, with an attainment deadline of 2030 at the latest.

I now turn to the matter of bees. I pay tribute to the work of Flourish at Ford Way in Upton for the work it does in keeping hives and producing excellent honey. More than 50,000 people have signed The Wildlife Trusts’ petition urging the Prime Minister to overturn the Environment Secretary’s recent authorisation of the emergency use of a bee-killing pesticide for farmers to use on sugar beet crops in England. That shows the real strength of public feeling on this issue.

Amendment 39 would require Ministers to allow parliamentary scrutiny of exemptions granted to allow plant protection products banned under retained EU law, such as neonicotinoid pesticides, where they are likely to impact bees and other species covered by an environmental improvement plan. In conclusion, I urge Members to back these key amendments to ensure the independence of the Office for Environmental Protection, improve air quality and protect bees.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I am glad that this Bill has finally returned to the Commons after months of delay. It has been a frustratingly long time since I took part in prelegislative scrutiny as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and it is nearly a year since I attended the first meeting of the Public Bill Committee. We are now told that we need to wait months more for the second day of Report stage and for the Bill to become law. The Bill should have been in place before the end of transition. Can we even be sure now that it will be in place before COP26? There is absolutely no excuse for the Government’s laxity, and one can only attribute it to a lack of ambition and urgency in tackling the nature and climate emergencies.

Leaving the EU without a fully functioning, properly resourced and independent Office for Environmental Protection that can take public authorities to court over the most serious breaches of environmental law leaves a regulatory gap, which so many of us warned against. We were promised that the Office for Environmental Protection would be located in Bristol, with the creation of 120 jobs. That was publicly reported, and I was told it by Ministers on more than one occasion, yet the Minister has today announced without a hint of shame—in fact, with more than a hint of smugness—that the OEP will be based in Worcester. She can rest assured that I will be seeking an explanation from her as to why this hugely disappointing and, given Bristol’s record, inexplicable decision was made.

This Bill is not all it could be and needs to be strengthened. Labour’s new clause 9 would place firm duties on officials to achieve and maintain biodiversity, human health and sustainable use of resources. New clause 1 would put a duty on public officials to act in accordance with environmental principles. Again, we were repeatedly told during prelegislative scrutiny that a policy statement on environmental principles would be published imminently, so where is it, or was that just another ploy to stave off awkward questioning at the time?

New clause 5 would set the equivalent of the net zero target for tackling the decline in nature by 2030, to begin to reverse the devastating losses we have seen in recent decades. We need such protections in law because, as we have seen repeatedly, the Government’s actions do not always match their words. For example, amendment 39, which would allow parliamentary scrutiny of the use of harmful pesticides such as bee-killing neonicotinoids, was tabled in response to the Government’s emergency authorisation of the use of those pesticides. Labour will always back good British farming practices and farmers but, faced with a devastating decline in biodiversity and our bee populations, we cannot uncritically give the green light, without scrutiny, to the use of harmful pesticides.

To conclude, the Bill needs to be better, the OEP needs to be stronger, and we need proper environmental governance in place without further delay. The natural world is in crisis and we must do all we can to address that, not just the bare minimum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Something is wrong with the sound. [Interruption.] It is not possible to go to the next person until we stop the video link that is not working. Is somebody listening to me? I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for the system not working properly and for him not knowing that it was not working. We will now go to Kerry McCarthy.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

Labour’s new clause 8 would require the Secretary of State to take account of the waste hierarchy. From food waste to plastic pollution, the starting point should be to prevent waste from occurring in the first place. I hope that when this Bill reaches the other place, we will further debate our global carbon footprint and the need to bring proposals to COP26 to measure consumption, not just production. Promoting the circular economy should be at the absolute heart of any green recovery package. At present, we have disincentives to send waste to landfill but very few mechanisms to encourage compliance further up the hierarchy, and virtually no enforcement either, because the Environment Agency simply does not have the resources to do so.

Turning to the amendments on air pollution, we have heard about the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, and we also know that covid has left many people extra-vulnerable with long-term damage to their lungs. As we mark today the horrific milestone of over 100,000 covid deaths and many more infected, I urge the Minister to think again on this. I support adopting the target on PM_2.5; the suggestion that it would prevent higher ambition is ludicrous.

The Government have for too long tried to pass the buck to local councils; what we need is a comprehensive national strategy on air pollution to prevent any further tragedies. We also need urgent action from the Government on their decarbonisation of transport plan. I do not get any sense at the moment that the Government are joining the dots.

Finally, on chemicals and animal testing, with the Prime Minister suggesting in his first post-Brexit deal interview with The Telegraph that chemicals was one area where the UK could diverge from EU regulations, it is hardly surprising that people are deeply worried by the Secretary of State being given such sweeping powers to amend the legal framework. It leaves us wide open to the risk of damaging deregulation as a result of trade deals with countries with weaker systems and lower standards such as the United States of America, and the risk of the dumping of products on the UK market that fail to meet EU regulations. Amendment 24 would ensure non-regression from REACH, the EU regime, and allow scope to exceed those standards. A recent European Court of Justice ruling has reaffirmed that under REACH the principle of animal testing as a last resort must be fully respected and it is good that this is included as a protected principle in the Bill, but this is not reflected in current figures for animal testing; there is far too much duplication of testing and far too little data sharing. New clause 18 would require the Secretary of State to set targets to reduce animal testing and the suffering experienced by animals as a result, and I would thoroughly support that.

Let us not just agree to keep our current standards in this Bill, but try to raise our ambitions too.

[Bill Esterson]

The film “Dark Waters” shows just what goes wrong, with the disastrous consequences for human life, animal life, plant life and pollution, where there is a lack of regulation in the chemicals industry. Mark Ruffalo brilliantly played the lawyer who took on the might of DuPont and won on behalf of so many who were disadvantaged.

Of course, in this country we benefit from the highest chemical standards in the world—the previous regime made sure of that—and the industry rightly wants to maintain those standards and indeed build upon them. The industry in this country is worth £31.4 billion in exports and employs 102,000 people in well-paid jobs, and chemicals are in everyday products; in the Liverpool city region they are part of our car manufacturing sector and we have many fine chemical industry companies, including Blends Ltd and Contract Chemicals just a few miles outside my constituency. They want to maintain those high standards and they want to build on them; they want to build on them so that new products and services can be developed, and so that innovation in the recycling of plastics can be enhanced. To deliver on that agenda, they need the support of the Government through this Bill.

Unfortunately, we have already seen standards weakened through the changes to UK REACH, and powers in this Bill will give the Government the opportunity to further reduce them, leaving open the prospect of dumping lower-standard products, undermining the excellence of the industry in this country.

Industry here wants no divergence; it wants to solve the problem of the £1 billion cost to access the database that businesses need to be able to continue producing in this country. Unless these problems are resolved, we will see an impact on that £31.4 billion of exports, with companies given no choice but to move their manufacturing capacity to the continent of Europe.

There is much at stake here; there is much at stake in maintaining and enhancing those standards for human health, for animal health, for plant life and for British jobs. The Minister said that she has a good relationship with the industry. She can demonstrate that good relationship by supporting amendment 24.