Motorcycling: Government Support

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Bill Wiggin

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on securing the debate. We have heard a lot of enthusiasm from the bikers in this room; it is clearly something that they feel strongly about. I confess that I have never had the opportunity to ride a motorbike.

[Bill Wiggin]

We can put that right.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have been invited to Motorcycle Live in December in Birmingham to have the opportunity to ride some of the new electric bikes, so I may decide to do that. Former Member Hazel Blears, who I think is 4 feet 10 inches—I am not tall, but she is considerably shorter than me—was a keen biker, which shows that it can be done. Perhaps I should take up the challenge.

I will flag up a number of issues. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked about road repairs and presented a rather rosy picture of the amount of funding. It is important for motorcyclists that we keep roads in a good condition, but the money has been cut. The Government promised £1.5 billion to repair damage on roads across the country in the financial year 2020-21, but that was cut to £1.125 billion in the following financial year. Pothole funding was due to be cut by an average 23%, and overall total spending on roads maintenance would drop by an average 22%.

We can compare that with the massive Government road-building programme. It is important that we should not just be looking at building new roads, but at making sure the roads we have are kept in good condition. The insurance industry has raised that point with me. The vast majority of the claims it pays out are caused not by driver error but by the condition of the roads.

As it stands, it will take 11 years and £11 billion to clear the backlog of potholes. On National Pothole Day in January this year, the Chancellor tweeted,

“enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone...”

He was boasting about how much money is going into addressing the problem, but we could be marking National Pothole Day for quite some time to come at the current rate. Perhaps we will get some good news about road repair funding tomorrow.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that safety is incredibly important. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke about electric motorbikes, which I will come to a bit later. He also spoke about the smell of petrol and his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), mentioned the noise. Those things are part of the thrill, as motorcycle organisations have said to me. I totally get that, but when a cyclist is in that little space in front of the cars at the traffic lights, sometimes people on motorbikes do not act as responsibly as they could and are not aware that bike users are more vulnerable than them. For the cyclist, they have a bigger vehicle pushing in front of them, and the smell is not great. The sooner we can move to cleaner vehicles the better.

Environment Bill

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Bill Wiggin

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

[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.

Orkambi

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Bill Wiggin

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As some of my colleagues will know, I have a 14-year-old niece with cystic fibrosis, as well as many constituents who have it. I obviously know people within the community, too. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in 2017 Vertex earned £2.5 billion from the sale of Orkambi and the chief exec was paid more than $17 million? I think that the Department of Health and Social Care probably has to go some way towards meeting Vertex on this, but it seems to me that there is an awful lot of money sloshing around and both sides are in a position where they could compromise.

[Bill Wiggin]

First, let me say how sorry I am to hear about the hon. Lady’s niece. We should take this very seriously. The figures that I have are even worse than the ones that she has laid out.

The price remains inaccessibly high, and this is entirely due to the powerful patent laws that allow pharmaceutical companies to monopolise drug production. Vertex expects to retain monopoly intellectual property protection on its cystic fibrosis drugs well into the 2030s. Analysts conservatively estimate that it will generate profits of $13 billion on Orkambi and another related drug, Kalydeco, alone. This could be used to fund further research and development—to reward its shareholders for its brilliant breakthrough and perhaps to encourage it to do more. But no, Vertex has spent $500 million on buying back its own shares. Well, that should certainly boost executive remuneration.

I am aware that provisions exist under the Patents Act 1977 for the Government to take independent action against Vertex. Crown use licensing is a powerful legal tool that can be used to safeguard public health. It can ensure the availability of fairly priced medicines in a competitive pharmaceutical market. Section 55(1) of the Act states that the Government can be granted non-authorised use of patents

“for the services of the Crown”.

That can be granted at all stages of manufacture, use, importation, sale and retention of a product. This is a legal opportunity to break the lethal deadlock that eats away at the youngest sufferers who stand to gain the most from this medicine. Crown use licensing has been used by the UK Government before, to great effect. They can suspend a patent and thereby force down the high price of particular pharmaceutical or medical equipment. For example, in 1991 the Government authorised the supply of machines known as lithotriptors for treating kidney stones. More recently, breast cancer patients have lobbied the Scottish Government to implement a Crown use licence on the drug Pertuzumab. Crown use licensing could similarly be used to overturn the patent monopoly on Orkambi by Vertex.

Leaving the EU: Live Farm Animal Exports

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Bill Wiggin

Monday 26th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

I cannot comment on the standard, as I have never looked into it, but I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s assurances—he is a fellow member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I was talking about exceptions outside the UK. We accept that live transit would continue to be allowed within the UK, but we also need to ensure that decent standards and proper monitoring are in place. The one exception would be across the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland; I do not think anyone would argue that that should be subject to an export ban.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Once we leave the EU, we will completely lose control over the welfare standards of any animals that go from the UK into southern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady accept that those animals could continue their journey on to Spain or France?

[Kerry McCarthy]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to argue for not having live exports across the border from the north of Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, he is welcome to do so. This goes to a much wider issue that the Government have not yet managed to address: what do we do about the border between the north and the south once we leave the EU? Many people want it to continue in its current form, but the practicalities of leaving should mean that a hard border is established. That is one for the Government and perhaps not one that we in Westminster Hall can grapple with today, but the fact that we need to address the issue of animals being transported between the north and the south ought not to be used as an excuse for not addressing an export ban outside the British Isles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who I think is wrong about rural as opposed to urban communities. We have only to listen to the RSPCA to hear about unspeakable acts of vicious cruelty that take place against domestic animals in our urban areas to know that cruelty is not divided by region, people or nations, but by wickedness in individuals. It is absolutely the road to hell to ban things because we do not like the proper process that should be followed. I am particularly passionate about this because my amendment to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 would have seen the sentence for cruelty increased, but it was voted down by the Labour Government who took the credit for the Bill.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for revealing my fondness for tropical fish, although I am not sure that they are completely relevant in this debate as they tend to be flown in from Singapore on very long journeys. However, the problem with a ban is that we are all here because we want to see less bad treatment and better treatment of animals in transit, irrespective of where they are coming from or going to and irrespective of whether they are for slaughter or for breeding stock.

I had to pass exams to be allowed to transport my animals. It is wrong to say that there are not rules on what we are allowed to do. There is an eight-hour limit. We have to have tests and we can drive our animals only within 65 km of where we live without any regulation whatsoever. So what the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said is wrong. She should look it up on the DEFRA website

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that I said there were not any rules, but I said nothing of the sort. I accepted that there are rules in place, but I said that they are not being adhered to. For example, calves being held in a truck in a lay-by technically counts as a rest period, but most of us would agree that is not much of a relief for them. I did not say that there were not any rules.

[Bill Wiggin]

I thought the hon. Lady said that we tried to object to the eight-hour limit in the European Union.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is an overall limit.

[Bill Wiggin]

I have given the matter a great deal of thought and it occurs to me that we should not ban live exports. If we do that, we will lose control through the Irish border and the animals whose welfare we seek to improve could end up travelling from southern Ireland to Spain or France on journeys that are considerably longer than they need to be. We need to improve the standards of transport within the United Kingdom, and when they arrive in Kent ready to cross the channel they must be properly inspected by vets. That means there needs to be lairage and unloading of the animals, and they need to be checked. Then they should be loaded into approved-only transporters. There are penalties for any suffering that happens on the journeys, but at the moment there is not an owner.

The lorry driver is not the owner of the animals in the back, so if a sheep’s leg is sticking out of the back of the truck, nobody suffers financially for that. If one of the animals is found to be suffering when they are unloaded, it gets put down and then there is a penalty, because that life is lost and that animal is no longer fit for human consumption. The whole purpose of its export has been taken away. That is the penalty that hangs over all livestock producers all the time. If someone is found to have put the wrong medicines in their animal, it is condemned. That is how we deal with and enforce rules.

If we have proper policing all the way along the transport route, it is perfectly reasonable to continue to send animals 22 miles over the seas as opposed to thousands of miles around the edge.

Beef Cattle and Sheep (Carbon Footprint)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Bill Wiggin

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely support the move, if people are going to eat meat, towards locally-sourced, sustainable, grass-fed cattle. That is far more environmentally friendly, in view of issues such as food miles; and, in the case of organic meat, issues of pesticides and fertilisers are also addressed. I support that. It is not the ideal solution, but it is a lot better.

I had a piece published on the topic in the New Statesman last week; 97% of the world’s soya crop goes to farmed animals. As to the question of how to feed the world without a partly meat-based diet, it is estimated that we could eliminate most of the worst of world hunger with about 40 million tonnes of food, but at the moment nearly 20 times that—760 million tonnes—is fed to animals each year. My article was to an extent a criticism of the Enough Food IF campaign, which is about feeding the world and lobbying the G8 to address global hunger. The campaign criticises the fact that 100 million tonnes of crops go towards biofuels, and says that biofuels are a bad thing; but, as I have said, 760 million tonnes go towards feeding animals and it seems completely silent on that point. That needs to be addressed when we consider the devastation of the rain forest and its environmental impact.

[Bill Wiggin]

The hon. Lady is making an important point about the substitution of animal feed for human food, but she must understand that—even if the crop is wheat or soya beans—not all that food would be suitable for human consumption. Therefore, even in the ideal world that she hopes to live in, what she envisages would not mean we could not have animals.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I understand the nuanced argument that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, but I still think that there is a compelling case, and I want to deal now with some reports.

It seemed to me that during the debate there was a herd of elephants in the room, which hon. Members were not mentioning. No reference was made to other very authoritative reports, which have said there is a serious issue to be addressed. In my 2009 debate, I cited the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report of 2006, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, which makes compelling reading. It concluded:

“The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”

I will not cite all the figures that I quoted in my debate, because people will be familiar with the fact that it takes 8 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef.