Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What proportion of agricultural land owned by the Church of England is high-quality grade 1 and 2 farmland.

[Andrew Selous]

Approximately 35,000 acres of land owned by the Church Commissioners is high-quality grade 1 and 2 farmland, representing 39% of the overall agricultural portfolio. Information on diocesan land holdings is not held by the Church Commissioners.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Member for that answer. At the last Church Commissioners questions, he said to me that he strongly wanted to see more trees planted on the Church estate, but that most of the rural estate is high-quality agricultural land and is therefore not suitable. He has just said that 39% is high-grade agricultural land. Does that not mean there is an awful lot of other land on which they could plant trees and help meet the Government’s commitment to increasing woodland cover?

[Andrew Selous]

As I think I said at the last questions, I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue and, indeed, for returning to it today, and I genuinely welcome her scrutiny. More than 60% of our farmland is let on secure agricultural tenancies, with the rest on tenancies under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. Both of those limit our ability to intervene directly. However, we do encourage our tenants to farm sustainably and join environmental stewardship schemes to plant trees and hedgerows wherever possible. In addition, we are undertaking a natural capital assessment, which will provide a baseline and trajectory of progress towards achieving lower carbon outputs.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on bringing this Bill forward today. I am glad we are finally in a position where an animal sentencing Bill might actually become law.

Everyone will be talking about their dogs today. I do not actually have a dog, but I have a dog in my life, which is my mother’s miniature schnauzer, Teddy, although he is actually twice the size of an ordinary miniature schnauzer, which just shows that Teddy is above other dogs. I am constantly telling him that he is the best dog. We do not have dog birthdays in our family, we have dog “got” days, and tomorrow is Teddy’s 12th got day. Congratulations to Teddy, who I am sure will be watching on video later.

Before we had Teddy in our family, we had a bulldog called Buster when I was growing up, and that was why the case of Baby the bulldog particularly struck home with me. It originally inspired Anna Turley’s Animal Cruelty (Sentencing) Bill back in 2017 when it was brought to public attention. It was not just a horrific story of the bulldog puppy being abused—I think it was thrown down the stairs—but the fact that it was videoed and put online. The perpetrators clearly thought it was something they could boast about and joke about and that they would not be brought to justice for it.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

rose—

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think I know what the hon. Member is going to say, but yes, I will give way.

[Jacob Young]

I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to my predecessor Anna Turley for bringing forward a previous iteration of the Bill. I am glad we are here today.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I was going to say that I thought it was a little churlish of the hon. Member for West Dorset to not mention her, because she did so much work on this issue. I know he was not in Parliament at the time.

[Chris Loder]

The hon. Lady makes a very valid point. I would just like to say that I did not mention Anna Turley because my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) is here today and wanted to pay tribute to her directly.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Well, the hon. Gentleman did thank the hon. Member for Redcar, and he did not mention Anna, but let us not quibble over it. She does deserve a lot of credit for her indefatigable campaigning on this issue, and I have to say with no offence to the current hon. Member for Redcar that I miss her in this place.

The Government never really explained why they would not support that Bill back in 2017, and then we got bogged down in the process of bringing in a joint sentencing and sentience Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny—the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), is nodding away, because we both went through that process. It was basically all about the sentience side, and I would argue that it was about delaying the sentience side, which I will come on to later. There was no need for pre-legislative scrutiny of one clause that talked about sentencing.

We then debated another version of the Bill on 10 July 2019. I recall the Government saying then that it was really important to legislate as quickly as possible. The Bill went into Committee, and I was on that Committee. The Government wanted to get it done and dusted before summer recess, so they did not want to talk about any amendments or complicate things. There was a suggestion that there should be a more severe penalty for those who film themselves indulging in animal cruelty and post it online, partly as a deterrent, but also because such actions encourage other people to indulge in that behaviour. I must admit that quite a lot of 2019 is a bit of a blur to me. We did not know whether we were proroguing or nor proroguing, getting a Brexit deal or not getting a Brexit deal, having an election or not having an election.

That Bill did not become law either. The Government promised to legislate in autumn 2019, and then they called an election. I mean no disrespect to the hon. Member for West Dorset, but I do not see why, when this was in the Queen’s Speech, it has been left to a private Member’s Bill—it could have been Government legislation. I see the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) in his place. He was here when we debated this in 2019, and he joined me in saying that there was so much of this legislation—the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill was another example—where the Government kept saying, “We really want to do this, but we just don’t have time to bring it forward.” But there have been loads of days when we have been on a one-line Whip, having general debates. We could have got this legislation through in one day, and then everyone could have taken part, and by now it would have been law.

Although the Government will seek to get a lot of credit for supporting this Bill now, it could have become law in 2017 when Anna Turley first proposed it. That means that we have had three years of light sentences for the very worst animal abusers and three years of not being able to send out a strong message to potential abusers that they would face five years’ imprisonment. That deterrent has not been there, and that is a great shame. Having said that, I welcome the fact that we are here now. I hope that the accelerator will be pressed and the Bill will get through Committee quickly and through the House of Lords, and perhaps by year end it will be law.

While we are talking about the messages that are sent out and the importance of a deterrent, I think that children should be taught about animal welfare in schools. Far too many people, and particularly young men, think that the way to treat a dog is to be very harsh with it, to abuse it and to almost beat it into submission, as if that is the way to train a dog. There are others who abuse animals because they find enjoyment in it. Discussing animal welfare at an early age—particularly for children from families that do not have pets—would be really important in instilling the right behaviour and helping people to understand what owning a pet is all about.

I would not want to do anything to delay the Bill, but I hope that reports of a far more comprehensive animal welfare Bill are true, because they have been kicking around for quite a while—I see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), smiling. Animal welfare is about a lot more than being nice to puppies or pets generally. There seems to be a focus on what I would describe as the low-hanging fruit, which is the “being nice to puppies” end of the spectrum. It is great that we have legislated for things such as Lucy’s law and trying to crack down on puppy farming, although I understand from Marc Abraham, who promoted that campaign through Pup Aid, that there are still some concerns about loopholes, so there is a new petition about the need to tighten that up. Finn’s law was a really good step. A petition on pet theft was discussed earlier this week in Westminster Hall, and there are also debates about ensuring that the law on microchipping is enforced.

[John Spellar]

My hon. Friend rightly mentions microchipping. It appears that there has been very limited enforcement of that by the police. Does she agree that the Home Office ought to give clear instructions to police forces that this is the law of the land and therefore they need to enforce it? I suspect that the police will find that the perpetrators are often subjects of interest in other criminal matters as well.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right, and of course there is the whole question about how animal welfare is enforced at a local level and what resources that are made available. In the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, we have also debated the dangerous dogs legislation—the breed-specific legislation and things like that—and it really is a question of resources on that front.

As I said, there is a lot going on about being nice to dogs, in particular, and to pets, but at the same time as we talk about Britain having the highest animal welfare standards in the world we still allow hunts to flout the hunting ban. We repeatedly see stories of people basically getting away with chasing a wild animal and ripping it to shreds; they are not being prosecuted for that. Millions of game birds are raised in factory farms in France, Spain, Portugal and Poland and imported into the UK every year and shot in the name of sport. People will have different opinions on shooting as a sport, but I think we can all agree that the conditions in which those birds are raised in those factory farms and in which they are imported are very questionable, aside from the separate issue of driven grouse shooting, which we have discussed in Parliament recently. We are also allowing the “unscientific, inhumane and ineffective” badger cull, to quote the experts, to go ahead, with thousands more badgers due to be slaughtered this autumn.

We have also seen a failure to curb the unnecessary rise in animal experimentation and to address what leaving the EU means for the duplication of experiments if we are not subject to REACH, the EU regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. I always feel that I have to say this when I speak on this issue: I am not totally opposed to all animal experimentation. I have a niece with cystic fibrosis, and I would want to see whatever is possible done to procure medical advances that might help solve those genetic issues, but I think most people would agree that a huge number of unnecessary animal experiments are still being carried out. There is so much duplication and so little data-sharing, and that will become worse once we leave the EU because we will not be part of the same regime. That is a cause for concern.

The hon. Member for West Dorset mentioned live exports. Again, a promise made during the Brexit referendum campaign was that we would end the practice. I would argue that we could have done a lot more, because the EU set minimum standards that governed the export of live animals and we could have gone further. As I understand it, there were efforts in the EU led by, I think, Germany and the Netherlands, to reduce the number of hours for which animals could travel, but the UK opposed that in EU negotiations before the Brexit referendum. Before the general election, the latest news was that the Government were going to ban live exports for fattening but not for slaughter, and there was no real explanation as to why that was the case, but we may have moved on.

[Jo Gideon]

I particularly want to speak on live animal exports, because a few years ago I was a councillor in Ramsgate where we had the live exporting of sheep to the great distress of everybody who live there. People blamed the council and the Government, and it was very clear at that point that there was no possible intervention that even the council, as the owners of the port, could do to stop the practice because of the EU legislation. I think we have to acknowledge that it was something that we tried to act on and would have loved to have done more about, but that was impossible under EU legislation. This is a real opportunity for us now that we are leaving.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think that the hon. Lady is talking about a ban on live exports, but I am talking about the standards that govern those exports, the inspections of the trucks and the conditions in which animals are transported. My understanding is that we could have done quite a bit more to at least alleviate the issue. Now, although I am not looking forward to the end of the transition period for many reasons, I hope that one thing that the Government will legislate on very early in the new year will be a ban on live exports for both fattening and slaughter. I have read about some loopholes—for example, breeding chicks might not be covered—but I hope that there will not be exceptions.

[Chris Loder]

Does the hon. Lady agree that regardless of all the things have happened before, here and now we should just be stopping live animal exports? Will she join me in challenging the NFU in that respect?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think that it is wrong to blame the NFU, because I doubt the Government’s will on this. I know that the hon. Gentleman does not want me to look back, but we have to judge a Government’s intentions by whether their deeds match their words, and I have doubts.

As we are talking about the NFU and about farming let me say that I sat on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I chair the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology, and I spoke on Second Reading and served on the Public Bill Committee for two iterations of the Agriculture Bill, so I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Government Ministers say that there would be no lowering of standards in any future trade deals. However, as we saw with the vote the other week—I hope that the Chair of the Select Committee will back me up on this—the willingness to enshrine that in law was not there, so I think I am right to doubt any other promises that the Government may make when it comes to protecting animal welfare. On that, the NFU was certainly on the right page, along with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton.

[Chris Loder]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. The point that I am making is that those of us who do farm and are from farming backgrounds take this matter very seriously indeed. It is really important to note that it is in law today that chlorinated chicken is not permitted to come into this country, and it is exactly the same for hormone-injected beef—it is not allowed. I do not understand why the Opposition and others keep saying that it is, because it is a matter of fact that it is not. That is in legislation today. Does she agree that it is utter hypocrisy for the NFU on the one hand to lobby for live animal exports to go thousands of miles across Europe, yet on the other hand to accuse my colleagues and me of not caring at all about animal welfare?

[Kerry McCarthy]

When we return after the half-term recess, the Agriculture Bill will come back from the Lords, so we will have another opportunity to debate the amendments on protecting standards.

What this is all about is that under future trade deals this could all change, and we know that the Americans want to be allowed to export such products to the UK. We know that was a sticking point. We also know that the former Secretary of State for International Trade, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), was rather keen to open the doors to such exports—he and I were in Washington at the same time a couple of years ago, and we were both on social media saying very different things about chickens. I just do not agree with the hon. Member for West Dorset that there is not a risk from those products.

There are many other examples of animal abuse that we need to crack down on. We need to enforce the existing law and to strengthen it. We are still seeing undercover footage emerging from so-called high welfare farms, so red tractor farms. I mentioned this the last time I spoke on the subject in 2019, but a different case emerged over the summer, at Flat House farm in Leicestershire. The hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) said that the footage contained

“some of the most disturbing images I have ever seen… We cannot allow farms like this to operate in the UK.”

It was a pig farm, and we know that pigs are incredibly intelligent animals. I think they ought to be treated on a par with dogs. We saw that they had bleeding hernias, lacerations, bites and deformed trotters. There were dead and dying animals being dragged into the walkway and left there to rot. My concern about not having protection for standards in the Agriculture Bill is that that sort of industrialised farming, with very small profit margins, and therefore with corners cut and welfare standards not adhered to, will become the norm in this country. I do not want to see that happen.

The Government brought forward the dual Bill on sentencing and sentience because they had promised, during the discussions on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in late 2017, to legislate for animal sentience before we left the EU. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) had tabled new clause 30, which I seconded, and the Government voted it down. There was immediately an outcry—I would have preferred to have the support before the vote—because the Government had whipped their Members to vote against the new clause, and they were forced to say that they would legislate for this. They then brought forward the draft dual Bill, which went through pre-legislative scrutiny, and the sentience bit was not very well drafted. We have since had nothing. I brought forward my own animal sentience Bill—I have lost track of when; probably somewhere in 2019 when everything disappeared into the black hole. I was, for a very short while, on the Petitions Committee earlier this year, and I had the pleasure of speaking to a petition that received 104,000 signatures calling on the Government to legislate on animal sentience. My one question for the Minister is: what on earth happened to that legislation? A clear promise was made to this place and to the public that there would be legislation.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a great contribution to the debate. I am sure she agrees that the Bill is completely worthwhile, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on bringing it forward. However, does she agree that it is slightly disappointing that only one Opposition Member—herself—is contributing to the debate? While the Government side of the House is full of people contributing to the debate, it is slightly disappointing that the other side of the House is empty.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Perhaps my colleagues are all worn out from trying to get hungry children free school meals earlier in the week. The fact that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has the next Bill on the Order Paper may have something to do with the packed Conservative Benches. I say that as a former Government Whip for Friday sittings. That may be churlish of me.

I think I was reaching my peroration, as the former Speaker used to like to term it; the intervention that I very generously allowed has rather put me off my stride. I conclude by saying that I hope the Minister will answer the question on what on earth happened to the sentience provision. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset on bringing the Bill forward. I very much hope that it becomes law, and that we will soon see animal cruelty in this country treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

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

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What proportion of the Church of England’s estate is covered with woodland.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

In December 2019, the Church Commissioners had 53% of their global land, 27.5% of their UK land and 4% of their English land in forestry, and we also own pooled timber funds in the United States.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The 4% English cover puts it at the very bottom of the list. As I understand it, there are 105,000 acres in England. Why is the figure so low? Is there not a strategy to increase that cover, given that we know how important the role of trees is in natural carbon sequestration? Could the Church of England not do an awful lot better when it comes to England?

[Andrew Selous]

Like the hon. Lady, I strongly want to see more trees planted, and can tell her that so far this year we have planted 1.1 million trees in the UK, on top of the 2.6 million last year. We are always looking to plant more trees, but most of our rural estate is high-quality agricultural land, and is held in long-term tenancies to produce food.

Agriculture Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart]

I agree wholeheartedly. As I said at the last stage, flooding our market with cheap imports and cheap produce will have a disastrous impact on our farmers. We cannot claim to back British farming one day and not protect our farmers in law the next. I am conscious that since the Bill was last before the House the Government have made many verbal commitments on this issue, so why not put them into legislation? What is the justification for saying something outside this House if they will not enable it through legislation within the House?

We, as Members of this House, have a duty to act in the best interests of our constituents at all times. To do that, we must ensure that the food that our constituents eat, from the youngest to the oldest, is of the highest standard and that our agricultural industry—the cornerstone of our society—is protected in law. It is extremely disappointing that Lords amendment 18 was ruled out of scope. My colleagues and I would have supported it on the basis that it would allow this House to scrutinise trade Bills, their impact and the standards being allowed with our new trading partners. This House should be accountable for every food product imported into the UK.

Farmers in Northern Ireland, with a farming model largely based on family farms where the work is hard and the margins are by no means guaranteed, look at the Government’s reticence in legislating on standards with suspicion, and I share such suspicion. For the Government to demand the highest standards of their own farmers, at considerable cost, financially, socially and mentally, but refuse to make it law that importers will face those same demands is just bizarre. I urge the Government to think again. We need the Bill to allow our local Department to administer direct payments from 2021, and, as such, we will support it overall, but we do so in protest, and out of our farmers’ need to receive that much needed financial support.

In closing, let me touch on the amendments and the provision in the Bill relating to environmental standards. The farmers I represent and those I spoke to regularly are wholly committed to the highest environmental standards—standards that will far exceed those in many countries with which the Government will seek to do trade deals. However, in return for a focus on sustainable agriculture those farmers need the Government to recognise that they cannot do it alone. They need the Government to support them, and thus far support has fallen far short. That must be addressed. This House has a choice today. I will stand up for British farming and its world-class standards, and I hope that others will join me.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As I think you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you have often been in the Chair, I have been closely involved with the Bill at each stage of its seemingly interminable progress through the House. I spoke on Second Reading on both occasions, and I served on both Bill Committees, in this Parliament and the last. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak once again today to make the case for rewarding good stewardship of our land—I believe that is what the Bill does, for the most part—and for maintaining high standards in food production. Obviously, we are here to discuss why the Bill falls short on that front.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In our response to the Godfrey review, we set out our approach to dealing with bovine tuberculosis in the next five years. In response to the specific question, we look at epidemiological assessments in individual areas to see where particular strains are present in both badgers and cattle, and that drives the decisions about where culling is necessary.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

  The Minister’s earlier answer on deforestation simply was not good enough. Why are the Government only consulting on due diligence measures to cover illegal deforestation, given that we know that many of the activities contributing to deforestation, for example, in the Amazon, are legal and that Bolsonaro for one is relaxing legal protections? We do not need a consultation to tell us that UK companies should not be complicit in destroying the Amazon, so will the Minister look at and support my amendment to the Environment Bill, which would require due diligence across the board?

[George Eustice]

As the Minister said earlier, we have a consultation out at the moment, and people will no doubt respond to it. But the evidence we have is that actually many of these countries do have laws in place and the issue is a failure to enforce those laws, and that is why we have consulted on that basis.

Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Our oceans and seas are facing a devastating and diverse range of threats: overfishing, climate change, ocean acidification, dredging, plastic pollution and deep-sea mining. Modern slavery and human rights abuses are also all too prevalent in the industry. The Thai seafood sector is one such example. We need concerted global action on all those fronts, but I appreciate that it is not the purpose of this Bill to address them all. I was pleased, however, to see amendments passed in the other place, making sustainability a primary objective of the Bill and requiring remote electronic monitoring on all UK fishing vessels to ensure that they are adhering to standards and quotas. It was really disappointing earlier to hear the Secretary of State confirm that the Government will seek to overturn those changes in Committee.

I could say a lot about Brexit and the common fisheries policy and ignorance of how 55% of our quota is allocated to foreign vessels by the UK Government if I only had the time, but I will content myself with saying that theoretical legal freedoms over fishing rights are meaningless if we do not ensure that our fisheries are sustainable and that the fish stocks are actually there to fish. Fish stocks are a finite resource, yet fishing quotas are being set above scientifically recommended sustainable levels year on year. Estimates suggest that restoring fish populations would not only safeguard our marine life, but lead to £244 million a year for the industry and create more than 5,000 jobs. I support the Marine Conservation Society’s call for a legal requirement for all fish stocks to be fished at sustainable levels. The Minister will no doubt point to the fisheries management plans, but there is no requirement for a plan to be put in place even where the stocks are overfished.

As I have said, it was disappointing to hear the Secretary of State say that the remote electronic monitoring amendment will be overturned in Committee. Seabirds, porpoises, dolphins and whales are caught in fishing gear in UK waters in their thousands each year, but the true scale remains unknown because less than 1% of journeys conducted by UK fishing fleets are monitored. Just as we now have CCTV monitoring in all UK abattoirs, we need remote electronic monitoring of all UK fishing vessels to ensure that species are not mislabelled and that records of catches are legitimate.

Monitoring and enforcement are, of course, particularly important in our marine protected areas. The UK has called for the protection of at least 30% of the world’s oceans through the 30by30 initiative and there have been some flagship measures such as the Ascension Island marine reserve, which of course I welcome. However, those of us who have been in this place for quite a while will remember pledges to introduce an ecologically coherent network of 127 marine conservation zones and marine protected areas around the UK—work that was started by the previous Labour Government more than a decade ago and is still not complete. Indeed, there is every sign that the Government have no intention of completing it. As the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I was then a member as was the current DEFRA Minister in the Lords, said in its January 2019 report on sustainable seas, there is a risk of the existing MPAs becoming merely paper parks unless they are effectively managed and monitored, and that is simply not happening now.

The issue of supertrawlers has already been raised. Greenpeace estimates that, in 2019, supertrawlers spent nearly 3,000 hours fishing in UK marine protected areas. Shockingly, in the first six months of this year, the number of hours had already reached 5,590. After being contacted by more than 150 constituents about this, I wrote to the Secretary of State and I received a reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), on 19 August. That letter does not, to me, back up what the Secretary of State has said today in response to calls to ban supertrawlers. He hinted that the powers are already there and that that would happen, but that is not what the letter says. In fact, the letter barely mentions them. There was no concern shown about the sheer scale of their operations, the damage caused to marine life, the bycatch of endangered protected species and the impact on smaller independent fisheries, so I am afraid to say that I remain highly sceptical of the Government’s intentions.

To conclude, I want to re-emphasise the need to embed sustainability as a core tenet of the Bill. Sustainable fisheries management is vital both for the long-term economic future of our fisheries and for maintaining biodiversity. However, as it stands, as both the Marine Conservation Society and Greenpeace have said, the Bill is full of legal loopholes and lacking in environmental safeguards. This is a real opportunity to make sure that we protect our marine environment and protect our fish stocks. I would urge the Government not to waste that opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South Norfolk, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission was asked—

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

To ask the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, if the NAO will estimate the cost to the public purse of changing the date of eligibility for the coronavirus job retention scheme to 19 March 2020.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) [V]]

The National Audit Office’s work programme is ultimately determined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and it is regularly reviewed to ensure that it reflects current issues. Dealing with covid-19 is, of course, a major task of the Departments, on which the NAO will report. The hon. Lady may be interested to know that later this week the NAO will be publishing a report summarising the Government’s actions on covid-19 to date, which will provide the basis for further work. This first report will set out the main measures adopted under the Government response, including the coronavirus job retention scheme.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that response, which may well have answered my question—that is unusual. The point I wanted to flag up with him is that although the Government coronavirus support packages have helped a great many people, far too many have fallen through the gaps and, for one reason or another, are not getting the help they need. I therefore ask him to bring this issue to the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General, so that the NAO could look into the operation of these schemes to see whether they represented the best use of public money or whether lessons could be learned as to how we would approach an issue such as this if, God forbid, we ended up with another situation as serious as the current pandemic.

[Mr Bacon]

I would hate to be thought of as responsible for starting a new trend by actually answering the question, but as I mentioned in my initial response, the NAO is soon to publish this report, which will be just the first in a programme of work supporting Parliament in its scrutiny of covid-19. I am certainly happy to draw the hon. Lady’s concerns to the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The future work programme will include how the large sums that have been committed to the health and social care response, and indeed, to mitigating the economic impact, will be being spent, and the quality of that spending. It will be important for the NAO to review whether the money is achieving the intended impact, as well as how the risks of fraud and error are being managed.

Agriculture Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I wholeheartedly support new clause 1 and the other amendments seeking the same outcome: that there should be no lowering of standards on food safety, the environment and animal welfare as a result of any future trade deals, no undercutting of British farmers and no race to the bottom. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and I had more than a few differences of opinion when we first served on the Agriculture Bill Committee in the last Parliament—unlike him, I was allowed back for the second one too—but on this issue we are utterly on the same page. The same goes for the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on whose Select Committee I served in the last Parliament. I thought that he made a very good speech.

As time is limited, all I will say is this: it has been made abundantly clear that no one—not the farmers, not the environmentalists, not the public, not the consumers and not even Tory MPs—trusts the Government’s verbal assurances on this. It is not enough for the Minister to say that it will not happen; we want it in writing, enshrined in law.

I also support amendments on better labelling, procurement, baseline regulation, and fairness and transparency in supply chains, and the Opposition amendment on food security, which calls for a statement to Parliament every year so that we can end the scandal of food poverty. During the current crisis, organisations such as Feeding Bristol have done a tremendous job in my home city, trying to ensure that everyone in lockdown can get the essential food supplies that they need, and that no one, including children who no longer attend school, goes hungry. The voluntary sector has been brilliant, but our children should not have to rely on charity.

I will focus on amendments 18 and 19, which are tabled in my name. I thank the Landworkers Alliance for its work with the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology, which I chair, and for all that it has done to promote the amendments. I have had many emails from constituents in recent days urging me to back my own amendments, which I am obviously more than happy to do. Agroecology is a cause whose time has come. This pandemic has brought home to many people how dysfunctional our relationship with the natural world has become, with overconsumption, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, a food system that is broken, and birds and wildlife disappearing from our countryside and gardens.

I urge Members to read a recent report, “Feeding the Nation: How Nature Friendly Farmers are Responding to Covid-19”, which includes a quote from a farmer from Northern Ireland. He says:

“The current crisis provides people with time to reflect on the importance of food and farming to all humanity…Our food can only be sustainable and bountiful if it’s produced in harmony with the environment and wildlife.”

The Bill goes some way towards creating a better approach to farm subsidies and rewarding nature-friendly farmers. Despite being an ardent remainer, I will not shed a tear for us leaving the common agricultural policy. I broadly support the public money for public goods approach, but my concern is that it will allow farmers to cherry-pick.

What we need is a whole-farm system approach, so that across the farm, not just on the margins, farmers are using agroecological methods, focusing on getting the best from the whole landscape. Such measures include protecting soil health through no-till farming, which not only boosts food production but helps to sequester carbon; using integrated pest management rather than toxic pesticides; and protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity, so that we see a return of nesting birds, pollinators and beneficial insects to our countryside.

I will finish with another quote from a farmer in that nature-friendly farming report. He says:

“This crisis has made it very clear that we have lost the resilience in our food and farming system, with value being placed on ‘cheap’. This has led to degraded soils, diminishing wildlife and imports of lower food safety and farming standards. We need to shift back to a more sustainable, mixed farming system for resilience across the board.”

That is what my amendments seek to achieve, and I hope that the Government will listen.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) [V]]

While my constituency is primarily known as a former mining area, agriculture has always played an essential role in the local economy of Don Valley and continues to do so. Consequently, as the Government have confirmed that there will be no extension to the transition period, this Bill is more necessary than ever, and its passage today will provide farmers and many other individuals in my constituency with reassurance on several issues.

I appreciate that Members in all parts of the House are concerned about environmental sustainability in food production, as can be seen in the Opposition’s amendment 26. Yet this amendment is wholly unnecessary, as clause 1(4) already outlines that the provision of any financial assistance by the Secretary of State to agricultural businesses would have to take into account whether such assistance would encourage food production in an environmentally sustainable way. I am pleased with the addition of this requirement, as it will ensure that the often wasteful aspects of the common agricultural policy will become a thing of the past.

Furthermore, I am pleased that clause 17 will require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament at least once every five years on food security in the United Kingdom. This is particularly relevant at this moment in time. Like so many of my colleagues across the House, I have had dozens of concerned constituents email me about the lack of food in shops as a result of the panic buying that we unfortunately witnessed last month. Some were even scared that the UK would run out of food. Yet I am concerned that the Opposition’s new clause 4 would add such a large number of requirements to the Secretary of State’s reporting that the original purpose of clause 17 would be lost. I appreciate that the new clause is designed to encourage the consumption of healthy food, but clause 17(2)(e) already states that the data put forward by the Secretary of State will include statistics on

“food safety and consumer confidence in food.”

This would inevitably touch on aspects relating to the nutritional value of food and consumers’ confidence that the food available to them was healthy to consume.

This has been a robust debate and I have appreciated the diverse range of views that have been expressed across the House. I end simply by stating that this Bill has my full support and will ease some of my constituents’ environmental and food security concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but actually our clean air strategy has been described by the World Health Organisation as

“an example for the rest of the world to follow”.

With our £3.8 billion commitment, we are definitely leading the way.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

2. When the Government plan to implement their commitment to plant 30,000 hectares of trees per year by 2025.

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

8. What plans he has to increase tree planting rates.

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

Forestry is devolved, and we are working with the devolved Administrations to increase tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025. To drive up planting rates in England, we announced a new £640 million nature for climate fund, and we are developing an ambitious delivery programme. We will seek feedback and evidence on this through our new English tree strategy.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for that response. The Committee on Climate Change has said that we need to plant 32,000 hectares a year for the next 30 years if we are to meet the net zero target, but my understanding is that the Government’s recent announcement was that they would be planting 30,000 hectares in full by 2025, not per year. Can the Minister clarify that? The manifesto commitment was per year, but I think the Government have not now committed to that.

[Rebecca Pow]

Just for clarification, in our manifesto it was 30,000 hectares per year.

Environment Bill (Sixth sitting)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Pow]

I will give my speech then, Sir Roger.

The amendment would undermine the intention to ensure that we set targets via an open consultation process that allows sufficient time for relevant evidence to be gathered, scrutinised and tested. As part of that process, we intend to seek evidence from a wide range of stakeholder interests, carry out good quality scientific socioeconomic analysis, take advice from independent experts and conduct a public consultation, alongside the parliamentary scrutiny of the target SIs that I have mentioned many times before.

It is important that we get that right rather than rushing to set targets, so we do not want to bring the deadline forward from 31 October 2022. We have heard strong support for that approach from stakeholders, who are all keen to have time and space to contribute meaningfully to target development. It is critical that there is certainty about what our targets are by the time we review our environmental improvement plan. That is essential for us to set out appropriate interim targets—the ones that will get us to the long-term target—and consider what measures may be required to achieve both the interim and long-term targets. The review of the plan must happen by 31 January 2023, so to that end, the target deadline of 31 October 2022 works well.

The Committee should also note that 31 October 2022 is a deadline. It does not prevent us from setting a target earlier where we have robust evidence and have received the necessary input from experts, stakeholders and the public.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Can the Minister reassure us that the 2022 deadline does not mean that progress on those issues will not be made or that we cannot have interim targets before we reach the deadline? The whole thing is not being kicked off until 2022; we should still be doing our best to tackle the problem of clean air between now and then.

[Rebecca Pow]

The target deadline of 31 October 2022 works well for us to report back on our first environmental improvement plan three months later. We hope that some consultations will start during the process, so work will be under way to improve the environment, take advice, set targets and so on. Work will be under way to start the ball rolling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

I beg to move amendment 82, in clause 4, page 3, line 24, at end insert

“and,

(c) interim targets are met.”

This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets they set.

For the Committee’s further enlightenment, I can say that amendment 24 was in a different place in the provisional grouping. I landed my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West in it slightly by assuming that it would be debated under clause 2; it is actually a separate discussion. I am sorry to my hon. Friend for that, but he did a brilliant job under the circumstances.

Amendment 82 is deceptively small but makes an important point about interim targets in this piece of legislation. The Bill requires interim targets to be set on a five-yearly basis. In the environmental improvement plans, the Government are required to set out the steps they will take over a 15-year period to improve the natural environment. However, environmental improvement plans are not legally binding; they are simply policy documents.

Although the plans need to be reviewed, potentially updated every five years and reported on every year, that is not the same as legal accountability. Indeed, voluntary environmental targets have been badly missed on a number of occasions. The target set in 2010 to end the inclusion of peat in amateur gardening products by 2020 will be badly missed. The target set in 2011 for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to conserve 50%—by area—of England’s sites of special scientific interest by 2020 has been abandoned and replaced with a new target to ensure that 38.7% of SSSIs are in favourable condition, which is only just higher than the current level. A number of voluntary, interim and other targets have clearly been missed because they are just reporting objects; they do not have legal accountability.

Interim targets should be legally binding to guarantee that they will be delivered, and it is vital to have a robust legal framework in place to hold the Government and public authorities to account—not just in the long term, but in the short term. As things stand, the Government could in theory set a long-term, legally binding target for 2037, as suggested in the legislation, but then avoid having to do anything whatever about meeting it until 2036.

Amendment 82 would insert the phrase, “interim targets are met.” That would effectively place a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets that they set. In that context, it is no different from the provisions of the Climate Change Act, which I keep repeating as an example for us all to follow. Indeed, how the five-year carbon budgets work is an example for all of us to follow. They were set up by the Climate Change Act effectively as interim targets before the overall target set for 2050, which is now a 100% reduction; it was an 80% reduction in the original Act.

Those five-year targets are set by the independent body—the Committee on Climate Change—and the Government are required to meet them. If the Government cannot meet them, they are required to take measures to rectify the situation shortly afterwards. Therefore, there are far better mechanisms than those in the Bill to give interim targets real life and ensure they are not just exercises on a piece of paper.

It is important that the Secretary of State is given a duty to meet the targets, because that means that they will have to introduce mechanisms to ensure that they meet those targets. That is what we anticipate would happen as a subset of these measures.

We need to take interim targets seriously, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Indeed, it is not a question of whether we take them seriously; it is a question of how we take them seriously, in a way that ensures that they are credible, achievable, workable and play a full part in the process of getting to the eventual targets that we set at the start of the Bill.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will be very brief. I entirely support what my hon. Friend says about the need for interim targets. We have seen how the carbon budgets work under the Climate Change Act. There is real concern that the timetable might be slipping and that we might not manage to meet the commitments in the next couple of carbon budgets, but at least there is a mechanism.

I know that we have the environmental improvement plans, and that there is a requirement to review them and potentially update them every five years. However, there are so many strategy documents and plans. If we look at peat, for example, my hon. Friend mentioned the fact that the target set in 2010 for ending the inclusion of peat in amateur garden products by the end of this year will be missed. I know that the Government have a peat strategy, and there are various other things kicking around that are mentioned every time we talk about peat. But there is a lack of focus, a lack of drive and a lack of certainty as to where the Government are heading on that issue. I feel that if we had legally binding interim targets in the Bill, that would give a sense of direction and it would be something against which we could hold the Government to account—more so than with what is currently proposed.

Regarding my last intervention on the Minister, I was trying to be helpful. I was just asking her to give a reassurance that all the efforts to clear up our air and to tackle air pollution are going on regardless; it is not just about setting this target and whether we set it for 2022 or 2020. That is one particular measure. All I am trying to say is that I am looking for reassurances that the Government will still be focused on cleaning up our air. All she has to do is say yes.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling this amendment. Very quickly, I can give assurances that of course work is ongoing to clean up our air, because we have our clean air strategy. A great many processes are being put in place through that strategy to tackle all the key pollutants that affect air quality. The measures in the Bill come on top of that. I hope that gives the reassurance that was sought.

It is of course critical that we achieve our long-term targets to deliver significant environmental improvement, and this framework provides strong assurances that we will do so. The Bill has this whole framework of robust statutory requirements for monitoring, reporting and reviewing, combined with the Office for Environmental Protection and parliamentary scrutiny, to ensure that meeting the interim targets is taken seriously, without the need for them to be legally binding.

Interim targets are there to help the trajectory towards meeting the long-term targets, to ensure that the Government are staying on track. We cannot simply set a long-term target for 2037 and forget about it. Through this cycle—the reporting requirement and the requirement to set out the interim target of up to five years—the Bill will ensure that the Government take early, regular steps to achieve the long-term targets and can be held to account. The OEP and Parliament will, of course, play their role too.

To be clear, we have a little mechanism called the triple lock, which is the key to driving short-term progress. The Government must have an environmental improvement plan, which sets out the steps they intend to take to improve the environment, and review it at least every five years. In step 2, the Government must report on progress towards achieving the targets every year. In step 3, the OEP will hold us to account on progress towards achieving the targets, and every year it can recommend how we could make better progress, if it thinks better progress needs to be made. The Government then have to respond.

If progress seems too slow, or is deemed to be too slow, the Government may need to develop new policies to make up for that when reviewing their EIPs. They will not wait until 2037 to do that; these things can be done as a continuous process, and that is important.

The shadow Minister rightly referred back to the Climate Change Act and the five-yearly carbon budgets, as did the hon. Member for Bristol East. He asked why, if the carbon budgets were legally binding, the interim targets are not. That is a good question, but of course the targets in the Environment Bill are quite different from carbon budgets. Carbon budgets relate to a single metric: the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. These targets will be set on several different aspects of the natural environment.

As I am sure hon. Members will understand, that is very complicated; it is an interconnected system that is subject to natural factors as well as to human activity. Additionally, aspects of the natural environment such as water quality or soil health might respond more quickly to some things and more slowly to others, even with ambitious interventions. It is possible that the Government could adopt extremely ambitious measures and still miss their interim targets due to external factors.

What is important, in this case, is that a missed interim target is recognised and that the Government consider what is needed to get back on track. I am convinced that the system that is there to recognising that—the reporting, analysis and so on—will highlight it. There will be reporting through the EIPs, the targets and the OEP scrutiny, and the incorporation of any new interim targets or measures; it can all be looked at in the five-yearly review of the EIP. I believe there is a strong framework there already.

Finally, of course, the OEP will have the power to bring legal proceedings if the Government breach their environmental law duties, including their duty to achieve long-term targets. Of course, we cannot reach the long-term targets unless we have achieved the interim targets first. I hope I have been clear on that; I feel strongly that we have the right process here, and I hope the shadow Minister will kindly withdraw his amendment.